by Kōbō Abe
Thus both the desire to restore the roadway between us and vengeful craving to destroy you fiercely contended within me. At length I could not distinguish between them, and drawing the bow on you became a common, everyday thing; then suddenly in my heart was graven the face of a hunter.
A hunter’s face could not possibly be “introverted and harmonious.” With such a face I would end up at best as a friend to little birds, or failing that, bait for wild animals. In this light, my solution, far from sudden, might rather be called inevitable. I was dazzled perhaps by the double aspect of the mask—was it the negation of my real face or actually a new face?—and I had been obliged to take an unavoidably circuitous road because I had forgotten the essential point that even this daze was a form of action.
In mathematics there are “imaginary numbers,” strange numbers which, when squared, become minus. They have points of similarity with masks, for putting one mask over another would be the same as not putting on any at all.
ONCE I had decided on the type, the rest was simple. I had already accumulated sixty-eight modeling pictures, and it so happened that more than half of them belonged to the “protruding-center” type. Everything was ready—almost too ready.
I decided to start work at once. I had no special model, but I nevertheless tried to sketch a face, as from some invisible picture, groping my way along from the inside for the expression that might appeal to you. First I applied a spongy resin to the part of the antimony cast with the scar webs and smoothed it down. Over that, I placed layers of a thin plastic tape instead of clay along the Langer lines to provide directional control. From a half year of practice my fingers were as versed in the details of the face as a watchmaker’s are in finding the bend of a mainspring. I took the area around my wrist as my standard for skin color and used a greater quantity of titanous oxide to whiten the temples and the point of the chin, adding cadmium red to give a blush to the cheeks. Moreover, I deliberately used conspicuous color blotches as I drew near to the surface and went so far as to apply some grey spots especially around the nostrils, thus contriving to produce a naturalness consonant with my age. Last of all, I applied liquid resin to the transparent layer, that is, the thin fluorescent membrane to which I had transferred the skin surface I had bought and which had a ratio of refraction close to that of ceratin. When I applied compressed steam to it for a very short time, it contracted and set in a perfect fit. Since I had not yet put in the wrinkles, it was too smooth, but one had the feeling of something living, as if it had been a moment ago stripped from a living person. (I had spent a good twenty-two or twenty-three days to bring the mask this far.)
The next problem was the treatment of the edging of the skin. Around the forehead I could devise something with my hair (fortunately it was plentiful and also somewhat curly). Around the eyes I decided to make a number of small wrinkles and to hide the edge by darkening the skin pigmentation and wearing sunglasses. As for the lips, I would insert the flange up underneath and attach it to the gums. I could manage the nostrils by attaching two rather stiff tubes and inserting them into my nose. But the jaw line was a little troublesome. There was only one way. I should have to conceal it with a beard.
I planted each strand, carefully observing the angle and direction, using only the thinner hair from my head and planting some fifty to sixty filaments per square inch. The labor was time-consuming—I spent another twenty days on the beard alone—but even more, I was plagued by a psychological resistance to the device. Fifty years ago beards were all too common, but now they are unusual. When I hear the word “beard” the first thing I think of, unfortunately, is the policeman in his police-box in front of the station.
Of course, it doesn’t follow that all bearded men are bullies or heroes. There’s the fortuneteller’s beard, the Lenin cut, or again the European aristocrat’s. And then there’s the Castro beard and what is apparently the latest style—the beards sported by youngsters posing as artists, but just what that is called I don’t know. Even though I would inevitably appear eccentric with my beard and dark glasses, there was no other way; but at least I could try to devise something that would not create too bad an impression.
The result is what you are already familiar with, and there is no need to describe it again. I myself was in no position to judge the mask, nor did I have specific ideas for improving it. I suppose I should have been satisfied with what I had. Indeed, I could not avoid some little regret, but.…
No, TO SAY regret is off-handed, for I realized that it implies a profound concern for outward appearance. My feeling was still something vague, unformulated, but it hurt like a swelling on the tongue each time I opened my mouth, like an unpleasant premonition, warning against heedless chatter.
That evening, when I finished planting the last hair of the beard, the tweezers had left black blood-blisters on the ball of my thumb. A pain that made me clammy with perspiration turned into tiny embers that smoldered flickeringly in the depths of my eyes. The whole surface of my eyes had clouded over like dirty windowpanes with a soft, honey-like secretion, that kept oozing out no matter how much I wiped it away. As I stood up to go to the lavatory and wash my face, I was suddenly aware that day had already come. And the instant I involuntarily averted my face from the brilliance of the morning light spilling over the window ledge, piercing to the core of my head, shame suddenly overcame me.
I recalled a dream of a day when summer had come to an end and autumn had just begun. It was a dream like some old silent movie that began with a most peaceful scene, in which my father, back from his work, was taking off his shoes in the vestibule and I—I was perhaps not quite ten—was at his side absently watching him. But suddenly the peace was broken. Another father came back from work. This one, curiously enough, was identical to the first; the only thing different was the hat he wore on his head. In contrast to the straw hat that my first father was wearing, the second wore a creased soft felt. When the father with the soft hat saw the one with the straw hat, he looked clearly contemptuous and gave an exaggerated shudder in rebuke for such evident bad form. Whereupon the one in the straw hat smiled mournfully in quite unbecoming confusion and left as if he were furtively escaping, the shoe he had removed dangling in his hand. The child that I was looked heartbrokenly after the retreating figure of my straw-hat father … when suddenly the film broken with a snap. But for some reason, the painful memory of the incident lingered on.
It might be called a child’s feeling about the change of seasons … but I wonder whether it would be possible after several decades for the memory of such an insignificant incident to remain so vivid. I can’t believe it. The two hats I saw were surely something quite different. Something, for example, like symbols for the unforgivable lies that exist in human relationships. Yes, I can say only one thing for sure: the trust I had had in my father up to then was completely betrayed by the exchange of hats. Perhaps, since then, I have continued to suffer shame in my father’s place.
But this time the positions were inverted. It was my turn to have to excuse myself. Looking into a mirror, I stared at the inflamed scar webs, whipping up my desire for the mask. Yet, it was not I who should feel ashamed. If there was anyone who should suffer, was it not rather the world that had buried me alive, that made no attempt to recognize a man’s personality without the passport of the face?
With a renewed feeling of defiance, I went back to the mask. I was struck by the insolent look of the bearded face with its prominent nose. I thought the weirdness came perhaps from seeing only separate parts, and I tried hanging it flat against the wall, stepping back several paces and peering at it through my hand held like a spyglass. Yet I was not overjoyed at having finished, and a feeling not unlike sorrow that I might gradually be taken over by this other face came to me.
Perhaps my depression was owing to fatigue. I told myself that for encouragement. It wasn’t only the mask; wasn’t it always like this when one finished a big job? Only those not responsible for the results ca
n experience the pleasure of having finished a piece of work. Perhaps prejudice about faces functions in the subconscious too. No matter how much I fight against considering the face sacred, the root of the evil may exist in the depths of the subconscious. It is much the same as people who don’t believe in ghosts but are afraid of the dark.
I decided then to make myself go on with the work, whatever the price. Anyway, I had up my mind to try on the mask for a final check. First I undid the protuberance under the ear, then when I had loosened the part under the jaw, unfastened the lips, and extracted the nostril tubes, I was able to strip the mask completely from the cast. It had become a soft, gelatinous membrane, like a wet plastic bag. Then, reversing the order I had just followed, I carefully placed it over my face. There seemed to be no technical fault, and it clung to me like a well-fitting shirt; the lump in my throat descended with a gulp into my stomach.
I peered into the mirror. A man I did not know looked coolly back at me. Indeed, not the slightest detail would make one think it was me. The color, the luster, the feeling were all successful—a perfect disguise. Yet, what in heaven’s name was this emptiness? Perhaps it was the fault of the mirror—the lighting seemed somewhat unnatural—at once I opened the shutters and let in the daylight.
Keen shafts of sunlight, waving like the antennae of an insect, spread to every crevice of the mask. The pores, the sweat glands, the partial degeneration of some tissues, even the minute capillaries stood out distinctly. I could not discover a single defect. What then was the cause of this feeling that something was wrong? I wondered. Perhaps it was the fixity, the lack of expression? It had the weirdness of the face of a corpse whose make-up has been applied by the undertaker. Should I try moving some muscle as an experiment? Since I had not completed the preparation of the glue with which to stick the mask to my face—I intended to use something like adhesive plaster, but less sticky—I could not possibly make the mask move with the muscles, but the area around the nose and the mouth which were comparatively well set might possibly work.
First I tried the ends of the lips, drawing them slightly to the right and left. The result was very good. The extreme care I had taken from the standpoint of anatomy, fitting the directional fibers onto each other, had apparently not been in vain. Encouraged, I tried to smile. However, the mask simply would not smile. It merely contorted limply. It was so strange a distortion that I thought the mirror was bent. When it smiled it was full of the feeling of death, even more so than when it was immobile. I felt drained, as if the supports of my internal organs had been severed and my whole diaphragm collapsed.
But I don’t want you to misunderstand. For this is no over-dramatic plot to trade on my suffering. This was the mask I had chosen, for better or worse. It was the face I had come to after many months of experimentation. If I were dissatisfied with it, I could remake it to my own liking. But if it were not a question of the workmanship, what in heaven’s name should I do then? Henceforth, would I be able to accept the mask with good grace, frankly acknowledging it as my own face? Thus I felt that this debilitating sense of collapse, rather than the disorientation brought on by finding oneself with a new face, was the depression accompanying extinction, as if I were witnessing my own shadow fading away under a magic cloak. (Under such circumstances I wondered whether I should be able to carry out my plans for the future.)
Of course, expression comes like the annual growth rings in a tree trunk, and perhaps it would be quite impossible to laugh with no preparation at all. Depending on the life one has led, a tendency to repeat certain expressions causes them to become fixed by sags and wrinkles. A smiling expression becomes naturally engraved in a face that is often smiling. Chronic anger engraves itself on the face, too. But on my mask, which was like the face of a new-born infant, there was not the crease of a single growth-ring as yet. Even with a smile on it, the face of a forty-year-old child would naturally be somewhat monstrous. Indeed, it would have to be. Actually the work of making wrinkles suitable for my face was included in my first plans after I had gone to my hideaway. If only I could succeed, this mask would become natural and easily managed. This was something I had anticipated; there was absolutely no need of losing my head now. The result was that, far from heeding my throbbing shame, by cleverly sidestepping the real problem I inevitably involved myself deeper and deeper.
WELL, it would seem I have come around to the point of my hideaway in the S— Apartments, where I began. But when did I get off the subject? Oh, yes, it must be just about the time when, alone with myself in hy hideaway, I had begun to undo my bandage. Well, I shall try to go on from there without wasting any more time.
The first task, needless to say, was providing the mask with wrinkles. No special technique was necessary, but it was terribly time-consuming work for which I could not have too much determination, perseverance, and attentiveness.
First, I applied glue to my whole face. I put the mask on, starting from the nose. Then I fixed the nostril tubes in place and inserted the part that went over the lips into the gums. Next, I tapped the ridge of the nose, the cheeks, and the chin, taking great care to make a perfect fit with no sags, and pressed the whole surface down. I waited for it to set, and then, warming it with an infra-red lamp maintained at the prescribed degree of heat, I repeated certain specific expressions. The material decreased sharply in flexibility when the prescribed degree of heat was exceeded, and wrinkles fitting the expressions naturally appeared along the Langer lines, that is, following the direction of the fibers I had previously installed. Concerning the content and distribution of the expressions, I drew up the following tentative list as ratios of 100 percent.
1. Concentration of interest 16 percent
2. Curiosity 07 percent
3. Assent 10 percent
4 Satisfaction 12 percent
5 Laughter 13 percent
6. Denial 06 percent
7. Dissatisfaction 07 percent
8. Abhorrence 06 percent
9. Doubt 05 percent
10. Perplexity 06 percent
11. Concern 03 percent
12. Anger 09 percent
It cannot be considered satisfactory to analyze such a complicated and delicate thing as expression into these few components. However, by combining just this many elements on my palette, I should be able to get almost any shade. The percentages, needless to say, indicate the frequency of occurrence of each item. In brief, I postulated a type of man who expressed his emotions in approximately such ratios. I should be hard pressed for a ready answer if I were asked what the standard of judgment was. I weighed these expressions one by one on the scales of my intuition, placing myself in the position of a seducer and imagining the scene when I would confront you who were the symbol of “the others.”
Like some fool, I repeated getting angry, crying, and laughing until morning. As a result, it was already drawing toward evening when I awoke the next day. A light like red glass came through the cracks in the shutters, and apparently the rain that had been going on for some time had stopped. However, my disposition had not cleared equally well, and a fatigue like old tea grounds clung to me. The area around my temples throbbed feverishly, but that was not unexpected. I had been moving my facial muscles for over ten hours.
But it was not the movement alone: I had been straining all my nerves, really laughing when I laughed, really angered when I expressed anger.
Anyway, in that time even the most trivial expression became deeply etched on the surface of my face as an unalterable coat of arms. For example, if I had repeatedly made artificial smiles, then my mask would be forever branded with artificial smiles. So I was obliged to be prudent of even casual imprints when I considered that they would be formally recorded as a part of my life.
I prepared a hot towel and massaged my face. The steam penetrated my skin. As I had stimulated the sweat glands with the infra-red lamp and blocked the openings with adhesive material, the skin was naturally inflamed. It would surely have a bad e
ffect on the keloid scar too. But the condition could not get any worse than it was, and at this point it served no purpose to be concerned about it. It makes no difference to a dead man whether he is buried or cremated.
For three more days I repeated the process in the same order. Since I had corrected what needed correcting and the mask had arrived at a stable state, on the third day I decided to try eating my supper while wearing it. I should have to try it sometime, of course; why put off what could be done now? And I would be prepared when the situation demanded it. After the adhesive had set sufficiently, I tousled my hair to conceal the hairline, put on some amber sunglasses so that the line around my eyes was not obvious, and completed my preparations just as if I were going out.
Avoiding looking into the nearby mirror, I first laid out on the table the dishes of food left over from the evening before and, imagining that I was dining in a restaurant with a lot of people, I slowly raised my face and looked in the mirror.
Of course, my companion raised his face too and looked back. Then adjusting the movements of his features with mine, he began to chew his bread. When I ate my soup, he ate his. Our breathing, exactly coordinated, was most natural. The dullness of the nerves around my lips slightly reduced my sense of taste and made chewing awkward; but when I got accustomed to it, I would certainly be able to forget the feeling of the lips as easily as of a false tooth. Yet drops of saliva and soup tended to escape from the corners of my lips, and I realized I needed to pay constant attention.