The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares

by Oates, Joyce Carol

  Not possible. For Lyle would have to drive other relatives in his car, too. He couldn’t risk their lives. And there was no vigilant God.

  A simple self-evident fact, though a secret to most of the credulous world: Alastor King, attractive, intelligent and deathly “charming” as he surely was, was as purely hateful, vicious and worthless an individual as ever lived. His brother Lyle had grown to contemplate him with horror the way a martyr of ancient times might have contemplated the engine of pain and destruction rushing at him. How can so evil a person deserve to live? Lyle had wondered, sick with loathing of him. (This was years ago when the brothers were twenty. Alastor had secretly seduced their seventeen-year-old cousin Susan, and within a week or two lost interest in her, causing the girl to attempt suicide and to suffer a breakdown from which she would never fully recover.) Yet, maddening, Alastor had continued to live, and live. Nothing in the normal course of events would stop him.

  Except Lyle. His twin. Who alone of the earth’s billions of inhabitants understood Alastor’s heart.

  And so how shocked Lyle had been, how sickened, having hurried to the hospital when word came that his uncle Gardner was dying, only to discover, like the materialization of one of his nightmares, his brother Alastor already there! Strikingly dressed as usual, with an expression of care, concern, solicitude, clasping their aunt Alida’s frail hand and speaking softly and reassuringly to her, and to the others, most of them female relatives, in the visitors’ waiting room outside the intensive care unit. As if Alastor hadn’t been mysteriously absent from Contracoeur for six years, not having returned even for their mother’s funeral; as if he hadn’t disappeared abruptly when he’d left, having been involved in a dubious business venture and owing certain of the relatives money, including Uncle Gardner (an undisclosed sum—Lyle didn’t doubt it was many thousands of dollars) and Lyle himself (three thousand five hundred dollars).

  Lyle had stood in the doorway, staring in disbelief. He had not seen his twin brother in so long, he’d come to imagine that Alastor no longer existed in any way hurtful to him.

  Alastor cried, “Lyle, brother, hello! Good to see you!—except this is such a tragic occasion.”

  Swiftly Alastor came to Lyle, seizing his forearm, shaking his hand vigorously as if to disarm him. He was smiling broadly, with his old bad-boyish air, staring Lyle boldly in the face and daring him to wrench away. Lyle stammered a greeting, feeling his face burn. He has come back like a bird of prey, now Uncle Gardner is dying. Alastor nudged Lyle in the ribs, saying in a chiding voice that he’d returned to Contracoeur just by chance, to learn the sad news about their uncle—“I’d have thought, Lyle, that you might have kept your own brother better informed. As when Mother died, too, so suddenly, and I didn’t learn about it for months.”

  Lyle protested, “But you were traveling—in Europe, you said—out of communication with everyone. You—”

  But Alastor was performing for Aunt Alida and the others, and so interrupted Lyle to cry, with a pretense of great affection, “How unchanged you are, Lyle! How happy I am to see you.” It wasn’t enough for Alastor to have gripped Lyle’s hand so hard he’d nearly broken the fingers, now he had to embrace him; a rough bearlike hug that nearly cracked Lyle’s ribs, calculated to suggest to those who looked on See how natural I am, how spontaneous and loving, and how stiff and unnatural my brother is, and has always been, though we’re supposed to be twins. Lyle had endured this performance in the past and had no stomach for it now, pushing Alastor away and saying in an angry undertone, “You! What are you doing here! I’d think you’d be damned ashamed, coming back like this.” Not missing a beat, Alastor laughed and said, winking, one actor to another in a play performed for a credulous, foolish audience, “But why, brother? When you can be ashamed for both of us?” And he squeezed Lyle’s arm with deliberate force, making him wince, as he’d done repeatedly when they were boys, daring Lyle to protest to their parents. Daring me to respond with equal violence. Then slinging a heavy arm around Lyle’s shoulders, and walking him back to the women, as if Lyle were the reluctant visitor, and he, Alastor, the self-appointed host. Lyle quickly grasped, to his disgust, that Alastor had already overcome their aunt Alida’s distrust of him and had made an excellent impression on everyone, brilliantly playing the role of the misunderstood prodigal son, tender-hearted, grieved by his uncle’s imminent death and eager—so eager!—to give comfort to his well-to-do aunt.

  How desperately Lyle wanted to take Aunt Alida aside, for she was an intelligent woman, and warn her Take care! My brother is after Uncle Gardner’s fortune! But of course he didn’t dare; it wasn’t in Lyle King’s nature to be manipulative.

  In this way, Alastor King returned to Contracoeur.

  And within a few days, to Lyle’s disgust, he’d reestablished himself with most of the relatives and certain of his old friends and acquaintances; probably, Lyle didn’t doubt, with former women friends. He’d overcome Alida King’s distrust and this had set the tone for the others. Though invited to stay with relatives, he’d graciously declined and had taken up residence at the Black River Inn; Lyle knew that his brother wanted privacy, no one spying on him, but others interpreted this gesture as a wish not to intrude, or impinge upon family generosity. How thoughtful Alastor had become, how kind, how mature. So Lyle was hearing on all sides. It was put to him repeatedly, maddeningly: “You must be so happy, Lyle, that your brother has returned. You must have missed him terribly.”

  And Lyle would smile wanly, politely, and say, “Yes. Terribly.”

  The worst of it was, apart from the threat Alastor posed to Alida King, that Lyle, who’d succeeded in pushing his brother out of his thoughts for years, was forced to think of him again; to think obsessively of him again; to recall the myriad hurts, insults, outrages he’d suffered from Alastor; and the numerous cruel and even criminal acts Alastor had perpetrated, with seeming impunity. And of course he was always being thrown into Alastor’s company: always the fraudulent, happy cry, “Lyle! Brother!”—always the exuberant, rib-crushing embrace, a mockery of brotherly affection. On one occasion, when he’d gone to pick up Alastor at the hotel, Lyle had staved Alastor off with an elbow, grimacing. “Damn you, Alastor, stop. We’re not onstage, no one’s watching.” Alastor said, laughing, with a contemptuous glance around, “What do you mean, brother? Someone is always watching.”

  It was true. Even on neutral ground, in the foyer of the Black River Inn, for instance, people often glanced at Alastor King. In particular, women were drawn to his energetic, boyish good looks and bearing.

  As if they saw not the man himself but the incandescent, seductive image of the man’s desire: his wish to deceive.

  While, seeing Lyle, they saw merely—Lyle.

  What particularly disgusted Lyle was that his brother’s hypocrisy was so transparent. Yet so convincing. And he, the less demonstrative brother, was made to appear hesitant, shy, anemic by comparison. Lacking, somehow, manliness itself. Alastor was such a dazzling sight: his hair that should have been Lyle’s identical shade of faded ashy-brown was a brassy russet-brown, lifting from his forehead in waves that appeared crimped, while Lyle’s thinning hair was limp, straight. Alastor’s sharply blue eyes were alert and watchful and flirtatious while Lyle’s duller blue eyes were gently myopic and vague behind glasses that were invariably finger-smudged. Apart from a genial flush to his skin, from an excess of food and drink, Alastor radiated an exuberant sort of masculine health; if you didn’t look closely, his face appeared youthful, animated, while Lyle’s was beginning to show the inroads of time, small worried dents and creases, particularly at the corners of his eyes. Alastor was at least twenty pounds heavier than Lyle, thick in the torso as if he’d been building up muscles, while Lyle, lean, rangy, with an unconscious tendency to slouch, looked by comparison wan and uncoordinated. (In fact, Lyle was a capable swimmer and an enthusiastic tennis player.) Since early adolescence Alastor had dressed with verve: at the hospital, he’d worn what appeare
d to be a suit of suede, honey-colored, with an elegantly cut jacket and a black silk shirt worn without a tie; after their uncle’s death, he’d switched to theatrical mourning, in muted-gray fashionable clothes, a linen coat with exaggerated padded shoulders, trousers with prominent creases, shirts so pale a blue they appeared a grieving white and a midnight blue necktie of some beautiful glossy fabric. And he wore expensive black leather shoes with soles that gave him an extra inch of height—so that Lyle, who had always been Alastor’s height exactly, was vexed by being forced to look at him. Lyle, who had no vanity, and some might say not enough pride, wore the identical matte-black gabardine suit in an outdated style he’d worn for years on special occasions; often he shaved without really looking at himself in the mirror, his mind turned inward; sometimes he rushed out of the house without combing his hair. He was a sweet-natured, vague-minded young-old man with the look of a perennial bachelor, held in affectionate the corn maiden and other nightmares if bemused regard by those who knew him well, largely ignored by others. After graduating summa cum laude from Williams College—while Alastor had dropped out, under suspicious circumstances, from Amherst—Lyle had returned to Contracoeur to lead a quiet, civilized life: he lived in an attractively converted carriage house on what had been his parents’ property, gave private music lessons, and designed books for a small New England press specializing in limited editions distinguished within the trade, but little known elsewhere. He’d had several moderately serious romances that had come to nothing yet he harbored, still, a vague hope of marriage; friends were always trying to match him with eligible young women, as in a stubborn parlor game no one wished to give up. (In fact, Lyle had secretly adored his cousin Susan, whom Alastor had seduced; after that sorry episode, and Susan’s subsequent marriage and move to Boston, Lyle seemed to himself to have lost heart for the game.) It amused Lyle to think that Alastor was considered a “world traveler”—an “explorer”—for he was certain that his brother had spent time in prison, in the United States; in Europe, in his late twenties, he’d traveled with a rich older woman who’d conveniently died and left him some money.

  It wasn’t possible to ask Alastor a direct question, and Lyle had long since given up trying. He’d given up, in fact, making much eff ort to communicate with Alastor at all. For Alastor only lied to him, with a maddening habit of smiling and winking and sometimes nudging him in the ribs, as if to say I know you despise me, brother. And so what? You’re too cowardly to do anything about it.

  At the funeral luncheon, Lyle noted glumly that Alastor was seated beside their aunt Alida and that the poor woman, her mind clearly weakened from the strain of her husband’s death, was gazing up at Alastor as once she’d gazed at her husband Gardner: with infinite trust. Aunt Alida was one of those women who’d taken a special interest in Lyle from time to time, hoping to match him with a potential bride, and now, it seemed, she’d forgotten Lyle entirely. But then she was paying little attention to anyone except Alastor. Through the buzz and murmur of voices—Lyle winced to hear how frequently Alastor was spoken of, in the most laudatory way—he could make out fragments of their conversation; primarily Alastor’s grave, unctuous voice. “And were Uncle Gardner’s last days peaceful?—did he look back upon his life with joy?—that’s all that matters.” Seeing Lyle’s glare of indignation, Alastor raised his glass of wine in a subtly mocking toast, smiling, just perceptibly winking, so that no one among the relatives could guess the message he was sending to his twin, as frequently he’d done when they were boys, in the company of their parents. See? How clever I am? And what gullible fools these others are, to take me seriously?

  Lyle flushed angrily, so distracted he nearly overturned his water goblet.

  Afterward, questioned about his travels, Alastor was intriguingly vague. Yet all his tales revolved around himself; always, Alastor King was the hero. Saving a young girl from drowning when a Greek steamer struck another boat, in the Mediterranean; establishing a medical trust fund for beggars, in Cairo; giving aid to a young black heroin addict adrift in Amsterdam . . . Lyle listened with mounting disgust as the relatives plied Alastor with more questions, believing everything he said no matter how absurd; having forgotten, or wishing to forget, how he’d disappeared from Contracoeur owing some of them money. Alastor was, it seemed, now involved in the importing into the United States of “masterworks of European culture”; elliptically he suggested that his business would flourish, and pay off investors handsomely, if only it might be infused with a little more capital. He was in partnership with a distinguished Italian artist of an “impoverished noble family” . . . As Alastor sipped wine, it seemed to Lyle that his features grew more vivid, as if he were an actor in a film, magnified many times. His artfully dyed brassy-brown hair framed his thuggish fox-face in crimped waves so that he looked like an animated doll. Lyle would have asked him skeptically who the distinguished artist was, what was the name of their business, but he knew that Alastor would give glib, convincing answers. Except for Lyle, everyone at the table was gazing at Alastor with interest, admiration and, among the older women, yearning; you could imagine these aging women, shaken by the death of one of their contemporaries, looking upon Alastor as if he were a fairy prince, promising them their youth again, their lost innocence. They had only to believe in him unstintingly, to “invest” in his latest business scheme. “Life is a ceaseless pilgrimage up a mountain,” Alastor was saying. “As long as you’re in motion, your perspective is obscured. Only when you reach the summit and turn to look back, can you be at peace.”

  There was a hushed moment at the table, as if Alastor had uttered holy words. Aunt Alida had begun to weep, quietly. Yet there was a strange sort of elation in her weeping. Lyle, who rarely drank, and never during the day, found himself draining his second glass of white wine. Amanita phalloides. Amanita . . . He recalled how, years ago, when they were young children, Alastor had so tormented him that he’d lost control suddenly and screamed, flailing at his brother with his fists, knocking Alastor backward, astonished. Their mother had quickly intervened. But Lyle remembered vividly. I wasn’t a coward, once.

  Lyle drove Alastor back to the Black River Inn in silence. And Alastor himself was subdued, as if his performance had exhausted him. He said, musing aloud, “Aunt Alida has aged so, I was shocked. They all have. I don’t see why you hadn’t kept in closer touch with me, Lyle; you could have reached me care of American Express any time you’d wanted in Rome, in Paris, in Amsterdam . . . Who will be overseeing the King Foundation now? Aunt Alida will need help. And that enormous English Tudor house. And all that property: thirty acres. Uncle Gardner refused even to consider selling to a developer, but it’s futile to hold out much longer. All of the north section of Contracoeur is being developed; if Aunt Alida doesn’t sell, she’ll be surrounded by tract homes in a few years. It’s the way of the future, obviously.” Alastor paused, sighing with satisfaction. It seemed clear that the future was a warm beneficient breeze blowing in his direction. He gave Lyle, who was hunched behind the steering wheel of his nondescript automobile, a sly sidelong glance. “And that magnificent Rolls-Royce. I suppose, brother, you have your eye on that?” Alastor laughed, as if nothing was more amusing than the association of Lyle with a Rolls-Royce. He was dabbing at his flushed face, overheated from numerous glasses of wine.

  Quietly Lyle said, “I think you should leave the family alone, Alastor. You’ve already done enough damage to innocent people in your life.”

  “But—by what measure is ‘enough’?” Alastor said, with mock seriousness. “By your measure, brother, or mine?”

  “There is only one measure—that of common decency.”

  “Oh well, then, if you’re going to lapse into ‘common’ decency,” Alastor said genially, “it’s hopeless to try to talk to you.”

  At the Black River Inn, Alastor invited Lyle inside so that they could discuss “family matters” in more detail. Lyle, trembling with indignation, coolly declined. He had work to do, he s
aid; he was in the midst of designing a book, a new limited edition with hand-sewn pages and letterpress printing, of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “William Wilson.” Alastor shrugged, as if he thought little of this; not once had he shown the slightest interest in his brother’s beautifully designed books, any more than he’d shown interest in his brother’s life. “You’d be better off meeting a woman,” he said. “I could introduce you to one.”

  Lyle said, startled, “But you’ve only just arrived back in Contracoeur.”

  Alastor laughed, laying a heavy hand on Lyle’s arm, and squeezing him with what seemed like affection. “God, Lyle! Are you serious? Women are everywhere. And any time.”

  Lyle said disdainfully, “A certain kind of woman, you mean.”

  Alastor said, with equal disdain, “No. There is only one kind of woman.”

  Lyle turned his car into the drive of the Black River Inn, his heart pounding with loathing of his brother. He knew that Alastor spoke carelessly, meaning only to provoke; it was pointless to try to speak seriously with him, let alone reason with him. He had no conscience in small matters as in large. What of our cousin Susan? Do you ever think of her, do feel remorse for what you did to her?—Lyle didn’t dare ask. He would only be answered by a crude, flippant remark which would upset him further.

  The Black River Inn was a handsome “historic” hotel recently renovated, at considerable cost, now rather more a resort motel than an inn, with landscaped grounds, a luxurious swimming pool, tennis courts. It seemed appropriate that Alastor would be staying in such a place; though surely deep in debt, he was accustomed to first-rate accommodations. Lyle sat in his car watching his brother stride purposefully away without a backward glance. Already he’d forgotten his chauffeur.