The Fukai Mask

The Final Section of Masks opens with news that Ibuki's wife, Sadako, hired a private investigator to learn more about what goes on in Mieko's house which she considers a "witches' den."(119) "The two of you [Mikame and Ibuki] are a pair of puppets and she pulls the strings." (117) However, while Sadako believes that Yasuko is the puppeteer, Yasuko knows that "I was never anything but a medium for you." So it seems much more likely to us as readers that Mieko is behind it all, quietly moving people in the direction she wants them to go.

Sadako's detective also uncovers the fact that a young girl is living with them and who is mentally retarted and pregnant. Morevoer, she is Akio's twin sister, Harume. Mikame seems surprised and puzzled at first but then he remembers the young woman he met at the Hotaru Party previously. As with the Genji itself, the plot lines in Masks unfold creatively and intertwine with one another almost effortlessly.

The narratives switches to another perspective, that of Yû, the old woman who has served the Togano family for over thirty years, since before Akio and Harume were born. She did not want to see Mieko bring these childern--the twins, who were not fathered by Masatsugu--into this world, but Mieko was adamant. Yû observes:

"I see now you haven't finished with your plotting and scheming. What you are doing is too shameful to bear the light of day. Next to you, the late master and that woman Aguri who tortured you were nothing, nothing at all."(123)

So there has been a plot all along...

We next learn that Harume is pregnant but since she has a severely retroflexed womb, giving birth will be life-threatening. Yû urges her mistress to terminate the pregnancy, but again, Mieko is determined to stay the course. It is unthinkable, but she is willing to sacrifice her own daughter for her hidden purposes.

As distasteful as Mieko's plotting may be, there is something in it for Yasuko, too. She can even admit that "I'm as excited as you by the prospect of a baby with Akio's blood in it's veins...You and I are accomplices aren't we, in a dreadful crime--a crime that only women could commit. Having a part to play in this scheme of yours, Mother, means more to me than the love of any man." (126)

So, now we get deeper insight into the peculiar bonds that join Yasuko to Mieko. This plan, this "dreafful crime'" has been in the works for a long time. Yasuko primarily wants to have the child she was unable to have with Akio. But Mieko wants something more. Not just revenge; rather, she wants to wrench this child that contains her and Akio's bloodline--one that owes nothing to the Toganos--and remove it physically, spatially, spiritually, and biologically from any part of the world that the Togano family has touched. Yes, of course, it looks to be about revenge...but sMieko had already achieved that aim by birthing the twins who contain not a drop of Togano blood. And she never even told them!

No, it must be something more. Mieko wants to establish a new bloodline one that not only excludes the Toganos, but renders Ibuki, the father, powerless and out of the picture. Instead, it appears the time is right to start a new life just for the women, and the new baby, in scenic Kamakura.

We read (p. 127) how at one point, a vision came to Mieko, a vision of an ancient goddess, reposing in death while being devoured by maggots and worse. This vision is very reminiscent of the account of the Goddess Izanami as told in the Kojiki, source of the old creation myths and legends, who was mutilated giving birth to the Fire God. Izanagi, her male counterpart, tried to follow her down into the dark cave of death but winds up fleeing for his life when she catches him observing her in the horrific state she is in. Angered by his intrusion, she pursues him out of the cave until he jumps into a clear stream and bahes himself, cleansing the pollution of desth. Enchi points out that "A woman's love is quick to turn into a passion for revenge--an obsession that becomes an endless river of blood, flowing from generation to generation." Women are connected, then, from ancient times--from the the era when magical and shamanistic forces ruled the day--right down to the present.

It is not as though there are not costs involved in hatching and carrying out a plot like Mieko's. At some point, she must onfront what she as done. In a very Noh-like moment we see how a

"A faint tear wet Mieko's eye, so slight a bit of moisture that it passed unseen by Yasuko. Yet all the anguish of which she never spoke was compressed into that single drop." (127)

The way everything in this scene is so minimalist and restrained, with so many emotions comporessed into that single moment, that single tear, that it manages to summon up all the power imaginable, much as we might see during the climactic final dance of a Noh performance.

This feeling is only strengthened in the novel's final passage when Toe, the daughter of the Yakushiji family, brings Mieko the gift of a Noh mask from her father, who has passed away. It is the Fukai mask, the visage of a middle-aged woman, especially one who has lost a child, a woman whose life has been marked by deep sadness and grief.

Toe's father specifically wanted Mieko to have this mask, knowing that she could appreciate the sadness it expresses better than anyone else. After Toe leaves, a solitary Mieko sits communing with the mask, much as a Noh actor does before donning it and assuming the role. In an extraordinary scene, Enchi describes how

The pale, yellowish cast of the mournful thin-cheeked mask in her hands was reflected on her face, the two countenances appearing faintly in the lingering daylight like twin blossoms on a single branch. The mask seemed to know all the intensity of her grief at the loss of Akio and Harume--as well as the bitter woman's vengeance that she had planned so long, hiding it deep within her. (141)

I find this passage so powerful! It has been hinted all along that there is so much more to Mieko than what we might see on the surface. She is a "deep well" herself with the appearence of a woman with "a deeply inward sort of look...with her deepest energy turned inward." (26) And here she is, in the fading light of the late afternoon, with the sun reflecting off the yellowish tint of the old Noh Mask and onto Mieko's face, linking the two "faces" or "countenances" like "twin blossoms of a single branch." [For more on this idea of "Twin Blossoms," you can click here.]

Mieko has been through a great deal. Humiliated by her husband and his lover, she needed to recover her equilibrium and re-establish her femine power. She chose not to overtly fight the abuses of the patriarchal system in the form of the Togano family, but, instead to take on the system indirectly or "obliquely." And, she was willing to play the long game. She became pregnant by her lover, a man who was not her husband, and gave birth to the twine, Akio and Harume, never even bothering to tell her husband Masatsugu that they were not his. But she knew. That allowed her to recover at least some of her dignity, her self-respect, and yes, some of her power. But she wanted to go even further, she wanted to END the Togano line.

There is more to come in this climactic scene: Suddenly, while Mieko sits and communes deeply with the Fukai Mask, the silence of the moment is shattered by the cry of Harume's baby, and,

"In that moment the mask dropped from her grasp as if struck down by an invisible hand. In a trance she reached out and covered the face on the mask with her hand, while her right arm, as if suddenly paralyzed, hung frozen, immobile, in space." (141)

Is this another fantastic freeze-frame ending that explodes out into our consciousness?

Mieko could possibly have fallen into a trance, though clearly she is trying to protect herself from the horror of what she has done by covering the face of the mask with her hand. Or, she could be having a seizure or a stroke. Will she be okay? Or is this the moment when her revenge has come full-circle bringing pain and suffering back into her life? Does what she accomplished--obliterating the Togano line, freeing herself from the power of the patriarchy, setting up her, Yasuko and the baby up to live independently in Kamakura, beyond the reach of the patriarchy--constitute some kind of victory or triumph over injustice? Might this act of liberation even bring about some healing? Can we see this as the beginning a new way for at least some of the characters to live? Will the baby be raised to respact women and love them in a an appropriate manner?

Critics often consider Enchi a clever storyteller and she is indeed that. Just look at the variety of "intertexts" she has brought into her short, compact novel (141 pages only) in order to enrich her narrative: Noh Theatre and the Noh Masks, of course; but also old paintings and woodblock prints, Heian poetry, Chinese poetry, the Tale of Genji, the fictional "Account of the Shrine in the Fields," featuring Genji himself, the Rokujô Lady, the Akashi Lady, Murasaki and many more; poems from the Tales of Ise, lines from Kokinshû poems as well, the Peony Lantern story, even an unsigned letter from Mieko's unnamed lover, and a painting of Mieko by Shimojô Minoru, and the old "Snow Song" from Kanazawa, plus various "reports" from the likes of Dr. Morioka, Sadako's detective, plus Yû's stories from the past, as well as mention of books, articles or discourses on Shamanism and Spirit Possession. And this is not to mention events like the Seance, and the whole "Hotaru Party" which manages to, in effect, import the Hotaru Chapter from the Genji right into Masks. That is an impressive list!

Enchi also excels at dropping hints about Mieko's hidden talents and powers, her ability to make others do her bidding, how she may sit or stand quietly while Yasuko appears to be the animated one, but Mieko is really the force that moves her. What happened to her in her youth, as a newlywed, was horrific but in her quiet, inward-looking way, she seems to be resigned and accepting while she was not at all. Never for a moment. But she learns to wear her mask in order to do what is necessary to rectify things. She does keep score and she will never forget nor forgive.

Mieko is a formidable woman and if she is a deeply flawed human being, doesn't the fault lie with the patriarchy? Japanese women have not always had adequate tools to fight back which is why, at times, they must resort to unusual measures. I suppose Masks could be read as a cautionary tale: you mistreat and mess around with Japanese women at your own peril. You might well be biting off more than you can chew!!