Free The Enchantment of Lily Dahl by Siri Hustvedt Page A

shirt that she found distracting, but Mrs. Wright told Lily she was finally “natural.” Lily couldn’t help thinking that she had stolen, or at least borrowed, that “natural” performance, that what looked natural wasn’t, and even though Lily felt Hermia’s every emotion as if it were her own to feel, she worried that her performance was somehow counterfeit, that she had no right to be as good as she was. Mabel Wasley inhabited the role, and Lily was enacting Mabel, or rather Mabel as Hermia.
    She didn’t notice or think about Martin again until the beginning of Act II, when she was standing offstage fanning herself and listening to Puck. Susie Immel, who had been yawning loudly for several minutes, pulled a rubber lizard out of her pocket and burped loudly. With each noisy, artificial burp, she made the lizard jump. While Lily was hushing Susie, she noticed Martin standing a couple of feet away, waiting to go on. She saw him in profile, his head and shoulders bent, his eyes closed. He breathed in deeply. His preparation struck her as ridiculous—too much for too little—but then he raised himself and walked onstage with the other fairies, and Lily saw that he had changed. Martin Petersen, dressed in his short-sleeved plaid shirt, stiff jeans, thin vinyl belt and sneakers—the staples of his limited wardrobe—moved like somebody, no, Lily thought, something else. Martin towered over the other fairies in the train, all of whom were children, and yet there was nothing overgrown or clumsy about him. He didn’t mince or prance like some of the younger boys.
    Jim tugged at Lily’s sleeve and said, “Get a load of Petersen!”
    Lily nodded but didn’t answer. She studied Martin’s body, trying to discover what it was that transformed him, but she couldn’t isolate the elements. His posture, his motion, his expression—all of these were different from the Martin who ate breakfast in the Ideal Cafe. Mrs. Wright was watching him, too. And when Martin spoke in Act III—“And I,” he said, “Hail!” and “Cobweb”—he didn’t stutter. Not a single tic or grimace passed over his face, and Lily felt she was witnessing a miracle—like the invalid in the Bible who picked up his mat and walked. And she wasn’t alone. She felt everyone’s amazement. Later, when she met him offstage, she looked into his eyes and hugged him. “You were wonderful,” she said. “Better than that!”
    Martin smiled.
    And then Lily kissed him. She kissed him on the cheek because she was happy for his success, and she kissed him because she felt guilty for expecting him to fail, and she kissed him because she imagined he would like it. But at the same time, it was a meaningless kiss, and Lily would have forgotten it instantly had she not noticed his expression as she pulled her face away from him. He didn’t smile or blush or look pleased with himself. Pale and solemn, he opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, then closed it tightly.
    “Are you all right, Martin?” she said.
    He nodded, and studying him for a moment, Lily asked herself why Martin never responded in the way she expected. She wished he would stop looking at her in that meaningful way, but she shrugged off her discomfort and walked away from him.
    After rehearsal Mrs. Wright took a champion’s pose, arms above her head, hands clasped, and spouted encouraging nonsense at her actors like “A good start” and “We’ll iron out the wrinkles.” Mothers arrived to fetch their children, and the room emptied fast. Lily was heading for the door when she felt a light touch on her shoulder. When she looked, she saw Martin. He signaled for her to follow him outside and then pointed at the steps. From inside she heard Mrs. Wright say something to Mrs. Baker about “wing wire.” Martin eyed the two women quickly, then turned back to Lily. His lips quivered and he stuttered over an initial D.
    Lily tried to hide her disappointment.
    “D-d-did you get