The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [38]
“I’m not asking about such people. I’m asking about those who don’t come back once they’ve escaped!”
“It was a long time ago, but there was a whole family that managed to get out during the night, I remember. The house was vacant for a long time and got to be dangerous and beyond repair. It’s really dangerous. If any one place along the dunes gives way, then it’s like a dike with a hole in it.”
“You mean there was nobody after that?”
“No. Not a one, I think.”
“Absurd!” The blood vessels under his ears swelled, and his throat tightened.
The woman suddenly doubled up like a wasp laying eggs.
“What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”
“Yes. Oh, these things hurt.”
He felt the back of her hands, which had become discolored. He slipped his fingers through the cords that bound her and felt her pulse.
“You feel that, don’t you? The pulse is strong. It doesn’t seem to be serious. Sorry, but I’d like to have you tell your complaints to the ones in the village who are responsible for this.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but would you just scratch the place on my neck behind my ear?”
Taken by surprise, he could not refuse. There was a thick layer of perspiration like melted butter between her skin and the layer of sand. It felt as though he had put his nails on a peach.
“I’m really sorry. But honestly there hasn’t been a single person to get out yet.”
Suddenly the outline of the doorway became a faint, colorless line and floated away. It was the moon … a fragment of wan light like the wings of an ant. As his eyes became accustomed to it, the whole bottom of the sand bowl turned into a lustrous liquid that had the texture of new foliage.
“All right, then! I’ll be the first to get out!”
18
IT was hard to wait. Time was folded in endless, deep, bellows-like pleats. If he did not pause at each fold he could not go ahead. And in every fold there were all kind of suspicions, each clutching its own weapon. It took a terrible effort to go ahead, disputing or ignoring these doubts or casting them aside.
Finally, after he had waited the whole night through, dawn came. The morning, pressing its face, like the belly of a snail, against the windowpane, was laughing at him.
“Excuse me, but may I have some water?”
He must have fallen into a light sleep. His shirt and his trousers down to the backs of his knees were soaked with perspiration. The sand, clinging to the perspiration, was like a soggy wheat cake in texture and color. Since he had forgotten to cover his face, his nose and mouth were as dry as a winter paddy field.
“I’m sorry, but please … can I …?”
The woman’s whole body trembled under a cover of hardened sand, and she emitted a dry sound as if she had a fever. Her suffering was transmitted directly to him as if they had been connected by electric wires. He took the plastic cover off the kettle and jammed the spout into his mouth. He tried rinsing with the first mouthful, but it was impossible to clear his mouth with so little water. Only lumps of sand came out. Then, not caring, he let the sand run down his throat along with the water. It was as if he were drinking pebbles.
The water he drank poured out at once in perspiration. The skin on his back, around his chest, and on his sides down to his hips pained him as though a thin layer of it had been stripped away. Almost apologetically he pressed the spout of the kettle to the woman’s lips. She took it between her teeth and, without rinsing her mouth, gulped the water down, cooing like a pigeon. Three good swallows and the kettle was empty. For the first time an unforgiving, reproachful look appeared in her eyes as she stared fixedly at him from beneath her swollen eyelids. The empty kettle felt light, as if it were made of folded paper.
The man stepped down on the earthen floor, dusting the sand from his body in an attempt to relieve the disagreeable feeling. Should he try to wipe the woman