by Nina Siegal
My own hand slowed. I pushed myself away from the easel. I crossed my arms and took in what I’d done. This, I thought, was a portrait of human cruelty. It told of how men ravage one another in search of truth. How they carve each other up in the name of justice, and how they fail to see their own brutality.
I put down my brush. I had a choice now, and it was an important one. Would I use my gift to echo this brutality? Would I be no better than the executioner to put the man’s sufferings on display as spectacle? When she’d kissed my hands, had my mother blessed them for this?
I sat there for a long time in front of the canvas in the dark. I stood, walked away from the easel, and thought. I walked back to the easel, walked around it, and then found my seat in front of it again.
I got up from the easel and walked to the windows, looking out over the city and toward the IJ. Down in the streets below there were a few passersby already lighting their torches for the midnight parade. A group of revelers stood below my window, pouring out their cups of ale from a tankard, singing a drinking song. The women raised their skirts, kicking their feet in the air and laughing. All the way up Sint Antoniesbreestraat I could see crowds lining up for the parade. Already some men were shooting off Chinese sparks from nearby rooftops.
What a strange evening. Out there, it was festival time. I stood and watched the figures walking, dancing, skipping toward the Waag, but I did not feel as cynical about all this as you might imagine. I thought about the cycles of life and death and how celebrating execution and dissection was one way of acknowledging life. Who feels more alive, after all, than a man who has recently witnessed a death?
When I heard the rap at the door I was not surprised. Something in me knew that I should be expecting what happened next.
“Enter,” I said.
“Master, you are here then.” It was only Femke. “I thought I heard you return earlier, but I was not sure if you’d gone to bed.”
“No, I’m working. It’s the only moment when I get a bit of silence.”
She stepped farther into the room and I could see that there was another figure behind her in the doorway.
“Please forgive me, master,” she continued, leaning forward to whisper. “I told her it was an unusual hour for callers, but she would not be sent away. I thought you would see her. The others stayed below.”
“She?”
“She has come from Leiden, she says …” Femke said, unable to continue. She drew her apron to her face and dabbed her eyes. I saw that she had been crying.
“Tell me what upsets you.”
“She is, well … Master, she is …” Femke swallowed hard but could not speak. She moved closer and I offered her my hand.
“What is it?”
She sputtered, “I can’t say. You must speak to her. She will tell you.” Femke’s smeared face seemed to come into a strange kind of focus. “That rapscallion Jan Fetchet brought them here.”
She blew her nose into her apron noisily. I covered the easel again with my cloth. “Thank you, Femke. Tell her to come in. You must only bring us another lantern and something warm to drink. Can you manage that?”
“Yes, of course, master. Yes, I’ll do it right away.”
The door edged open slowly and I saw that it was that same woman from the dissection. The one who had run in and tried to cover the body with her own. Her head was covered in a thick wool shawl, her face shrouded, her eyes downcast. She wore peasant clothes, over her large, pregnant belly. Her movements were labored and slow. I was sorry that she’d had to climb the stairs.
I asked her to sit and offered to take her mantle. “I dare not dirty your fine furniture, sire. I need only a moment of your time.”
“My furniture is not so fine. And in any case, if you’re going to speak with me, you must feel at ease,” I said. “Please, take the seat.”
She handed me her mantle, and once she was settled she also removed her shawl. Her hair was pinned up under a cap, but I could see that it was thick and fair. Her face was pleasantly round, her skin smooth.
We sat together in the studio as the lantern flickered. I did not feel uneasy, though I had many questions for her. She did not seem ready to speak to me yet, but I knew there was much she wanted to say and I should wait for her to begin. Femke returned with a second lantern and a cup of warm milk for each of us. She lit the stove and asked if she could do any more service. I told her she could retire for the night.
“Tell me your story,” I said to the woman once we were alone again. “And why you came tonight to the anatomy.”
“I’m the one they call Aris Kindt’s wench,” she said.
“And what do you call yourself?”
“Flora. Flora of Leiden.”
“Flora.” The goddess of springtime. “You came for the hanging?”
“I came to try to save Adriaen. To plead his case.”
“I see.”
“They said I came too late. They said I did not have the right papers. We never married.”
I nodded.
“They’ll call him a bastard child,” she said, putting her hands to her belly. “The convict’s son. I would have come earlier if I had known about it sooner. But Adriaen has been gone a long time. He left Leiden in the summer, and now the canals are freezing through.”
“No one told you? He didn’t send word when he was sentenced?”
“No. He would have been too ashamed. When I saw him last he were being lashed in the Leiden jail.”
“How did you find out?”
She looked at me, as if remembering it for the first time. “The stones. The boys threw them at my home. So many stones came.” She spoke softly and slowly, as if she was trying to remember all of it, every detail.
“Your house was stoned?”
“They pulled the cobblestones out of the lane and pelted my house and broke windows, sent things flying. It were this morning, but now it seems a lifetime ago. Witch! they called me. Crone! So many curses. Hag! they screamed. Whore.”
As she spoke, I painted her face in my mind, and I saw increasing beauty in her plain features. I asked her if she would be willing to remove her bonnet. She gazed at me for a moment, trying to understand my meaning, wondering at my intent. And then, as if she understood everything, and without saying a word, she reached up and removed the pins from her cap.
She carefully drew her hair across her shoulders, as if preparing for a sitting. As if somehow she intuitively understood. I was looking at her to plan a painting. But how could she know?
Her hair was lovely. It was ample and full of curls. If I were to paint it, I’d use lead-tin yellow, unmixed. But I would ask her to pin up half of it and leave some flowing in ringlets. I’d fill her hair with wild spring flowers, like Flora of the myths. Her eyes, I’d paint with raw umber and a tinge of madder lake. Her skin tone, a mixture of sienna, red ocher, and lead white. I would paint her pregnant, too, her hand resting on her full belly. I’d dress her in vernal silks. I would try to do her justice. She was a beautiful woman of the world, in spite of her hardships. Her body was voluptuous and robust, her magnificence undeniable.
She went on talking and talked for some time and I listened while I tried to imagine her in oils. She told me the whole of her tale, from the stones thrown through her windows up until she’d tried to storm the anatomy tower to claim Adriaen’s body.
I let her speak, and I memorized her features, her kindness, her faith. When she reached some points in her tale she would stop and cry, a soft quiet cry, like a slow unburdening. Then she would go on with her tale.
I knew of Adriaen’s beginnings and saw him at the end. I knew who he’d been but only the outlines, a sketch. Her tale filled in the details, explained who he’d been to her. She painted him in rich pigments, with the kind of texture that gave him substance. She had come all this way to claim him, and no one had allowed her to stake her claim. She had gone to the hanging and to the magistrate and to the surgeons and then to Fetchet. And he had sent her to me. Was it
to ask for the final limb? The limb I had requested for my examination? Or was it for something else?
Finally, she asked for what she wanted, and what she wanted was simple. “I want a way to make him whole again.”
Yes, Lord Schout. It’s as the bailiff said. The night watch found me under the quay on my back in a leaky skiff. I was hiding there since before the dawn, hoping to cloak myself in its pitch.
No, sire, please! No, no more weights. Truly, sire, we only wanted the burgher’s cloak. I never meant to harm the man. He lives still, I’m told. I’m told he’s not harmed. Surely that means we can be released, Your Honor? It was only his coat we wanted. I’m a coat thief, sire. I steal them and sell them in the open-air market behind the Amstel.
The coat had a fine fur collar. That’s what I noticed first. It was black, heavy wool, from a skilled tailor. I have made something of a study of coats, Your Honor, and can tell from a distance which ones are stitched by the Ferdinand Janssens of this city and those flung together for sea-bound sailors at the wharves. I can tell you just about every character of a man by his cloak, by how he chooses his tailor and what he’ll spend to purchase his winter warmth.
This one, I wasn’t going to sell at the Amstel. This one, I wanted for myself. Only to hang across my shoulders and give me shelter from the chill. Only to spend a night in the comfort of its enveloping arms. I did not mean to harm the man, sire. I respected the good lame burgher.
It was Hendrick who hit him on the head with the rock. Hendrick Janszoon of Leeuwarden. Yes, the same one that is here in the rasp house. You saw how big he is? With his fierce uneven teeth, he can make a woman drop her purse just by yawning. I’ve known him for ten years and we’ve been in and out of the jails together as many times in as many years. The other accomplice was Jacob Martszoon, the Walloon. I know Jacob from the outskirts; we met ten years ago. I never once saw him do violence. He keeps an extra knife in his pocket to skin rabbits, sire, and I’ve seen him be as gentle to the poor creatures he’s about to eat as a nursemaid is to a babe.
Hendrick and Jacob and I were in the tavern, the two of them singing in the back, keeping the barkeep company. It was a freezing night, Your Honor. There were ice drifts on the canals.
Hendrick was wearing a big brown cloak that I’d stolen a few weeks back. That was an easy job. The door was open and the cloak was just hanging there in the doorway. Someone had just gone in, or someone was on the way out. It was a low-hanging apple, Your Honor. I reached in and nabbed it.
Then on the way back to the tavern Hendrick claimed it. He said it was his spoils since he’d bought me beers that night. Hendrick is twice my height and three belt sizes bigger. I dare not argue with him unless I want cobblestones up my nose.
I was sitting in the tavern window. The night boats were moving slow through the ice. They sent out skiffs, with all their lanterns. All those lights in the dark.
Every time I shivered, the sadder I got. The Walloon tried to bring me another tankard. “Don’t fret,” said Jacob. “We’ll find you a coat as fine as Hendrick’s.”
“There would not be that luck again,” I said.
He answered, “We will make our own luck. Look out that window and play the burgomaster’s wife, and look upon the men in these canal byways as salesmen, modeling cloaks that are yours at any price. Choose what you like and we will make sure you get it.”
The Walloon is like this when he’s two sheets to the wind. His pale face goes red and his fangs show. He was in the mood for an evil jaunt. He turned back to the barman, to sing the final verses of a song. “The wenches drew their skirts to the hip … and the captain went down with his ship, yes, lads, the captain went down with his ship.” He left me at the window.
There were not many men went by, for it was hard to keep a lantern lit. Those that passed went under cover of wide-brimmed hats. Then I saw the guildhall doors open and out came all the men who’d been inside there. They were not tanners or smiths or ships’ carpenters. They were dressed like near royalty: doublets, garters, snow-white starched ruffs. In their lanterns I saw round faces. Their coats were wool, fur lined.
Imagine me in one of those coats, I thought. Perhaps this one of deep purple wool? Or that with the red felt trim? I thought perhaps this was too greedy. How would Flora feel if she saw me arriving down the path in such a grand garment?
Then, the door of the guild shut, and with it the light went out. The men scattered into the black night. I felt the sting of the freezing damp again. Amsterdam winters are merciless, my lord, and yet so many men never worry over warmth. They go about in grand cloaks, warm hats, and leather gloves from Italy, never feeling the sting of that wind that bites at me every minute.
Then the guildhall door opened once again. This time, it didn’t swing wide, but I saw a figure in the light of the hallway. I could not see the man’s face, only his back and his arms, which were raised as he tried to light his lantern on the stoop. In that lantern light: the fur collar. It was the nicest of all the coats I’d seen on the men outside the guildhall, its fur trim the color of Turkish honey.
This burgher was the last man out of the guildhall. He was alone now; all the other men had already made their way down the lane. My sight is poor, Your Honor, but I watched him move down the street toward me, slowly, very slowly.
“You’ve chosen one, then, have you?” said Jacob. He was standing behind me all of a sudden and reading my thoughts. He placed his hand hard upon my back.
I saw then that the man’s gait was uneven, and it may have been that one foot was smaller than the other or one leg longer. Something was not right in his walk.
“No, not him,” I said to Jacob, but he’d already called Hendrick to the tavern door.
“What a prince you’ll be in that cloak,” declared Hendrick.
“Yes, you’ll prance about like a very Brabanter,” said the Walloon. “Why, you’ll waltz along the quays, sampling the herring.”
“The Kid in a burgomaster’s wool,” said Hendrick. “He may drown within it, but it should be his.”
“Not him,” I said. “He’s lame. Don’t you see?”
Hendrick taunted, “What? Can you not stand to rob one of your kind?”
I said nothing after that. We went out into the night. The rain had stopped, but the streets were slick with ice and the air was thick with misty, chilling drizzle. We three followed the burgher down the byway toward the Nieuwezijds Kolk. Our mark slowed, then stopped. The further we got, the worse the poor burgher’s walk got. He moved, it seemed to me, like a badly wounded donkey. Not one foot and then the other, but one step and sort of falling forward, as if with any given step he might collapse.
Jacob and Hendrick didn’t bother hiding as we followed close behind him. They played that we were sailors off a merchant sea ship, on a weekend leave. There are many such packs of men out carousing on the streets in that part of town. The burgher never once looked back.
Just as we neared the Heerenlocke, the good burgher stopped before a high door. He took his keys from his belt. While fiddling with the lock, the rain started again and his lantern went out. It was in that rain and that darkness, I’m sure, that the fear finally hit him.
He leaned down to tend the flame, and while his fingers fussed, Hendrick made his move. He put his chisel to the burgher’s neck and whispered in his ear. The burgher dropped his lantern. Hendrick told him to put his key back in the lock slowly and quietly, but his hands shook too much, and the keys, too, fell down onto the cobblestones. Hendrick pushed him into the doorway and held him by the chin with his bare hands. Jacob used the chisel to pry open the metal clasp instead. Then we three stepped inside the darkened entry hall, and that’s where we tried to uncloak him.
I tried to be kind. “Be still, good sir, and it will take but a minute.”
He squirmed in Hendrick’s clutch and his eyes fell on me with a dreadful pleading.
“Be still, good sir,” I said again. I always try to go about my thieving in
the pleasantest possible way, Your Honor. It’s not such a terrible thing to lose a coat. It’s the fear that does the worst harm. “I only want your coat,” I told him. “It will take but a minute.”
He got even more jumpy. He would not be still. He wrestled and pulled and then began to shout, and as soon as his scream passed his lips, I reached out to silence him with what I had: a rag inside my vest. The man had the shrill cry of a newborn, Your Honor, loud enough to wake all New Town. I felt sorry for the burgher but I needed him to be quiet. I pushed the rag between his lips and begged him to be still.
I tried my best to protect the good lame burgher, Your Honor, but Hendrick knocked him over the head. I looked up to see what he’d used: a large stone he must’ve picked up from the alley.
I yelled at Hendrick, “Why did you do that?”
He hissed back at me: “Shut up. Take his arm.”
Then we all heard heavy footsteps coming up the alley and a hard voice calling, “Who goes there? State your name and your business.”
The door to the house was open. Jacob and Hendrick dragged the burgher inside and we all went in. The night watchman called again, “Who goes there? Answer or I will ring an alarm.”
We were still trying to get the cloak. I lifted the burgher’s arm, but he was too heavy, and Jacob and Hendrick decided to run off. I thought to run into the house, but there was yet another gate. I looked down one last time to see the burgher, who was now moaning. His eyes looked up at me in frightful terror. I felt so sorry for him then, I wished I’d never left the tavern, never talked to Hendrick once in my life. I begged him to keep quiet. I left that house and ran in the direction Hendrick and Jacob had gone. There was a body in the alley, too: they’d struck down the night watchman, who was groaning and trying to find his feet. We made it all the way back into Old Town before he caught up with us.
I was lucky to find a workman’s ladder on the Geldersekade and a small boat at the ready. I untied the skiff and, using the ladder as a gondolier’s pole, I pressed the boat from its mooring and down the canal toward the Waag. There’s a tunnel beneath the weigh hall quay. I leaned my ladder against the embankment and lay down in the skiff. Then I pushed myself by hand into that tiny passage.