Blood Water Paint

by Joy McCullough

  Before I can paint Susanna,

  dual-point perspective’s next.

  My father’s principal concern

  for my next lesson, though,

  is that I convince Tino

  to bring him in

  on the commission

  at the palace.

  Yet again

  my work, my growth

  is secondary to

  my father’s need.

  23.

  I do not paint in words.

  Flattery, persuasion

  are not colors on my palette.

  Still it’s not preposterous,

  what I must ask.

  There’s no way

  he can do it all himself—

  assistants are expected.

  Yet Tino laughs as though

  I’m joking until he sees my face.

  Haven’t we agreed on the quality

  of Orazio’s work?

  He waves at a nearby canvas,

  the answer implied

  in Father’s uninspired strokes,

  no different from the rest.

  But Father will not continue

  my lessons with Signor Tassi

  if there is no hope

  for his own advancement.

  I’ve got a secret for you.

  I’m not sure

  what makes me say it

  but Tino whirls around,

  eyes dancing.

  Is that so?

  I take a step back,

  but the words have flown.

  Papa’s name would

  be on the contract.

  I look him in the eye;

  I must be clear.

  But I would do the work.

  The silence stretches

  out between us.

  Tino’s mind connects

  the pieces. It’s not news,

  surely—

  what’s new is

  I’ve given it voice.

  Well.

  That sheds

  an entirely

  different light

  on the matter.

  24.

  New light

  floods

  the shadowy

  attic of my mind.

  Those ideas

  shoved in storage

  while I do my father’s bidding

  are dragged out,

  considered

  with budding hope

  that I might have

  not only the skill

  but also an eager audience

  if I should take the leap.

  I will show him

  what a daughter can do.

  In my mind,

  the woman in the bath

  is no exalted doll.

  She is all light and terror,

  the Susanna I finally summon

  from stories,

  from first fire,

  and finally,

  from paint mixed with

  my own sweat.

  In my mind,

  so close to the canvas,

  she’s not weighed down

  by any artist’s shortcomings.

  My actual labor of the day

  is trying to breathe life

  into my father’s version.

  He’s seen my sketches

  all around and now

  he’s suddenly inspired

  to tell her tale.

  It doesn’t matter.

  He never listened

  to my mother’s stories, never bothered

  to notice the fear of women.

  He’ll tell Susanna

  just like all the others.

  I can cover the flaws

  in his talent,

  but can do nothing

  for the flaws

  in his perception.

  He shares prestigious company.

  The way the masters paint her,

  the men are monstrous,

  creeping, loathsome beasts,

  obvious villains.

  Yet Susanna wears

  a smile that says

  she welcomes their attentions.

  My mother knew

  this wasn’t right.

  She knew the men

  who paint Susanna

  could not comprehend

  a woman’s feelings in that moment.

  She knew I’d need Susanna

  when I found myself

  a woman in a world of men.

  Girl as prey.

  25.

  Now that Tino’s

  given me the tools I need,

  I’ll paint my own Susanna.

  I’ll show these men

  what I am made of, what

  they’ve been missing.

  As a child, I didn’t understand

  perspective.

  But now I know that lines

  do not exist in nature.

  The line is only perceived,

  a trick of the eye.

  A line is nothing more

  than the place where two areas

  of color come together.

  They crash into each other.

  Those places where lines are perceived,

  those are the areas of tension

  and excitement. Two things colliding

  are always the most interesting

  things to watch.

  Watched

  Once upon a time, Susanna sank beneath the water, then rose renewed, prepared to play her role another day.

  Not this time. This time Susanna pauses under the surface with the sudden knowledge eyes are watching. And not fretting maidservants. This is different.

  (You’ve brushed up against this feeling, love. And as you grow you’ll come to know it like the curve of your own breast. I wish it weren’t so. I cannot change it; I can only arm you with knowledge.)

  Susanna knows immediately she is being watched by eyes that have no place in her private garden. Her husband has not returned home from his travels. A gardener has not mistaken his schedule and stumbled through the gate.

  She knows before she sees them who they are.

  Not by name, of course. She is no prophetess, no Delphic sybil. She could never guess that two trusted elders of her community lurk behind the wall meant to keep her safe. Though she is young, Susanna is a married woman, pure and virtuous. There is no reason she should expect a man who is not her husband.

  And yet she does. (Trust your instincts.)

  She feels the weight of their gaze, the expectation, and in a split second she must decide: remain concealed beneath the water, knowing they’ll still have access to her blurred form, or lunge for the robe hanging just out of reach, exposing herself as she opts for modesty.

  (What would you do, love?)

  Susanna lunges, feeling the oppression of their gaze on every inch of her skin. They do not move—their mere presence is threat enough. Instead, they watch, amused, as the creature they believe to be helpless struggles to tug linen over wet skin.

  I don’t want to spoil the story, darling girl. But I must say this: Susanna is not helpless. What’s more, she is nobody’s creature.

  When still they say nothing, Susanna speaks. Susanna, who has been taught over and over again that a woman must not speak unless spoken to, especially not to men of this stature.

  “My husband is not at home,” she says. Perhaps a foolish beginning, but who can blame her in a moment such as that? With time to formulate a careful statement, she might have said, “If you’ve come to see my husband, as you surely must have, since you can have no possible business with me, he is
traveling. I’ll let him know you stopped by.”

  But that is not what she said. She only confirmed what the men already knew. Her husband is not at home.

  The taller one smiles. He is a widower Rebecca has her sights on, and Susanna wonders for a fleeting moment whether this will change her sister’s designs at all.

  Susanna risks a glance toward the windows. For Rebecca, for anyone. The windows didn’t seem far away when she wanted to be left alone, but now the distance is endless. Are her ladies watching? They’re always watching. Why don’t they come out? Of all the times to respect Susanna’s wishes.

  Still the men say nothing. Susanna does not know what she would have them say, but their silence unnerves her even further.

  “Is there something I can do for you, elders?”

  She is only playing a role: hospitable woman. But when they finally speak, it is clear they have something very different in mind.

  “Yes.”

  This man is like Joaquim’s brother. He gave a toast at Susanna’s wedding. They have shared meals, grieved loved ones.

  He has a wife.

  “You are expecting a child any day, aren’t you, sir?” Susanna stutters, willing the robe to cover more of her skin. “Is Moriah feeling well?”

  His clipped reply: “My wife is not your concern.”

  Again, Susanna has misspoken. But one is never taught how to carry on a conversation while two men stare at the wet robe plastering one’s naked breasts. Whatever this is, it has to end.

  “I will tell my husband you came by—”

  “I don’t think you will.”

  Susanna crosses her arms across her softest parts, more to contain her wildly racing pulse than to shield her form. Her body, they have seen. They may not have her heart.

  The widower speaks again. “Take off your robe.” It comes out almost like a gentle suggestion. It’s not.

  His mother died last spring.

  He watches, careless, but something tells Susanna if she should not comply, he would be the one to rip her robe to shreds.

  She opens her mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.

  “They say you are a woman of great virtue. Such a woman would not refuse the orders of two respected elders.”

  Perhaps no sound comes out because there’s no one to hear. Joaquim is many days away. Susanna knows her maidservants feel no real loyalty. If they should hear her cry, see her compromised position, there’s every chance they’d spread the word throughout the village how the virtuous Susanna spends her time when Joaquim is away.

  Such accusations would mean death.

  A stone wall separates Susanna from the intruders, but they could leap it in a second. Would they pursue her if she ran for the house? What then?

  Perhaps it’s not so much, what they ask. Only a glimpse, a second, a slice of skin. It would be over quickly. No one would have to know.

  “The way your husband tells it, you are nothing if not subservient.”

  Susanna’s stomach roils. Is it possible Joaquim discussed her in this way? Is that how all men talk?

  But no. She knows her husband. She knows that just because many men use women like chattel, it does not mean her heart should grow hard.

  She is resolved then. She will not do what they’re asking. There will be consequences, she knows. But there would be consequences to compliance, too. And anyhow, who is to say they would stop once they’d had their glimpse?

  “You are not my husband.”

  This time, Susanna has said exactly what she meant to say. But there are consequences.

  The two men are over the wall in the time it takes the sun to slip behind the clouds.

  “Today I am your husband. Today I tell you to lower your robe, and if you deny me, the world will hear how the faithless wife of Joaquim cavorted in her garden with a man who was not her husband.”

  Susanna stands frozen. If she moves a hair to either side, she’ll press up against one or the other.

  “Would you really rather risk being stoned than lower your robe?” the other man says.

  Susanna could lower her robe to these monsters who believe they can take whatever they want simply because they have the power. (I know I said they weren’t monsters. They are. You just can’t tell at a glance. You never can.) But if she does what they ask, she will be dead tomorrow either way.

  “Get out of my garden.”

  The shorter man, whose wife may be laboring to birth a child this very moment, lunges forward, clutches at Susanna’s robe, and pulls.

  There’s more than one kind of strength. You know this already, love. If Susanna had to rely on her body, she would lose this battle. But Susanna pulls back with the strength of her heart, her mind, her force of will.

  “Leave her,” says the widower. “There will be more satisfaction in watching her die.”

  26.

  My favorite palette knife

  is gone.

  It should be here,

  on the far right edge

  of the table where I keep

  my brushes,

  my paints.

  That’s where I left it.

  And yet, somehow,

  it’s nowhere to be found.

  I suppose it isn’t fair

  to fault my father,

  though he’s the one

  who used it, moved it,

  claimed it as his own

  because of course he did.

  That’s just the way of things.

  I beg and fight and scrape

  for scraps while he just has to glance

  upon a thing to make it

  his.

  27.

  Father’s gaze

  lays claim

  to palette knife and easel,

  stretcher bars, apprentice.

  They all belong to him.

  And now as his eyes

  burn into the back

  of my head,

  he expects me to jump,

  do his bidding

  without a word from him.

  We both know

  what he wants.

  But I can play

  his power games.

  I sit and paint in shadows

  while he waits.

  Finally,

  Your place, Artemisia!

  I stand,

  cross the room

  to the wrong side of the easel,

  and meet his gaze

  as I reach for the laces

  of my bodice.

  He shakes his head,

  disgusted.

  It’s a Judith.

  A new commission.

  I only need a bit of leg.

  28.

  He calls me an advantage,

  a thing the other painters

  do not

  possess.

  That’s true—

  but I am not a thing.

  Or a possession.

  I hold this knowledge

  in my heart

  as I lift my skirt,

  try to feel relief.

  No nubile nude is Judith—

  more a warrior

  in my mother’s telling.

  (No one’s asked me to paint a Judith.

  But Judith wouldn’t wait

  to be asked. My mind sparks

  with possibility.)

  My father’s version

  of this Hebrew widow warrior

  will be more kitten than lioness.

  She’ll have her skirts hiked up

  as she takes (dainty) action.

  It’s just my calf.

  He sees it every day

  when I’m at work.

  The difference is that now
/>
  he stares

  analyzes

  uses my body.

  He does not like

  for me to speak

  when he is working

  but:

  Signor Tassi said

  he will consider us

  for the Quirinal.

  Father’s head jerks up.

  I lose my grip;

  my skirts slide down.

  Us?

  I told him I help out . . .

  I’m sure you did.

  It seems I need you

  to disrobe completely.

  Take Action

  Listen, love.

  There’s a story I’ve been waiting to tell you, because I haven’t wanted you to bear its weight just yet. There are many things I hope you’ll never have to bear. But I know otherwise.

  And this baby will not wait. If this birth should be my last . . .

  So hush and listen. This is the story of Judith, who paces, half-dressed, consumed with outrage. You’ll feel this outrage too one day. Perhaps you already have. It won’t be for the same reasons. But you will rage, and be told you are too small, too weak, too feebleminded to be of use. You are not. Judith is not.

  Her servant, always useful, sits and mends a tear in her lady’s shawl. Judith pretends not to hear the servant’s muttering about how a young woman of Judith’s station oughtn’t rip her things like a child at play.

  But childhood’s murky when a girl is married off upon arrival of first blood. It’s only when her lady rails like this, impassioned by injustice, not yet hardened to the world, that the servant is reminded how few years Judith has trod upon the earth.

  “A few men speak for all, sentencing an entire village to death! I only know because I overheard. Everyone else, though? They sleep on, confident their leaders will protect them!”

  And how else would Judith learn important news, unless she overhears? For this young woman drifts within a netherworld, without a man to anchor her. She ought to have returned to her family of origin upon the death of her husband and taken shelter under cover of her father’s wing.

  But even if the Assyrian army were not blocking all roads to Bethulia and out, Judith would be loath to throw herself upon the mercy of the father she challenged by marrying for love.

  What’s more, that love will bind her here to where she built a home with Malachi (or started to). She’ll only leave if dragged away, and even then, she would not go quietly.

  When Malachi left to investigate how close the Assyrians had come to Bethulia, Judith had no doubt Malachi would return.