The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [28]
However, any woman’s mask was not necessarily like that. With the passage of the centuries, they have changed simply into expressionless faces like peeled muskmelons. Perhaps in order to get the essential lines mask makers today have misread the intentions of the makers from the period when Noh began and stress only the expressionlessness.
Then suddenly I had to face a dreadful hypothesis. Why in heaven’s name did early Noh mask makers, trying to go beyond the limits of expression, end up with the skull? It was doubtless not simply to suppress expression. So far as escaping from ordinary expression was concerned, any mask would do that. If I really wanted to name a difference, I suppose it was that the Noh mask aimed in a negative direction, in contrast to the ordinary mask which attempts escape in a positive direction. I could give the mask any expression I wanted, but it would still be an empty container, a reflection in a mirror, transfigurable according to the person peering in.
At this point there was no reason for reducing my face, already thick with leech scars, to the skull. But wasn’t there in the radical method of the Noh mask some fundamental principle which made the face an empty container, some law applicable to every mask, every expression, every face? The face is made by someone else; one doesn’t make it oneself … the expression is chosen by someone else; it is not oneself that chooses it … yes, that may be right. A monster is a creation, so we can call man a monster too. And the Creator seems not to be the sender but somehow the receiver of this letter we call expression.
Did this describe my inability to make up my mind, to decide on a facial type? A letter with no address is simply returned, no matter how many stamps one puts on it. Well, that was a thought. How would it be to show someone a reference album of established facial types and get him to make the selection for me? Someone? But who? But isn’t it decided …? You, of course. The receiver of my letter can be no one but you.
AT FIRST I modestly thought this a very small discovery, but gradually the wave lengths of the light around me began to change, and a rosiness, like a gradually welling laugh, suffused my heart. Gently shading the glow with my two hands so that it would not die away, I went on through the exhibition, leaving it with the exhilaration of running downhill.
Yes, actually, I had made no small discovery. From the standpoint of procedure, there were still many problems—there were bound to be—but having come this far, perhaps everything could be solved. Unhesitantly, I hurried into the restaurant. I entered abruptly, without trepidation, into the heated atmosphere of a large restaurant that included in its mere two-page menu every conceivable aid to gluttony, in contrast to the atmosphere of the Noh mask exhibit. It was not sudden courage on my part. It was rather cowardice with the dawning of hope.
And then, as if by chance, the man stood directly in front of me, blocking my path. His coolness as he stood looking lingeringly at the showcase containing artificial samples of food was somehow appropriate for the person I was seeking. Ascertaining immediately that his age was right and that there were no scars on his face, I made my decision.
At length, having made up his mind, the man bought a token from the cashier for Chinese noodles in broth. Following him, I too got tokens for a sandwich and coffee. Then, with an innocent face—no, I didn’t have a face—I sat down casually at the same table, across from him. Since there were other empty seats, the man clearly showed his displeasure but did