Siri Hustvedt: The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

“Ah, cut it out. Give me the dope.”

“He came and went like lightning, but for the minute he was here, I’d say he was real class, real nice and not stuck-up at all.”

“Yeah?” Lily said. She slid behind the counter and poured Matt Halvorsen more coffee. “Did you talk about anything?”

“He said he’d take a doughnut.”

“That’s deep,” Lily said.

“I said, ‘Which one?’ and pointed at the case. Then he said in New York you don’t get to pick ’em, and I said, ‘Well, this ain’t New York,’ and he said he knew that, and that he’d take the one without the hole, more for your money. He swilled down his coffee in three seconds flat, grabbed the doughnut and ran out the door.”

Lily pressed her lips together. “His eyes are kind of unusual, wouldn’t you say? They go up a little. Did you notice?”

Bert nodded. “Almond shaped. That’s uncommon, at least around here.”

“He’s uncommon, all right.”

Lily and Bert turned their heads to spot the eavesdropper.

Ida Bodine walked toward them, carrying her coffee cup. The tiny woman wore her hair in a towering beehive to compensate for the missing inches.

“Gossip radar,” Bert said to Lily in a low voice.

“He’s got somethin’ goin’ up in his room,” Ida said. “I’ve been hearin’ things.”

“What kind of things?” Lily said.

“Bangin’, creakin’. More than once I’ve had to tell him to cut the racket — opera music blarin’ till it busts your eardrums. It’s my job as night manager to keep things runnin’ smooth-like, and that one’s made my job a regular hell.”

Night desk clerk, you mean, Lily thought to herself. “Doesn’t sound so bad to me,” she said aloud. “A little noise.”

Ida sipped her coffee, her eyes on Lily. “That ain’t all. I seen people goin’ in there when I start work at six, and they don’t go in the front door neither, go in the back from the river side and stay in there with him for hours. And they ain’t what you call ‘nice’ folks neither.” Ida nodded.

“I think a man’s got a right to see anyone he pleases,” Bert said.

Ida looked straight at Bert, cocked her head to one side and smiled with false sweetness. “Tex?” she said.

Lily looked at Ida, who had put down her coffee cup and folded her arms across her chest. It did seem unlikely. Lily conjured an image of the big man — six feet five with long red sideburns, a nose bent from too many fights and a big beer belly hanging over his pants. Vince had banned him from the Ideal a couple of years before Lily started as a waitress, and she rarely met up with him, but Hank knew Tex from the city jail, where he sometimes spent the night in one or the other of the two cells. Hank’s summer job as a dispatcher at the Webster Police and Fire Department had made him an expert on the big redhead’s misdemeanors. It was true that his crimes usually didn’t amount to much more than disturbing the peace, but he disturbed the peace at a pretty regular clip and drove the officers batty. Tex’s last offense had taken place last Thursday, when he barged through the doors of the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall out on Highway 19, howling like Tarzan as he loped down the aisle dressed in nothing but a pair of leopard bikini underwear, a ten-gallon hat and cowboy boots.

“I’d say Tex must’ve paid that Shapiro fellow eight or nine visits, and the last time I seen him, he was comin’ out of the room buttonin’ up his shirt.” Ida’s face puckered in disgust.

Bert gaped at Ida in mock horror. “Why, Ida Bodine,” she said. “If the man’s a fruit, I’m a five-eyed alien from the next galaxy.”

Ida sniffed. “I’m just sayin’ what I seen, nothin’ more.”

“Come on, Ida,” Lily said. “Edward Shapiro taught at Courtland. He had a good job there—”

Ida interrupted. “His wife left him, didn’t she? It’s gonna be divorce.” She hissed the last consonant. “Tell me this, if he’s so hoity-toity, big professor and all, what’s he doin’ in the Stuart?”

Lily glanced at Bert, then back at Ida. “I think he’s painting.” Her tone had more vehemence than she had intended.

Ida raised her eyebrows. “You know what they say about the paintings, don’t you? They’re pictures of Webster, and they ain’t none of our beauty spots. I guess he’s done the grain elevator and the tracks and the dump and made ’em real ugly to show all of us here that we’re a bunch of hicks.”

Lily had only seen the backs of Shapiro’s paintings, but she wondered why he would paint outdoor scenes inside.

“Now where did you get that information?” Bert said.

“Around.” Ida narrowed her eyes.

Lily leaned over the counter toward Ida. “And what law says he can’t paint whatever the hell he wants?”

Ida moved her head back from Lily. “Well, la-di-da,” she said. “If you aren’t takin’ this personal.” The woman retrieved a Kleenex from her purse and dabbed either side of her mouth with it. It was a gesture of absurd, extravagant femininity that made Lily want to laugh. Ida lowered the napkin and clutched it in two hands. “What I’d like to know, Lily Dahl, is what’s that New York Jew to you?”

Lily glared at Ida but said nothing. Bert gave Lily an uneasy glance. Then Ida crumpled the napkin in one fist, lifted her coffee cup from the counter and walked back to her stool.

“Windbag,” Bert said.

“He’s Jewish,” Lily said, observing the fact aloud.

“Shapiro,” Bert said. “It’s a Jewish name.”

“Oh,” Lily said. She felt herself blush and wondered why Bert knew such things when she didn’t. She looked at the clock. It was pushing seven. Soon there’d be another rush when the downtown merchants came in for a bite before opening their stores. Lily surveyed the room. She had missed the Bodlers’ exit. “God, Bert, you cleaned the scuz booth.”

“So you owe me.” Bert picked up a stack of dishes, then motioned with her head toward the door.

Hank Farmer walked in and smiled at Lily. His face looked a little swollen, but then all night at the police station would clobber anybody. He gave Lily a quick kiss on the cheek, and instead of straightening up, he kept his head level with hers and said, “I’m going home to sleep, but I’d like to see you later, okay?”

Lily looked into his handsome face. He was so close she could see the faint scars of adolescent acne. A piece of dark blond hair had fallen onto his forehead. She didn’t answer him but looked past his cheek at Martin’s empty booth and studied the inverted letters of the neon sign in the window. She leaned back a couple of inches. “Call me,” she said. “I feel a little low. My period.”

Hank nodded and kissed her again. She watched him bound out the door and across the street. He moved beautifully, and she thought to herself that he looked better from a distance. She stared through the window and fiddled with the pad in her apron pocket.

Bert addressed Lily’s back. “I know you’re juggling love interests right and left here, Lil’, but you better get that fanny of yours back to work.”

Lily didn’t bother to turn around. She wiggled her hips at Bert and said, “It’s seven. I’m going to play something before you-know-who gets there first.” Lily looked over her shoulder toward the jukebox and saw Boomer Wee coming through the kitchen doors.

“Cut him off at the pass!” Bert yelled, flinging an arm toward Boomer.

Lily made a dash for the jukebox, but Boomer was too fast for her, and by the time she reached it, he was leaning over the selections. His T-shirt had hiked up his back, exposing his white skin and bony spine. “Don’t you dare play that song. Get back to the dishes!” she hissed at Boomer, trying to elbow him away from the box. “You’re going to kill me with that song.” But Boomer blocked her and she heard the rattle of the quarter, the click of the machine and then Elvis started singing “Blue Suede Shoes.”