Rembrandt's Mirror Page 11

  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.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  I paused. He took a step towards me, then slowly raised his hand as if to touch my still-wet face but then he let it drop and said quietly, ‘I shall be able to sleep now. Thank you. I hope you will too. Goodnight.’

  I nodded and left.

  *

  That night I dreamed I was walking through a winter landscape. The air was perfectly still and the tiniest branches were covered in thick, precarious caps of snow. I was spellbound by these beautiful creations. But then there were no more trees and the ground felt different too. I stamped with my foot – creak. I was on ice. I’d walked on to a frozen lake. I took a tentative step in another direction – a groan. I shifted my weight back to the other foot – the sound of hissing, then bursting. The ground was gone beneath my foot and icy fingers clasped at my ankle. I woke, heart racing.

  In the morning the house was still strangely quiet, although Geertje and I put on plenty of cheer for Titus’s sake.

  ‘When is Pappie coming down? I’ll go up to him,’ the boy asked.

  ‘No, not today, little cherub,’ said Geertje, ‘your father was working late and he needs to sleep until he wakes up.’

  ‘But why did he not come to bid me goodnight? And I’m not a little cherub.’ His face grimaced with disgust.

  ‘All right, Master Titus. Here’s your porridge.’

  Soon Titus’s attention was diverted by his negotiations with Geertje as to the quantity of the boiled apples to be added. I was trying not to think about last night, so I set about scrubbing the flagstones under the worktop. Samuel came in and looked questioningly at Geertje, who just shrugged her shoulders. Then the door opened and Rembrandt walked in.

  ‘Good morning, Piglet,’ he said and tickled Titus’s sides, snorting and grunting into his neck. Titus looked tearful and happy all at once. I felt the same, so relieved. Titus was already bashing his father over the head, telling him, ‘I’m not a baby!’

  ‘No, you’re my little Piglet!’ Rembrandt grinned and greeted Geertje and Samuel as if nothing unusual had occurred. Geertje frowned and Samuel stared at him as if he’d r
isen from the dead.

  He finally spotted me and said, ‘Morning, Hendrickje.’

  I managed a cheerful, ‘Good morning, Master.’ But for a moment our gazes caught on one another. His eyes still had that soft look that I’d seen yesterday and I was vaguely aware of a third pair of eyes: Geertje’s. I forced my eyes away from his face. Samuel excused himself, saying he’d go up to the studio. I continued scrubbing and Rembrandt sat down next to Titus.

  ‘Have you done your Latin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How is Ferdinand? Is he still ill or is he back at school yet?’

  ‘He’s not back,’ said Titus.

  ‘Make sure you put your coat on when you run outside to play if it’s chilly.’

  ‘Ye-esss,’ he said. ‘It is summer, you know.’

  Rembrandt ruffled Titus’s golden locks and Titus tried to push his father’s hat off his head and then, as Rembrandt ducked and dived to avoid his hand, they both dissolved in giggles.

  ‘Look, my little shrimp, I’m going to go up now. I need to tidy the place because Jan is coming for a sitting. But see me when you get home if you are not playing with Karsten.’ He kissed Titus’s ear despite his son’s best attempts to prevent it. Then he was gone. Titus returned his attention to his porridge and I to emptying the slops into the canal. I took my time, enjoying the morning air, feeling strangely happy.

  Soon Geertje and Titus appeared. She helped him into his coat and he left for school. As soon as he was out of earshot she turned on me. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Me?’ I said in a low voice. How could she risk making a scene on Rembrandt’s doorstep? Besides, I could not think of anything I’d done wrong.

  ‘I saw how he looked at you,’ she said.

  I had to calm her down, especially with Pinto, our neighbour, sitting on his bench smoking his morning pipe. She was getting impatient, putting her fists on her hips, elbows wide. ‘Like he wanted to make a meal of you.’

  Pinto was watching us, happily puffing away. No doubt he could hear every word.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘You’re not that innocent. You’re probably not innocent at all.’

  ‘You are mistaken.’ I said quietly. ‘It was tender thoughts for his son that still showed on his face.’

  Geertje breathed out and her shoulders sank slowly to a more sustainable position. She had not been sure. She believed me, but did I believe myself?

  The Mill

  It was hot, the very height of summer. The occasional bumblebee came buzzing around his legs, searching for the next flower. He’d come here to sketch the windmill by the river. It stood in the sun, the wheel turning with silent purpose. But he’d been sitting idle for at least an hour. He couldn’t help smiling when he thought of drawing her.

  Nearly another hour passed and still he had not made a single stroke. The sails were utterly absorbing – whoosh, pause, whoosh, pause – flying round their central pivot, never going anywhere, despite the incessant movement. He loved watching them.

  Suddenly the entire body of the windmill, tower and sails, spun a little on its axis. The wind had changed direction. It surprised him every time he saw it. How an inanimate construction could be so responsive to a change and yet continue to drive a shaft at ground level at a constant speed.

  Geertje would be at home, waiting. He owed her some happiness, didn’t he? She’d been there, back then, when it was necessary; had brought him back to life, in a way.

  She would come to him like she always did, as if she needed it like air to breathe. How had he lost so much of his freedom without being able to tell when exactly it had happened? No one else was in a position to tell him what to do. He’d not fallen into the same trap as Flinck, who was expected to dine at least once a week at de Graeff’s house and to drop whatever he was doing when Prince Maurits as much as farted in his direction. Ha, Flinck was always eager to please, like a boy attending school on charity.

  And he did not even rule over his own bed. He’d given her clothes and tokens of affection to keep her in good humour but it seemed to make her think she had rights. He shuddered at the thought. Perhaps if he closed the doors to the box bed tonight and bolted them from the inside she’d think he wasn’t there? A childish thought. But why could he think of no means to keep her out? She always found a way to get him to do her bidding.

  Of course he only had to refuse her, tell her it was not his wish, throw her out of the house if he wanted to. But what would follow? A kind of emptiness, the pull of the past, and he dreaded that even more than doing her. The sport no doubt did him good and she had never conceived a child with her late husband. What more could a man in his position ask for? She kept him going, fucking her kept him going. That’s how it was.

  The very land he was sitting on would be flooded if it wasn’t for the mill. It powered a screwpump which transported the water over a small dyke into the nearby river. In this part of the country, which was lower than sea level, water was always rising up from the ground. It was just as well that the wind never stopped blowing, powering the mill, keeping the land arable.

  Maybe if he made some kind of gesture, it would reassure her? Maybe then she would not demand that he prove his love to her every night. Love? Ha, all this flailing about in life . . . so as not to go under. Perhaps that’s why he liked those sails, their steady whoosh, whoosh, whoosh; no flailing. A windmill could take even high winds and translate them into the steady turn of the Archimedean screw, in itself a beautiful contraption.

  When a serious storm threatened, the wind-wright would simply take down the sails and let the lattice do the work, but the mill would not stop. There was a storm brewing at home right now for which he had no appetite. Was he so reluctant because he cared so little for her? No, he decided, the lack of amore was what made their sporting possible.

  Later, in bed, he looked at the bundle of prints he’d bought at a sale. He’d put them on the table by his bed with the intention of examining them in the evening when no callers would disturb his pleasure, so he could fall asleep with the images in his mind – the best potion he knew for a good rest. Except, Geertje would turn up any moment now, as predictably as the cows that make their way to the barn for milking. And sure enough the door swung open. She never bothered to knock.

  She carried a candle, eyeing him as if unsure of the reception she would get. Perhaps she felt his irritation. The thought pleased him. As she walked, her thighs and breasts were outlined by the stretched fabric.

  He was lying on his back and did not make space for her so she had to bed down close to the edge. He remained motionless.

  Eventually she said, ‘How did the work go?’

  ‘Good enough.’

  Her face was so close that her features appeared grotesque. And now she wanted to be kissed. He fondled her hair instead. Her hand started stroking his neck. He stopped fumbling with the hair. If only he could stretch out, but she was in the way. Once she was gone, he’d lock the door, light some extra candles and look at the new prints. Only him and the quiet of the night . . . But first he had to get her out. She’d probably extract some kind of penance from him.

  ‘Geertje,’ he tried, ‘it’s late. We’d better call it a night.’

  She did not answer.

  He smelled something on her. Beer and onions. He turned away on to his side, facing the wooden panelling of the bed. Her hand crept around his waist, tentative, unsure – trying to draw a response from him. He would not give it. Her hand brushed upwards on the fabric of his nightshirt from his belly to his chest. Touching his flesh as if she owned it. Then her hand slipped inside the opening of his nightshirt, squeezing his chest. He withdrew inside himself and yet part of him registered her crude touch.

  With one arm still around his chest she pressed herself against his back; breasts, thighs and warmth. Despite himself, he was hardening. She pulled on his shoulder and he let her roll him on to his back.

  She knelt by his side, bending over him, tak
ing his face between her hands. Then she brought her lips down on his. A sensation like a dog’s wet nose in his face. With his lips tightly closed he maintained a line that he would not allow her to cross and yet – the strange notion crept up on him that he might want her after all. His lips opened a little and she was already pushing her tongue into his mouth. He took her head in his hands and thrust his own tongue into hers; she withdrew. Good. But now she was joining into the rhythm of his probing, coming forward again with her tongue, perhaps pleased that she’d brought him into the game despite himself. She strayed further and further into his mouth. He pulled away, clenched his mouth shut and pushed against hers. More of an ambush than a kiss.

  She didn’t care. Her body yielded. He advanced: mouth, tongue, chest, hips, leg – finally had her on her back beneath him. He stopped to look. She was breathing excitedly, waiting, softer now. He kissed her gently but could not stop thinking of tomcats going to it with their jaws clamped on to the scruff of the female’s neck. A nice, quick business.

  She sighed, her body becoming lithe. He kissed her prune-skinned cheek. The tips of her fingers brushed up the back of his neck. He liked it and felt something like affection for her.

  Her eyes were closed. She was waiting for him to go on kissing her. But now that it had started to mean something he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  The pause grew and grew until her eyes flashed open, boring into him. He resented her demand, and himself, for not really liking her and for not being able to go on. She grabbed his cock, rubbing it vigorously, making him lose himself. He would not have to think about her now. She was making him do it. Fine, he thought.

  He got out of bed, pulled her to the edge, with her legs either side of him, moved her nightshirt out of the way and pushed into her. He had to follow the first thrust with the next and the next as if it was the only thing he could do to keep her away. He was angry and sickened but he could not stop. He pitted his hardness against his shame, willed himself on towards release, but the accumulation would not come. As he laboured away, he watched her excitement with both relish and disgust; she was creaming off for herself whatever she could.