I'm not sure that I do want umask:
 To clarify, the mode I need the files created with is unknown.
What I'm trying to do is to check the mode of a file that already exists, and then create other files that have the same mode (i.e., I don't know what mode the files need to be created with yet).
So my logic would possibly go something like:

1) get mode of file1;
2) create files file2, file3,..., fileN;
3) chmod files file2,..., fileN to the same mode as file1.
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If that makes any more sense...