[MD] Lila's not anybody...

[MarshaV]

'What?'

'I'm not going to answer any more of your questions.'

'Why not?'

'You're the detective. That's what you are. You think you're going to learn something. I don't know what, but you're not going to learn anything . . . You'll never find out who I am because I'm not anything.'

'What do you mean?'

'I'm not anybody. All these questions you're asking are just a waste of time. I know you're trying to find out what kind of a person I am but you're never going to find out anything because there's nothing to know.'

Her voice was getting slushy. She could tell it was getting slushy.

'I mean, I used to play I was this kind of person and that kind of person but I got so tired of playing all those games. It's such work and it doesn't do any good. There's just all these pictures of who I am and they don't hold together. They're all different people I'm supposed to be but none of them are me. I'm not anybody. I'm not here. Like you now. I can see you've got a lot of bad impressions about me in your mind. And you think that what's in your mind is here talking to you but nobody's here. You know what I mean? Nobody's home. That's Lila. Nobody's home.’

'You know what?' Lila said.

'What?'

'What you want to do is make me into something I'm not.'

'Just the opposite.'

'You think just the opposite. But you're really trying to do something to me that I don't like.'

'What's that?'

'You're trying to . . . you're trying to destroy me.'

'No.'

'Yes.'

'Well, you've completely misunderstood what I'm asking these questions for,' the Captain said.

'No, I haven't. I've completely understood it just exactly right,' Lila said. 'All men do that. You're no big exception. Jerry did it. Every man does it. But you know something? It won't work.'

'I'm not trying to destroy you,' he said.

'That's what you think. You're just playing around the edges, aren't you! You can't go to the center of me. You don't know where the center of me is!'

That set him back.

'You're not a woman. You don't know. When men make love they're really trying to destroy you. A woman's got to be real quiet inside because if she shows a man anything they'll try to kill it.

'But they all get fooled because there's nothing to destroy but what's in their own mind. And so they destroy that and then they hate what's left and they call what's left, "Lila," and they hate Lila. But Lila isn't anybody. That's true. You don't believe it, but it's true.

'Women are very deep,' Lila said. 'But men never see it. They're too selfish. They always want women to understand them. And that's all they ever care about. That's why they always have to try to destroy them.'

'I'm just asking questions,' the Captain said.

'Fuck your questions! I'm whatever your questions turn me into. You don't see that. It's your questions that make me who I am. If you think I'm an angel then that's what I am. If you think I'm a whore then that's what I am. I'm whatever you think. And if you change your mind about me then I change too. So whatever Richard tells you, it's true. There's no way he can lie about me.'
 
Lila took the bottle and took a swig down straight. 'The hell with glasses,' she said. 'Everybody wants to turn Lila into somebody else. And most women put up with that, because they want the kids and the money and the good-looking clothes. But it won't work with me. I'm just Lila and I always will be. And if men don't like me the way I am, then men can just get out. I don't need them. I don't need anyone. I'll die first. That's just the way I am.'
 
After a while Lila looked around and saw that all the boats were lying straight in line just like the Captain said they would be. That's pretty good. He'd figured that out. She told him about it. He didn't say anything. He hadn't said anything for a long time.

            

               (LILA, Chapter 14)
 
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