Chapter 51
A Life Mask
About two weeks after Lily was discharged from the hospital, she returned to Eilat – and not alone. She brought with her a large, heavy can and asked me to help carry it to the studio.
“What’s in the can?” I asked.
“A surprise,” she said, like a keeper of secrets.
I set the can down in the studio’s storeroom. “It’s a special material,” she explained. “When you mix it with water, it becomes soft and pliable, and you can use it to take casts of hard surfaces – for example, to make sculptures.”
I was surprised. Until that day, Lily had never spoken about sculpture, nor shown any interest in it.
“I decided to take a sculpture course at the College of Art and Design,” she told me, “and to move into a fusion of three-dimensional art – painting and sculpture.”
“And what do you want to do with it?” I wondered. “Our apartment’s too small to turn into a sculpture gallery,” I teased in half-seriousness. Lily replied that she didn’t yet know.
On the way home, she seemed pensive and tired, so I decided not to bother her with questions about this new pursuit she had started. Once the apartment door shut behind us and the hugs and kisses were over, she said she wanted to make a “face cast.”
“Whose face?”
“My own,” she answered calmly.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Not at all – but you’ll have to help me.”
“Support you, or help you?”
“Both.”
I remembered how, on her previous return from Tel-Aviv, she’d told me about death masks – about their long history in art and their modern applications.
“You mean to make a death mask?” I asked uneasily.
“No – you don’t understand. I want to make a life mask,” she said, before I even realized the mistake I’d made in uttering the word death.
“Who does that? You told me about death masks, not life masks.”
“I will. Other people do it too, especially for famous figures.”
“What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing. I just want to do it, and that’s that. I’ve decided.” She pronounced it in her usual tone – one that left no room for further discussion. I gave in. I knew there was no point arguing. By now, I already knew that stubbornness was her middle name.
“So, tell me – are you ready to help me make the mask?” she asked one evening when I came home from work.
“I don’t want to – but I love you. I’ll help…” I surrendered to her request.
The weather that Saturday was beautiful – not too hot.
I thought we’d go down to Rafael Nelson’s beach to catch some sun, relax, and meet friends.
Lily enjoyed royal treatment at that beach, especially since Nelson had begun attending her classes.
Every time he saw her enter the village, he would come out to greet her and invite her – us – to join him at the central platform.
Lily always blushed at the nickname morati (“my teacher”), which he shouted there loudly and often.
That Saturday, though, she asked that we skip the beach and go straight to the studio in the morning. Once Lily set her sights on something, she never let go.
“Don’t think this will be simple to carry out,” she said as we opened the studio door. “I learned the technique at the College of Art and Design. Once the mixture is ready, I’ll breathe through straws while you apply the material over my face.”
“You want me to do what?” I was taken aback.
“You’ll apply the material on my face.”
“And how will you breathe? Are you crazy? The stuff will cover your nose and mouth.”
“I brought wide straws.”
“Straws?!” I was horrified. “You’ll choke! I’m not doing it!”
“I’ll practice first – and we’ll check.”
“You’ve lost your mind – with your damn stubbornness.” I shook the car keys in open impatience. “We’re going home!”
“If you want to leave, then leave. I’ll call Dan. He’ll help me for sure.” Lily dropped a bomb.
“What’s with you and this Dan?” I burst out.
“Nothing. If you won’t help, someone has to. I need help!” Lily came closer and hugged me. I stayed silent. She had me cornered. I knew that if I abandoned her, she’d call Dan, and he’d come. Why would I want that?
“What do you care? Help me – it could be interesting,” she said, touching parts of me she knew well – my curiosity, my creativity, and yes, even my jealousy, I admitted to myself.
“All right,” I muttered.
“So let’s start with an experiment.” Her eyes lit up.
Lily prepared a small batch of the material so we could figure out the timing – the mixing, the waiting for it to harden, and how to breathe with the straws.
“I’ll put two straws in my mouth, you spread the material over me, and we’ll see,” she instructed.
I did as she asked. Lily struggled to breathe and quickly removed the material from her face.
“Please, let’s stop here,” I pleaded, feeling the pressure drop from my throat into my chest. But she refused.
“That’s exactly the purpose of preliminary experiments,” she said with determination.
“Do you think you can last two minutes breathing through a straw?” I asked nervously.
This time, Lily put three straws in her mouth. Her breathing was indeed easier. She passed two minutes with no problem.
“Ready?” I asked. I knew we had to succeed in one go – otherwise she’d have to bring another can from the north, and we’d spend another Saturday in the studio instead of at Nelson’s.
I quickly mixed a large amount of the material with water. When it reached the right consistency, Lily lay down on the bare floor. Slowly and carefully, I spread the viscous substance over her face.
“Close your eyes, close your eyes,” I urged as I saw the mixture trickle down from her forehead toward her eyes.
“Don’t worry – it’s not poison.”
When the material covered her nose, I panicked.
What if she stopped breathing? What if she inhaled it?
It was too late to turn back. Lily put the three straws in her mouth and lay completely still.
Only her chest rose and fell, her breathing quickened – but her face remained utterly relaxed.
The silence in the room heightened the tension.
Without realizing it, I held my breath too, as if in solidarity with her – but failed to keep pace.
I knew I mustn’t utter a word, lest she react and we’d have to redo everything.
“Magnificent,” I told her three minutes later, as I peeled the elastic material – now hardened – off her face.
“Thank you.” She wiped the residue from her face and got up from the floor.
“You’ve no idea how happy I am,” she said, hugging and kissing me as if she’d just finished a hundred-meter sprint in first place.
“And now what?”
“Now we pour plaster into the mold.”
In this stage, she revealed great skill.
She used a wooden box filled with sand to support the rubber mold, and poured a generous amount of white plaster into it.
Lily separated the plaster from the rubber and gazed at her creation in disbelief – her life mask.
The bright white plaster, warm to the touch, seemed almost to breathe with life.
The joy that radiated from her response to the final result was absolute.
In the days that followed, Lily duplicated her life mask several times. Tirelessly, she created a whole series of images, photographs, paintings – and now, sculptures too…
I never imagined that the life mask that she’d shaped with her own hands would one day become her death mask.