Robert Pirsig - Lila. An Inquiry Into Morals

Phædrus paid the driver, gathered his luggage from the seat of the taxi, and stepped out.

You keeping things quiet here? he said to the guard.

The man nodded and asked, Is that your boat way out on the end?

Phædrus said it was. What’s wrong with it?

Nothing. He looked at Phædrus. But there’s someone on it.

What’s he doing?

It’s a lady. She’s just sitting there. No raincoat. I asked her what was the matter, said she "belonged" there. She just looked at me.

I know her, Phædrus said. She must have forgotten the combination.

The boards of the dock were slippery, and as he walked carefully with all his luggage he could see her out there under the boom gallows.

He didn’t like it. She was supposed to be gone for good. He wondered what she had in store for him now.

When he got there Lila’s eyes were wide and staring. She acted as if she didn’t recognize him. He wondered if she was on drugs.

He swung his luggage over the life lines and stepped aboard himself. Why didn’t you go in? he asked.

She didn’t answer.

He’d find out soon enough.

He rotated the combination wheels of the lock in the dark, counting clicks, then gave a sharp tug on the lock, and it opened. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t get in.

Couldn’t you get the lock to work? They stole my purse.

Oh, that was her problem.

He felt a little relieved. If money was all she needed, he could give her enough of that to get her going in the morning. No harm putting her up for one more night.

Well, let’s get down inside, he said.

We’re ready to go now, Lila said. She got up strangely, as if she was carrying something heavy all wrapped in her arms.

Who is we ? Phædrus wondered.

Down below he gave her a towel, but instead of wiping herself with it she opened up what she had been carrying and began to stroke what looked like a baby’s face.

As he looked closer he saw that it wasn’t a baby. It was the head of a doll.

Lila smiled at him. We’re all going together, she said.

He looked at her face carefully. It was serene.

She came back to me, Lila said, from the river.

Who?

She’s going to help us get to the island.

What island? he wondered. What’s this doll?… What are you talking about? he asked.

He looked at her very closely. She returned his gaze and suddenly he saw it again — the thing he had seen in the bar at Kingston, the light, and he felt inappropriately relaxed by it.

This wasn’t drugs.

He settled back on the berth, trying to find some space to think this through. This was coming at him too fast.

After a while he said, Tell me about the island.

Lucky’s probably already there, she said.

Lucky?

We’re all going, she said. Then she added, You see, I know who you are.

Who? he asked.

The boatman.

There was no point in asking her any more questions. All he got was still more questions.

She looked down again at the doll with an adoring look. This wasn’t any kind of drugs, he thought. This was real trouble. He recognized the style of what she was saying, the salad of words. He had been accused of it himself, once. They meant something to her but she was leaving things out and skipping and hopping from place to place.

He watched her for a long time, then saw she was getting dreamy.

You’d better dry off and change clothes, he said. She didn’t answer. She just looked down at the doll and made little cooing sounds.

Why don’t you go up forward and rest? he said.

Still no answer.

Do you want something to eat?

She shook her head and smiled dreamily.

He got up and tugged at her shoulder. Come on, he said, you’re falling asleep.

She woke a little, looked at him blindly, then carefully wrapped the doll again and got up. She stepped ahead of him like a sleepwalker into the forecabin and there placed the doll carefully in the bunk ahead of her and then slowly climbed in.

Sleep as long as you want, he said.

She didn’t answer. She seemed to be asleep already.

He went back and sat down.

That wasn’t so hard, he thought.

He wondered what he would do with her in the morning. Maybe she’d snap out of it. That sometimes happened.

He got a flashlight and lifted the cabin sole boards to check the level of water in the bilge.

It was still quite low.

He then got a wrench and opened the top of the drinking water tank and shone the flashlight beam inside. It looked about half-full. He could fill it tomorrow morning, he thought, just before he left.

What the hell? How could he leave tomorrow? What was he going to do with her?

He went back and sat down again. He wasn’t really coming to grips with this.

After a while he supposed he could call the police.

And say what? he wondered.

Well, you see, I’ve got this crazy lady on my boat and I’d like to have you get her off.

How did she get on your boat? they would ask.

Well, she got on at Kingston, he would say… ridiculous. There was no way he was going to win that conversation.

He supposed the easiest legitimate way out of the whole mess would be to get her to see a psychiatrist. Then, whatever happened to her, he’d be done with her. That’s what they’re for. But how was he going to talk her into that? He could barely get her into the bunk up there.

And who was going to pay? Those guys don’t come cheap. Would they take her as a charity case? An out-of-towner in New York? Hardly. And anyway just the paper-work of it, the bureaucracy, could make it days before he got out of here.

Slowly the predicament he was in began to dawn on him. Boy! There’s no such thing as a free lunch. She really had him trapped. There was no way he could get rid of her now. What the hell was he going to do?

This wasn’t tragic. This was so dumb it was comic. He was really stuck with her!

He could see himself spending the rest of his life with this crazy lady up in the forecabin, never daring to report her, traveling from port to port like some yachting Flying Dutchman — a servant to her for the rest of his life.

He felt like Woody Allen… That’s who should play him in the movies. Woody Allen. He’d get it right.

What to do? This was impossible.

He realized he could just take her out and dump her overboard. He thought about it for a while, until it started to give him a sick depressed feeling. No sense in being ridiculous. He was really stuck.

It was cold in the cabin. The shock of all this must have prevented him from noticing it. He got out the charcoal briquets and built a fire in the heater, but all of the matches went out. More Woody Allen. All of a sudden nothing was working.

He went over in his mind all the things that had happened since he first met her in Kingston. She had given little warnings that something like this might happen. She was such a stranger he just hadn’t recognized it. The sudden anger over nothing, that crazy sex episode in the forecabin in Nyack. She had been acting that way all along.

He guessed that’s what Rigel was trying to warn him about.

He thought of starting up the stove for some coffee, but decided not to. He should try to get some sleep himself. There was nothing he could do now that couldn’t be done in the morning. He rolled a sleeping bag out on the bunk, undressed and got in.

The talk about the boatman, what was that about?