Lila: A Novel

by Marilynne Robinson

  So she spent the next day at the river. She sat down on a rock and dropped a fishing line into the water. She had brought her tablet and pencil and her Bible. Ezekiel said: And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings thus: their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, they had the face of a man; and they four had the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four had also the face of an eagle. Doane would be saying, What did I tell you. But it made as much sense as anything else. No sense at all. If you think about a human face, it can be something you don’t want to look at, so sad or so hard or so kind. It can be something you want to hide, because it pretty well shows where you’ve been and what you can expect. And anybody at all can see it, but you can’t. It just floats there in front of you. It might as well be your soul, for all you can do to protect it. What isn’t strange, when you think about it.

  The shadows had moved and the bugs were beginning to bother, so she found a sunnier place. There were huckleberries. If she could only forget why she was there, she’d be fairly pleased with herself. One big old catfish would make it a good day. That letter was in the Bible. She tore it in half and put a rock on it, in a wet enough place that the ink would bleed. Dear Lila (if I may). She thought sometimes that if she decided to do it she could cut off her hand. There was a kind of peace in that. In one way, at least, she could trust herself, crazy or not. She might burn that sweater while she was cooking her catfish. She might burn the Bible, for that matter. Old Ezekiel would nestle down into the flames. He seemed to know all about them. The umbrella would fit in her suitcase, crosswise.

  She decided to go to church the next Sunday. If she came late and left early, if she sat in the last pew, he would never be near enough to speak to her or to pay her any notice. She wouldn’t mind seeing him one last time, standing there in the pulpit, in the window light, talking to those people about incarnation and resurrection and the rest. She’d hear a little singing. After that she would never step into a church again.

  When she came up the bank from the river, she saw him standing in the road, about halfway between her and that damn shack. So there she was, Bible in one hand, catfish jumping on a line in the other, barefoot, and he turned and saw her. He started walking toward her. She couldn’t think what else to do, so she waited where she was. He didn’t speak until he was close to her, and then he didn’t speak, still deciding what to say.

  He said, “I know you don’t like visitors, but I wanted to talk to you. I wasn’t actually coming to your house. But I hoped I might see you. I want to give you something. Of course you are under no obligation to accept it. It belonged to my mother.” He was holding it in his hand, a locket on a chain. “I should have found a box for it.” Then he said, “We spoke about marriage. I haven’t seen you since then. I don’t know if you meant what you said. I thought I’d ask. I understand if you’ve changed your mind. I’m old. An old man. I’m very much aware of that.” He shrugged. “But if we’re engaged, I want to give you something. And if we’re not, I want you to have it anyway.”

  “Well,” she said, “I got my hands full.”

  He laughed. “So you have! Let me take something. A Bible!”

  “I stole it. And don’t go looking at my tablet.”

  “Sorry. Ezekiel.” He laughed. “You are always surprising.”

  “I stole your sweater. Was that a surprise?”

  “Not really. But I was glad you wanted it.”

  “Why?”

  He said, “Well, you probably know why.”

  She felt her face warm. And the fish kept struggling, jumping against her leg. She said, “Damn catfish. Seems like you can never quite kill ’em dead. I’m going to just put it here in the weeds for a minute.” And there it was, flopping in the dust. She wiped her hand on her skirt. “I can take that chain now, whatever it is.”

  He said, “Excellent. I’m—grateful. You should put it on. It’s a little difficult to fasten. My mother always asked my father to do it for her.”

  Lila said, “Is that a fact,” and handed it back to him.

  He studied her for a moment, and then he said, “You’ll have to do something with your hair. If you could lift it up.” So she did, and he stepped behind her, and she felt the touch of his fingers at her neck, trembling, and the small weight of the locket falling into place. Then they stood there together in the road, in the chirping, rustling silence and the sound of the river.

  He said, “So. Are we getting married, or not?”

  And she said, “If you want to, it’s all right with me, I suppose. But I can’t see how it’s going to work.”

  He nodded. “There could be problems. I’ve thought about that. Quite a lot.”

  “What if it turns out I’m crazy? What if I got the law after me? All you know about me is what anybody can tell by looking. And nobody else ever wanted to marry me.”

  He shrugged. “I guess you don’t know me very well, either.”

  “It ain’t the same. Somebody like me might marry somebody like you just because you got a good house and winter’s coming. Just because she’s tired of the damn loneliness. Somebody like you got no reason at all to marry somebody like me.”

  He shrugged. “I was getting along with the damn loneliness well enough. I expected to continue with it the rest of my life. Then I saw you that morning. I saw your face.”

  “Don’t talk like that. I know about my face.”

  “I suspect you don’t. You don’t know how I see it. No matter. A person like you might not want the kind of life she would have with me. People around. It’s not a very private life, compared to what you’re used to. You’re sort of expected to be agreeable.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  He nodded. “They’re not going to fire me, whatever happens. I’ll have my good house, till they carry me out of it.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know that. I meant, if you’re not like most pastors’ wives, it won’t matter. I’ve been here my whole life. My father and then me. I won’t be here so much longer. No one will want to trouble me. Or you.” He said, “You have to understand, I have given this a great deal of thought. What an old country preacher might have to give to a young woman like you. Not the things a man her age could give her, a worldlier man. So I would be grateful for anything I could give you. Maybe comfort, or peace, or safety. For a while, at least. I am old.”

  She said, “You’re a pretty fine-looking man, old or not.”

  He laughed. “Well, thank you! Believe me, I would never have spoken to you this way if I didn’t think my health was reasonably sound. So far as I can tell.”

  “You wouldn’ta spoke to me like this if I hadn’t mentioned it all in the first place.”

  “That’s true. I’d have thought it would be foolish of me to imagine such a thing. Old as I am.”

  She thought, I could tell him I don’t want to be no preacher’s wife. It’s only the truth. I don’t want to live in some town where people know about me and think I’m like an orphan left on the church steps, waiting for somebody to show some kindness, so they taken me in. I don’t want to marry some silvery old man everybody thinks is God. I got St. Louis behind me, and tansy tea, and pretending I’m pretty. Wearing high-heel shoes. Wasn’t no good at that life, but I did try. I got shame like a habit, the only thing I feel except when I’m alone.

  She said, “I don’t think we better do this.”

  He nodded. His face reddened and he had to steady his voice. “I hope we will be able to talk from time to time. I always enjoy our conversations.”

  “I can’t marry you. I can’t even stand up in front of them people and get baptized. I hate it when they’re looking at me.”

  He glanced up, preacherly. “Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. I should have realized. I haven’t a
lways performed baptisms in the church. If there are special circumstances— All I would need is a basin of some sort. I could take water from the river.”

  “I can’t affirm nothing.”

  “Then I guess we’ll skip that part.”

  “I got a bucket. No basin.”

  “That will do fine.”

  “You wait here. I got to comb my hair.”

  He laughed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She changed into a cleaner blouse and combed and braided her hair and put on her shoes. She’d do this and think about it afterward. She went out on the stoop and picked up the bucket, which would be clean enough after a rinse. The old man was in the field picking sunflowers. She walked to the road. He brought her his bouquet. “I like flowers at a baptism,” he said. “Now we’ll fetch a little water.” There was a kind of haste in his cheerfulness. She had hurt him, and he couldn’t quite hide it. He took the bucket from her and helped her down the bank as if she hadn’t gone to the river for water a hundred times by herself, and he sank the bucket into a pool and brought it up, brimming, and poured half of it back. The crouching was a little stiff, and the standing, and he smiled at her—I am old. “I don’t need much at all,” he said. “A few waterskeeters won’t do any harm.” He was dressed in his preacher clothes, and he was careful of them, but he liked being by the river, she could tell. “What do you think? Up there in the sunshine or down here by the water?” Then he said, “Oh, I left the Bible lying on the grass. I could do it from memory. But I like to have a Bible, you know, the cloud of witnesses.” She didn’t know. “Since there aren’t any others.” She still didn’t know. No matter. He was glad to be doing this, and not just so he could put aside that talk they’d had. So it must mean something.

  She said, “I like the sunshine.” He helped her up the bank, and he found the Bible, and he opened it and read, “‘Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him … And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ These are the words of John, who baptized for the remission of sins, and who baptized Our Lord: ‘I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.’ The sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Dying in Christ we rise in Him, rejoicing in the sweetness of our hope. Lila Dahl, I—”

  “But that ain’t my name.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Nobody ever said.”

  “All right. It’s a good name. If I christen you with it, then it is your name.”

  “Christen?”

  “Baptize.”

  “All right.”

  “Lila Dahl, I baptize you—” His voice broke. “I baptize you in the name of the Father. And of the Son. And of the Holy Spirit.” Resting his hand three times on her hair. That was what made her cry. Just the touch of his hand. He watched her with surprise and tenderness, and she cried some more. He gave her his handkerchief. After a while he said, “When I was a boy, we used to come out along this road to pick black raspberries. I think I still know where to look for them.”

  She said, “I know where,” and the two of them walked across the meadow, through the daisies and sunflowers, through an ash grove and into another fallow field. There were brambles along the farther side, weighed down with berries. She said, “We don’t have nothing to put them in,” and he said, “I guess we’ll just have to eat them.” He picked one and gave it to her, as if she couldn’t do it for herself. He said, “We could put them in my handkerchief. I’ll hold it.”

  “You’ll get stains all over it.”

  He laughed. “Good.”

  She spread it across his open hands and filled them, and then she tied the corners together. Fragrance and purple bled through the cloth. He said, “I’ll carry it so it doesn’t stain your clothes, but it’s for you, if you want it. You can steal my handkerchief. If you want to remember. The day you became Lila Dahl.”

  She said, “Thanks. I figure I’ll remember anyway.”

  They walked up to the road. “Well,” he said. “It’s almost evening. And we forgot all about your catfish, didn’t we. And your Bible, and your tablet. I’ll help you gather them up. It might rain. And then I’ll be going.”

  “Wait,” she said. “I was wondering. Can you still get married to somebody you baptized?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “No law against it. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. Seems like I just want to rest my head—”

  He said, “I’d like that, too, Lila. But I think we made a decision.”

  “No. No.” She wasn’t crying. She couldn’t look at him. “I want this so damn bad. And I hate to want anything.”

  “‘This’?”

  “I want you to marry me! I wish I didn’t. It’s just a misery for me.”

  “For me, too, as it happens.”

  “I can’t trust you!”

  “I guess that’s why I can’t trust you.”

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s a fact. I don’t trust nobody. I can’t stay nowhere. I can’t get a minute of rest.”

  “Well, if that’s how it is, I guess you’d better put your head on my shoulder, after all.”

  She did. And he put his arms around her. She said, “The second you walk off down that road I’ll start telling myself you’re gone for good, and why wouldn’t you be, and I’ll start trying to hate you for it. I will hate you for it. I might even leave here entirely.”

  He said, “I expect I’ll be having a few sleepless nights myself. A few more, that is. I was thinking, if you moved into town we could sort of keep an eye on each other. Talk now and then. That should make things better. Boughton will marry us. I’ll talk to him about it. We’ll do it soon. To put an end to the worrying.”

  “But don’t you wonder why I don’t even know my own name?”

  “You’ll tell me sometime, if you feel like it.”

  “I worked in a whorehouse in St. Louis. A whorehouse. You probably don’t even know what that is. Oh! Why did I say that.” She stepped away from him, and he gathered her back and pressed her head against his shoulder.

  He said, “Lila Dahl, I just washed you in the waters of regeneration. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a newborn babe. And yes, I do know what a whorehouse is. Though not from personal experience. You’re making sure you can trust me, which is wise. Much better for both of us.”

  “I done other things.”

  “I get the idea.” He stroked her hair, and her cheek. Then he said, “I really better go home. If I find a place for you, will you move into town? Yes? And I’ll talk to Boughton. Promise you won’t be out here trying to hate me. If that’s something you can promise.” He went off and came back with her Bible and tablet and that muddy catfish, which he had dropped into the bucket, along with the bouquet of sunflowers. He said, “With a catfish you just never know.” He looked at her. “Sleep well,” he said gently, like benediction, as if he meant grace and peace. So now she was going to marry this old preacher. She couldn’t see any way around it that would not shock all the sweetness right out of him.

  * * *

  The hotel belonged to an old friend of Boughton’s, and Lila had a room there free of charge. Such a dead little town, half the rooms were empty. Reverend Ames came by most nights for supper on the veranda under the big ceiling fans, bringing Boughton along often enough. Mrs. Graham brought clothes, from the Boughtons’ attic, she said. He had four daughters. They were very good quality clothes, they might as well get some use. The mothball smell will air out. Lila hated the hotel, the drapes and sofas and the great big pink and purple flowers on the wallpaper and the rugs. Dressing nice for the evening.

  Sometimes she woul
d walk out to that farm to help, to sweat and get her hands dirty. So she could sleep at night. They might give her a little money, depending. But she was back before supper and washed up before the old men came. And smelling like mothballs. She learned about propriety without anybody ever telling her there was a word for it. “He’s very protective of you,” Mrs. Graham said, which meant she sat next to him but not close to him, that he touched her elbow but did not take her hand. That she was about as lonely as she had ever been.

  On her way to the farm she might look in on the shack. Nobody there but the mice and the spiders. She’d sit on the stoop and light a cigarette. Her money was still in the jar under the loose plank. She’d stuffed that handkerchief into it, too, because it reminded her of a wound and trying to blot it up or bind it. The field was turning brown and the milkweed pods were dry and prying themselves open. Everything in that shack she had not hidden was gone, every useless thing. He had come there and gathered it all up, she was sure, to save it for her. Some visiting Boughton had brought him out there in his father’s car, no doubt, since the odds and ends, the pot and bucket and bedroll and suitcase and the rest, would be far too much to carry. So much that she would have left it behind when the winter drove her out. Maybe the Boughtons helped take her things to the car. She hated to think they had been there. If he had asked, she’d have said don’t do it, so he didn’t ask. She never thought of emptying the shack, even though the winter would ruin whatever was left in it. If a farmer decided to plant the field, he would probably knock it down or burn it. Still, she had thought of it as hers. Her things had been her claim on it. The money wasn’t safe—only the Reverend would not think to look under a loose board—but it was hers while it was there. Her knife was gone. What did the old man think about that knife? Why did she wonder? Everybody needs a knife. Fish don’t clean themselves.