The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [49]
This time I boldly decided to leave by the main entrance. Since in my mask I had been the “younger brother” all along, there was no particular need to avoid being seen; and if I met the superintendent’s daughter, I wanted to check on the location of the shop where they sold the yoyo. I had no idea where such toys might be sold. After our first child had died and the second had miscarried, I had had nothing to do with the world of children, which I perhaps consciously avoided. But unfortunately I saw neither the superintendent nor his daughter.
Having no special goal in mind, I decided to begin my search for the yoyo. I knew nothing of the specialty shops, so I first looked in the toy sections of the department stores. Perhaps it was a fad now, for every store I visited had its showcase of yoyos, and around them the children clustered like flies. Entering such places was evidently not the most desirable kind of mental therapy, and I hesitated somewhat. But, well, I wanted to have done with this awkward “playing secrets,” and so, gathering myself together, I tried to squeeze in among the little vermin. But unfortunately I could not find the type of yoyo I was looking for. Come to think of it, considering its color and shape, it probably wasn’t a kind they would carry in department stores. It gave the feeling of cheap candies sold in a street stand. I left and walked around for about an hour, looking for just such a place. Finally, on a back street behind the station, I found a cramped shop that specialized in toys.
As I had expected, it was quite different from the toy sections in the department stores. It was not a cheap place, like a shop that sells inexpensive sweets, but neither did it handle high-class merchandise. Perhaps aiming at slightly older children who would make their own purchases with their own small change, it somehow gave a sense of mysterious, innocent evil. In other words, it would frankly appeal to the kind of child who preferred colored sugar water in a triangular carton to bottled fruit juice. And, as I had anticipated, the yoyo was there. Holding the cleft, plastic sphere in my hands, I suddenly thought of its creator, who had been able to express so beautifully an off-beat idea, and I could not resist a bitter smile. There was great subtlety in the overstatement of the basically simple form. If he had not mercilessly sublimated his own tastes, he could not possibly have thought up such a thing. This was not denying his taste; rather it was shedding the utmost light of awareness on his discernment. He had cast his own taste on the ground like a worm and voluntarily smashed it with the heel of his shoe. Was that cruel? Naturally, cruelty exists. However, presuming that he had chosen of his own free will, hadn’t he also possibly experienced a feeling of release, as in stripping off one’s clothes, or the satisfaction of revenge against the world? For it was not merely a question of the freedom to act according to one’s tastes, but of the freedom to escape from one’s taste.…
Yes, this was undeniably a concept that fitted in with my own viewpoint. I would have to walk along, treading my own tastes underfoot with every step, if I wanted to produce another heart suitable to my new face. The task, however, was not so difficult as I had imagined. My heart had become