The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [38]
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