Blood Water Paint
Page 14
like that child’s accident
dribbling off the canvas.
My father surges forward,
wraps his arms around me,
pulls my face into his chest.
This is not me.
This is not him.
We are some other
family portrait now,
playing a charade of love, support.
If this were real,
if he had ever cared to shield me
now there’d be no need for tears.
What’s more, the panic
surges anew
against the arms restraining me.
I break free.
After five years, he’ll be forgotten.
It’s impossible to climb back
onto the kind of path he was on.
His career is ruined, I assure you.
As though I care.
He would never have
made it to the top.
You were a fool to believe in him.
My father ducks his head
and says a thing I’ve never
heard him say before:
I’m sorry.
He’s sorry.
For what?
It’s not enough.
The righteous indignation rises,
the need to skewer him with blame.
You’re sorry you can’t
use him anymore,
give him access to me
in return for—
Artemisia.
He says it again:
I’m sorry.
And then:
I wish I were a stronger man.
I wish he were too.
95.
The labyrinthine
streets and alleys
of our neighborhood
reflect a perfect map of my life.
Twisting, turning
without reason,
steep, unclimbable stairs to nowhere
that might crumble to dust
upon the slightest
shift
of earth.
Roads I’m not meant
to walk alone
and yet I do.
What does it matter now
if I’m a proper lady,
accompanied, respected?
I dart through narrow alleys,
dodge the contents of a chamber pot
that’s overturned above my head,
the woman in a third-floor window
too harried to notice an errant girl below
or else she recognizes me and sends a message
of my worth.
I chase the swallows
through the streets.
They tangle in laundry
strung between windows;
I tangle in the shredded remnants
of my life. My feet carry me
to the Ponte Sisto,
as though by crossing a bridge
I might escape this life entirely.
But it only leads to another part
of Rome, more twisting, convoluted
paths and alleys,
more of the same
aimless purgatory.
I lean over the bridge’s stone balustrade,
stare into the Tiber’s waters below.
I watch a piece of trash
—a love letter or
bit of wrapping
from fish in the market,
it doesn’t even matter which—
drift through the water,
grow waterlogged,
then
sink
beneath the surface.
But you are not
so shortsighted.
Judith’s fingers
brush my right hand
as she joins me
on the bridge
to nowhere.
In drowning this horror,
you would also drown your promise.
What promise?
There’s nothing left for me.
On my left, Susanna’s hair
whips in the breeze.
There will come a day,
when this horror is not the
only color on your palette.
But that day’s not now.
And even if this horror
becomes an accent color—
a smudge of lead white
to highlight a cheekbone,
a bit of yellow ochre
the glint on a sword—
sometimes those are the pigments
that change one’s perception
of an entire work of art.
I do not plan to drown.
I do, however, wish
the river would carry me away.
Instead the stagnant Tiber’s stench
assaults me with the truth:
There is nowhere to go.
96.
I spend my days sprawled
on the floor, one
with the dust.
I shall live in my father’s house forever,
my dreams of painting thwarted,
feeling sorry for myself.
I ignore the toe
that prods my side.
It’s not my father.
(He’s given up.)
What progress can you make
from that position?
I’m visualizing painting.
It’s the first step.
You don’t know.
Judith sighs.
I do not know painting.
I do know something of pain.
I roll my eyes.
We’ve trod this road before.
Even Judith must have had her moments
when she realized life
would never be the same.
But I have no energy to argue.
My father enters, whisper soft.
He’s learned to quiet his approach
and treats me like a woodland creature.
He makes no comment
on the state of the studio
or my current position.
He simply sits on the ground
at my side.
We need to discuss your hand.
I hold both hands up,
demonstrate their flexibility.
They’re nearly healed.
I meant your marriage prospects.
This is new.
I have no marriage prospects.
That isn’t so.
The family’s honor was restored.
You can marry.
No one will have me.
It’s cruel even to suggest.
Not here, in Rome.
But you’ll be safer in Florence.
You’ll marry Pierantonio Stiattesi.
I sit up with a jolt,
ignore the rush of blood to my brain.
Stiattesi?
Giovanni arranged it.
Giovanni Stiattesi,
named in the trial
as one of my paramours.
Agostino’s friend
who stood and spoke
instead in my defense.
Whose testimony held
more weight than my own,
not because he bore witness
the day Tino held me down
and made me bleed
but because he is a man.
As decent as Giovanni is,
I’ve no way to know
who his relation may be.
You expect me to go through
with a
marriage of your arrangement?
You, who kept me locked
in the studio to be assaulted
by your friend?
My father lets out a huff of frustration,
with me or with himself, I cannot tell.
Giovan’s brother is a painter,
He can’t afford a proper wife,
but he’ll take you.
I cannot help but laugh.
It comes out as a strangled bark.
A penniless hack!
How generous of you.
You’ll get out of this city,
away from the scandal.
His family is a direct ticket
into Florentine society.
Honestly, Artemisia,
it’s more than I could have done here.
You’ll have an audience for your art.
You’ll have your own studio.
It is ultimately your choice,
but as I see it,
you have no other.
97.
I take a length of cloth
and hold it to my head—
a wedding veil.
I do not regret the days of make-believe,
but for every time I played at bride
I should have played at goddess
river
warrior queen.
Those childhood stories
ending in a grand wedding
are incomplete, their heroines left
to tangle in their veils forever.
Judith pulls the cloth from my hand
and spreads it on the ground.
Not a bridal veil. A canvas.
Susanna smooths
the wrinkles in the cloth.
And not a shield. A weapon.
They tell me I know
about perspective now.
Too well.
They say I’m standing
at the start of a long road,
looking out into the distance.
What do I see?
I can’t know.
You’ll paint a masterpiece.
Judith gathers paints,
pulls me to my knees.
On the floor?
You must have done this
when you were a child.
Father would have killed me.
Your father doesn’t say
how you paint now.
My hands are still broken.
All of you is broken.
We understand.
Judith takes one of my hands,
Susanna takes the other.
They plunge my fingers into paint,
smear them across
the outstretched cloth.
This is madness.
And yet the paint flowing
straight from skin to canvas
feels more precisely right
than anything I’ve ever done before.
One day, this will all
recede into the background,
underpainting
giving texture to
the master’s strokes,
and I, the master.
98.
When I am clean,
just after a scrubbing,
a part of myself is missing,
like a severed limb,
a skeleton with no muscles,
a corpse.
I am not myself unless
some part of my body
is covered in paint.
The more paint, the more cover,
the more I am Artemisia.
The paint is not a shield
or armor
but another skin.
And even if it’s scrubbed away,
there’s paint inside,
pounding through my veins.
Perhaps I don’t have blood at all.
Not really.
Only paint.
Perfectly pure
ruby red paint
flowing straight
to my heart:
my canvas.
99.
I will show you
what a woman can do.
100.
Everything begins from here:
the viewing point,
the place where you stand,
your eye level.
That single point on the horizon
where all other lines
converge.
Right hand of Artemisia Gentileschi holding a brush by Pierre Dumonstier, dated December 31, 1625. The inscription on the top translates as follows: “Made in Rome by Pierre Dumonstier, Parisian, the last day of December, 1625, after the worthy hand of the excellent and skillful Artemisia, gentlewoman of Rome.” The back of the drawing is also inscribed: “The hands of Aurora are praised and renowned for their rare beauty. But this one is a thousand times more worthy for knowing how to make marvels that send the most judicious eyes into raptures.”
Afterword
Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome on July 8, 1593, and died somewhere between 1654 and 1656. More than fifty of her paintings and the three-hundred-page transcript of the 1611 trial depicted in this novel survive to this day. You can read the transcript in Mary D. Garrard’s excellent book, Artemisia Gentileschi (Princeton University Press), to which I owe an enormous debt.
Artemisia had one daughter, whom she named Prudentia, after her mother. She trained her daughter to paint.
Acknowledgments
I wrote many books and endured rather stunning numbers of rejections on my road to publication. I truly feel those years of heartache and trunked manuscripts were entirely worth it, if they meant I would one day get to entrust my work to Andrew Karre. I am deeply in awe of his intellect, his relentless dedication to fearless storytelling, and the thoughtful care with which he has shepherded my heart book to publication.
My agent, Jim McCarthy, is the kindest, most insightful, and most truly hilarious person I could ever have dreamed up to guide me on this publishing journey. I wouldn’t have adapted Blood Water Paint into a novel without his encouragement to do so, and I am forever indebted to him for finding it a perfect home at Dutton.
Thank you to the wonderful team at Dutton Books for Young Readers for their skill, passion, and dedication in bringing this book to publication. It takes a lot of people to make some words in a file into a book you can hold in your hands. Thank you, Julie Strauss-Gabel, Melissa Faulner, Natalie Vielkind, Anna Booth, Theresa Evangelista, Rosanne Lauer, Amy Schneider, Janet Rosenberg, and Katie Quinn.
I do not know how Artemisia survived the artist’s road without the support of other female artists. I have been unbelievably blessed to be bolstered along my journey by amazing friends and critique partners. Jessica Lawson was the first, and she has been there ever since with hilarious email titles, enthusiastic cheerleading, and the deepest kind of friendship. I am also indebted to the following women, for their friendship and their wise input on Blood Water Paint: Amy Elizabeth Bishop, Sharon Roat, Laura Shovan, Amanda Rawson Hill, Ellie Terry, Kip Campbell, Mel Stephenson, and Alexandra Alessandri.
I am also beholden for the love and support of my writing friends who lift me up, commiserate, and let me vent. Much love to Rachel Lynn Solomon, Tara Dairman, Ann Bedichek Braden, and Brent Taylor. Also buckets of gratitude to Brenda Drake and the entire Pitchwars family.
Blood Water Paint is the tenth novel I wrote. I cannot possibly list all the people who have given me feedback and support since the beginning. But if you ever read one of my manuscripts or query letters, or gave me a pep talk, or celebrated a milestone with me, you contributed to my growth as a writer. I am head over heels in love with my writing community, which has included Absolute Write, Pitchwars, P
roject Mayhem, the Electric Eighteens, the Class of 2K18, and kidlit Twitter.
Blood Water Paint began as a play. It had an extremely long development process, which culminated in its world premiere production at Live Girls Theater in 2015. I am forever indebted to my theatrical soul mate, director Amy Poisson, and the utterly fearless artistic director of Live Girls, Meghan Arnette, for their belief in Artemisia’s story. Thank you also to the sublime cast and stellar designers, whose work I went back to many times in my mind as I worked on the book.
My family has supported my creativity from the time I was a child. Thank you to my father, who took me to the bookstore (and ice-cream shop) every Saturday morning. Thank you, Mom and Dana, for always being there for absolutely everything. Thank you to my sister Jennifer. I love you more than I can say.
And finally, I will never have sufficient words to thank my husband, Mariño, and my children, Cordelia and Joaquín, who accept the fact that I rarely get out of pajamas, the house is never clean, and every single time I put water on to boil, I forget it’s on the stove. You are my everything. And without you, the house would burn down.
Resources
You may recognize yourself in parts of Artemisia’s story in much the same way Artemisia recognized herself in Susanna’s and Judith’s stories. Sometimes it feels like little has changed. But there are resources available to today’s survivors of sexual violence.
I believe, like Artemisia’s mother, in telling stories. Whatever your story, I hope you tell it to someone when you’re ready. There’s power in the telling.
Among the organizations dedicated to helping survivors of sexual violence are the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (www.nsvrc.org) and Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, better know as RAINN (www.rainn.org). If you would like to speak confidentially with someone trained to hear your story, you can call 800-656-HOPE (4673).
You are not alone.
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