The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe Page B

bitten into her flesh, leaving freckled spots, which did not seem about to go away. The stiffness in her cheeks, which had become like the skin of dried fish, began to relax as she repeatedly moved her lower jaw. “You’ll soon be all right,” he said, picking up the towel by the tips of his fingers and throwing it toward the earthen floor. “It’s about time for them to have come to some decision. They’ll certainly bring the rope ladder pretty fast now. They’re the ones that are going to be in trouble if they let things go on as they are. And that’s the truth. There was no need at all for them to go to the trouble of trapping me if they didn’t have to.”
    The woman swallowed her sour spittle and moistened her lips.
    “But…” Her tongue did not seem to have regained its functioning. She spoke in a muffled voice as if she were holding an egg in her mouth. “Have the stars come out?”
    “The stars? Why the stars?”
    “Well, it’s just that if the stars aren’t out…”
    “What do you mean, if they’re not out?”
    But she was exhausted with this much talk and again sank into silence.
    “What’s wrong? You can’t stop in the middle of what you started to say! Are you going to tell my horoscope or something? Or is it a superstition in this part of the country? I suppose they don’t let the rope ladder down on starless nights. What about it? Eh? I can’t understand you if you don’t say anything. If you want to wait until the stars come out, it’s up to you. But what’ll you do if a strong wind comes up while you’re waiting? The last thing you’ll think of is stars!”
    “If the stars don’t come out by this time,” she said in a voice that sounded as if it had been squeezed out of a worn-out tube, “there won’t be a very strong wind.”
    “Why?”
    “If you can’t see the stars, it’s because there’s mist.”
    “What do you mean by saying such a thing when the wind is blowing as hard as it is?”
    “No. That’s the rush of the wind way up above.”
    He thought about this; it might well be as she said. The fact that the stars were obscured meant, after all, that the wind did not have the power to blow away the vapors in the atmosphere. There would probably not be much of a wind tonight. If that were the case, the villagers would probably not press things to a conclusion. What he had taken to be downright nonsense had turned out in fact to be a surprisingly logical answer.
    “Of course. But I’m not at all worried. If it’s their idea to hold out, it’ll be a battle of nerves. It’s six of one and in half a dozen of the other whether I wait a week, ten days, or even fifteen.”
    The woman curled her toes tightly inward. They looked like the suction cups of a suckfish. He laughed. And as he was laughing he became nauseated.
    Why in heaven’s name was he on tenterhooks like this? He was the one who was pressing on the enemy’s vulnerable spot, wasn’t he? Why couldn’t he observe things in a more self-possessed way? If and when he got back safely it would certainly be well worth while setting down this experience.
    —Well, Niki, I am amazed. At last you have decided to write something. It really was the experience that made you. A common earthworm won’t attain full growth if it’s not stimulated, they say.
    —Thanks. Actually I’ve got to think up some kind of title.
    —Hmm. What kind, I wonder? “The Devil of the Sands” or “The Terrors of an Ant Hell”?
    —They show a terrible taste for the bizarre. Don’t they give much too insincere an impression?
    —Do you think so?
    —It’s meaningless, no matter how intense the experience, to trace only the surface of the event. The heroes of this tragedy are the local boys, and if you don’t give some hint of the solution by describing them, your rare experience will be lost… Pew!
    —What is it?
    —Are they cleaning the sewers somewhere? Or maybe it’s some special chemical reaction between the garlic smell