The Face of Another Read Free Page B

that I could change at will. However, I really don’t know about the ancients, who believed in idols, and about adolescents who imitate them, but for me, at this point it is probably useless to decorate the altars of my next life with masks. No matter how many faces I have, there is no changing the fact that I am me. I was just attempting tofill in a too-long intermission in my life with a trivial “masked play.”
    I soon found the periodical I was looking for. According to the literature, it was apparently possible to construct a mask that would simulate real skin, at least outwardly. But there were a number of unresolved points such as mobility. If I were somehow to make it, most certainly I had to achieve expression, presumably by linking the mask to the muscles governing expression. I wanted something that could expand and contract freely, something that could laugh and cry. Even supposing the project were feasible at the present-day level of high-molecular chemistry, it did not seem within reach of a mere amateur’s capacities. Yet at that time the mere possibility of the venture was a wonderful tranquilizer for me. If I could not have the tooth taken care of, I could at least take a temporary pain-killer.
    At once, I decided to look up Doctor K, the author of the article on artificial organs, to hear what he had to say.
    K’s response on the telephone, however, was extremely rude; he seemed unenthusiastic, to say the least. Perhaps he felt some resentment at my being engaged in the same high-molecular work as he, But he agreed to see me, some time after four.
    I handed over the switch inspection to the man in charge of the overtime shift, and when I had disposed of two or three remaining chits, I immediately left. The street was as bright as if it had been polished, and the breeze was laden with the scent of fragrant olive. I was unreasonably jealous of the smell and the light. As I waited for a taxi, I had the impression of being stared at from all sides, as if I were some interloper. All this was merely a negative image, with black and white reversed, and I stoically bore the too brilliant sunlight, thinking that if I could just get my hands on a mask, I should at once be able to recover the positive.
    The building I went to was situated on a residential street somewhat difficult of access, near a station on the inner belt of the transit system. A rather unimposing sign,
K’s High-Molecular Chemistry Institute
, hung outside the commonplace house. Just inside the gateway stood three rabbit hutches carelessly piled on top of each other.
    In the narrow waiting room, along with an ashtray stand and a shabby wooden bench, lay a number of old magazines. Vaguely, I began to regret having come.
Institute
sounded respectable enough, but this was the kind of setup some neighborhood practitioner might choose. I wondered if K weren’t merely some quack who was taking advantage of the uncertainty of his patients. As I looked around, I saw two photographs in slightly dirty frames decorating the walls. One showed a side view of a girl’s face. She looked like a chinless field mouse. The other, doubtless after plastic surgery, showed a much better face over which hovered a faint smile.
    My accumulated sleeplessness, turned into a heavy stiffness, began to spread to my forehead. The hard bench was beginning to make me restless, when finally the nurse showed me into the next room. The light filtering through the blinds lay in white, milk-like pools. On the table by the window a variety of unusual instruments, like hypodermic equipment, was menacingly laid out; beside the table stood a cabinet for medical charts and a swivel chair with arms; opposite was a waist-high dressing cubicle on rollers and a single-paneled screen with a metal frame—standard accouterments that made me feel increasingly disconsolate.
    I lit a cigarette. As I arose to find an ashtray, I was suddenly startled by the contents of an enameled tray on the