The Anatomy Lesson

by Nina Siegal

  I pushed up from my elbows in the mud. The people in the square got me standing. They helped me to walk a few steps, and then a few more until I were not too dizzy, until I could walk alone.

  “The boy is right,” the boatman said, once he thought I were ready. “If you want to claim his body, we need to get to the skinners.”

  Yes, I remembered. His body. That is all I would be able to save.

  I did not have the words to save Adriaen. They did not want to hear my words and I had no words to tell. I did not know they would take him from me like that, like that so fast out in that square. I thought there had to be some will of God in it for it to be done. But what God wills this? To hang a thief? If they knew he were just a thief, why did they hang him?

  I had no words for the magistrate but I thought I could form words for that doctor who wanted to cut open his chest: He would find no hard heart in my Adriaen. No cold liver, no black blood. Adriaen had a sweet soul. Ever since he were a boy. I knew him then and I knew him as he grew. His body came to be a man’s body but I never saw his soul change. He were a soft soul and a hurt soul, a soul in want of kindness. That’s why they called him “the Kid.” Them who knew him. Though I never liked that name. He just went simple from one thing to the next.

  I want to tell you about how it started between us, because we were in love, and it were true. It started when his father beat him and left him to join Maurits. We heard it from the house next door, my mother and me. We held our hands to our lips to stop from crying out and crouched there by the stove. We knew the wrath of men when all the kindness has left them. We waited and when the father left, my mother said I were to go.

  I brought him food and mended his wounds and stayed until it got late. The next week, he came to our house with wildflowers he’d gathered from our yard. I saw him out there picking them, and then he tied them up with twine. My mother said, “The boy’s come to see you. Fix your hair.” So I twirled my curls round my finger and went to the door. Adriaen were young then, his hair blond and fine. He asked me if I wanted to take a rowboat out on the river and I said I would if he were well enough to row.

  I remember that day and every drop of light in it still, because it were then I fell in love. We walked down to the docks and he untied a rowboat and pushed it out into the water. His face still had some cuts and his eye had a bruise above it, but he looked strong and young, and his arms were lean and freckled. I were quiet most of the day and he did all the rowing. He took me out into the river and we glided along. The sun were shining and the air were crisp and there were birds to see just everywhere. He weren’t turning around to see where he were headed. He knew where he would go. He were taking me somewhere and I were happy to go there. Wherever it were.

  We landed on a small island just covered in trees. I never saw a place like that, with no houses anywhere, no paths and no walls or fences. It were all overgrown, untame, and we had to hold on to tree trunks just to scramble up through the weeds. He went ahead, but every time I looked up, he were holding out a hand to me. We went into it, this wild forest, and soon we were on top of a hill.

  “There,” he said, pointing upward.

  There were nothing there except the sun, but it were the sun, and we could see it clear. The light rained down through the thickness of the trees and the light were cut into pieces, like small drops, falling onto us and into our eyes.

  I sat with him, not touching, not kissing, nor any of the things young lovers do. He were shy, but he sat near me and he watched me and he said, “I wanted to show you this.”

  Something changed in me then. I grew up, I grew old. I saw him, this bruised boy, hurt but strong, proud but weak, tamed and yet wild, showing me the sunlight. I don’t know how long we sat there but soon we left, and it were in the skiff on the way back from that trip that I looked at him and knew I loved him and knew we’d never be apart.

  It were days before he kissed me, but eventually he did. It were years before we became lovers, but eventually we were. There were years and years in between, but Adriaen were always that boy to me. The one who rowed that skiff across the river and took me to that quiet, gentle place. Where he pointed up through the mess of leaves in the wild thicket and said, There. There’s sun.

  It was no simple deed to get Aris all the way to the Waag in the corpse cart with that crowd upon me. I suffered a beating of cabbages and apples; my hair was yanked, my beard pulled, my sight nearly blinded by rotten eggs.

  The police escort proved well worth the extra ten stivers the magistrate charged me for the “courtesy” of his company. There were hundreds of men and women and even tiny lads who wanted to put a hand on that dead Kindt. I haven’t seen anything like it since they put Black Bartle to the rope—and he’d killed six men with an ax.

  This is the worst part of the job of the famulus anatomicus. The rest—the eye plucking and bathing and burying organs in the churchyard—is mere dirty work compared to getting that dead man out of the square once he’s been hanged. The women howl, the men grab your garments, and the children hit your shins with wooden spoons.

  I swear, they would lift the corpse right out of the cart and carry him over their heads through the town, singing his name, if they could. I know not why a crowd is so capricious like that. One minute they’re calling him a rogue and crying for his neck; and once he’s fallen all is forgiveness, and they rush to greet him as if he were the miracle of Amsterdam itself.

  I felt sorry for that Kindt, though, because he didn’t need to go that way—on the rope and to the anatomy, too. He was a cloak thief and a vagabond, but it’s rare to get the rope for robbery.

  Oh, yes, I am the friend of all scoundrels, a lover of rapscallions. I have no lust for vengeance on any living soul, sinner or saint. There isn’t a man in Amsterdam who can’t be accused of burgling and beggary on some scale, small or large. Wrongdoing is what makes us human, you see, for not a single one of us is sinless. Show me a man over twenty who hasn’t at least a hundred minor crimes to his name and it’s sure to be a monk or a minister. Then show me a monk or minister who doesn’t have fifty smaller trespasses, at least. Even that magistrate took a little extra out of my pocket when I had to buy Aris’s body instead of Joep’s. “Another three guilders,” that long-faced officer declared as a cunning smile swept across his lips. As I say: every man in this town is a thief.

  Once inside the Waag and cloistered with the body behind the heavy doors of the guild chambers, I felt, at least, secure. I began to consider all that had transpired that day: chasing Rotzak, getting the fake paradise, visiting the painter, seeing Joep set free, begging the magistrate for the new body, being harangued through the streets. The bird, the sailor, the artist, the corpses, the throngs. As soon as there was silence, my emotions pressed for some release. I’m not ashamed to admit I sat for a moment and cried like a babe.

  Then I composed myself, for my work had to be done with some haste. The first thing I needed to do was to remove the dead man’s shoes, a sad pair made of battered leather with holes through the soles and rotted wooden heels. Then, using a blade, I cut off the rest of his tattered rags, which consisted only of a coarse pair of wool hose and knee breeches. He no longer wore a shirt or the jerkin, since he’d stripped himself above the waist for his performance at the hanging. All that covered his upper body were the bandages wrapped too tightly around his stump. It took a little effort to get it free from all the caked-up blood and dirt.

  Next, it was my job to trim the man’s hair and beard. I think that mane had never met a comb, and likely he’d trimmed his beard only with his own folding gully. The whole of his head was mangy like a mutt’s and let off a foul odor, like something between a dog’s legs. I could’ve cut it with a pair of shears, but I managed with one of the surgeon’s tools instead. I trimmed the mane down to a civil militiaman’s cut and shaved all but the chin of his beard.

  Once that was accomplished, I got my bucket and filled it with cold soapy water, then dunked my cloth a
nd began to wash him. There was a thick layer of grit all over his flesh, and a line across his belly so thick you’d think it was drawn on him, right where his stomach would’ve met the hem of his jerkin. My cloth moved across his flesh slowly, because his skin was so coarse. I had to check for wax in the ears, globs of snot in the nose.

  It’s no small undertaking to make a vagabond look tidy. Think of it: he sleeps by the side of the city gates, bathes in the river or canals, sups by the side of a campfire, never a basin or sponge within reach. I had to press for a while in places to loosen the grime on his skin. I cleaned his feet, which were brown and blistered; under his arms, which smelled like mushrooms and charcoal; under his nails, which were encrusted with black. And I had to check in the private parts, too. A lot of them soil themselves when they’re hanged, but not that Aris.

  After I finished washing the body, I plucked out the eyeballs one by one and put them in a cup. I use a special tool for that, a kind of toothy spoon. I’m used to it now, after all these years, but I’ll tell you that’s the part I like least.

  I gave him one final rinse and felt satisfied with my work. Then I put him over my shoulder and lowered him—shoulders, torso, legs, feet—onto the block of ice so as to keep him fresh. He was bigger than me, but I managed to heft him. I’m small but sturdy and used to carrying dead weight.

  Then I had to adjust his pose before it stiffened into an uncomely shape. I know what happens to the man in the few hours after he’s hanged and before he’s dissected. The body stiffens and becomes cold and pale. The jaw won’t move anymore, so if you haven’t closed his mouth in time, he’ll look startled throughout the dissection. The joints stiffen and the limbs won’t flex. So that he doesn’t go flat as a board, what I do is bend his elbows and prop up his knees with a stick to give him a lively look.

  I stood back and judged my work. This thief could not have had a more solemn and stately bed. There was not much I could do about his scars, but at least I’d made him neat and tidy.

  No matter how well I prepared him, though, I knew Tulp would not be pleased with this specimen. The scars, the stump, the rough rope burn. What could I do, though? There was only one hanging, and this was the one they’d hanged. We could not reraise the scaffold and noose someone else instead.

  I got a white sheet I’d use to cover him—the same one I later use for the burial—but before I put it over him I let him lie there in the open air. I like to leave them like that for an hour or two till the soul of the dead man has time to ascend. Or descend, depending on how it goes. I learned that from Otto van Heurne, my second master. He said the Egyptians wrapped mummies up tight so their souls would join them on the trip to the afterlife. I like to let the soul get to the afterlife faster, and sometimes it’s a bumpy road indeed. If you leave a dead body for a few days, you’ll see and hear that soul escape. The flesh swells, the chest rises, foul winds escape its mouth. It makes other … emissions. I tell you this not so you will laugh. It’s the body settling, while the soul finds its release. I think the soul must be like vapors, and when the body doesn’t hold on to it anymore, it flies out through every orifice.

  I was cleaning up my tools when I heard a faint rap on the outside door. Only one knock, and then nothing else. Then I heard the swinging of the bolt and footsteps, and a chill rose through my spine.

  “There you are, Fetchet,” someone said from the shadows. “Did you not hear me knock?”

  “Yes, my liege,” I said to the anonymous voice, for I did not recognize it. Master van Rijn stepped out of the shadows. “It’s only me, Fetchet. I hope you don’t mind I let myself in.”

  I reflexively drew the cloth over the corpse, and stepped between it and the painter. “Master, you should not have troubled yourself to come all the way here. You only need to send a messenger and I would ably arrive at your doorstep—”

  He pressed into the room. “I’d like to apologize for being so brusque with you earlier,” he continued as casually as if we were meeting on the street. “I rather berated myself after you left for my presumptuousness. Imagine, expecting fantastical creatures to appear on my doorstep. The fabled footed paradise. Only to order them up and think I can have them. As if I were some kind of king.”

  “That is the beauty of our modern times, sire. It’s true that we can now get almost anything from anywhere, if only we wish it. I promise you, if there is a footed paradise in this world, I’ll procure it for you.”

  The artist waved his hand in the air. “Indeed, and it’s not why I’ve come. I came because I would like a little time with him.”

  He was talking about the body. “I don’t expect he will be much of a conversationalist, Master van Rijn.”

  The artist laughed. “My business won’t require an exchange of words. I have been commissioned to paint the commemorative portrait of Tulp’s lesson.”

  “Then a true honor has been bestowed on you, Master van Rijn. The great Pickenoy usually paints the guild pictures.” I could see this comment irked him, so I continued. “Of course, I’m sure that your portrait shall far exceed his.”

  “The point is, Fetchet, that I would like to have a bit of time to sketch the corpse.”

  I thought this a strange request. “He has no money, sire. If he had, I’d have found it in his breeches, I’m sure.”

  “What difference would that make?”

  “I know what they say about curio dealers—that we’ll take coins painted on the floor. But there are noble men in this profession, too, sire. I’d have given it to Professor Tulp, because it was he who bought this body.”

  “But I am seeking no money from him, Fetchet.”

  “Don’t they pay you to be painted?” I asked plainly. “Otherwise, why paint?”

  “I only want to have a good look at his arm, because Dr. Tulp has asked me to make a special point of portraying his arm in the picture.”

  “Has he?” I thought this over.

  “Yes. It’s, well, it’s a longer story.”

  “The arm in particular? Did he happen to mention which arm?”

  “Which arm? Does it matter which arm?”

  “In this case it does, sire. For, you see the convict was a thief.”

  “I have to admit, Fetchet, I don’t always follow the thread of your logic.”

  “A thief, sire, steals with a hand.”

  “Indeed, for he cannot steal with his feet.”

  “Unless he is a monkey, sire.”

  “Which he is not.”

  “It is the hand that gives offense.”

  “Well—”

  “And that which gives offense must be taken.”

  “You mean his hand has been lopped off by the executioner?”

  “That’s what I mean, sire. He’s missing his right hand.”

  “But he’s been executed. Why take his hand, too?”

  “The hand was done before—some other time.”

  Perhaps you’re listening to my tale and you think my skull is numb. The truth is that I was trying to buy time. I hoped to give the corpse the opportunity he needed for his soul to escape.

  “He has the left hand,” the artist said.

  “Indeed. His left hand suits him very well.”

  “Excellent. Now we are getting somewhere.”

  “You’d like to see the left hand.”

  “Yes, that is all I need to see, Fetchet.” He drew out his purse and held it over his palm. “How many coins will it cost me to end this discourse so you’ll allow me a few moments with this corpse?”

  Now, you’ll recall all I’d paid out that day: the haggling vendors, the fee for the paradise, the extra stivers to the magistrate for the new body, and the police escort. I already knew that Tulp would dock me some of my fee because of the missing hand and the scarred body. What profit had I made so far for all my efforts?

  “Ten stivers?” Van Rijn guessed.

  I thought it over for a moment without giving an answer.

  “Fifteen,” he offered, without
waiting for my response.

  I saw that my hesitation served me well. I kept quiet.

  “You drive a hard bargain,” he said, examining my face. “Eighteen.”

  “Master, Professor Tulp would not like it very much if he knew I had let you in.”

  “I do need to fill the censers with incense in the anatomy theater. How much time do you require? I also have other chores—to pack the peat for the furnace, stoke the fire in the gallery, fix the scented tapers in the candelabra …”

  “Whatever time a guilder buys me I’ll take. Incense and candelabras, I guess.”

  “Until the next church bell, then.”

  As I was walking out of the room, he added, “I must also ask you to be prudent with your words around Tulp.”

  “You know my word is …” I stopped myself, since my word had already proven its value as weak. “I assure you, my lips are fastened with sealing wax.”

  The artist turned to look at me. “One last thing. You mentioned to me earlier, Fetchet, that it is not only your job to prepare the body for dissection but also to bury the body parts after the lecture is done …”

  “The arm,” I said. “You’d like for me to hold the arm for you after the dissection is through?”

  “Swiftly deduced,” he said, clearly not thinking me capable of it.

  He put a single shiny guilder in my palm, closed my hand around it. “Go, Fetchet. The tapers want very badly to meet their candelabra. You’ll get it to me tonight?”

  “I will, master, I will.”

  I silently backed out of the chamber and left the painter with the corpse.

  I suppose it reflects on the poverty of the artist’s mind that he cannot conjure his pictures straight out of his own imagination. He must rely upon the world, and the things in it, to remind him of how life operates: what light looks like slanting through old glass, how water seems to churn when it is lapping at a shore, how age can turn skin on a hand nearly translucent. This is precisely why I sketch, why I invite my subjects to sit for me, why I collect so many objects for my curio cabinet. I must start with source materials. In this case: flesh.