The Corn Maiden: And Other Nightmares Read online

  Even sixth grader Marissa Bantry with the long straight corn-tassel hair he would not recall, immediately.

  The kids he called them. In a voice that dragged with reluctant affection; or in a voice heavy with sarcasm. Those kids!

  Depending on the day, the week. Depending on his mood.

  Those others she called them in a voice quavering with scorn.

  They were an alien race. Even her small band of disciples she had to concede were losers.

  In his confidential file in the office of the principal of Skatskill Day it was noted Impressive credentials/recommendations, interacts well with brighter students. Inclined to impatience. Not a team player. Unusual sense of humor. (Abrasive?)

  In her confidential file (1998–present) in the principal’s office it was noted in reports by numerous parties Impressive background (maternal grandmother/legal guardian Mrs. A. Trahern, alumna/donor/trustee (emeritus), impressive I.Q. (measured 149, 161, 113, 159 ages 6, 9, 10, 12), flashes of brilliance, erratic academic performance, lonely child, gregarious child, interacts poorly with classmates, natural leader, antisocial tendencies, lively presence in class, disruptive presence in class, hyperactive, apathetic, talent for “fantasy,” poor communication skills, immature tendencies, verbal fluency, imagination stimulated by new projects, easily bored, sullen, mature for age, poor motor coordination skills, diagnosed Attention Deficit Syndrome age 5/prescribed Ritalin with good results/ mixed results, diagnosed borderline dyslexic age 7, prescribed special tutoring with good results/mixed results, honor roll fifth grade, low grades/failed English seventh grade, suspended for one week Oct. 2002 “threatening” girl classmate, reinstated after three days/legal action brought against school by guardian/mandated psychological counseling with good/mixed results. (On the outside of the folder, in the principal’s handwriting A challenge!)

  He was swarthy skinned, with an olive complexion. She had pale sallow skin.

  He was at the school Monday/Tuesday/Thursday unless he was subbing for another teacher which he did, on the average, perhaps once every five weeks. She was at the school five days a week, Skatskill Day was her turf!

  Hate/love she felt for Skatskill Day. Love/hate.

  (Often, as her teachers noted, she “disappeared” from classes and later “reappeared.” Sulky/arrogant with no explanation.)

  He was a lone wolf and yet: the great-grandson of immigrant German Jews who had come to the United States in the early 1900s. The grandson and son of partners at Cleary, McCorkle, Mace & Zallman, Wall Street brokers. She was the lone grandchild of New York State Supreme Court Justice Elias Trahern who had died before she was born and was of no more interest to her than the jut-jawed and bewigged General George Washington whose idealized image hung in the school rotunda.

  His skin was dotted with moles. Not disfiguring exactly but he’d see people staring at these moles as if waiting for them to move.

  Her skin was susceptible to angry-looking rashes. Nerve-rashes they’d been diagnosed, also caused by picking with her nails.

  He was beginning to lose his thick-rippled dark hair he had not realized he’d been vain about. Receding at the temples so he wore it straggling over his collar. Her hair exploded in faded-rust fuzz like dandelion seed around her pointy pinched face.

  He was Mikal. She was Jude.

  He’d been born Michael but there were so many damn Michaels!

  She’d been born Judith but—Judith! Enough to make you want to puke.

  Lone wolves who scorned the crowd. Natural aristocrats who had no use for money, or for family connections.

  He was estranged from the Zallmans. Mostly.

  She was estranged from the Traherns. Mostly.

  He had a quick engaging ironic laugh. She had a high-pitched nasal-sniggering laugh that surprised her suddenly, like a sneeze.

  His favored muttered epithet was What next? Her favored muttered epithet was Bor-ing!

  He knew: prepubescent/adolescent girls often have crushes on their male teachers. Yet somehow it never seemed very real to him, or very crucial. Mikal Zallman living in his own head.

  She detested boys her own age. And most men, any age.

  Making her disciples giggle and blush, at lunchtime flashing a paring knife in a swooping circular motion to indicate cas-tra-tion: know what that is? as certain eighth grade boys passed noisily by carrying cafeteria trays.

  Boys rarely saw her. She’d learned to go invisible like a playing card turned sideways.

  He lived—smugly, it seemed to some observers—inside an armor of irony. (Except when alone. Staring at images of famine, war, devastation he felt himself blinking hot tears from his eyes. He’d shocked himself and others crying uncontrollably at his father’s funeral in an Upper East Side synagogue the previous year.)

  She had not cried in approximately four years. Since she’d fallen from a bicycle and cut a gash in her right knee requiring nine stitches.

  He lived alone, in three sparely furnished rooms, in Riverview Heights, a condominium village on the Hudson River in North Tarrytown. She lived alone, except for the peripheral presence of her aging grandmother, in a few comfortably furnished rooms in the main wing of the Trahern estate at 83 Highgate Avenue; the rest of the thirty-room mansion had long been closed off for economy’s sake.

  He had no idea where she lived, as he had but the vaguest idea of who she was. She knew where he lived, it was three miles from 83 Highgate Avenue. She’d bicycled past Riverview Heights more than once.

  He drove a not-new metallic blue Honda CR-V, New York license TZ 6063. She knew he drove a not-new metallic blue Honda CR-V, New York license TZ 6063.

  Actually he didn’t always think so well of himself. Actually she didn’t always think so well of herself.

  He wished to think well of himself. He wished to think well of all of humanity. He did not want to think Homo sapiens is hopeless, let’s pull the plug. He wanted to think I can make a difference in others’ lives.

  He’d been an idealist who had burnt out, crashed in his late twenties. These were worthy clichés. These were clichés he had earned. He had taught in Manhattan, Bronx, and Yonkers public schools through his mid- and late twenties and after an interim of recovery he had returned to Columbia University to upgrade his credentials with a master’s degree in computer science and he had returned to teaching for his old idealism yet clung to him like lint on one of his worn-at-the-elbow sweaters, one thing he knew he would never emulate his father in the pursuit of money, here in Skatskill-on-Hudson where he knew no one he could work part-time mostly helping kids with computers and he would be respected here or in any case his privacy would be respected, he wasn’t an ambitious private school teacher, wasn’t angling for a permanent job, in a few years he’d move on but for the present time he was contentedly employed, he had freedom to feed my rat as he called it.

  Much of the time she did not think so well of herself. Secretly.

  Suicide fantasies are common to adolescents. Not a sign of mental illness so long as they remain fantasies.

  He’d had such fantasies, too. Well into his twenties, in fact.

  He’d outgrown them now That was what feeding my rat had done for Mikal Zallman.

  Her suicide fantasies were cartoons, you could say. A plunge from the Tappan Zee Bridge/George Washington Bridge, footage on the 6 P.M. news. A blazing fireball on a rooftop. (Skatskill Day? It was the only roof she had access to.) If you swallowed like five, six Ecstasy pills your heart would explode (maybe). If you swallowed a dozen barbiturates you would fall asleep and then into a coma and never wake up (maybe). With drugs there was always the possibility of vomiting, waking up in an ER your stomach being pumped or waking up brain damaged. There were knives, razor blades. Bleeding into a bathtub, the warm water gushing.

  Eve of her thirteenth birthday and she’d been feeling shitty and her new friend/mentor the Master of Eyes (in Alaska, unless it was Antarctica) advised her why hate yourself Jude it’s boring. Better to hate those ot
hers who surround.

  She never cried, though. Really really never cried.

  Like Jude O’s fear ducts are dried out. Cool!

  Ducts reminded her of pubes she had first encountered as a word in a chat room, she’d looked up in the dictionary seeing pubes was a nasty word for those nasty crinkly/kinky hairs that had started to sprout in a certain place, between her legs. And in her armpits where she refused to apply deodorant until Grandmother nagnagged.

  Grandmother Trahern was half blind but her sense of smell was acute. Grandmother Trahern was skilled at nagnagnagging, you might say it was the old woman’s predominant skill in the eighth decade of her life.

  Mr. Z.! Maybe he’d smelled her underarms. She hoped he had not smelled her crotch.

  Mr. Z. in computer lab making his way along the aisle answering kids’ questions most of them pretty elementary/dumb ass she’d have liked to catch his eye and exchange a knowing smirk but Mr. Z. never seemed to be looking toward her and then she was stricken with shyness, blood rushing into her face as he paused above her to examine the confusion on her screen and she heard herself mutter with childish bravado Guess I fucked up, Mr. Zallman, huh? wiping her nose on the edge of her hand beginning to giggle and there was sexy/cool Mr. Z. six inches from her not breaking into a smile even of playful reproach giving not the slightest hint he’d heard the forbidden F-word from an eighth grade girl’s innocent mouth.

  In fact Mr. Z. had heard. Sure.

  Never laugh, never encourage them. If they swear or use obscene or suggestive language.

  And never touch them.

  Or allow them to touch you.

  The (subterranean) connection between them.

  He had leaned over her, typed on her keyboard. Repaired the damage. Told her she was doing very well. Not to be discouraged! He didn’t seem to know her name but maybe that was just pretense, his sense of humor. Moving on to the next raised hand.

  Still, she’d known there was the (subterranean) connection.

  As she’d known, first glimpsing the Corn Maiden in the seventh grade corridor. Silky blond corn-tassel hair. Shy, frightened.

  A new girl. Perfect.

  One morning she came early to observe the Corn Maiden’s mother dropping her off at the curb. Good-looking woman with the same pale blond hair, smiling at the girl and hastily leaning over to kisskiss.

  Some connections go through you like a laser ray.

  Some connections, you just know.

  Mr. Z. she’d sent an e-message you are a master mister z. Which was not like Jude O to do because any message in cyberspace can never be erased. But Mr. Z. had not replied.

  So easy to reply to a fucking e-message! But Mr. Z. had not.

  Mr. Z. did not exchange a knowing smile/wink with her as you’d expect.

  Ignored her!

  Like he didn’t know which one of them she was.

  Like he could confuse her with those others her inferiors.

  And so something turned in her heart like a rusty key and she thought calmly, You will pay for this mister asshole Z. and all your progeny.

  Thought of calling the FBI reporting a suspected terrorist, Mr. Z. was dark like an Arab, and shifty-eyed. Though probably he was a Jew.

  Afterward vaguely he would recall you are a master mister z but of course he’d deleted it. So easy to delete an e-message.

  Afterward vaguely he would recall the squirmy girl at the computer with the frizz hair and glassy staring eyes, a startling smell as of unwashed flesh wafting from her (unusual at Skatskill Day as it was unusual in the affluent suburban village of Skatskill) he had not known at the time, this was January/February, was Jude Trahern. He had no homeroom students, he met with more than one hundred students sometimes within days, couldn’t keep track of them and had no interest in keeping track. Though a few days later he would come upon the girl in the company of a fattish friend, the two of them rummaging in a waste basket in the computer lab but he’d taken no special note of them as they’d hurried away embarrassed and giggling together as if he’d opened a door and seen them naked.

  But he would remember: the same frizz-haired girl boldly seated at his computer after school one day frowning at the screen and click-clicking keys with as much authority as if the computer were her own and this time he’d spoken sharply to her, “Excuse me?” and she’d looked up at him cringing and blind-seeming as if she thought he might hit her. And so he joked, “Here’s the famous hacker, eh?”—he knew it was the kindest as it was the wisest strategy to make a joke of the audacious/inexplicable behavior of adolescents, it wasn’t a good idea to confront or embarrass. Especially not a girl. And this stunted-seeming girl hunched over like she was trying to make herself smaller. Papery-thin skin, short upper lip exposing her front teeth, a guarded rodent look, furtive, anxious, somehow appealing. Her eyes were of the no-color of grit, moist and widened. Eyebrows and lashes scanty, near-invisible. She was so fiercely plain and her unbeautiful eyes stared at him so rawly . . . He felt sorry for her, poor kid. Bold, nervy, but in another year or so she’d be left behind entirely by her classmates, no boy would glance at her twice. He could not have guessed that the tremulous girl was the lone descendent of a family of reputation and privilege though possibly he might have guessed that her parents were long divorced from one another and perhaps from her as well. She was stammering some feeble explanation Just needed to look something up, Mr. Zallman. He laughed and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. Had an impulse, out of character for him, to reach out and tousle that frizzed floating hair as you’d rub a dog’s head partly in affection and partly to chastise.

  Didn’t touch her, though. Mikal Zallman wasn’t crazy.

  “101 DALMATIANS”

  Is she breathing, d’you think?

  She is! Sure she is.

  Oh God what if . . .

  . . . she is. See?

  The Corn Maiden slept by candlelight. The heavy openmouthed sleep of the sedated.

  We observed her in wonder. The Corn Maiden, in our power!

  Jude removed the barrettes from her hair so we could brush it. Long straight pale blond hair. We were not jealous of the Corn Maiden’s hair because It is our hair now.

  The Corn Maiden’s hair was spread out around her head like she was falling.

  She was breathing, yes you could see. If you held a candle close to her face and throat you could see.

  We had made a bed for the Corn Maiden, that Jude called a bier. Out of beautiful silk shawls and a brocaded bedspread, cashmere blanket from Scotland, goose-feather pillows. From the closed-off guest wing of the house Jude brought these, her face shining.

  We fumbled to remove the Corn Maiden’s clothes.

  You pull off your own clothes without hardly thinking but another person, even a small girl who is lying flat on her back, arms and legs limp but heavy, that’s different.

  When the Corn Maiden was bare it was hard not to giggle. Hard not to snort with laughter . . .

  More like a little girl than she was like us.

  We were shy of her suddenly. Her breasts were flat against her rib cage, her nipples were tiny as seeds. There were no hairs growing between her legs that we could see.

  She was very cold, shivering in her sleep. Her lips were putty-colored. Her teeth were chattering. Her eyes were closed but you could see a thin crescent of white. So (almost!) you worried the Corn Maiden was watching us paralyzed in sleep.

  It was Xanax Jude had prepared for the Corn Maiden. Also she had codeine and Oxycodone already ground to powder, in reserve.

  We were meant to “bathe” the Corn Maiden, Jude said. But maybe not tonight.

  We rubbed the Corn Maiden’s icy fingers, her icy toes, and her icy cheeks. We were not shy of touching her suddenly, we wanted to touch her and touch and touch.

  Inside here, Jude said, touching the Corn Maiden’s narrow chest, there is a heart beating. An actual heart.

  Jude spoke in a whisper. In the quiet you could hear the heart beat.


  We covered the Corn Maiden then with silks, brocades, cashmere wool. We placed a goose-feather pillow beneath the Corn Maiden’s head. Jude sprinkled perfume on the Corn Maiden with her fingertips. It was a blessing Jude said. The Corn Maiden would sleep and sleep for a long time and when she woke, she would know only our faces. The faces of her friends.

  •••

  It was a storage room in the cellar beneath the guest wing we brought the Corn Maiden. This was a remote corner of the big old house. This was a closed-off corner of the house and the cellar was yet more remote, nobody would ever ever come here Jude said.

  And you could scream your head off, nobody would ever hear.

  Jude laughed, cupping her hands to her mouth like she was going to scream. But all that came out was a strangled choked noise.

  There was no heat in the closed-off rooms of the Trahern house. In the cellar it was a damp cold like winter. Except this was meant to be a time of nuclear holocaust and no electricity we would have brought a space heater to plug in. Instead we had candles.

  These were fragrant hand-dipped candles old Mrs. Trahern had been saving in a drawer since 1994, according to the gift shop receipt.

  Jude said, Grandma won’t miss ’em.

  Jude was funny about her grandmother. Sometimes she liked her okay, other times she called her the old bat, said fuck her she didn’t give a damn about Jude she was only worried Jude would embarrass her somehow.

  Mrs. Trahern had called up the stairs, when we were in Jude’s room watching a video. The stairs were too much for her, rarely she came upstairs to check on Jude. There was an actual elevator in the house (we had seen it) but Jude said she’d fucked it up, fooling with it so much when she was a little kid. Just some friends from school, Denise and Anita, Jude called back. You’ve met them.

  Those times Mrs. Trahern saw us downstairs with Jude she would ask politely how we were and her snail-mouth would stretch in a grudging little smile but already she wasn’t listening to anything we said, and she would never remember our names.