The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [23]
Suddenly the flow of sand grew violent. There was a muffled sound and then a pressure against his chest. He tried to look up to see what was happening, but he no longer had any sense of direction. He was only dimly aware of a faint milky light playing over him as he lay doubled up in the black splotch of his vomit.
11
“Jabu, jabu, jabu, jabu
What sound is that?
It’s the sound of the bell.
“Jabu, jabu, jabu, jabu
What voice is that?
It’s the voice of the devil.”
THE woman sang as if murmuring to herself, tirelessly repeating the same verses as she scooped the slime from the water jar.
When the song stopped, the sound of rice being ground came to his ears. He sighed gently, rolled over, and waited, his body tight with expectancy. Soon the woman brought a washbasin filled with water, probably to sponge off his body. His skin, which was puffy from sand and perspiration, was becoming inflamed. He lay there anticipating the cool, damp towel.
He had been in bed ever since he had fainted in the sand. For the first two days he had had a fever of around a hundred and had vomited constantly. But on the following day the fever had dropped and he had partially recovered his appetite. The basic cause was probably not the injury he had received in the sand avalanche, but the unaccustomed exertion he had kept up for so long, exposed to the direct rays of the sun. Anyway, in the long run, it hadn’t amounted to much.
That was probably why he recovered so quickly. On the fourth day the pain in his legs and loins had almost gone away. On the fifth, except for a certain heaviness, no more symptoms were apparent. Nevertheless, he stayed in bed, giving an outward show of being seriously ill; but of course there was motive and calculation in this. Naturally, he had not for a moment abandoned his plans for escape.
“Are you awake?”
She was calling to him timidly. Out of the corner of his half-closed eyes he noticed the roundness of her knee through her work trousers. He answered her with a wordless groan. Slowly squeezing out the towel in the dented brass washbasin, she asked: “How do you feel?”
“Well … a little better.…”
“Do you want me to wipe your back?”
He did not particularly mind abandoning himself to the woman’s hands since he had the excuse of being sick. He remembered vaguely that he had read a poem about a feverish child who had dreamt he was enveloped in cool, silver paper. His sand-clogged skin was suddenly cool and fresh again. The odor of the woman slipped over his quickened body, subtly stimulating him.
Even so, he could not completely forgive her. This feeling for her was one thing, but what she had done was another, and he had to distinguish between them, at least for the time being. His three-day holiday had already gone by. It was no use struggling any more. The failure of his first plan to level off the sand slope by breaking down the cliff was due to lack of preparation as much as anything. It would have worked well if not for the sunstroke. But the labor of digging out the sand had been more exhausting than he had imagined. He had to adopt a more workable method, and thus he had hit upon this feigned illness.
When he had recovered his senses, he had been somewhat displeased to realize that he had been put to bed in the woman’s house. The villagers apparently had no intention of showing him any sympathy. He understood this, but he had his own idea. They had underestimated his condition and had not called a doctor. He would make them really sorry. He would sleep soundly during the night while the woman was working, and conversely, during the day, when she had to rest, he would disturb her sleep by exaggerated complaints of pain.
“Does it hurt?”
“Of course it hurts. My spine must be dislocated some place.”
“Shall I massage it?”
“My God, no! I couldn’t stand being fumbled with by an amateur. Spinal nerves are vital. What would you do if I died? You’d be the ones in trouble, wouldn’t you? Call a doctor. A doctor!