Rembrandt's Mirror (11 page)

Saskia Lying in Bed

The next morning was bright and fresh so I decided to clean the dusty
kunstkammer
. I entered it armed with a bucket of water, cloth and feather-headed duster. Every available wall space was covered with shelves carrying sea shells, pieces of armour, costumes, marble busts and books of etchings and drawings. As I wondered where to start, I noticed a book on the floor. Drawings were spilling out from between the blank pages that were supposed to hold and protect them. All the other books of drawings were neatly and systematically arranged on the shelves. Their spines read:
women and children, nudes, figure studies, landscapes, animals
, and so on.

I picked the book up from the floor. It had no description on its spine but I set to work re-homing the escaped drawings. I did not pay much attention to them, until I picked up a depiction of a woman sitting up in bed. She looked as if she had given up on the world. Perhaps she had been bed-ridden for a long time. I heard someone enter. It was him. He stood and stared at the drawing in my hand. I got to my feet. We stood facing each other in the narrow, rectangular
room. He was by the door, but it was as if the drawing was holding him captive.

‘Who is this?' I asked.

Silence.

‘Looks like someone who's given up the fight?' I said.

A nod.

I was on the verge of asking if the woman had died when I realized it must be Saskia. How could I have been so blind? I let my arm and the drawing sink. He stared at nothing now and I too was hostage to the paper in my hand.

‘I'll file it away again, Master, shall I?'

He did not respond.

‘This book is not labelled,' I said. ‘Is it all right for the drawing?'

His hand gave a twitch and then a tremor went through him. Whatever moment he inhabited now, I did not share it, and he could not leave it. I studied his face and then I understood more of his plight as his darkness settled upon me too. It was like a weight on the chest that made every breath an effort until one wished one did not have to draw another. I wanted to be back in the kitchen helping Geertje.

I shoved the drawing between two pages and closed the book, then added it to the volumes on the shelf. His eyes had followed the drawing every step of the way.

‘I will leave now, Master,' I said, pressing myself against the door frame to avoid brushing against him. His eyes were still on the book.

*

The day wore on. I worked, sweeping and mopping the floors, all the time wishing I had not shown him the drawing and unable to forget the look on his face. I was afraid, not for myself but for him.

When Geertje returned from lighting the evening fires, she said, ‘He's in his bedroom, hasn't left it since this morning. I hope we're not going back to how things were.'

‘What do you mean?' I said.

‘After the mistress died, he wouldn't touch a brush. For weeks he stayed in his room with the shutters closed. Losing the mistress was only the last cruel lick of fate. In the half-dozen years before that, they lost each of their little ones. Rumbartus lived for two months. A few years later, Cornelia lived only three weeks. Then they had a second girl, whom they also named Cornelia. The mistress once told me she was a sweet baby, full of good cheer. But she also died after only a single month of life. And then at last Titus survived. But then the mistress went. Did him in, it did.'

Geertje stood, shaking her head, and then Samuel entered. She must have sent for him. I thought things would get awkward but he acknowledged me with a friendly nod.

‘Has he been down?' he asked.

‘No,' she replied.

‘I saw that the shutters are closed. Have they been like that all day?'

Geertje gave him a look that said he knew the answer.

‘I wonder what brought it on?'

‘Brought it on?' said Geertje. ‘You always make excuses for him. He's probably decided that he would benefit from a little rest while you do his work for him.'

‘I don't think it's a matter of his choosing.'

Geertje just huffed, and all I could think was that it was my fault. The drawing had opened some kind of sluice gate in his mind that had held back the melancholy. I ought to tell them.

‘Mind,' said Geertje, ‘it could be the grief still. Some folk jump right into the grave after their dear ones, or never marry again, and he just can't shake it off even five years on.'

‘Will you stop talking like that,' said Samuel.

Geertje looked hurt. ‘I was only trying to . . . it's not always easy to make sense of his majesty. What about you? You usually have all the answers.'

Samuel sank into a chair, propped his elbows on the table, cradling his face in his hands. Geertje grabbed her basket with the words, ‘I'm going out now to see Trijntje. Not like there's any point in getting dinner cooked.' And to me, ‘There's plenty left in the larder.'

After she'd left, I also wanted to go, to avoid being alone with Samuel. But he pulled out a chair for me, so I joined him at the table. I needn't have worried. We were both preoccupied with Rembrandt's fate. I, for one, was consumed with my ill-fated actions and hoped that there might be some other explanation for Rembrandt not leaving his room.

‘Maybe he's ill?' I suggested. ‘Maybe we ought to knock on his door?'

‘He'd let us know about it if he was,' Samuel mumbled into the heels of his hands. ‘The shutters are closed, just like when the mistress died. It's a bad sign.'

I could not blame him for being despondent. I'd seen it for myself: Rembrandt succumbing to an excess of black bile from one moment to the next.

‘It was me,' I said.

‘What was you?' said Samuel.

‘I showed him a drawing of Saskia ill in bed.'

‘Oh,' said Samuel, ‘I don't think so.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘He looked stricken and then took to his bedroom.'

‘It would have happened sooner or later,' said Samuel.

‘What?'

‘Like I told you, he's not been himself for years.'

‘But why now?' I asked. ‘And can he still be missing Saskia after all this time?'

Samuel shrugged his shoulders. We sat in silence for a while.

Then he said, ‘He lost his
Beloved
.'

‘Saskia.'

‘No,' said Samuel, ‘not exactly.'

Getting words out of him was like hunting down nits. ‘What then?' I said. ‘If you've got it worked out, you might as well tell me, so I don't have to feel it's all my fault.'

His eyes focused on me, as if deliberating over something. Then
he said, ‘I could not understand it myself. Years ago, after Saskia died, he started talking to me about a farmer who'd had his leg cut open when he fell and the plough went over him. The wound turned gangrenous in a matter of days . . . They had to saw the leg off. But miraculously he survived. However, the farmer could not enjoy life anymore. And not only exertions that required two legs, but even having a beer or lying in bed was no longer the same without his leg. He ended up as a beggar outside our house – that's how Rembrandt knew him.'

I had no idea what Samuel was trying to tell me. ‘Hendrickje, what prevented the man from enjoying his dinner? Was it the loss of his leg or was it something else?'

I shrugged my shoulders, imagining the beggar sitting all day in the street and Rembrandt wretched in his shuttered room. ‘Maybe he's afraid? Maybe he fears he might lose something else? Or he thinks there's an axe hanging over his head too.'

Samuel smiled wistfully. ‘There
is
an axe hanging over all our heads. But I'm not sure if it's that. I've watched him. It's as if his hands and arms keep doing what they know how to do so well. But passion, joy, love . . .' He paused for thought. ‘They were all amputated when the mistress died. The rest of him carries on, like a cart rolling down the hill without a horse.'

I did not like his fatalistic talk. Samuel's eyes were still on me and now he leaned so close that I could feel his breath on my face. ‘A masterpiece is not a thing,' he whispered, ‘it has its own life, but you cannot create it without the
Beloved
.' He took my hand. ‘You
have to dance with her,' he breathed, ‘take her in your arms and forget about fear.'

For a moment I feared he would kiss my hand. But he was far away in his mind. He let go and left. I kept thinking about the axe, the end that would come one day. It did not seem like a reason to shut oneself away – quite the opposite.

I could not sleep and lay staring at the dark panelled ceiling of my bed. Geertje was snoring next door, which I took as confirmation that Rembrandt was still unwell. But in truth I would have preferred the sound of them coupling to that deafening silence. Maybe he was lying up there dying. Had they given him food and drink? Had anyone as much as looked through the peep-hole? Geertje's snores seemed particularly grunt-like tonight. I envied her this indestructible sleep. If only I had not questioned him about the drawing. I closed my eyes, praying for better understanding of his grief and his recovery. Thoughts about my own father came to mind. He had lain in bed for months and then died suddenly in his sleep. After the burial, I'd gone back to his room and found his comb on the table. He'd always carried it with him. Then it dawned on me. Where he'd gone, it could not be taken. Not his comb, not his snuff, not a thing, nothing. The comb would remain here, without him, for ever. I reached for it but stopped short of touching it. It was one of his most private possessions. But without him it was just a comb. I wanted to hold it and feel the horn where it had been worn smooth from use. But I still could not bring myself to touch it.

I felt for Rembrandt. He was upstairs now, not dancing with the
Beloved
but in the embrace of an incubus. I tried again to sleep, but to no avail. I fumbled for the candle by my bed and lit it on the smouldering peat. Then I dressed, climbed the stairs and entered his bedroom without knocking or thinking. It smelled musty and acrid. He was sitting in a chair in the dark. I walked towards him. Was he asleep? His eyes opened slowly but remained on the floor. What should I say? I stepped in front of him. His gaze slowly climbed up my body until it reached my face.

‘I am sorry about the drawing,' I said.

‘Which one?'

‘The drawing of your wife. I shouldn't have asked you about it.'

‘Oh, that one.' His eyes sank towards the floor again.

It was as if he'd forgotten I was there. And then I knew what to do. I ran up to the studio for some paper and his pen. Back in his bedroom, I approached his chair slowly, put the paper in his lap and offered him the pen. His hand did not move. I put the candle down – I only had to touch his hand briefly, a simple enough thing to do. I picked his hand up; his fingers were cold, lifeless. I lifted his thumb away from the index finger and placed the pen between the two. Then I returned it to his lap and placed the ink within his reach on the table and myself on a stool in front of him, positioning the candle so it would illuminate my face, and waited. After a moment or two he looked up and I saw a quickening of interest in his eyes. The animation spread to his arms and his hands. He picked up paper and
inkwell, then studied my face for a long time. I wanted to hide. I did not know where to look so I fixed my eyes on the flame of the candle. Finally, the sound of his pen. Relief. But not for long. When I'd drawn him, the activity had been my cloak; now I was bare before his eyes and there was nothing to hold on to, as if I was tottering on the edge of a precipice.

Scrape, scrape, came the scratchings of his pen. Scrape, scrape. A sound-rope, at the edge of a void. I clung to the rope as any sensible wanderer would. After a while I closed my eyes.

I heard him move closer and smelled the wool of his shirt, a hint of soap and something like pine resin. I let go of the sound-rope and allowed myself to feel his eyes on me. My left cheek warmed, then my chin. I opened my eyes again. I was the sitter now; it would be inappropriate to seek out his eyes while he was drawing me. So I watched the shadow of him on the wall. But then I did look him in the face, causing him to smile a little even though he remained in deep concentration. His attention was like a circle of light. Outside its bounds the world was darkness. Did it even exist?

A moment ago I had been visible and exposed, now I felt as blank as the paper had been. No eyes, no nose, mouth or ears existed until his attention lit upon that part of me. There. I could feel my earlobe brought into being by his pen. Then the rest of my ear took shape, along with the strands of hair that fell across it. Something emerged that had never been before. This was not the girl who had lived in Bredevoort. No, I was being created now. I looked again at him. This time there was no smile of recognition. His gaze was empty, like a
mirror. He merely took me in, entirely. I was at last made sense of.

Something fell in me, the wall behind my eyes, it crumbled. His hand noted it. His eyes holding me. Without my deciding it, all was thrown open, his attention penetrated deeper, beyond the remains of the wall, into my most private chamber. I felt him there with the same compassion with which he had drawn Elsje on the gibbet. My anguish was laid bare and he could see it as plainly as a sparrow on the wall. I felt no pain or urge to cry and yet water pooled in my eyes before finding a path down my face. He offered no words. He simply watched. At last the tears stopped.

He put the paper aside and muttered something under his breath that sounded like my name. When I looked at him his skin reddened a little, and he regarded me with his head slightly turned, as if shying away from a bright light.

‘I am not afraid anymore,' I told him.

‘I know,' he said, ‘but perhaps you were right to be.'

Words were so much more clumsy than silences. I was back in the room and in my all-too-familiar skin. Embarrassment crept up on me and I wanted to leave before it showed.