The Woman in the Dunes (3 page)

5

“HEY, there! We’ve brought a shovel and cans for the other one!”

A clear voice, considering that it came from a distance, broke the tension; perhaps they were using a megaphone. And then came the sound of something like tin containers striking against one another as they fell. The woman rose to answer.

He had the exasperating feeling that something underhanded was going on.

“What’s that? See, there’s somebody else after all.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” She twisted her body as if she had been tickled.

“But somebody just said ‘for the other one.’”

“Hmm. Well, they’re referring to you.”

“To me? Why mention me in connection with a shovel…?”

“Never mind. Don’t pay any attention. Really, they’re so nosy!”

“Was there some mistake?”

However, the woman didn’t answer this, and swinging around on her knees, she stepped down on the earthen floor.

“Pardon me, but are you still using the lamp?”

“Well, I uaven’t really finished with it Why? Do you need it out there?”

“No, this is work I’m used to.”

She put on a straw hat, of the kind used for gardening, and slipped out into the darkness.

Bending his head to one side, the man lit another cigarette. There was something definitely suspicious, he felt. He arose quietly and decided to peek behind the suspended matting. There was indeed a room, but no bed. In its place the sand had swept down in a gentle curve from beyond the wall. He shuddered involuntarily and stood rooted to the spot. This house was already half dead. Its insides were half eaten away by tentacles of ceaselessly flowing sand. Sand, which didn’t even have a form of its own—other than the mean 1/8-mm. diameter. Yet not a single thing could stand against this shapeless, destructive power. The very fact that it had no form was doubtless the highest manifestation of its strength, was it not?

But he returned to reality at once. Supposing this room could not be used. Where in heaven’s name did she intend to sleep? He could hear her coming and going beyond the board wall. The hands of his wrist watch pointed to 8:02. What could there be to do, he wondered, at such an hour?

He stepped down to the earthen floor in search of water. A red metallic film floated on the thimbleful of liquid remaining in the bottom of the water jar. But even that was better than enduring the sand in his mouth. When he had washed his face in the water and wiped the back of his neck, he felt considerably better.

A chilly draft was blowing along the dirt floor. Probably it was more bearable outside. He squeezed through the sliding door, which, stuck in the sand, no longer moved, and went out.

The breeze blowing down from the road had indeed become much cooler. The sound of what seemed to be the motor of a three-wheeled pickup truck came to him on the wind. And when he strained his ears he could hear a number of people. Moreover—was it his imagination?—he sensed greater animation than during the day. Or was it the sound of the sea? The sky was heavy with stars.

The woman turned when she saw the lamplight. Skillfully handling the shovel, she was scooping sand into a big kerosene can. Beyond her the wall of black sand soared precipitously up and seemed to be bending inward on them. It must have been up there that he had walked during the day in his search for insects. When two kerosene cans were full, the woman carried them, one in each hand, over to where he was. As she passed him she raised her eyes. “Sand,” she said in a nasal voice. She emptied the sand from the kerosene cans near the path in the back where the rope ladder hung. Then she wiped away the sweat with the end of a towel. The place was already piled high with the sand she had hauled over.

“I’m clearing away the sand.”

“You’ll never finish, no matter how long you work at it.”

The next time she passed, she poked him in the side with the end of a free finger. He almost let the lamp fall as he started up in surprise. Should he keep holding the lamp as he was, or should he put it on the ground and return the tickling? He hesitated, caught off guard by the unexpected choice he faced. He decided to keep the lamp in his hand, and with his face set in a grin, which he himself did not know the meaning of, he awkwardly and stiffly approached the woman, who had begun to shovel again. As he drew near, her shadow filled the whole surface of the sand wall.

“You shouldn’t do that, you know,” she said in a low, breathless voice, her back still toward him. “I have six cans to go until the lift basket comes.”

His expression hardened. It was unpleasant to have feelings that he had been at pains to check aroused to no purpose. Yet, in spite of himself something not to be denied was welling up in his veins. The sand which clung to his skin was seeping into his veins and, from the inside, undermining his resistance. “Well, shall I give you a hand?”

“Oh, that’s all right. It wouldn’t be right to have you do anything on the very first day.”

“On the first day? Don’t worry about such things. I’ll only be here tonight anyway.”

“Is that so?”

“I don’t lead a life of leisure, you know. Hand me the other shovel. Come on.”

“Excuse me, but your shovel is over there.” Indeed, under the eaves near the entrance a shovel and two kerosene cans with handles were lined up to the side. When they had said “for the other one,” it was most certainly these things that had been tossed down from the road above. The preparations were too good, and he had the feeling that they had guessed in advance what he would do. But how could they? He had not known himself. Anyway, he thought apprehensively, they had a pretty low opinion of him. The shaft of the shovel was made of a bumpy wood and had a dark sheen from handling. He had already lost his desire to lend a hand. “Oh! The lift basket is already at the neighbors’!”

She spoke animatedly, seeming not to have noticed his hesitation. Her voice was cheerful and contained a note of confidence that had not been there before. The human sounds that had been audible for some time were suddenly near at hand. A series of short, rhythmic shouts was repeated several times, followed by a period of low, continuous muttering interspersed with suppressed laughter, and then the shouts again. The rhythm of the work suddenly made him feel buoyant. In such a simple world it was probably quite normal to let a night’s guest use a shovel. And there would be something curious about holding back. With his heel he made a hollow in the sand, in which he placed the lamp so that it would not fall.

“I suppose it’s all right to dig any place, isn’t it?”

“Well… not just any place.”

“Then what about over here?”

“Yes, but try to dig right down from the cliff wall.”

“Is this the time for clearing away the sand at all the houses?”

“Yes. The sand is easier to work with at night because it’s damp. When the sand is dry,” she said, looking up toward the sky, “you never know when or where it will come crashing down.”

He peered up, and indeed a brow of sand, like drifted snow, bulged out from the lip of the cliff.

“But that’s dangerous, isn’t it?”

“It’s really quite safe,” she said in a laughing tone, different from her usual voice. “Look! The mist’s beginning to come in.”

“Mist?”

As she spoke the expanse of stars rapidly grew patchy and began to fade. A tangled filmy cloud swirled around fitfully where the wall of sand met the sky.

“You see, it’s because the sand soaks up a lot of fog. When salty sand is full of fog, it gets hard like starch.”

“I can’t believe it!”

“Oh, yes, it’s true. When the tide along the beach goes down, even big tanks can drive over the sand with no trouble.”

“Amazing!”

“It’s quite true. So that part that sticks out there gets bigger every night On days when the wind comes from a bad direction, the sand comes down like today, on the umbrella. In the afternoon, when it’s good and dry, it comes crashing down all at once. And it’s the end if it falls in the wrong place… where the pillars are weak.”

Her topics of conversation were restricted. Yet once she entered her own sphere she suddenly took on a new animation. This might also be the way to her heart. He was not particularly interested in what she had to say, but her words had a warmth in them that made him think of the body concealed beneath the coarse work trousers.

Then, with all his strength, he repeatedly thrust the dented cutting edge of his shovel into the sand at his feet.

6

WHEN he had finished carrying the kerosene cans over the second time, he heard the sound of voices, and on the road above a hand lamp flickered.

The woman spoke rather sharply.

“It’s the lift basket. I’ve already finished over here. Give me some help over there, will you?” For the first time he grasped the meaning of the sandbags that lay buried at the top of the ladder: by running the ropes around them, the baskets could be raised and lowered. Four men managed each basket, and there were two or three groups in all. For the most part, they appeared to be young men who worked briskly and efficiently. By the time the basket of one group was full, the next group was already waiting to take over. In six hauls, the sand which had been piled up was completely leveled off.

“Those fellows are amazing!”

His tone was friendly as he wiped away the sweat with his shirt sleeve. The young men, who uttered not a word of ridicule at his helping with the sand, appeared to devote themselves energetically to their work. He felt well disposed toward them.

“Yes. In our village we really follow the motto ‘Love Your Home.’”

“What sort of love is that?”

“It’s the love you have for where you live.”

“Great!”

He laughed, and she laughed with him. But she did not seem to understand the reason for her laughter herself.

From afar came the sound of a three-wheeled truck starting up.

“Well now, shall we take a rest?”

“Oh, no. When they finish with one round they come right back again with the basket.”

“Oh, let it go. The rest can wait until tomorrow and…”

He arose unconcerned and began walking toward the earthen floor, but she showed no signs of coming along with him.

“You can’t do things that way! We’ve got to work at least once all around the house.”

“What do you mean, ‘all around’?”

“Well, we can’t let the house be smashed, can we? The sand comes down from all sides.”

“But it’ll take until morning to do that.”

As though challenged, she turned abruptly and hurried off. She apparently intended to return to the base of the cliff and continue her work. Quite like the behavior of the beetle, he thought.

Now that he understood this, he certainly wouldn’t be taken in again.

“I’m dumfounded! Is it like this every night?”

“The sand never stops. The baskets and the three-wheeler keep going the whole night through.”

“I suppose they do.” And indeed they did. The sand never stopped falling. The man was completely at a loss. He was bewildered, rather as if he had casually stepped on the tail of a snake that he had thought to be small but had turned out to be surprisingly large; by the time he had realized this, its head was already threatening him from behind.

“But this means you exist only for the purpose of clearing away the sand, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but we just can’t sneak away at night, you know.”

He was more and more upset. He had no intention of becoming involved in such a life.

“Yes, you can. It would be simple, wouldn’t it? You can do anything if you want to.”

“No, that wouldn’t be right at all.” She spoke casually, breathing in rhythm with her shoveling. “The village keeps going because we never let up clearing away the sand like this. If we stopped, in ten days the village would be completely buried. Next it will be the neighbor’s turn in back. See, there.”

“Very praiseworthy, I’m sure. And do the basket gangs work so hard for the same reason?”

“Well, they do get some pay from the town.”

“If they have that much money, why don’t they build a more permanent hedge of trees against the sand?”

“It seems to be much cheaper to do it this way… when you figure the costs.”

“This way? Is this really a way?” Suddenly a feeling of anger welled up in him. He was angry at the things that bound the woman… and at the woman who let herself be bound. “Why must you cling so to such a village? I really don’t understand. This sand is not a trifling matter. You’re greatly mistaken if you think you can set yourself up against it with such methods. It’s preposterous! Absurd! I give up. I really give up. I have absolutely no sympathy for you.”

Tossing the shovel on the kerosene cans which had been left out, he abruptly returned to the room, ignoring the expression on the woman’s face.

He spent a sleepless night, turning and tossing. He pricked up his ears, sensing the woman’s presence. He felt somewhat guilty. Taking such a stand in front of her was actually an expression of jealousy at what bound her; and was it not also a desire that she should put aside her work and come secretly to his bed? Actually, his strong feelings were apparently not simply anger at female stupidity. There was something more unfathomable. His mattress was getting damper and damper, and the sand more and more clammy to his skin. It was all too unreasonable, too eerie. There was no need to blame himself for having thrown the shovel aside and come in. He did not have to take that much responsibility. Besides, the obligations he had to assume were already more than enough. In fact; his involvement with sand and his insect collecting were, after all, simply ways to escape, however temporarily, from his obligations and the inactivity of his life. No matter how he tried, he could not sleep. The sound of the woman’s movements continued without interruption. Again and again the sound of the basket drew near, and then receded. If things went on this way he would be in no condition for tomorrow’s work. The next day he would get up at daybreak, he decided, and put the day to good use. The more he tried to sleep, the more wide awake he became. His eyes began to smart; his tears and his blinking seemed to be ineffective against the ceaselessly falling sand. He spread out a towel and wrapped it over his head. It was difficult to breathe, but it was better this way.

He tried thinking of something else. When he closed his eyes, a number of long lines, flowing like sighs, came floating toward him. They were ripples of sand moving over the dunes. The dunes were probably burned onto his retina because he had been gazing steadily at them for some twelve hours. The same sand currents had swallowed up and destroyed flourishing cities and great empires. They called it the “sabulation” of the Roman Empire, if he remembered rightly. And the village of something or other, which Omar Khayyam wrote of, with its tailors and butchers, its bazaars and roadways, entwined like the strands of a fish net. How many years of strife and petitioning had been necessary to change just one strand! The cities of antiquity, whose immobility no one doubted… Yet, after all, they too were unable to resist the law of the flowing 1/8-mm. sands.

Sand…

Things with form were empty when placed beside sand. The only certain factor was its movement; sand was the antithesis of all form. However, beyond the thin wall of boards the woman continued shoveling as usual. What in heaven’s name could she hope to accomplish with her frail arms? It was like trying to build a house in the sea by brushing the water aside. You floated a ship on water in accordance with the properties of water.

With that thought he was suddenly released from the compulsive feeling of oppression that, in some strange manner, the sound of the woman’s shoveling exerted on him. If a ship floated on water, then it would also float on sand. If they could get free from the concept of stationary houses, they wouldn’t have to waste energy fighting the sands. A ship—a house—which flowed along, borne up by the sand… shapeless towns and cities.

Sand, of course, was not a liquid. There was no reason, therefore, to expect it to be buoyant. If one were to toss something on it with a lesser specific gravity, say a cork stopper, and leave it there, even the cork would sink. A boat that would float on sand would have to possess much different qualities. It could be a house shaped like a barrel, for example, which would pitch and toss. Even if it heaved over a little, it would shed whatever sand had fallen on it and rise at once to the surface. Of course, people would not be able to endure the instability of a house that kept revolving all the time. There would have to be a double-barrel arrangement on an axis, so that the bottom of the inner barrel would always have a fixed point of gravity. The inner one would remain steady; only the outer one would turn. A house which would move like the pendulum of a great clock… a cradle house… a desert ship… Villages and towns in constant movement composed of groupings of these ships… Without being aware of it, he dropped off to sleep.