The Corn Maiden: And Other Nightmares Page 9

  He had friends at Skatskill Day, he believed. The young woman who thought herself less-than-happily married, and who’d several times invited Zallman to dinner; a male math teacher, whom he often met at the gym; the school psychologist, whose sense of humor dovetailed with his own; and Dr. Cory herself, who was quite an intelligent woman, and a kindly woman, who had always seemed to like Zallman.

  He would appeal to them. They must believe him!

  Zallman insisted upon a meeting with Dr. Cory, face-to-face. He insisted upon being allowed to present his side of the case. He was informed that his presence at the school was “out of the question” at the present time; a mere glimpse of Zallman, and faculty members as well as students would be “distracted.”

  If he tried to enter the school building on Monday morning, Zallman was warned, security guards would turn him away.

  “But why? What have I done? What have I done that is anything more than rumor?”

  Not what Zallman had done but what the public perceived he might have done, that was the issue. Surely Zallman understood?

  He compromised, he would meet Dr. Cory on neutral territory, 8 A.M. Monday in the Trahern Square office of the school’s legal counsel. He was told to bring his own legal counsel but Zallman declined.

  Another mistake, probably. But he couldn’t wait for Neuberger, this was an emergency.

  “I need to work! I need to return to school as if nothing is wrong, in fact nothing is wrong. I insist upon returning.”

  Dr. Cory murmured something vaguely supportive, sympathetic. She was a kind person, Zallman wanted to believe.

  She was decent, well intentioned, she liked him. She’d always laughed at his jokes!

  Though sometimes wincing, as if Zallman’s humor was a little too abrasive for her. At least publicly.

  Zallman was protesting the decision to suspend him from teaching without “due process.” He demanded to be allowed to meet with the school board. How could he be suspended from teaching for no reason—wasn’t that unethical, and illegal? Wouldn’t Skatskill Day be liable, if he chose to sue?

  “I swear I did not—do it. I am not involved. I scarcely know Marissa Bantry, I’ve had virtually no contact with the girl. Dr. Cory—Adrienne—these ‘eyewitnesses’ are lying. This ‘barrette’ that was allegedly found by police behind my building—someone must have placed it there. Someone who hates me, who wants to destroy me! This has been a nightmare for me but I’m confident it will turn out well. I mean, it can’t be proven that I’m involved with—with—whatever has happened to the girl—because I am not involved! I need to come back to work, Adrienne, I need you to demonstrate that you have faith in me. I’m sure that my colleagues have faith in me. Please reconsider! I’m prepared to return to work this morning. I can explain to the students—something! Give me a chance, will you? Even if I’d been arrested—which I am not, Adrienne—under the law I am innocent until proven guilty and I can’t possibly be proven guilty because I—I did not—I did not do anything wrong.”

  He was struck by a sudden stab of pain, as if someone had driven an ice pick into his skull. He whimpered and slumped forward gripping his head in his hands.

  A woman was asking him, in a frightened voice, “Mr. Zallman? Do you want us to call a doctor?—an ambulance?”

  UNDER SURVEILLANCE

  He needed to speak with her. He needed to console her.

  On the fifth day of the vigil it became an overwhelming need.

  For in his misery he’d begun to realize how much worse it was for the mother of Marissa Bantry, than for him who was merely the suspect.

  It was Tuesday. Of course, he had not been allowed to return to teach. He had not slept for days except fitfully, in his clothes. He ate standing before the opened refrigerator, grabbing at whatever was inside. He lived on Tylenols. Obsessively he watched TV, switching from channel to channel in pursuit of the latest news of the missing girl and steeling himself for a glimpse of his own face, haggard and hollow-eyed and disfigured by guilt as by acne. There he is! Zallman! The only suspect in the case whom police had actually brought into custody, paraded before a phalanx of photographers and TV cameramen to arouse the excited loathing of hundreds of thousands of spectators who would not have the opportunity to see Zallman, and to revile him, in the flesh.

  In fact, the Skatskill police had other suspects. They were following other “leads.” Neuberger had told him he’d heard that they had sent men to California, to track down the elusive father of Marissa Bantry who had emerged as a “serious suspect” in the abduction.

  Yet, in the Skatskill area, the search continued. In the Bear Mountain State Park, and in the Blue Mountain Reserve south of Peekskill. Along the edge of the Hudson River between Peekskill and Skatskill. In parkland and wooded areas east of Skatskill in the Rockefeller State Park. These were search and rescue teams comprised of both professionals and volunteers. Zallman had wanted to volunteer to help with the search for he was desperate to do something but Neuberger had fixed him with a look of incredulity. “Mikal, that is not a good idea. Trust me.”

  There had been reports of men seen “dumping” mysterious objects from bridges into rivers and streams and there had been further “sightings” of the living girl in the company of her captor or captors at various points along the New York State Thruway and the New England Expressway. Very blond fair-skinned girls between the ages of eight and thirteen resembling Marissa Bantry were being seen everywhere.

  Police had received more than one thousand calls and Web site messages and in the media it was announced that all leads will be followed but Zallman wondered at this. All leads?

  He himself called the Skatskill detectives, often. He’d memorized their numbers. Often, they failed to return his calls. He was made to understand that Zallman was no longer their prime suspect—maybe. Neuberger had told him that the girl’s barrette, so conspicuously dropped by Zallman’s parking space, had been wiped clean of fingerprints: “An obvious plant.”

  Zallman had had his telephone number changed to an unlisted number yet still the unwanted calls—vicious, obscene, threatening, or merely inquisitive—continued and so he’d had the phone disconnected and relied now upon his cell phone exclusively, carrying it with him as he paced through the shrinking rooms of his condominium apartment. From the fifth floor, at a slant, Zallman could see the Hudson River on overcast days like molten lead but on clear days possessed of an astonishing slate-blue beauty. For long minutes he lost himself in contemplation of the view: beauty that was pure, unattached to any individual, destined to outlive the misery that had become his life.

  Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with human evil.

  Desperately he wanted to share this insight with the mother of Leah Bantry. It was such a simple fact, it might be overlooked.

  He went to Fifteenth Street where the woman lived, he’d seen the exterior of the apartment building on TV numerous times. He had not been able to telephone her. He wanted only to speak with her for a few minutes.

  It was near dusk of Tuesday. A light chill mist-rain was falling. For a while he stood indecisively on the front walk of the barracks-like building, in khaki trousers, canvas jacket, jogging shoes. His damp hair straggled past his collar. He had not shaved for several days. A sickly radiance shone in his face, he knew he was doing the right thing now crossing the lawn at an angle, to circle to the rear of the building where he might have better luck discovering which of the apartments belonged to Leah Bantry.

  Please I must see you.

  We must share this nightmare.

  Police came swiftly to intercept him, grabbing his arms and cuffing his wrists behind his back.

  SACRIFICE

  Is she breathing?

  . . . Christ!

  She isn’t . . . is she? Is she?

  She is. She’s okay.

  . . . like maybe she’s being . . . poisoned?

  We were getting so scared! Anita was crying a lot, then Anita was laughing like she cou
ldn’t stop. Denise had this eating-thing, she was hungry all the time, stuffing her mouth at meals and in the cafeteria at school then poking a finger down her throat to make herself vomit into a toilet flush-flush-flushing the toilet so if she was at home nobody in her family would hear or if she was at school other girls wouldn’t hear and tell on her.

  More and more we could see how they were watching us at school, like somehow they knew.

  Since giving the white flowers to the Corn Maiden’s mother nothing felt right. Denise knew, and Anita. Jude maybe knew but would not acknowledge it.

  Mothers don’t give a shit about their kids. See, it’s all pretend.

  Jude believed this. She hated the Corn Maiden’s mother worse than she hated anybody, just about.

  Anita was worried the Corn Maiden was being poisoned, all the strong drugs Jude was making her swallow. The Corn Maiden was hardly eating anything now, you had to mush it up like cottage cheese with vanilla ice cream, open her jaws and spoon it into her mouth then close her jaws and try to make her swallow but half the time the Corn Maiden began choking and gagging and the white mush just leaked out of her mouth like vomit.

  We were begging, Jude maybe we better . . .

  . . . we don’t want her to die, like do we?

  Jude? Jude?

  The fun was gone now. Seeing TV news, and all the newspapers even The New York Times, and the posters HAVE YOU SEEN ME? and the fifteen-thousand-dollar reward, and all that, that made us laugh like hyenas just a few days ago but wasn’t anything to laugh at now, or anyway not much. Jude still scorned the assholes, she called them, and laughed at how they ran around looking for the Corn Maiden practically under their noses out Highgate Avenue.

  Jude was doing these weird things. On Monday she came to school with one of the Corn Maiden’s butterfly barrettes she was going to wear in her hair but we told her Oh no better not! and she laughed at us but didn’t wear it.

  Jude talked a lot about fire, “immolation.” On the Internet she looked up some things like Buddhists had done a long time ago.

  The Sacrifice of the Corn Maiden called for the heart of the captive cut out, and her blood collected in sacred vessels, but you could burn the Corn Maiden, too, and mix her ashes with the soil Jude said.

  Fire is a cleaner way, Jude said. It would only hurt at the beginning.

  Jude was taking cell-phone pictures all the time now. By the end, Jude would have like fifty of these. We believed that Jude intended to post them on the Internet but that did not happen.

  What was done with them, when the police took away Jude’s cell phone, we did not know.

  These were pictures to stare at! In some of them the Corn Maiden was lying on her back in the bier in the beautiful silky fabrics and brocades and she was so little. Jude posed her naked and with her hair fanned out and her legs spread wide so you could see the little pink slip between her legs Jude called her cut.

  The Corn Maiden’s cut was not like ours, it was a little-girl cut and nicer, Jude said. It would never grow pubic hairs Jude said, the Corn Maiden would be spared that.

  Jude laughed saying she would send the TV stations these pictures they could not use.

  Other poses, the Corn Maiden was sitting up or kneeling or on her feet if Jude could revive her, and slap-slap her face so her eyes were open, you would think she was awake, and smiling this wan little smile leaning against Jude, their heads leaning together and Jude grinning like Jude O and the Corn Maiden were floating somewhere above the earth in some Heaven where nobody could reach them, only just look up at them wondering how they’d got there!

  Jude had us take these pictures. One of them was her favorite, she said she wished the Corn Maiden’s mother could see it and maybe someday she would.

  That night, we thought the Corn Maiden would die.

  She was shivering and twitching in her sleep like she’d been mostly doing then suddenly she was having like an epileptic fit, her mouth sprang open Uh-uh-uh and her tongue protruded wet with spittle and really ugly like a freak and Anita was backing off and whimpering She’s going to die! oh God she’s going to die! Jude do something she’s going to die! and Jude slapped Anita’s face to shut her up, Jude was so disgusted. Fat ass, get away. What the fuck do you know. Jude held the Corn Maiden down, the Corn Maiden’s skinny arms and legs were shaking so, it was like she was trying to dance laying down and her eyes came open unseeing like a doll’s dead glass eyes and Jude was kind of scared now and excited and climbed up onto the bier to lay on her, for maybe the Corn Maiden was cold, so skinny the cold had gotten into her bones, Jude’s arms were stretched out like the Corn Maiden’s arms and her hands were gripping the Corn Maiden’s hands, her legs quivering stretched out the Corn Maiden’s legs, and the side of her face against the Corn Maiden’s face like they were twin girls hatched from the same egg. I am here, I am Jude I will protect you, in the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will protect you forever AMEN. Till finally the Corn Maiden ceased convulsing and was only just breathing in this long shuddering way, but she was breathing, she would be okay.

  Still, Anita was freaked. Anita was trying not to laugh this wild laugh you’d hear from her at school sometimes, like she was being tickled in a way she could not bear so Jude became disgusted and slapped Anita SMACK-SMACK on both checks calling her fat ass and stupid cunt and Anita ran out of the storage room like a kicked dog crying, we heard her on the stairs and Jude said, She’s next.

  On darkspeaklink.com where Jude O bonded with the Master of Eyes Jude showed us IF THERE IS A PERSON THERE IS A PROBLEM. IF THERE IS NO PERSON THERE IS NO PROBLEM. (STALIN)

  Jude had never told the Master of Eyes that she was female or male and so the Master of Eyes believed her to be male. She had told him she had taken her captive, did he give her permission to Sacrifice? and the Master of Eyes shot back you are precocious/precious if 13 yrs old & where do you live Jude O? but the thought came to Jude suddenly the Master of Eyes was not her friend who dwelled in several places of the earth simultaneously but an FBI agent pretending to be her soul mate in order to capture her so Jude O disappeared from darkspeaklink.com forever.

  YOU ASSHOLES! A SUICIDE NOTE

  Jude O knew, it was ending. Four days preceding the Sacrifice and this was the sixth day. No turning back.

  Denise was breaking down. Dull/dazed like she’d been hit over the head and in morning homeroom the teacher asked, Denise are you ill and at first Denise did not hear then shaking her head almost you could not hear her no.

  Anita had not come to school. Anita was hiding away at home, and would betray Jude. And there was no way to get to Anita now, Jude was unable to silence the traitor.

  Jude’s disciples, she had trusted. Yet she had not truly trusted them knowing they were inferiors.

  Denise was begging, Jude I think we better . . .

  . . . let the Corn Maiden go?

  Because because if she, if . . .

  The Corn Maiden becomes Taboo. The Corn Maiden can never be released. Except if somebody takes the Corn Maiden’s place the Corn Maiden can never be released.

  You want to take the Corn Maiden’s place?

  Jude, she isn’t the Corn Maiden she’s M-Marissa Ban—

  A flame of righteous fury came over Jude O, SMACK-SMACK with the palm and back of her hand she slapped the offensive face.

  When spotted hyenas are born they are usually twins. One twin is stronger than the other and at once attacks the other hoping to tear out its throat and why, because the other would try to kill it otherwise. There is no choice.

  At the table at the very rear of the cafeteria where Jude O and her disciples perceived as pathetic misfit losers by their Skatskill Day classmates usually ate their lunches together except today only Jude O and Denise Ludwig, and it was observed how Denise was whimpering and pleading with Jude wiping at her nose in a way repellent to the more fastidious girl who said through clenched jaws I forbid you to cry, I forbid you to make a spectacle of yourself, but Denise continued, and
Denise whimpered and begged, and at last a flame of indignation swept over Jude who slapped Denise and Denise stumbled from the table overturning her chair, ran blubbering from the cafeteria in full view of staring others, and in that same instant it seemed that wily Jude O fled through a rear exit running crouched over to the middle school bicycle rack, and fueled by that same passion of indignation Jude bicycled 2.7 miles home to the old Trahern house on Highgate Avenue several times nearly struck by vehicles that swerved to avoid the blind-seeming cyclist and she laughed for she was feeling absolutely no fear now like a hawk riding the crest of an updraft scarcely needing to move its wings to remain aloft, and lethal. A hawk! Jude O was a hawk! If her bicycle had been struck and crushed, if she’d died on Highgate Avenue the Corn Maiden would molder in her bier of silks and brocades, unseen. No one would find the Corn Maiden for a long time.

  It is better this way, we will die together.

  She would not have requested a jury trial, you had to utter such bullshit to sway a jury. She would have requested a judge merely.

  A judge is an aristocrat. Jude O was an aristocrat.

  She would have been tried as an adult! Would have insisted.

  In the gardener’s shed there was a rusted old lawnmower. A can of gasoline half full. You poured the gasoline through the funnel if you could get it open. Jude had experimented, she could get it open.

  Her grandmother’s old silver lighter engraved with the initials G.L.T. Click-click-click and a transparent little bluish-orange flame appeared pretty as a flicking tongue.

  She would immolate the Corn Maiden first.

  No! Better to die together.

  Telling herself calmly It will only hurt at first. Just for a few seconds and by then it will be too late.

  She laughed to think of it. Like already it was done.

  Stealthily entering the house by the rear door. So the old woman watching afternoon TV would not hear.

  She was very excited! She was determined to make no error. Already forgetting that perhaps she had erred, allowing both her disciples to escape when she’d known that they were weakening. And confiding in the Master of Eyes believing she could trust him as her twin not recalling the spotted hyena twin, of course you could not trust.