The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [84]
In the afternoon, there was a trivial incident. In a corner of the laboratory a group of four or five men had put their heads together, and as I casually approached, one of the younger men in the middle hastily tried to conceal something. When I questioned them, I found that it was really nothing to hide: it was a petition about what to do concerning the problem of Korean immigration and emigration. In addition, although I did not censure him, he began to apologize profusely, while the other men watched us with distaste.
Was it that a faceless man is not competent to sign his name on behalf of Koreans? Of course, the assistant bore me no ill will; perhaps he was rather being respectful out of a feeling of pity for me. If men from the very beginning had not had faces, the problem of racial differences would never have arisen, whether one were Japanese, Korean, Russian, Italian, or Polynesian. But still, why did this so magnanimous young man make such a distinction between me who had no face and Koreans who had a different kind of face? When man evolved from the monkey, he did not do so by his use of tools, as is usually claimed, but because he had come to distinguish himself from monkeys by his face.
However, I asked to sign the petition. Everyone held his breath in expectation. But there was a lingering feeling of distaste. Why did I have to do something so meaningless? This invisible wall called “face” stood barring my way. Could you call this an ordinary world?
Suddenly I was aware of an unbearable fatigue, and, producing some suitable excuse, I returned home earlier than usual. I still was not completely confident of regaining the feeling of my real face, and even if I waited longer, there might well be no great improvement. Since I was wearing the bandage covering, as long as I did not talk I need have no fear that my agitation would be discernible; and, moreover, the agitation would not be mine alone. Would it not rather be far more painful for me to pretend not to see your agitation? I said to myself over and over again that even if I did encounter obvious confusion on your part, I should not be provoked by it and lose control of myself.
But even though you had not seen me for a week, you smiled at me just as before I left, without showing the slightest sign of embarrassment in your acts or in your expression; and I could only stand for a moment dumfounded at this lack of concern. It was as if you had been kept in cold storage for a week. Had I become for you, I wonder, such a meaningless entity that you did not even feel the need to conceal your secrets? Or was this extraordinary shamelessness, this devil’s heart in saint’s clothing, your true character? Well, at last becoming rather ill-tempered, I demanded an account of the time I had been away; but without the slightest change of expression as you busied yourself with my clothes, you started in talking about the enlargement of the house next door, which was a violation of the building code, and of the war of letters that was raging between us and its owner; then you kept up a chatter in an innocent tone, like some child playing alone with his blocks, about domestic matters: a rumpus in the neighborhood over children who had not been able to sleep because of barking dogs, the branches of the trees in the garden that hung over into the street, should you close the window when the television set was on, should we buy a new washer because the old one made noise.… Were you the same person as the one last night who, like some fountain, profusely overflowed with the feelings of a mature woman? I could not believe it. Although I had fought bitterly against the