The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

by Hustvedt, Siri

  “Where’d you hear about that?”

  “It’s legend, Lil’.”

  “I was just a kid.”

  “You were old enough to know better.”

  “I don’t do that stuff now, Vince.”

  “No,” he said and folded his arms. “You’ve graduated to bigger stuff.”

  “Cut it out.”

  Vince looked out the window and squinted. “I’ve got lead in my skull. It’s going to rain. It’s going to rain hard and it’s going to blow.”

  Lily laughed. “You’ve been out of Philadelphia too long. You sound just like an old farmer.”

  “Old farmer, shit,” Vince said. “I’ve had a barometer in my head since I was seven. My grandma used to call me ‘the weather vane.’”

  Vince was right. The weather changed. The dawn sky turned a pale green, and not long after that, Division Street was as still as a picture of itself. At six-thirty, Boomer waltzed in, and the three of them served a few early birds who ate fast and hurried home to beat the storm. Black clouds rolled in, a wind came up and it started to howl. At seven, they turned on the radio and listened to a man announce that a thunderstorm warning had been declared for Minneapolis and the surrounding areas, Webster included. Lily called Bert, told her to stay home, and they closed the cafe. Rain pummeled the street. The store awnings cracked in the wind, and it thundered close. For a minute or two it rained so hard they lost sight of the hotel. Boomer pressed his nose against the windowpane and muttered “Yeah” with a moronic regularity that began to annoy Lily.

  The three of them sat in a booth and played seven-card stud while eating yesterday’s pie and listening to the screen door rattle on its hook. The gutters flooded, and in the street the fragile new tree, planted only days ago by the Webster Beautification Committee, bent low in the wind. Lily hoped she hadn’t left her window open, and then she thought of Mabel upstairs. For an instant she imagined the little old woman being swept out her window, her body sailing over the rooftops like a handkerchief.

  “It’s your turn, Lily,” Boomer said.

  She looked at the dishwasher. He never sat still. At that moment he was jiggling his shoulders and head. Lily eyed the Elvis T-shirt he was wearing, “The King” inscribed on it in huge letters. Then she lifted her eyes to Boomer’s face and stared into his eyes behind the thick glasses that had been treated to further home repairs. Aside from the masking tape wrapped around the frames, there was a piece of wire, coiling upward from his right lens like a loose mattress spring. The mad eyewear above the face of the rock-and-roll icon made the boy look like an assimilated extraterrestrial. He whined at her, “You’re holding up the game.”

  “Keep your shorts on,” Lily said and studied her hand. She took two cards, and when she saw the straight, she didn’t blink.

  Vince meditated for a couple of seconds and pushed a bottle cap into the center of the table. “Did you hear about Dolores?”

  “No,” Lily said.

  “Arrested.”

  “For what?”

  “I’ll bet I know.” Boomer grinned.

  Lily looked at the boy’s chipped tooth—a little white spike at the front of his mouth.

  Vince ignored him and nodded at Lily. “They say she broke into one of the caves outside of town.”

  “You’re kidding,” Lily said, staring at her cards.

  “Your boyfriend bailed her out,” Boomer said.

  Lily held her cards over her mouth and nose and watched Boomer over her hand. “Who told you that?”

  Boomer leaned back in the booth and folded his arms. “I got connections in the department.”

  “You and everybody else,” Lily said.

  “Not anymore, you don’t.” Boomer sang the words in a high, jeering voice.

  Lily looked at Boomer’s smug expression. I’d feel sorry for him, she thought, if he weren’t such a little creep.

  Vince sighed noisily and scratched his neck.

  “Stuff it, Boom,” Lily said. “Are you in or not? I’m raising you three.”

  The storm started to quiet around eleven. It stopped raining, but gusts of wind rattled unseen objects in the street, and water continued to rush in the gutters. A thin yellow light leaked through isolated holes in the clouds, and the buildings, sidewalk and parking meters were cast in a shadowless glow that Lily couldn’t remember having seen before. She stood by the window for a minute and looked out. She used to think God was in storms, but she didn’t think that anymore. She stared up at the flat roof of the Stuart Hotel and into the clouds tinged with yellow and gray. She remembered the newsprint photo she had seen the night before, and suddenly the simple fact that people lived and died seemed strange to her, not terrible, just strange. She looked out and remembered her grandfather’s body after he had died in the hospital from the last stroke. He had looked younger. Everybody had noticed it. And then Lily imagined Helen Bodler in her grave. She was clawing at the dirt above her and pushing, pushing up with all her might. And then in Lily’s mind, she managed to dig herself out and sit up. She climbed out of the fresh grave, and Lily imagined her standing beside the long, shallow hole. Clumps of earth hung from her hair, soiled her mouth and nose, filled her lashes and brows. Helen brushed off what she could, turned her back to Lily and began to walk down the driveway and away from the Bodler farm. She didn’t hurry. When miracles happen, nobody hurries. Lazarus couldn’t have run. He stood up, Lily thought, and walked out of the tomb still wearing his shroud.

  * * *

  The telephone drove Lily out of her room that afternoon. She couldn’t stand looking at the stupid thing any longer. Several times she had lifted the receiver, only to put it back down. “Let him call,” she said to the phone aloud. “He can call me.” Mabel’s apartment was unusally silent—either she was out or had finally fallen asleep after a night of insomnia. When she looked into Ed’s window, she couldn’t see a thing, but she guessed Mabel was there with him, and the thought frustrated her. Lily called Bert instead.

  “Let him call,” Bert said.

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Lily said.

  “Let me put it this way,” Bert said. “You don’t want him if he doesn’t want you, right? It’s better to find out now.”

  Lily listened. She didn’t say it, but she thought, Of course I want him. Since when don’t you want people just because they don’t want you? Sometimes you want them more. She said, “Yeah, thanks, Bert.” They talked about the storm for a couple of minutes, and, after a pause, Bert said, “I heard he went to Swenson’s.”

  “What?” Lily said.

  “Shapiro, he went to the funeral home.” Bert took a breath. “Said he wanted to draw one of the corpses. Well, the only dead guy in there was old Oscar Hansen…”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Mr. Swenson himself. Said it took him by surprise, you know. Had to ask the family for permission, since Oscar couldn’t say yes or no.”

  “Jeez, Bert,” Lily said. “Did they let him?”

  “Well, I guess Oscar’s son said, ‘Help yourself,’ more or less, but the daughter isn’t so sure.” Lily heard Bert put down the phone. “If you take one more bite of that pie, Roger, I’ll hog-tie you and send you back to your mother.” Then to Lily she said, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I just thought you ought to know somehow.”

  Lily was silent.

  “Lily?”

  “I’m here. I’m thinking about it.”

  Bert laughed. “It’s not a crime to draw stiffs, you know. I mean, he’s such a nice guy, and, well, you could see how it would be interesting. I’ve always had a hankering to go in there and have a look around myself.”

  Bert’s defense of Ed eased Lily’s mind. “Yeah,” Lily said. She hesitated, then added in a soft voice, “You’re a good friend, Bert.”

  “Ah, get out of here,” came the voice on the other end of the line. Lily hung up. She wished that just once Bert would say it back.

  Knowing it w
ould be the last time, Lily slid her feet into the burnt shoes. She didn’t wear them long, just long enough to mark the occasion. Then she wrapped them in the white cotton fabric she had used for curtains, put the bundle gently inside her canvas bag and left the room. She locked the door.

  Lily pedaled her bicycle through the maze of fallen branches that had been ripped from trees during the storm, their leaves still unwilted. It made her feel good to be returning the shoes. They couldn’t go back into the suitcase or even into the garage, but she would put them somewhere secret and quiet, where they could molder into nothingness undisturbed.

  The sky showed new holes of clear blue, and the cool air invigorated her. She raced, pedaling so hard she panted. When she neared the Bodlers’, she spotted their truck and stopped well short of the driveway. She wheeled her bicycle into the ditch, laid it on its side and walked up into the field. Then she turned to look toward the Klatschwetter farm. The sky was immense and clearing fast. She smelled cow manure, an odor she liked, mingled as it was with alfalfa and earth warmed by the sun. Her eyes moved across the road to the horizon past a copse of midget trees, a silo and a red barn, then back again to the Guernseys and Holsteins out to pasture. Slow animals, Lily thought as she watched them—a head to the grass, a tail flicks a fly, and then that bovine adjustment of haunches near the fence. The barbed wire was electrified. She could see the silver ribbon along its lower edge. It may have been the familiarity of what she saw that moved Lily, or the bigness of that landscape that dwarfed her in a way she found comfortable, but she gazed out at the scene with no thoughts at all until she heard a sound behind her, and then she started and whirled around to see what it was.

  Frank Bodler was standing about three yards away from her. His eyes were hidden under the brim of his cap, but she could see his grimly set mouth and jaw. Lily couldn’t understand where the man had come from. Only seconds ago she had looked across the field and seen no one. He was carrying a large, half-rusted spade, and he tamped the ground with it twice. Lily watched him nod at her, then signal for her to come. For several seconds she didn’t move. She hugged the bag against her side and waited.

  Frank grunted the word “Come.”

  Lily went. She wasn’t quite sure why she went, but she followed the man across the field and stared at the large oil stain on the back of his filthy trouser leg. He hunched a little as he trudged forward with the spade over his shoulder. They know, she thought. They’re going to confront me, ask me where the shoes are. They must have seen me. Lily began planning her confession. I’ll tell them the truth, she thought. But the truth sounded insane to her. I’ll confess without mentioning their mother. But how can I explain burning them? I panicked out of guilt. I threw them in the fire. When they reached the kitchen door, Lily paused. She remembered falling, remembered the wet floor against her skin. She heard herself swallow and then crossed the threshold. Disoriented, she walked into a roll of flypaper. The sticky yellow substance encrusted with flies brushed her ear, and she gasped before she could squelch it. Frank paid no attention. He moved through the kitchen into the second room, which had a little more light from two small windows. It reeked of mildew. Frank pointed at a ripped sofa, waited for Lily to sit down on it, opened a door that led to a third room and disappeared, closing the door behind him.

  Lily placed the bag between her and the arm of the sofa to conceal it with her body. In the rounded olive screen of a very old television set, she looked at her own distorted image and turned away from it toward the window. Through the cloudy pane, she saw the top of a blooming peony bush. She swallowed again loudly. The room was crammed with objects—two toasters near her feet, a box of rags or clothes at the end of the sofa, a heavy, black rubber cord dangling over the back of a wicker chair. To avoid looking at the cord, Lily eyed the ceiling and noted the elaborate water stains, which resembled the map of some imaginary country. She was still studying its ragged coastline when Frank returned to the room with Dick.

  They stood together in the open doorway of the third room. Frank stepped forward, thrust his arm violently in her direction and said in a voice so loud that Lily jumped, “Was it her?”

  Dick walked toward Lily. She hunched her shoulders and pushed herself tightly against the bag as she watched Dick coming toward her in a half-crouched position. Apparently he wanted to keep his head at the same height as hers. He stopped, rested his hands on his knees and stared at her closely. Lily could see dust in his eyebrows and dirt in the creases of his wrinkled face. She swallowed and felt sure Dick could hear it. The swallowing had become an irritation. Her saliva seemed to build up so fast in her mouth that she couldn’t ignore it. How was it, she wondered, that she had ever swallowed without thinking about it? Dick continued to examine her. Then he moved his head back.

  “Yup,” he said. His voice was high. Lily realized she had never heard him speak and that the timbre of his voice had nothing in common with his brother’s. I’m sunk, she thought. She considered her first line. The words “I’m sorry” began to form themselves in her mouth.

  The men seated themselves in two of the several miserable chairs that lined the other side of the room.

  “Yer Lars Dahl’s girl,” Frank said.

  Lily nodded.

  “Know yer dad,” he said. “Good man, yer dad. Knew yer granddad, too.” Then he turned to his brother and yelled, “Lars Dahl’s girl!”

  Dick was deaf. Lily hadn’t known this. She looked from one man to the other. “I work at the Ideal Cafe,” she said as loudly as she could without screaming.

  Frank narrowed his eyes.

  “I’ve waited on you lots of times.” Her voice sounded childlike. Was it possible they didn’t recognize her?

  Frank scratched his hairline, and Lily saw gray flakes fall onto the front of his shirt. She looked toward the corner where he had left the spade and made a guess at how long it would take for her to leap over and grab it. Cautiously, she began to inch down the sofa, taking the bag with her. She felt a loose coil poke her thigh and stopped.

  “Dick’s the one seen you.”

  Lily waited for the accusation.

  “Yesterday evenin’ in the field.”

  Not last night, she thought. Last night I was at rehearsal and then at Martin’s.… She looked at Dick.

  “Guess it don’t matter now,” Frank said.

  Dick leaned toward her again. He closed one eye as though that would improve his vision.

  Frank was silent. The three of them sat without saying a word for at least a minute. Then, not able to take it anymore, she shouted, “I don’t understand.”

  Neither man answered. They glanced at each other. Then, apparently responding to the look from his brother, Dick slowly rose from the chair and shuffled into the kitchen. Intermittent clatter sounded from that room for several minutes. Frank reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved a pouch of chewing tobacco, took a pinch of the tiny brown leaves between his thumb and index finger and lodged the tobacco inside his cheek. As far as Lily could tell, he had no consciousness of her presence. Maybe I can just stand up and leave, she thought. She eyed the spade again, considered getting up, then stayed put.

  Eventually, Dick emerged from the kitchen carrying a brown plastic tray with a tin coffeepot, three cups and some oblong cookies smeared with white frosting arranged on a plate. His boots never left the floor. He pushed his feet forward like a child on skates for the first time, his eyes fixed on the cups, his hands trembling. The room had no table on which to lower the tray, but Dick clearly had his next move planned. He came to a full stop and began to bend his knees a little at a time. Once he had lowered himself about six inches, he held the position for a couple of seconds as if to confirm that he had gone that far, bent over and abruptly set the tray on the floor. Cups clinked, cookies slid, but the tray was stabilized in a spot beside one of the toasters. Without standing up, Dick started the business of pouring coffee. He handed her a cup, and Lily looked into the black liquid. Grease bubbles floated
on its surface, but she brought the dirty cup to her lips and drank. It didn’t taste bad—a little oily, but strong and good.

  Dick watched her intently. “Egg,” he said.

  “Pardon me?” Lily shouted.

  Frank shouted back at her. “There’s an egg in the coffee!”

  Dick nodded. He righted himself and poked the cookie plate under her nose. Lily took a cookie.

  Once they had settled themselves with the coffee and cookies, Lily roared at Dick, “I don’t understand. You couldn’t have seen me here last night. I wasn’t here.”

  Dick nodded, but Lily wasn’t sure what the nod meant, whether he was signaling that he had heard her or that he agreed with her. He spoke in that odd voice of his. “I seen Marty carryin’ you across the field and over the road.”

  “What?” Lily said, but not loudly enough. Then she corrected herself and yelled, “Marty?”

  “Marty Petersen from down the road,” Frank said.

  “Yesterday?” Lily said.

  Dick continued, his eyes on the window. Slowly he extended his arms in front of him, his elbows bent. Lily watched the coffee cup in his right hand tip dangerously. “I seen Marty carryin’ you like you was fainted or…” He didn’t finish but lowered his arms without spilling and then rubbed the cup with both hands. “It was you,” he said to the window. “I seen your eyes and face and hair. I called to him.” Dick changed his voice. “‘Mar-ty!’ I says. ‘Who you got there? Come back, Marty,’ but he din’t answer me. He walks on ’cross the road and down by the creek and into the woods. I ain’t got the legs to run no more, so I goes into Frank and tells him what I seen.” Dick glanced at Lily for an instant, then fixed his eyes on the window again. He nodded, squinted, turned back to her and said, “But here you are in the peak of health.”

  Lily leaned forward and stared at Dick. “What time was it?”

  Dick looked at Frank, his face a question.

  Frank said, “I’d say early evenin’. Wasn’t dark yet.”

  Both men were silent. Lily looked from one to the other. It was crazy. The whole thing was nuts. She waited for them to speak.