A Fair Maiden Page 4

  Tricia adored Funny Bunny. Tricia could not get enough of Funny Bunny. Tricia insisted that Katya read it to her again and yet again. The best part of being a nanny, Katya thought, was reading children's books aloud to enraptured children like Tricia, for no one had read such books aloud to her when she'd been a little girl. There hadn't been such books in the Spivak household on County Line Road, nor would there have been any time for such interludes. Katya had to concede that Funny Bunny was a wonderfully cuddly plump white rabbit with upright pink ears, a pink nose, appealing shiny brown eyes. As the artist depicted him, Funny Bunny was funny without knowing it; you could laugh at Funny Bunny, though not meanly. Funny Bunny had many worries and all of them were imaginary. His greatest worry was that everyone had forgotten his birthday, but in fact all of his brothers and sisters and animal friends in the woods had prepared a surprise birthday party for him which left Funny Bunny with many wonderful gifts (among them—Katya smiled; Marcus Kidder was so clever—a magician's top hat, for Funny Bunny to disappear into when he wished to hide) but, more important, made him realize that he had many friends who cared for him. The final drawing showed Funny Bunny at bedtime in a drowsy tangle of brother and sister bunnies: "And so Funny Bunny knew he was never alone for a minute, even when he thought he was."

  Katya thought, Whoever wrote such a story has a beautiful soul.

  "Katya, what is this? This—Funny Bunny's Birthday Party?" Mrs. Engelhardt had discovered the book and was leafing through it, frowning. "Where did Tricia get this book?"

  Carefully Katya explained that the author himself had given it to Tricia; that was his signature inside. He lived in Bayhead Harbor.

  And Mrs. Engelhardt turned to the title page and read the inscription and puzzled over the wild scrawl of the signature. "Kidder! Kidder is a prominent name in Bayhead Harbor, I think. Isn't there a Kidder Memorial somewhere—the library? Isn't it named for that family? Where did you meet Mr. Kidder—at the library?" It was like Mrs. Engelhardt to speak rapidly, to ask and to answer her own questions, but Katya said, "In Harbor Park. We were feeding geese ... Mr. Kidder is a white-haired old man, and very sweet."

  Distractedly Mrs. Engelhardt leafed through the picture book, examining the highly detailed, striking drawings of Funny Bunny and his companions. If Mrs. Engelhardt had not been expecting houseguests within the hour and been involved in preparing a dinner party for ten that evening at the house, she might have had more than a vague interest in Bayhead Harbor resident Marcus Kidder and exactly how he'd come to give her daughter the book. "Signed with the author's signature—this might be a collector's item one day..." Ordinarily Mrs. Engelhardt was given to suspect that her good nature and her trust were being subtly betrayed by persons in her employ, unless she was vigilant; she had to keep a sharp eye on both her live-in housekeeper and her live-in nanny. But she was pleased with Katya now, and smiled at her with such genuine feeling, Katya felt a thrill of affection for her employer, who was not so bad after all and with whom she might—almost, in another context—be friends. Here was a triumph for Lorraine Engelhardt: a beautiful children's book signed by the author, inscribed to her daughter. In weeks to come, frequently Katya would observe Lorraine showing Funny Bunny's Birthday Party to visitors, proudly opening it to the title page.

  Now she said to Katya, "Tricia should write this dear old man a thank-you note. I mean, we should write. Could you take care of this, Katya? Buy a nice card at the drugstore and write a nice note and help Tricia to 'sign' her name. Be sure to include our address and telephone number, in case Mr. Kidder wants to respond. I'm sure that you can find his address in the telephone directory, or from a librarian at the library."

  Katya said happily, "Yes, Mrs. Engelhardt. I will."

  5

  THIS TIME KATYA didn't pause to ring Mr. Kidder's doorbell.

  It was Wednesday afternoon, Katya's half-day off. On her way to the beach she was stopping by 17 Proxmire Street to take the thank-you note from Tricia Engelhardt in person. Out of colorful construction paper she and the little girl had made a thank-you card, and in crayon, with Katya guiding her shaky little hand, Tricia had signed her name. Katya was pleased with their work, though on her way out of the house, Mrs. Engelhardt had had time merely to glance at it. Katya smiled, thinking, I will deliver it by hand.

  Vowed she would not return to that house, but now it was happening. Would not transformed to would as naturally as the happy resolution of Funny Bunny's worries.

  As she pushed through the wrought-iron gate, she began to hear a piano being played somewhere inside the shingleboard house. This time the pianist paused repeatedly in his playing, broke off and began again impatiently. Impulsively Katya left the flagstone path, circled the house on the damp grassy lawn, and found herself at the rear, right-hand corner of the house, where, through a screened window, she saw white-haired Mr. Kidder seated at a piano, his back to her. Picking at the keyboard, playing briefly with both hands and then abruptly stopping ... Katya liked it: clever Marcus Kidder had no idea that anyone was spying on him.

  Another roll of the dice—this felt right.

  Go with your gut, gamblers know. And this Katya Spivak knew.

  She was wearing her swimsuit beneath a pair of white shorts and a blue Bayhead Harbor Yacht Club T-shirt passed on to her by Mrs. Engelhardt because it was too small for Katya's employer's fleshy shoulders and breasts. She'd brushed her streaked-blond hair until it shone, and she was wearing flashy jade studs in her ears. She liked it that Marcus Kidder would be surprised to see her, and that it seemed to be a casual thing for Katya to drop by 17 Proxmire Street, as if the impressive house behind the privet hedge were a natural stop for a nanny from south Jersey on her way to the public beach.

  Katya stood in the grass listening to Mr. Kidder at the piano. She was carrying a bulky straw bag, the thank-you note inside. She loved the sensation of being unseen, the thrill of trespassing on a rich man's property without his knowing. Through the window screen she saw how, when Mr. Kidder ceased playing the piano, he leaned forward to scribble something on a stiff sheet of paper. She thought, He is a composer, too. He composes music, and the realization seemed wonderful to her, magical.

  Softly Katya called to him: "Hello, Mr. Kidder."

  Comical to see how surprised the white-haired old man was! Katya laughed as he turned to her, astonished. He was wearing glasses with chunky black frames, which he hurriedly removed. "Why, Katya! Is that you?"

  He stumbled to open a door. Katya stood hesitantly in the grass, saying she didn't want to disturb him, she'd brought something to deliver to him.

  "Something—for me?" Mr. Kidder stood in the doorway, frowning and smiling, gazing at Katya with that melting sick-sinking look that left Katya feeling faint, lightheaded herself. He wants me, this old man. Desire and yearning in Mr. Kidder's startled blue eyes were like nothing Katya saw in the eyes of other, younger men, like Roy Mraz.

  But Mr. Kidder managed to compose himself. You could see the transformation as if a spotlight had been turned upon an actor. "You've forgiven me, Katya dear? I was hoping you would."

  Katya laughed, feeling a hot, pleasurable blush rise in her face. "No! I have not. I'm only here for a few minutes on my way to..." In the confusion of the moment, Katya had forgotten where she was going.

  "Come in! If but 'for a few minutes,' each minute will be precious."

  To enter the house, Katya had to brush close by Mr. Kidder, who stood just inside the doorway, holding the screen door open. She was uncomfortably aware of his closeness: his height, the warmth that lifted from his skin, his quickened breathing, a faint scent of cologne. At least, Katya thought the scent must be cologne. As if possibly Mr. Kidder had been expecting a visitor this afternoon, he wasn't wearing beltless khaki shorts but pale beige linen trousers and a pale green shirt of some fine-woven fabric; on his feet, the sporty white yachtsman's shoes. He was cleanshaven; the floating white hair was not disheveled. Katya thought that he might grasp her hands in h
is, he might try to kiss her, but she slipped past him.

  Exhilarated, she thought, He wants me! Me, me!

  Katya found herself in a room of surpassing beauty—a "drawing room"? At its center was a gleaming cream-colored grand piano, the largest Katya had ever seen.

  "It's a concert grand, Katya. But I assure you, my playing is far from grand."

  Katya laughed. She could think of no reply to Mr. Kidder's remark. In her fevered imagination of the past twenty-four hours, she'd rehearsed what she might say to Marcus Kidder, but in these scenarios only Katya spoke, not Mr. Kidder.

  Out of her straw bag Katya took the handmade card. "This is for you, Mr. Kidder. From Tricia Engelhardt, who adores Funny Bunny and has made me read it to her a dozen times already."

  The envelope of red construction paper was decorated with animal stickers. Mr. Kidder took it from Katya with a perplexed smile. You could see he had no idea who Tricia Engelhardt was. But when he removed the card and read the thank-you note Katya had composed, he was stricken with sudden emotion. "Why, this is a ... work of art. This is"—to Katya's dismay, he spoke haltingly, brushing at his eyes with his fingertips—"very beautiful."

  Katya stared. It was weakness in adults she hated, that frightened her.

  Her grandfather Spivak had been a prison guard at Glassboro for nearly thirty years. He'd ruined his health with smoking, heavy drinking; he shuffled when he walked, as if broken-backed; but he wasn't weak. Never would he have been stricken with emotion like this, for something so trivial. And Katya's father, whom she had not seen in some time, would never have displayed such weakness before witnesses. She was sure!

  Boldly, Katya prowled about the room. She scarcely listened to the white-haired man's halting speech; she'd have liked to press her hands over her ears. Here was a room of surpassing beauty, she thought. Not cluttered and smelling of paint and turpentine like Mr. Kidder's studio but furnished with beautiful things like a show window. The floor was polished hardwood—parket?—parkay?—and over it lay a large oval Oriental rug of a dark dusty-rose color. Surrounding the piano were sofas with brightly colored pillows, white wicker chairs, lamps with flaring white shades. On the walls, grass green wallpaper: silk? On the mantel above a wide white brick fireplace were vases containing glass flowers—Mr. Kidder's fossil flowers—of striking colors and shapes. There was a stereo set in a carved mahogany cabinet, and there were shelves of records so tightly crammed together that Katya's head ached to see them. So much music! And none of Mr. Kidder's music, she seemed to know, would be familiar to her.

  Solemnly she said, "This is a very beautiful room, Mr. Kidder. I think this must be a special room."

  "Yes it is, dear. At the moment."

  Dear! She smiled.

  At the Engelhardts' house, Katya Spivak was invisible. Unless Mrs. Engelhardt suddenly spoke to her, with a quick hard smile and a request, or a reprimand. In her own household in Vineland, Katya Spivak was likely to be even less visible, for often there was no one home: her mother's work hours shifted mysteriously. But here in Mr. Kidder's drawing room, Katya Spivak was wholly visible.

  Conscious of Mr. Kidder watching her as she moved about the room like a curious child. Conscious at the same time of her ponytail swinging between her shoulder blades, her smooth tanned legs springy and taut as a dancer's legs. In the mirror above the mantel there was a very pretty young girl with streaked-blond hair and a daring red slash of a mouth, thrilling to see. And in the corner of her eye Katya saw, or believed she saw, Mr. Kidder moving toward her. She steeled herself for the man's touch, his embrace; she would push away from him if he tried to embrace her. But she felt instead only a tentative stroke of her ponytail. She did not turn around but moved away as if not noticing. And when she went to peer curiously at a shelf of records (all Mozart? Katya was sure she'd never heard any of Mozart's music), she saw, to her surprise, that Mr. Kidder hadn't moved and could not have touched her hair; he was only gazing at her with a smile of longing. In his hand was the construction-paper card, which he seemed to be taking so seriously. He said, "Of course I remember dear Tricia. And you are Tricia's nanny, and you are obviously the creator of this card for Marcus Cullen Kidder, which he will prize forever."

  Now Katya understood that Mr. Kidder was joking: the wistful old-man yearning, the maudlin words, were meant to be funny.

  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 1950s 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—mo
stly 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."