Siri Hustvedt - The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

Martin shook his head.

“So why do you have it?” Lily’s voice sounded shrill.

Martin took the little square away from Lily and stared down at it. “You see it, don’t you, Lily?”

“See what?”

“It, it looks like you when you were a little girl.”

Lily pulled the picture away from Martin. “No, it doesn’t.”

Martin faced Lily. He nodded slowly. “Yes, it does.”

“I should know better than you,” Lily said.

Martin shook his head. “N-no, usually it’s other people who see it, not the person.” He stretched his lips, nodded and said, “It’s like you grew up for her — in a way.” Martin tugged at the picture in Lily’s hand, and she let go of it.

Lily stared at Martin. “No, it’s not,” she said.

“Didn’t happen in the Cities. Outside Farmington. Drowned her in the bath.”

“Why?” Lily whispered the word.

Martin shrugged. His expression as he moved his shoulders was calm but fixed, his eyes absorbed in a distant thought. Then he said, “It hath no bottom.”

“You really love the play, don’t you?” Lily said.

Martin squinted at her as though she were yards away. “N-no,” he said.

“You’re always quoting from it.”

Martin stumbled over the next words. “It’s easier,” he finally said, “than saying it myself.”

“But you wanted to be in it,” Lily insisted.

Martin nodded.

“And the map, Martin. Why did you want me to have that?” Lily wanted to ask about the box but stopped herself.

Martin turned away from Lily. He looked straight toward the window and chanted like a kid on a playground. “She’s out there right now.”

“Who?” Lily said.

“She’s not alive.”

Lily caught her breath. She had turned several corners since she had agreed to accompany Martin back to his house, and she decided this was the last. “I want to go home,” she said.

Martin stood up immediately and began to walk to the door. For a second, Lily didn’t understand what he was doing. He opened the screen door and moved quickly across the porch without turning off the light. Lily followed him, and when she stepped out onto the porch, she saw him standing beside his truck holding the passenger door open for her.

Without saying anything, Lily climbed in. Martin drove the whole way in silence. Lily couldn’t tell whether his silence meant anger, sullenness or resignation. His face showed nothing. But Lily didn’t want to talk. She sat close to the door and watched the road, paying attention to his every move. While he drove, she imagined sudden skids and collisions, the truck swerving into the wrong lane and speeding into oncoming headlights. When Martin stopped the truck on Division Street in front of the cafe, Lily turned to him. He looked very young to her at that moment, with his soft face and unfashionable short hair. Lily looked through the windshield and said, “Bye.” Martin leaned toward her, but Lily pulled at the door handle and jumped down into the street. Martin moved to the passenger seat and stuck his head out the window. “You won’t let him paint you, will you, Lily?”

She opened her mouth and stared at him. She knew what he was saying, understood he meant Ed, but she said, “What are you talking about?”

“I-i-it’s important that he doesn’t paint you. Not you.” Martin paused. “F-for your sake, Lily.”

She looked away from him. “Good-bye, Martin,” she said. Lily walked up the alley toward the back door that led to her apartment and watched Martin’s truck pull away. Then she looked across the street into Ed’s window. She saw two figures in the light — Ed’s and Mabel’s. They were seated across from each other in the room’s only chairs. Lily saw Mabel lift a hand and gesture toward the ceiling. Still talking, she said to herself. Lily watched the two of them for at least a minute before she closed her eyes and held her breath. Her longing to rush to Ed and throw her arms around him was so great, she shook from the tension of holding herself back. Then, after counting to one hundred to give herself enough time, she pulled on the back door, discovered somebody had locked it, dug out her keys, opened it and went upstairs to bed.

Before she fell asleep, Lily thought she smelled something burning — a distant fire, maybe, its smoke carried into town on a wind. It can’t be the shoes, can it, still stinking from the fire? She remembered the map and the pictures on Martin’s wall, and then the empty space in the middle. Was he going to fill that in? Somehow it was that blankness that stuck in her mind now, more than any of the images or words she had seen all around it. She’s not alive, Lily thought. He must have meant that little girl — Becky. Lily put on a tape to forget about Martin and the dead girl and Ed and Mabel. She listened to The Best of Aretha Franklin twice and while she listened, she imagined herself on stage in a green, sequined dress. She was singing out the words “You make me feel like a natural woman,” and in the fantasy she had a voice like Aretha’s, a voice that seemed to come straight from heaven.

* * *

The moment Lily put her hand on the doorknob to enter the cafe, she heard the jukebox click and a song begin: “Do You Believe in Magic?” Lily opened the door and saw Vince dancing and singing alone in the space between the booths and the counter. His back was to Lily, and she watched his hips sway as he jiggled his fingers like a flapper. She saw the bald spot on the back of his head orbit as he rolled his shoulders, and then he toe-heeled his way over to the coffee machine. Lily smiled. The fat man had grace, lightness. She watched him dip and sing, “… in a young girl’s heart.” He made a pivot, caught sight of Lily, and without missing a beat of the song, held out his hand and said, “Join me, doll.” Lily took the outstretched hand, and they danced — bobbing, bumping butts and wailing out the refrain together.

When the song died, Lily said, “You’re in a good mood this morning.”

Vince was breathing hard and a vein stood out on his forehead. “You, too,” he said. He shook his head. “You look beautiful, positively fresh and dewy. I guess that new guy is treating you right.” Vince paused, wiped his forehead, hesitated, then blurted out, “Isn’t he a little old for you, honey? As an old man myself, I feel I ought to warn you off.” He smiled. “Age doesn’t make you better.”

Lily blushed. “You know, Vince, you don’t really decide. It just kind of happens.”

“Yeah, I know.” Again he hesitated, scratching his upper arm vigorously. “Hank’s been hanging around the cafe lately, and I figured you ought to know.”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“He’s been coming to see me in the afternoons, and early last night I bumped into him outside the Stuart.”

“Hank?” Lily said.

“He’s in a bad way.”

“Hank?” Lily repeated.

Vince moved his head back in false surprise. “Yes, Hank. Remember him? Tall, good-looking guy. You dated him for about a year.”

Lily clicked her tongue. “Vince.” She groaned the name. “Last night?”

“That’s right. I stayed late doing the books, and when I left, there he was sad-sacking around in the alley, mouth drooping to his shoes.”

“That doesn’t sound like Hank,” Lily said.

“He knows about—” Vince moved his head in the direction of the Stuart Hotel. “I took him home with me, gave him the standard talk over a bottle of bourbon — the no-woman’s-worth-it load of crap. He went to work snockered.”

“That was nice of you, Vince.”

“It’s none of my business, Lily, but I think you should talk to him.”

“It won’t change anything.”

Vince took Lily’s right hand and patted it. “I know that, but Hank’s problem is that he can’t believe it. He just can’t believe it.”