Siri Hustvedt - The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

Filthy Frank and Dirty Dick lingered in the driveway. They didn’t speak to or even look at each other. They stood inert and blank for a long time. Lily had hoped they would climb into the truck and drive away, but she understood that wasn’t going to happen when she saw Dick wander over to the fire. He reached up, picked a soft bundle from the nearest junk mound and dropped it into the bin. Whatever it was, it excited the flames and they rose high. Dick lifted his chin and stepped away from the heat, but when the blaze subsided, he moved close again and repeated what he had done before. This time, when he backed away from the leaping fire, Lily saw that he was laughing or that his expression suggested a laugh, but she heard no noise. It could have been that the crackle of the fire in combination with the wind hid the noise from her, but Lily was surprised that she heard nothing at all. He lifted his shoulders, threw his head back and opened his mouth wide as his head bobbed in silent hilarity. Then he drew something white from his pocket and threw it into the fire. The white thing had little effect on the flames, but Dick laughed the noiseless laugh anyway, as though a burnt bit of cloth were the most uproarious thing he could think of. Lily saw Frank shuffle toward his brother, stop beside him and raise his fist above Dick’s head. She braced herself for a blow, but instead of hitting his brother, Frank let his arm fall slowly in front of Dick’s face. Then Frank turned toward the house, and his brother trailed after him. The screen door slammed and Lily thought to herself that it was now or never.

She made a run for the garage. When her feet hit the driveway, she heard the gravel shift under them and thought, I’m making too much noise, but she didn’t stop until she arrived panting inside the garage, where she backed against the wall to hide herself. She listened for the house door. Nothing. She moved quietly in the direction of the suitcase. She remembered exactly where she had left it and guessed she could open it, return the shoes and shut it in a matter of seconds. Standing in the middle of the garage, she crouched down to reach out for the suitcase, which should have been wedged between two rain barrels, and found that it wasn’t there. She pushed aside cans, boxes and an old rake, expecting to discover it, but the suitcase wasn’t in the garage anymore. Lily paused, clutched the bag with the shoes in it to her chest and wondered what to do. Then she heard the screen door slam and the sound of footsteps. She ducked behind a large wooden crate and squatted on the floor. Through the slats of the crate she saw Dick shuffle past the garage toward the fire and stop beside the bin. Lily looked at the dark, motionless figure, his face blurred by the rising smoke, and waited. Behind him, she could see the Klatschwetter barn and silo. She noticed that the sky had clouded over and that the sun had sunk lower than she would have thought. Suddenly she worried about making rehearsal on time. But Dick was in no hurry. Lily sat down. She removed the shoes from her bag and laid them on her lap. She would have to leave them here in the garage. What choice did she have? The damp earth floor began to seep through her jean shorts and underwear, and she lifted her buttocks off the ground to adjust her position. As she moved, the shoes slipped. Lily turned to grab them, smashed her nose into the edge of a rusted wheelbarrow behind her, and then, reaching for her face, slammed her forehead into the tine of a garden rake. With a short gasp, she put her fingers to the spot, and removing her hand saw that it was covered with blood. “Oh shit,” she whispered to herself. She touched the gash in her forehead; it wasn’t deep. Then looking down she noticed spots of blood on her thighs. It’s my nose, she thought, and pinched it hard, but the blood leaked out anyway. She let go and began to wipe the blood from her legs, but it smeared on her skin and mingled with the dirt from her hands. The bad light made it hard to see, but she knew the blood was coming fast and hard. When she looked down for the shoes, she saw she had bled on them, too — a large red spot on one heel and three drops on the tip of the other. Lily grabbed her canvas bag and began to rub the shoes with the material. She spat on the cloth and rubbed, but as she leaned close to the shoes to clean them, she saw more blood drop onto her legs. Still, she didn’t give up, but held her nose with one hand and tried to clean with the other hand, but she could feel herself beginning to panic. The shoes were getting ruined. The white leather had turned rust-red and filthy with her attempts to clean it, and suddenly she wanted to cry. I can’t leave them here now, she thought. She watched as more blood dropped onto the toes, and covered the laces with her hands. Lily looked up and out through the slats of the crate toward the smoking can and saw that Dick had disappeared. Now, she thought, and carrying the shoes in one hand she made her way to the garage doors and stuck her head cautiously into the light. Without examining her hands very closely, she saw that the blood on them appeared much redder now that she was outside. She looked toward the house and saw nobody. Then she looked in the other direction, but neither Dick nor Frank was anywhere in sight.

Lily looked at the smoke rising from the can and thought, I’ll burn them. There’ll be nothing left of them. It was the perfect solution. She sprinted toward the fire, dropped the shoes into the ashes and then, feeling a surge of relief, fled toward the ditch and threw herself headlong into the grass. For several seconds she didn’t move. Then she turned around to look at the smoking bin. She saw no flames. They’re not burning, she thought. They’ll come out in the morning and find them, and they’ll see that they’re covered in blood. What if they’re hers? What if they took the suitcase inside for safekeeping because it belonged to her? Lily jumped to her feet, ran back to the fire and looked into it. Sure enough, the shoes had been charred and scorched, but not burnt up, and when she bent toward them to pick them up out of the ashes, she smelled something sweet and putrid that made her stand back for a moment. Then she plucked the shoes out of the fire. The hot leather burnt her fingertips, but she held on to the shoes and took off toward the ditch, where she threw herself into the grass for a second time and let the shoes fall to the ground. Then she looked at them and laughed — one short, miserable laugh at her own stupidity. When she picked up the two charred things to put them into her bag, they weren’t hot anymore, just warm. As warm as somebody with a high fever, she thought, and then she pushed her bicycle up the ditch into the road. Her nose had stopped bleeding, but her thumbs and index fingers throbbed as she gripped the handlebars. When she looked up, Lily saw that the sun had disappeared entirely under thick, gray clouds, an ordinary shift in weather that nevertheless caused her some amazement. She pedaled hard with her head down against the traffic and hoped the increasing gloom would hide her.

Halfway home, Lily saw a turquoise-and-white Pontiac come speeding toward her, and when the car was only yards away, she noticed Dolores at the wheel. She was driving with the windows open, a Loretta Lynn song blaring from the radio as the car’s headlights shone on Lily for a second or two. In that brief moment Lily saw Dolores look directly at her, but the woman’s face gave no sign of recognition. Maybe it’s her night with the twins, Lily thought. Rehearsal must have started without me. And thinking of the Arts Guild, Lily understood all of a sudden that she missed Hermia, as if Hermia were a close friend of hers. She felt a drop of rain on her neck as she drove past the Webster city limits sign. Then she felt another, and another.