Siri Hustvedt - The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

But Martin did not answer the questions. He walked toward her and said, “You spy, too. You spied on him.”

Lily watched Martin’s face. He was the whitest of all white men, and he was everywhere at once, seeing, knowing. “Who are you?” she asked again. “What do you mean by this? What is it for?” She took a step toward the doll. The thought that it might have some purpose seemed terrible.

The doll was resting on the back of the chair, its face turned upward toward the cave’s moist, dripping ceiling, and Lily looked down at the long hair that fell over the chair’s cane back. The wig, she said to herself. The grotesque possibility that Frank and Dick had known all along raced through her. “Do the twins know about this?”

Martin shook his head. “O-only you. L–Lily, you must listen to me.”

“Tell me, then,” she whispered and lifted her face to his. “Tell me.”

Martin seemed to find this command funny. He laughed — a short, bitter burst of humor, and then it vanished. He lifted the doll out of the chair and held it in his arms. Mabel had been right — the body was lighter than a child’s. “Sit down,” he said smoothly.

Lily shook her head. She didn’t want to sit in the wheelchair, didn’t want any part of it. “I’ll stand.”

Martin’s face registered disappointment, but only for a second. He placed the doll gently back in the chair, arranged its hands in its lap and then let the head droop on its chest as though it were asleep. He talked to her in that rhythmical intonation she had become accustomed to, rubbing his hands and fixing his eyes on her as he spoke. He stepped toward her, but Lily backed away. “She’s the one between, Lily.”

“Between?” Lily said. She dug her feet into the cave floor.

“Between you and me, between Becky and you, between Dahl and Doll, between the word and the flesh, between you and you.”

Lily looked at her fingers, which were oddly yellow in the kerosene glow. “What are you saying?”

Martin rubbed his mouth. He seemed disappointed and began to explain slowly as he stepped toward her.

“Stay back. Don’t come near me.”

Martin looked hurt, but he didn’t approach her. “I, I,” he stuttered and winced. “I made you, so she, you, is between us. And between you and Becky — older than Becky, younger than you, the way you were, the way Becky would’ve been.” He rocked his shoulders to his own voice, turning his speech into an incantation. “She is the in-car-na-tion,” he said, giving each syllable the same weight, “of your name into its thing…”

Lily shook her head. “That’s the oldest joke in the world, Martin — a stupid pun. That’s all I ever heard on the playground. It’s stupid—”

He interrupted her. “N-n-n-no! It’s very important.” Martin worked to control himself. “The word becoming flesh, Lily — the in-between moment, before—”

“No. It’s not flesh! It’s not real! It’s a doll!” The words came back to her, high, crazy. Lily felt a tear rolling heavily down her cheek.

Martin seemed to grow calm with her anger. “It’s doll flesh,” he said. Lily thought he looked smug.

“And, Lily, it’s you before—”

“Before what?” She spat at him. She didn’t mean to, but she saw saliva fly.

“Before you changed.”

“Changed?” Lily took another step backward. “How do you mean changed?” She whispered the last sentence. I’m cramped in here, she thought. It’s too small. I can’t see.

Martin wrinkled his forehead and stared at her. “It’s you in another form.”

Lily didn’t answer him.

“You’re a woman now,” he said softly. “But you didn’t used to be,” he said in a low, conspiratorial voice. “D-d-d-d,” he sputtered. “D-A-H-L,” he spelled. “I’m Dahl, too. Underdahl. Don’t you see? It’s all part of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“H-E,” Martin spelled. “It’s in Hermia; it’s in Helen; it’s in Underdahl.” Martin motioned with his hands. He turned to the doll.

“The letters?” Lily said. “You think ‘H’ and ‘E’ mean something?”

“There are lots of ‘H-E’s’—they keep moving, from one to the other, depending — Hermia’s father. Helen’s husband … Becky’s father … Hal Dilly.” Martin smiled.

Lily breathed out several times. “That name,” she said, “who does it belong to?”

“I went between you and me. You were my disguise.”

“What?”

But Martin kept talking. “They would’ve killed him, you know.”

“Who?”

“He’s a Jew, Lily. The Nazis would’ve killed him.”

“Ed wasn’t even born yet.” Martin hadn’t moved, but Lily said, “Stay away from me.”

“I–If he’d been there, they would have killed him.” Martin was whispering at her now, his face gold in the lamplight.

“Don’t say that, Martin.” Lily felt like crying.

Martin held himself and rocked back and forth a couple of times. He chanted again to keep his stuttering in check, and he said, “She’s the under-doll, Lily, you.” The singsong intonation of his voice had become unbearable, and Lily shook her head back and forth at him.

Martin took a step toward Lily. “You never forgave me for the refrigerator.”

“The refrigerator?” Lily said. She put a hand to her forehead.

“At the Overlands’. The refrigerator in the garage.”

“What?” she said.

“Snow White.” Martin said. He walked toward her.

“Get back,” she said.

Martin stepped back.

But Lily stood very still. “The drawing,” she said slowly, “is a refrigerator?” Did she remember a refrigerator? Had something happened at the Overlands’? Snow White, she thought. I was Snow White in the third-grade play. She remembered Andrew Wilkens only pretending to kiss her, because he didn’t want to get girl cooties. But Martin?

“In the garage,” he said. “I tied you up and shut you in the old refrigerator. It was lying on its back.”

Lily stared at him. “Was it a game?” she said. She was trying to remember. She didn’t speak or move. Do I remember playing with Martin? Snow White? Wasn’t it my cousin George who I played that game with? Hadn’t it been George who slobbered her face with kisses behind the grapevines? Lily remembered a pinched sensation between her legs as if she’d had to pee. Had she been in the darkness of a shut refrigerator, closed in, unable to breathe? Was that it? Or was she remembering George? She had played girl to his boy, and the funny thing about it was that there was as much pretending in playing that girl as if she hadn’t really been a girl to begin with. There was something, though, some vague sensation of being shut in. Or was it her grandparents’ outhouse? George had closed the door and left her there, and she’d heard him laughing about the poop and the stink. “It wasn’t you,” she said.

Martin didn’t blink. “Y-you never forgave me. At first you wanted to get in. I dared you. I dared you, and I stuck you down and closed the door. I-it was s-so heavy.”

Lily shook her head. “I don’t remember,” she whispered at him. “Why were you at the Overlands’?”

“To be with you, Lily.”

Lily leaned toward him. “Have you made this up, Martin? Are you lying to me now?”

Martin started to shake his head back and forth quickly. “You, you died, Lily.”

“What?” Lily turned her head and looked at the opening in the cave wall that would take her out.

“I–I-I suffocated you. Th-there wasn’t air for you to breathe in the refrigerator. I sat on it.”

“But I’m here, now, Martin. Don’t be stupid. Even if it did happen, we were kids, right, playing a game?” Lily examined Martin’s face. Stubborn, inward, his expression blocked her words and their meaning.