Not everyone agreed about the face in the mirror. The model was Italian, argued the defenders of Doña Antonia, Haro’s bride. The painting had to have been done in Italy because no Spanish woman would do something so disgusting, so depraved, so decadent as pose like that for an artist. Especially not a lady of the duchess’s standing. The very idea, harrumphed the bad-tempered old ladies with their high black collars and their modest white coifs. The Spanish inquisitors, unlike their Italian counterparts, enforced the rules, they said. Our fine inquisitors would have seized the work and jailed not only the artist but also his model. Would a duke’s daughter risk such a thing?
If the painter was Diego de Velázquez, darling of His Majesty Felipe IV, and the model the powerful Duchess de la Cerda, countered the gossips, anything was possible. Besides, they argued, the painting couldn’t have been done abroad because Haro’s inventory was completed early in June, 1651. Velázquez didn’t return to Spain from Italy until the end of June.
He could have shipped it, countered the other side.
The anti-Antonia contingent insisted that the painting was done in Spain and that the Duchess was the model, while the pro-Antonia forces argued that it had to have been done in Rome. Where tittle-tattle is concerned, who cares about facts? Positions hardened, arguments grew virulent, and the scandal intensified until all Madrid was buzzing. I listened to the gossip in the mentideros and never said a word. One compromising remark and I’d have the Inquisition on my tail. I had to be very, very careful.
Doña Juana kept her distance from Court as much as she could, and Arabela wasn’t surprised. Whether the face in the mirror belonged to Doña Antonia or to some Italian hussy, the señora was being made to look like a fool. And then there was the news about the Maestro’s love child! No wonder the señora had gone into near-seclusion.
The once-lowly painter now had everything he’d ever dreamed of: a shockingly large salary plus income from the estate of Pacheco; a position at Court so secure he could give the fig to the censors; and now, a son of his own. But what of Doña Juana? Arabela shook her head and grimaced. The girl she had nursed and raised was now a woman of over fifty. As the wife of the aposentador mayor, she should have been basking in glory. But instead, she was hanging her head in shame. Velázquez had embarrassed the entire household. Even Julia seemed agitated of late. Usually, she jumped at any opportunity to accompany the señora to El Buen Retiro, but now she hung behind, spinning and sewing. She seemed to take no joy at all in the new gowns Doña Juana gave her.
“Corruption, corruption, decadence and corruption,” muttered Arabela under her breath. “He thinks that just because those lecherous sons of bitches smile at him, they’ve accepted him. Doesn’t he know they’re snickering behind his back?”
Arabela was an old woman. She had aged dramatically in the years since Carlos had left. Her hair was ashen and limp, and when she tried to embroider, her hands trembled like sparrows in the snow. She no longer attended to Paquita’s children—there were six of them now, and even the youngest was pretty well grown—but she did her best to remain useful. Juana urged her to sit by the fire and rest, but Arabela still puttered around the estrado, barking orders at younger maids and finding fault with their dusting. Nevertheless, it was hard for her to putter—hard for her to do much at all—when her darling Juanita seemed so wilted and morose. She dragged herself around like an adulteress about to be stoned.
At that moment Juana was running her fingers over a plush velvet bodice. The luxuriousness of the fabric took her breath away. She was careful to stroke with the grain so as not to leave any signs of her touch. In contrast with the supple cloth, the silver trim was stiff and scratchy. It would, she thought, make the dress heavy and uncomfortable to wear.
“It seems excessive,” she muttered, “when so many are wanting for food.”
“Señora, you have to dress the part,” said Arabela firmly. “You’re the wife of a high-ranking Court official, and you must look stylish.”
“I don’t want to look stylish. I don’t even want to go.”
“I don’t either,” echoed Julia. “There are too many parties! Too much hubbub!”
Arabela sighed. Julia had never married, but instead had spent her entire life by Juana’s side. And she adored the pomp and glitter of the Court. “I’d rather be a servant to a lady than a slave to some garlic-breathed lout,” she said. That’s why to Arabela, Julia’s sudden balkiness sounded suspicious.
“The queen is having a birthday party, and the señora has to go,” snapped Arabela. “I’m too old, and she needs an attendant. That’s you, Julia—who else would it be? What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” moaned Julia. “I don’t know. I just feel like everyone will …”
“Will be staring at the señora?” whispered Arabela.
Julia directed her gaze to the floor tiles. Outside, a lattice of ice formed on the window.
“Well?” hissed Arabela, too low for Juana to hear. “Is that it?”
Julia looked at the pane as though she wished she could fly through it, like the nun María de Ágreda.
“I want to stay home,” Juana said meekly. But she knew that Arabela was right about the party. She not only had to go, she also had to fit in. She could hardly show up in burlap.
“Doña Juana, it’s a great honor to be invited to the birthday celebration of Her Majesty, Queen Mariana,” said Arabela with feigned patience. “Isn’t it, Julia?”
“Sí, señora,” said Julia dutifully. “A great honor.”
Of course, Juana recognized that the queen was the queen, and that it was a privilege merely to breathe the same air as she. She was a divine creature, after all—chosen by God to produce an heir to the kingdom. She had already given birth to a baby—a girl, to everyone’s disappointment, but a boy would surely follow.
The king’s new wife was a child, really, only sixteen years old. She’d been destined to marry Baltasar Carlos, her first cousin, but when he died and Don Felipe suddenly found himself with no consort and no male heir, he decided to marry her himself. He was used to young flesh, snickered the gossips. His defenders countered that he was simply meeting his responsibility: the kingdom needed a new prince. Between Velázquez’s painting and the king’s new bride, the Court, the taverns, and the mentideros hummed like beehives.
“Get dressed, señora,” said Arabela with the authority of a mother.
Julia held up the stiff wide farthingale for Juana to step into. Juana stood in the middle of the room and went through the motions. One foot and then the other. One clasp and then another. Her limbs moved as though controlled by some unseen puppet master.
“Now the basquiña,” said Arabela, “and now the saya. The hairdresser will be in soon. You shouldn’t put on the lace collar until after you’ve had your hair done.”
“I’m tired,” moaned Juana, ignoring the billowy, white pleated collar in Julia’s hand. “I want to rest a while.”
“Sit then,” commanded Arabela. “You can’t lie down in those clothes.”
After the hairdresser had come and gone, Julia attended to the makeup: first, the chalk-like solimán for the face to achieve the pallid tone so fashionable at Court, and then the bright red paste for the cheeks and mouth.
“I look like a doll,” complained Juana.
“Wonderful,” exclaimed Arabela. “That’s exactly the style. And now, the jewels.”
“I hate this.”
“We all have to play our role,” chided Arabela. “If you think people are gossiping now, wait and see how they twitter if you don’t show up.” Arabela knew that she was being cheeky, but she also knew that public shame was the very worst thing that could befall a person. She was certain that Juana was too cowardly to take the coward’s way out. She would face the embarrassment of going to Court in order to avoid the greater embarrassment of staying home. “Go on, Doña Juana,” advised Arabela. “Go and hold your head high.”
That evening, an hour before m
idnight, Juana and Julia were climbing into the coach to El Buen Retiro, where they would meet Don Diego. He had an elegant suite in the palace, where his servants had dressed him for the festivities. The household had barely seen him in weeks, as he spent most of his time at the palace or else traveling with the king, but Arabela was confident that tonight, he would defy scrutiny by playing the attentive, decorous escort.
A week had come and gone since the party, and people were still talking about the face in the mirror. Some serving girls had brazenly come right out and asked Julia if she knew the identity of the mysterious model, and the maid had threatened to claw out their eyes. “Why should they think that I would know anything about it!” she pouted. Doña Juana, on the other hand, barely spoke of it when she returned—perhaps no one had dared mention the affair to her. Arabela concluded that the outing had done her good. She seemed calmer, less edgy.
Which it had, but not for the reasons Arabela suspected. What had improved Juana’s state of mind was a conversation she had overheard between a chamberlain and a Court chaplain:
“The face in the mirror …” began the chaplain.
“Certainly Doña Antonia’s,” affirmed the chamberlain.
“… could be anyone’s …”
“Absolutely not. The woman is clearly Doña Antonia.”
“… or, for that matter, no one’s.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“The face in the mirror is blurred. It gives no clue as to the identity of the model.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Just that. The face is indistinct. It’s a generic face, something Velázquez could have pulled out of his head. Not only that—if you look at the angle of the mirror, you’ll see that it couldn’t reflect the model’s face. If realistically rendered, it would reflect her torso!”
“Her torso! Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I studied the angle carefully when I was at Haro’s. The mirror is positioned in such a way that it could not possibly capture the model’s likeness.”
“So you’re saying that the face in the mirror …”
“… could be nothing more than a made-up image. Anyone’s face. No one’s face.”
The chamberlain thought about it a moment. “But Don Diego is too good a painter to make a mistake like that!” he said finally. “He would never miscalculate the angle of a reflection of a mirror.”
“Oh, but I’m quite certain that it wasn’t a mistake!” countered the chaplain with a smile. “It’s clear that he wanted to throw people off the trail in order to keep the model’s identity a secret. He wanted to protect her. Of course it’s also possible that he worked without a model. He could have copied the torso from an existing Italian painting—one none of us have seen …”
“… and then added the face in the mirror, creating the illusion of a reflection. You’re saying that the whole thing is a trick? Or a joke?”
“It’s certainly possible. Maybe he wanted to mock the Holy Inquisition.”
Yes, thought Juana, it was certainly possible. Whether the story was true or not mattered not one bit—as long as the chaplain was advancing the story that there had been no model for Velázquez’s Venus. It would surely spread and take hold of the public imagination. The malicious gossip would stop and she could again hold her head high.
When the messenger came to the gate, Arabela was telling Bárbara about the dangerous effects of melancholia. She still remembered Juana’s bouts of despair after the death of baby Ignacia, and she was thrilled that the señora was no longer floating from room to room like a soul in purgatory. Now that Juana was in better spirits, Arabela no longer had any interest in the identity of Don Diego’s model. She didn’t care whether it was Doña Antonia or the neighbor’s goose.
The messenger identified himself as Don Osorio de Bogotá, and to Lidia’s surprise, he asked to speak with Arabela. Lidia brought him around back to the servants’ entrance. He was a strange looking man, this messenger. He wore bizarre colors—teal and tangerine, turquoise and rose—colors that Spanish men never wore. His pearl-hued, padded coleto was edged in scarlet, and his wide britches were tied at the knee with ribbons of outrageous shades. Even his cape, the most conventional of his garments, was fastened with an ostentatious brooch of bright green emeralds. On his feet he wore borceguís, slightly platformed leather shoes fastened with leather rosettes. Fortunately, thought Arabela, his ruff was white, as God commanded. Even so, he reminded her of a jester, or a parrot, or one of the locos from the asylum who dressed in garish colors and performed antics for the amusement of the public.
Don Osorio bowed low. In spite of his attire, his stance was cool and dignified. Still, Arabela was not impressed. She was not used to being bowed to, and his gesture was certainly proof that he had no sense of decorum. Or perhaps he was mocking her. He waited for her to say something by way of greeting, but instead she stood there glaring.
“Señora …” he began.
“I’m no señora!” she snapped. “You can see I’m a maid.”
He raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly, as though she had just offered him a cup of tea.
“You are Doña Arabela?” he said finally.
“I am Arabela.”
“I bring you a letter.”
Arabela glowered. What kind of nonsense was this? Nobody wrote her letters. And anyway, she couldn’t even read!
“Why do you talk like that?” she asked unceremoniously. The man pronounced his c’s like s’s and occasionally interjected a word she didn’t understand.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t sound like a Christian.”
“I’ve been living in America. In New Granada. I’m a gems merchant, and I’m here on business.” He sounded suddenly irritable, as though she were wasting his time with her foolish questions. “I promised Don Carlos I’d deliver this letter,” he added. He frowned with impatience.
“Who’s Don Carlos?”
He handed her a sheet of paper folded to form an envelope. Arabela noticed fleetingly that it was quite heavy, but her attention was fixed on the man. She didn’t like his cold arrogance, the way he squinted past her rather than looking her in the eye. She didn’t like the way his mustache crimped along his lip, or the way his teal-colored hat feather brushed the ground when he bowed. Everything about him was odd. Why had he agreed to talk to her in the servants’ quarters? If he was a wealthy businessman, a Don Osorio, why would he lower himself? Why didn’t he just give the letter to Lidia and ask her to deliver it? Arabela squinted at the paper in her hand.
“Wait …” she said, tracing the calligraphy with her gaze. The script was even and professional. If she had been used to receiving letters, she would have recognized the hand of a scribe.
“You’ve got the wrong person.” Arabela thrust the weighted paper back at the man.
“I think not.” Don Osorio turned to go. “Now, please excuse me. I have other obligations.”
Who was this New World upstart, Arabela wondered. This was a man with a lot of money and no taste. Those Indianos—she used the word in vogue for Spaniards who returned from the colonies—they all call themselves Don, whether they’re nobles or farmhands.
“Who gave this letter to you?” she insisted.
“I told you: Don Carlos,” Osorio responded curtly. He was nearly out the door. “I understand it concerns a matter of vital importance.”
Arabela felt suddenly numb. The way he stressed the word “vital” seemed ominous. She looked at the paper and turned it over and over. She only knew one person in the Americas, and that was her son, the soldier. What if it was about him? He was no Don, of course, but his name was Carlos. Stories about the New World flooded the mentideros—the savagery of the Indians and the brutality of greedy, low-class Spaniards struggling to prove their muscle; honor duels, bloodbaths over landholdings, battles against English and Dutch pirates off the coast; and horrible diseases—smallpox, measles, and el mal francés … Arabela ha
d heard about these things, but she had never given them much thought. She had her own problems, what with Don Diego’s painting of Venus and Doña Juana’s delicate nerves.
But now, as she scanned the folded sheet of paper in her quivering hand, the reality of Carlos came rushing back to her. The baby she had given birth to, nursed, held. The little boy she had given away. The ragged soldier who had stood before her, begging with his eyes for a tender word.
Doña Juana usually ordered that messengers be taken to the stable and given food and beer, but the haughty Indiano had already disappeared. Letter in hand, Arabela hobbled across the patio. She felt suddenly old, ancient. Her swollen ankles and her stiff knees ached. She stopped by the foot of the stairs. I’ll plod up to Doña Juana’s estrado and ask the señora to read it, she thought, but instead, she stood grasping the rail and shivering.
Arabela took a deep breath. The letter was still folded, with only the address visible. It seemed to be stuffed with something. After a while she tiptoed into the parlor, lit a candle, and gently melted the seal. As she unfolded the sheet, a fat packet slipped to the ground, but Arabela didn’t notice. She stared at the writing for a long time, as if by examining the characters she would suddenly comprehend them. Although she’d never been a real mother to Carlos, the thought of losing him now shattered her. She wanted to scream, to sink down into a pool of sludge, to go to sleep and never wake up. She wanted to tear up the letter.
Punishment, she thought. This is God’s punishment for my neglectfulness.
Arabela refolded the letter and walked back out into the patio. Wooly clouds blocked the sun. A flock of birds flew in formation, like soldiers moving across a field. The air smelled of roasted lamb, onions, and carrots. Bárbara would be whipping egg whites for meringues, Doña Juana’s favorite dessert. Don Diego wouldn’t be home for the midday meal, but Paquita might come by with some of the children, Cristina and Ana perhaps. Cristina was soon to be married, but Ana was a strange little thing, as quiet as a spider and as prayerful as a mantis. Arabela thought about all the things that filled her life and suddenly found them meaningless. She hugged the wall and wished she could cry.
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