Lilith (27 page)

“Yes, it does.”

I do not think I had realized, until I was obliged by Bea’s assignment to put an end to it, that my delay in seeing Lilith again was a deliberate, if scarcely conscious, postponement on my part; but I could not any longer remain unaware of the apprehension that had produced it when I found myself muttering, as I walked toward the Lodge, imaginary lines of opening conversation, in order to practice the attitude of equanimity which Bea had recommended to me. It did not prepare me, however, for the enchanting vagary which met my eyes when I entered Lilith’s room. I found her seated at her loom in front of a half-completed tapestry, her head held close against the warp in what must have been an extraordinarily uncomfortable position, smiling dreamily while she wove into the fabric her own long yellow hair. I stood staring at her for a moment with unwilling delight at the grotesque charm of the sight, until she turned her head toward me painfully, bound, as she was, to the loom.

“It will be very unusual cloth,” I said.

“Yes. Do you think it’s beautiful?”

“Very. But it seems too much of a sacrifice. What are you going to do? Cut it off?”

“Yes. There are some scissors there on the table. Will you hand them to me?”

“No.”

“You won’t?”

“Part of my duty is to protect you; and I wouldn’t be observing it if I allowed a desecration like that.”

“You are not so stern today,” she said.

“I was angry the last time I saw you, because I had failed at my duty.”

“And now you are more determined than ever to succeed?”

“Yes.”

“But you can’t make me ruin my tapestry; that would be too cruel. It was to be a present for you—a throw for your bed. I made it especially for you.”

“Why?”

“To make you dream.” I stood smiling at her, thinking what little avail it was to “prepare” oneself for an interview with such a creature. “What will you do, then? Leave me chained here by my hair until I starve?”

In spite of my determined composure, her words created in my mind a weird and unpleasantly compelling image: a heap of silver bones fallen beside a moldering loom in a silent sunny room, and, hanging by its shining hair from the dusty, unfinished tapestry, a skull, to which her shriveled features had shrunken in a blind, eternal mask of pain.

“No, I won’t do that,” I murmured. I went to the table and found her scissors among a litter of paintbrushes and jars of powdered pigments.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to cut the threads and set you free.”

“Oh, that will be very difficult.”

She turned her face toward me and watched solemnly as I knelt beside her chair and cut the warp threads one by one, prying the strands of her hair from between them.

“You are very gentle,” she said.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

She gathered her freed hair in her hands and shook out the braided strands, looking ruefully at the clipped threads hanging in the loom.

“Do you know how long I worked on it?” she said.

“No.”

“All. morning. For hours.”

“Then it’s time you got outside for a while. Come and take a walk with me.”

“I can’t go outside today. There were crows in the poplar trees this morning.”

“And what does that signify?” I asked.

“They were sent by my people to warn me. But we can go down and sit on the veranda, if you like. It’s very pleasant there.”

“All right.”

She followed beside me silently, barefoot, along the corridor and downstairs in the elevator to the ground floor, where, while I sat watching her from one of the wicker armchairs, she wandered quietly among the greenery, pausing sometimes to touch leaves with her finger tips and set them tremblingly astir, or to purse her lips and blow gently at the petals of begonia blossoms.

“Is it all right for me to go on trips again?”

“Yes, I think it would be good for you.”

“I thought perhaps they wouldn’t let me, after the picnic.”

“No one said anything about it,” I said.

“And you haven’t lost your job.”

“No. They’re very kind, wise people here.”

“I’m very glad. You said that you might; and I would have been very sorry if you had left.”

“Well, I haven’t,” I said. “So nothing bad has come of it at all; and the next time you can go along with an easy conscience.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “They punished me for going.”

“They punished you?”

“Yes. I told you they would, for disobeying them.”

‘What did they do to you?” I asked.

“They wept. It’s how they always punish me; they come and kneel at my bed and make it shudder with their sobbing. Does that seem like a mild punishment to you? If it does, you have never heard anyone that you love weeping.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “I’ve heard my mother crying.”

“Have you?” She turned toward me with a look of tenderness that I could never have imagined in her face. “Why is she unhappy?”

“She isn’t, now,” I said. “I hope she isn’t, anyway.”

She stood silently for a moment and then came and sat beside me, holding in her hand a little spiral of vine that she had plucked. Outside the veranda I heard Howard Thurmond shouting, “Zotz, zotz, zotz!” and shrieking with laughter. I saw him through the screen, running across the lawn toward the drive and stopping to fling horse chestnuts at Mandel, who ran after him, his arms lifted to protect his face. “Die!” Howard shouted. “Zotz, zotz,
zotz
! You’re dead! You stink! You’re rotting!”

Lilith raised her hand and held it in front of my eyes to block my sight. “Don’t listen to them,” she said. “Give me your hand.” When I hesitated she lifted my hand from the arm of the chair and, separating my third finger, slipped the spiral of vine over it, like an old-fashioned serpent ring. I turned it idly between my thumb and finger tip, and said in a moment, “Tell me something, truthfully, will you?”

“Yes.”

“It was you who laughed at me, wasn’t it—that day I broke the eggs?”

“Yes. If you want to believe it was.”

“I knew it was, the minute I saw you. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think it needed to be spoken about,” she said. “When two people recognize each other, nothing needs to be said.” She dropped her head, resting her chin on her shoulder, and stared out at the lawn. Howard and Mandel had disappeared, and under the willows I could see mist rising from the wet grass. We did not speak for some time, and I became aware of a growing sense of tranquillity as I sat in the soft green light of the veranda turning Lilith’s vine ring on my finger and looking out beyond the end of the grounds to where townspeople passed occasionally in the street. A woman pushing a baby carriage, whose wobbling wheel caused her to pause sometimes and examine it with ineffectual anxiety, made a slow, halting progress toward Diamond Avenue. How far away they seemed—and how droll their dilemmas—separated from us by the shadows of the poplars and the panes of sunlight that fell between the trees! I must have smiled—perhaps I even made a murmur of amusement—for Lilith turned to look at me and asked, “What is her name?”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Carmichael, I think.”

“Don’t you know her?”

“Not very well. I see her in the grocery store sometimes.”

“Why did you smile, then?”

“I don’t know. It just seemed sort of . . . amusing, somehow.” She turned her head to watch Mrs. Carmichael disappearing slowly among the shadows of the elms.

“Are they nice people?” she asked. “What is it like, living in this town?”

“I don’t really know,” I said. “I was born here and I’ve been here all my life; but I don’t really feel as if I’ve lived here, somehow. They have a way of making you feel alone, and ashamed.”

She listened with her eyes lowered, closing them slowly with a look of soft intensity as she asked, “Why are you ashamed, Vincent?”
“My father was a strange man,” I said. “He was cruel, and selfish, I suppose; he wanted to be free. And my mother was . . . different from most of the women in this town; I think she was more generous. And they’ve never forgiven me for it.”

“Oh, I know,” Lilith murmured. “That is the great prize they offer, isn’t it? Their forgiveness.” She raised her head and leaned a little forward, whispering with a look of mischievous woe to the retreating figure in the street, “Mrs. Carmichael, forgive me, please. I am barefoot. I have yellow hair. And look at my arms, Mrs. Carmichael; see how soft and white they are. Forgive me for them. Forgive me because I am beautiful, and full of joy, and because I have visions.” She broke into glittering laughter, stretching her throat sweetly and shaking her tangled hair. As much to compose myself as for any reason, I said, “That isn’t really fair.”

“No, I’m not fair,” she said. “It’s a long while since I tried to be. But you are, still, aren’t you? So terribly fair.” She regarded me gently for a moment. “And your poor mother, Vincent? Did they kill her?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered, truly distressed by her question. “They helped, perhaps, although I would hate to think so. They made her feel very bad; none of them ever came to see her, and they would hardly speak to her in the street. And she felt things very deeply. But I don’t think it was that so much as—”

“As your father?”

“Yes.”

“Your wicked, wandering father.” She smiled slowly in a way that caused me suddenly to be profoundly shocked at the willingness of my confidences and at the way I had exposed myself, in making them, to both her irony and her disturbing sympathy. (For I had spoken with a sense of release—at expressing to someone feelings I had kept so long concealed—that was as surprising as it was profound.)

“Do you hate him, Vincent?”

“I don’t know him,” I said, “and I would have no right to condemn him if I did.”

My sudden defensive diffidence must have made its way into my tone of voice, for she appeared to accept this as a rebuke, dropping her eyes and turning her head away from me.

“Are your people any different?” I asked her gently, in a rather conciliatory way, to lessen the severity of my last remark.

“Oh, yes. They are generous and gentle.”

“There are such people here,” I said.

“Yes, there are a few; you are one, Vincent. But my people are wise as well.” She moved her hand toward me quickly in a gesture of contrition. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I have no illusions about my wisdom,” I said.

“But I think you have more than most. You have had moments of vision, Vincent, which I can see in your eyes; they are more like the eyes of my people than any others I have seen. And you have a way of walking, and of using your body, that reminds me of my people. When you were climbing the cliff the other day I saw how much you resembled them.”

“You actually see them, then?” I asked, somewhat unwillingly gratified by this distinction. “Their bodies and faces? What are they like?”

She watched me for a moment, as if examining the impulse that had made me question her. “They are tall and fair—do you think my hair is beautiful? It is growing more like theirs, but still it has nothing of their beauty. In my next Degree it will become more beautiful.” She paused to catch a strand of her hair and spread it in her fingers, smiling while she studied the separate golden filaments. “Do you see how coarse it is? It makes a sound like sand when you rub it in your fingers; theirs is finer than silk, and soundless.”

“They must be very beautiful,” I said.

“Oh, yes. They are too beautiful to describe. Their eyes are so clean, like diamonds, and their breath and bodies smell as sweet as cinnamon. They are not stuffed with filth, because they do not eat, as we do; they are nourished by light. Only sometimes, for joy, they touch their lips with nectar or cold spring water. They speak the purest language in the world, which they have taught me very early, because I am talented—it isn’t generally allowed until much later. And when they pass one another they do not turn their eyes away and pass in silence; they hold their hands out to one another and clasp each other’s fingers for a moment, without shame. There is no shame.”

“But there is sorrow?” I asked. “You say they weep for you.”

“Only for me. Only when they fear that I will not be faithful, that I will slip away.” She raised her eyes slowly to the lawn, staring wanly for a moment. “They are afraid that I may . . . return. That I will find something . . . desirable again.”

“Something that you love?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t they believe in love, then?” I asked her softly.

“It is all that they believe in,” she said. “But they love nobly—for joy—as they are teaching me to love. Not out of pity, or necessity, or guilt. As only children love, in your world.” The wind stirred, and she watched the leaping shadows of the elms along the distant street. “But perhaps there is still such love here. In this town, even. Can you tell me?”

I watched the far houses for a moment with their porch swings and rocking chairs, thinking of the evenings I had spent on them with Laura.

“No, I can’t tell you if there is.”

We sat in silence while an old gray horse went past in the street, pulling a creaking wagon full of split oak firewood. A farmer in faded overalls, sitting on the wagon seat, lashed its haunches while it struggled between the shafts, its lips foaming and working convulsively about the bit.

“Poor beast,” Lilith said. “They shouldn’t be made to work; they are too beautiful.”

“Do you like horses?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, more than anything! Do you?”

“Yes. You must see one of the tournaments, then, before the summer’s over. There’s some wonderful riding.”

“A tournament!” She turned toward me swiftly with an expression of delight. “Do they really have them? With lances and armor? Oh, I’d love to see one!”

“Well, not with armor,” I said. “We don’t try to knock each other off the horses any more. Only to spear targets.”

“Do you ride in them, then?”

“I used to, before the war. I had a little mare of my own once.”

“How wonderful!” she said. “Will you take me to one, Vincent? Do you think they’ll let me go?”

“I think they’d be delighted that you want to,” I said. “I’ll let you know when the next one is held, and we’ll ask.”