The Woman with No Mask

I would like to admit that back then I didn’t know myself as well as I do now. But I am very certain that I was not the type of man who’d chase women, however beautiful they were. It was not a conscious choice for me, it was just the way I was. I preferred to be single rather than pursuing a woman just because she had some physical attributes that were alluring to me. For me, the science of attraction was much more about how they thought and behaved, rather than how they looked. I did like the sight of a pretty face every now and then but, in my experience, most pretty women are uninteresting. Once a woman becomes self-aware of her looks, she remains only a shell of what she used to be and her true self gets suffocated by the burden of all the physical beauty.

I never broke that rule of never going out of my way to meet any women, except for that one time in my early 20s when I found a girl I could not get out of my mind. I was introduced to her at a party and it would be apt to say that I was unexpectedly smitten right away the first time my eyes moved towards her in that crowded get-together thrown by an old school friend of mine. Pardon me, for I don’t clearly remember her face. I think I would have remembered if she was ethereally beautiful or astonishingly ugly. You either remember the prettiest faces or the ugliest ones. Average-looking faces don’t leave a lasting impression, especially when it comes to me. Yes, it sounds contradictory but I was still confused about the notion of where the true beauty lies. Back then too though, as far as I could remember, I was never attracted to pretty faces but admiring something from a distance and making efforts to acquire it are two wholly different things. It was mostly the former one with me. So, my friend caught me gawking at that woman and brought me to her. As I inched closer to this fascinating woman, one thing that struck me about her was her smile, that otherworldly, confidently calm stern that took her facial beauty many notches higher. And then she never stopped smiling. She smiled when I extended my hand toward her and touched her smooth skin for the first time. She smiled while she was sitting all by herself when I was about to leave. As if that smile had created a protective aura around her, to keep away the malice and pettiness from her.

As I mentioned earlier, I am not exactly the type who becomes obsessed with a woman in the first meeting, no matter how gorgeous she looked. And this girl, let’s call her S, was not someone I could even describe as mildly attractive, let alone attractive enough for me to consider breaking my one rule and asking her out in the first encounter itself. But I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Her haunting presence distracted my mind space, like a pebble in the shoe. Later that evening I thought a lot about what was so different about her that she was stuck in my head and didn’t leave me alone for a second. Like a lightning bolt, I suddenly realized that her mask was transparent. I could clearly see her face and read her expression as if they were written on a plain white sheet in bold letters.

She was just sitting there, with a drink in her hand, and she stood apart from the rest of the crowd. She was unmasked, occupying space on a tall plastic chair while people around her strolled around wearing all sorts of designer masks. I had made it a habit to study masks since it helped me to choose the right mask for myself for the right occasions. Unbothered by the chaos surrounding her, not wanting to socialize or to pretend to like a conversation with random people like everybody else was, she was perpetually smiling, perhaps she remembered a joke someone told her or was she just smiling because it was her natural state of being? I couldn’t decipher. People would occasionally come to meet and greet her, and then they left. During most of the time that I observed her, nobody bothered her, and she bothered nobody. I kept observing her from a distance. I’m not going to lie; she seemed a little intimidating even though she donned the warmest smile on her face. And then, she disappeared from my life. While walking to my car from the party, I constantly thought of going back and making an effort to talk to her but I decided against it, because of my stupid rule. I wondered if she thought about me too in a similar way, but that was too far-fetched since I offered her nothing of sorts to even think of me later.

The next day, I contacted all my friends and asked about her. After this minor effort, I succeeded in earning a one-on-one meeting with her a few evenings later. It was quite surprising for me that she agreed to meet me almost immediately. When I enquired about the reasons for her fondness towards me from my friend who arranged the second meeting, she had no answer. We met in my favorite café, located right outside of my small town.

“What would you like?”, I asked her politely.

“Anything you think is the best here,” she replied even more politely, donning that wonderful smile that almost helps my memory draw an accurate outline of her face, almost.

I ordered two shots of whiskey and two cheese sandwiches.

“So, is there a special reason for you to ask around about me?”, she asked loudly sipping her drink.

“No. It will sound weird to you, or I might come across a stalker. It’s just that I couldn’t get you out of my head when I first met you that day at the party.”

“That’s why I’m asking you. What got you so interested in me in the first place? I’m pretty sure you know that I am married. When your friend called, I asked about you as well and learned that you aren’t really the ‘chasing married women’ type. So, I must be someone extraordinary.” She asked and smirked, staring into my eyes.

“Yeah. I don’t know how to put it to not make it sound awkward but I could see through your transparent mask, your real face, and your choice of mask intrigued me. I mean I have never seen many people having the guts to wear a transparent mask in public. Even I, no matter how much I want to, could never exhibit my real face to the world. I always need to have the mask on and I don’t think I will ever be able to get rid of that compulsion, however badly I want to.” I said and gulped down my drink in one go.

Her unremarkably small eyes gazed at me for a long time before she made a clicking sound from her teeth and giggled a little.

“You know, you are only the second person to notice that. Cheers to you.” She held her drink high. I clinked her glass with my empty one.

“So, what’s the story behind it?” I asked curiously.

“There ought to be a story every time?”

“Yeah. I mean there must be a time when you too owned a lot of masks and wore them separately on different occasions. I mean, isn’t it like mandatory ever since we are born? Overtime, it becomes an inseparable part of you. Especially when you meet new people, you ought to select the fanciest and costliest mask you own and everybody owns one for such occasions. Like, look at the mask I’m wearing right now. This is the best mask I own. It has been pulled out of my attic I don’t know how many years later. I haven’t really met any woman in a long time and was just busy with my career and everything and I thought it doesn’t matter. So, I just shuffled between the same two-three masks and wore them every day on repeat. And then, I met you! And for today, I wore this special mask to impress you. I couldn’t resist it. Everybody knows that it takes guts to even own a transparent mask, let alone don it proudly, especially in the presence of familiar strangers, like the people you meet at a party. So yes, pardon me if my curiosity comes across as too intrusive. But if you have no problem with it, I would certainly love to know the story behind your transparent mask.” I asked and took a deep nervous breath, wondering whether S was convinced to share her story or not.

The second whisky arrived on the table. S took a huge bite from her sandwich. After wiping her face off the crumbs, she looked at me and for the first time since I had known her, I saw her smile slowly fading into oblivion. I had become so used to that pious smirk that for a moment I wondered whether I was sitting in front of a different person.

She took her own sweet time to gather her thought and finally, she after 5 minutes or so, she began talking.

“So, a couple of years back I was in love with this man. The same way you couldn’t resist thinking about me, something similar happened to me when I saw him for the first time 3 years ago. He was about the same age as me and worked as a clerk at a middle-sized departmental store in my town. I was extraordinarily smitten by him but I couldn’t gather the courage to go up and talk to him. However, the urge to see him compelled me to visit the store more often. I hoped that he might notice me like you did, and would approach me himself or through a friend of his, like you, but he didn’t. Back then I used to be severely underconfident. I was quite positive that he was unaware of my existence.” She breathed silently and let out a timid burp, followed by a louder one.

“And then, it all changed for me. One day he walked up to me and whispered something inaudible in my ear. I mean, at first, I thought it was gibberish but now when I think about it, I think there was a pattern to whatever he mumbled in my ear that day, which almost sounded like a language I didn’t know. And I also remember getting instant goosebumps even though I didn’t know what he said. That night, in my sleep, I had the most beautiful dream about Atulya holding my hand and walking on a gorgeous pitch-black concrete road on a mountain trek and by the morning I was in love with him.” S said and went silent. Several new threads were opening in the conversation and I wondered whether the story was actually going somewhere or was she just missing a man she once loved and found in me a medium to channel her heartbreak. But most often the clues to our most erratic behaviors lie in such stories from the past, which takes a hold of our mind’s surface like a leech and keep sucking out the peace we have in the present. Her smile hadn’t returned and I knew this little anecdote from her past was sucking the pleasure out of her present.

I didn’t interrupt the silence despite being extremely impatient. Plus, whiskey was getting to my head and it was causing me an intense itch to just shake her up and ask her to get to point about the story behind her transparent mask. As if she read my mind, she continued without wasting any more time.

“So, the next day I woke up and pulled out the most beautiful mask that I owned. It never failed to work for me whenever I needed to impress someone and I had no reason to doubt that it won’t work this time around as well. I was somehow confident that he liked me and I was determined to express my feelings to him. I wore a gorgeous dress and walked straight into the store and looked around for him. But he wasn’t there. When I enquired, I discovered that he had quit his job last evening after I left. I asked for his address or a phone number, but the store manager denied having any whereabouts of the man. He told me that Atulya didn’t own a phone and one day he just showed up and was hired immediately, which had never happened in the history of that store, which I’m now certain was because he always knew how to wear the best mask for different occasions. All my life, I had never met a person like that. Anyway, although my restless infatuation with him was only a night old, I couldn’t get him out of my head. For days after that, I searched for him everywhere I could. My work and family life suffered a lot and I was fired from my job. It took me months to get out of my obsession with that strange handsome man and I eventually began building my life back bit by bit.” S sighed heavily and ordered another sandwich.

“Did you ever talk about him to anyone else?” I asked.

“No. I couldn’t. All my friends had no interest in my personal life. Even my family didn’t care much. In fact, I don’t even have a well-functioning real family, to begin with. My mother passed away when I was 12 and then it was me and my father and my younger sister. My father is in the army and has been away since I graduated high school. I am not very close to my sister even though we sleep on the same bed every night.”

“Okay. It must have been really suffocating for you to keep it all to yourself then.” I said empathically. I could relate to that feeling of having no one to share secrets with.

“Not really. Over time, I have discovered a way to express myself without being judged by another person. I would just lock my room from the inside and would collect all my masks into a big red box and stand in front of the mirror and just shout inaudibly with my naked face, covering my mouth from my hands to not let a peep cross the threshold of my room. When that Atulya incident happened, I rolled on my floor and cried my heart out to a point where it became hard for me to breathe. I realized the immense power tears hold and I had never felt more liberated. As you must also be aware, the design of these masks never allows space for tears. But once in a while, the mask should be uncovered and tears must flow, I learned. It helped me through immense grief and made me a better person in general.” I could see S’s eyes moistening up. I wanted to hold her right there but my mask didn’t allow me. I was supposed to maintain the facade of a manly emotional strength without coming across too weak. Even though I related to her feelings, I lacked the courage to throw away my mask.

“Did you meet Atulya again?”

S took another deep breath, wiped the tiny droplets of tears from her lashes and continued.

“Yes. It was last year. I was working at this new office and we were on a work trip to the mountains when I saw him for the second time. Up until that moment, he was slowly fading from consciousness as if the wine in the wine glass was slowly evaporating. But as soon as I saw him again, hiking up the mountain, I was glad that the glass would be full again but I wasn’t prepared to spend another two years waiting for it to evaporate. I am pretty certain that he saw me sitting a few feet from him as he walked toward me. I stood up and walked toward him as well and we met in the middle. But this time, he seemed different. He had no mask on and had a wide grin on his face. His beard and hair were all over the place and I could definitely see red patches in the whites of his eyes and yellow stains on his teeth. His quivering lips and moist eyes did something unfathomable. It struck me hard. I didn’t expect even in my wildest dreams that anybody could ever be without a mask anymore. I had forgotten what it felt like.”

“So, he smiled at me. It was a sorrowful smile as if it was forced. The clouds of confusion hovered over me as I felt nothing when I met him this time. Even when you meet strangers, you tend to feel something, even if just for a brisk moment, even if it’s just for passing judgment, you are conditioned to feel at least something. But meeting Atulya at that time, I felt absolutely nothing. I never thought human beings were capable of feeling so feelingless. I walked away, confused and I didn’t look back.”

“Did he try to stop you?”

“I don’t know. I just kept walking, without looking back.”

S demanded another whisky. It was brought to her.

“But..”, she continued. “That bothered me. The first time I met him, I cried because I had perhaps fallen in love with him. The second time, I cried because I hadn’t felt that hollow and so ‘out of love’ with him in the past two years. As if I wasn’t prepared to let go of that part of me as I had become too familiar with that feeling of wanting to see Atulya every waking moment, even though it was slowly losing its intensity. But meeting him on that trek, the glass was empty suddenly without a warning. I felt I was not myself and that something needed to be changed in me. So, the first thing I did after crying my heart out and rolling on my floor was throw away all the masks I owned. It was a gutsy move. Now, with the new transparent mask I built myself, my sister saw me the same way you are seeing me right now, and it’s the same way a random stranger walking on the road sees me. The pretense ended for me as if I had discovered a new purpose in my life. To live with this transparent mask took me some time to get used to. I felt like I was walking naked in the crowd and everybody could see and judge the brown curly pubes I have, the weird shape of my left breast, and the big burn scar on my stomach. But ever since I took this plunge, my life has been free of all the judgments as they stopped bothering me. Ironically, taking the designer mask off enabled me to create a shield around me which I thought was the purpose of the same designer masks. But my conditioning had betrayed me and I shall never go back to the same pattern of living.”

I listened to her calmly as I saw tears trickling down her eyes. I was prepared for the prying eyes of the crowd in designer masks sitting around her getting uncomfortable, but interestingly, nobody bothered. She had mastered the art of crying silently.

We didn’t realize that we had downed a lot of alcohol and it was becoming difficult for me at least to even stand up properly.

“Are you still in love with Atulya?”

“I don’t know. After a lot of ups and downs in my life, I finally found a man who liked me with my invisible mask. I never thought about Atulya after the day I wore this mask for the first time in public. I had become so used to the rejections that I wondered if I was destined to spend my entire life alone. But I was prepared for that too. I wasn’t going to go back to wearing designer masks again. You are the second person who has exhibited an interest in me other than my husband and this gives me hope that more people will learn to do it.”

I was on the verge of throwing up and downing all the whiskey but my mask hindered the flow of the vomit. I wondered if I could ever get enough drunk to just take off my mask and throw up to my heart’s extent.

“I can’t remember the last time I threw up. It feels so good to do that as if a weight has been lifted off your soul.”

“Yes. Farting feels the same.”

I chuckled at this wild remark. She stood up to leave.

“Last question.”

“Did you ever learn the meaning of the gibberish Atulya whispered in your ears?” I said, struggling to stand up.

“No. And it doesn’t matter now.” She told me and the smile returned to her average-looking face.

She left. We never crossed paths after that, but sometimes I halt the flow of my life and sit down with my mask off on the bank of a distant river somewhere, where no one could reach me and I think a lot about her and that mystery man who changed her life.

As I started my transparent mask-building business and became a successful businessman, my closets still have more masks than suits, which is still a must if one wishes to be rich and successful. But sometimes I wonder what Atulya must have said to S that made her fall in love with him in an instant and what was that about the second meeting that caused her to fall out of love with him.

I guess we would never know.