The Face of Another (5 page)

Perhaps beyond that, I was imagining the masked ball of the fairy tale in which I would before long appear. But wasn’t it actually symbolic that even in idle fancy I could not help but add a “fairy-tale” commentary? I have written about this before, but I made my plans lightheartedly, as if I were skipping over some narrow ditch. Of course, I had thought out no final solution. Was it because I strove in my subconscious to consider the mask itself simply the extension of an entirely consistent attitude of self-defense, according to which the loss of my face was not the loss of anything particularly essential? From one point of view, the problem was not the mask itself; there seemed rather to be at work here a challenge to the face and to the authority of the face. If I had not come to feel cornered, because of the collapsed Bach and your rebuff, perhaps I should have felt considerably more nonchalant and glib about my face.

Yet, a deep black shadow grew in my heart, like India ink dropped in a glass of water. It was K’s idea that faces were a roadway between men. When I reflected on it now, if I had been struck with a rather unfortunate impression of K, it was not because of his complacency nor his insistence on medical treatment, but apparently because of this thought. If one accepted such reasoning, I who had lost my face was destined
to be shut up forever in a solitary cell … with no roadway … and so a mask became invested with a terribly profound meaning. My plan was to attempt to break out of my jail—on that I would stake my very being—and accordingly my present condition was a suitably desperate state. Indeed, what we mean when we say “terrible conditions” is conditions which we are aware of as being terrible. It was this awareness that I could not possibly accept.

Even I recognize that a roadway between people is a necessity. I keep on writing these sentences to you precisely because I do fully recognize this. But I wonder if the face alone is the one and only roadway. I cannot believe it. My doctoral dissertation, which was on rheology, was properly understood by people who had never seen my face. Of course, with a mere scientific thesis one could not pretend to dispose of the matter of intercourse between people. Actually, what I ask of you is quite something else again. I want some sign of a completely meaningful human relationship—the lines are indistinct—call it heart or soul. Because this association is far more complex than a relationship between animals, who express themselves by their odors alone, I suppose facial expression is an adequate communicating roadway. Just as currency is a more evolved system of exchange than barter. But even currency is after all simply a means; it’s not almighty in every single situation. In some cases checks or money orders are more convenient; in others, jewels or precious metals.

Isn’t it a preconception derived from habit to suppose that the soul and the heart are in the same category and can be negotiated only through the face? Isn’t it common to find a single poem or book or record that communicates with the heart far more profoundly than a hundred years of scanning faces. If a face were indispensable, a blind man couldn’t know such things as human characteristics, could he? I am more concerned about intercourse between human beings narrowing and stereotyped by too much dependence on the habit of
faces. Actually, a good example is the stupid prejudice about the color of skin. To judge the soul’s roadway according to the color of a face is something describable only as an attitude which disregards the soul.

E
XCURSUS:
When I read this over now, I suppose I did not want to be bound by my face, but I had apparently been making transparent self-justifications. For example, I was first attracted to you through your face. And even now, when I think of the distance between us, the measure of it is the remoteness of your expression and nothing else. Yes, for quite some time I should have frankly imagined that our positions were reversed and that you were the one who had lost your face. Undervaluation and overvaluation of the face are equally artificial. So it would seem that I referred before to my sister’s wig in order to explain my feelings of not wanting to cling to my face, but I am dubious about the suitability of that reference. In short, isn’t my concern about my face simply a common adolescent interest in, and antagonism to, cosmetics? Or perhaps I was beginning to feel slightly jealous of the fact that my sister was trying to make herself attractive
.

Incidentally, one more thing—I read once in some newspaper or review a strangely thought-provoking article about a Korean with Japanese blood, who in order to look more like a Korean went to the trouble of undergoing plastic surgery. This was clearly a stress on facial restoration, but it could never be said the man was implicated in prejudice. In the final analysis, I realized I hadn’t comprehended a single thing. If the opportunity presented itself, I should really like very much to hear what kind of advice the Korean would give someone like me who had lost his face
.

Finally, I tired of this soliloquy about a face, this soliloquy that made no progress. But there was no particular reason, either, to abandon the plans that I had been at pains to begin. I began to devote close attention to technical observations.

The artificial finger had extremely interesting aspects. The more I looked at it, the more I appreciated the fine points of its construction. It expressed as much as an actual finger to me. From the tension of the skin, I should suppose it was the finger of a person aged about thirty. A flat nail, squashed areas on the sides, deep wrinkles in the joints, four small cuts in a row like shark’s gills. It probably belonged to a person engaged in light handwork.

Yet, why was it so ugly? Repulsive! A kind of special unsavoriness, neither of the dead nor of the living. No, apparently nothing had gone wrong. Was it rather that the reconstruction was too faithful? (If so, that would be true of my mask too.) So, it could be that if one clung too closely to reality, the result might well be far from realistic. It may be all right to be particular about faces, but first take a look at this ugliness!

It is quite true, of course, that an accurate copy may actually be unrealistic. However, could you conceive of a formless finger? A snake without length, a pot without volume, a triangle without angles? Unless such things exist on another planet, they are not to be seen with one’s eyes. If they were, even a face without expression wouldn’t be exceptional. Even if such a face did sometimes occur, it could hardly be a face. Indeed, masks have this much
raison d’être
.

Then, the problem may lie in the physical element. First of all, it would be curious to speak of a form that couldn’t move as one’s person. If this finger could only move, it would look much better. As an experiment, I picked it up and tried working it. It did in fact seem more realistic than when it had been standing on the table. So there was no need worrying over that point. Thus I insisted from the beginning that mine must be a mask that moved.

But I was still somehow dissatisfied. What in heaven’s name could be the cause of such Concern? I focused all my
attention, comparing the artificial member with my own finger. There definitely was a difference, but.… Suppose it was not the fault of its being severed, nor the problem of movement. Could it be the quality of the skin? I wonder. Perhaps. There was a characteristic difference that could not be masked simply by form or color.

M
ARGINALIA I:
On the feel of skin. Human skin seems to be protected by a transparent matter having no pigmentation. Is not the look of skin, accordingly, one of complex interaction between the light rays reflected from the surface and those which, having passed through this surface, are again reflected from the pigment? This effect was not obtained in the case of the molded finger, since the pigment was directly on the surface
.

Inquire of a specialist about the composition and optical properties of this transparent matter in the skin
.

M
ARGINALIA II:
Important subjects for investigation: wear of the material, elasticity and flexibility, fixing process, procedure with the edge line, ventilation, procurement of the model, and general procedure
.

To
BE SURE
, the very fact that I have tried to put these things down faithfully will bore you, and thus I shall lose everything in the end. But I should like to have you at least sense the atmosphere surrounding the early days of
the mask, which had come into being almost unperceived by me, regardless of my ideas about it.

First of all, the transparent substance in the skin is a type of horny albumen called ceratin, which contains very small fluorescent bodies. For the handling of the edge line I decided that I should have to make the thickness of the flange no larger, if possible, than a small wrinkle; later I hoped somehow to be able to overcome any remaining artificiality by devising a suitable beard. Moreover, even the problem of flexibility, which I foresaw as the greatest obstacle, was not at all insurmountable physiologically.

Quite obviously the facial muscles are the basis of expression. Each muscle pulls in a fixed direction, and contraction and expansion occur along these lines. The skin tissue, which has a fixed directional mobility, lies over them, and the cellular fibers of both apparently join at approximately right angles. According to the medical books I borrowed from the Institute library, the groupings of fibers in the skin are called “Langer lines.” Fortunately, a certain type of plastic showed great flexibility when subjected to directional stress. If I didn’t begrudge the time it would take, I could resolve the problem with about this much information.

And so I decided to begin tests, in a corner of the laboratory, on the elasticity of flat epithelial cells. Here, too, my colleagues were most tolerant. I aroused almost no suspicions and was able to make constant use of the equipment.

However, the procurement of a model and general procedure seemed impossible to manage technically. For the model—that is, the taking of a first impression, to reproduce skin details—I should have to borrow someone else’s face, no matter how disagreeable this might be. Of course just a little skin surface with some oil and sweat glands would do. Since I would transform it in accordance with my own facial structure, I would not be walking around dangling the face of
another. There would be no need to worry about infringing on someone else’s copyright.

However, even if that were the case—extremely serious doubts welled up in me—wouldn’t the mask be similar to my original face after all? By basing his model on the skull structure, a skilled craftsman could reproduce a completely life-like appearance. If that were true, then it was the underlying frame that ultimately determined one’s looks. I should be absolutely incapable of leaving the face I was born with except by shaving down the bones or disregarding the anatomical basis of expression, which in itself could hardly be called expression.

The thought confused me. After all, wouldn’t the meaning of the mask be completely negated, no matter how skillfully it was constructed, if I wore one identical to myself?

Fortunately I remembered a friend of mine from high-school days who was specializing in paleontology. It might well be that reconstructing animals from fossils that he dug up formed a part of his work. I consulted the directory and learned that, as luck would have it, he had remained at the university. I intended to discuss the matter by telephone, but as it was some time since our graduation, he was eager to see me and suggested we meet, refusing to take no for an answer. Perhaps in resistance to my shyness over the bandages on my face, I was unable to turn him down, and I accepted. However, I was immediately tormented by regrets. How meaningless to persist in this scheme out of foolish pride. The bandage alone would be enough to excite considerable curiosity, and since the bandaged man was beginning to delve into details of modeling techniques and facial anatomy, which were not his professional specialty, I would seem like some sneak thief in disguise. To avoid such discomfiture, I should have refused categorically from the very first. What’s more, I hated the streets. In all the diffident, casual glances there were
hidden needles bearing a corrosive poison, though those who had never been targets could not be expected to understand. The streets quite exhausted me. I felt like an oily dustcloth, spotted with shame, yet there was nothing to do but go to the appointed place, however reluctantly.

The café we had agreed upon was on a street corner at the university which I knew well. I took a taxi and was able to get as far as the door of the place almost unnoticed. However, my friend’s confusion, greater than my own, was such that I pitied him. Damn it.… I regained my ill-tempered self-possession. No, “self-possession” is misleading. Anyway I’d like you, however inadequately, to imagine my wretchedness at making people around me uncomfortable just by my existence, like some stray mongrel. It was the desperate feeling of loneliness one sees in the eyes of a decrepit old cur on the verge of death. It was an emptiness like the sound of track construction deep in the night when the pinging sings down the rails. Feeling that any expression I carried behind my bandage and my sunglasses would not get out had made me perverse.