A Fair Maiden (6 page)

Katya laughed, to indicate she got the joke. "Oh,
sure.
"

She drew her fingertips along the piano keyboard, provoking a blurred discordant sound. Above the keyboard was the name
Rameau
in gilt letters. "Wish I could play piano. I'd have liked that," she said, in a glib, flat voice that suggested insincerity, though in fact she was sincere, or meant to be at that moment. And Mr. Kidder said, almost too eagerly, "But it isn't too late, Katya, surely..." Among Katya's many relatives scattered through south Jersey she could think of no one at all musical except one or two boy cousins who played, or tried to play, amplified guitar.

Katya examined music books stacked on Mr. Kidder's piano, most of them looking well-worn:
Collected Piano Pieces of Ravel, Chopin: Ballads, Schubert: Lieder, Collected Piano Music of George Gershwin, Spellbound Concerto
by Miklós Róozsa,
In the Still of the Night: Love Songs of Cole Porter, Harold Arlen: A Treasure
... Against the music stand were sheets of paper which Mr. Kidder had been annotating, in pencil. "Mr. Kidder, are you writing music?—your own music?" Katya asked, intrigued. "Composing music?" In her nasal Jersey accent the question sounded faintly jeering.

Stiffly Mr. Kidder said no. He was not.

He took the annotated sheets from the piano, stacked them together, and laid them on a shelf. He seemed offended, embarrassed. Katya could not see how she'd insulted him. With girlish naivete, she said, "Play something for me, Mr. Kidder? Like what you were playing just now?"

"I told you
no,
Katya."

No, Katya.
She felt rebuked as a child.

A flush had come into Mr. Kidder's face, a flush of annoyance. His eyes were not so tender now. So quickly an adult can turn—an adult man especially. Katya knew; Katya had had certain experiences. You can be on easy terms with such a man, you can see that he likes you, then by mistake you say the wrong word or make the wrong assumption and something shuts down in his face. Like an iron grating over a pawnshop window on a rundown street in Atlantic City. That abrupt.

Mr. Kidder relented. "In fact, I've been trying to compose lieder, Katya. But my efforts aren't yet worthy of being heard by anyone, including you."

Katya smiled, perplexed.
Lieder?

"It's German—songs. Usually love songs."

Love songs!
Katya smiled foolishly and could not think of a reply. Mr. Kidder was asking what sort of music she liked, and Katya tried to think: Radiohead? Guns N' Roses? Nine Inch Nails? Pearl Jam? Nirvana? Evasively she said, "Nothing special, Mr. Kidder. Nothing you'd like, I guess."

Katya turned her attention to the many framed photographs on the grass green walls, which she'd assumed might depict members of Mr. Kidder's family: except these were glossy glamour photos of women who looked as if they were in show business, heavily made up, hair styled in the exaggerated fashions of long-ago times. Katya saw that each of the photos was inscribed
To Marcus Kidder with love:
from Carol Channing, Sandy Duncan, Bernadette Peters, Angela Lansbury, Lauren Bacall, Tammy Grimes. Katya asked if these glamorous women were friends of Mr. Kidder's and Mr. Kidder said, "No, dear. No longer."

A pertly pretty red-haired woman smiled at the viewer over her bare shoulder above the gaily scrawled inscription
For dearest Marcus with much much love & kisses, Gwen April
1957
.

"That's Gwen Verdon," Mr. Kidder said. "She was the toast of Broadway in the
1950
s and beyond, but you have not heard of her, Katya, I'm sure."

Katya mumbled an inaudible reply. So remote in time, April
1957
; it made her feel lightheaded.

Mr. Kidder said, "For a while I was a Broadway investor. I'd studied at Juilliard, I'd had naive hopes for a musical career myself. Music has always been one of my loves, like art—mostly unrequited loves. Though overall I didn't do badly as an investor. I may have broken even." He spoke with that air of ironic wistfulness that Katya disliked.

She asked if he'd been in love with any of these women and Mr. Kidder said
no,
certainly not. And Katya asked why not, and Mr. Kidder said, "Because I'm not attracted to glamour, dear Katya. I am a dilettante and a collector and a lover—of beauty. But glamour and beauty are very different things."

Katya wanted to ask him about his wife—wives. His children, if he had any. So mysterious he seemed to her, though baring his soul in a way no self-respecting man would do, in Katya's experience.

She thought,
He wants to do something to me. In his head, he is doing things to me.
Yet the curious thrill of trespass held her captive, and she could not break away.

Now Mr. Kidder did touch Katya's ponytail, gently. His fingers were light on the nape of her neck, and she shivered involuntarily, laughed, and eased away, gripping the bulky straw bag to hold between them.

"You are thinking that I have some sort of design on you, dear Katya! I know, I can read your thoughts, which show so clearly, so purely, in your face. And you are correct, dear: I do have a design on you. I have a mission for you, I think! If you are indeed the one."

"What do you mean? 'The one'?" Katya stammered, not knowing whether this was serious or one of Mr. Kidder's enigmatic jokes.

"A fair maiden—to be entrusted with a crucial task. For which she would be handsomely rewarded, in time."

Katya stood gripping the straw bag to her chest. Frightened, and confused. And yet her heart beat quickly in anticipation.

"There's a German term—
heimweh,
homesickness. It's a powerful sensation, like a narcotic. A yearning for home, but for something more—a past self, perhaps. A lost self. When I first saw you on the street, Katya, I felt such a sensation ... I have no idea why."

Now Mr. Kidder spoke urgently, sincerely. Holding both his hands out to Katya, palms up in a gesture of appeal. Still Katya stood unmoving, gripping her bag. She could think of no way of replying to Mr. Kidder that would not have struck a clumsy note: her instinctive reaction was to laugh nervously, stammer something stupidly adolescent, back away ... It was an extraordinary sensation, to be
looked at
by a stranger, as if he were peering into her very soul.

"Well. I don't mean to frighten you, dear. I am perfectly harmless, I promise! This mission is not now ... will not be revealed for a while—we need not think of it now. We have other things to think of now." Mr. Kidder smiled, and lightly touched Katya's wrist as if to break the spell. "Before you leave, dear, let me play something for you. Some music I hope you will like. A young relative of mine, a tenor..."

Mr. Kidder removed a record from one of the shelves, placed it on a turntable. Such antiquated things! Katya sat in one of the white wicker chairs, at the edge of the brightly colored cushion, uneasy. She thought,
This is a test. He is testing me,
thinking how badly she wanted to flee this house, how distrustful she was of Marcus Kidder really.

A young man's voice sounded suddenly, high, pure, beautiful. As intimate in Katya's ears as if the singer were in the room with them.

In Scarlet Town, where I was born
There was a fair maid dwelling.
Made every youth cry well-a-day!
Her name was Barbara Allen.

All in the merry month of May
When green buds they were swelling,
Young Jeremy Grove on his deathbed lay
For love of Barbara Allen.

He sent his man unto her then...

Closely Katya listened, scarcely daring to breathe. The singer had such a pure voice, beautifully modulated yet masculine. The words of the song seemed to pierce her heart. An old song, a song of long ago—a song Katya's friends in Vineland would have sneered at, as, in their company, Katya herself would have sneered at it.

So slowly, slowly, she came up
And slowly she came nigh him.
And all she said when there she came,
"Young man, I think you're dying."

As she was walking o'er the fields
She heard the death bell knelling.
And every stroke did seem to say,
Hardhearted Barbara Allen.

Hardhearted Barbara Allen!
Katya felt a thrill of cruel satisfaction. She liked it that Barbara Allen had told the sick/weak young man to die; and what exhilaration, to realize such power.

Yet the song continued; the young male singer had not yet finished his tale. Katya sat now tensely at the edge of her seat, gripping her hands together on her bare knees. Shadows through a latticed window moved restlessly against a wall, appearing, disappearing. Distractedly, Katya thought there must be birds in the shrubbery just outside.

"Oh Mother, Mother, make my bed
Make it long and narrow.
Sweet Jeremy died for love of me,
And I will die of sorrow."

They buried her in the old churchyard
Sweet Jeremy's grave nigh hers.
And from his grave grew a red, red rose
And from hers grew a cruel briar.

This was a surprise. Katya listened anxiously, not wanting the song to end. Yet the young singer concluded, in a voice of melancholy authority:

They grew and grew up the old church spire
Till they couldn't grow any higher.
And there they twined in a true love knot,
The red rose and the green briar.

There was a final refrain, purely music. Until now Katya had scarcely been aware of the musical accompaniment, a delicate-sounding stringed instrument. And the record was old, marred with scratching.

Her eyes stung with tears. This was ridiculous. It was only an old song, and yet Katya was close to crying.

Mr. Kidder rose and removed the record from the turntable. He regarded Katya with mild surprise, as if he hadn't expected her to listen so closely to the song, or to be so emotionally engaged.

Katya wiped at her eyes and asked brightly, "Who is the singer? Someone in your family, you said?"

"Yes. Did you like his voice?"

Katya nodded. Emphatically: yes.

"Would you like to meet him, dear? Someday?"

More guardedly, Katya nodded. For this might be one of Marcus Kidder's little jokes, she knew.

Gravely he said, "And the singer would like—would have liked—to meet you. In the recording, he is twenty years old."

Katya could not bring herself to ask when the recording had been made. Clearly it was old, of another era, before CDs and iPods. Mr. Kidder said, "In
1945
."

Katya tried to smile. "Who—?" and Mr. Kidder said with a little grimace, "
Moi.
" Again Katya asked, "Who?" and Mr. Kidder said, "Marcus Kidder, promising young tenor,
1945
. You have heard both his recording debut and the pinnacle of his career." Mr. Kidder bowed his head playfully, hand to his shirtfront. The pale green shirt was unbuttoned at the throat; in the
V
a swath of thin silvery gray hair bristled.

Quickly Katya said, "The song is very beautiful, Mr. Kidder. You had—you have—a beautiful voice." She was trying to keep shock and disappointment off her face.

Mr. Kidder laughed. He returned the record to the shelf, shoving it into a crammed space.
"Had,
dear. Not
have.
That hopeful young tenor is long vanished. If I tried to sing 'Barbara Allen' now, I would sound like an aged crow."

Katya was on her feet, desperate to leave. She thanked Mr. Kidder for playing the record, stammered that she had to go, someone was waiting for her at the beach ... Such pity she felt for Marcus Kidder, a physical revulsion for him, she could hardly bear to meet his eyes. She allowed him to squeeze her hand in farewell, then pulled from him.

At the door he called after her, "Katya, wait. Your little gift from Prim Rose Lane—I promised it would be waiting for you, and so it is. If—"

But Katya was walking quickly away. Called back over her shoulder that she didn't want it. Half ran to the little gateway in the privet hedge and along Proxmire Street. The public beach was a ten-minute walk, and by the time Katya got to it, she was breathless and indignant.
Asshole! Playing one of your damn tricks on me.
She pulled off her T-shirt, her shorts. In a red-striped bottom and halter top, she strode along the beach, into the surf. Just to get her legs wet felt good. The breezy ocean air felt good. And there on his lifeguard perch was darkly tanned Doug, a local guy she'd hoped would be on duty again this week who would call out to her with a shark-flash of a smile, "Katie! Hi."

6

F
ROWNING, MRS. ENGELHARDT
said, "A call for you, Katya."

In apprehension Katya took the phone, for the caller could only be her mother. Katya had given the Engelhardts' number to no one else, and she'd asked her mother not to call her except in an emergency, so she steeled herself now for bad news. In an alcove off the Engelhardts' kitchen, she heard her mother's aggrieved and reproachful voice on the line without grasping at first what she was saying; she was demanding to know why Katya hadn't called for so long. And Katya protested that she had called only a few days ago, and Katya's mother said suspiciously, "Can't you talk? Is someone listening?" and Katya said, "No! I can't talk now because I'm working, Momma," and Katya's mother interrupted, saying, "Is something going on up there? What is going on up there?" speaking rapidly and not very coherently, and Katya stammered, "What do you mean, Momma? You know I'm working, I'm working as a nanny, I have two small children to look after—" and Katya's mother said sharply, "Don't talk to me that way, Katya! I'm calling to ask how those people are treating you. Eggenstein—that's a Jewish name, right? Are they paying you what they promised? Are they paying you on time?" and Katya, pressing the receiver tight against her ear in fear that her mother's voice might be overheard by Mrs. Engelhardt, only a few yards away in the kitchen with the Hispanic housekeeper, weakly protested, "Momma, look, I can't—can't talk right now. We're going to the b-beach—" and Katya's mother laughed harshly. "Going to the beach—la-di-
da!
Last time it was going out on the yacht. Some of us have to work at this hour of the morning," and in some desperation Katya asked if there was any special reason for her to be calling, and Katya's mother said furiously, "Special reason—goddamn,
yes.
I am your goddamned mother, and I am concerned about you, for Christ's sake. How do I know what the hell you're doing there in Bayhead! You're too damned trusting, too good-looking for your own damned good, and underage, which means you can get picked up for drinking. Don't try to tell me you don't smoke dope, I know you do, don't lie to
me.
Remember Yvette, what happened to her—" And so Katya had to steel herself for a grim recitation of what had happened to her mother's younger sister at the age of eighteen, waitressing at a resort hotel in Cape May, saving to go to nursing school, but she got involved with a young man who was a student at Rutgers in New Brunswick, "got pregnant and got dumped," as Katya's mother never failed to recall in harsh staccato disapproval mingled with satisfaction—"people like that, they treat you like shit"—and Katya said, "Right, Momma—yes, I know. You've told me plenty of times, I know. But right now—" and Katya's mother said, "Can you swear they're not cheating you? These Eggensteins," and Katya said, lowering her voice, "Engelhardt, Momma. I wrote the name down for you—you have all the information," and Katya's mother said, "You! You don't have good judgment. Look how trusting you were with Roy—damned lucky you didn't get in serious trouble with that bastard," and Katya swallowed hard and did not speak, would not speak. "D'you know Roy is back in Vineland? Working at the garage. I ran into him the other night and first thing he says is, 'Where's Katya?'" and Katya's heart kicked, a sick-sinking sensation in her gut, but she was determined not to inquire about Roy Mraz, never would she inquire about Roy Mraz, fuck Roy Mraz; and Katya's mother was asking about the Eggenstein children, how was Katya getting along with them, and Katya said that she was getting along very well with them, with all of the Engelhardts, this was the best summer job she'd ever had, the little girl was so sweet, only just a little spoiled but sweet, and the little boy was just a baby; and this provoked Katya's mother to flare up indignantly, saying, "Didn't I tell you, Katya—don't get attached to people like that, that is a terrible mistake to get attached to somebody else's children when your own goddamned children are enough to break your heart."