The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [70]
I was not so optimistic as to expect to gain your approval. Perhaps, as you see it, this clearly reflects some foolish deficiency in me. Since I am already in fact experiencing the failure of reasoning, I cannot but accept the existence of a deficiency. At that time it was not apparent to me, however, and I cannot grasp it even now. Didn’t all this reasoning mean, perhaps, that while I pretended to submit reluctantly to the forceful persuasions of the mask, I was covering up to myself the fact that the mask’s wish was my own.
As far as sex was concerned, from the beginning my inclination to kick over the off-limits sign was as violent as my reticence about doing so. That was as it should be. I had tried not to mention this, but as long as I did not agree to a sexual crime, my plans to let the mask seduce you could not actually come off. If it were a question of a single seduction, perhaps there was no problem. But if I intended to create a new world by continuing the relationship between you and the mask, I should certainly have to live as a sexual lawbreaker. If not, how could I put up with this double life without being eaten away to the marrow of my bones by jealousy? Perhaps, the mask’s tedious persuasions were due to my own conscious provocation.
Yes, oddly enough, the instant I was given any reasonable support, I at once completely sympathized with the aspirations of the mask. Remember that I was not famished for sex, as if it were hunger or thirst. What concerned the mask was a transgression of sexual taboos. If I had no consciousness of taboos, it would be doubtful whether I could feel such shuddering fascination. And when I looked at this fascination without blinking, the poison of my jealousy, by which I was most troubled, suddenly seemed to lose its virulence; and I began to wallow in erotic impulses, quite as if I were taking an antidote.
Through my new, lecherous eyes, the whole town appeared like some mysterious fortress composed of sexual off-limit signs. It would have been fine if the fences had been strong, but every one, worm-eaten, nails missing, looked as though it would collapse at any moment. Even though these very fences with their air of preparation against invasion pricked the interest of the people in the streets, when one approached and looked carefully, the worm holes and traces of nail holes were sham, yet no one ventured too close. What in heaven’s name were sex and sexual taboo? To think about the meaning of the sham, the origin of the fences, would inevitably make one a lecher. Of course, the lecher himself was only one of the fences. And precisely because of this, he would have to shed tears of remorse and anguish over his own desires. When he broke the sexual taboo he would be pulverizing his own fences at the same time. However, once one has become interested in the existence of the fence one’s mind will never be at ease until one has ascertained its real origin. The lecher in general is like an honest, hard-working investigator who, once aware of a mystery, will go to any length to solve it.
I too, a novice investigator, dropped into a bar, anticipating nothing special. As a place that openly displayed its fake wormholes and nail holes, it had a certain interest. Moreover, what they sold in the bar was the fake mask of alcohol. It was just the place for me now.
There was the comfortable feeling I had anticipated. Fake darkness that shut out fake light … suspended desires incapable of doing good or of perpetrating evil, dream-like … the proper mixture of hypocrisy and evil.… When I had taken my seat and ordered a whiskey and water, and the pores of my whole body had begun to open, I began to toy with the finger of a girl in navy blue seated next to me. No, it was not I, but the mask. Although the girl’s fingers were sweaty, the sweat was rough, as if starchy. Of course,