She held a shapeless mass in front of his right eye, as if taking aim, checking the distances, then pressed down against his skin. In the past Piet Hoffmann had stayed for the entire process and knew how skillfully her hands had shaped new features for a new personality. He knew what it looked like when she built the tiny walls along the edges of the first cast, walls meant to hold the mixture she poured over it—plaster and a splash of regular dishwashing soap and something else he couldn’t remember the name of. A filling that solidified, and when she finally tore off the walls, she had her next cast, on which she built the pieces of the mask.

“Since I couldn’t use gelatin, which worked so well before, I went for silicone. Not perfect, I know, but the best I could do under the circumstances. The upside is that it can withstand heat much better, the downside is that it’s more likely to harden. So I experimented a little—mixed in a few other components. Now it should be more elastic and skin-like. We’ll just have to cross our fingers, Piet, and hope your skin takes to it.”

She asked him to close his eyes while she glued a tired-looking eyelid over his right eye. She poked at it, pulled at it—it stayed put, firmly. Then a hanging eyelid over his left eye, then the enlarged wings of his nose, and finally the much larger piece that stretched from the two bloated cheeks to an equally bloated chin.

“I knew your skin tone already, so I was able to do the color matching in the silicone itself. And now . . .”

She looked happy and relieved.

“. . . it’s perfect. The seams are barely visible, Piet! Whatever remains I can easily cover up.”

He reached for a hand mirror lying on the lower shelf of her cart.

She slapped his hand away, shook her head. He wasn’t supposed to see, yet.

“I know you don’t like dress shirts. But I managed to make it to H&M before they closed, and I picked up one for you. It’s an extra large, so there will be plenty of room for the stomach that matches that face.”

There was a plastic bag sitting on the floor, out of which she produced his new belly, which she hung around his neck and stabilized with a belt at his waist, a pair of gray dress pants, and a light-blue, summery, thin dress shirt with long sleeves.