Lilith

by J. R. Salamanca

  “Goodbye, Vincent,” she said, turning away and closing the door behind her.

  THURS., SEPT. 2:

  . . . It is too late to sleep now; the sky is already getting a little bit light in the east, over the top of the Murchisons’ roof, and it will be bright enough pretty soon to see whether there is a solid overcast—and whether this blessed rain is likely to continue all day. I think it will. It isn’t falling like a shower; it’s too fine and steady and cold, and that light in the east is very dim and gray—not like a real summer sunrise. Which means that I’ll be able to go to work today, after all—and to see Lilith! Thank the Lord! I haven’t prayed since Mama died, but when I heard the gutter pipe running over a little while ago I felt for the first time in years like offering a prayer of thanks. That’s a strange thing. The rain betrayed me so expensively the last time that I never thought I’d be glad to see it again. It doesn’t solve the problem, of course, but at least it postpones it for a while—for a good while, if I’m fortunate. Because if we don’t go walking today there’s very little chance that she will see the child again for a long time—even if she makes me take her past his house again, as I’m sure she will. But there are other children, and she’ll make other plans; I have no doubt of that. Still, the rain—if it keeps up!—has given me the only possible reprieve that I can think of.

  Very early this morning—just before that dream—I had resolved not to go to work today. I would pretend to be sick (I had even decided upon my symptoms, and rehearsed them) and would have Grandma phone the Lodge and tell them I wasn’t coming in. This was the only way I could think of to keep her from meeting the little boy as she had planned. It wasn’t really satisfactory, of course; there was always the possibility that she would persuade Mandel to substitute for me, and thus not only be able to carry out her terrible intentions, but—which was almost equally detestable—be obliged to repay Mandel for helping her. This possibility was so agonizing that I don’t really know if I would have been able to stick to my decision—but now I am saved! No one will take her for a walk; there will be no walk!

  I may as well stay awake now, until it’s time to get dressed. I don’t think I could go to sleep if I did go back to bed. I’ll try to put down that dream I had while I’m waiting.

  I don’t know what time it was—around three or four, I suppose. (I’d been awake all that time, thinking about what was going to happen today.) Then, when I’d decided that the only thing I could do was to stay home from work, I finally fell asleep in a kind of restless exhaustion. I think I fell asleep; I’m not really sure about it, because it seems to me that my eyes were open all the time, staring at the wall. I have this impression not only because of the starkness and clarity of everything I saw—more like that of a waking vision than a dream—but because there was a faint ray of moonlight shining on the gold seal of my high-school diploma which hangs in a glass frame above the highboy; and this darkly gleaming, circular, saw-toothed emblem seems to be superimposed upon, or buried shallowly beneath, all the images of my dream. In every picture that I recall there is somewhere—in an upper corner, hanging from a lamppost, perhaps; illuminating an attic window; or behind his face, giving a deep golden beauty to his eyes—this disk of burnished radiance, like a sunken sun.

  I could not have been asleep, or in this trancelike state of exhaustion, very long, when suddenly I saw the streets of the town, as clearly as if I stood in them. They were empty and silent, with moonlight on all the windows, and the pale stone of the sidewalks glowing softly. I was at the corner of Main and Montgomery (not there physically; I did not appear in the dream; but it was this section of the town that I saw, as if projected on a motion-picture screen). I was looking down the dark street, out of town, toward the highway; and suddenly I became aware that there was someone approaching—a single figure, walking down the middle of the road into the town. A tall man in a shabby raincoat, whose torn hem flapped in a shadowy, silent way as he walked. (There were no sounds anywhere in the dream; he made no footsteps, the dark elms stirred soundlessly, everything happened in ghostly silence.) He wore a canvas knapsack, like an army musette bag, slung over one shoulder by a broad strap, and it banged heavily against his hip as he walked. As he strode, I should say, for he came down the street in a rapid and determined way, not like a stranger or vagabond, but as if he were familiar with the town and certain of his destination. As he came closer I felt a breathless, gathering sense of excitement. He paused once or twice, standing in the darkness of the elm branches that overhung the street, and looked for a moment at the silent house fronts. I waited, feverish with impatience, feeling a great sweet tide of hope and comfort begin to flow through all my veins, and yet almost unwilling for him to approach too closely, almost afraid to see his face.

  In a few moments he had reached the corner, and I saw now that he limped a little, as if footsore from a long journey, and that his broken shoes were bound with tape. He stopped again under the darkened traffic light in the middle of the street and, raising his head, looked up past the windows of the drugstore toward Diamond Avenue. He was bareheaded; his long dark hair fell in a tangled glowing mass across the raveled collar of his coat, and the moonlight for a moment illumined his features fully. What a glorious joy and ease poured through my heart as I recognized my father’s face! They were the same sorrowful, darkly beautiful eyes—but steadfast and triumphant—that I had seen in my mother’s hidden photograph, the same sensitive, outraged mouth—but firm and enduringly tender under the dust of the highway and the weight of many unknown ordeals—the same fine forehead and delicately hollowed temples, made, it seemed, to withstand time itself with its nobility. I called out soundlessly, “Father! You came back! I always knew you would!” And it seemed to me that he must have heard me in some way, for a sudden beautiful smile curved his lips. “I always loved you, Father,” I said in a voice broken silently by joy. “Even when I said I hated you, it was only because I’d never seen you, because I thought I’d never know you. I love you, though.”

  He stood as if listening, his eyes glowing with a deep golden radiance, and in a moment turned up Diamond Avenue and walked quickly to the corner. In front of the music shop he stopped and looked in through the dusty window at the moonlit dulcimer. I saw his lips moving slightly as he read the faded title of the yellowing songbook that lay beside it. He raised his hands, spreading his fingers on the pane. They were slender and beautiful. Clenching one, he raised it slowly and struck the sheet of glass, which shattered and fell in glittering fragments with a soundless ghostly tinkle on the stone. He reached in through the broken pane and lifted out the old glowing instrument carefully, turning it over and over and smiling at the shimmer of moonlight on the dark polished wood, his eyes so full of love that I realized suddenly the dulcimer was for me. It was the present which he would bring home to his son! I thought my heart would burst with gratitude and love. He cradled the dulcimer in his arms and began to pluck slowly at the strings, little feathery showers of dust drifting down from them through the moonlight as he did so. I strained to hear the tune, but the strings vibrated silently, making some spectral melody which darkened my father’s eyes with somber absorption while he played. As I watched his fingers moving over the strings I saw that he had pierced his hand on the broken glass; there was a deep wound torn across his palm which bled onto the instrument, staining the gleaming wood of the cabinet. He seemed not to notice it until he had finished his silent sonata. When he had done so he put the dulcimer under his arm and, lifting his wounded hand, stared for a moment at the dark gash. He took a soiled handkerchief from his pocket and wound it about his hand; then, leaving a wet black pool of blood among the sprinkle of broken glass behind him on the pavement, he turned and walked quickly up the street toward my grandfather’s house.

  It was at this point that I woke out of my sleep—or trance, whichever it may have been—and sat upright in my bed, staring across at the faintly shining golden seal on the wall and smiling tremulously, my eyes
wet with tears, a sense of peace and solace beautifully burdening my heart with a weight so unfamiliar that it was almost like a pain. I was still only half awake, confused with sleep, the images of my dream burning so freshly and vividly in my mind that they seemed to me like absolute reality. I swung my feet over the bed and leapt up, staggering a little in my haste and disorientation, and without pausing ever to put on my slippers or bathrobe I went out of the bedroom and downstairs through the dark house, feeling my way swiftly along the walls and balusters. There was only one thought in my mind—one radiant, eager thought: I must be at the front door to welcome my father home! He would be here very soon now—he must be halfway down our street already! Grandma had raised the parlor shades as she did every evening before she went to bed, and the room was softly illumined with moonlight; I trod quickly through the pale milky pools of light that lay on the floor and unbolted the front door hurriedly, hearing the strenuous sound of my own breathing in my nostrils. When I opened the door the street was as silent as it had been in my dream—it was so late that even the sounds of the night bugs had ceased—a circumstance which increased my confused, fervent faith. I stood for a moment staring out across the porch railings at the stretch of moonlit pavement, expecting at any moment to see my father’s figure appear, walking quickly under the still trees. I held my breath, listening, but there was no sound at all. After a moment I stepped out onto the porch floor, feeling the smooth coolness of the painted boards under my feet, and called softly into the darkness, “Father? Father!” But there was no sound or movement. I stared with burning, anxious eyes into the shadows of the elms and hedges, waiting, feeling my joy wane slowly as the dream faded. Very gradually the reality of the silent summer night succeeded it; the coolness of the porch floor against the soles of my feet, the low shoals of cloud that moved toward the moon, the moist earthen reek of peat moss from Grandma’s flower baskets, and, suddenly, the sound of a train whistle blowing far off for the crossing at Gaithersburg. With that sound my hope dissolved entirely and was replaced slowly by the same dull ache of desperation with which I had fallen asleep. I went back into the house and closed the door quietly, standing for a moment with my head bowed and my hand on the knob.

  But I could not go back to bed. I began wandering around the softly lit parlor in a random, troubled way, as if there were something I had lost that I might discover there in the darkness somehow. I crouched on the floor in front of the sofa and ran my hands under all the cushions. I stood staring up at my framed medals, glinting darkly on the wall, and reached up to rustle the dried frond of palm leaf that was draped across them; I lifted the top off the old Chinese ginger jar and felt inside it with my fingers: dried rose petals that Mother had dropped into it, crumbling into flakes when I touched them. What was I looking for? I had no idea; but some idly desolate impulse made me search for half an hour, at least, in the still room. Then I came back upstairs and smoked a cigarette, lying on my bed in the dark, until I heard the sound of the water pipe running over. (It is stopped up with a sparrow’s nest from last spring.) When I opened the window I felt this fine cold rain on my face and hands and saw the gray dawn light behind the Murchisons’ chimneys. Since I have been writing it has increased considerably, and I can see now that there is a solid overcast—not summer shower clouds—which seems, thank God, to promise a day-long downpour. So I can get dressed now and go to work through the sweet rain, which seems to me to be falling for all the children in the world, making a cool shield of mist to guard them from desire.

  I HAVE now, in these last few pages, to tell the consequences of this “reprieve” of mine. It is with them that I end this story. Then I will be able to put down my pen and close this shabby soiled copybook and—and do what? I can’t think about that. I don’t think I will ever fully realize that it is over until I have finished writing this account of it. Perhaps that is what has given me the strength to go on with it. While I write it is still alive, held together by the tensions of active memory; but when I close this book, what advent will there be to replace it? None that I can think of. Only an awful void. Let me keep it alive a little longer:

  She is strange this morning. (I see her so clearly—although there is no sunlight and the room is dim—crouching at her window seat, her hands hooked in the wire, looking out at the dripping trees with restless intensity, turning back sometimes to stare at me, disengaging her hand from the netting and lifting it slowly with a wan look to clench the tips of her fingers between her teeth.) What is the cause of it? The frustration of her plans? More than that, I think: some profound unease. There is a fierce, musing vulnerability about her, like a cat cornered by vicious schoolboys. She picks at the hem of her skirt, her fingers soiled by charcoal.

  “So we are not going walking?” she says.

  “No. We can’t walk in the rain.”

  “Are you glad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I wasn’t looking forward to it.”

  “What do you look forward to?”

  “To you. Seeing you, touching you, loving you.”

  She watches the soft, rabid, shameless yearning of my eyes; never have I felt such desire for her.

  “And nothing else?”

  “No, nothing else.”

  “But you are afraid to make it perfect.”

  “Perhaps. It is enough for me as it is. I don’t want it to—”

  “What?” She watches me fiercely. “To corrupt others, is that it?” I lower my eyes, unable to withstand her scorn. “Fool. You don’t deserve what I’ve given you. You have no taste for excellence.”

  There is a cry above. She raises her head, her eyes clenching slightly with suspense.

  “Oh, God. He’s starting again. He screamed all night. Who is it that screams like that above me?”

  “I don’t know. Mr. Davis, I think.”

  “Why don’t you stop him? You don’t know how terrible it is, all night. Why don’t you do something for him? Why don’t you kill him?”

  “We are supposed to cure, not to kill.”

  “Are you?” She stares at me with bitter, mocking merriment. “Do you think you can cure me? Do you? Poor frightened Vincent. Can you cure this fire?” She doubles her fists and presses them against her belly, leaning forward and rocking her body, as if in agony. “Do you know what you have to cure? Do you know what I want?” I cannot meet the burning challenge of her eyes. “I want to leave the mark of my desire on every living creature in the world. That disgusts you, doesn’t it? Poor, honorable Vincent.”

  “I don’t have any right to be disgusted,” I say.

  “But you think it sinful, don’t you? Terrible. If I were a poet I would want to do it with words, and if I were Caesar I would do it with a sword. But I am Lilith, so I must do it with my body. How it frightens you! Wretched, righteous fool!”

  She leaps up from the window seat and prowls across the room, stopping in front of the bookcase, on which stands the broken skull. She has inserted the red rosette into its eyesocket, like a scarlet poppy. She stands staring up at it, clawing her hair with her curled fingers. I move toward her and lay my hands lightly on her shoulders, saying, “Lilith, I only want to—”

  She starts violently and shrinks away from me, turning her head swiftly, her hair falling across her frightened eyes.

  “Don’t! Don’t touch me! Your hands are so cold.”

  “Cold?” I lower my hands and look at them perplexedly. She stares, wide-eyed, through her scattered hair.

  “Yes, cold. They feel so . . . dead. There was a rose in one of them, and all the petals blew away, like little flames. Why are your hands dead like that?”

  I stand in silent confusion, feeling a chill of dread. She turns away from me, pacing across the room toward the window and then returning restlessly to the bookcase, staring up at the festooned skull.

  “Why did you steal my doll?” she asks suddenly, turning to face me with blazing eyes.

  “I didn’t steal it
,” I murmur, my face burning.

  She watches me for a moment with brooding scorn. “You’re lying to me. And you say you love me. How can there be any love or trust between us, when you lie to me and steal from me?”

  “I stole it because I love you,” I say humbly, dropping my head. “I wanted to have something that would remind me of you.”

  She stands in silence; with bowed head I feel her eyes upon me.

  “Have I shown you my paintbox?” she asks suddenly.

  “Your paintbox? Yes, I’ve seen it lots of times.”

  “No, I mean my new one.”

  She moves to her desk and, opening the drawer, takes out a wooden box and brings it to me. It is made of cedar, or some rose-colored wood, its cover beautifully inlaid with chips of ivory, ebony and mother-of-pearl, in an intricate geometrical design. It has also four little feet of polished ivory and a tiny latch and hinges of brass. I turn it over in my hands, admiring it.

  “Don’t you think it is beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open it.”

  I do so. Inside, it is divided into narrow compartments for her paints and brushes, the thin dividing strips of satin-smooth wood obviously fitted and glued by hand. There is a folded sheet of notepaper lying inside.