He tore up the paper. ‘As long as there’s an opportunity she’ll put a spoke in the wheel. She thinks she can get the better of me. But not this time.’
I didn’t like to hear him speak like this. ‘But what can you do?’ I said.
‘How dare she . . .’ he muttered, as if he had not heard me.
‘She’s probably struggled to make ends meet and therefore had to pawn the jewellery. Sixty guilders a year is hardly a sum to survive on.’ He glowered at me but I continued. ‘If you offer her a decent amount of money she won’t have to trouble you anymore.’
He turned his back on me, wandering off next door, making me regret my words, but then returned.
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ He picked up one of the torn pieces. ‘There’s an address on here. Send word that she should come with a witness in order to re-negotiate terms.’
It took a few moments for the sound of his words to assemble into intelligible meaning. I could not believe he’d taken my counsel. He put his hand on my shoulder, squeezed it and left. I felt that I’d moved up in the ranks.
Geertje arrived a few days later with a witness, whom I later learned was the cobbler Octaef Octaeffsz. Rembrandt did not wish me to be present, and neither did I. After they had left, he told me that he’d reached an agreement with her but that it had been like having hairs slowly pulled from his temples.
Exactly one week later we all piled into the notary’s tiny, dingy room. Everything – floor, walls and ceiling – was fashioned from the darkest wood and for some reason the place reeked of fish oil. It was like being in the belly of Jonah’s whale. There was exactly a chair each, lined up against the walls. Thus we sat, with hardly enough air to breathe.
Geertje and her witness were on one side, me and Rembrandt on the other. For someone who liked to stretch out his legs he had them pulled very close to his body and his hands folded in his lap. The notary’s chair stood against the third wall, separating the parties. He had lit a single candle on a side table to augment the light from the tiny window and began by assuring everyone that he had drafted the document according to the new agreement between Rembrandt and Geertje. Only the signing remained to be done.
I would have signed anything just to get out of that stuffy little room. The notary was about to read out the text when Geertje started shifting in her chair and exclaimed, ‘I won’t listen to this thing read out.’
‘Come, come,’ said the cobbler, patting her arm, ‘no harm in hearing it read, is there?’
At this she seemed to quieten down and the notary read out his draft. It was similar to the previous version except that Geertje was promised an additional one-off payment of 200 guilders with which she was to redeem the jewels, and an annual sum of 160 guilders, a generous improvement on sixty. During the reading her face grew red and her hands curled into fists.
The notary had barely said the last word when Geertje stood up and proclaimed with her index finger stabbing the air, ‘This is a piece of piss out of a cow’s arse. I won’t sign such a thing!’
The notary looked with raised eyebrows at Rembrandt, who looked at the cobbler, who looked at Geertje. She was gesticulating wildly to embroider a torrent of language that would have made a sailor blush. Rembrandt gripped the arms of his chair but said nothing. And then the cobbler – blessed be his honest soul – said, ‘But Geertje, these are all things you agreed yourself in the last meeting.’
‘What if I get ill and need to get a nurse?’ she said.
Rembrandt said with effort and through gritted teeth, ‘I’m sure we can accommodate your concerns in this draft, as long as we can get this dealt with today.’ He turned to the notary. ‘Can you propose a wording?’
The notary scratched his head with the end of his quill and said, ‘The applicant is willing to adjust the amount, at his discretion, should this be required due to a change in Mevrouw Dircx’s circumstances, such as illness. With some luck the court might be moved to uphold the last agreement.’
Everyone was nodding, as if we could pull Geertje into agreement by our tide of nods.
‘At his discretion,’ she laughed, pointing at Rembrandt. ‘If it was down to his discretion he’d see me shipped to the Far Indies. No – ill or well – he owes me more than a hundred and sixty guilders.’
She stepped close to Rembrandt, so close that he couldn’t have got up even if he’d wanted to. For a moment I thought she might spit on him but she merely looked down at him. Then she turned around and left and the cobbler scurried after her.
We all leaned back into our chairs and drew a collective breath. Then the notary said, ‘A shrewd woman, with a penchant for theatre. She probably knows she might get more in court than a hundred and sixty guilders and that you would do anything to avoid public embarrassment. She’ll be hoping for a better offer from you and if it is not forthcoming, then her attendance here today will still work in her favour.’
‘How’s that?’ said Rembrandt.
‘The court favours reasonable plaintiffs. Now she can demonstrate that she has at least made an attempt to resolve matters amicably.’
Rembrandt groaned and put one hand over his eyes as if trying to shield them from some horror.
The notary said, ‘Not all is lost. I’ll redraft the agreement, taking care of the concern she voiced regarding her getting ill. This will show you to be reasonable. Either she accepts it or she won’t and we’ll go to court.’
The two men shook hands. And we were finally free to leave the stinking belly of the whale.
Geertje, of course, turned down the new draft, so a few weeks later we found ourselves at court. I’d imagined something more grand but it was a sober, medium-sized room, completely unadorned. There was a small area to the side, fenced off with wooden rails, where family and friends were seated. I was there on my own. On the other side were public benches filled almost to capacity and at the front was a raised area with a desk, occupied by the three commissioners of marital affairs. I recognized the grey-haired men as wealthy burghers who could easily have counted amongst Rembrandt’s clients. Now they never would.
Geertje was called upon to present her case. She took to the floor like a commander to the decks of a man-of-war. Her voice was clear and calm and as she spoke she looked at each of the commissioners in turn. ‘Rembrandt made verbal promises of marriage and gave me this ring. Further I declare that he has slept with me on several occasions and I request that I may be allowed to marry Rembrandt or alternatively that he support me.’
The chief commissioner turned to Rembrandt and asked him to comment. Rembrandt waited for Geertje to be seated again, rose to his feet and said, ‘I deny having made promises of marriage and, with respect, I do not have to admit that I have slept with Mistress Dircx. It is for her to prove it.’
The honourable gentlemen had their work cut out in stifling a laugh. But the spectators on the public benches showed no such restraint and chuckled to their hearts’ content. After a brief deliberation, one of the commissioners got up.
‘We have studied the paperwork and much of the case depends on whose word we can trust. Does either party have anything else to add about the conduct of the other?’
Geertje immediately raised her hand and took the floor. Rembrandt was stone-faced.
‘I was first employed by Rembrandt’s late wife, born Saskia van Uylenburgh. I nursed her to her final hour and then cared for their son Titus for almost six years. The master never found fault with my work or with us living as common-law man and wife until,’ she paused for effect, ‘there was another change in the circumstances.’
She looked at me and kept on looking until every head in the room had turned in my direction, including Rembrandt’s.
‘Not long after enlisting the services of a new maid, Rembrandt and two of his assistants threw me out of the house, leaving me entirely without means and poor Titus without a mother.’ She walked back to her seat like a broken woman.
I supposed in a way it was true. I wondered i
f he had actually physically thrown her out. The room was awash with whispers and chatter. Finally the head commissioner told the crowd that if they wanted entertainment they should go to the theatre and threatened to have the room cleared.
It was Rembrandt’s turn to respond.
‘As I have demonstrated to the court, I have made numerous attempts to settle the matter to Mevrouw Dircx’s satisfaction, but there is no pleasing her.’
The commissioners withdrew for a brief deliberation while we all remained where we were. Geertje had branded me publicly as Rembrandt’s whore, which was ironic considering that she had been and I had not. She’d not said so, but, as Rembrandt taught his students, what you don’t paint has more power to move than what you depict in great detail.
When the commissioners returned they announced that Rembrandt must pay Geertje 200 guilders and act in accordance with the draft of the most recent contract.
Rembrandt grew red in the face and Geertje spat into her hands in delight. True to her word, she had more than tripled Rembrandt’s initial offer of sixty guilders. I felt Rembrandt’s humiliation as if it was my own but I also marvelled at a legal system that made it possible for a woman like Geertje to get justice. Still, not everyone did. Petronella had not been so lucky.
As soon as we’d left the court building, he hailed a carriage. The cobbles were black, wet and shiny. The sky was covered in dense clouds, bathing the world in a muted twilight that barely reached inside the carriage. He was opposite me, his hat in his lap, his mood as heavy as the sky. I said into the gloom, ‘Are we going home?’
‘Yes,’ came the toneless reply.
Only more shadows would be waiting for us at the house.
‘Can we go somewhere else?’
He looked at me, his eyes two dark hollows. ‘For what purpose?’
‘To forget about what happened. It’s finished now.’
The sockets turned away from me and looked blindly out of the window.
‘We might have a walk in the forest. You know the one,’ I said. I could not believe I’d been bold enough to ask.
He replied, with strained forbearance, ‘Hendrikje, it’s not a day for outings, not the weather for it.’
‘We don’t need sun to get air.’
He continued to stare at his nothing world outside. He would not be moved.
The carriage continued its journey, bumping me along with it, the rhythmic clanking of the wheels as inevitable as the drab days that lay ahead. I had to do something to get his attention. I leaned across, and touched the thickest part of his sleeve. I felt that his eyes, though hidden, were on me now.
I told him, ‘You know, the forest will look quite different in this weather. It will be dark but cast in this eerie light.’
He laughed. ‘Dark but light?’ I took my hand away. ‘I am not three years old; next you’ll be telling me if I come with you to the forest, I’ll get a sweet.’
He told the driver to take us to the forest.
To the left of the track, fields stretched all the way to the horizon; on the right was the bristly woodland that I was so keen to enter again, today of all days.
‘Come,’ I said, ‘let’s hide the satchel in a bush. We’ll pick it up later.’
He threw it behind a shrub. I picked a path for us through the low-growing willow and hazel shrubs. Once we’d passed through this curtain, we stopped. This was an entirely different scene.
Trees stood like sentinels, dark, slick and unapproachable. If I touched them my hand would not find hold. There was a lifeless quality about the trunks, affirmed by the absence of birdsong. The ground was in its perpetual state of rot; the odour of decomposition climbed into my nostrils. What had possessed me to bring us here, as if a dark mood required an even darker setting?
He started walking, stomping his feet as he went, kicking at leaves and earth. I followed behind. As we penetrated deeper, less and less light reached us. I did not know where we were. There was no sight or sound of the stream. He picked up a rotten branch, thick as an arm, and smashed it against a tree; with a loud crack it splintered into fragments.
‘How dare she use me like this,’ he muttered, more to himself than to me. ‘Could they not see that she was out to bleed me dry?’
He pushed against an oak as if he wanted to shift it. Then he walked on, still treading the ground heavily. ‘You can’t get justice in Holland anymore.’
‘I suppose she’d see it differently,’ I said. He turned and glared at me but I had to say it. ‘Does she not deserve a decent living after everything that she’s done, after what both of you did?’
‘You’re still carping about that?’
First her, now I was the carp. His steps quickened away from me. I ran after him, barely able to keep up in my dress. Grabbing his sleeve I said, ‘Wait!’
He tore it away from me but stopped. As he stood in front of me I realized how tall he was. I avoided looking at his face and instead my eyes settled on his black hat and then on the black doublet. A fine satin thread ran through its fabric, glistening like a lure. I looked at his face. His stormy features were cast in the reflected light from his collar. That’s when it struck me. He was handsome. I’d never thought him so before. His arms hung loose, the sleeves unmoving for the air did not stir and neither did we. His breath came in short shallow bursts and his hand was at the top of his shirt, loosening a button and another on his doublet. He said, ‘We should not have come here, I need to get back to work.’
‘If you wish, Master,’ I said.
‘Don’t now call me Master after having been quite the mistress about how I should handle my business.’
‘I was not,’ I protested.
‘By God’s teeth, you told me what I should do.’ Then, aping me, ‘Give her what she wants and she’ll go away. I thought that you understood her, having worked with her and being a woman and all that. Turns out you did have a special understanding but it was all about what was good for her, not me.’ And then in a whining voice, ‘Sixty guilders is hardly a sum to survive on.’
He’d never mocked me before. Something in me felt loose, like it had slipped out of place. He walked off again, this time in the direction we’d come from. I staggered after him, feeling as I did as a child when Mother was angry with me. I reached for the bottom edge of his doublet and held on with both hands.
He stopped and turned to face me. I let go. His eyes focused on mine. There was nothing soft about them now. My father told me never to corner a bull in the edge of the pasture. He continued to glower at me. I swallowed.
‘By the heavens,’ he swore, then clenched his jaws tightly. His eyes darted about between me and the trees but I caught and held them – grey and archaic. His arms shot forward, grabbing me and pushing me backwards. He’d loosed off his bridle. I stumbled but felt no fear. He stopped, his fingers still pressing into my arms.
Then he pulled me towards him, his face only inches from mine. He forced out the words, ‘What do you want?’
In answer, I closed my eyes. Instantly his lips were on mine – salvation. My hand between our bodies, feeling his shirt and warm flesh beneath. Then I withdrew my hand, his chest now fully against mine. My body drawing him further in.
For a moment, the forest seemed to pause and he paused too, resting his cheek against mine and then, with his warm breath against my ear, he whispered, ‘Rika.’
His pausing did not still me. Leaves were falling all around. I kept my face by the nook of his neck, trying to calm my breath. I wanted more of him, but he continued to hold me in his quiet.
Breath after breath, I felt a surge of life within. My fingers pressed into his back. Oh to fall, and be borne away by the wind. I’m a natural whore, I thought, taking to lust like this.
He took my head between his hands and lifted it so I would look at him. And there was something in his gaze which I trusted beyond belief, beyond experience and even beyond my shame.
‘More,’ I said. ‘More,’ and closed my eyes agai
n. His lips became like butterflies’ wings, brushing my mouth, my cheeks and forehead. My body gave itself away and then I felt the touch of his leg edging between mine. I tried to pull him closer but he responded by touching the skin inside my collar like a reverent pilgrim – his breath quickening as he did. And then he leaned away to look at me again. And upon that touch of our eyes, I slipped my moorings. His mouth found mine. His leg now pressing full between my skirts and thighs. The earth had dropped away. I fell so fast no thought could follow.
When our mouths finally parted, my head dropped down against his chest and his chin touched my hair. I breathed out – still from the deep. And slowly, slowly the world returned, lighter on this, the dullest day, than I had ever known it.
The Return of the Prodigal Son
I was still fearless, the day after and even the next. I was not used to bliss. I neglected my duties and coaxed Titus into going to his friends after school. All so I could wander the fields, marvelling that there was not a blade of grass, a cow, a tree, a man or a drop of water that was separate from anything else.
When back inside the house, I was like an actor who had lost interest in the part she plays. I was in one of the storage vaults using a shovel to transfer uncooperative lumps of coal into a bucket. It was not the coal, of course, that was at fault but my indifference to the task. I wanted to think incessantly about what had happened, to make it last as long as I could. But after a day or two the memory of his touch had lost its potency and the dusty coals became real once again.
We were back to kindness and respect, back to ordinary life. But not quite, because he flinched every time there was a knock at the door. He was so distracted that I had to repeat things when I spoke to him.
Then one afternoon Jan Six came for a sitting and I remembered the lavish dinner we were meant to be having. Maybe he’d been too busy to pursue it.
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