Lila

by Marilynne Robinson

  She remembered Mellie peering at her the way she did when Lila had gotten a swat or a bee sting, curious to see if she would cry. She remembered them walking away, Arthur and Doane talking between themselves and Mellie tagging along after, and nobody looking back. They took Mellie along to calm her, like you would take an old dog along to quiet a horse or a cow you were going to sell, and Mellie understood, and it made her feel important. So Lila spent a long day in that no-name town, not even sure whether Doane meant they would come back for her, or Doll would, or whether they left her on the church steps because that’s where you ended up if you were an orphan. She walked up and down the street, two blocks, so she was always close enough to the church to see if anyone came looking for her. After a while a woman noticed her and brought her a piece of bread and butter. “You waiting for your mama, honey?” she said, and Lila couldn’t even look at her, couldn’t answer her. After a while the woman came back again. She said, “I got more work than I can do today. I’ll give you a dime if you’ll sweep up in front of my store.” Lila said, “Well, I got to stay by the church. That’s what they told me.” So the woman went and found the preacher. He was skinny and young. He looked like Arthur’s Deke playing at preacher. He bent down to ask her where her mother was, and who she was, and whether she had a mother, maybe a father, any family at all. She and Doll never answered questions like that. She said, “I figure I should just wait, I guess,” and the preacher said, “You’re welcome to wait here if you want to, and if you get tired of waiting you can let us know. We’ll find a place for you to sleep, if you decide you need one. We’ll get you some supper.” It was Doane who always told them not to trust preachers. This is how you got turned into an orphan. Then they put you in a place with other orphans and you can never leave. High walls around it. That’s what Mellie said. So she just shook her head, and he stood up and spoke with that woman about keeping an eye on her. And she could feel them keeping eyes on her, more and more of them, whispering about her and looking at her through their windows. Doane had waked her early that morning, so she was wearing the shabby clothes she slept in and hadn’t combed her hair.

  When it was evening and again when it was night the preacher came to see how she was doing. The first time he brought a plate of food and set it down next to her, and the second time he brought a blanket. He said, “It can get chilly, sitting out here in the dark. If you’d like, I can spell you for a while. I’d sure like to have a word with these folks you’ve been waiting for. No? Well, I’ll ask again in an hour or so.”

  And then she was just sitting there on the steps, wrapped up in the blanket, the town all quiet and the moon staring down at her, and there was Doll with her arms around her, saying, “Oh, child, I thought I never was going to find you!” Lila couldn’t quite wake up from what she had been remembering, and Doll knew what she was remembering, so she kept saying, “Oh, child, oh, child, this never should have happened! I never thought anything like this was going to happen! Four days I was gone!” And she kept hugging the child and stroking her face and her hair. Late as it was, the preacher was still keeping an eye on her, because he stepped out the door just then. He said, “You’re the mother, I take it?” and Doll said, “None of your damn business.” She probably wouldn’t have spoke so rough if he hadn’t been a preacher.

  “Who are you?” he said. “I’d like to know who’s carrying off this child.”

  She said, “I spose you would. Come on, Lila.”

  But Lila couldn’t move. She wanted to rest her head on a bosom more Doll’s than Doll herself, to feel trust rise up in her like that sweet old surprise of being carried off in strong arms, wrapped in a gentleness worn all soft and perfect. “No,” she said, and drew herself away.

  The preacher said, “This better wait till morning. I’d like Lila to have a chance to think this over.”

  Doll said, “Mister, you ain’t nothing to her, and you ain’t nothing to me. Lila, you want to stay here?”

  So the girl stood up and let herself be hugged, and let herself be guided down the walk. The preacher said, “She can keep the blanket.”

  And Doll said, “I take care of her. She has what she needs.”

  Lila would not cry. She could see Doll’s grief and pity and regret, and she took a bitter, lonely pride in the fact that she could see them and not forgive her and not cry.

  She was sitting there remembering those times, and then she thought she heard someone out in the road. Footsteps. The scatter of gravel. She had a knife, but it wasn’t much use in the dark, because folks couldn’t see it. It was good only for scaring them off. If you cut somebody you were in a world of trouble no matter what the story was. Still, she eased toward it, where it was stuck in the floor behind her bedroll. She didn’t hear anything more for a minute or two, and then she heard steps again, whoever it was walking away. She thought, He found out what he wanted to know. I’m here, and I have a fire and supper. That greasy old hen must have smelled like a kind of prosperity. The thought pleased her. Now he’ll think I don’t need nothing from him. If it was him.

  Doane must have decided that if the world was turning mean he might as well go along with it. He wasn’t a big fellow. He looked a lot like Hoagy Carmichael, though they didn’t know it at the time. But he always could look mean when he wanted, and Arthur would stand right behind him, at his shoulder, looking pretty mean, too, so someone might think if anything started he’d be right there to back him up. Before the times got hard they generally knew who they were dealing with, so they’d act that way only if a stranger came along and they didn’t like the look of him, if he showed up after dark, or if he just rubbed Doane the wrong way for no reason anybody needed to know. Doane always kept them safe and they trusted him. They knew he had a knife. Everybody else had one, too, but the way they thought of his knife made them think he probably had a gun. He could be as dangerous as he might ever need to be, they were sure of it. They never saw a gun, and he used his knife to whittle and to cut his meat just like they did. Still. Sometimes Arthur’s boys would start scuffling, then they’d get serious about it and they’d start scrapping, trying to do some harm. If Arthur stepped into it they’d just go after Arthur. But Doane would say, “That’s enough,” and they’d stop. Arthur might cuff them a little because he was their father and he had to teach them respect, but the fight was over when Doane said, “Enough.” He’d say, “Someday you’re going to hurt yourselves so bad you won’t be good for nothing, and then we’ll just leave you lying alongside the road.”

  Lila worked as hard as any of the children. She didn’t make them laugh the way Mellie did, but she never complained, she never took more than her share. She knew better than to mention school. But when hard times came they left her behind. There were people Doane just didn’t take to.

  And now here she was, sitting in the dark, wishing the crickets weren’t so damn loud, thinking she might tell that old preacher not to come creeping around her place at night. That would put an end to it, all of it. Then she’d know for sure what he thought of her. She’d say it in church, where all them ladies would hear. Better wait till she could get a bus ticket. There’d be no more work for her after she did something like that. But when folks are down to the one thing that keeps them alive, that one thing can be meanness. It makes you feel like you’re there, you’re doing something. He is such a beautiful old man. All that kindness would be gone out of his face, and she would see something else, not beautiful, not the face he had worn all the years when he had only good people to deal with. That wife never meant to leave and take the child with her. So he didn’t really know much about being left. Lila thought, Maybe I can teach him a new kind of sadness. Maybe he really does care whether I stay or go.

  The next morning she didn’t dare go to church. The way she’d been thinking, she might say anything. But she began to worry about the little garden she had planted and how the beans would be getting yellow and tough and stringy if she didn’t pick them. Sunday morning was the b
est time to sneak into that garden, because the preacher would be preaching and everybody else would be at one church or another or sleeping in. It was hard to tell just what time it was because the sky was dark with clouds. That meant it might rain, and she’d get caught in it and have to come back when she was halfway there, or get all the way to Gilead and then have to be there looking soaked and pitiful. She grabbed the carpetbag from the nail it was hanging on and smoothed her hair and took off toward town almost running, just to beat the weather, just to make up for a late start. At the preacher’s house she let herself in through the gate and went around the side of the house to the corner against the fence, and when she just began picking beans she heard raindrops hitting the leaves. She was going to take the few she had and get home the best she could, but when she reached the gate she looked down the street and saw the preacher coming. She thought, A crazy woman would do something like this. She had known some crazy women, and any one of them would probably have had better sense. There was more shame in life than she could bear.

  He took off his hat. He said, “Well, good morning! Or is it afternoon?”

  She held out the bag to him. “I thought you might be wanting some beans.” Oh, she wished she could die. How many were there in that bag? Eight? Ten?

  He said, “That’s very kind of you,” and he took the bag out of her hand. She couldn’t look at him, but she knew he was smiling.

  She said, “I got to go now.”

  “Wait. You’ll want your bag.” He reached into it and took out the beans, half a handful, and gave the bag back to her. She still could not look at him. He said, “You know, it might be best if you waited out the rain. We could sit here on the porch a little while. It doesn’t look like much of a storm. Or I could lend you my umbrella if you really do have to go.” Then he said, “I haven’t seen much of you lately. I hope I haven’t offended you somehow.”

  His voice was low and kind. After a minute she took a step toward him. Sometimes it just feels good to hug a man, don’t much matter which one it is. She’d thought it might be very nice to rest her head on his shoulder. And it was. She’d be leaving that damn town anyway.

  “Well,” he said. He patted her back.

  She said, “I guess I’m tired.”

  “Yes, well—” and he put his arms around her, very carefully, very gently.

  With her head still resting on his shoulder she said, “I just can’t trust you at all.” He laughed, a soft sound at her ear, a breath. She started to pull away, but he put his hand on her hair so she rested her head again.

  He said, “Is there anything I can do about that?”

  And she said, “Nothing I can think of. I don’t trust nobody.”

  He said, “No wonder you’re tired.”

  She thought, That’s a fact. She said, “You should know I pretty well give up on getting baptized.”

  “I thought maybe you had. Can you tell me why?”

  “I guess it don’t make a lot of sense to me.”

  “That’s all right. No hurry about it. Unless you’re planning on leaving town.”

  “That’s what I’m planning to do.”

  He was quiet for a while. Then he said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I am.”

  She stepped back and looked at him. “I don’t see what it would matter.”

  He shrugged. “We don’t have to worry about that now. It looks like we’re going to have a decent rain, after all. You could just sit here a while and help me enjoy it. Should I call you Lila?”

  “No reason why not.”

  He brought a sweater and put it over her shoulders. Right away she knew she was going to steal it. It was gray like his jacket and it had the same old wool smell, old wool and a little shaving lotion. She’d find a way to slip it into her bag. She could hardly wait till she got the chance. He’d know what she’d done. That don’t matter.

  So they sat there and watched the rain, he at one end of the porch swing, she at the other. After a while he said, “I’d like to know what you’ve been thinking about lately, since the last time we talked. You asked me why things happen the way they do, and I had to say I didn’t know. I still don’t. But the question is interesting.”

  “Oh,” she said, “you don’t want to know what I been thinking.”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  “I been wondering why I even bother. There must be a reason, but I don’t know what it is.” When she sat in the doorway at night with her knees drawn up and her arms around them so there was warmth against her belly and her breasts, she sometimes liked it all well enough, the stars and the crickets and the loneliness. She thought she could unravel the sounds the river made, the flow over the rocks where there was a little drop into a pool, the soft rush of the eddy. Now and then there were noises, some small thing happened and disappeared, no one would ever know what it was. She thought, All right, if that’s how it’s going to be. If there had not been that time when she mattered to somebody, she could have been at peace with it. Doane was just the world being the world. It was Doll taking her up in her arms that way. Live. Yes. What then?

  He said, “I’m glad you do. Bother.”

  And then she heard herself say, “You come creeping around my house at night? Because I think I heard you out there.” And she looked at his face. It was startled and hurt. Shamed. She couldn’t look away.

  He rubbed his eyes. “Yes. Well, I’m sorry if I worried you. I don’t sleep well, and sometimes I walk around the streets at night, past the houses of people I know. It’s an old habit of mine.” He laughed. “I pray for them. So it’s harmless at worst.”

  “You come all the way out there to pray for me? Couldn’t you do that at home?”

  “I did wonder if you had left town. If you were all right.”

  “I guess everybody knows I been living in that shack. If you knew where to come to do your praying.”

  He shrugged. “Some people know. People notice things.”

  “I hate this town.”

  “I doubt it’s so different from other places.”

  She laughed. “I hate other places. Worse, probly.”

  And he laughed. “Well, just so you understand what I was doing out there. So you don’t feel uneasy about it.”

  “I never said I understood. You tell me you was praying. I don’t understand that at all.”

  “Ah!” He shook his head. “It would take me a good while to figure out what to say about that. Days! And I pray all the time.” Then he said, “Here is what I don’t understand. How did you know it was me? It was a dark night, and I didn’t come near the house.”

  She shrugged. “Who else would go to the trouble?”

  He nodded. “Thank you. I don’t know why. But that’s kind of you to say, I believe.” Then he said, “You do have other friends here.”

  “No, I don’t. Folks just do what you tell them to do.”

  He laughed. “Some of them. Sometimes. I suppose.”

  For a while the rain was heavy, loud on the roof, spattering onto the porch. She gathered the sleeves of the sweater against her.

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “Plenty warm. But I want to know what you said in that prayer.”

  “Well.” He blushed. “I prayed that you were safe and well. And—not unhappy.”

  “That’s all?”

  “And”—he laughed—“I did mention that I hoped you would stay around for a while.”

  “And get myself baptized.”

  “I guess I forgot to mention that. Sorry.”

  “It’s nothing to me. I’ll be making up my own mind.”

  “Of course.”

  “But if you prayed for it, most likely I would make up my mind to do it.”

  “Maybe. Depending. I don’t know.”

  “If you want me to do something, seems it would be easier just to ask me.”

  “If I did ask you, would you do it?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.” And he laughed. Then she said,
“That all you prayed for?”

  “No. No, it isn’t.” He stood up. “I think I’ll make some coffee.”

  Well, she’d stayed too long and the rain didn’t show any sign of ending. So she said, “I’ll be going now,” after he’d gone into the house, so he might not have heard. And she slipped the sweater into her bag. She was a block away when he caught up with her. He was carrying an umbrella.

  He said, “I’m afraid it’s too late for this to do you much good. But please take it.”

  She said, “Don’t need it.”

  “Of course you don’t,” he said. “Take it anyway.” So she did. He said, “I’m glad you came by. I’m always happy to find you creeping around my house.” And she almost had to laugh at that. She could put the umbrella over her suitcase and her bedroll. That’s how bad the roof leaked. She just might forget to return it for a while. She was going to use that sweater for a pillow. She thought, What would I pray for, if I thought there was any point in it? Well, I guess the first thing would have to be that there was some kind of point in it. The wind was blowing the rain against her and lifting the umbrella almost out of her hands, so she closed it. A little rain never killed anybody.