The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [47]
Frantic for water, he rummaged around in the vicinity of the sink for anything he could get his hands on. Of all chemical compounds water was the simplest one. It should not be impossible to find some somewhere … like a penny forgotten in a desk drawer. There! He smelled water. Without a doubt it was the smell of water. He hastily scraped some wet sand from the bottom of the water jar and stuffed his mouth full. A feeling of nausea welled up in him. He bent over, his stomach convulsed, and his tears began to flow as he vomited up a yellow gastric liquid.
The pain of his headache slipped down over his eyes like a leaden visor. Apparently passion was simply a short-cut to collapse. Suddenly he rose to his hands and knees, and like a dog began to dig in the sand of the earthen floor. When he had dug to the depth of his elbows, the sand was dark and moist. He thrust his face into it, pressed his burning forehead against it, inhaling it deeply. The oxygen and hydrogen might conceivably combine.
“Goddamn dirty hands!” he snapped, pressing his nails into the palms of his hands and turning toward the woman. “What in God’s name are you going to do? Isn’t there really any water any place?”
The woman spoke in a whisper, turning the upper part of her body away, and drawing her kimono over her naked thighs. “No. There’s not any.”
“Not any? Do you think you can let it go at that? This is a matter of life and death! You bitch! Do something! And make it quick. Please! See, I’m even saying please!”
“Well, if we just got down to work … in no time at all they’d …”
“All right. You win. I can’t help it. I give in.” In his heart he had not given in for a minute. But this was certainly no way to die … he was not a dried sardine, after all. Yet he would have made a fool of himself for anyone to see if only he could get hold of some water.
“I really give in. But it’s pretty bad to make us wait until the regular delivery. We can’t very well work when we’re this dried out, can we? Get in touch with them right away … please. Aren’t you thirsty too?”
“They’ll know the minute we begin to work. There’s always someone watching with binoculars from the fire tower.”
“The fire tower .. what fire tower?”
More than iron doors, more than walls, it is the tiny peephole that really makes the prisoner feel locked in. Distressed, the man hastily went back through his memories of the village.
He remembered the horizon of sand and sky. There was no place for a fire tower to be. Moreover, he could not believe that he and the woman could be seen from the outside while they could see no one from where they were.
“You’ll understand if you’ll take a look by the edge of the cliff out back.”
He meekly bent down and picked up the shovel. To worry about his self-respect after all that happened would be like ironing a grimy shirt. He went out as if driven.
The sand was burning like an empty pot over a fire. The glare took his breath away. The air that filled his nostrils smelled of soap. But with each step he was getting that much closer to water. When he stood under the cliff on the sea side and looked up, he could make out the top of a black tower about the size of the tip of his little finger. The thornlike projection was doubtless a lookout. Had he already been noticed? The lookout had doubtless been waiting gloatingly for this moment.
He turned toward the black thorn and, holding the shovel over his head, waved it furiously back and forth. He adjusted the angle of the blade so that it would reflect into the eyes of the watcher. A film of burning quicksilver spread over his eyes. Whatever was the woman doing? She had better come and help right away.
Suddenly a cool shadow fell over him like a damp handkerchief: a cloud had crossed above, like some fallen leaf driven before the wind into a corner of the sky. Damn it … if it would only rain he would not have to do this. He would hold out his