Siri Hustvedt - The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

* * *

When Lily walked into the hallway at five-fifteen the next morning, dressed and ready for work, she heard Mabel’s door open, saw the woman’s head push through the opening, and heard her say in a loud voice, “Don Giovanni.”

“What?” Lily whispered to signal a lower tone.

“Didn’t you hear it?” Mabel brought her voice down a few notches. “The duet from Don Giovanni blasting from across the street about ten-thirty, eleven o’clock.” Mabel narrowed her eyes. “You’d have to be deaf not to have heard it.”

“I heard it,” Lily said. “Don Giovanni.” She addressed the wall. “I didn’t know what it was.”

“Mozart,” Mabel said.

Lily nodded, then turned to the steps.

“He stood in that window like he’d been turned to stone.”

Lily was tempted to look back at Mabel’s face but didn’t. “Who?” she lied.

“Our neighbor from across the street. Shapiro. If it were possible to die standing up, I’d have said that fellow went into rigor mortis right then and there.”

Lily said nothing.

“By the way, how was rehearsal?”

Lily stopped and turned to look up the stairs. Mabel was standing on the landing. Her hair had been pinned into a loose bun. Little wisps flew out all over her head. “It went great,” Lily said. “Thanks to you.”

Mabel looked down at Lily and smiled. “Shall we work again today or tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Lily said.

Mabel said, “Good.” She turned to the door and opened it, her back rod-straight and her arm bent at a graceful angle. Lily knew this was an exit meant to be seen. The door closed with a click, and Lily wondered why Mabel was so interested in her. The woman’s loneliness was palpable, and that explained part of it. No children, she thought. I hope I can have children, at least one, and if it’s only one, I want it to be a girl. Lily had been an only child. It wasn’t that her parents hadn’t wanted more children, it had just turned out that way. Outside the door to the cafe, Lily stopped. She remembered the day she drove home with her father from the lumberyard. He had explained the weather to her in the car, the way it blew through the Dakotas and arrived in Minnesota a day or two later. She remembered walking through the door and calling for her mother, but her mother hadn’t answered her, and she remembered her father picking up a note that lay on the kitchen table. She remembered the stricken look on his face, which she wasn’t meant to see. Mrs. Daily had driven Lily’s mother to the hospital. The doctor had told her that after three miscarriages she shouldn’t get pregnant again. As a child, Lily had often thought about those children that were never born. She had even named them: Reginald, Alexander and Isabella. The names belonged to nobody Lily had ever known. She had stolen them from English novels for children, but the names reverberated even now, as signs of what never was. She remembered her mother telling her that she couldn’t have more children, that she felt lucky to have her Lily, and then she never spoke of it again. Maybe I’ll have two children, she thought, revising the number. She wondered why Mabel hadn’t had children. She wondered why she had moved to Division Street. She had said the house on Orchard Street had been too much for her, but of all the places to come to, why this little brick building with warped floors and bad plumbing? The woman wasn’t poor. And now she had seen Edward Shapiro standing in the window. Mabel Wasley was no dummy. She might be old, but it was obvious to Lily that the woman’s brain was as sharp as ever. Lily had the uncomfortable notion that Mabel might suspect what had been going on last night. At the same time, unless Mabel had hung herself out her own window, she couldn’t possibly have seen into Lily’s. Of course Mabel knows the name of the damned opera, she said to herself and pushed open the door.

* * *

As she moved in and out of the kitchen from table to table, the memory of herself naked in the window filled Lily with awe. Every few minutes, she glanced over at the Stuart Hotel, shabby in daylight, and recalled the way it had looked only hours before — the illuminated window, the light of street lamps on the dark brick — another place altogether. He’s asleep now, she thought, and paused for a moment. She was standing with her back to the counter, a plate in her right hand, a coffee cup in her left, when an image of Edward Shapiro’s shoulders and chest shuddered through her. The plate tipped and a sausage rolled to the floor. Lily ducked behind the counter, picked up the little wiener and plopped it back on the plate. It looked fine. She set the plate in front of Elmer Esterby.

Lily was pouring coffee for Mr. Berman of Berman’s Apparel and still thinking about the man in his bed across the street when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t turn to see who it was until she had finished pouring. It was Hank. His face looked heavy and tired. Lily supposed he hadn’t slept after his shift but had come straight to the cafe. He spoke to her in a low, tense voice. “We had a date last night, remember? To see each other after your rehearsal and before I went to work. I called and called. Where the hell were you?”

She didn’t answer him. She looked into his face for a couple of seconds, then turned away. Hank was holding her right arm, then he grabbed her left arm and squeezed. Lily knew he wanted her attention, wanted her to look at him, to be sorry, but she wasn’t, and his tight grip on her made her feel stubborn, then indifferent. In response to his grip, she could feel herself go limp. I don’t care, she thought. Her head bobbed forward and her spine collapsed.

“What the fuck?” Hank muttered.

He clutched her upper arms harder to hold her up. If he let go, she knew she would fall. I don’t care, she thought again, and looked up at him with a dead expression. She knew what he saw when he looked at her: the face of an unruly schoolgirl who goes blank when scolded, and it gave her a sensation of defiant pleasure. I’m bad, she said to herself, and with that thought she smiled. Before she knew what she was doing, she was smiling like an idiot into Hank’s outraged face. He started to shake her. Lily’s head flew backward, then whipped forward again. She lost her footing and stumbled forward into Hank, who continued to shake her. His fury amazed Lily, and she heard herself cry out in surprise.

Mr. Berman stood up. “That’s quite enough, Hank,” he said.

The paternal command worked like magic. Hank’s hands flew off Lily. She scrambled to regain her footing, stood up and watched him glance at his raised hands as he turned to the door. His cheeks looked shiny, and Lily bit her lip. On the sidewalk Hank broke into a run before the screen door slammed behind him. The noise felt like a signal that the drama was over. Lily heard muttering, felt people staring at her and took a deep breath.

“Are you all right, Lily?” Mr. Berman said.

She avoided his gaze. “I’m fine.” She shrugged. Her cheeks and forehead burned. She pulled her order pad out of her pocket and pretended to read it.

Bert walked up to Lily and put her arm around her. “Holy shit! What’s his problem? I thought you were going to come sailing over the baked goods any second!”

Lily talked to Bert’s feet. “Forget about it. He was pushed.”

Bert angled her head downward to meet Lily’s eyes. Lily lifted her head, looked at her friend and chewed her lip.

“Listen to me, Lil’. Even if you said you were going to hack off his dick, chop it up in little pieces and eat it for supper, he doesn’t have the right to lay a hand on you. That’s the law. Got it?”

Bert uttered these words in a voice so musical and tender, Lily had to smile.