The Woman in the Dunes

by Kōbō Abe

  Suddenly he had the feeling that someone was near; he turned around. He had been unaware of the woman, who was standing in the doorway staring fixedly at him. He was understandably embarrassed and took a step back in confusion, glancing around as if in search of help. He raised his eyes, and there at the top of the east bank were three men, all in a row, looking down at him. They wore towels wrapped around their heads; as they were not visible from the mouth down, he could not be sure, but they seemed to be the old men of the day before. At once he straightened up, but just as suddenly he changed his mind and decided to ignore them and go on with his work. The fact that he was being watched spurred him on.

  The perspiration ran into his eyes and dripped from the end of his nose. Since there was no time to wipe it away, he just closed his eyes and shoveled. Under no condition must he rest his arms. When they saw his unflagging pace, they would realize, unless they were dim-wits, how despicable they were.

  He looked at his watch. He wiped it against his pants to remove the sand on its face; it was only 2:10. The same ten minutes after two as when he had looked before. He suddenly lost confidence in his pace. From a snail’s point of view the sun probably moves with the speed of a baseball. He changed his grip on the shovel, and turning back again to the wall, he set frantically to work.

  Suddenly the flow of sand grew violent. There was a muffled sound and then a pressure against his chest. He tried to look up to see what was happening, but he no longer had any sense of direction. He was only dimly aware of a faint milky light playing over him as he lay doubled up in the black splotch of his vomit.

  PART II

  11

  “Jabu, jabu, jabu, jabu What sound is that? It’s the sound of the bell.

  “Jabu, jabu, jabu, jabu What voice is that?

  It’s the voice of the devil.”

  THE woman sang as if murmuring to herself, tirelessly repeating the same verses as she scooped the slime from the water jar.

  When the song stopped, the sound of rice being ground came to his ears. He sighed gently, rolled over, and waited, his body tight with expectancy. Soon the woman brought a washbasin filled with water, probably to sponge off his body. His skin, which was puffy from sand and perspiration, was becoming inflamed. He lay there anticipating the cool, damp towel.

  He had been in bed ever since he had fainted in the sand. For the first two days he had had a fever of around a hundred and had vomited constantly. But on the following day the fever had dropped and he had partially recovered his appetite. The basic cause was probably not the injury he had received in the sand avalanche, but the unaccustomed exertion he had kept up for so long, exposed to the direct rays of the sun. Anyway, in the long run, it hadn’t amounted to much.

  That was probably why he recovered so quickly. On the fourth day the pain in his legs and loins had almost gone away. On the fifth, except for a certain heaviness, no more symptoms were apparent. Nevertheless, he stayed in bed, giving an outward show of being seriously ill; but of course there was motive and calculation in this. Naturally, he had not for a moment abandoned his plans for escape.

  “Are you awake?”

  She was calling to him timidly. Out of the corner of his half-closed eyes he noticed the roundness of her knee through her work trousers. He answered her with a wordless groan. Slowly squeezing out the towel in the dented brass washbasin, she asked: “How do you feel?”

  “Well… a little better…”

  “Do you want me to wipe your back?”

  He did not particularly mind abandoning himself to the woman’s hands since he had the excuse of being sick. He remembered vaguely that he had read a poem about a feverish child who had dreamt he was enveloped in cool, silver paper. His sand-clogged skin was suddenly cool and fresh again. The odor of the woman slipped over his quickened body, subtly stimulating him.

  Even so, he could not completely forgive her. This feeling for her was one thing, but what she had done was another, and he had to distinguish between them, at least for the time being. His three-day holiday had already gone by. It was no use struggling any more. The failure of his first plan to level off the sand slope by breaking down the cliff was due to lack of preparation as much as anything. It would have worked well if not for the sunstroke. But the labor of digging out the sand had been more exhausting than he had imagined. He had to adopt a more workable method, and thus he had hit upon this feigned illness.

  When he had recovered his senses, he had been somewhat displeased to realize that he had been put to bed in the woman’s house. The villagers apparently had no intention of showing him any sympathy. He understood this, but he had his own idea. They had underestimated his condition and had not called a doctor. He would make them really sorry. He would sleep soundly during the night while the woman was working, and conversely, during the day, when she had to rest, he would disturb her sleep by exaggerated complaints of pain.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Of course it hurts. My spine must be dislocated some place.”

  “Shall I massage it?”

  “My God, no! I couldn’t stand being fumbled with by an amateur. Spinal nerves are vital. What would you do if I died? You’d be the ones in trouble, wouldn’t you? Call a doctor. A doctor! Oh, it hurts. I can’t stand this pain. If you don’t hurry it’ll be too late!”

  The woman, unable to endure the strain of the situation, would soon be exhausted. Her capacity for work would drop, and even the safety of the building would be threatened. It would be a matter of no little importance for the village too. Far from having someone to help them work, they had got themselves a real stumbling block. If they did not get him out at once, the situation would get completely out of hand.

  But this scheme too did not go as smoothly as he had anticipated. Here the nights were busier than the days… the sounds of the shovel which he could hear through the walls… the woman’s breathing… the whistling and the cries of the men carrying the hoist baskets… the muffled roar of the three-wheeled truck, muted by the wind… the distant howling of dogs. The more he tried to sleep, the more nervous he became, and he would awaken completely.

  When he did not get enough sleep at night, he could not avoid napping during the day. But what was worse was knowing that, if this idea failed, there would always be some other way of escape; and he was somewhat impatient with the present situation. It had already been a week. It would be just about now that a request for investigation would be submitted. The first three days had been his regular vacation. But after that he would be absent without notice. His colleagues, who were usually very sensitive to what other people were about, would surely not let this go unheeded. Perhaps that very evening some busybody would appear and snoop around his boardinghouse. The plain room, smelly and close in the afternoon sun, would betray the absence of its owner. Perhaps the caller would be instinctively jealous of the lucky man who had been freed from this hole. The next day, malicious gossip would be whispered around to the accompaniment of frowns and raised eyebrows. That would be natural. Even he himself could not expect this eccentric vacation to have any other effect on his colleagues. Rarely will you meet anyone so jealous as a teacher. Year after year students tumble along like the waters of a river. They flow away, and only the teacher is left behind, like some deeply buried rock at the bottom of the current. Although he may tell others of his hopes, he doesn’t dream of them himself. He thinks of himself as worthless and either falls into masochistic loneliness or, failing that, ultimately becomes suspicious and pious, forever denouncing the eccentricities of others. He longs so much for freedom and action that he can only hate people. Was his disappearance accidental? No. If it had been an accident, there would have been some sort of news about him. Well, then, suicide? But that would have involved the police. And suicide would be impossible! Don’t overrate the foolish boy. Yes, indeed, he disappeared by his own choice; there’s no need to root around any more. But it’ll soon be almost a week. He really is a scaremonger. I really don’t kn
ow what he can be thinking of.

  It was doubtful whether they were sincerely worried, but at least their meddling curiosity was as overripe as an unpicked persimmon. Consequently, the next step would be for the headmaster to visit the police and inquire about forms for requesting an investigation. Behind his serious face he would completely dissimulate the pleasure that was welling up within him. “Full name: Niki Jumpei. Age: thirty-one. Height: five feet five inches. Weight: a hundred and forty pounds. Hair: slightly thin, worn straight back; no hair oil. Eyesight: right 20/30; left, 20/ 20. Color of skin: darkish. Features: long face, a slight cast to the eyes, snub nose, square jaws; no other special characteristics except for a conspicuous mole under the left ear. Blood type: AB. Speaks thickly with a stammer. Introverted, stubborn, but not especially inept socially. Clothing: perhaps dressed for entomological work. The full-face photograph attached above was taken two months ago.”

  Of course even the villagers must naturally have some countermeasure in mind, for they had dared involve themselves in such a mad venture. It would be easy to fool a couple of country policemen. They must have taken some precautions to prevent them from coming around on trifling matters. But this kind of smoke screen was necessary and effective only so long as he was healthy and able to stand the work of shoveling sand. It was not worth the risk of hiding a seriously sick person who had been laid up a week as he had. If they decided he was useless, it would be advisable for them to dispose of him at once before it became too troublesome. At this point, they could cook up a story. They might say that he had been seized by strange hallucinations caused by the shock of having fallen by himself into the hole, and this explanation would be far more acceptable than his own fantastic complaints that he had been trapped and imprisoned.

  Somewhere a cock crowed and a bull lowed shrilly. But in the sand hollow there was neither distance nor direction. The ordinary normal world was outside, where children played, kicking stones along the roadside, and where roosters proclaimed the end of night at the proper time. The colors of dawn were beginning to mingle with the fragrance of cooking rice.

  And the woman was ardently scrubbing him. After a rough wiping with a wet towel, she scoured him as if she were polishing window glass, twisting the towel tightly until it was like a piece of wood. In addition to the sounds of morning, the rhythmical sensation of the rubbing brought him little by little to an irresistible drowsiness.

  “By the way…” He stifled a yawn which seemed to be forcibly wrenched from within him. “It’s been such a long time… I would like to see a newspaper. What do you think…? Do you suppose there would be any way of getting one?”

  “Well… I’ll ask… later.”

  He realized very well that she was trying to show she was sincere. He was distinctly sensitive to her concern lest she hurt his feelings, which showed in the diffident tone of her voice. But it also irritated him profoundly. Would she really ask? Didn’t he have the right to read a newspaper if he liked? He pushed her hands away, railing against her, carried away by an impulse to upset the washbasin and its contents.

  But getting angry at this point would spoil things. A seriously ill person would hardly get so excited over a newspaper. Of course, he did want to see a paper. If there was no scenery to look at, it was only natural to want to see pictures of scenery at least. He had read in various books how landscape painting had developed in naturally spare country and how newspapers had come out of industrial areas where human relations were anonymous. Moreover, he might have the luck to find announcements of missing people; or, better yet, an article on his own disappearance might even grace a corner of the social columns. Of course, the villagers could not be expected to pass him willingly a newspaper which carried an article like that. In any case, patience was the most important thing now.

  Certainly, pretending to be ill was no fun. It was like holding a taut spring enclosed in your hand. You couldn’t stand it indefinitely. He could not let things go on as they were. He must really make them realize how responsible they were for him. He would see to it, starting this very day, that one way or another the woman would not get a wink of sleep!

  (Don’t sleep…! You mustn’t go to sleep!) He stretched and gave a long, drawn-out groan.

  12

  UNDER the umbrella that the woman had set up for him he sipped a tongue-burning soup containing bits of seaweed. A precipitate of sand remained in the bottom of the cup.

  His memory had completely stopped functioning. Then it had gotten confused with a long, oppressive dream. In the dream he was astride an old, used chopstick, floating down some unknown street. It was not bad on the chop-stick, rather like riding a scooter, but when he relaxed his attention he suddenly lost his buoyancy. The street was a dull red near at hand, and in the distance a hazy green. Something in the combination of colors disturbed him. At last he arrived at a long wooden building that looked like a barracks. The smell of cheap soap floated in the air. He mounted the stairs, hitching up his trousers, which seemed about to slip off, and came to an empty room containing only a long, narrow table. About ten men and women were seated around the table enthusiastically playing some game. The player in the center was dealing cards from a deck. At the end of the deal, the dealer suddenly gave him the last card and cried out. He took the card involuntarily and looked at it; it was not a card at all, but a letter. The letter had a strange, soft feel to it. When he exerted pressure with his fingers, blood came spurting up. He screamed out and awoke.

  His vision was obscured by a dingy, mistlike film. There was a crackling noise of dry paper as he moved his body. His face was covered with an open newspaper. Damn! He had fallen asleep again. A film of sand fell from the surface of the paper when he brushed it aside. From the quantity of sand it would seem that quite some time had gone by. The slant of the sun’s rays piercing through the cracks in the wall told him it was about noon. But what was that smell? he wondered. New ink? Impossible, he thought, yet he glanced at the date line. Wednesday, the sixteenth. It really was today’s paper! It was unbelievable, but it was true. Then the woman must have passed along his request.

  He propped himself up with an elbow on the mattress, which had become sodden and sticky with perspiration. All kinds of thoughts at once began to whirl around in his mind, and he tried in vain to follow the print on the long-awaited paper.

  Increased Agenda for the Joint Japan-America Committee?

  How in heaven’s name had the woman managed to get her hands on this paper? Could it be true that the villagers were beginning to feel they owed him something? Even so, judging from how things had gone till now, all contact with the outside ceased after breakfast. Did the woman have some special way of communicating with the outside that he did not yet know of? Or, failing that, did she herself get out and buy the paper? It must certainly be one or the other.

  Drastic Measures Against Traffic Jams

  But just a minute. Supposing the woman had gone out—it was inconceivable that she could have done it without the rope ladder. He didn’t know how she had managed it, but one thing was certain—a rope ladder had been used. A prisoner dreaming of escape was one thing, but how could the woman, a resident of the village, put up with losing her freedom of movement? The removal of the rope ladder must be a temporary measure to keep him imprisoned. If that were so, and if he could keep them off guard, someday the same opportunity would occur again.

  Ingredient in Onions Found Effective in Treatment of Radiation Injuries

  His strategy of pretended illness seemed to have produced an unexpected return. Everything comes in time to him who waits—they put it well in the old days. But somehow he did not react to the idea. Something in him was still unsatisfied. Perhaps it was the fault of that weird, terribly upsetting dream. He felt strangely uneasy about the dangerous letter. But was it dangerous? Whatever could it mean?

  However, there was no use worrying every time he dreamt something. In any event, he had to carry through what he had begun.

 
The woman was asleep beside the sill of the raised portion of the floor around the hearth. She was breathing gently and lay curled in a ball, holding her knees as she always did; she had thrown an unironed summer kimono over herself. After that first day she had stopped appearing naked before him, but under the summer kimono she was probably as bare as ever.

  He glanced quickly at the society page and the local columns. Of course, there was no article on his disappearance, no missing-person notice. But he had expected as much and so was not particularly discouraged. He quietly arose and stepped down on the earthen floor. He was wearing only baggy, half-length drawers made of synthetic silk, and the upper half of his body was completely bare. It was definitely the most comfortable way to be. Sand had accumulated around his waist where he had tied the drawstring and the skin there was inflamed and itchy.

  He stood in the doorway and looked up at the walls of sand. The light thrust into his eyes, and the surroundings began to burn yellow. There was not a sign of man or rope ladder: that seemed natural. He checked, nonetheless, just to make sure. There was not even a sign that the rope ladder had been let down. Of course, with a wind like this, it wouldn’t have taken five minutes for any trace to disappear. Just outside the doorway the surface of the sand was continually being turned under as though there were some current.

  He came back in and lay down. A fly was flitting about. It was a tiny light-pink fruit fly. Perhaps something was spoiling somewhere. After he had moistened his throat with water in the plastic-wrapped kettle by his pillow, he addressed the woman: “Would you mind getting up a minute?”

  She jumped up trembling, letting the summer kimono fall open to her waist. The veins stood out blue in the sagging, but still full, breasts. Flustered, she adjusted her kimono. There was a vague look in her eyes, and she did not seem fully awake yet. He hesitated. Should he question her now about the ladder? Should he raise his voice in anger? Or should he adopt a mild, inquiring tone, at the same time thanking her for the newspaper? If his goal were simply to prevent her from sleeping, then it would be best to go at it rather aggressively. He had missed the mark with his feigned illness, for his behavior was scarcely that of a man who had dislocated his spine. What he had to do was make them recognize that he was no longer of any use for work—at all events, get them to relax their vigilance. They had softened to the extent of giving him a newspaper; he had to break down their resistance even more.