Lila: A Novel (11 page)

They walked on like that, right past the store. She said, “Why?”

He laughed again. “You ask such interesting questions.”

“And you don’t answer ’em.” He nodded. It felt very good to have him walking beside her. Good like rest and quiet, like something you could live without but you needed anyway. That you had to learn how to miss, and then you’d never stop missing it. “I quit coming to them classes. So I guess I don’t get baptized.”

“Yes, I’ve given that some thought. There are things we do hope the person being baptized will understand well enough to affirm.”

“Affirm? I don’t even know that word. I can’t half understand that letter you give me. I’m an ignorant woman. Seems like you can’t understand
that
.”

He stopped, so she did. He looked into her face. “I think I would understand it if it were true. But I don’t believe it is. So I don’t see the point in acting as if I do.” He shrugged. “Knowing a few words more or less—”

“It ain’t that simple.”

He nodded. “It isn’t the least bit simple. But if you are at church this Sunday and you want to accept baptism, then—I will do it with perfect confidence in the rightness of it. That’s all I can say.”

She said, “I got to get some things at the store.” So they turned and walked back into Gilead.

He said, “I suppose you still don’t trust me at all.”

“I just don’t go around trusting people. Don’t see the need.” They walked on a while.

“The roses are beautiful. On the grave. It’s very kind of you to do that.”

She shrugged. “I like roses.”

“Yes, but I wish there were some way I could repay you.”

She heard herself say, “You ought to marry me.” He stopped still, and she hurried away, to the other side of the road, the flush of shame and anger so hot in her that this time surely she could not go on living. When he caught up with her, when he touched her sleeve, she could not look at him.

“Yes,” he said, “you’re right. I will.”

She said, “All right. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” Why did she say that? What was she planning on doing tomorrow? He just stood there. She could feel him watching her. Of all the crazy things she had ever done. It was that feeling that she had had walking along beside him that put the notion in her mind. It comes from being alone too much. Things matter that wouldn’t if you had a regular life. Just walking along beside that old man, past the edge of town, not even talking most of the time, with the cottonwoods shining and rustling and shading the road. She never really looked at him, but he was beautiful, gentle and solid, his voice so mild when he spoke, his hair so silvery white. If she ever thought of herself marrying anybody, it would have been a man who was young enough not to mind a day’s work. Being a preacher was a kind of work, though. And he had that house to live in. Gardens around it. Gone to weed.

What was she thinking about? It was never going to happen. She might be crazy, but he wasn’t. She tried to remember that he said those words—You’re right. I will—in a way that really meant, That’s the strangest thing anybody ever said to me in my whole life. It wasn’t hard to hear them that way, except from him. He always seemed to say what he meant. Near enough. But she could see how it might’ve been different this time. She lifted the loose plank and took out the jar where she kept her money. She had the five dollars Mrs. Graham paid her, since, upset as she was, she didn’t trust herself to go into the store and buy the tin of deviled ham she’d had on her mind. So all together it came to about forty-five dollars. If she hadn’t been buying things, cigarettes, margarine, there’d have been more. Still, forty-five dollars would take her a long way on a bus. She could go to California, where there wouldn’t be winter to worry about. Crops coming in all year long. Doane and Marcelle had always talked about going to California. That was a nice thing to think about. She could do it on her own. Nobody to trust. She knew he wouldn’t come to her place, and she couldn’t go to his. He might be looking for her, since it was tomorrow, or he might not be looking for her. She would go in to town in the next few days to get her ticket, so if he happened to see her he wouldn’t make much of it. She might never know—maybe he meant what he said, but if he didn’t, and she saw him again, she wouldn’t be able to stand the shame. Or she would, and that would be another, harder shame. It would be best if she could just say, I’m leaving, like I was meaning to do the whole time.

So she spent the next day at the river. She sat down on a rock and dropped a fishing line into the water. She had brought her tablet and pencil and her Bible. Ezekiel said:
And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings thus: their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, they had the face of a man; and they four had the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four had also the face of an eagle.
Doane would be saying, What did I tell you. But it made as much sense as anything else. No sense at all. If you think about a human face, it can be something you don’t want to look at, so sad or so hard or so kind. It can be something you want to hide, because it pretty well shows where you’ve been and what you can expect. And anybody at all can see it, but you can’t. It just floats there in front of you. It might as well be your soul, for all you can do to protect it. What isn’t strange, when you think about it.

The shadows had moved and the bugs were beginning to bother, so she found a sunnier place. There were huckleberries. If she could only forget why she was there, she’d be fairly pleased with herself. One big old catfish would make it a good day. That letter was in the Bible. She tore it in half and put a rock on it, in a wet enough place that the ink would bleed.
Dear Lila (if I may)
. She thought sometimes that if she decided to do it she could cut off her hand. There was a kind of peace in that. In one way, at least, she could trust herself, crazy or not. She might burn that sweater while she was cooking her catfish. She might burn the Bible, for that matter. Old Ezekiel would nestle down into the flames. He seemed to know all about them. The umbrella would fit in her suitcase, crosswise.

She decided to go to church the next Sunday. If she came late and left early, if she sat in the last pew, he would never be near enough to speak to her or to pay her any notice. She wouldn’t mind seeing him one last time, standing there in the pulpit, in the window light, talking to those people about incarnation and resurrection and the rest. She’d hear a little singing. After that she would never step into a church again.

When she came up the bank from the river, she saw him standing in the road, about halfway between her and that damn shack. So there she was, Bible in one hand, catfish jumping on a line in the other, barefoot, and he turned and saw her. He started walking toward her. She couldn’t think what else to do, so she waited where she was. He didn’t speak until he was close to her, and then he didn’t speak, still deciding what to say.

He said, “I know you don’t like visitors, but I wanted to talk to you. I wasn’t actually coming to your house. But I hoped I might see you. I want to give you something. Of course you are under no obligation to accept it. It belonged to my mother.” He was holding it in his hand, a locket on a chain. “I should have found a box for it.” Then he said, “We spoke about marriage. I haven’t seen you since then. I don’t know if you meant what you said. I thought I’d ask. I understand if you’ve changed your mind. I’m old. An old man. I’m very much aware of that.” He shrugged. “But if we’re engaged, I want to give you something. And if we’re not, I want you to have it anyway.”

“Well,” she said, “I got my hands full.”

He laughed. “So you have! Let me take something. A Bible!”

“I stole it. And don’t go looking at my tablet.”

“Sorry. Ezekiel.” He laughed. “You are always surprising.”

“I stole your sweater. Was that a surprise?”

“Not really. But I was glad you wanted it.”

“Why?”

He said, “Well, you probably know why.”

She felt her face warm. And the fish kept struggling, jumping against her leg. She said, “Damn catfish. Seems like you can never quite kill ’em dead. I’m going to just put it here in the weeds for a minute.” And there it was, flopping in the dust. She wiped her hand on her skirt. “I can take that chain now, whatever it is.”

He said, “Excellent. I’m—grateful. You should put it on. It’s a little difficult to fasten. My mother always asked my father to do it for her.”

Lila said, “Is that a fact,” and handed it back to him.

He studied her for a moment, and then he said, “You’ll have to do something with your hair. If you could lift it up.” So she did, and he stepped behind her, and she felt the touch of his fingers at her neck, trembling, and the small weight of the locket falling into place. Then they stood there together in the road, in the chirping, rustling silence and the sound of the river.

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—”