The Pagan City

A young matron went into a costumery on the High Street. Bells jingled on the door as she stepped in. An old man, deftly gluing beads onto a leopard mask, look up. “May I help you?”

“Yes, I need a costume for the Masquerade on the riverboat next week.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place.” He got up from his workbench and began showing her his latest designs: emerald-crusted elephants, papier-mâché old men, gazelle goddess from another continent..

“Who do you want to be?”

She paused, fingering a fox mask cleverly contrived out our feathers.

“I want to be me. The real me.”

Frowning, the shopkeep asked her, “Are you sure you don’t want to be a tree nymph? I have these masks of elder, ash and oak.”

“No, I want a mask that shows the real me.”

“But what would that mask show? A young mother who is slightly embarrassed to be on a boat with other minor courtiers and mid-level bankers instead of at home with her children? A young lady who is bored with her life and half-heartedly imagines illicit love affairs under the stars but is too scared to do anything more than a mild flirt? A little girl who still hates mathematics and her teachers for making her do algebra? A teenager who envied her best friend in school for having larger breasts and thus more attention from the boys? A woman who undertips waiters in cafés, telling herself she needs the money for her two toddlers, who really uses the rest of her allowance from her husband to buy posh frocks? The old woman with wrinkles and age spots who looks like your mother, the old woman you see in the mirror every evening you apply your face creams? My, dear, how many masks do you wish to buy?”

Her hand, unconciously touching the string of freshwater pearls draped under her chin, slowly moved back to the feathery fox mask. “How much is this one?”

“Twenty.”

“I’ll take it.”