The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [79]
I was worried by the curious way you had of smiling with only your lower lip … I was worried by your staring through me, beyond me into the distance … I was reproachful at your refusing the beer I had offered … yet I was opposed to your drinking too much … it was as if boiling water had been poured over me as I lay soaking in ice. While my left eye looked longingly at you, as at some spoils of war, at your fingers that were crumbling bread—at your soft, sleek fingers, except for the cut from your button work—what I saw with my right eye made me writhe in pain. I was a cuckold present at his wife’s adultery. This was a triangular relationship with one actor playing two parts. If one were to make a drawing of “me,” “the mask, that is, the other me,” and “you,” it would be a non-Euclidean triangular relationship, existing on a single straight line.
When we finished dinner, time suddenly began to jell around us. Perhaps it was the weight of the ceiling. The disproportionately massive concrete pillars standing in the middle suggested great heaviness. In addition, the underground restaurant was windowless. These was no place for the sun and its twenty-four-hour cycle to stray in here. There was only a timeless, artificial illumination. Time measured in units of tens of thousands of years flowed along right outside the wall in subterranean water courses and through the layers of earth, slicing vertically straight down. But your “husband,” who was urging our time on, would never return as long as we waited like this. Oh time, suspend your flight, be a vessel containing only us. And we shall cross the street together as we are and reach our new home.
However, neither my mask nor I actually knew what you were thinking. You had put up no resistance to my transparent tactics of inviting you first to coffee and then to dinner—you were so completely without resistance that I wondered if you had not expected things to happen as they did—then you accepted, and the mask was completely optimistic that things were going as planned. But your resolute attitude, as if you had poured mortar into the nooks and crannies of your conscience, at once cast the mask into the bedevilment of suspicion again. Of course, it was not only your abruptness. If you were curt in accepting my invitation, that would be proof that you were more than aware of the sexual barrier and I could easily handle you, but you were tender and showed a delicate consideration for me. You were straightforward and natural, not the slightest bit bashful. In short, you were quite yourself, not a bit different from your usual self.
On the other hand, this lack of change perturbed the mask. Where in God’s name were you concealing the excitement of anticipation, the inner flashings, dazzling glances, the breathing, of someone awaiting seduction?
The waiter cleared the table with obvious incivility. Ripples formed on the surface of the water in our glasses doubtless from the tremor of a subway train. The mask was flustered and chattered meaninglessly, trying to insert here and there sexually suggestive words, but you showed not even the reaction of refusal, not to mention consent. As I surreptitiously watched the mask’s confusion, I inwardly offered sarcastic congratulations, but unfortunately I was unable to convince myself of your unfaithfulness.
However, after this had been going on about twenty minutes—I wonder if you remember—the mask, coming out of his paralysis, stretched out his foot and accidentally touched your ankle with the tip of his shoe. An almost imperceptible expression of agitation passed over your face. Your gaze was fixed in the void. A shadow formed on your forehead and your lips trembled. But like the generosity of a morning sky gradually suffused with light, you quite calmly ignored his blunder.