Rembrandt's Mirror

by Devereux, Kim

  Then there were no more huts, or barges. He was separated from his fellow men. The frozen ground unyielding under foot. He relished it. An unambiguous world. Straight, clear lines.

  Marshes and ditches, no sign of any creature. He sighed, his chest relaxed. Alone now, he looked at the firmament. The vastness stripped away the very air around him, his skin and even his heart. Making him empty.

  He was glad to be empty. It was better that way. Better than joy. He could stay like this. Never go back.

  He sat down by a tree. Ice crystals were glittering on the grasses. He slung his arms around his knees and let himself grow cold. He’d stay and let the frost rise up from the ground and embrace him, until he too became part of its hardened shell.

  He leaned back against the tree. It too was in the rigor of winter but its roots were stubbornly dug into the ground, penetrating the earth, intent on staying alive. Something between his stomach and his heart contracted as if from a distant terror.

  The tree felt warm against his back. He touched the bark. His fingers noticed something frayed. A hole and in it, soft, rotting wood, a kind of wound. He turned to look. The hole was not frozen but soggy. As a boy he’d picked away at rotten wood like this until no more loose bits came away. He pulled on the bark and innards until a large piece of dead wood came loose. Something was moving in the hollow. A bed for grubs. They nestled there, deep within the tree. Even now they were trying to burrow deeper with their heads pushing down into the soft wood. He carefully pushed the piece back into place.

  His fingers were bestrewn with bits of wood and dark, rich compost, dead wood transformed into soil. It smelled of the possibility of life.

  The constriction in his chest returned. He leaned his head against the rotten piece of wood that covered the sleeping bugs, his ear against it, like a pillow. A spasm rose from below his heart and he felt tears filling his eyes. His body shook as his hand went to lie on the piece of wood that sheltered the life beneath. He did not realize he was crying. He could not comprehend the courage of the bugs to stay alive through such a winter. He wanted to stay out here by himself, never to return to the warm hearth.

  End of Winter

  In the morning I woke in his bed. Why had he not come back? It did not matter; I would see him now. I would go downstairs and he’d be in the kitchen and I could look at his face. Most people had to travel further for a blessing.

  I was still in my shift – the rest of my clothes were in the studio. I decided not to fetch them as nobody was in the house yet except him and Titus.

  There he was, eating porridge with his elbow propped on the table, as if he did not have the strength to lift his arm. He must have made it for himself. He looked up at me, dark shadows under his eyes, as if he had not slept at all. I had a wish to kiss his head. I approached the table very slowly, as if he was a bird that might take flight, and seated myself next to him. It seemed difficult to touch him, but I commanded my hand to lie on his. His fingers welcomed it with a soft squeeze. Then he let go of my hand and brushed across his face as if trying to wipe something away, before rubbing his eyes with both hands.

  ‘Looks like I’ve taken all the life out of you,’ I said.

  He laughed and said, ‘I’ve been out, walking.’

  ‘It was a night for it,’ I said. ‘The stars were very bright.’

  ‘You were awake?’

  ‘Only for a little while. Where is Titus?’

  ‘He wanted to see Ferdinand, so I took him over there. They’re happy to have him till early evening.’

  He looked so very tired. I suggested, ‘Why don’t you go up and sleep? Hopefully all will be quiet on a Sunday.’

  He nodded, ran his fingers briefly over my shoulder and left. Later I found his cloak thrown over a chair in the entrance hall. It was soaking wet. I was glad he was asleep now, in his bed.

  He came down at midday, a changed man, and informed me that we would go ice-skating. What a delight. We walked down to where the Ververs Gracht joins the Amstel and it seemed as if the whole town had taken to the ice. There were brightly coloured sleighs drawn by horses, scores of children of all ages and even old folk being pushed along in wooden chairs. We climbed down and put on our skates. After only a few strides my old confidence returned. He too took to the ice with ease. Soon we were skating side by side towards the Blue Bridge, beyond which the Amstel would take us past the city walls.

  There were fewer skaters now, allowing us to go faster. And soon our feet moved in a steady rhythm interrupted only by the occasional swerve to avoid children who liked to court collisions. We slowed down when we reached the bridge for fear that the river might not be frozen solid beneath it, but the ice looked firm enough and we skated on and out of the city. Out here there was even more of a festival atmosphere, with colourful stands selling hot drinks, wafers and a hog roast. On the other side, young men were skating very fast.

  ‘They look very serious in their efforts,’ I said.

  ‘They are probably practising for the race. You know the one, from Zaandam via Amsterdam and back. It’s over a hundred and thirty miles.’

  A little later I noticed people from our neighbourhood. There was Pinto, our neighbour. He’d draw his conclusions about me and Rembrandt. We continued along the banks of the Amstel at a more leisurely pace. The fields were under a blanket of snow with only the occasional windmill sticking out. He put his arm around my waist and I put mine around his, as other couples were doing. He did not seem to care about being seen like this. I took heart from that and we glided along, further and further away. I closed my eyes, trusting his guidance. The wind was cold on my cheeks but I could feel his warmth against my side. Then I opened my eyes again, looking straight up at the sky. My vision filled with blue, I could almost believe that we were flying.

  Eventually we stopped at a little hut on the bank which sold hot drinks. He purchased a large goblet of spiced wine for us to share. We sat down on some logs by a fire in the shelter of a large elm tree. I could smell the cinnamon in the wine. He cradled the goblet with his hands. Whirls of steam rose from the blood-red contents, fast and pretty, until they dissolved into nothing. I looked at him, thinking he too would be watching the eerie display but his eyes were focused on me through the curtain of steam. We leaned towards each other and kissed. Afterwards I put my hand on his knee and he offered me the wine, holding the goblet while I drank. His eyes looked bright under the open sky. The whirls were still thick and furious and I sliced through them with my finger creating a multitude of eddies. I cupped my hand over the mists to collect them, but they soon spilled out, rising a little further and then vanishing. I kissed him again, this time holding his face between my hands, drinking in his scent, wishing that the wine would never grow cold. This kiss was different – steamlike it swirled this way and that, finding every corner in me and when I thought it was fading, there came a new beginning.

  A couple with two children walked by. They looked at us from a distance as if we were a picture, and the woman said something to the man. Did we remind her of how she once had felt, maybe still felt?

  After they’d passed, I started to feel restless. ‘Let’s go on,’ I said.

  ‘Not yet. Let’s finish the wine.’

  ‘All right,’ I said grudgingly. Dusk was approaching fast.

  He held the goblet under his chin, still gazing through the vapours at the empty expanse of frozen river. Finally he put the goblet down, took off his glove and formed a tight little ball of snow. Then he turned to me and touched it to my forehead. It felt pleasantly cool on my hot skin and water droplets trickled down my face. He wiped my forehead dry with his woollen glove, and said, ‘Every year I cannot imagine that so much snow and ice can ever melt again.’

  ‘It always does.’

  ‘So it does,’ he said.

  He was looking at the ball of snow, holding it between his index finger and thumb as if evaluating a precious stone. Then he looked at me, with an expression I did not know how t
o read, took both my hands and pulled off my gloves. He placed the iceball between my palms, with his on the outside, pressing my hands together.

  I could feel the ice melting and his gaze was fixed on me, the way I’d seen him look at an object he was drawing. My hands, despite the warmth from his, were growing icy. I wanted to let go but he was playing some kind of game. Not quite a game, for it was serious to him. As if he wanted to see if I could melt the ice. So I kept the ice between my palms, ignoring the ache. ‘Kiss me,’ I said.

  He let go of my hands and kissed me, pulling me tightly into his chest. He’d forgotten all about making me melt the ice and so I dropped it down his collar, on his skin. He cried out and let me go. I collapsed laughing but quickly got to my feet when I saw him scooping up snow. I skated away like the fast skater I was, while he threw snowballs from the bank, but none of them reached me.

  At the start of the week the house filled once again with pupils invading our special world. Evening would come, they’d finally leave and our life together would be restored. In the meantime there was plenty to do.

  I moved the table and chairs away from the wall so I could scrub the floorboards. I was on my hands and knees and noticed a crack in the wall. I’d seen it before and thought nothing of it but it had grown both in length and width. Some of the plaster had come off; maybe some kind of shift had taken place in the wall. It was impossible to tell if it had been sudden or over many months.

  Daniel in the Lions’ Den

  After the evening meal, once Titus was in bed, we at last sat by the fire. He drew while I mended holes in some woollens, a task made more bearable by the scratching of his pen and my stolen glances at him.

  He was sitting in the broad wooden armchair, one leg over the other, a tablet with paper resting on his upper thigh. The hand that held the pen was broad with fleshy fingers and yet the lines that flew onto the page reminded me of the speed and accuracy with which swallows scooped flies out of the evening sky.

  I’d tell him about the crack in the wall later, after he’d finished the drawing. The girl I used to be would have been horrified to learn that while he drew I almost prayed that we would share a bed. I was possessed by a strange fear that the joy and love I’d felt would never be repeated. If he’d experienced the same as I why was he not compelled to embrace me as soon as Titus was asleep?

  His pen had stopped moving. He was contemplating his drawing.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ I ventured.

  ‘What it would be like to be thrown into a den of lions.’

  I leaned over to have a look. There was Daniel kneeling upright amidst four large lions with thick manes. I’d seen etchings on the table in the studio by other artists that he must have studied. And they’d all shown Daniel with his hands tightly clasped together in a prayer of despair. But this Daniel’s palms met most lightly in a gesture of communion with his Maker. His face was remarkably peaceful considering the predicament he was in. To his right was a triangular grouping of three of the four beasts, sniffing Daniel and baring their teeth. And yet on his lips was the kind of happy smile that reminded me of the Virgin Mary when she was holding the baby Jesus. The fourth lion, which stood taller than the kneeling Daniel, had come up from behind Daniel and was rubbing its enormous head against his arm, much as our neighbour’s cat greeted me in the morning.

  Daniel’s head and the lion’s were inclined towards one another as if they were the best of friends. Despite the teeth gnashing on the right, I felt that Daniel was perfectly safe.

  ‘How can he be there without being ripped apart and how can he be so unafraid?’

  Rembrandt scratched his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you have answered it in the drawing,’ I said. ‘Daniel is as trusting as a babe in his mother’s arms.’

  ‘You think that’s all it takes to avoid the blows of fate?’

  His response made me feel foolish, and yet the drawing was so convincing. How could he have drawn something that contained truth, without being able to see it himself?

  ‘I cheated,’ said Rembrandt, as if I’d asked the question out loud. ‘When I drew Daniel I imagined him in the presence of the Lord rather than with the lions.’

  ‘Maybe if faith is strong enough it does protect one from harm? God looks after the faithful.’

  Rembrandt laughed.

  ‘Unshakeable faith can make life seem like the Garden of Eden, even if you’re in the jaws of a lion? But the end result is still the same – death.’

  I thought of the Virgin Mary again; she’d been in the presence of the Lord but she had suffered gravely, losing her son. Could she still trust and love?

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘his face suggests he is not in the grip of fear, and that’s why the lions behave differently. So it has made a difference to him; he’s not been eaten.’

  ‘It’s just a drawing, Rika.’ He put his pen away and I knew he would now leave. I wanted to reach for his hand, but didn’t.

  He did not get up immediately, his eyes focused on something in the distance, maybe a shadow cast on the wall by the fire or something in his fancy. I tried to think what I could say to keep him with me.

  ‘I must go to bed,’ he said, stood up and walked out of the door.

  I wanted to go after him, wring an embrace from him, but Geertje’s example kept me rooted to the spot.

  I remained by the fire, watching the shadows flicker on the wall, imagining them as prowling lions or flying bats and me being as brave as Daniel. I remembered when I’d first come into the house and looked at his face and thought, perhaps I have faith and hope, and he has not. It was difficult to love without faith, let alone go into a den of lions.

  In the morning there was a knock on the door. It was our neighbour, Pinto. He looked agitated and asked to see Rembrandt. I showed him into the anteroom. Rembrandt was already coming down the stairs so I left them to it. When Pinto left he slammed the door, or perhaps it was just caught by the wind.

  After dinner we sat by the fire again. He said, ‘Rika, when did you last visit your family in Bredevoort?’

  ‘I haven’t yet,’ I said.

  ‘Not since you left?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I was thinking you might miss your parents,’ he said, ‘if you haven’t seen them for so many months, and no doubt they miss you.’

  ‘Parent,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ He looked at me. I wanted him to stop pursuing this fruitless topic so I poked the fire and put on more peat, making as much noise as I could rummaging with the iron.

  ‘Was it your mother or father who died?’

  I sat back down, pulling my chair away from him and closer to the fire so I could carry on with breaking up the lumps of peat. ‘What does it matter?’ I said.

  ‘It matters,’ he replied.

  ‘To whom?’ I said.

  ‘To you,’ he said, ‘otherwise you would have told me by now.’

  I was murdering the fire with my poking.

  ‘My father,’ I said.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Rika,’ he said again.

  ‘It happens,’ I replied. ‘One ought not to be surprised at death. I’ve seen many a bride in Bredevoort getting married in black so she could use the dress again at the funerals to come. So why should I feel hard done by?’

  Then I remembered that he’d not only buried both his parents but three babies and a wife.

  He said softly, ‘Because when you love someone you don’t expect to lose them, even if you keep a black dress in the cupboard.’

  I put down the poker and sat back in my chair again, smoothing out my skirt. His face was turned towards me but I didn’t dare look at him for fear he might notice my mood.

  ‘Rika, will you write to your family? It would be nice to visit them with you.’

  His words shot hot through my insides, but I nodded calmly. There was but one reason for a man to ask about a girl’s family and want to visit them. It all made sense, the skating toge
ther, the proposed visit. He would never have done anything like this with Geertje. Maybe I’d been wrong about him being hesitant. Maybe he wanted to observe propriety, but wasn’t it a bit late for that? And then there were the things he had done for Geertje and not for me: the jewels, the ring. I agreed to write to my mother nonetheless.

  A few days later, Christoffel Thijs burst into the kitchen with Rembrandt following close behind. Thijs was so tall that he had to duck his head under the doorway. His trousers and doublet were of the deepest black, with not so much as a grain of dust on them. His pink face floated above an old-fashioned millstone ruff – like a hog’s head on a platter. His features were contorted into an angry grimace, possibly because Rembrandt had grabbed hold of the sleeve of his jacket to prevent him from walking further into the kitchen. But Thijs easily managed to pull Rembrandt along behind him.

  ‘If you expect me to pay for it, I have to see the damage to the wall.’

  At this Rembrandt let go and Thijs straightened out his jacket, which had come halfway down his shoulder, and saw the marks of lead white Rembrandt had left on his fine black sleeve. His face was a picture of perfect dismay. Rembrandt did little to conceal his glee and declared, ‘This is my house, now leave!’

  Thijs made a few strides towards him, towering over him, a good head and a half taller. ‘Why don’t you pay for its maintenance, then, and while we’re at it, why don’t you pay for the house in the first place. It’s been fourteen years since you “bought” it. I’ve been more than patient, but to have old Pinto come knocking on my door for the cost of underpinning your house, that, van Rijn, is you mistaking me for one of your sycophantic customers. And you know what, Pinto is even within his rights to hold me responsible as the owner of the house because you’ve paid for less than half of it in all these years.’

  Rembrandt did not back away. What if they came to blows? I stood as far out of the way as possible but I would not leave them alone. Rembrandt barked, ‘The purchase agreement allowed for instalments.’