Mask

A wall of faces stared out at me from their eyeless sockets. There must have been at least a hundred of them, this army of visages, each one unique. Some missing a nose, even the entire lower half, a cursed few with mouths wrenched open in a permanent scream. They horrified me, and I instinctually lifted my hand to my own face, to the cavity there, the twisted roadmap of scars and knotted flesh.

“Good boy, you’re right on time.” The sculptor emerged from the back room, holding two cups of steaming black tea, one of which she pressed into my hands. “I hope you don’t mind it a little sweet; I added some honey already,” she said with a smile, her American accent spilling out over the words. The dark gray uniform blazer she wore was crisply ironed but faded and speckled with bits of white plaster and paint. The right shoulder was emblazoned with a bright crimson cross. The studio itself was cluttered with shelves and tables full of paint pots and brushes.

“I don’t have your payment yet. Lieutenant Berger said as long as I bring it by our last session—”

“Ferme ta bouche. The money is not important right now. Now come.” She patted a wooden chair in the middle of the studio. “Let me look at you.”

Before the war, in a sunny past that felt a thousand years away, I was not overly shy, though I was by no means the most confident. If, let’s say, I caught someone staring at me in the market or across the room at a cafe, I would rush to find the nearest mirror, in search of whatever aspect of my appearance offended them so I may correct it. Did I have mustard smeared across my mustache? Was my fly down? Had I somehow forgotten to dress myself that morning, proudly prancing around the streets au naturel, failing to notice the breeze? I remember so well, the first words I ever said to Mignonette, sitting at neighboring tables, me scanning the square for a friend I was supposed to meet for lunch, catching her eyes peering out above her book and darting back when caught. May I ask what you are looking at? Is there something on my face? She had closed her book, placed it on the table definitively, and leaned in closer to me, her eyes fierce and sparkling. I was trying to spot a wedding band, but you are so funny, you only ever use your right hand. Hold your cigar with your right hand, put it down, pick up your coffee with your right hand. Put it down. It’s like you’re hiding the other one. I lifted up my left hand to show it was perfectly normal, working fine, and yes, ringless. I have to keep it bridled under my leg, I said. If I have both hands free I’ll start to fidget too much. She laughed: Please don’t tell me you’re one of those nail biters. I assured her I was in recovery. Good, she said, then we can go on a date.

“When was your last surgery?” the sculptor asked, assessing my face. Her direct gaze made my cheeks redden. What was left of them anyway. Now no one stared at me in public. One glance was enough for them to avert their eyes for good, not even curiosity daring them to steal a second look. No one pointed or snickered or said mean things. I often wondered if it’d be better if they did. At least then I would have some opposition to go up against, to rail at them for their cruelty, for their failure to support one of their own patriots. Instead I traveled through the city as if inside a void, stuck in a bubble that propelled people away with great force, creating an ever-widening chasm between us.

“My last surgery was two months ago.”

“So the swelling has completely gone down.”

“I believe so, yes.”

“May I touch you?”

The question caught me by surprise. I stammered out that she could.

Nobody had touched my new face besides my doctors and nurses, the latter always removing and replacing my bandages quickly, attempting uncomfortable small talk and never making direct eye contact. Even my mother, when she was finally able to take the train up to the hospital outside Paris—I had by that point already recovered from my first of three surgeries—held her hands out in front of my face, fingers hovering a few centimeters above but never actually touching the flesh, as if I were a pan she was testing the temperature of, and, afraid of getting burned, or perhaps fearful that my deformities could be contagious, might spread and infect her like a disease, she ripped her hands away and buried her face in my chest, crying and thanking the Lord for at least sparing her son’s life, for saving her petit chouchou.

“Please let me know if I’m hurting you,” the sculptor said. I told her I would, but the sculptor’s touch was light, her fingertips pleasantly callused. She tilted my head up, traced the large scar that ran down my chin and neck. When she came to my nose, I recoiled but quickly apologized and promised her that it didn’t hurt. There wasn’t much left past the bridge; all of the cartilage had been blown clean off. The doctors had done their best to construct some semblance of a tip, but it was much higher than before and lacked any nuance in shape.

“Can you breathe through it at all?”

“Very little.”

“Alright, that’s good to know for the plaster.”

“Are you going to do it today?”

“No, you will come in next week for the casting session. Bring a photograph of yourself from before the war if you can. It helps tremendously. Once the plaster cast is made, I will begin on the mask. You will need to come in for a few sessions after that, so I can accurately match your skin color and texture. I cannot promise perfection, but I am certain you will be happy with the result.” She stopped her assessment and cupped my face in both hands. “It’s a miracle you have two working eyes. And that you can speak so clearly. I think we will do very nicely, you and I.”

*****

When I arrived home, a letter from Mignonette was waiting for me. She was diligent about writing at least once a week, even as the weeks turned to months then into a year, and occasionally she would send a telegraph if someone was sick or to say she was coming to visit me in the city. On those rare trips she would only travel with my mother and would not bring Marie or Frédérick.

The letter was brief. She decided, if it was alright with me, to enroll Marie in school in the fall. In Paris? I wondered, but she did not say. She was learning a lot around Mignonette’s parents’ farm in Lyon and having lots of fun helping Pépere feed the chickens every morning, though she stays away from the goats after one bit her dress and wouldn’t let go.

Mignonette never wanted to move back to the countryside, she had no interest in farm life. The three of them had left Paris during the war, to ensure the children’s safety and continue Frédérick’s education, but she insisted on returning to our apartment as soon as possible. She also demanded to come to the hospital immediately, but I told her to wait until all my surgeries were completed, stupidly hoping that by some miracle of either faith or science I would emerge on the other side as the man she loved. They would not allow mirrors in our ward of the hospital, but even in my ignorance, and with the sincere encouragement of the doctors that my wounds had greatly improved, I still knew better than to let her see me like this, even after the second surgery. Even after the third.

Finally she insisted on coming back to the apartment, after I had been released from the hospital for the last time. We lived together for a time, the four of us trying to act out our parts as the family we once were. But poor Marie, she was still so little. Her fear was immediate. She couldn’t comprehend this stranger living in her house, wearing her father’s clothes, reaching over to cut up her carrots. At the very best, she would hide behind her mother’s legs, shake her head no if I came near, peering at me with eyes of icy stone. At the very worst point, she had night terrors; she would wake up screaming that a monster had taken Papa away. Frédérick himself was brave. He tried his best to treat me as he normally would, but there was a stilted quality to our conversations, a forced air of cheeriness. One night Mignonette told me some boys at school threatened to cut his face, so he could become a gueule cassé like his father, and a week later they were headed back to Lyon.

There was also a letter from Frédérick included, his handwriting having already improved since the last time he wrote. He told me about school, what they were learning that week. Literature was his favorite, he had always loved to read and have his mother and I tell him stories, but he was beginning to like mathematics as well. When he gets his report card, he said, he will make his mother send it to me so I can see how well he is doing. My breath caught on the last line of his letter, a lump rising in my throat: I miss you, Papa. Mother says we will come home soon. I hope she is right.

*****

“Ready?” the sculptor asked.

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, the rubber tube in my mouth preventing me from saying much more.

The plaster was cold and thick. The sculptor spread it over my forehead liberally, then my eyes, then my nose and mouth. She paused. “How are you feeling?”

“Alright so far.”

“That’s good, but I warn you, it’s going to feel worse once it dries. Try to stay relaxed.” She made me put my feet up and placed a pillow behind my neck. Then I heard her wander off to another part of the studio, leaving me alone under the plaster. It was beginning to tighten, making my face feel frozen, as if I were trapped in ice. Trying to remain calm, I thought of Mignonette. A moment that occurred a few nights before I left for training. I lay in bed as she sat at the vanity brushing her dark brown hair. She caught me staring and smiled. What are you looking at? Is there something on my face? she asked. I was just wondering, I replied, why do I get to be so lucky? She answered by running her finger down the length of my nose and giving it a light peck, the way she always said goodnight.

Panic spread inside me again. I tried to focus on my long, thin breaths through the tube, the rise of my chest. I’m still breathing, I assured myself. I can still breathe.

The blast had thrown me back down into the trench, knocking me unconscious and burying me under a quarter meter of dirt and rock and limbs. I woke up choking, gagging on the earth above me. I’m alive! I had yelled out then stopped, scared an enemy soldier might hear me. I listened for gunfire, shouts, footsteps. Everything was silent. I could hear my own blood pumping inside my head. Night must have fallen, I concluded, and I was alone in the trench. I would need to pull myself out now or wait until my troop came back in the morning to look for wounded. I had no sense of how deep I was buried. For all I knew, I was a thousand meters underground. I was already entombed in my own grave, so close to the Somme I thought I could hear it flowing.

My scream came out muffled from under the cast. I clawed at the plaster, chalk dust piling up under my fingernails. There was a hand on my shoulder, a voice telling me to hold still. I was hyperventilating, I knew this, but I could not stop. The sculptor scraped at the sides of the cast and pulled it off in one swift motion. Once freed I gasped and choked and swallowed in the air like water.

The sculptor made me sit and drink a cup of tea that was mostly gin. I had been shaking, shivering all over like an electrical current ran through me. “I hope I didn’t ruin the cast.”

“Oh no, it’ll work just fine.”

We sat in silence for a moment. Out of the studio’s windows I watched the city street bustling with folks weaving in and out of shops, carrying packages of bread and cheese and a roast for dinner. Children chased each other, were scooped up by their parents and placed on shoulders. A young couple sat reading on a bench. They stopped, looked up from their texts and smiled at each other. The woman leaned forward and kissed her lover on the nose. How peaceful they all seemed, every last one of them on that street, thinking what a beautiful day it was, thinking how miraculous it was to be walking in their city with the sun on their faces, to have come so close to capture and narrowly escaped, to no longer worry about rations and shortages and uncertainty. And I knew that if I had walked outside and joined them, if I lifted my face so that I too may feel the sun’s warmth on my skin, their perfect day would have been ruined.

*****

The sculptor let me hold the mask before putting it on. It was stark white and only half a face, encapsulating an entire nose down to the curve of the jaw. “It’s very light,” I noted. “What is it made out of?”

“Galvanized copper. I have applied a base layer of enamel, and now comes my favorite part. We get to make it come alive.”

I slipped the mask on with two wires that went around my ears. It was most secure, she told me, if I were able to wear glasses, hiding the edge of the mask in the process.

“Wait, I almost forgot.” The sculptor produced the photograph I had given her weeks before. A portrait of a young man in his military uniform, a slight smile on his lips. Mignonette had been there behind the camera, she was the one who insisted he get photographed before deployment. So I can kiss you goodnight, even when you’re away. Now that man was a ghost, a specter trapped inside a photograph forever.

The sculptor pinned the photograph to my lapel and began painting.

*****

For our last session together, I made sure to bring the money I owed along with a bouquet of lilies.

I chewed my nails as she finished mixing the paint, anxious to be done yet terrified of the result. If this didn’t work, if Mignonette still couldn’t come home…

“This won’t take long at all.” In our previous sessions she had spoken a lot, asking me questions about my life and recounting stories of her travels, but that day she didn’t say a word, eyebrows furrowed in an unbreakable concentration. Finally, she put down her brush, took a step back, and announced with a flourish, “Voilà! I think we have it!”

She carried out a large mirror and instructed me to close my eyes.

*****

The sun is beginning to melt into the Seine, so I finish off my beer and close my newspaper. Before I head home I pick up butter and fresh bread for dinner, and milk for our coffee tomorrow. I spy lemon tarts in the window, Marie’s favorite, and purchase a few as well. The woman at the counter places an extra carton of Chantilly cream in the bag and gives me a wink.

The apartment smells of rosemary and stewing onions. A creature emerges and grabs hold of my legs. “Papa! Papa!”

“Hello, my little Marie.” I pull her into my arms. She is wearing a crudely drawn paper mask of an orange cat. Her curly brown hair spills out the sides.

She meows at me. “No, Papa, not Marie. I am a cat. Meow.”

“She made that in school today,” Mignonette says from the kitchen threshold.

“And you did a wonderful job, mon petit chatte.”

Frédérick emerges and scoops his sister away, and off the two run, chasing and hissing at each other. Mignonette chides them to go wash up. She hands me a plate of food, then leans in, caresses my nose and gives it a gentle kiss.

Plate in hand, I climb out to the balcony, making sure to close the curtain behind me. The air has already cooled, the sun now fully set, but my city is illuminated in hundreds of electrical twinkling lights. Inside the three of them sit down to dinner, their silhouettes visible through the curtain. I remove my mask and close my eyes, feeling the wind caress my face, and somewhere nearby I can hear the Seine peacefully flowing.