Confessions of a Mask Read Online Free Page B

kinds as halibut, turbot, or red snapper; of potatoes, only those mashed and strained through a colander; of sweets, all bean-jams were forbidden and there were only light biscuits, wafers, and other such dry confections; and of fruits, only apples cut in thin slices, or small portions of mandarin oranges. Hence it was on this visit that I ate my first blue-skinned fish—a yellowtail—which I devoured with immense satisfaction. Its delicate flavor signified for me that I had finally been accorded the first of my adult rights, but at the same time it left a rather bitter tang of uneasiness upon the tip of my tongue—uneasiness at becoming an adult—which still recalls me to a feeling of discomfort whenever I taste that flavor.
    Sugiko was a healthy girl, overflowing with life. I myself had never been able to go to sleep easily, and when staying at her house and lying in the same room on the pallet next to hers, I would watch with a mixture of envy and admiration how Sugiko always fell asleep instantly upon lowering her head to the pillow, exactly like a machine.
    I had many times more freedom at Sugiko's house than at my own. As the imaginary enemies who must want to steal me away—my parents, in short—were not present, my grandmother had no qualms about giving me more liberty. There was no need to keep me always within reach of her eyes, as when at home.
    And yet I was unable to take any great pleasure in this freedom that was allowed me. Like an invalid taking his first steps during convalescence, I had a feeling of stiffness as though I were acting under the compulsion of some imaginary obligation. I missed my bed of idleness. And in this house it was tacitly required that I act like a boy. The reluctant masquerade had begun. At about this time I was beginning to understand vaguely the mechanism of the fact that what people regarded as a pose on my part was actually an expression of my need to assert my true nature, and that it was precisely what people regarded as my true self which was a masquerade.
    It was this unwilling masquerade that made me say:
    "Let's play war."
    As my companions were two girls—Sugiko and another cousin—playing at war was hardly a suitable game. Still less did the opposing Amazons show any signs of enthusiasm. My reason for proposing the game also lay in my inverted sense of social duty: in short, I felt that I must not fawn upon the girls, but must somehow give them a hard time.
    Although mutually bored, we continued playing our clumsy game of war in and out of the twilit house.From behind a bush Sugiko was imitating the sound of a machine gun:
    "Bang! bang! bang!"
    I finally decided it was about time to put an end to the business and led a wild flight into the house. The female soldiers came running after me, giving a continuous fusillade of bang-bang-bang's. I clutched at my heart and collapsed limply in the center of the parlor.
    "What's the matter, Kochan?" they asked, approaching with worried faces.
    "I'm being dead on the battlefield," I replied, neither opening my eyes nor moving my hand.
    I was enraptured with the vision of my own form lying there, twisted and fallen. There was an unspeakable delight in having been shot and being on the point of death. It seemed to me that since it was I, even if actually struck by a bullet, there would surely be no pain. . . .
     
    The years of childhood . . .
    My memory runs head-on into a scene that is like a symbol of those years. To me as I am today, that scene represents childhood itself, past and irrecoverable. When I saw the scene I felt the hand of farewell with which childhood would take its leave of me. I had a premonition at that instant that all my feeling of subjective time, or timelessness, might one day gush forth from within me and flood into the mold of that scene, to become an exact imitation of its people and movements and sounds; that simultaneous with the completion of this copy, the original might melt away into the distant