Cobo Abe - The Woman in the Dunes

The woman's actions and her silence took on an unexpected and terrible meaning. He refused to believe it, yet in his heart he knew his worst fears had come true. The ladder had probably been removed with her knowledge, and doubtless with her full consent. Unmistakably she was an accomplice. Of course her posture had nothing to do with embarrassment; it was the posture of a sacrificial victim, of a criminal willing to accept any punishment. He had been lured by the beetle into a desert from which there was no escape — like some famished mouse.

He sprang up and, hurrying to the door, looked out again. The wind had risen. The sun was almost directly over the hole. Heat waves, glistening as if alive, rose from the burning sand. The sand cliff towered higher and higher above him; its omniscient face seemed to tell his muscles and bones the meaninglessness of resistance. The hot air penetrated his skin. The temperature began to rise higher.

As if he had gone mad, he began to yell — he did not know what, his words were without meaning. He simply shouted with all the strength of his voice, as though he could make the bad dream come to its senses, excuse itself for its blundering, and whisk him from the bottom of the hole. But his voice, unaccustomed to shouting, was fragile and wan. Moreover, his words were absorbed by the sand and blown by the wind, and there was no way of knowing how far they reached.

Suddenly a horrible sound interrupted him. As the woman had predicted the night before, the brow of sand on the north side had lost its moisture and collapsed. The whole house seemed to let out a soulful shriek, as if mortally wounded, and a gray blood began to drop down with a rustling sound from the new gap between the eaves and the wall. The man began to tremble, his mouth full of saliva. It was as if his own body had been crushed.

This entire nightmare could not be happening. It was too outlandish. Was it permissible to snare, exactly like a mouse or an insect, a man who had his certificate of medical insurance, someone who had paid his taxes, who was employed, and whose family records were in order? He could not believe it. Perhaps there was some mistake; it was bound to be a mistake. There was nothing to do but assume that it was a mistake.

First of all, there was no point at all in doing what they had done to him. He was not a horse or a cow; they could not force him to work against his will. Since he was useless as manpower, there was no sense in shutting him up within these walls of sand. It simply inflicted a dependent on the woman.

But somehow he was not sure. Looking at the sand wall that encircled him as if to strangle him, he was unpleasantly reminded of his miserable failure to scale it. He had simply floundered about. A feeling of impotence paralyzed his whole body. The village was already corroded by the sand, common everyday conventions were not observed; perhaps it had become a world apart. For that matter, if he wanted to be suspicious, there was plenty to be suspicious about. For example, if it was true that the kerosene cans and the shovel had been prepared especially for him, it was also true that the rope ladder had been removed without his knowing it. Furthermore, the fact that the woman had not offered a word of explanation, that she had silently accepted everything with a strange submissiveness, lent substance to the danger in the situation. The woman's remark the night before, intimating that his stay was to be a long one, had perhaps not been a mere slip of the tongue.

Then there was a small avalanche of sand.

Apprehensively, he returned to the hut. He went directly to the woman, who had remained crouching. He raised his left hand threateningly. His eyes glittered as he stood there agonizing. But halfway through the gesture, his arm, which he had raised with such purpose, suddenly collapsed. Perhaps he would feel better if he slapped the naked woman. But wouldn't this be just the part he was expected to play? She was waiting for it. Punishment inflicted, in other words, would mean that the crime had been paid for.

He turned his back on her, sank down on the ramp around the raised part of the floor, and cradled his head in his arms. Without raising his voice he began to groan. He tried to swallow the saliva that had gathered in his mouth, but it stuck in his throat and he gagged. The mucous lining of his throat had become hypersensitive to the presence of the sand; he would never get used to it no matter how long he stayed there. His saliva had become a brownish scum that oozed from the corners of his mouth. When he had finished spitting he could feel the harshness of the sand even more. He tried to dislodge it, running the tip of his tongue over the inside of his mouth and repeatedly spitting, but there was no end to it. His mouth was parched and hot, as if some inflammation had set in.

It was no use. Anyway, he would talk to the woman and try to get her to explain things more precisely. If the situation were clarified, perhaps he could decide on an attack. He could not be without a plan of action. Such a stupid situation was unbearable. But what would he do if she would not answer? That, indeed, would be the most ominous response of all. And there was ample possibility of it. Her stubborn silence! The way she seemed like a defenseless victim, crouching there with her knees drawn up under her!

The sight of her naked back was indecent and animal-like. She looked as though she could be flipped over just by bringing his hand up her crotch. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he caught his breath, ashamed. He had the feeling it would not be long before he would see himself as an executioner, torturing the woman, standing over her sand-spattered buttocks. Yes, eventually it would happen. And in that movement he would lose his right to speak.

Suddenly a piercing pain struck his belly. His bladder, apparently swollen to the breaking point, cried out for relief.

HE finished urinating and, stupefied with despair, remained standing as he was in the heavy air. There was no hope that things would be better as time went by. Yet he could not bring himself to go back into the house. When he left the woman's side he realized all the more how hazardous it was to be with her.

No, he thought, the problem was not she herself, but that crouching position. He had never seen anything quite so indecent. It was out of the question to go back in to her. In every way that position of hers was exceedingly dangerous.

Certain types of insects and spiders, when unexpectedly attacked, fall into a paralytic state, a kind of epileptic seizure… an airport whose control tower has been seized by lunatics… a fragmented picture. He wanted to believe that his own lack of movement had stopped all movement in the world, the way a hibernating frog abolishes winter.

As his thoughts ran on, the rays of the sun had become even more intense. He made a sudden bending movement as if to protect himself from the spear thrusts of light. Abruptly lowering his head, he grasped his shirt collar and pulled with all his might. The three top buttons flew off. Scraping away the sand that clung to his palms, he remembered once again the words of the woman the night before — to the effect that the sand was never dry but always moist enough to cause the gradual disintegration of anything it touched. When he had taken off his shirt, he loosened his belt and let the air circulate inside his trousers. But it was nothing to make such a fuss about. The unpleasant feeling left him as quickly as it had come. The moisture in the sand evidently lost its magical powers as soon as it came into contact with air.

At that instant it came to him that he had made a serious mistake. His interpretation of the woman's nakedness would seem to be too arbitrary. Though he could not rule out some secret wish on her part to seduce him, perhaps this nakedness was a very ordinary habit, made necessary by the life she led. After all, she did go to bed when it got light. Anyone is apt to perspire while asleep. Her nakedness was perfectly normal seeing that she had to sleep during the day and, what was more, in a bowl of burning sand. If he were in her position, he would certainly choose to be naked too if he could.