The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [68]
“Say, there.… You’re lucky we followed you. This is a regular mush around here; even the dogs stay away. You really were in danger.… Lots of people have wandered in here without knowing it, and they’ve never come back. The place is a mountain cove; there’s a lot of drifting. In winter the snows blow over, and the sand over that, then the snow comes again. This has been going on for about a hundred years until it’s become like a pile of thin crackers. At least that’s what the old union chief’s second boy said, the one who went to school in town. It’s interesting, isn’t it? If you dig down to the bottom you may find something valuable.…”
Whatever was he telling him this for? He could stop talking so innocently any time, as if he didn’t know the truth! It would be better if he would just show his colors. Or he would at least prefer to be left alone with his own tattered resignation.
At length there was a commotion behind him. The shovel had evidently arrived. Three men wearing boards attached to the soles of their shoes clumsily began to shovel around him in a wide circle. They stripped the sand away in layers. His dreams, desperation, shame, concern with appearances—all were buried under the sand. And so, he was completely unmoved when their hands touched his shoulders. If they had ordered him to, he would have dropped his trousers and defecated before their very eyes. The sky had grown lighter, and it looked as though the moon would soon rise. How would the woman welcome him back? It really made no difference to him any more. Now, he was nothing more than a punching bag to be knocked around.
27
A ROPE was passed under his arms, and like a piece of baggage, he was again lowered into the hole. No one said a word; it was as if they were at an interment. The hole was deep and dark. The moonlight enveloped the dune landscape in a silken light, making the footprints and the ripples of sand stand out like pleated glass. But the hole, refusing a role in the scenery, was pitch-black. It didn’t particularly bother him. He was so exhausted that merely raising his head to look at the moon made him feel dizzy and nauseated.
The woman was a black splotch against the black. She walked with him as he went toward the bed, but for some reason he could not see her at all. No, it was not the woman alone; everything around him was blurred. Even after he had fallen onto the bed, in his mind he was still running with all his might over the sands. Even in his dreaming he continued to run. But his sleep was light. The memory remained of the distant barking of the dogs, and he could hear the coming and going of the baskets. He was aware that the woman had come back from her work once during the night for something to eat and that she had lit the lamp beside his pillow to eat by. He awoke completely when he got up for a drink of water. But still he did not have enough energy to go and help her.
Having nothing to do, he lit the lamp again and absent-mindedly smoked a cigarette; a fat but agile spider began to circle around the lamp. It would be natural for a moth, but it was strange that a spider should be drawn by light. He was on the point of burning it with his cigarette, but he suddenly held back. It continued to circle around, quite precisely, within a radius of seven to ten inches, like the second hand of a watch. Or perhaps it was not a simple phototropic spider. He was watching it expectantly when a moth with dark-gray wings, mottled with white and black crests, came fluttering along. Several times its enormous shadow was projected on the ceiling as it crashed against the lamp chimney; then it perched on the metal handle, motionless. It was a strange moth despite its vulgar appearance. He touched his cigarette to its body. Its nerve centers were destroyed, and he flicked the writhing insect into the path of the spider. At once the expected drama began. Instantly the spider leapt, fixing