«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.
7
He was awakened by a cock's crow, like the creaking of a rusty swing. It was a restless, hangnail awakening. He had the feeling that it was barely dawn, but the hands of his wrist watch had already turned to 11:16. So the color of the sunbeams was actually that of noon. It was gloomy here because he was at the bottom of a hole and the sun had not yet reached that far.
Quickly he jumped up. The sand that had accumulated on his face, head, and chest fell away with a rustling sound. Around his nose and lips sand was encrusted, hardened by perspiration. He scraped it off with the back of his hand and cautiously blinked his eyes. Tears welled up uncontrollably under his gritty, feverish eyelids. But the tears alone were not enough to wash away the sand that had become lodged in the moist corners of his eyes.
He started toward the container on the earthen floor for a little water. Suddenly he heard the breathing of the sleeping woman on the other side of the sunken hearth and looked over. He swallowed his breath, quite forgetting the aching of his eyelids.
She was stark naked.
She seemed to float like a blurred shadow before his tear-filled eyes. She lay face up on the matting, her whole body, except her head, exposed to view; she had placed her left hand lightly over her lower abdomen, which was smooth and full. The parts that one usually covered were completely bare, while the face, which anybody would show, was concealed under a towel. No doubt the towel was to protect her nose, mouth, and eyes from the sand, but the contrast seemed to make the naked body stand out even more.
The whole surface of her body was covered with a coat of fine sand, which hid the details and brought out the feminine lines; she seemed a statue gilded with sand. Suddenly a viscid saliva rose from under his tongue. But he could not possibly swallow it. Were he to swallow, the sand that had lodged between his lips and teeth would spread through his mouth. He turned toward the earthen floor and spat. Yet no matter how much he ejected he could not get rid of the gritty taste. No matter how he emptied his mouth the sand was still there. More sand seemed to issue constantly from between his teeth.