A Fair Maiden (8 page)

Mr. Kidder listened gravely. As Katya continued to speak, words spilling from her, angry half-sobs, quietly Mr. Kidder went to a desk, took up a checkbook, and asked her to spell out her mother's name. The check was for three hundred dollars.

Three hundred! Katya had asked for less.

With childlike gratitude she squeezed his hand and leaned on her toes to brush her lips against the man's dry, just perceptibly wrinkled cheek. "Mr. Kidder, thank you! You are so—so wonderful! I will pay this back, I promise. I will pay it back with interest."

Mr. Kidder laughed, pleased. He indicated that Katya should sit down. "I'm sure you will, Katya. In time."

Now she had the check, a slip of paper magically containing the wholly unlike names Esther Spivak and Marcus C. Kidder, Katya would have liked to leave. But how could she say no to Mr. Kidder's hospitality after he'd been so kind to her? She could not.

She sat on a sofa with chintz-covered pillows. She supposed that Mr. Kidder would offer her something to drink—he'd been drinking wine, she guessed—but instead he sat facing her, somewhat distractedly, in a straight-backed chair; he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He was wearing an expensive-looking linen shirt in a pale lavender shade, and dark purple summer trousers with a sharp crease. Katya did not want to think that the white-haired old gentleman had changed his clothes, combed his hair, and shaved, just for her. (Maybe he'd had other guests at the house earlier? Maybe he'd gone out with friends?) In the warm lamplight Katya could see the crinkled skin beside Mr. Kidder's eyes, from so many years of smiling; she could see stray wirelike white hairs protruding from his eyebrows and from his ears. Katya smiled, thinking,
Those hairs would tickle!
and Mr. Kidder asked what she was smiling at, and Katya blushed and said she didn't know.

"Maybe you're happy, Katya? That's reason enough."

Katya agreed, it was.

"You are a happy person, I think? You seem to have the gift of joy." Mr. Kidder spoke lightly, as if "gift of joy" had quotation marks around it. "Except for your concern for your mother, which is altogether natural."

Katya agreed, it was.

"Or are you just agreeing with me, eccentric old Marcus Kidder, in order to be, like any clever child, agreeable?"

Katya laughed, blushing. The check was in her straw bag and the straw bag on her knees, and in a fleeting fantasy she saw herself raising both elbows, employing her sharp elbows like weapons if Mr. Kidder moved toward her.

But this was a shameful thought, and a ridiculous thought: Mr. Kidder was not that sort of man, you could tell.

"Do you believe in soul mates, Katya? That some individuals are fated for each other? No matter the differences between them. No matter the vagaries of external circumstance."

Vagaries.
The word made Katya uneasy; she wasn't sure of its meaning. But
soul mate
she guessed she understood.

From a nearby table Mr. Kidder had taken up an artist's sketchbook, to show her a drawing in pastel chalk, which made Katya laugh in surprise. "Mr. Kidder, is that
me?
" For the softly muted, feathery drawing was of a girl who resembled Katya enough to be a sister, with the Spivak family cheekbones, the set of Katya's eyes, the slant of her eyebrows and the shape of her nose...

"This is Katya-in-memory, not you," Mr. Kidder said, with mild disdain for the drawing, though Katya thought it was amazing, wonderful: her, and yet not her, a younger, softer-featured, prettier, and surely nicer Katya Spivak. "Now that you are here, my vision seated before me, I see exactly where I went wrong. May I—?" Mr. Kidder tore the sketch out of the book and to Katya's dismay crumpled it in his fist as if it were of no worth. He took up a stick of chalk and began sketching, peering at Katya as if taking her measure. "If you aren't tired, Katya, and don't mind posing for me. For just a few minutes."

Katya was uneasy. She had not expected this. Yet telling herself,
How can I say no? Mr. Kidder has been so kind.

And so Katya posed for the first time for Marcus Kidder. Self-conscious, unsure what to do with her hands. She wet her lips nervously. She felt a sudden itch in her right armpit that she couldn't dare scratch. Mr. Kidder asked her to turn her head toward the light, to lift her shoulders and lean forward, to cross her legs at the ankles, uncross her legs, again cross her legs at the knees ... Over her T-shirt and shorts she was wearing a loose-fitting white terrycloth pullover, which Mr. Kidder asked her to remove, which she did. Yet still something wasn't right. "Too much shadow is being cast onto your face. Come here, Katya—this will be much better." Mr. Kidder switched on lights at the rear of the studio, dragged over a wooden stool with a back and arms of about the height of a baby's highchair for Katya to sit in. He stood at the easel, more comfortable there, and began rapidly sketching, pausing from time to time to adjust Katya's arms, legs, shoulder, head, as if she were a mannequin; he asked her to remove her hair from her ponytail, which she did. "Ah! Such lovely hair, it seems cruel to disguise."

By degrees Katya began to feel less self-conscious. This was flattering—wasn't it? How many girls, how many women in Vineland, had ever posed for an actual artist? Katya smiled to think how she would show her portrait to her sisters and to her mother; just possibly to Roy Mraz, who might not laugh at her but be impressed.
This rich guy. In Bayhead Harbor, right on the ocean
...

Mr. Kidder was saying that he'd known from the first, seeing Katya on Ocean Avenue, that there was something special in her, and something special between them; in the course of a life, there are not really many mysteries, not mysteries you would call profound, but he had no doubt that this was one of them: "The link between us. Which isn't yet evident. But will emerge, I think—like a glass flower taking shape, molten glass at first and then shaped, completed."

Vaguely Katya nodded, though she wasn't sure that she understood; she did feel, she supposed, some sort of rapport with this man that she'd never quite felt with any other older man, she guessed. Her father had been much younger when she'd last seen him...

Mr. Kidder paused, lightly chiding her: "Dear Katya! No melancholia, please. The gift of joy is my subject tonight."

Katya looked up, and Katya smiled. She could almost think that Mr. Kidder had the power to make her beautiful, if he drew her "beautiful." If Katya was beautiful, maybe her picture would be in the newspaper one day, or on TV; her father would see her, recognize her, and return to Vineland...
Stupid,
Katya thought.
You are such an asshole
—
just stop.

Mr. Kidder told her that he was by nature a nocturnal being and wondered if Katya was, too, and Katya said yes, she'd always liked to stay up late past her bedtime and read, since she'd been a little girl. And sometimes she would sneak away—not even her sisters would know where she'd gone—out of the house and into a neighbor's old barn that hadn't been used for years but still smelled of hay, and of horses and cows ... Mr. Kidder asked Katya what she liked to read, and Katya said any kind of book, from the public library in Vineland; when she had a book to read, she never felt lonely. Mr. Kidder asked her if at other times she felt lonely, and Katya said "Yes!" Yes, she did. Not meaning to speak so emotionally, but that was how it came out, for Mr. Kidder spoke so kindly to her, Katya was drawn to say more than she meant. And Mr. Kidder paused in his sketching, saying that that was true for him, too: "The more people you know, like me, the vast network of relatives, old, dear friends, business associates—ah, so many of these!—for Marcus Cullen Kidder is, among myriad other identities, a trust-fund child—shamelessly so, at this advanced age yet a child—the lonelier you are."

Such a twisty speech, like a pretzel: Katya had to laugh. Mr. Kidder was like no one she knew, both eloquent and comical. He was the most intelligent person she'd ever met, far more intelligent than any of her teachers at Vineland H.S., and yet he was so playful, like someone on TV. Behind the easel he did a kind of shuffle-dance and made a snorting noise with his lips. Katya felt inspired to say, "Mr. Kidder, that can't be right. Anyone would think that a person who lives in a house like this right on the ocean and has a famous name everyone in Bayhead Harbor knows would never be lonely," and Mr. Kidder made the snorting noise again, saying, "'Anyone' is a blockhead."

Blockhead!
Katya had never heard this word before. It made her laugh.

"I think you're being silly, Mr. Kidder. Like Funny Bunny. You make things up to worry over, then believe them."

"Do I!" Mr. Kidder paused in his sketching to regard Katya with thoughtful eyes. "But Funny Bunny is cuddly, eh? As his creator, M.K., is not."

To this Katya made no reply.

A fair maiden,
he'd called her. That other time. When he'd played that beautiful song, "Barbara Allen," for her. Saying she made him think of—what was it?—
heimweh,
homesickness. She had not understood; she'd have liked to ask but dared not.

He'd spoken of a special mission for Katya. Not to be revealed quite yet. Handsomely rewarded...

As if Mr. Kidder could read her thoughts and did not wish to acknowledge them, briskly he told her to "relax, please"—to turn her shoulders just slightly to the left and brush her hair out of her eyes: "We need to see those beautiful if over-wary eyes, dear!" Positioning herself at a new angle, Katya could now see several of the portraits on the wall: women and girls so rendered by the artist's graceful brushstrokes as to bear a family resemblance, especially in their smiles, which were similarly sweet, hopeful. Katya had no way of knowing if Mr. Kidder's subjects really did resemble one another or whether this was the way the portraitist saw them, or wished to see them. Not one of the subjects was less than attractive, and yet not one was glamorous like the women in the framed photographs in Mr. Kidder's music room. Here was a more innocent sort of female beauty, as the ages of the subjects appeared to be generally younger. Katya was most struck by a girl of her approximate age, with pale blond hair arranged in a classically smooth old-fashioned pageboy, and an ethereally delicate face; the girl's eyes were hazel, made to glow with light by the artist's touch, as if alive. Around her slender neck she wore a dark velvet ribbon affixed by a pearl pin. In the bottom right-hand corner of the portrait was
NAOMI
1956.

"That girl, Naomi—who is she?" Katya asked, and Mr. Kidder said, frowning, "No one. Now." It was a blunt statement that made Katya uneasy. References to Mr. Kidder's private life that weren't initiated by Mr. Kidder himself seemed to register with him as a kind of affront.

Whose business? None of your business.
Katya knew: you can't push them too far. Adult men, and guys like Roy Mraz, who could turn mean without warning.

Thinking of Roy, Katya felt suddenly weak, faint. Rarely did she allow herself to think of her "distant cousin," knowing it would upset her. Yet a wave of longing came over her for Roy's rough hands, his mouth...

Jesus, Katya! Nobody's going to hurt you.

"Eyes here, please!" Gently Mr. Kidder chided Katya, who turned to him with a pained smile, trying not to squint though there was a piercing light from a high-wattage bulb in her eyes like a sliver of glass.

As if Mr. Kidder had known where Katya's thoughts had drifted, he became distracted, disappointed with what he'd sketched. "Damn!" He crumpled the portrait he'd been sketching in his fist, tossed it onto the floor; Katya winced as if he'd hit her. Yet did this mean the session was ending? And she could leave? Katya noticed that his forehead was oily with perspiration and his breath was sounding husky, as if there might be something clogged in his sinuses or in his chest. Mr. Kidder wiped his face with a handkerchief, turned aside to press the heel of his hand against his chest, as if to mitigate pain; Katya had seen one of her elderly Spivak relatives make a similar gesture, standing apart from the others at a family gathering. But Mr. Kidder quickly recovered. It did not seem that truly there was anything wrong with Marcus Kidder, who made it a point to stand so straight and to speak so forcibly to his model. Asking her now if she'd like a little break and something to drink—"If, discreetly, I dilute it with sparkling water, a half-glass of wine?"—but before Katya could accept the offer, quickly Mr. Kidder said, "Better not, Katya! Not tonight." He went away and returned with a tall, fizzing glass of what appeared to be club soda for Katya, with a twist of lemon, and for himself a glass of dark red wine.

"Wine might put you to sleep, Katya. We'll save wine for another time."

Another time.
So this modeling session hadn't been a failure, Mr. Kidder would want her back.

Thirstily Katya drank the club soda. Her mouth felt parched. It was true she'd become sleepy, as if hypnotized.
What if he has put something in this?
passed through her mind, but the thought was too fleeting to be retained.

Another time
gave her hope. Maybe a modeling career? What would the Spivaks think—how impressed would Katya's sisters be? And what would Roy Mraz think—Katya Spivak, whom he'd so taken for granted, an actual
model
...

"Just a few more minutes, dear. We've been at an impasse—there is something clouding your mind, but I think we can banish it if we try. You are such an attractive young woman, Katya—you must tell yourself,
I am Katya, I am very special, I am me.
Truly, you mustn't laugh!" for Katya had begun to laugh, embarrassed. "I forbid my models to laugh, under pain of banishment." So Mr. Kidder spoke cajolingly, to soothe her, and began again sketching her, in a more playful mood, with rapid, deft strokes of his chalk. "Tell me, dear, how do you like working for the Mayflies?"—Mr. Kidder's comical name for the Engelhardts; and Katya laughed, but said yes, she liked working for them, because she liked the children and the housekeeper, Maria, was nice to her, and of course there was Bayhead Harbor, nothing like spending the summer in Vineland, where it was so damned hot. She told Mr. Kidder that sometimes she didn't feel comfortable in the Engelhardts' house, where Mrs. Engelhardt was suspicious of her, always finding fault, saying that Katya was a good nanny but then turning around and criticizing her, and from Maria she'd learned that Mrs. Engelhardt had hired and fired nannies in the past, and it was hard for her now to hire anyone who knew her. Mr. Kidder listened gravely to this and asked if Mrs. Engelhardt had actually threatened to fire Katya, and Katya hesitated and might have lied, but seated facing the artist, only a few feet away, and knowing how Mr. Kidder could read her thoughts, she said, "N-no,