The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

by Hustvedt, Siri

  She didn’t answer him. She looked into his face for a couple of seconds, then turned away. Hank was holding her right arm, then he grabbed her left arm and squeezed. Lily knew he wanted her attention, wanted her to look at him, to be sorry, but she wasn’t, and his tight grip on her made her feel stubborn, then indifferent. In response to his grip, she could feel herself go limp. I don’t care, she thought. Her head bobbed forward and her spine collapsed.

  “What the fuck?” Hank muttered.

  He clutched her upper arms harder to hold her up. If he let go, she knew she would fall. I don’t care, she thought again, and looked up at him with a dead expression. She knew what he saw when he looked at her: the face of an unruly schoolgirl who goes blank when scolded, and it gave her a sensation of defiant pleasure. I’m bad, she said to herself, and with that thought she smiled. Before she knew what she was doing, she was smiling like an idiot into Hank’s outraged face. He started to shake her. Lily’s head flew backward, then whipped forward again. She lost her footing and stumbled forward into Hank, who continued to shake her. His fury amazed Lily, and she heard herself cry out in surprise.

  Mr. Berman stood up. “That’s quite enough, Hank,” he said.

  The paternal command worked like magic. Hank’s hands flew off Lily. She scrambled to regain her footing, stood up and watched him glance at his raised hands as he turned to the door. His cheeks looked shiny, and Lily bit her lip. On the sidewalk Hank broke into a run before the screen door slammed behind him. The noise felt like a signal that the drama was over. Lily heard muttering, felt people staring at her and took a deep breath.

  “Are you all right, Lily?” Mr. Berman said.

  She avoided his gaze. “I’m fine.” She shrugged. Her cheeks and forehead burned. She pulled her order pad out of her pocket and pretended to read it.

  Bert walked up to Lily and put her arm around her. “Holy shit! What’s his problem? I thought you were going to come sailing over the baked goods any second!”

  Lily talked to Bert’s feet. “Forget about it. He was pushed.”

  Bert angled her head downward to meet Lily’s eyes. Lily lifted her head, looked at her friend and chewed her lip.

  “Listen to me, Lil’. Even if you said you were going to hack off his dick, chop it up in little pieces and eat it for supper, he doesn’t have the right to lay a hand on you. That’s the law. Got it?”

  Bert uttered these words in a voice so musical and tender, Lily had to smile.

  “Just so we understand each other,” Bert said. She moved her arm in feigned slow motion and pushed a fist gently into Lily’s shoulder.

  Thoughts of Hank came and went during the remainder of Lily’s shift. She remembered how old he had seemed in high school, a senior when she was a freshman, and how all the girls had wanted him, and then when he came home from the university last year and she saw him at Rick’s in his letter jacket, and he had asked her to dance, what had she felt, exactly? Flattered, she thought, and safe—after Peter. Peter was the college student she had met in the Courtland Arboretum when she was fifteen. He was twenty, and Lily still remembered the way his pale fingers clutched the book he carried around with him everywhere: Beyond Good and Evil. The title alone had excited her, and she remembered the conviction in his voice when he read to her about dancing and happiness and weak, sickly Christians, and how he kissed her in the damp grass and unbuttoned her shirt and talked about Nietzsche while he was doing it. Peter was thin and white, and Lily could see his naked body perfectly when she wanted to—a hairless boy’s body that smelled of soap and perspiration at the same time. He wrote poems that didn’t make sense to Lily, but she remembered there were lots of exclamation marks and ellipses. Her meetings with Peter had been a secret from everyone but Bert, who could keep all secrets. Eight times she had met Peter Lear in the woods of the arboretum. The ninth time he didn’t come. Lily had waited by the tree for an hour and then gone to his dorm room to find him. It was his roommate who talked to her. Phil knew about Lily, and he had sat her down on one of the narrow beds and told her he thought she looked like a good kid, and he didn’t want her to get hurt, but Peter had a serious girlfriend. He was with her at that very moment, and that he, Phil, didn’t approve of Pete’s exploitation of girls. That was the word he used—“exploitation.” He had gone on about it for what seemed like an hour, and Lily had listened until he stopped. “Are you done?” she had asked him. After he had said yes, she had left the room, walked down the hallway to the stairs and out the front door. She had cried as soon as she felt the air. The humiliation had lasted much longer than the sadness. What she remembered most was Phil’s enthusiasm when he talked to her, the gush of words that made his face hot. She could still see the freckles all over his face, his orange eyelashes, and how he kept looking at her bare legs while he talked. Afterward, Lily had invented speeches for him and for Peter, but she never had the opportunity to deliver them. A month later, Peter Lear graduated from Courtland College and went home to Chicago. During the following year, Lily had turned down every date and pushed away the boys at dances and parties. Kathy Finger had started the rumor that Lily was a lesbian, and she hadn’t shut up about it until Hank came along. Lily had only seen Hank on weekends and during his vacations from the University of Minnesota, and she realized now that it had suited her just fine. She had told herself it would be nice to have Hank around all the time, but instead she felt lousy. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that although she had wanted Hank, she hadn’t wanted him for the same reasons she had wanted Peter. She may have wanted Hank because of Peter. But the truth was that until she saw Edward Shapiro in the window, it was Peter Lear she imagined beside her at night. Peter was a physical memory—his delicate fingers between her thighs and his tongue in her ear.

  Around noon, Ida stuck her head through the screen door of the cafe and peeked around it. She gave Lily an extra-long look. She knows about me and Hank already, Lily thought, and pretended she didn’t see the midget clerk with the big hair. Stupid town, she said to herself, full of long noses sniffing for dirt and loose lips yakking about it once they’ve found it. Well, they sure as hell aren’t going to see that I give a damn one way or the other. When she left the Ideal Cafe half an hour later with eleven ninety-five in tips in her pocket, Lily straightened her back and lifted her chin and made a dignified exit for anybody who might have bothered to look.

  That afternoon, she wandered up and down Division Street for a couple of hours, looking in store windows and watching the kids who were hanging out on Bridge Square. She bought Don Giovanni on tape and a pair of pink underwear with lace around the legs, and when she walked out the door of Berman’s Apparel with the little bag in her hand, feeling relief that she hadn’t run into Mr. Berman, she paused, looked up at the clouds and realized she had decided to get unengaged from Hank Farmer.

  * * *

  At six o’clock, Lily walked into the Webster Police and Fire Department. From the driveway, she saw Hank’s head through the wide window over the dispatcher’s desk. She had no speech ready. The conversations she had invented earlier in the day had all sounded like people talking on Secret Storm or As the World Turns.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” Hank said.

  Lily seated herself on the long desk in front of the window and let her legs dangle.

  He looked at her evenly.

  “Well, here I am,” she said. Lily stared at her newly painted nails. A piece of hair fell across her cheek. She pushed it away.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  Lily avoided his eyes. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I know.” Lily looked through the glass window behind Hank at two uniformed officers who were drinking coffee. Lewis Van Son’s feet were propped up on the desk. Lily waved. Lewis nodded.

  “So,” Hank said. “Is there somebody else?”

  “Not really,” she said.

 
Hank sighed. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Lily looked Hank in the eyes. “It’s my fault, not yours.”

  “Okay,” he said. “And?”

  “I’m confused.”

  “About what?” His voice was aggressive. He leaned back in his chair, and it rolled with the motion.

  “Well,” Lily said. “I don’t know what I want.”

  Hank opened his mouth. The telephone rang. “Webster Police Department.” He used his official voice. “Yes, Mrs. Klatschwetter.” He listened, puckered his mouth and shifted in the chair. “Are your sure?” Hank rubbed his forehead. “Could you see clearly? Okay, I’ll send someone right away.” Hank recorded an address, repeating it aloud as he wrote. “Highway 19 to Old Dutch Road, left across the creek. Yes, they know the way. Uh-huh, bye.” Hank hung up and lifted his right hand to signal the officers.

  “What was that all about?” Lily said.

  “Rita Klatschwetter’s got trespassers again, or so she says. Last week it was some guy dragging trash across her field. Now it’s some guy with a body.”

  “A body? Jeez,” Lily said.

  Hank tapped his index finger on his temple. “They’ve never found a thing out there. She’s called in the sheriff, the highway patrol and us, and insists on giving me the address every time. As if we don’t know it by heart.”

  “That’s the big farm out by the Bodler place, right?”

  Hank nodded.

  Lewis walked through the door, winked obscenely at Hank and grabbed the piece of paper with the address on it. He glanced at it. “Not again,” he said.

  “This time it’s a corpse.”

  Lewis raised his eyebrows. “Right,” he said.

  Lily remembered the garage, saw her fingers disappear behind the thin fabric of the pocket under the suitcase lid. She closed her eyes for a second, opened them and watched Lewis leave the room. He waddled toward the door, the stiff cloth of his blue pants making a noise as his thighs scraped together. He’s really gotten chubby, Lily thought. Carrying a gun in Webster seemed to authorize fat but not violence. No officer in her memory had ever pulled a trigger, unless you counted the tranquilizer gun they shot that poor moose with in the Courtland Arboretum. A man from the Sheriff’s Department had driven the unconscious beast miles north so he could wake up at home. From behind her Lily felt the light change as the sun sank in the sky.

  Hank touched Lily’s hair. “Why are you doing this to me?” he said.

  Lily arched her back and felt her bra tighten under her arms. Hank laid a hand on her knee, but Lily didn’t uncross her legs. “Stop it,” she said.

  He leaned forward to kiss her. His lips parted. The handsome face looked too eager, too hungry.

  “Not here,” she said.

  “Come on, Lily.” She heard a whine in his voice and edged backward on the desk.

  “Forget it.” Hank’s pale brown eyebrows moved together for an instant, then he exhaled loudly.

  “You think that call could have something to do with Filthy Frank and Dirty Dick?”

  Hank made a face. “What?”

  “What Mrs. Klatschwetter saw?”

  “I don’t know.” Hank spoke quickly in an annoyed voice. “It could’ve been anybody, or better yet, nobody. What do you care?”

  Lily worded her answer carefully. “I went by there yesterday on my bike—”

  Hank cut her off. “By the Bodler place? What the hell were you doing out there? Were you alone?”

  “Of course I was alone.”

  “Lily, you shouldn’t go out there by yourself. Those dirt-bags aren’t normal. You know that. They almost killed Pastor Ingebretzen, or have you forgotten?”

  “That was years ago, Hank. People go out there all the time to look at the junk. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because they’re lecherous old coots, that’s why.” Hank massaged his left hand with his right.

  Lily covered her mouth to hide a smile. “Those funny old men? Come on.”

  Hank didn’t smile. “Dolores pays a weekly visit out there. Did you know that?”

  Lily shook her head. The woman came into the Ideal from time to time. She drank. Lily remembered overhearing Gary Hrbek telling three other guys that she charged five bucks a tumble.

  “Probably does them both at once.”

  Lily shifted her position and looked out the window into the dusk. “Who cares,” she said. “Everybody needs sex.”

  “That’s right,” Hank said.

  Lily turned to look at him. His face had fallen and his eyes were closed. She leaned forward and was about to embrace him when he opened his eyes and sneered, “You know who else she visits?”

  “No.” Lily edged further back on the desk until her head rested on the glass.

  “That guy in the Stuart, Shapiro, the one who taught at Courtland. Ida called the other day, screaming prostitution. She saw Dolores coming out of his room, stuffing bills into her bra. Ida ought to know we don’t bother with Dolores. It’s catch as catch can for her. But that guy?” Hank shook his head. “And I heard he had a great-looking wife, too, or used to anyway. It doesn’t add up.”

  Lily stared at Hank. “And you believe Ida, windbag of the century?”

  “And why not?”

  “Because she’s a one-woman gossip factory, that’s why. She churns out hot air faster than anyone can breathe it.”

  “And what’s your problem?” Hank squinted at her.

  Lily continued to look at him. She pressed her lips together as she paused. “It’s over, Hank,” she said. That’s what people said didn’t they? It’s over. It’s raining. It’s snowing. The weather has changed.

  “What?” His mouth opened. He lifted his hands.

  “I’m sorry, Hank.”

  “You’re sorry?” His chin bobbed in a series of shallow nods.

  The phone rang.

  “I’m going, Hank.”

  He held up a hand, a signal for her to wait. His face looked red.

  Lily pushed herself off the desk and stood up.

  “Webster Police Department.”

  She put her hand on the door and turned around. Hank’s hand was still in the air. He shook his fingers at her and mouthed the word “Wait.” “Yes, Mr. MacKensie, when did you notice it was missing?”

  He paused. “Color?” Hank put his fingers to his forehead.

  “No, Mr. MacKensie, not all yard deer are brown. We had a blue one stolen a few months ago. Right.”

  Lily walked through the door and down the driveway under the streetlight. She expected Hank to come after her, to call from the door, but he didn’t. This surprised her a little, and as she took a step from the pavement onto the sidewalk, her ankle buckled and sent a pain through her calf. For a few steps, she hobbled, but then it was all right.

  Rick’s was slow. Lily ordered a hamburger and a Coke at the bar and talked to Rolf, or rather Rolf talked to her. He was on the Jesse James Days Committee and gave her an earful of plans. “They want to change the name to ‘The Defeat of Jesse James Days.’”

  “Why?” Lily looked at her fingers through the glass. She moved them to examine the distortion behind the dark liquid.

  “They think it gives kids the wrong idea, turns Jesse James into a hero. I told them it was stupid. Doesn’t sound right: Defeat of Jesse James.” Rolf popped a cracker into his mouth. “I’m Frank in the reenactment this year. Plugged right here.” He pressed his index finger into his chest.

  “Yeah,” Lily said. “I’ve seen the postcard. Don’t you think it’s a little tacky to sell those photos of the dead gang members, Rolf? And at the Historical Society?”

  “Here’s Frank.” He pulled a bent postcard from his back pocket and slapped it down on the bar.

  Lily looked at the grainy black-and-white photograph of the dead Frank James. For some reason he wore no shirt. She guessed they had stripped the corpse for the picture to expose the bullet holes in his chest. His eyes were open.

  She shook her head. “Rem
ember when we used to play in the caves, Rolf?”

  Rolf leaned his elbows on the bar. “Old Jesse found one hell of a place to hide out. He must’ve known about those caves before the robbery. I’ll bet it was part of the gang’s plan.” Rolf gave himself a Missouri accent. “If it all goes to shit, Frank, I’ll meet ya in them caves outside of town.” Rolf smiled and looked Lily straight in the eye. “Remember the rope swing? That was a gas. Out and over the creek and back again. Daredevil Dahl, remember that?”

  “Are you kidding?” Lily said. “It’s my claim to fame.” Lily bit into her hamburger and chewed. “I wonder if you could get in there now?”

  “The Jesse James Caves?” Rolf shook his head. “After that boy died, they boarded them up.”

  Lily nodded. “What was his name again?”

  “Larry Lofti.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Larry Lofti.”

  * * *

  The following morning Lily spotted the wig in the Bodlers’ truck. She was watching the twins leave the cafe, and when Dick opened the door on the passenger side to climb up beside his brother, Lily noticed a dark shape on the seat. At first she thought it was a dead animal, but Dick slid his hand inside the hair, and she saw the tresses dangling down his arm. After he was seated, he laid the thing carefully on his lap and slammed the door shut.

  “Probably ripped it right off the head of some cancer victim,” Bert said when Lily mentioned it to her. “They watch the obituaries, those two, and whenever someone croaks, they come sniffing around to horn in on the pickings the relatives don’t want.” Bert paused. “Do you think it was real hair?”

  “I don’t know.” Lily hadn’t thought about it. The best wigs were real hair. She knew that, but on somebody’s head, all wigs were fake. Real or synthetic, it’s dead hair. Still, Lily thought, maybe all hair is dead, and maybe that’s why I didn’t like seeing it—unattached.

  * * *

  When Lily looked for the pornographic drawing of the Japanese lovers in Mabel’s room the following afternoon, it had disappeared. In its place was a black-and-white photograph of a handsome young man wearing the loose pants of the forties and a white shirt. He held a cigarette between two fingers.