Lila: A Novel

by Marilynne Robinson

  So she left St. Louis. It wasn’t just that one thing. It was her whole life. She had told herself that she went to the movies just to see people living, because she was curious. She’d more or less decided that she had missed out on it herself, so this was the best she could do. And it wasn’t so bad. The women at work would talk about their children who used to be so sweet when they were little, and now they’d rather drink than eat, the boys and the girls, and they couldn’t keep their mitts out of their mother’s handbag. She’d be thinking how strange it was in that movie Dorian Gray that when the man’s picture turned ugly from all his wickedness, the pants in the picture turned baggy, too. She couldn’t make much sense of it. Half the people in the movie were dressed like Fred Astaire and the other half looked like they’d been sleeping in their clothes their whole lives. When that man goes off into the poor part of the city, he turns evil and ends up looking like he’s been sleeping in his clothes. The more he goes there, the worse he is. Warts all over him. Maybe somebody stole his hat and the rest of it. Swapped with him. That could happen. Or somebody saw him there stripped naked and took pity on him, since every inch of that town he lived in was always soaking wet. What was she thinking about? It was the painting that changed. She couldn’t remember if the man died in his good clothes and only the rest of him was ugly. Him lying there and the others clucking their tongues. Too bad he happened to have a knife to kill himself with. Then he was too dead to use it to make them stop staring, and that was a shame. She was wearing Doll’s knife in her garter the day she saw Mack, but she probably wouldn’t have used it even if it hadn’t meant putting herself in reach of him, probably looking into his face. That damn face. Well, her life just rose up on her, and before she even knew quite what was happening she was walking away, struggling to keep from making a fool of herself, her heart beating in her ears. The life she’d decided she would never have was there the whole time, trapped and furious, and in that minute she knew that if a man she ought to hate said one kind word to her, there was no telling what she might do. Come along, Rosie. Give me a little smile, come along. He’d forgotten he ever saw her, and she was up in her room with the window shade pulled down, stuffing everything she had into her suitcase.

  She walked over to the bus station to see where she could get to with the money she had. Wherever she went, she’d get there after the stores were closed, and the rooming houses. To get out of the city would take all her money, and then she’d have no place to spend the night and no supper. She went outside to sit on a bench and think about it. A car pulled up to the curb, and the driver, a young woman, called to her to ask her where she was going. Lila said, “Iowa,” and the woman said, “Me, too!” as if she had been hoping to hear that very word. “Get in. I saw you sitting there with your suitcase and I thought, I’d sure appreciate some company. That’s really why I came by here. It’s not on my way.” Lila wasn’t sure what to think about sitting for hours beside someone who might expect her to talk or to give her more money than she had, but the woman said, “It’ll save you the price of a ticket. I’ll be driving all night, and I’d rather not do that alone.” She was a tidy, freckly little woman with her hair in a knot. She was wearing a starchy white blouse she must have spent an hour ironing, it was so perfect. At the movies you could find yourself sitting next to anybody at all, some man with polished shoes and creased pants, some woman with rings on her hands, hugging her purse. They might tip their bags of popcorn toward her, she would hear them breathe and sigh as if they were sharing a pillow with her. Sometimes she could feel them looking at her, but she never looked at their faces or said anything to them. She’d just wait until the show began and they could forget each other. Now she would probably be sitting beside this stranger for hours with no way to stop thinking about her, which meant there was no way she could stop thinking about herself. Still, it would make some things easier.

  The woman said, “Where you going?”

  Lila thought she might try to get to Tammany, but the woman had never heard of it, so when she asked if it was near Des Moines Lila said yes, thinking that must be where the woman was going herself. It turned out she was going to a town called Macedonia, off somewhere in the cornfields, so she left Lila at a gas station in Indianola, which wasn’t too far from Des Moines. Lila had no reason to be in Des Moines. In fact, she didn’t want to be in any town that was big enough for anybody to know where it was. She had in mind one of those no-name places along a county road. A store and a church and a grain elevator. There must be a thousand of them, all just alike, and farms spreading out beyond them. But that woman had brought her clear from St. Louis, so she was glad for twelve hours of riding in a car. It stalled as often as it slowed down. Going up a hill was a trial every time. The woman said she was glad to have someone to talk to because driving made her sleepy, but then she was too nervous to talk. Every now and then she would say she was scared the car was going to break down, and she sure didn’t want to be sitting there in the middle of nowhere all by herself. This was meant as a kindness to Lila, to make her feel welcome, but it was also true. She leaned into the steering wheel and peered out at the road as if that would help.

  Lila was glad to be seeing the country again, the fields looking so green in the evening light. Knee-high by the Fourth of July. So it must be June. Every farmhouse in its cloud of trees. There is a way trees stir before a rain, as if they already felt the heaviness. It all just went on and on, the United States of America. It was so easy to forget that most of the world was cornfields.

  The woman said, “My mama’s sick, and there’s nobody to help her out. I’ve got to get there fast.” It was the first time she had driven any distance to speak of. “I got a letter from her. She never mentions a problem, she never wants to worry me. She doesn’t have a telephone, so I thought I’d better bring a car in case I need to find a doctor. It might not even run after I get there. If I get there. I only bought it yesterday. Dang thief that sold it to me, I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.” It began to rain. She was afraid to stop the car for fear it wouldn’t start again, and they drove all night, except once when they needed gas. Then the man at the station had to push the car out onto the road. There was enough of a slope that the engine caught and they went on again, with no light at all but the headlights, and they didn’t show much but rain. The woman said, “I think I’d be scared if I were you, putting your life in my hands,” and Lila said, “I don’t much care what happens.” Then she could feel in the dark that for a minute the woman was wondering about her, about to ask her a question, then thinking better of it. Lila thought, Maybe she suspects I’m the kind of woman who might keep a knife in her garter. Might sleep in her clothes. The woman said, “Do you hear that?” There was a soft thumping sound. “Is that coming from the motor?”

  “Don’t sound like nothing.”

  “You know about cars?”

  “A little.” She knew they had four wheels and a running board, and that she wasn’t used to riding in one. But there was no point worrying when they couldn’t even stop to see if there was a problem, and wouldn’t know what to look for if they did stop. In the dead of night, without so much as a paper match to see by. And the rain would have put that out.

  “I don’t have a spare tire. There was one in the trunk, but I sold it for gas money.”

  “There’s nothing the matter with your tires.” Lila thought the woman could use a little comforting. It was kind of her to pick her up, even if she had her own reasons. It could take days of hitching rides to come as far as they had come in one day. If the car broke down she’d be hitching again, and that was just what she expected to be doing in the first place.

  The woman said, “You’re so quiet, sometimes I think you’re sleeping. Or praying.”

  “Nope. I’m just sitting here wide awake.”

  “Good. It wouldn’t matter, really, if you’re tired. But I do feel better—”

  “Sure.” Then Lila said, just to say something, “You seen
that movie Double Indemnity? Driving along in the dark like this reminds me of it.”

  “I can’t go to the movies. It’s against my religion.”

  “Oh.” One more thing she didn’t know about.

  “I shouldn’t have called that man a thief. I shouldn’t have said dang.”

  “Something wrong with saying dang?”

  “Well, it’s practically swearing. Anybody knows what you really mean by it.”

  Lila said, “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as practically swearing.”

  “In my church there is. Nazarene. We’re pretty strict.”

  This is exactly why Lila kept to herself. She thought, It’s a good thing I didn’t get a chance to take that child. I’d have nothing to tell it about getting along. Don’t lie more than you have to, don’t take what ain’t yours.

  The woman said, “No drinking, no smoking, no dancing, no makeup, no jewelry. They’re not too pleased with women driving cars. No stealing or killing, either, but that’s not what they talk about most of the time. I don’t mind it. I grew up in it.”

  “You give ’em your money?”

  The woman laughed. “A dime on the dollar. That’s usually about what it amounts to. Tithing. One-tenth of nothing. But we have a nice potluck every now and then. We try to look out for each other. It’s cheaper than insurance. You have a church?”

  “Nope.”

  “You might visit a couple of them. Just look in the door. If you’re living away from your family, a church can be a help.”

  “I ain’t living away from my family.”

  After a minute the woman said, “We’re a mission church. So I’m supposed to try to bring you to Jesus. But I won’t if you don’t want me to. Try, I mean. Some people think it’s irritating when I do that. I guess I’m not much good at it.”

  Lila said, “I wouldn’t mind talking about something else.”

  “Sure. That’s fine.” They were quiet for a while. “So you’ve got family in St. Louis?”

  “No, I don’t.” She would think that was what Lila meant. I ain’t living away from my family. She was quiet again. Lila could feel her wondering, and she almost said, I was working in a whorehouse because the woman who stole me when I was a child got blood all over my clothes when she came to my room after she killed my father in a knife fight. I’ve got her knife here in my garter. I was meaning to steal a child for myself, but I missed the chance and I couldn’t stand the disappointment, so I got a job cleaning in a hotel. You can’t say dang or go to movies, and look who you got sitting next to you hour after hour. Look who you been offering half of your spam sandwich. She was laughing and the woman glanced at her. So she said, “You can try bringing me to Jesus if you want to. Might pass the time.”

  The woman was quiet for a while. The windshield wipers were groaning and the rain was pounding the glass. She said, “I’d better not. I’d better be trying to see the road.” She said, “You’ve got to come to it in the right frame of mind. Otherwise it’s just talking for the sake of talk. Passing the time. I might be making excuses here. Lord forgive me if I am. But you strike me as a woman with a lot of bitterness in her soul. I don’t mean any offense. I might just make things worse.”

  Lila said, “I doubt you could do that.” She was beginning to wonder how well the woman knew where the road was. She would steer away from the shoulder when they started hearing gravel.

  “I’m a stenographer.” Her voice was high with nerves. “I learned shorthand in night school. I’m pretty good at it—I’m not good at much else.”

  “Well, you’re lucky you got the one thing.” She had no idea what that thing was.

  “My mama made me finish high school. I was so mad at her about that. Now I guess I’m glad she did. I wanted to quit and get married. He was five years older. She said, If he loves you he’ll wait. He didn’t. Wait. So I guess he didn’t love me. He went into the army and came back with some girl he met in England. I was upset at the time. Cried my fool head off. Are you married?”

  “Nope.” I’m good at chopping weeds. I can change sheets well enough. I was bad at whoring. Lila didn’t say anything, but she almost did. Why would she do that? The woman didn’t mean any harm. She wasn’t going to put her out beside the road for anything she said. If she hitched up her skirt to show her the knife, that might be different. She thought, I’m crazy, and laughed. She thought, I’ve got to stay away from people.

  The woman was saying, “I always thought I’d have kids. A dozen of them. And now look at me. My mom said once the war was over and the boys came home I’d find somebody. She’s still telling me I’ll find somebody. I’m beginning to have my doubts.”

  Lila said, “I just wanted the one child. I didn’t figure on—” and then she stopped herself. There she was anyway, rubbing her eyes. The woman glanced at her and said, “Well, God bless!”

  It was just being out in that great, sweet nowhere that was making her remember. Sometimes they saw a light, mostly it was just darkness and rain. But she didn’t have to see it to know. She could smell it. The window wouldn’t roll up right to the top, so night air came whistling in, a little rain with it, but how could she mind. The woman was helping her regret the child she never had. Lila had thought, That would be the same child who wasn’t the reason my dress was all bloody, who didn’t get me sent off to St. Louis with a slip of paper in my pocket, who wouldn’t be carried out into the secret night under my coat, who wouldn’t wake up to daylight and the birds singing.

  Well, here she was in the Reverend’s quiet house, as calm and safe as the good old man could make her. She hugged her belly. “I been waiting on you, child,” she said. “You be good to your poor mama this time. No slipping away on me. Don’t you go slipping away.”

  At the bus station in St. Louis that little woman had pulled over and rolled down her window and asked her where she was going, and that was one good thing. Then she wasn’t at the service station at Indianola an hour or so when a fellow offered her a ride in his pickup truck, a shy fellow with rough skin and a bad cough, wanting company. Probably his girl had left him and he wanted just anybody beside him, because he didn’t talk at all. Company does sort of settle people sometimes. They don’t have to know anything about you except that you’re sitting there.

  He let her out where he turned off from the main road, and she walked along for a while till she was just about as tired of walking as she could stand to be, no cars passing at all, and she saw that old shack off in its meadow of weeds. Good things happen three at a time, and here was a place where she could take her shoes off and put her suitcase and her bedroll down. That road followed a river, so there wouldn’t be much else to want. She could wash the dust off, get a drink.

  Those first few days, clearing out the shack and washing at the river, finding dandelion greens and ferns still coming up and wild carrot, finding a rabbit burrow. Life is hard in the spring, and still it all felt like something she had almost died for the want of. She found a patch of violets blooming and lay down there, and ate every single flower, one by one, the way Mellie used to do. Mellie sitting there Indian-style with a blossom perched on the tip of her tongue like a toad with a butterfly, thinking about something else, some plan for the next ten minutes. Once, when she had that look on her face, Marcelle said, “Now what’s she getting up to?” and Doane said, “She’s just hatching a couple more freckles.” Lila told the child, “I believe I really was a little crazy then, because things I remembered seemed so real to me. I don’t wonder at it. I just hope nobody saw me acting that way.” There was a time, when she was riding along in that car with the window down a crack, smelling the dark, wet fields, that she thought when she got the chance she might just lie right down on the ground in some lonely place and let the world take her life away. She felt that way when she saw those violets and remembered the old times, and she did lie down, but then the ants started bothering. There always was something bothering, and you had to be scratching and shifting around.
The world don’t want you as long as there is any life in you at all.

  But a place like that, just waiting, unless somebody came along and said it was his. She’d left the bottles and tins where they were except in the one corner, so it wouldn’t look like she meant to take the place if she didn’t have the right. But she did spread out her bedroll and lie down, and next thing she knew, it was almost morning. She could hear the birds singing. What is it they know, when the sky is still dark? Mellie said if just one of them saw just one bit of light, it’d wake up the rest of them and then they’d all go at it, making sure none of them stayed asleep. That’s what she did herself when she woke up first, no matter how early it was. Hum, hum, hum. I just wisht I knew where they put them matches. They got to be somewheres around here. Hum, hum, hum. I was thinking I’d get breakfast started. Tripping over Lila’s foot once or twice. What would one bit of light look like? A star. The birds would never be sleeping at all. Mellie would say, That’s all right, I know what I know.