Marilynne Robinson - Lila

He said, “So. Are we getting married, or not?”

And she said, “If you want to, it’s all right with me, I suppose. But I can’t see how it’s going to work.”

He nodded. “There could be problems. I’ve thought about that. Quite a lot.”

“What if it turns out I’m crazy? What if I got the law after me? All you know about me is what anybody can tell by looking. And nobody else ever wanted to marry me.”

He shrugged. “I guess you don’t know me very well, either.”

“It ain’t the same. Somebody like me might marry somebody like you just because you got a good house and winter’s coming. Just because she’s tired of the damn loneliness. Somebody like you got no reason at all to marry somebody like me.”

He shrugged. “I was getting along with the damn loneliness well enough. I expected to continue with it the rest of my life. Then I saw you that morning. I saw your face.”

“Don’t talk like that. I know about my face.”

“I suspect you don’t. You don’t know how I see it. No matter. A person like you might not want the kind of life she would have with me. People around. It’s not a very private life, compared to what you’re used to. You’re sort of expected to be agreeable.”

“I can’t do that.”

He nodded. “They’re not going to fire me, whatever happens. I’ll have my good house, till they carry me out of it.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know that. I meant, if you’re not like most pastors’ wives, it won’t matter. I’ve been here my whole life. My father and then me. I won’t be here so much longer. No one will want to trouble me. Or you.” He said, “You have to understand, I have given this a great deal of thought. What an old country preacher might have to give to a young woman like you. Not the things a man her age could give her, a worldlier man. So I would be grateful for anything I could give you. Maybe comfort, or peace, or safety. For a while, at least. I am old.”

She said, “You’re a pretty fine-looking man, old or not.”

He laughed. “Well, thank you! Believe me, I would never have spoken to you this way if I didn’t think my health was reasonably sound. So far as I can tell.”

“You wouldn’ta spoke to me like this if I hadn’t mentioned it all in the first place.”

“That’s true. I’d have thought it would be foolish of me to imagine such a thing. Old as I am.”

She thought, I could tell him I don’t want to be no preacher’s wife. It’s only the truth. I don’t want to live in some town where people know about me and think I’m like an orphan left on the church steps, waiting for somebody to show some kindness, so they taken me in. I don’t want to marry some silvery old man everybody thinks is God. I got St. Louis behind me, and tansy tea, and pretending I’m pretty. Wearing high-heel shoes. Wasn’t no good at that life, but I did try. I got shame like a habit, the only thing I feel except when I’m alone.

She said, “I don’t think we better do this.”

He nodded. His face reddened and he had to steady his voice. “I hope we will be able to talk from time to time. I always enjoy our conversations.”

“I can’t marry you. I can’t even stand up in front of them people and get baptized. I hate it when they’re looking at me.”

He glanced up, preacherly. “Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. I should have realized. I haven’t always performed baptisms in the church. If there are special circumstances— All I would need is a basin of some sort. I could take water from the river.”

“I can’t affirm nothing.”

“Then I guess we’ll skip that part.”

“I got a bucket. No basin.”

“That will do fine.”

“You wait here. I got to comb my hair.”

He laughed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She changed into a cleaner blouse and combed and braided her hair and put on her shoes. She’d do this and think about it afterward. She went out on the stoop and picked up the bucket, which would be clean enough after a rinse. The old man was in the field picking sunflowers. She walked to the road. He brought her his bouquet. “I like flowers at a baptism,” he said. “Now we’ll fetch a little water.” There was a kind of haste in his cheerfulness. She had hurt him, and he couldn’t quite hide it. He took the bucket from her and helped her down the bank as if she hadn’t gone to the river for water a hundred times by herself, and he sank the bucket into a pool and brought it up, brimming, and poured half of it back. The crouching was a little stiff, and the standing, and he smiled at her — I am old. “I don’t need much at all,” he said. “A few waterskeeters won’t do any harm.” He was dressed in his preacher clothes, and he was careful of them, but he liked being by the river, she could tell. “What do you think? Up there in the sunshine or down here by the water?” Then he said, “Oh, I left the Bible lying on the grass. I could do it from memory. But I like to have a Bible, you know, the cloud of witnesses.” She didn’t know. “Since there aren’t any others.” She still didn’t know. No matter. He was glad to be doing this, and not just so he could put aside that talk they’d had. So it must mean something.

She said, “I like the sunshine.” He helped her up the bank, and he found the Bible, and he opened it and read, “‘Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him … And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ These are the words of John, who baptized for the remission of sins, and who baptized Our Lord: ‘I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.’ The sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Dying in Christ we rise in Him, rejoicing in the sweetness of our hope. Lila Dahl, I—”

“But that ain’t my name.”

“What is your name?”

“Nobody ever said.”

“All right. It’s a good name. If I christen you with it, then it is your name.”

“Christen?”

“Baptize.”

“All right.”

“Lila Dahl, I baptize you—” His voice broke. “I baptize you in the name of the Father. And of the Son. And of the Holy Spirit.” Resting his hand three times on her hair. That was what made her cry. Just the touch of his hand. He watched her with surprise and tenderness, and she cried some more. He gave her his handkerchief. After a while he said, “When I was a boy, we used to come out along this road to pick black raspberries. I think I still know where to look for them.”

She said, “I know where,” and the two of them walked across the meadow, through the daisies and sunflowers, through an ash grove and into another fallow field. There were brambles along the farther side, weighed down with berries. She said, “We don’t have nothing to put them in,” and he said, “I guess we’ll just have to eat them.” He picked one and gave it to her, as if she couldn’t do it for herself. He said, “We could put them in my handkerchief. I’ll hold it.”

“You’ll get stains all over it.”

He laughed. “Good.”

She spread it across his open hands and filled them, and then she tied the corners together. Fragrance and purple bled through the cloth. He said, “I’ll carry it so it doesn’t stain your clothes, but it’s for you, if you want it. You can steal my handkerchief. If you want to remember. The day you became Lila Dahl.”