masks, pt. ii

I always thought the conceit of a masquerade, that we are in some way disguising who we are, was absurd. Most people who know me could identify me from the shape of my chin, the color of my eyes, the way I smile or don't smile, my voice, the way I carry myself; at best, it protects us from being identified by strangers. It grants the illusion of anonymity, not anonymity itself. Or perhaps that's the point. Perhaps, so long as the masquerade continues, we have ensured that strangers will remain strangers, that when we stand unmasked in the cold light of morning no one will be look at us and ask "isn't that" or "didn't she". But when the moon is bright and the stars are out the dawn is a distant threat, a phantom to haunt our morning selves. Plenty of time to dance.

Without the benefit of masks, I can always tell you from your sister by the way you carry yourselves: she cannot hide her confidence, her defiance, no matter how she tries. Even when you're pretending that you are her, there's a tentativeness there, like you are afraid that your passing will disturb the tranquility of the world. You are, I have always felt, a creature of silence.

When I saw you, I was certain you were her. You thought it was the mask, I think, that my powers of perceiving you were diminished by your disguise--the way you smirked at me when I called you by her name, playfully chided me for paying so little attention. I wanted to protest, to tell you that I had paid attention to little else this evening, that your dress and your hair and the roses and the mask were so elegant, so beautiful, I could scarcely think about anything else. But I tripped over my tongue and you just laughed and I fell in love all over again.

You asked me to dance. I would have thought that was unthinkable, before, but here you had become someone else entirely. For my entire life until this moment I had been in perfect control of my life, but here you led and I followed, lost and dazed and happier than I had been in countless years. And as the festival wound down and we sat on the roof, we talked, or rather, you talked, and I did my best to listen when all I could think about is the way your lips moved, the way your voice sounded.

I think you were talking about masks. You said something like, "I'm so glad that we sometimes have this chance, to take off the masks and be who we really are." I was too enthralled and had had too much wine for the words to really take root then and there, but the seed was planted. And when dawn finally did come (I didn't realize I had even fallen asleep, but you were still there, your arms around me, watching the sun rise) you seemed different. I could no longer think of you as a tremulous creature hiding in the wake of your sister, and you could finally see through the air I projected of perfect calm and perfect control.

It seemed so wonderful at the time, to be privileged to this secret world. I had forgotten, momentarily, how dangerous the truth can be.