Masks, veils & hidden faces

A whole apparatus of concealment runs through the book, from U.H.I.D.'s veil to videophony's hanging masks to the A.F.R.'s smiling disguises. Early on it attaches itself to the novel's central mystery of the hidden face: Madame Psychosis broadcasts hidden even from her own engineer, inviting listeners to "learn to love what's hidden inside," and the U.H.I.D. veil system develops the thesis that hiding can be its own kind of exposure. The image turns sinister where it fuses with the smiley face — the "smily-face-masked Sergeant at Arms," the "yellow empty smiling chewing face" of the A.F.R. raid — and it can also be tender or grotesque, from Poor Tony inside his father's "mask of disappointment" to the "smile so wide it hurts" worn as "a mask of acceptance." The veil chronology culminates in Joelle, whose veiled meeting-goer at the end frames Joelle's anonymous exit as her anonymous entrance, closing the arc where concealment finally becomes a form of self-possession rather than shame.