The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [32]
Now, what in heaven’s name was to become of the discovery made at the Noh mask exhibition when I thought I had at last resolved the central problem of the choice of a face?
How painful it is to write about it. The expression is not some hidden door, unlikely to be seen; it is like a front door, constructed and decorated to be the first thing to greet the visitor’s eyes. Or like a letter, it apparently cannot exist without an addressee in mind; it is not some advertising handbill to be passed out indiscriminately. Recognizing the validity of this comparison, I at once decided to entrust the right of choice to you, and although I felt I had shifted a heavy burden of responsibility from my own shoulders, the problem was not so easily resolved.
That evening … a dirty fog, welling up like muddy water, shut out the sky about an hour earlier than usual … an evening the color of earthenware where the crude light of the street lamps committed its showy act of violence, spurring the advance of time.… As I walked along in the crowd, which became more dense near the station, I again attempted to play the role of assailant, trying to dispel the unbearable feeling of loneliness which had beset me from the moment of separating from the man. But this failed me, for I had no one to confront as in the department-store restaurant. Once the crowd had gathered—it was a conscience-stricken, end-of-Sunday throng—its faces formed a chain, like amoebae extending their pseudopodia toward each other; there was no place at all for me to wedge in. Still, I was not so irritated as before. I was relaxed enough to take in the brilliance of the tangled mass of neon signs which breathed and streamed through the fog. Perhaps because I now had my plan. The potassium alginate mold of the face I had finally purchased weighed heavily in the briefcase at my side—not to be outdone, my face bandages, equally cumbersome with the moisture they had absorbed from the fog, counterpointed the weight of the briefcase—but anyway I had my plan to try. And I reflected that this expectant waiting for the place to materialize had bolstered me up considerably.
Yes, that evening, my heart was open to you, quite as if the front of it had been sliced away. It was not only the passive expectation of shifting the burden of choice onto your shoulders, nor, of course, was it only the utilitarian motivation of entering the final stage when I would actually produce the mask. How shall I put it … I was continually shortening the distance between us—softly, like running barefoot over grass.
It was perhaps relief and confidence stemming from the opportunity to tempt you into being my accomplice, however indirectly, in the lonely work of producing the mask. For me, whatever you may say, you are the most important “other person.” No, I do not mean it in a negative sense. I mean that the one who must first restore the roadway, the one whose name I had to write on the first letter, was first on my list of “others.” (Under any circumstances, I simply did not want to lose you. To lose you would be symbolic of losing the world.)
HOWEVER, as soon as I confronted you, my hopes changed into a heap of shapeless rags, like seaweed pulled out of the water. No, don’t misunderstand. I do not mean to find fault with your manner when you greeted me. Far from that, you always sympathized with me—too generously, as far as that goes. The one exception is when you refused me that time I ran my hand under your skirt. I, and only I, am to blame for that incident. For it is not true that one has the right to be loved by the person one loves, as the poets say.
That day too you greeted me with your usual unobtrusive