The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [74]
I had an experience over twenty years ago: I once saw the abandoned corpse of a child. The body was lying face upward in a clump of bushes in back of the school. I think I had gone to retrieve a baseball and had happened to see it by chance. The corpse had swollen up like a rubber ball, and the whole thing had a faint pinkish tinge. There was movement around the mouth, and looking closely, I saw that myriads of maggots were wriggling around, working at the lips. I was terrified, and for many days afterwards could not get my food down. It was at the time a frightful, excruciating impression, but with the passage of the years—perhaps the corpse had grown older with me—all that remained, enveloped in a peaceful sorrow, was the faint flush of the smooth, wax-like skin. And now, I did not even think of avoiding the memory of the body. I had even come to be fond of the memory. Every time I recalled the body, I was taken by a feeling of our being fellow creatures. It reminded me that, outside of plastics, there was a world that could be touched with one’s hands. The dead body would go on living with me forever as a symbol of another world.
No, I am not making such excuses only for complete strangers. At this point, these misgivings should concern you too. I want you to believe my words, even though I feel they may cause you much pain. It is not really pain, but a memory of the impression I had when I looked under the mask. Perhaps, indeed, the time will come when these memories will be as dear to you as the corpse is to me.
I DELAYED my departure to take care of my bruises and change the adhesive materials, and then, as I headed directly for the bus stop in front of the station, I made a detour to buy the mask some items for daily use: a lighter, a memorandum book, a wallet. I arrived at the bus stop at precisely four o’clock. I had decided to lie in ambush there, waiting for you to return from your handicraft class that met every Thursday. It was the beginning of the evening rush hour, and a clamor filled the space around me as if I were in an amusement park. Yet I wondered why I was possessed with a strange feeling of quiet, as if I were in a forest where the leaves had started to fall. Perhaps my previous shock remained and was overwhelming my senses from within. When I closed my eyes, innumerable stars flashing light eddied up like swarms of mosquitoes. Perhaps my blood pressure was rising too. Certainly my experience had been traumatic. But apparently it wasn’t altogether bad. The humiliation, acting as shock treatment, was spurring me on to lawbreaking.
I decided to wait on a step under the eaves of a bank building that projected slightly into the crowd. A bit higher than the crowd, I could see very well, but I was not conspicuous because many others were waiting too. I had no fear of your seeing me before I saw you. Since your class lasted until four, even if you missed one bus you would surely arrive within ten minutes.
I had never thought that your class would be so useful. Going to such a useless thing, faithfully, year in year out, was, I thought, good proof of woman’s unpredictability. Particularly the fact that you had enthusiastically taken up the making of buttons was highly symbolic. How the devil many buttons, big and small, had you cut out, incised, painted, and polished until now? You did not make them to use but persisted in producing these generally practical objects for impractical purposes. No, I do not mean to blame you. Actually, I was never opposed to it. You were really quite addicted, and I was willing to give this innocent pursuit my full blessing.
But, I do not have to explain minute by minute what went on. For you yourself were in the drama too. What is necessary is to expose to broad daylight the shameful face of a hidden parasite by turning my heart inside out. You arrived on the third bus and, getting off, began to walk past the bank where I was standing. I set out after you. From behind,