Cobo Abe - The Woman in the Dunes

He looked up nervously. In the fading light the fire tower seemed to be leaning unsteadily to one side. It was surprisingly slight and far away. But as the man in it would be watching him through binoculars, he couldn't count on the distance to be in his favor. He wondered if they had already spotted him. No, if they had, they would have instantly rung the alarm bell.

On a stormy night almost a half year ago, the woman had told him, a bulwark had given way in a hole located on the western outskirts of the village, and the house in it had been half buried. And then it had rained. The water-soaked sand had doubled in weight and crushed the house like a matchbox. Fortunately no one was injured, but the next morning the whole family had tried to run away. In less than five minutes after the alarm was sounded, they could hear the wailing of the old woman being led along the road in back. The family seemed to have had hereditary mental trouble, the woman had added in a convinced tone.

No he could not waste any time. He raised his head resolutely and looked around. Long shadows fell along the hollows and rises of the dunes. The landscape was bathed in a murky reddishness, and the wisps of wind-blown sand streaming out from the shadows were swallowed up one after the other by other shadows. Could he escape detection behind his screen of blowing sand? Looking back over his shoulder to check on the effect of the light reflection, he stared in amazement. The wind-blown sand was not alone responsible for the pall of milky smoke that lay over the landscape, shading the sinking sun with crayon strokes of color. All at once a shredded and shifting mist was steadily rising from the surface of the ground. If it was blown away in one place, it rose in another; swept clear here, it billowed up there. From his experience in the hole, he was well aware that the sand attracted moisture, but he had had no idea that there was this much. It looked like the scene of a fire after the firemen have gone. Of course, it was a thin mist, not very conspicuous in the reflected light, but a good camouflage, enough to conceal him from the eyes of the lookout.

He put on his shoes, which he had thrust into his belt, and stuck the coiled rope into his pocket. With the shears attached, it would be a useful weapon in an emergency. The direction of his flight was toward the west, which was shielded by the refracted light. His first need was to find a place to hide until the sun went down.

Well, let's get going. Keep your back down and run along where it's low. Don't lose your head now. Keep your eyes peeled and get a move on. There! There's a hollow to hide in over there! What was that suspicious noise? An unlucky sign? Maybe not… up, and get going. Not too much to the right. The cliff on the right was so low that he might be seen.

A path had been worn in a straight line from one hole to another by the night basket crews. The right side of the path was a smooth slope with a number of indentations. The rooftops of a second row of houses were barely visible.

They in turn were protected by the line of houses to the sea side. The walls of the holes all along there were low, and the brushwood fence built as protection against the sand seemed to be still of some avail. From the village side of the wall they could apparently go in and out as they pleased. When he raised his head a little he could see all the way to the center of the town. Roofs of tile, zinc, and thatch clustered in black splotches in the center of the undulating terrain, which opened out like a fan before him. There was a straggling grove of pine, and he could see something that looked like a pond. And just to protect this pitiful bit of geography, more than ten households on the sea side had to submit to a life of slavery.

The slave holes were now situated in a line on the left of the road. Here and there were branching paths made by the basket crews, and beyond, threadbare sandbags buried in the sand told where the holes were. It pained him just to look at them. In some places no rope ladders were looped around the bags, but more places had them than not. Not a few of the slaves, he supposed, and already lost all will to escape.

He could easily understand how it was possible to live such a life. There were kitchens, there were stoves with fires burning in them, there were apple crates, in place of desks, piled full of books, there were kitchens, there were sunken hearths, there were lamps, there were stoves with fires burning in them, there were torn shoji, there were sooty ceilings, there were kitchens, there were clocks that were running and clocks that weren't, there were blaring radios and broken radios, there were kitchens and stoves with fires in them… And in the midst of them all were scattered hundred-yen pieces, domestic animals, children, sex, promissory notes, adultery, incense burners, souvenir photos, and… It goes on, terrifyingly repetitive. One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.

Down, quick! No, it was nothing, just a crow. There was, alas, no chance of catching it and stuffing it, but such things no longer made any difference. The craving for decorations, medals, tattoos, came only when one dreamed unbelievable dreams.

At last he seemed to be coming to the outskirts of the village, and the road lay atop the ridge of sand dunes; the view opened out, and to his left he could see the sea. The wind carried the pungent taste of surf, and his ears and nostrils hummed like a spinning top. The towel he had tied around his neck snapped in the wind and struck his cheek; as he had expected, the mist here seemed to lack the strength to rise. The leaden sea was overlaid with an aluminum sheet, gathered into wrinkles like the skin on boiled milk. The sun, squeezed by clouds that resembled frogs' eggs, seemed to be stalling, unwilling to sink. The horizon was dotted with the motionless silhouettes of black ships, whose size and distance from him he was unable to guess.

Beyond were only the smooth sand dunes, undulating in countless ridges that stretched on to the promontory. Maybe it was dangerous to go on like this. Worried, he turned and looked behind him; fortunately, the fire tower was cut off from view by a slight rise in the sand. As he raised himself on his toes little by little, his eye was caught by a low-lying shack half buried in the slope immediately to his right. Because of the angle, it had not been visible in the shadows. To the leeward was a deep hollow that looked as if it had been scooped out with a spoon.

An ideal place to hide. The texture of the sand was as smooth as the underside of a shell, and there was not a sign of anyone's having been there. But what was he to do about his own footprints? He retraced his steps and found that beyond about thirty yeards they were already completely effaced. Even where he was standing they were caving in, transforming before his very eyes. The wind was good for something.

As he was about to go round to the back of the shack, something dark came slinking out from the inside. It was a reddish dog, thick-set like a pig. He must not frighten it. Go on, get away! But the dog showed no sign of retreating and stood rooted, its eyes fixed on him. One ear was torn, and its small unbecoming eyes made it seem all the more shifty. It sniffed at him. Would it take it into its head to bark? he wondered. Just let it try. He gripped the shears in his pocket. Let it make a sound and he would put a hole in its brains with these! The dog stared back at him defiantly, but in silence, not even growling. Was it a wild dog? It had a seedy, lusterless coat, and its muzzle was covered with scabs. They say it's a dangerous dog that doesn't bark. Damn! He should have brought some food. And speaking of food, he had forgotten to bring along his potassium cyanide. Oh well, let it go. The woman would probably never find where he had hidden it anyway. He held out his hand and gave a low whistle to see if he could get the dog's attention. For an answer, the dog curled its thin lips, which were the color of smoked herring, and bared its yellow sand-incrusted fangs. The brute certainly couldn't have much appetite for him, he mused. It had a beastly large throat, though. He had better manage to get him on the first try, but… Abruptly the dog looked away, his scruff went down, and he ambled lazily off as if nothing had happened. It had apparently given in to his unbending will. His mental power was not in bad shape if he could stare a wild dog down. He let himself slide into the hollow and lay as he was, against the slope. He was screened from the wind, and he gave a sigh of relief and contentment. The dog, staggering under the gusts, disappeared beyond the blowing sand. The fact that a wild dog had made the place its home was a guarantee that people did not come around. As long as the dog did not go tale-bearing to the office of the farm co-op, his safety here seemed assured. In spite of the sweat that began slowly and steadily to ooze out, he felt well. How quiet!.. Quite as if he were enveloped in gelatin. Although he was clutching a time bomb, set for moment X, it bothered him no more than the sound of the balance wheel of his alarm clock. His Mobius friend would have immediately analyzed the situation, so: — My friend, what you're doing is consoling yourself with the means of your escape and not keeping your eye on the goal.