The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [46]
I could only return dejectedly to my hideaway with the feeling that I was again stricken to the core with a sense of shame, that everything was detestable. The enthusiasm I had felt until then had suddenly cooled. However, once again I committed a surprising blunder, out of sheer carelessness, in front of the apartment house. As I was casually turning into the lane I suddenly happened on the superintendent’s daughter.
The girl, leaning against the wall, was playing awkwardly with a yoyo, an especially large one that shone with a golden color. Startled, I stopped in my tracks. That was quite stupid. The lane was a blind alley intended only for people using the parking lot in back or the emergency staircase. Until I had introduced myself to the superintendent’s family as the “younger brother,” I should not have gone in and out through the back entrance wearing the mask. Of course, since it was a brand-new apartment house with new tenants coming in almost every day, it would have been all right if I had just gone on by without paying any attention, but … I tried at once to regain my footing, but it was too late. The girl had apparently already become aware of my confusion. How could I muddle through the situation? “I’m in that room up there,” I said, thinking how awkward my explanation was but having no other inspiration. “My brother lives there.… I wonder if he’s in now …? He’s the one with the bandages wrapped all round like this.… Do you know who it is?”
However, the girl, barely turning her body, neither spoke nor changed her expression. I became even more flustered. I wonder if she could have sensed something. No, she couldn’t possibly. If I believed the grumblings of her father, her IQ was too low for elementary school, though from outward appearance she was a grown girl. Apparently from meningitis in childhood she had never developed mentally. Her weak mouth, like insect wings, her childish chin, her narrow, slanting shoulders, and contrasting, her adult thin nose and great, oval, deep-set eyes left little doubt that she was retarded.
But the girl’s silence, as I passed on by, somehow gave me the feeling something was wrong. Anyway, I chattered along, forcing her to speak.
“That’s a great yoyo. Does it work well?”
The girl’s shoulders trembled with fear, and in confusion she hid the toy with her hand, answering me in a defiant tone.
“It’s mine!”
All at once I felt like laughing out loud. I was relieved and at the same time wanted to tease her some more. There was also something that worried me, and I was not altogether trifling with the girl, who once before had shrieked at my bandage disguise. In spite of her low IQ, the girl had the charm of a misshapen sprite. If things went well, the situation could go far in helping me recover some little power over the mask, which was beginning to become dangerous.
“Is that true? How can I be sure you’re not telling a lie?”
“You better believe it. I won’t be any trouble at all for you.”
“All right, I believe you. But I think there really is someone else’s name written on the yoyo.”
“You can’t go by that. Once upon a time, a cat said … it was a snow-white cat, without a single spot, like our cat.…”
“Do let me see it.”
“Even I keep some secrets.”
“Secrets?”
“Once upon a time, a cat said: ‘A mouse wants to put a bell on me … now what shall I do?’ ”
“All right. Shall I buy you one exactly like this?”
I was satisfied with myself just for being able to keep this exchange going, but the effect of my blandishments appeared to exceed by far my expectations.
The girl stopped rubbing her back against the wall after a while and stood still, apparently weighing the significance of my words. Then she retorted with a suspicious look: “A secret from my father?”
“Of course, it’s a secret from him.”
At length I broke out laughing (I, laughing!), and aware of the effect