The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [7]
My accumulated sleeplessness, turned into a heavy stiffness, began to spread to my forehead. The hard bench was beginning to make me restless, when finally the nurse showed me into the next room. The light filtering through the blinds lay in white, milk-like pools. On the table by the window a variety of unusual instruments, like hypodermic equipment, was menacingly laid out; beside the table stood a cabinet for medical charts and a swivel chair with arms; opposite was a waist-high dressing cubicle on rollers and a single-paneled screen with a metal frame—standard accouterments that made me feel increasingly disconsolate.
I lit a cigarette. As I arose to find an ashtray, I was suddenly startled by the contents of an enameled tray on the table. An ear, three fingers, an arm, and the side of a cheek from the eyelids to the lips lay there, casually arranged, with a freshness that bespoke their recent removal. I felt nauseous. They looked more real than genuine organs. I would never have supposed a replica could produce such a brutal impression. Although I could see the cut edges, and knew that the objects were unmistakably nothing more than molded plactic, I had the illusion that I could smell the stench of dead flesh.
Suddenly K appeared from behind the screen. I heaved a sigh of relief at his surprisingly mild appearance. Frizzy hair, thick, rimless spectacles like the bottom of tumblers, fleshy jowls.… A medicinal odor to which I was long accustomed gave me a feeling of intimacy with him.
Now it was his turn to be flustered. He studied my face with an expression of amazement, my card in his hand, and for a while said nothing.
“Well, then.… You …,” he stammered, glancing again at the card. His tone was considerably more temperate than the one he had used on the telephone. “Have you come as a patient?”
How was I to answer him? No matter how good K’s technique was supposed to be, he could not possibly satisfy my ambitions. What I expected at most was his advice. But it was not my intention to hurt him by saying it to his face. K apparently took my silence for timidity and added sympathetically, “Please sit down.… What seems to be the trouble?”
“Well, you see … there was an explosion of liquid oxygen during an experiment I was performing. Perhaps because I was always accustomed to using liquid nitrogen—anyway, I was careless.…”
“Are they keloid scars?”
“On the whole face. I apparently have a predisposition to keloids. The doctor who diagnosed it fumbled and only irritated the scars, and there was a relapse; he just gave it up.”
“But it appears to be all right around the lips.”
Meanwhile I took off my sunglasses. “My eyes are intact too, thanks to my glasses. Perhaps it was fortunate I had to wear them for my myopia.…”
“That was lucky!” he exclaimed, as if it were he who was scarred. And then he added eagerly, “At least, you have your eyes and lips. If you couldn’t move them, it would be really bad. Camouflage would be worthless, no matter how much form you constructed.…”
K appeared enthusiastic about his work. He stared intently into my face, and in his mind he already seemed to be drawing a rough sketch. I suddenly changed the subject so as not to disappoint him.
“I read your article. It must have been last year, in the summer as I recall.…”
“That’s right. It was last year.”
“And you know, I was amazed. I hadn’t dreamed anything so elaborate could be done.”
K picked up a shriveled finger with apparent satisfaction, and as he gently let it fall on his palm said: