Marilynne Robinson - Gilead

Boughton looked at the picture and then he snapped the case shut and slipped it back into his pocket. He said, “You see,” and his voice was so controlled it sounded bitter, “you see, I also have a wife and child.” Then he just watched me for a minute or two, clearly hoping he would not have to take offense. “That’s a fine-looking family,” I said.

He nodded. “She’s a fine woman. He’s a fine boy. I’m a lucky man.” He smiled.

“And you’re afraid this might kill your father?”

He shrugged. “It came near enough killing her father. And her mother. They curse the day I was born.” He laughed and touched his hand to his face. “As you know, I have considerable experience antagonizing people, but this is on another level entirely.” I was thinking my own thoughts, so he said, “Maybe not.

Maybe that’s just how it seems to me—” and then he sat there studying his hands.

So I said, “Well, how long have you been married?” And regretted the question.

He cleared his throat. “We are married in the eyes of God, as they say. Who does not provide a certificate, but who also does not enforce anti-miscegenation laws. The Deus Absconditus at His most benign. Sorry.” He smiled. “In the eyes of God we have been man and wife for about eight years. We have lived as man and wife a total of seventeen months, two weeks, and a day.”

I remarked that we have never had those laws here in Iowa, and he said, “Yes, Iowa, the shining star of radicalism.”

So I asked him if he came here to be married.

He shook his head. “Her father doesn’t want her to marry me. Her father is also a minister, by the way. I suppose that was inevitable. And there is a good Christian man down there in Tennessee, a friend of the family, who is willing to marry my wife and adopt my son. They think this is very kind of him. I suppose it is. They believe it would be best for everybody.” He said, “And the fact is, I have had considerable difficulty looking after my family. From time to time they have gone back to Tennessee, when things were too difficult. That’s where they are now.” He said, “I can’t really ask her to make a final break with her family under the circumstances.” He cleared his throat.

We were just quiet. Then he said, “You know the chief thing her father has against me? He takes me for an atheist!

Delia says he thinks all white men are atheists, the only difference is that some of them are aware of it. Delia is my wife.”

I said, “Well, from certain things you have said, I have gotten the impression that you are an atheist.”

He nodded. “It is probably truer to say I am in a state of categorical unbelief. I don’t even believe God doesn’t exist, if you see what I mean. Of course this is a matter of concern to my wife, too. Partly for my sake. Partly for the boy’s. I lied to her about it for a little while. When I told her the truth, I believe she thought she could rescue me. As I said, when she first knew me, she took me for a man of the cloth. Many people make that mistake.” He laughed. “I generally correct them. I did her.”

Now, the fact is, I don’t know how old Boughton would take all this. It surprised me to realize that. I think it is an issue we never discussed in all our years of discussing everything. It just didn’t come up.

I said, “I take it you’ve talked to Glory.”

“No. I can’t do that. She’d just break her heart over it. She can tell there’s something on my mind. She probably thinks I’m in trouble. I believe my father thinks so, too.”

“I believe he does.”

He nodded. “He was crying yesterday.” He looked at me. “I have disappointed him again.” And then he said, controlling his voice, “I haven’t had any word from my wife since I left St. Louis. I have been waiting to hear from her. I have written to her a number of times — What is the proverb? ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’” He smiled. “I have even found myself turning to liquor for solace.”

I said, “So I understand,” and he laughed.

“‘Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul.’ Isn’t that right?”

Word for word.

He said, “The first thing she ever said to me was ‘Thank you, Reverend.’ She was walking home in a rainstorm with an armful of books and papers — she was a teacher — and some of the papers fell onto the pavement, and the wind was scattering them, so I helped her gather them up, and then I walked her to her door, since I had an umbrella. I didn’t think about what I was doing, particularly. My impeccable manners.”

“You were well brought up.”

“I was indeed.” He said, “Her father told me that if I were a gentleman I’d have left her alone. I understand why he feels that way. She had a good life. And I am not a gentleman.” He wouldn’t let me object to that. “I know what the word means, Reverend. Though I can now say that the influence of my wife worked a change in me for the better, at least temporarily.” Then he said, “I don’t want to tire you with this. I know I’ve interrupted you. I’ll tell you why I have kept trying to talk to you.”

I told him he was welcome to take all the time he wanted.

He said, “That’s very kind.” And then he just sat there for a little while. “If we could find a way to live,” he said, “I think she would marry me. That would answer her family’s most serious objections, I believe. They say I can’t provide a decent life for my family, and that has in fact been the case to this point.” He cleared his throat. “If you can really spare me the time, I will explain. Thank you. You see, I met Delia during a fairly low point in my life. I won’t go into that. Delia was very nice to me, very pleasant. So I found myself now and then walking down that street at that hour, and sometimes I saw her and we spoke. I swear I had no intentions at all, honorable or otherwise. It was just pleasant to see her face.” He laughed. “She would always say, ‘Good afternoon, Reverend.’ I was not at that time accustomed to being treated like a respectable man. I must say I enjoyed it. It got so that I would walk along her street with no thought of seeing her, just because there was a kind of comfort in being reminded of her. And then one evening I did meet her, and we spoke a little, and she asked me in for tea. She shared rooms with another woman who taught at the colored school. It was pleasant. We had our tea together, the three of us. I told her then I was not a minister. So she knew that. I believe she invited me in in the first place because she was under that impression, but I was honest with her. About that. It didn’t seem to matter too much.

“I don’t know just how it happened — I stopped by to lend her a book I had bought in order to lend it to her — as if from my library — I even dog-eared a few pages — and she invited me to come for Thanksgiving dinner. She knew I wasn’t on excellent terms with my family, and she said she couldn’t have me spending the holiday by myself. I said I was uncomfortable with strangers, and she promised me it would be all right. Still, I had a couple of drinks before I came and I was later than I had intended. I thought I would walk in on a gathering of some kind, but she was there all by herself, looking terribly unhappy.

“I apologized as well as I could and offered to go away, but she said, ‘You just sit down!’ So we sat there eating, neither one of us saying anything. I told her the dinner was delicious and she said, ‘It probably was once.’ Then she said, ‘Two hours late, liquor on your breath—’ speaking to me as if I were, well, what I was, and it came over me that I had no business there, I was no one she could respect, and the grief I felt was amazing to me. I stood up to thank her and excuse myself, and then I left.