Cobo Abe - The Woman in the Dunes

«Help!»

The stock expression! Well, let it be a stock expression. What was the use of individuality when one was on the point of death? He wanted to go on living under any circumstances, even if his life had no more individuality than a pea in a pod. Soon he would be up to his chest, to his chin, to his nose… Stop! This was enough!

«Help! Please! I'll promise anything! Please! Help! Please!»

At last he began to weep. At first his sobbing remained under control, but soon it changed to unrestrained bawling.

He submitted to his fear with the horrible feeling that all was lost. There was no one to see him, it made no difference. It was too unfair that all this was actually happening without any of the formalities being observed. When a condemned criminal died, he at least left a record. He would yell as much as he wanted. Since no one was there to see… he might as well… And so, when voices called to him suddenly from behind, his surprise was all the more shattering. He was completely defeated. Even his feeling of shame vanished like the shriveled ash of a dragonfly's wing.

«Hey, there! Take hold of this!»

A long piece of board slid down to him and hit his side. A circle of light cut through the darkness and fell on the board. He twisted the disabled upper part of his body, entreating the men he felt were behind him.

«Pull me up with this rope, won't you?…»

«No, no. We can't pull you out as if you were a root.» A laughing voice broke out behind him. He could not be sure, but there seemed to be four or five of them.

«Just hold on a little longer; we've sent for a shovel. Just put your elbows on that piece of wood and you'll be all right.»

He placed his elbows as he was told and cradled his head in his arms. His hair was soaked with perspiration. He felt no particular emotion except that he wanted to have done with this shameful situation as quickly as possible.

«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 chiefs 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.

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 himself to the still-living victim. Then it began to circle again, dragging its now motionless booty with it. It seemed to be smacking its lips in anticipation of the juicy meal.

He had not known there were spiders like this. How clever to use the lamp in place of a web. In a web it could only wait passively, but with the lamp it could engage its prey. However, a suitable light was the prerequisite of the method. It was impossible to get such a light naturally. It would not do to look for a forest fire or wander about under the moon. Could this be a new species of spider, then, that had developed its instincts by evolving with man? It wasn't a bad hypothesis. But, in that case, how could you explain the attraction of a moth for light? A moth is different from a spider, and lamplight can hardly be thought of as useful in maintaining the species. And yet the point was the same: both phenomena had come about after man-made lights had come into being. The fact that moths did not all go flying off to the moon was irrefutable proof of it. It would be understandable if this were the habit of only one species of moth. But since it was common to moths of about ten thousand varieties, he could only assume that it was an immutable law. This crazy, blind beating of wings caused by man-made light… this irrational connection between spiders, moths, and light. If a law appeared without reason, like this, what could one believe in?

He closed his eyes. Spots of light seemed to float before him. When he tried to catch them, they suddenly swirled rapidly and escaped him. They were like the shadows of beetles left on the sand.

He was awakened by the woman's sobbing.

«What are you crying about?»

The woman stood up hastily, trying to hide her embarrassment.

«I'm sorry… I was just going to make you some tea…»

Her tearful voice puzzled him. Her back as she bent over, stirring the fire in the hearth, made her seem strangely jittery, and it was some time before he understood the meaning of it. He was slow, as if he were forcing his way through the musty pages of some book. Yet he was able to turn the pages. Suddenly he seemed so miserable that he was sorry for himself.