He shook his head and sighed. Of course, I don’t need to tell you this, he continued. This is your stock in trade, you deal with words. The others in the room were talking quietly or looking through their papers. He was waiting for me to respond. I hesitated and then said, My job is to make the space between languages as small as possible. This was not the rebuke I wished to make, as a statement it was abstract to the point of saying almost nothing at all. And yet it was true: I would not obfuscate the meaning of what he had done, of these words that he deemed so insufficient, my job was to ensure that there would be no escape route between languages.
The former president was still, he appeared to be waiting for me to continue. But I would not say anything more, and at last the former president looked at Kees and he said, reluctantly, wearily, Well. Shall we continue? And I finally understood that he was bored, bored by the recitation of his own crimes, bored by the fashioning of a legal strategy that might yet free him. He surveyed the lawyers around the table, he could not bear them because they were the physical manifestation of his culpability, of which I had little doubt. These men who hectored him about the specificities of his actions, he wished to be free of them, in the same way that he wished to be free of his guilt.
This was why he found my presence soothing. Not because he required my interpretation, not even because I was an amusing distraction, but because he wished for someone to be present during those long hours, someone who would not insist on examining the actions of his past, from which there could no longer be any escape. And I realized that for him I was pure instrument, someone without will or judgment, a consciousness-free zone into which he could escape, the only company he could now bear—that, that was the reason why he had requested my presence, that was the reason I was there. I wanted to get up and leave the room, to explain that there had been some mistake. I saw myself doing it. But that was only in my head. That was not what actually happened. What actually took place was that I remained in my seat, that I interpreted for the former president, that I remained there, in that room with those men, until they no longer wanted me.
10.
Jana’s opening at the Mauritshuis was more than usually crowded, perhaps due to the theme of the exhibition, one that was both serious and tongue in cheek. Jana had frequently spoken about the pressure to achieve better attendance numbers, to find ways of reframing the permanent collection so that it appealed to a younger and broader audience.
It was with this directive in mind that Jana had conceived the current exhibition, which was titled Slow Food and was the museum’s first exhibition devoted to still-life paintings of food. Jana admitted the concept and the title in particular were something of a gimmick, entirely different to the first two exhibitions she had overseen. But she insisted that she had found plenty of merit in the idea. It’s a clear theme in Golden Age painting, a definite genre, she said, even if titles like Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels do make you think of a Jeff Koons sculpture. I suppose that’s interesting in and of itself. There is a lot to be said about class and consumption and the culture of display.
I looked at the people gathered in the museum lobby, dressed in designer brands and playing ostentatiously with their smartphones. They drank their wine and stood around the bust of Johan Maurits, who founded the museum with a fortune built from the transatlantic slave trade and the expansion of Dutch Brazil, Jana had told me the history on a previous visit. She wished they would take the bust down, not only did it celebrate a slave trader and colonialist, it wasn’t even a good piece of art. I had to agree, I thought Maurits appeared particularly pompous in this rendering by Bartholomeus Eggers, with his jowls and pursed lips and ornate dress. He stared into space, one hand splayed across his front. Although the bust was surrounded by guests, no one seemed to pay it any mind, the history present but unconsidered. As I watched, a man in a suit yawned and brushed against the bust before lazily righting himself again.
I went upstairs, where I saw Jana on the far side of the gallery, deep in conversation with two women with perfectly coiffed blond hair, they were both wearing suits and high heels, as if they had arrived directly from the office. The quality of Jana’s attention seemed to suggest that they were donors, she was nodding enthusiastically but her smile was stiff and hollow. I didn’t want to interrupt and instead went into the next gallery, which housed the permanent collection. The room was empty, and I wandered undisturbed, the sounds of the crowd receding as I passed through.
The rooms at the Mauritshuis were small in scale, galleries that felt almost domestic compared to the exhibition spaces at some museums, their size so immense they seemed to force an experience of sublimity upon the visitor. I thought that I preferred the intimacy of these rooms, which were better suited to the paintings not only because of the size of the works—some were no bigger than a sheet of paper, the kind of paintings you wanted to approach, that could not be experienced at a distance—but also because of their subject matter. Unlike the paintings in Jana’s exhibition, the canvases in this room primarily featured figures, men and women and children.
The artifice of their poses was evident, but that did not detract from the intimacy of the paintings—in fact it was the very act of posing, the relationship that act implied, that created this sense of uncanny familiarity. In some cases they were clearly posing for the painter, they gazed into what I thought of as the lens or camera eye, although of course the concept was an anachronism, they would have been gazing not into an apparatus but directly at the painter himself. The idea was almost impossibly personal, and I realized the notion of such a sustained human gaze was outside the realm of experience today.
For that reason, the paintings opened up a dimension that you did not normally see in photographs, in these paintings you could feel the weight of time passing. I thought that was why, as I stood before a painting of a young girl in half-light, there was something that was both guarded and vulnerable in her gaze. It was not the contradiction of a single instant, but rather it was as if the painter had caught her in two separate states of emotion, two different moods, and managed to contain them within the single image. There would have been a multitude of such instants captured in the canvas, between the time she first sat down before the painter and the time she rose, neck and upper body stiff, from the final sitting. That layering—in effect a kind of temporal blurring, or simultaneity—was perhaps ultimately what distinguished painting from photography. I wondered if that was the reason why contemporary painting seemed to me so much flatter, to lack the mysterious depth of these works, because so many painters now worked from photographs.
I moved to the next painting, which depicted a young woman seated beside a table, her face illuminated by the flame from a candle—her broad forehead and rounded cheeks bathed in golden light, the crisp folds of her white blouse almost blinding. The painter’s use of chiaroscuro was particularly striking, at least to my inexpert eye—I could not describe its precise characteristics, I knew only that it was as if the light had been rendered three-dimensional, extending past the frame of the painting, until the canvas itself seemed to be the source of illumination. A man stood behind the young woman, leaning against the table in a pose that was casual and raffish, somehow off-putting, he seemed to infringe upon her personal space, although personal space was not a phrase that could have occurred to the young woman, another anachronism.
I stepped closer to the painting. The young woman—girl, really—was working a piece of embroidery, some small domestic task that seemed of unlikely interest to the young man in his Cossack hat and tunic. He leered down at her, it was obviously not the task but rather the young girl herself who had caught his attention. She was in white, he was in black, the symbolism was clear enough but the exact nature of the encounter was opaque to me. I peered at the title card—the titles of these paintings were usually descriptive and never very poetic, they had none of the forced obscurity of contemporary art titles. The wo
rk was called Man Offering Money to a Young Woman.
I looked back at the painting, this time I saw that the man appeared to be holding coins in the palm of his cupped hand. The palm was discreetly proffered, with the other hand he was gently pulling at her arm, as if to turn her away from her work and toward the proposition before her. I saw the uncommon skill with which the artist had communicated the subtleties of force and resistance—the drama in the pull of his hand on her arm, the stiffness of her posture, the fearful widening of the eyes.
But the true tension in the painting lay not in the perfect consistency with which that moment of contact had been rendered, but rather in the inconsistency at the heart of the image. No matter how long I stared at the painting, I could not reconcile the perfect modesty of the young woman, whose entire body was covered apart from her face and hands, with the lascivious manner and offer being made by the man. Perhaps he was simply offering to purchase the embroidered cloth? But if so, then why the expression of fear on the young woman’s face? Why the young woman’s concentration, so brittle and freighted with meaning, as if it were the only rebuff she was permitted to make?
I looked at the title card again, to my surprise I saw that the painting had been made by a woman, Judith Leyster. I had never heard of her, but I knew it was unusual for a woman to achieve recognition during the Golden Age, even now it was rare for a female painter to reach the stature of her male colleagues. According to the card, Leyster was born in 1609. The painting was dated 1631: she was only twenty-two years old when she had made it. It seemed miraculous that the painting had been made by someone in her very early twenties, it was not only the technical skill that was striking—but that was also extraordinary, to achieve that level of mastery at such a young age—it was the ambiguity of the image itself.
I turned back to the canvas, and it occurred to me then that only a woman could have made this image. This was not a painting of temptation, but rather one of harassment and intimidation, a scene that could be taking place right now in nearly anyplace in the world. The painting operated around a schism, it represented two irreconcilable subjective positions: the man, who believed the scene to be one of ardor and seduction, and the woman, who had been plunged into a state of fear and humiliation. That schism, I now realized, was the true inconsistency animating the canvas, and the true object of Leyster’s gaze.
There you are. Startled, I turned. I had been so absorbed in the painting that I had not heard the sound of footfalls in the gallery. Jana stood in front of me. We hadn’t seen each other since we had met for dinner with Adriaan, over a month ago. She had been preoccupied with the exhibition, and although I had sent her several messages I had not heard from her until she called to insist that I attend the opening and the dinner after, her manner charming and blunt as ever. I told her I would be there, I had been missing Jana’s company and wanted to discuss Adriaan with her. Things had gone awry in the past month, and I had felt the shape and meaning of his absence begin to change.
The week had extended to two without explanation or anything more than the briefest of apologies. I was already feeling vulnerable when my disquiet was sharply compounded by another encounter with Kees. Less than a week after my first session with the former president, I was called into another meeting with the defense. The meeting itself passed without incident, but as I left the conference room Kees hurried down the corridor after me. As soon as he reached me he slowed to a walk, an expression of mild surprise on his face, as if he had happened upon me by chance and we had not just spent several hours together. Instinctively, I began walking a little faster. He kept pace beside me until I stopped and turned to face him, exasperated.
I only wanted to ask how you were, he said. He sounded affronted, and immediately I was made to feel as if I were overreacting. He clasped his hands together in a manner that was unnatural and then a little threatening. I imagine this is difficult for you.
It’s fine, I said curtly.
Is it? But perhaps you are right. He paused, eyes scanning my face avidly. Adriaan is unlikely to succeed. Gaby is very wrapped up in this new man of hers.
It was as if I had taken a blow to the chest. I don’t think I understand, I said.
Understand what? It’s as I said. He won’t win her back.
But he’s—
What, still in love with her? It certainly is a gesture, rushing off to Portugal. Gaby called me that very evening, she found the entire thing quite irrational and inconvenient, it seems her new man is prone to fits of jealousy. I recoiled a little as he repeated the phrase new man, his voice salacious and excitable. He shook his head and waggled his finger at me. He’s thrown a spanner in the works, our friend Adriaan, turning up as he has. And of course the children—he trailed off, evidently the children were a matter too pedestrian to be discussed.
I suppose the children must be happy to see him, I said. My mouth was dry, my words cold and halting.
Yes, well—children are, aren’t they? He rushed on, despite the fact that his words made little sense. But enough about Adriaan, he said with a grin as he lurched in my direction. I wondered if I could take you for a drink?
I was both deadened and amazed by the man’s audacity, his technique was remarkably repetitive, it was the same strategy every time, he capitalized on disorientation. The entire thing was so threadbare and at the same time it was not ineffective, I did find myself disoriented, if not in the way he hoped. I excused myself and hurried out of the building, collecting my bag from the security guard. I took out my phone and texted Adriaan, Are you okay? He wrote back at once, Yes, fine. And then nothing further.
I didn’t know what to do, still less what to believe. Adriaan had already told me that things with Gaby were complicated and as the days became weeks and now a full month it had of course occurred to me that the situation between them was becoming more rather than less entrenched. Was it possible that he had changed his mind? Wasn’t it possible that he had told me something less than the truth? This was not what I had hoped, I was now aware that I was in a precarious position. Had Jana asked me then how things were with Adriaan, I might have told her any number of things: that I didn’t really know, that I had moved into his apartment, that the entire thing was on the verge of fizzling out or close enough.
But she didn’t ask, at least not in that particular moment. She was accompanied by an elegant woman I did not recognize, stylishly dressed, the kind of woman I might have surreptitiously admired in the street. This is Eline, Jana said, I wanted you to meet. The woman smiled as she took my hand and although I was distracted I felt at once that I liked her. Were you very bored? Jana asked. I shook my head, No, I only became preoccupied with this painting, I pointed to the Leyster and said, Somehow I had never noticed it before.
The Proposition, Jana said. As it’s usually called. It’s a beautiful piece. Leyster was a singular case—she was one of the first women in the Guild, and she achieved some renown during her lifetime. But after her death many of her paintings were misattributed, it was only at the end of the nineteenth century that the error was corrected. And then? I asked. Jana shrugged. Well, her paintings are here. I suppose she has some reputation, though it’s still less than she deserves. I nodded, I saw that Eline was also examining the painting. Are you done? I asked Jana, and she shook her head, No, I need to go back. But you’re staying for the dinner? I nodded, Jana was already retreating, I saw that she had wanted to introduce Eline to me in part so that we would each have the other to speak to.
Jana has a gift for friendship, Eline said. She insists upon it. We both laughed. Her words were gentle but forthright and there was an immediate ease between us. In the brief pause that followed, I realized that Jana had left without establishing any common ground between us, I knew nothing about the woman who stood beside me. As we began walking, Eline indicated the paintings in the gallery. They have such an air of perfect tranquility, but it was not a period without
upheaval. The Dutch Empire was rapidly expanding, in many ways these paintings have to be read in that context. The relentless domesticity of these quiet interiors takes on a different meaning seen in that light, she said. It means something, to face inward, to turn your back on the storm brewing outside.
I said that she seemed to know a great deal about the period, and she smiled. I’m an art historian, I teach at the university. It’s surprising that I didn’t meet Jana earlier, The Hague is such a small place and its art world even smaller, but I suppose she hasn’t been here so long. I was of course aware of her appointment, she added. As we continued through the galleries, slowly returning to Jana’s exhibition, I asked her what she thought of the show. She’s done an excellent job, Eline said. Of the exhibition and of the position as a whole. It’s not an easy thing, what she’s being asked to do. She needs to modernize the institution, but she also needs to keep us art historians satisfied. I asked if that was how they met and she said, No, we met in another way altogether, it was quite unexpected. She didn’t say anything further, and I didn’t feel that I could press her, there were any number of ways the two of them might have met, as she had said, The Hague was a small place.
We had reached the exhibition space, which was rapidly emptying out. An usher approached and asked if we were attending the dinner, and if so, could we please make our way downstairs. Eline and I looked at each other, Jana was nowhere in sight, and after a moment we went down to the museum lobby, where an elaborate scene had been produced. There were long banquet tables covered in white cloth. At various stations around the lobby they had set up spreads of food in perfect imitation of the paintings in the exhibition.
It’s like an inversion of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, Eline said with an amused smile. I tried to recall the specifics of the reference, something that I had learned in school, a story about a contest to determine the best painter in ancient Greece. I remembered that Zeuxis created a painting of grapes so realistic that birds swept down to peck at the panel. That was only half the story, and I couldn’t remember what followed, what the rival painter Parrhasius had produced. The image of the birds swooping down through the crowd, their wings beating upon the panel, had subsumed the rest of the narrative. In any case, as Eline had said the scene in the lobby was certainly a perfect inversion of the painting Zeuxis had made, they had even set up frames around each tableau, through which guests were invited to reach, in order to take a piece of cheese or a leg of meat or indeed to pluck a grape.
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