Free A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

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,