The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [37]
Between the instep and the back of the woman’s foot there was a conspicuous and disagreeable fold. Again, a nonsensical laugh welled up in him. Why was her foot that funny?
“If you want a cigarette I’ll give you a light, shall I?”
“No. Cigarettes make my throat dry,” she said in a faint voice, shaking her head.
“Well, then, shall I give you a drink of water?”
“I’m all right for the time being.”
“You don’t have to be polite. You know I didn’t subject you to this because of any personal dislike for you. You understand, don’t you, that strategically it was unavoidable? Your predicament seems to have softened the others up there a little.”
“They deliver cigarettes and saké once a week to places where men are working, anyway.”
“What do you mean they deliver?” He was a big black fly that thought it had taken flight when it was only bumping its head against the windowpane in its effort to get out. (The scientific name is Muscina stabulans.) Such flies have compound eyes with almost no power of sight. Without even trying to conceal his dismay, he shouted in a shrill voice: “But they don’t have to go to such trouble for us! Can’t they let us out to buy them ourselves?”
“But the work’s hard and we don’t have that much time. Besides, we’re working for the village, and it’s up to the village association to take care of the expenses.”
Well then, far from compromise, they were perhaps advising him to give up! No, it was much worse, he thought. He had doubtless already been entered in the register alongside many others as a mere cog in the working of their everyday life.
“Just to satisfy myself, I’d like to ask you a little question: Am I the first, up until now, to have had an experience like this?”
“No.… Anyway, we don’t have enough help. The ones who can work—like property owners, poor people, anybody—leave the village one after the other. Anyway, it’s a poor village. All there is is sand.…”
“Then what’s to become of it?” he said in a quiet voice that had taken on the protective coloring of sand. “There’s somebody else you caught besides me, isn’t there?”
“Yes, there is. It must have been in early autumn last year, I think … the postcard dealer.…”
“The postcard dealer?”
“The salesman or something from a company that makes postcards and other things for tourists came to visit the head of the local union. He told us that if we really advertised the beautiful scenery to people in the cities …”
“And you caught him?”
“A house on the same side as mine was having trouble with help at the time.”
“Well, what happened then?”
“They say he died soon afterward. I understand he wasn’t very strong to start with. Besides, it happened to be the typhoon season, and the work was extra hard.”
“Why didn’t he escape right away?”
The woman did not answer. Perhaps it was so self-evident that there was no need to. He hadn’t escaped because he couldn’t. That was probably all there was to it.
“Anyone else?”
“Yes. Some time after the beginning of the year, let me see, there was a student going around selling books or something.”
“A peddler?”
“They were thin books, I remember, about ten yen, and they were against something.”
“Ah, a Back-to-the-Land student. You know. They used to go around the countryside whipping up support for their anti-American campaigns. Did you catch him too?”
“He must still be at my neighbor’s, three houses down.”
“And of course they took away the rope ladder?”
“The younger ones don’t settle down very well, that’s why. I suppose it’s because in town the pay is good, and then the movies, and restaurants, and stores are open every day.”
“But hasn’t a single one succeeded in escaping from here yet?”
“Well, yes. There was a young fellow who went to town and got into bad company.