The Face of Another (29 page)

Thus, this bold wager put me in a situation where everything was up to you, no matter what the dice turned up. Of course, I knew very well that exposing the true character of the mask would probably hurt and humiliate you. But you had wounded me by your betrayal, and we were about even on these two points. There was no object in being defiant; I had absolutely no intention of accusing you, no matter what reaction you showed to the notes. Tentatively, the situation had deteriorated even further from what it had been before the advent of the mask. Our relationship had come to be locked in a column of ice, but as one solution, I was amply prepared to be receptive to your reactions.

No, I could not go so far as to call this a solution, yet at least it was saving the situation. Bitter regret, irritation, defeatism, imprecation, self-tormenting sentimentalism—all such bitterness I wrapped away, and for good or for bad I heaved a sigh of resignation as if I had accomplished something by this. It was not that I had no desire for things to turn out right. I had raised the white flag by not taking off my mask when I was in bed with you but waiting to tell you about it in these notes. Whatever the result, it would surely be much better than this extraordinary three-sided relationship—this self-intoxication with jealousy that continued to grow like a cancer.

I could not say that I had reaped no harvest at all. My efforts did seem to have put me in a better position than before, but such an experience could not be wiped away, leaving no mark at all. At least I had made a big catch simply by realizing that my real face was merely an incomplete mask. I was perhaps being too optimistic, but this knowledge gave me great strength. Even if I were to be enclosed forever in this unmelting column of ice, I would discover sufficient human
life in it to get along without ever again going through the useless struggle I had been locked in until now. However, I had better think things through carefully again after I have returned with your surrender in hand. At this point, there is nothing to do but wait.…

I collapsed limply on the matting of the living room, like some marionette whose strings have been cut, trying not to resist the flow of time. A rectangular piece of whitish sky, cut out between the window frame and the eaves of the house next door, seemed quite like the extension of a jail wall. Without taking my eyes from it, I persuaded myself that this was so. I was not the only one who had been shut in; considering the whole world a jail was quite in keeping with my feelings at the time. Even more, I imagined that everyone was frantically trying to escape from the world. The real face becoming useless, like a vestigial tail, was an unexpected fetter, and apparently one from which not a single person had succeeded in escaping. But … I was different. I alone—it had lasted but a moment—had experienced life beyond the wall. Unable to stand the overconcentrated air there, I had come running back; still, I had had the experience. As long as I could not deny existence beyond the wall, my real face, which was merely an incomplete copy of the mask, could never overwhelm me. Since you have heard my confession, you can surely have no objection to these points at least, but.…

But the concrete wall that cut off the sky gradually lost its luminosity, and as it dissolved into the darkness, I was overcome with an uncontrollable irritation at my efforts to defy the passage of time. For God’s sake, how far have you got in your reading? I should have some idea if I knew the average number of pages you read per hour, but.… Suppose you did a page a minute: that would make sixty. Then since four hours and twenty minutes have gone by, you should be reaching the end pretty soon. Of course, you would be distracted
and bored at times. You will probably just have to grit your teeth and put up with it, as if you were seasick. But no matter what the delays, you can’t need more than another hour. I suddenly jumped up and then remembered that there was no reason to, except that I did not feel like sleeping. I turned on the light and put the kettle on the gas burner. On my way back from the kitchen, I unexpectedly caught your odor—the smell of your cosmetics, coming from the dressing table at the entrance to the bedroom.

I was overcome by a paroxysm of nausea, as if I had had the inside of my throat painted with iodine. It was apparently an immediate reaction of the scar webs that had been laid bare. But at this point, was I qualified, I wondered, to look down on another’s cosmetic equipment, I who had already once taken the main role in a masked play? I must be more generous. Once and for all, I should have to graduate immediately from this childish state in which I clung to make-up and wigs. Then I decided to concentrate all my attention on the psychology of make-up, seeking a cure for my deep abhorrence of cosmetics. Make-up—making a face—is indeed a denial of the real face, but a gallant effort to get a little closer to others by transforming the expression. But when a woman’s make-up obtains the desired effect, is she jealous of it? Women do not particularly seem to be. It is a very curious thing. Why do deeply jealous women not show the slightest reaction to others who have imitated their faces? Is it a lack of imagination, or a spirit of self-sacrifice? Or is it that they have an excess of self and imagination, and that the distinction between self and others has ceased to exist? All this was pretty wide of the mark and apparently quite incapable of curing my abhorrence of make-up. (Of course, it is different now. I’ll continue in the light of my present feeling. The fact that women get along without being jealous of their own make-up is perhaps the result of instinctively perceiving the drop in
value of their own face. It is because they instinctively realize that the virtues of their real faces are merely left-overs from a period when hereditary property was one’s security; and unfortunately they are without property. Isn’t this attitude far more realistic, far more consonant with reason, than that of men who cling to the authority of the real face? Of course, women condemn make-up for children. I wonder if they do not have some misgiving about it. If they do, the responsibility probably lies in the conservatism of secondary education rather than in women’s lack of confidence. If one were to press the effectiveness of secondary education to its logical conclusion, naturally men too would accept cosmetics freely. No, let’s stop.… At this point, no matter how many different possibilities I claim, they can after all be only a prisoner’s lament. In a nutshell, the mask was probably just not competent to cure my latent phobia for make-up.)

For distraction I turned on the television set. As luck would have it, it was just the time for the foreign news, and a report was in progress on the Negro riots in America. Having talked about the wretched black people in torn shirts who were being marched away by white police officers, the announcer continued matter-of-factly:

The words gave me an intolerable feeling of pain and depression, as if a sharp fishbone had thrust itself between my
teeth. Of course, I had almost nothing in common with the Negroes, except for being an object of prejudice. The Negroes were comrades bound in the same cause, but I was quite alone. Even though the Negro question might be a grave social problem, my own case could never go beyond the limits of the personal. However, what gave me such a stifling feeling as I watched the riot scenes stemmed from an association of ideas whereby I saw thousands of men and women, like me without faces, gathering together. Could we, the faceless, arise resolutely against prejudice like the Negroes? It would be impossible. Disgusted with each other’s ugliness, we would probably begin to battle among ourselves. If we did not do that, the only thing for one like us would be to start running full speed until he disappeared from sight. No, if all this were true, I could still have borne it. However, I was apparently quite fascinated with the riots. On the slightest pretext, groups of us monsters might make unprovoked attacks on the faces of honest citizens. Out of malice? Or would it be some ploy to profit by increasing our ranks with every ordinary face we smashed? Both were definitely strong motives, but I seemed to be stimulated by a desire to be buried as a soldier in the riot’s storm. Surely the soldier enjoys an anonymous existence. Even without a face he would have no difficulty in accomplishing his mission, and he would be provided with an excellent
raison d’être
. Faceless battalions would be ideal groups of soldiers. Unflinchingly rushing on to destruction for the sake of destruction, they would make splendid fighting units.

This was perhaps quite true, but I was still as alone as before. I with an air pistol concealed in my pocket, I who had not even attempted to shoot down a bird. Disgusted, I switched off the television set and looked at my watch; the appointed hour had already gone by.

Naturally, I was upset. I listened for sounds outside, checking my watch every few minutes. I had an unbearable feeling
like flood waters beginning to rise. There! Footsteps! But when the neighbor’s dog began to bark, I realized that it was someone else. But now? No, surely. The sounds were too heavy for you. For some time I listened to the noises of autos stopping and the opening and closing of doors, but unfortunately they came from the direction of the lane in back. I grew more and more distressed. What in God’s name was holding you up? Had you met mishap? A traffic accident? A rapist’s attack? If you had, at least you could have telephoned … even you who liked rape.… No, I must not say that. Even jokingly there are things you say and things you don’t. Our experience had a thin, supersensitive skin that could never be touched by such expressions.

How would it be, since I was so worried, if I went to meet you? Let’s not jump the gun. If I left now, we would miss each other on the road. Even if you had finished reading, it might well be taking you more time than I had calculated to collect your thoughts and decide how best to answer me. Then there was also the business of burying the mask, which I entrusted to you. Even though you left the notebooks as evidence, you may have decided to smash the button and cut the mask into bits in order to do away with every last vestige of this nightmare, and this may have taken more time than I anticipated. Whichever it was, from now on it was only a question of time. Perhaps you were already on the way home. In three more minutes you would be at the door, ringing your usual two short buzzes. Yes, only two more minutes … one more.…

It didn’t work. Let’s begin again from the beginning Five minutes more … four … three … two … one … As I kept repeating these sequences, nine o’clock came round, then ten, and before I knew it it was almost eleven. Like a steel pipe that has split open under strain, my senses vibrated with the commotion in the distant streets, moaning and answering
back in timid whispers. What other possibilities could there be, in heaven’s name? Where else could you go besides returning here? But there was no answer. Naturally. There could be no answer. As long as you were careful and did not misread the notes.…

Then suddenly I let out a curse. Hastily wrapping the bandages around my face, I locked up and hurried out. What was I fiddling around for anyway? I should have made up my mind much sooner! Perhaps it was already too late! Late? How could it be too late? I did not know myself what I meant by that, but my premonitions, darker than the inside of a monster’s throat, spewed out ominous vapor.

The premonitions were absolutely correct. It was a little before midnight when I arrived at the apartment. The light in the room was out and there was no sign of anyone. Cursing the self-complacency with which I had gone on mindlessly waiting until it was so late, I mounted the emergency stairs and opened the door, a bitter taste in my mouth. My heart was pounding like a hammer. After making sure there was no sound in the room, I carefully turned on the light and looked around. You were not there. Your corpse was not there either. The room looked exactly as I had left it. The three notebooks lay on the table, and even the sheet of paper I had put there, with instructions for you to open to the first page of the first notebook, lay untouched under the ink bottle I had weighted it down with. Then you had not been in the room after all. The mystery was growing. Although the burden of my responsibility was lighter, the fact remained that it would be even more of a disaster if you had gone off without reading at all than if you had disappeared after having read. I looked in the closet. Neither the button nor the mask showed the slightest sign of having been touched.

But … just a minute. That smell.… Yes! The smell, faintly colored with the odor of mold and dust, was unmistakably
yours. Then you had been here. Yet the fact that the note I had left was in the same place as before seemed to indicate that you had ignored the notebooks.… What in the deuce did it mean when you had taken the pains to come this far?

As I carelessly perused the note, I gave a start. The paper was just like what I had used, but the writing was different. It was a letter addressed to me, written in your hand on the back of my own note. You had apparently disappeared after having read the notebooks. The worst had apparently come to pass, just as I had feared.

No, I should not use such words as “the worst” so glibly. The contents of your letter far exceeded any of my expectations and took me completely by surprise. No matter how much I had been afraid, perplexed, worried, distressed, and upset, such feelings meant nothing now. With a dash of the pen, as in a puzzle where a flea is transformed into an elephant, the outcome had been changed into something different from what I had planned. The mask’s determination, its thoughts, its struggle with my real face, and the petition to you that I had tried to get across through the notes—all had been made ino an absurd burlesque. It was a terrible thing. Who could imagine that one could be so ridiculed, so humiliated by oneself?