The Face of Another - Kobo Abe [86]
What kind of a person were you, for God’s sake?
What kind of a person were you, you who had gone through the barrier of taboos unopposed and unabashed, who had seduced the seducer, plunged him into self-contempt, you who had never been violated? Yes, you had not once tried to ask the given name, family name, or occupation of the mask. As if you had seen through to the real person behind it. The freedom of the mask and its alibi completely faded away befor this behavior of yours. If there is a God, may he appoint you a hunter of masks. I would most certainly be hunted down by you.
A VOICE called to me from the bottom of the emergency stairway. It was the superintendent’s daughter. She was demanding the yoyo. For an instant, I was going to answer, and then, seized with panic, I nearly ran away. It was not I who had made the agreement with the girl but the mask. At length I got control of myself and in my confusion realized that what I could do was pretend not to understand. I could only assume that she had mistaken me for someone else.
But the girl did not appear to notice my theatricals and simply repeated her demands for the yoyo. Or was she perhaps thinking that since the “mask” and the “bandage” were brothers, an agreement made with one would automatically include the other? No, such wishful thinking was successfully demolished by the girl’s next words.
“Don’t worry.… We’re playing secrets.”
Indeed, had she seen through me from the beginning? Yet how could I have been seen through? Where had I made my mistake? Could she have peeped in through a crack in the door as I was putting on my mask?
But the girl only shook her head right and left, repeating that she did not understand why I did not understand. Was my mask something that could not deceive the eyes of a retarded girl? No, I suppose that she had been able to see through me precisely because she was retarded. Just as my mask would not fool a dog. An uninhibited intuition is often far more keen than the analytical eyes of an adult. There could not be such apparent deficiencies in a mask that had successfully deceived you who were closest to me.
No, the significance of this experience was not a simple thing, like seeking an alibi. Suddenly I could not control the shiver that rose gradually in me at the profound realization of this “uninhibited intuition.” Such intuition suggested that my whole year’s experience could be completely destroyed with a single blow. Wasn’t it a sign that the girl had seen directly through to my real self without being taken in by the outward appearance of the mask or bandage? Such eyes actually existed. What I was doing must surely be funny to a girl like this.
Suddenly, the passions of the mask, my hatred for the scars, began to seem unbearably hollow, and the triangle with its roaring spin began gradually to lose momentum, like a carrousel whose motor has been switched off.
While the girl waited by the door, I got the yoyo. “It’s a game of secrets,” the girl whispered softly once more. She ran down the stairs, wrapping the string around her finger, childlike, unable to hide the smile that appeared in the corners of her lips. For no reason, tears welled up in my eyes. I washed my face, removed the ointment, and put on the mask after spreading it with adhesive material; but quite some space had already come between it and my face. Never mind. I was quietly sad, like the surface of a tranquil lake under a cloud-filled sky, but I said again and again to myself that it would be well if I believed the child’s eyes with complete confidence. Wouldn’t anybody first have to return to this kind of intuition if he sincerely wanted to face others?
AND