The Chosen Mask

Anselm weighed grain at the river market, and on feast days he sat as judge. That spring a miller named Torv was found with a false measure. It was not the false measure that undid him, Anselm told his wife at supper. It was the clever way he wriggled out of it.

"A man who hides must wear a smile at his own table," he said. "His children breathe it like smoke. You will find that nearly every crooked grown man had a mother who hid things."

Ilse stood behind his chair, combing his thin hair with her fingers. Eleven winters ago she had sold her mother's ring to pay the healer when fever took him. She had told him it was a gift from an aunt, and he had believed it so gladly that she let it stand.

"Why do you say only the mother?" she asked.

He thought it a fair question and answered it well. The mother is the first room a child lives in, he said, and a crooked room makes a crooked child. He spoke for some time. She kept combing.

When he finished she said, "The feast is Saturday. Will you choose my mask?"

He was pleased to be asked. He had always liked choosing things for her. He picked a white one with a painted laughing mouth and held it up to the lamp.

"This one," he said. "You'll be the gayest woman there."

She tied it on and turned to him, and he laughed and said it suited her wonderfully. Behind the white face she was quiet for a long while.

On Saturday the mask hung on its nail by the door. The door itself stood open, and the lamp burned on the table. Anselm carried a full plate of supper to the empty chair and set it down.