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—”
“But that ain’t my name.”
“What is your name?”
“Nobody ever said.”
“All right. It’s a good name. If I christen you with it, then it is your name.”
“Christen?”
“Baptize.”
“All right.”
“Lila Dahl, I baptize you—” His voice broke. “I baptize you in the name of the Father. And of the Son. And of the Holy Spirit.” Resting his hand three times on her hair. That was what made her cry. Just the touch of his hand. He watched her with surprise and tenderness, and she cried some more. He gave her his handkerchief. After a while he said, “When I was a boy, we used to come out along this road to pick black raspberries. I think I still know where to look for them.”
She said, “I know where,” and the two of them walked across the meadow, through the daisies and sunflowers, through an ash grove and into another fallow field. There were brambles along the farther side, weighed down with berries. She said, “We don’t have nothing to put them in,” and he said, “I guess we’ll just have to eat them.” He picked one and gave it to her, as if she couldn’t do it for herself. He said, “We could put them in my handkerchief. I’ll hold it.”
“You’ll get stains all over it.”
He laughed. “Good.”
She spread it across his open hands and filled them, and then she tied the corners together. Fragrance and purple bled through the cloth. He said, “I’ll carry it so it doesn’t stain your clothes, but it’s for you, if you want it. You can steal my handkerchief. If you want to remember. The day you became Lila Dahl.”
She said, “Thanks. I figure I’ll remember anyway.”
They walked up to the road. “Well,” he said. “It’s almost evening. And we forgot all about your catfish, didn’t we. And your Bible, and your tablet. I’ll help you gather them up. It might rain. And then I’ll be going.”
“Wait,” she said. “I was wondering. Can you still get married to somebody you baptized?”
He raised his eyebrows. “No law against it. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. Seems like I just want to rest my head—”
He said, “I’d like that, too, Lila. But I think we made a decision.”
“No. No.” She wasn’t crying. She couldn’t look at him. “I want this so damn bad. And I hate to want anything.”
“‘This’?”
“I want you to marry me! I wish I didn’t. It’s just a misery for me.”
“For me, too, as it happens.”
“I can’t trust you!”
“I guess that’s why I can’t trust you.”
“Oh,” she said, “that’s a fact. I don’t trust nobody. I can’t stay nowhere. I can’t get a minute of rest.”
“Well, if that’s how it is, I guess you’d better put your head on my shoulder, after all.”
She did. And he put his arms around her. She said, “The second you walk off down that road I’ll start telling myself you’re gone for good, and why wouldn’t you be, and I’ll start trying to hate you for it. I will hate you for it. I might even leave here entirely.”
He said, “I expect I’ll be having a few sleepless nights myself. A few more, that is. I was thinking, if you moved into town we could sort of keep an eye on each other. Talk now and then. That should make things better. Boughton will marry us. I’ll talk to him about it. We’ll do it soon. To put an end to the worrying.”
“But don’t you wonder why I don’t even know my own name?”
“You’ll tell me sometime, if you feel like it.”
“I worked in a whorehouse in St. Louis. A whorehouse. You probably don’t even know what that is. Oh! Why did I say that.” She stepped away from him, and he gathered her back and pressed her head against his shoulder.
He said, “Lila Dahl, I just washed you in the waters of regeneration. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a newborn babe. And yes, I do know what a whorehouse is. Though not from personal experience. You’re making sure you can trust me, which is wise. Much better for both of us.”
“I done other things.”
“I get the idea.” He stroked her hair, and her cheek. Then he said, “I really better go home. If I find a place for you, will you move into town? Yes? And I’ll talk to Boughton. Promise you won’t be out here trying to hate me. If that’s something you can promise.” He went off and came back with her Bible and tablet and that muddy catfish, which he had dropped into the bucket, along with the bouquet of sunflowers. He said, “With a catfish you just never know.” He looked at her. “Sleep well,” he said gently, like benediction, as if he meant grace and peace. So now she was going to marry this old preacher. She couldn’t see any way around it that would not shock all the sweetness right out of him.