The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [73]
I myself sometimes became frantic trying to find an answer. I tried, for example, to trace how I should feel if I were to be tattooed. And the first thing I thought of were the eyes of others that would descend upon me like thorns. Since I had already gone through the experience of the scar webs, I could understand very well. Then gradually the sky would draw away … and around me would be the shining brilliance of high noon. The place where I stood would alone be completely dark. Yes, yes, I seem to remember that tattooing is the sign of an exile.… Since it was the sign of vice, it repelled light.… But for some reason I did not feel the slightest bit cornered or regretful—it was natural that I should not—for, by carving a sign of vice on myself, I would be condemning myself to oblivion by my own volition, and then there would be no point in regret.
When the man got out of the bath, the image of a demon covered with cherry blossoms coiled around his body. Amber sweat was pouring from him, and feeling that I was his accomplice, I had the most exhilarating sense of his attitude of rejection. Quite true, the kinship between the mask and the tattooing depended apparently on which side of the real face one lived. As long as there were people who could bear to live with tattooing, there would be those who could put up with masks too.
However, at the exit of the baths, the tattooed man shocked me by picking a quarrel. When his tattooing was covered by his long-sleeved shirt he seemed younger and smaller, much less impressive. But he was accustomed to taking care of himself and therefore an expert in the art of intimidation.
In a hoarse voice the man demanded an apology for my impolite staring. Judging from his words, he was quite provoked. It would have been best if I had begged his pardon as he demanded; but I did the wrong thing at the wrong time, for underneath my mask I was boiling like soup from my long stay in the bath and felt dizziness coming on.
“But tatooing’s something you want to show off, isn’t it?”
The man let fly with his fist before I had even finished speaking. But my instinct to protect the mask was no less rapid. The fact that his first blow had missed seemed to excite him even more. He grappled with me, shaking me roughly, apparently wanting to land one good blow on my face. At length, he had me up against a partition, and his arm or my own—I am not clear which, since we were all entangled—gouged up from below my jaw, and in an instant my mask was ripped from my face.
I was as shocked as if my pants had been stripped off in public. Indeed, my opponent’s amazement was no less than my own. Muttering unintelligibly in a cowardly way, he hastily departed, indignant as if he himself had been victimized. I wiped away the sweat and readjusted the mask, feeling half dead. Apparently there was a crowd of bystanders, but I did not have the courage to look around. Had it been on a stage, surely everybody would have had a good laugh. The next time I went out, I would definitely not forget my air pistol.
EXCURSUS: How in the world did my tragicomedy appear to the tattooed fellow, not to speak of the people gathered there? No matter how they might laugh, they could not dismiss the matter so simply. Perhaps it would remain an unforgettable memory for the rest of their lives. But in what form, for heaven’s sake? Would it penetrate their hearts like a bullet…? Or would it distort the appearance of the world by its impact on their eyeballs.…? Whichever it was, they would never again stare hard at a stranger’s face, that I could say for sure. Strangers were transparent, like ghosts, and the world was filled with gaps like a picture painted on glass with thin pigments. The world itself, like the mask, began to seem difficult to believe in, and I was stricken with an unutterable sense of loneliness. I needed to feel no responsibility for strangers. For what they were looking at was the truth. What was visible was only the mask, and those strangers had perceived a truth more profound