The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [40]
The man sat quietly on the ramp around the raised portion of the floor. He forced out some saliva and swallowed it. He repeated the action, and the saliva became glutinous like paste and stuck in his throat. Of course, he did not feel like sleeping, but his fatigued senses had become like wet paper. The landscape floated before him in dirty patches and lines. It was really a picture-puzzle landscape. There was a woman … there was sand … there was an empty water jar … there was a drooling wolf … there was a sun. And, somewhere, he knew not where, there must also be a storm center and lines of discontinuity. Where in God’s name should he start on this equation filled with unknowns?
The woman stood up and slowly walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
She mumbled something as if avoiding him, and he could hardly catch what she had said. But he understood her embarrassment. At length, from just beyond the board wall, came a quiet sound of urinating. Somehow everything seemed futile.
19
HOW true. Time cannot be spurred on like a horse. But it is not quite so slow as a pushcart. Gradually the morning temperature attained its usual intensity; his eyeballs and brain began to seethe; the heat pierced his innards; his lungs burned.
The moisture that the sand had absorbed during the night became vapor and was belched back into the atmosphere. The sand gave out a light which, through the refracted sunshine, made it seem like wet asphalt. Yet basically it remained the unadulterated 1/8 mm., drier than plain flour baked in a tin.
Soon came the first sand slide. It was a noise he was used to, one that had become a part of the daily routine, but involuntarily he and the woman exchanged glances. What would be the consequences of having let the sand go for a day? While he did not think they would be serious, he was still worried. But the woman turned her eyes away in silence. Her sulky look gave the impression that he could worry alone as he pleased. He’d be damned if he’d ask her any more. Just when the sand slide seemed to thin out to a thread, it widened again to the size of a belt; it repeated the process by fits and starts and at length quietly ceased.
It certainly did not seem serious enough to worry about. He heaved a sigh; the pulse pounded in his face, and he felt a burning sensation. The thought of the cheap saké, which he had tried not to think about until then, suddenly began to draw his nerves to a point, like a flame floating in darkness. Anything would be all right; he wanted to moisten his throat. If he let things go on as they were, the blood in his body would dwindle away. He knew full well that he was sowing the seeds of his suffering and that later he would regret it, but he could resist no longer. He took out the stopper, thrust the bottle to his lips, and drank. Yet his tongue, like a faithful watchdog surprised by an unexpected intruder, set up a howl. He choked. It was like sprinkling alcohol on a cut. Nonetheless, he could not control a desire for a second and even a third swallow. What horrible saké!
Since the woman was there he offered her some too. Of course, she declined. Her refusal was as exaggerated as if he were forcing her to take poison.
As he had feared, the alcohol in his stomach bounced to his head like a ping-pong ball, ringing like the buzz of a bee in his ears. His skin began to stiffen like pig’s hide. His blood was spoiling!… His blood was dying away!
“Can’t you do anything? It must be hard enough for you too. I loosened your ropes, so do something!”
“All right. But if I don’t get somebody from the village to bring water …”
“Well, why don’t you get them to?”
“I could … if we were just to start working.…”
“Don’t be funny! Where