Rembrandt's Mirror (27 page)

‘It says here you've been living in whoredom with Rembrandt the painter,' a voice declared.

I looked at my feet.

‘Do you admit to having fornicated with the painter Rembrandt van Rijn?' asked another.

‘It's too hot,' I said to the man with the coals and felt Anna dab my forehead with a damp cloth.

‘You must understand that someone like you cannot partake of the Lord's Supper? He who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgement to himself. You must see this?'

My shoes were full of mud.

‘Look at us!' one of them shouted.

But I could not face them.

Another whispered, ‘She won't look at her sins either.'

‘That's not surprising.' They laughed.

‘Shhhh,' said Anna, ‘there's always hope.'

‘No hope for her,' several council members muttered at once. ‘She's a whore – once a whore, always a whore. And all whores go to hell.'

I made an effort to look at them but all I could see were shadowy bodies wrapped in thick shawls. And when I tried to see their faces, my vision blurred.

The servant was throwing coal into the fires by the bucketful. It was boiling hot and my body was shaking violently.

‘It's the evil in her,' one of them whispered.

‘Marriage is honourable amongst all; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.'

‘Repent your sins.'

‘Ha, look at her, she can't. It's too late.'

Their shadow heads were nodding.

It was not too late. I'd ask forgiveness. But I could not prise my lips apart, as if they'd become sealed with hardened varnish.

‘See, the devil's got her.'

‘But we still have a duty to her soul. Who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgement to himself.'

‘She must not partake for her own good.'

‘Hendrickje Stoffels, you are hereby excluded from partaking of the Lord's Supper.'

*

I felt Anna rubbing my hand and I could see the walls of my room again. I told her I wanted to repent and she said it did not matter
when or where
– I could repent in my own heart and save my soul and she would listen. But again, the words would not come. How could I possibly turn to a God that infected mothers? I thought of the poor women who'd given birth, even as they were falling ill with the plague. They had to choose between suckling their child and thereby infecting the baby or watching it starve to death. Wet-nurses were not to be had. I forgot all about repentance and probed Anna for more and more descriptions of the horrors that took place and she obliged, telling me that scores of women died in childbirth because there were no midwives. Nobody could be moved to help a neighbour for fear of even breathing the same air. But still the bonds of blood were strong, she said; many families stayed together. But it meant – more often than not – that they died together.

When I was tormented by my pains that night, instead of seeking forgiveness, I thought of the hundreds who were suffering like me and worse. I kept the mothers in my mind and heart. And only then did I find a measure of peace.

The next time I saw him it was light. Anna as usual got up and left and he took her seat by the window. He remained silent for a long time.

Eventually he asked, ‘How are you feeling?'

‘Much the same,' I replied and asked if he was working.

‘Yes,' he said.

‘Good,' I said. I felt an urgency to speak to him of more important things, but I could not fathom them or lift them into the realm of words.

‘Titus has gone out to get some materials,' he said.

‘I'd better try to sleep,' I said, even though I wanted him to stay.

‘Good, my love,' he said, ‘I'll be back later.'

For the first second of awakening I knew absolutely nothing of my condition, not until a moment or two later when the awful pain and nausea once more wormed its way into my spirit and with it the thought that I might be dying. Anna put a cup of beer to my lips. ‘You slept very peacefully and for a good time.'

‘How long since I got ill?'

‘I came here yesterday, the day you fell ill, I believe. You've been sleeping since noon. It's late afternoon now.'

I could not believe how much time had passed. ‘Where is he?'

‘In the studio, I think.'

In addition to the pain in my head, my calves were now contracted in a constant muscle spasm. I'd assumed that I'd feel better after sleeping and as a result of her medicines.

‘I'm feeling worse,' I said. ‘I'm getting worse all the time, aren't I, Anna?'

‘Yes, poor child, no good denying it.'

‘Why aren't you doing what any sensible person would do, leave me and protect you and yours?'

‘Oh, I could not do that.'

‘Why not?' I asked. ‘What's there to be gained? The money won't do you any good when you're dead.'

She simply shrugged her shoulders. ‘There's always hope,' she said.

Hope, that word again that stood in for
nothing
. She should try wiping her arse with
hope
, then she'd see how much use it is. She sat by my bedside, smiling beatifically. ‘I know, dear, you're terribly worried.'

I pushed my hands into the bed, trying to sit up. ‘I've had enough of being slowly tortured to death.'

Immediately I was overwhelmed by dizziness and nausea, but still I tried to roll myself off the bed.

‘Hendrickje, please . . .' she said and pushed me back onto the pillow.

I started sobbing. ‘That ill-begotten cunt of an illness. I'll die from it, I know I will. I'll die from the plague . . .'

‘Shh . . . I know.'

‘No, you don't . . .'

She tried to stroke my forehead and I batted her hand away. ‘There's only one thing that would help: put an end to me right now.'

I lay there, so completely spent that I could not wipe away the tears that spilled from my eyes.

‘My love,' she said, ‘nobody knows who will live and who will die; besides, it would not be right, you know that.'

‘Who cares about what's right? Is this right?' I protested. ‘I have
a child. I can't die, but if I must die, I might as well die now and relieve everyone.'

‘No one would be relieved by that but you.'

‘That's good enough.'

‘Only be glad it's you and not your child.'

I considered this. If I kept railing against my fate, maybe God might wreak revenge on Cornelia.

‘You need him to help you more,' she said calmly.

‘Who?'

‘You know that it is the sickness but your husband doesn't want to see it. Normally it's the other way round, with those stricken by it claiming it's naught but a sore throat, or a little fever.'

‘I need to rest,' I told her. ‘He's been here, he's got eyes, hasn't he? Better eyes than most!'

‘But he's keeping them shut. You're quite alone in the knowledge of it. No wonder you're in despair.'

As if the plague was not reason enough to despair! I closed my eyes.

‘You don't want him to have to suffer,' she said.

I kept my eyes shut, feeling an impulse to stick my fingers in my ears.

‘You wish to protect him but it's not helping him. Whether you live or die, it is better for him if he goes through it with you. He will be hurt less that way even if you die.'

I could not help but consider her words, even through the curtain of pain.

‘What is it, child?' she said.

I shook my head. I could not say that I was afraid he'd leave me the way he'd left Saskia in her final hours. Never mind, I told myself, what difference did it make? In the end everyone dies alone.

Woman Bathing in a Stream

It was getting dark. Something bothered him, but he could not name it. He went back to her room. She was asleep like last time.

Anna told him, ‘She's been very troubled, talking in fever about the Lord's Supper and not being absolved. If there's anything you can do to relieve her, you must try. I don't know what she thinks she's done and why she can't or won't ask for forgiveness.'

She left before he could reply. He sat down. He remembered all too well how dismayed she'd been the day the Church Council had excluded her from the Lord's Supper. Perhaps old fears were preying on her, but what was he supposed to do about it? He'd found a way then, but it had always been easier to allay her fear while she was sound in mind and body. There'd been a lesson for him in it too. Perhaps one he ought to remember.

How strange that the painting in question was within arm's reach even as he thought of this. Then again, not so strange. It was no ordinary picture, even by his standards. And it was never to be sold.

He picked it up from where he'd leant it against a wall months ago with the intention of hanging it up. He put his feet up on the
window ledge and propped the two-foot picture on his legs. How beautiful she was. Normally what mattered most when he worked was to achieve his intention but this one had been all about her. He'd wanted to serve her, to help her, with everything he had at his disposal as a man and as an artist. He'd wanted to work a miracle. And he had to admit – it was. Letting the canvas lie flat on his legs, he regarded the sky. There were some hazy clouds, illuminated by the rising moon.

That evening almost ten years ago the sky had been beautiful too. He even remembered the taste of the pickled herring he was chewing when she'd wordlessly slid the writ towards his plate. Her hand had stayed motionless in the middle of the table. As if it had forgotten the way home. Her eyes were unable to rest on anything, least of all on him, it seemed. He'd wanted to take the lost-looking hand, kiss it and put it back in her lap, where she normally liked to keep it. The very life that normally animated her had been absent.

He emerged from these memories and looked at her sleeping form. Still the same Hendrickje, but not the same.

He'd picked up the thing. He remembered how thick it was, inexpertly fashioned, the paper probably locally produced, certainly not from China or Japan. It was a decree issued by the esteemed gentlemen of the Church Council. Until that moment he had not even known that she'd been summoned, let alone that she'd gone without telling him.

It did not surprise him that the bigots had finally got down to it. The pregnancy had been showing for months. It said she was
excluded
from the Lord's Supper for living in whoredom with the painter Rembrandt van Rijn
. To him it amounted to nothing more than black ink on poorly milled fibre. To her, it was a whole world of grizzly goblins. Her arms and elbows were heavy on the table, propping up the rest of her.

His words would make no difference. As for actions . . . Marry her? No. He would not do it, even if he had the money to pay off Saskia's clan. He had to show her something that was worth a million times him marrying her. Something so beautiful and true that all the bigots in the world could never make a dent in it.

‘Look at me,' he said.

She lifted her head, her eyes unable or unwilling to meet his. The roundness of her middle had increased and he imagined the baby inside, curled up and safe.

He pointed at the paper. ‘This is just what's in their heads. A woman shamed for being pregnant without a piece of paper to say it's officially sanctioned, sanctified, stupefied or whatever you want to call it. If you carry this turd of a notion around with you then they've got you on a leash and every time they pull, you'll feel the tug. Besides, you'll be stuck with a stink for the rest of your life.'

She pulled her tunic about her, covering her belly.

‘It's not the truth,' he bellowed. This was not helping.

He looked at her face. The answer would be written there, it always was. She sat hunched forward, her right hand tightly pressed against her eyes as if trying to keep tears from spilling out. Occasionally there was the hollow sound of footsteps passing by the house.

‘Let's go out into the back yard,' he said. ‘It's a warm night.'

She did not move but when he put his arm under her elbow she came with him. They sat down on the old bench. It was a cloudless sky with millions of stars scattered across it like glowing grains of sand, some big, some small. There she was: Ursa Major, the bear, high up in the sky.

Rika kept her head bent, unaware of the splendour above, but at least she seemed more comfortable out here in the darkness.

‘I'm thinking of doing a Callisto,' he said. ‘She was Diana's hunting companion along with a gaggle of other nymphs, until she was seduced by Zeus and fell pregnant. It must be hard to resist a god.'

Nothing, not even the beginnings of a smile.

‘When Diana discovered this, she responded much like the elderly gentlemen of the Church Council. She lectured Callisto on how terrible it all was and expelled her from her band of nymphs. As if that was not enough, she also turned her into a bear. Callisto wandered the wilderness, where she soon found that being a bear in a forest was a bit like being the Pope in Rome. Food was plentiful and life was easy. But it got even better. Zeus, out of love or guilt, who knows, gave her a dream of a gift. Immortality. Look.'

He pointed up at the stars. Her eyes followed his finger.

‘She's right there. See the very bright star – that's the North Star, and right next to it that's the constellation of Callisto. She has an eternal place of honour in the skies, so close to Polaris that she'll never drown in the waves. She's always above the horizon.'

Rika said nothing but when he put his arm around her, she leant against him.

‘Will you come to the forest with me tomorrow and let me paint you as Callisto?'

‘As a bear?'

‘No, my pumpkin-bellied-tulip. I want to paint you just as you are.'

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘As long as we keep the picture and don't put it where people can see it.'

‘We'll do with it as you wish.'

Early the next morning he had Jacobus prepare a canvas and pigments. They set off in a carriage with cheese, bread, easel and materials. He almost never painted outside but this was different. He took the lead and she followed him past the bordering shrubs. He had a sullen companion. Even when the growth canopied into a spacious forest, she would not walk by his side.

‘Do you remember where any of the pools are?' he asked.

She pointed with her hand but remained silent. They continued in single file and soon reached a pond. She sat on the first rock she saw. Her hair was not arranged in a bun or under a cap as it normally was but loosely tied behind her head with a string. She wore a brown bodice, white shift and a black skirt that spilled over the rock. One of the sleeve buttons had not been done up. She sat without purpose, as if she was made of soft wax, slowly flowing apart.

He unpacked pigments, oil and tools. The light was good from
this side. He could not wait to see it on her.

‘Rika, can you go over to the other side?'

She used her arms to push herself up from the rock. She must be feeling heavy by now. What must it be like to carry something alive? She walked around the pool and stood waiting on the other side with one arm propped against an oak tree. The oval of water was only about eight feet wide and fed by a mere trickle of a stream. Several fat oaks stood guard around it. A cloud must have moved, for a shaft pierced the canopy, making the brackish water glow amber.

‘Can you take off your shoes and wade in a little?'

She did as he asked. ‘Brrrr,' she said, holding up her skirts.

‘Wait, that's a good spot.'

There were soft highlights on her right cheek and forehead. And the rest of her body was illuminated by a shimmering light which carried with it the green and brown of leaves, water and earth. This is what I call light, he thought.

She giggled. ‘There are plants growing in here!'

She was moving her legs a little, playing with the green, stringy plants. Little wavelets glistened where the water met her shins.

‘What are the plants doing there?' he said.

‘Wondering what's trampling on them.'

He smiled. Now she was standing still, looking into the water with the faintest of smiles on her lips. She was happy. Something inside him slipped off an edge and took a fall.

‘Will you take off your cap and . . .' he hesitated, wondering if she'd take offence ‘. . . I'd like to paint you in your shift.'

She smiled, waded back to the bank and undressed. He set up the easel and organized the paints. Jacobus had done well; the ground he'd painted on as a foundation was the right shade of ochre. She was in her shift now, on the bank, looking up into the trees. The white linen hung loosely about her body, coming down to her knees. He longed to see the shape of her belly but it was entirely disguised by the folds. You could not have everything in life, they said. Around her neck the shift had a large opening which went right down between her breasts, allowing a glimpse of their gentle shape. ‘Are you warm enough?' he asked.

‘Yes, I love to feel the air,' she said, touching her half-bare shoulder. Did she know the power she had over him?

‘Can you wade in again to where you were before?'

The light seemed brighter now on her face. He had never known skin to glow like this. He could look at her as long as he wished. What treasure.

Her legs, so strong; her hands full of bunched-up fabric by her hips. And the drape of fabric between her hands was just hiding where her legs met, casting a shadow full of promise. She was smiling, looking at the water. She must be seeing the reflected canopy with flecks of blue sky beyond. She'd forgotten about herself.

Now he too had to forget so he could paint her. He started with little brushes but soon put them aside and reached for bigger and bigger ones. Finally, he used the widest brush he'd brought. He dipped it into lead white mixed with various earth shades and a little cobalt and swept it across the canvas, creating a swag of fabric at the
very top of her thighs. His fingers knew where to place the paint. He worked in a rhythm allowing chance to play her part. Palette, canvas. Load and stroke. Load and stroke. He stepped back – the accidental grooves, made by the impasto paint, seemed to add to the illusion; by virtue of being three-dimensional, they fooled the eyes into believing they were seeing a thing that could be touched.

He'd never worked this roughly before. He wanted to swear out loud in joy. Why would anyone want to spend all day applying paint like flea droppings?

Thankfully he had brought enough paint, for he was using it as thick as plaster.

He stopped and looked and then looked some more. She stood without that tension in the body that told you that she was aware of being looked at. She was as she was, more real than anything he'd ever seen or anything he'd ever paint. That thing inside him was still falling. And it would go on falling until his dying day.

He looked at her as she was now, hot from the fever, asleep, and put the picture down. He could just sit a while with her.

I woke and did not know where I was but sensed that he was near. I wanted him to know I was awake. I tried to open my eyes and rouse myself to speak, but my tongue was like lead and the fever impenetrable. Then I thought myself to be by a stream watching water gush
over a stone and plunge into a vortex. Had I not found him once in such a whirlpool? I searched for him but there was only foam, no up or down.

Now I was a child, lying in bed for my afternoon nap but watching patterns of light and shadow on the whitewashed wall. The light was dancing. The wind was buffeting the tree outside my window. God's breath.

There were the shadows of two leaves. With each little gust they moved closer together and at the nearest points their shadows formed tongues, then leaped into a bridge; touching for the blink of an eye. How strange, I thought – it's as if being so close, they need to be conjoined. I too wanted to leap – to him.

I was by a pool. Looking up, I was blinded by the blazing light, which slipped through the swaying branches. I closed my eyes, feeling the sun on my face and his eye, his hand, his brush and his attention all about me like a warm nest. He was painting me. I wished I could wear nothing at all, to better feel his gaze. Water lapped at my calves and soft wind blew over my arms and legs, making me giggle.

He was standing with his easel by the pool, stepping from one foot to the other, painting with his whole body in broad movements, singing his song about me. I was no different from the sparkling water, the oaks and the tall firs. He was so concentrated; both his face and his hands. What miracle his brush had performed – dissolving my solid body, making me the air.