Rebecca Coleman - The Kingdom of Childhood

To wonder at beauty, he thought automatically. The first line of the Bell Ringing Verse from his grade-school years. All the compromises he had made, moral and otherwise, to be with Judy, had not corrupted his ability to observe beauty when it happened upon him. He sent his thanks out to the universe for that reprieve. The other imperatives tumbled forth in his mind: stand guard over truth. Look up to the noble. Decide for the good.

He had lost sight of these things. He had been a bad Steiner student, not for the narrow reason of sleeping with the kindergarten teacher, but for allowing his life to tumble into an amoral and disorganized mess. In all the hand-wrought and color-blended loveliness of the Waldorf environment, what outsiders often failed to see was the rigid order that lay beneath it all. What seemed to others to be hypocrisy made perfect sense to him. Freedom can only exist where there is structure. Without it there can be no understanding of how to be beautiful, how to be good.

At the center of the spiral, Fairen turned and began walking the opposite way, still holding her candle. She caught his eye and almost smiled. He smiled warmly back at her, then clasped his hands around his knees and resolved two things to himself.

One, he would not sleep with Judy again. Really and surely this time around, regardless of what happened with Fairen, but especially because of her, too.

Two, he would stop eating meat. It was time.

The second would be easy—well, easy enough, in any case. The first would be more problematic. He could control his own impulses, but when Judy came toward him with all guns blazing, as she had the night of the trip to the abandoned hospital, he had no idea how to defuse her without just nailing her and getting it over with. In his mind he pictured two comets racing toward each other, immolating each other in the explosion.

Then, in a burst of awareness, he realized he had it all wrong. What he had learned in judo flashed into his mind: when you are confronted with force, give way to it. When you are pushed, pull. Apply your opponent’s force against him.

It was so obvious he couldn’t understand why it had not occurred to him weeks ago. Rather than meet her lust with a stronger, angrier lust of his own, he needed only to get out of the way and let her energy consume itself. It would not be easy to watch, but it was the only route to a takedown.

It was what he needed to do. To produce peace in his feeling, as they said at school. Light in his thought.

Beside him, Temple recrossed his legs and leaned back on his palms. Zach stared out at the floor dotted with candles, a nameless constellation being formed one star at a time.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” Zach said quietly.

Temple glanced at him in mild surprise, then looked back at the spiral. “No prob,” Temple replied. “I didn’t blame you.”

I managed to stay out of the house all day on Sunday, coming home late to find Russ’s office door closed and the light glowing dimly beneath it. More and more these days he ended his late nights with a nap on his office sofa. When I awoke Monday morning and found him at the breakfast table reading the Post over a bowl of Familia, I felt my hands clench into a spasm so hard that my fingernails left eight red crescents in my palms. He was like Rasputin, the mad monk of Russia. A fairy-tale foe who would not die.

I took a large mug of coffee and a blueberry muffin, and left for school.

I arrived late. Sandy Valera was working in my classroom, directing the early arrivals to the coatrack, the bathroom, the play table. She shot me a searching look when I dropped my scarf on my chair and plunked the coffee on a windowsill, so I said, “Car trouble.”

She nodded. I had not noticed the other woman in the classroom, kneeling beside a child and unraveling an absurdly long hand-knitted scarf from around his neck. When the woman rose Sandy said, “Judy, this is Rhianne Volker. She is considering Sylvania Waldorf for her children.”

Rhianne’s smile popped out immediately, then stayed stiffly in place. “Oh, Judy and I know each other,” she said.

I nodded.

“Well, now that you’re here, I’ll get back to my office,” said Sandy. As she brushed past me, Rhianne tucked her hands in the side pockets of her overalls and regarded me with a look even more searching than Sandy’s.

“Judy, I had no idea you taught here,” she said.

“Since Maggie was little.”

“Amazing. Small world. Small community, I suppose I should say, but surely you know that.” Her brows knitted beneath the close-fitting winter cap she still wore. “Surely.”

“It’s one of the things parents love about Sylvania,” I replied automatically.

“I’m sure. I’ve seen several familiar faces this morning.” She looked me up and down. “How is that prescription working out for you?”

“Fine,” I said. “So how old are your children?”

“Nine, six and four.” She turned to look over my romping students, then back toward me. “I have met all the other Lower School teachers but you this morning. A nice bunch.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “and very skilled.” But I remembered quite well that she had no children. She had told me herself. I felt a chill of fear, like a pearl of ice behind my ribs. It grew larger by the moment.

“One of my clients recommended this school to me,” she continued. “Vivienne Heath. Perhaps you know her.”

“I don’t think so,” I hedged. “How old is her son?”

She grinned. Her full mouth of teeth seemed to ooze poison. I realized my error as she took a step closer. With a curious tip of her head, she said, “He is only sixteen.”

I responded with a twitching shrug. “I only work with the young children.”

She replied, “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

Despite the blasting heat of the forge, Zach’s bare arms felt a chill as he moved around the workshop, gathering materials to work on his first blacksmithing project. The bottom of the long black apron flapped against his legs. Making a fireplace poker didn’t hold a lot of interest for him, but the opportunity to play with fire and red-hot metal cheered him. So did the fact that school would be over in an hour, heralding the beginning of Christmas break, and he’d be saying goodbye to this place until January. His classmates were all talking about the Wicker Man Festival that evening, and he felt glad to have been invited by Fairen; finally, it seemed, he was beginning to feel like part of the tribe. He missed New Hampshire less today than at any point since the move.

Putting on the gloves and mask, he turned toward the crackling forge and felt a tingle of anticipation. The instructor, his watchful gaze cast on a handful of students in various stages of metalwork, was being nice to allow them to fire up the forge so close to the end of school. Zach set the rod of metal with the tongs and thrust it into the fire, which spit and crackled, blindingly orange. With one hand still in the brace it was an awkward process, but the tools felt secure in his hands, and the fire was mesmerizing. An echo of Judy’s voice spoke in his mind: I do think fire can be beautiful in a terrifying sort of way.

“Sure you got it?” his teacher asked, hands hovering around his as Zach removed the rod from the flame.

“I’m sure.”

He placed it on the anvil and, with another student holding it in place, used his good hand to give the rod four strong whacks with the hammer. It was coming along respectably enough, for a one-handed first try. He geared up again for a second chance at the fire.

A draft blew toward him, and he looked up just in time to see Judy entering the room, a small figure in the cavernous space, her movements deliberate among the narrowly organized chaos. She made her way between the worktables, her arms crossed, rubbing her forearms as though cold. Her khaki jumper dress was like a lunch sack, but her long dark hair looked unnaturally smooth, combed precisely. She blinked at the heat of the forge and asked in a low voice, “Can I talk to you a minute?”