by Lynn Cullen
His frown dissolves like sunlight in the murky water of the canal. “Guess what?” he says, smiling. “I know someone who has met you.”
Something twists in my stomach. Has someone been saying bad things again about my family? “Who?” I say, too fast.
He holds up his hands in innocence. “Just my uncle! I saw him at the shipyard after you came to van Uylenburgh’s last week. He said he knows you.”
“He does?” Carel has talked about me to his uncle? I pull my cap down over my ears. I should have taken the time to wash my hair. I should have ironed my apron. I should have worn the beads. I should have done everything differently. “I must have been too young when we met—I don’t remember him. But Titus does.”
Carel laughs. “You must have been the freshest infant. Uncle Nicolaes is a hard one to forget. He’s quite charming.”
We walk to the top of the bridge. Carel picks up a stone and drops it into the canal. We watch the rings spread across the water.
“So you want to be a painter?” I ask.
“I have known it since I was little. After Vader would take me to our shipyard, I would come home and draw ships all over his ledgers. He didn’t thank me for that.”
“I suppose not!”
“I did make a mess of those ledgers. But they were some pretty good ships.” He smiles when I laugh.
“My vader said painting was not a profession worthy of someone of our sort,” he says. “But I am not doing it for the money. The family business will provide me with enough of that.”
I frown at the windmill on its mound at the end of the street, its white cloth sails turning briskly in the same breeze that is ruffling Carel’s curls. Handsome and rich. Why is it that those who least need more blessings are the ones who get them?
“I think I shall be admitted to the guild early,” he says. “At least I hope so. My masterpiece is nearly ready. Not bad for a sixteen-year-old.”
Sixteen. Two years older than me. Two years from now, both of us will be of marrying age.
“What kind do you do?” I ask.
“Kind?”
“Of painting—still life, landscape, genre?”
“Oh. Still life. I can do a half-peeled lemon that makes you think you should finish peeling it. I do good bread, too—do not laugh!”
“I am not,” I say, laughing.
“It is glass that is tough. I am just figuring out how to capture light on the surface. It’s very difficult, you know.”
“Light is always the hardest thing to get right. We take it for granted, but in painting, it is everything.”
“True, light does affect everything—color, shape, depth.” He lays his hand on the stone wall of the bridge. The sunshine lights up the tiny golden hairs on his knuckles. “This same hand held just so would be painted differently depending on whether the scene was indoors or out. If outside, the time of day and amount of shade would affect it. If inside, whether it was lit by daylight or candle. One hand—many kinds of light.”
“My vader once painted a hand with candlelight shining through it. You could faintly see the bones within.”
He stares at me. “That is brilliant. Was it beautiful?”
I lean over to look at the water. “Actually, it was frightening.”
“Frightening?”
“It reminds you that there is a whole other being inside you.”
I can feel him watching me as I push away from the wall. “I have never talked to a girl about such things,” he says, following me down the slope of the bridge. “The girls I’m introduced to know nothing but gloves and gowns and necklaces. You know about things that matter.”
I risk pausing to look back at him. Our eyes meet. We glance away quickly, but when we resume walking, the air around us is different. Lighter. Though merchants and maids and housewives rush by us, their capes snapping in the wind, we float forward in our own special bubble.
We come to the end of the bridge. “I have to go back,” he says.
I cannot speak. Anything I say can burst our delicate sphere.
“We shall talk again,” he says.
I listen to his footsteps on the bricks until I hear them no more, then run, holding in great whoops of joy.
Neel is in the crowded front room, one of Vader’s straw figures before his canvas. “There you are. Your vader has been searching all over for you.”
“Hello, Neel!” I want to kiss his sober old face. I hang my cloak on a peg and dance toward the kitchen.
Neel follows. “Mijnheer’s family portrait is missing. The one Titus claimed yesterday to have a buyer for.”
My breath stops. “Does Vader know it is gone?”
“No, I don’t think so. Cornelia, tell me you do not know where it has gone.”
Relief pours through my veins. “Hungry for some cheese, Neel?” I open a crock, searching for one of those balls of Edam Titus had brought.
“Tell me you did not listen to Titus. That painting is worth more than just some guilders.”
I tip the lid of another crock. “How much is it worth, do you think?”
“Do you not understand? Its worth cannot be measured by gold.”
“Neel, please, calm yourself. They’ll cart you off to the Dolhuis.” I chuckle at the thought of Serious Neel surrounded by the raving inmates of the asylum.
“This is no jest, Cornelia. That picture should never be bought or sold. It is bigger than that.”
“Nothing is bigger than money.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Neel crosses his arms as I brush by him to look on a shelf. “You would do well to be more of your father’s daughter.”
Thank you, Neel Suythof, for thinking I am not like my vader. But when I turn around, he looks so serious that I laugh. “I suppose you, too, believe it was painted by God.”
“Have you really looked at that painting, Cornelia?”
I frown. If only he knew how much I had. “Yes.”
“How else would you explain the truth of emotion in that picture? Is it so impossible for God to have guided him? Have you another explanation?”
I pull a cloth off a lump next to the spice grater. “Ah, here’s the cheese! Would you—”
Neel is gone.
Oh, well, I think as I pare the green rind off a wedge I have cut. I shall eat alone. There is more for me this way. But the cheese loses its savor as I chew it, alone in the damp kitchen. How does one explain how Vader perfectly captured a child’s love for his parent on canvas? It seems beyond a regular mortal, let alone one as gruff and crude and palsied as Vader. How did he do it?
Chapter 12
It has been more than a week since my walk with Carel, but at the moment, fear has driven any warm and happy thoughts of him as deeply underground as the piles that keep every building in Amsterdam from sinking into the marshy soil. Vader has been vile tempered since breakfast and I know not why, but if he discovers that his painting is missing in such a mood, objects will fly.
To this end, I am in the attic, choking on dust and the tarry smell of the roof beams as I skirt past chests and straw figures and strange objects covered with cloths. I want not to uncover things if I don’t have to—it is like disturbing a grave. Releasing ghosts. I have avoided this attic for many a year, and I have had no reason to come here. It is Vader’s storeroom. His rubbish. The drek he cannot use in his studio, he drags across the landing into here. But there are paintings in here, I know. I have seen them, long ago. I need one now. If I am lucky, I can find a rolled-up one to substitute for the family group I have taken to van Uylenburgh. I can put it in his studio where the other one was. It is a miracle Vader has not missed it already, perhaps due to his work on his mysterious project. Or could it be that his lack of notice is more evidence of his failing mind?
There is something that looks to be a roll of canvas on the floor. I push it with my foot, lifting dust, but it does not come undone. Several strings bind it along its length.
The floorboard creaks
behind me.
I gasp. “Hello?”
Tijger strolls in, calm as a king though his faded orange legs are bowed with age.
“You.” I pick him up. He weighs less than dust. “You gave me a fright.”
He regards me, unconcerned.
I put him down. My heart beating in my ears, I bend down to peel back an edge of the canvas.
A silky fringe falls against my hand. There are swirls of raw sienna and sable against rich vermilion.
A carpet. What was I so afraid of?
I sit back on my heels and sigh.
“Cornelia.”
I whirl around. Neel is standing in the doorway.
The man blows about as silently as duck down. “What do you want?”
“I am looking for your vader.”
I walk briskly toward him, forcing him to back onto the landing between the attic and Vader’s studio. Neel Suythof needs not to be poking around in here. “He stepped out to get more pigments. He will be back soon.” I pick up Tijger and shut the attic door.
“I wished for him to see if he thought I was making progress on my painting,” Neel says.
“I am sure you have caught the essence of that straw dummy.”
He folds his arms.
“I jest!”
He shakes his head, his tangled hair brushing his shoulders. When he turns to the stairs, I find that I wish he would stay.
“Wait.”
He gives me a look of patient annoyance.
“Vader is gone—let us look in his studio. You know how he has been up to something devious lately.”
“No, Cornelia! If he wanted us to see whatever is in there—”
I throw open the door. A large canvas, draped by linen, stands in the studio.
The horror in Neel’s eyes is too delicious. You would think I was suggesting that we rob a grave.
I skip toward the canvas. “Let us see what is underneath.”
“No! He does not want—”
I fling back the drape. The unfinished images of a man leaning toward a woman hover like ghosts against a dead brown background.
Neel speaks in hushed tones as in the presence of God. “Who are they?”
Downstairs, the front door slams.
“Vader!” I flip the drape back over the painting. “Hide!”
“No.” Neel turns to face the door. “We poured out our draft, now we must drink it.”
I hold my breath as Vader trudges up the wooden stairs. He is not yet to the top when he sees us.
“Mijnheer—” Neel begins.
“So you have found my project. I wondered what was taking you. You children have so little curiosity.”
Neel and I exchange glances. Vader had been hiding his work like a hound with a new bone. And he’d been an ogre at breakfast, slamming down his mug and claiming I’d over-watered the ale, which I had. Now he was being sweet?
“You act so surprised.” Vader uncovers the canvas. “So, Neel, what do you think of it?”
I close my eyes and pray for Neel to use his best flattery. Keep Vader jolly, so he does not notice his precious family-group painting is missing. Maybe he does know and is toying with me, ready to spring when I least expect it.
“I know not what to think, mijnheer,” Neel says. “It is just a beginning.”
“Quite right, quite right. I didn’t want anyone to see it before I knew I had it down. I was afraid the image in my head would dry up. But I think I have it now, even though on the canvas it may not look like much.”
“May I ask, mijnheer, whom you are portraying?”
Vader smiles. “Not portraits. An allegory.”
Neel considers the canvas. “The subject?”
Vader puffs up like a peacock that has wandered over from the New Maze Park. “Tenderest love.”
Neel raises his eyebrows.
Vader laughs, then takes a yellow chunk of ochre from its linen wrapping. “I know. An impossible task.” He puts the ochre on the hollowed-out grinding slab and begins to pulverize it with a bell-shaped stone pestle. “How do you capture love or hate or any emotion, for that matter? It escapes the painter’s brush. We can only hope to simulate how it looks.”
Neel nods sadly. “So I have found. Here—let me take that.” I cannot help but notice how his forearms bulge as he grinds with the heavy pestle.
“This will be the exception,” Vader says, watching him, too. “God is guiding my hand.”
Neel does not flinch. He seems not to find Vader the least bit mad. Could he really think God would work through such an imperfect person? “Which biblical story do you use to convey it?” Neel asks as he grinds. “Jesus and his moeder? Anna and Tobit? David”—he glances at me—” and Bathsheba?”
Why does he squirm so when he mentions Bathsheba? I have no care for the story of the silly woman. Let her have her king David. No difficult choice.
“This time, no story,” Vader says. “No Bible, no classics, no writings of the ancients. Just two people, embodying love.”
Neel pauses. A blind man could read the doubt on his plain face. “Mijnheer, if anyone could do it, it would be you—but love? It is not like portraying apples in a still life. Love is not an object.”
I think of Carel and his pride in painting lemons. “It is better to get a real object right,” I say staunchly, “than to be thought mad for painting the impossible.”
Vader laughs. “What care I about what people think of me? They’ve already thought the worst. Anyhow, I am not afraid. I shall trust in God.” Vader smiles fondly at the unfinished picture as Neel fetches a jar of linseed oil to work into the ground pigment. “This shall be a present for Titus. To make amends.”
A mad picture in exchange for putting a curse on his marriage? Some compensation.
I watch as Vader pours the oil into the pile of yellow powder and Neel mixes it with the edge of a paint knife—a quiet team, working together to make color. Vader has never let me help him.
Anger at them both burns in my belly. Why do they leave me out?
There is a knock on the door.
Glad to get away from the cozy pair, I run down the stairs to answer it.
I open the door to a bright spring morning and Carel the Handsome, bent-kneed under the weight of a rolled-up canvas.
Even as my heart leaps, I gasp and put my hand to my cap. I am a mess.
“The buyer has turned it down,” he says. Through my own dismay of being caught in disarray, I notice his golden face is troubled.
The family group? “But it was requested.” I can feel my cheeks flame. Now he knows what a failure my vader is, rejected by all, respected by none. I brush desperately at my wrinkled apron.
“I am sorry, Cornelia. It should have sold. I think it is interesting.” He shuffles in place. “Where would you like this?”
Vader laughs upstairs. I break out in a sweat.
Carel peers inside. “Is that your vader? Perhaps I should talk to him myself.”
“No! No, he is busy. Painting.” It is bad enough to be discovered as a slattern by Carel, but to incur Vader’s wrath in front of him?
“Put it in there!”
“The kitchen?”
“Yes. It’s a good place.” I can hide it there until I get a chance to move it.
Carel steps forward with the canvas, then pauses in the entrance hall. He has noticed Vader’s picture of Moeder in her shift.
“This way!” I yelp. “Quickly.”
I press my hands against my face as he carries the painting through the front room to the kitchen. I am ashamed of the reek of cooked cabbage and the damp, cracked kitchen walls.
“Where should it go?” he asks.
Vader’s voice is at the top of the stairs.
“Behind these barrels,” I say. “Quickly.”
“Cornelia?” Vader calls.
“Surely you have heard about my vader’s terrible temper,” I whisper. “He will not be happy about this.” Not a lie, for certain, though I mean abou
t taking his painting without permission, not his reaction to the buyer’s rejecting it. “We must let his choler cool.”
No matter the true reason, Carel seems to see the logic in this. He dumps the canvas, then hurries after me through the half door leading into the courtyard outside.
We pause on the step. The van Roop girls are on their side of the courtyard, jumping rope in the crisp April air. “Can you walk?” Carel asks over their singsong verses. The wind whips a shoot of the rose vine that grows near the door, nearly lashing my face. I push it away, scratching my hand on its tiny new thorns.
Inside the house, Vader calls.
“I would like to. Yes.”
It is not a walk but a run we break into as we hurry between narrow houses down the alleyway. Several doors away from my own, we burst from the shadows onto the street and are met with the fresh morning sun.
“First warm day of the year,” Carel says.
We look before us. Across the canal, the sunlight catches each shiny holly leaf in the hedge of the New Maze Park, turning it into a wall of glittering emeralds. Yellow-green pearls glow on the tips of the linden-tree branches. A frog hops into the canal, sending coins of silver light bobbing on the brown water. The duck family glides past all in a line, save for a duckling who darts at a dragonfly, then races in a panic to catch up with its brothers.
“I’d like to try to paint this scene,” Carel says. “‘The Canal Near Cornelia’s House on a Sunny Spring Morn.’”
I must not grin like a fool. “Oh, a landscape now? You must have mastered your glass.”
He raises his brows. “You remembered? Well, yes. I can now put reflections in reflections. You should see. I am no van Eyck, but I am getting there.”
I laugh, then cast a look behind me at my house. I see movement in the window of Vader’s studio.
“I would like to paint you,” Carel says.
“Me?”
“I know,” says Carel, “you must be tired of it. You have probably been painted a hundred times.”
“Not really. Sometimes I sit for Neel, but just to hold a position.”
We wait for an old man stumping by with his cane to pass. “Your vader has not painted you? He is mad.” Carel sees my grimace. “I mean, he is missing an opportunity.”