Rembrandt's Mirror

a novel of the famous Dutch painter of 'The Night Watch' and the women who loved him

Kim Devereux

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781782396765
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782396758
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Longlisted for the Historical Writers Association debut novel award 2016. Hendrickje, a young girl from a strict Calvinist family, leaves home to find work as a maid. Entering Rembrandt's flourishing and busy household after the death of the great artist's wife, she finds a world filled with secrets and desire. Shocked to the core after discovering the intense relationship between Rembrandt and Geertje, his housekeeper, Hendrickje is nevertheless slowly drawn to Rembrandt by his freshness, by his freedom, by his intensity. Rembrandt's Mirror explores the three women of Rembrandt's life, and the towering passions of the artist, seen through the eyes of his last, great love, Hendrickje.

Contents

Prologue

PART I Amsterdam, 1642

The Night Watch

St Jerome in a Dark Chamber

PART II Five years later

Winter

The Supper at Emmaus

Woman on a Gibbet

The French Bed

A Woman Sleeping

Saskia Lying in Bed

The Mill

Self-Portrait by a Window

Jan Six with a Dog, Standing by an Open Window

The Return of the Prodigal Son

Daniel in the Lions’ Den

Portrait of Jan Six

PART III Fifteen years later

Self-Portrait

Woman Bathing in a Stream

The Shell

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp

PART IV Four years later

Self-Portrait with Two Circles

Isaac and Rebecca

Author’s Note

Notes by Chapter

Acknowledgements

Select Bibliography

A Note on the Author

PROLOGUE

Look with the greatest care at the world of things

And at the world where things are not.

The sun has barely crept over the horizon but the gracht is already awash with souls eager to wring a living – or a little more than a living – from the stream of commerce that pulsates through our great city’s canals. The water sparkles in the canal below, throwing flecks of light against the walls that rise straight up from its depths. Crates are hoisted up on ropes from barges to the upper storeys of houses, their hungry doors always open for more.

A window glints. That one there, just beneath the stepped gable. And beyond the glass, a woman. Now she is gone again. Or was it merely a reflection? The window blinks again. That glass, that very glass, used to be so clean. It’s warm inside. She was here once. Looking out, the glass is full of soot. She would have scrubbed it, with a white linen cloth. Rub, rub, rub, in little circles, her eyes focused on the spatterings of ash.

There, a faint reflection in the handmade glass. A pretty round face. It’s her again. She is cleaning the glass. This soot sediment – it’s so slow coming off. The reflection, clearer now: a face with eyes translucent as honey. The white cloth is still going round and round, wiping her face in and out of existence. Now her eyes fix on something trapped in the glass. Tiny beads of air. The air from long ago. From when the house was built. Encapsulated.

From the outside, looking in, her face is made fluid by the glass. She opens the window and draws a breath of cool morning air. She takes her cloth, wrings it over the abyss. One more squeeze and a final drop is released. It falls and falls all the way down towards the sparkling wet. A glass bauble suspended in the air. And yet to her it’s hurtling towards its destiny, hitting the surface of the canal.

It joins the waters. It now knows all. It created the ripples which are spreading out and out. Back above, Hendrickje’s smiling face appears distorted by the surface of the water. How happy she is. She closes the window, just before flotsam would have wiped her from view.

PART I

Amsterdam, 1642

The Night Watch

Rembrandt’s house, Sint-Anthonisbreestraat, June 1642

All is darkness, except for the afterglow of what he saw before he closed his eyes. Two throbbing specks of light. How beautiful they are. And in between the two there’s a wisp of luminance, connecting them, like a half-formed thought.

He opens his eyes to let the light in again. For a moment the entire canvas rears up at him, twice his height. He backs away until he’s up against the wooden roof support, taking the whole thing in: thirty-odd night watchmen in a restless broil, each jabbing in a different direction; but wait, the lieutenant is about to pull them back into order with his call to march. He squints. The image blurs, letting him see what matters: islands of ivory in a sea of dark. But the dark has teeth, forever gnawing at the light.

He lets his lids part a little more. The brightest of the two islands is Lieutenant van Ruytenburch’s coat and there’s his visual echo – the girl with the dead chicken hanging from her belt. She’s a shade more buttery than him. His ivory calls out, her light form answers, so satisfying to the eye, which loves a repetition. A tension is growing between them, taut as a string, waiting to be plucked. The corners of his mouth rise into a smile.

The sound of a cough. A reminder. He dismisses it from his mind. The canvas is waiting. He opens his eyes fully, struck by the carmine dress of the musketeer. Red is such a pregnant colour, drawing attention by its deep tone alone. He is a choirmaster listening. Right beside the sonorous black of the captain’s uniform soars the shining bright lieutenant. Baritone and soprano. Foils to one another. And all around, the choir, singing not with one voice but many: different coloured clothes, textures, characters and vigorous movements in all directions. And yet together they make a perfect harmony. It’s just as he intended it.

He is imagining the other group portraits that will hang alongside his. Rows and rows of brightly lit heads, about as life-like as playing cards. Another intrusion. She coughs again. But he needs to take care of the details now. The dark silhouette of the musket butt is similar to the shadow of the captain’s hand. He makes them mimic one another – same length, same angle, adds a thumb-like hook to the butt. Now, they chime together – resonant. He scours the picture for more. The carmine of the musketeer and the sash of the captain, both the same red. The lieutenant’s partisan, and the captain’s outstretched hand. Perfectly parallel. Now the picture hums and whispers like a colony of bees – alive.

More coughing. He listens harder to the bee choir. He won’t be distracted. Looks for more enhancements. The coughing stops. He waits, brush in hand, unable to look at the painting anymore, straining to hear. Samuel, his assistant and most promising pupil, seems oblivious to the pause, busy preparing lead white on the grinding stone. The boy is all limbs and yet so full of intent, so serious, at fifteen. Just as he was.

The lean-to is two storeys high and shelters the enormous canvas and several ladders. Supported by a few columns it is open to the yard, making the silence from her open window opposite undeniable.

She coughs again, uncontrollably it seems. The boy looks up at him, his eyes urging him to go to her. So he puts down his palette and brushes, strides across the yard, into the corridor, through the entrance hall, where he notices one of his paintings. He’s walked past it a hundred times but now he’s caught by it, forgetting where he meant to go. It’s her as Flora, wearing a red dress, her left hand resting on her bosom. Saskia. Above her blue eyes is that expanse of luminous forehead that he always wants to kiss, surprised each time that such a simple act can make him happy in an instant. Her right arm is outstretched, offering him a red carnation and some are strewn in the background, too. She smells of them, and other flowers – though not now she is ill. Was it only six months ago that he painted this? Another cough moves him on. He has a thought, steps into the print room on the way, picks up a copper plate and dry-point needle and continues on. It is her bedroom now of course. His clothes are still kept there but he has been sleeping in the guest bed in the anteroom so as not to disturb her while she recovers. He has to stop himself from breaking into a run. How could he have stayed away for so many hours?

Her face lights up when he enters. He smiles broadly in response. Her eyes are drawing him to her and her hand lifts from the bed, ready to touch the back of his neck like she always does. He’s floating like pigment in too much oil. Then her hand drops, as she remembers not to touch him.

He ignores the chair and sits down on the edge of the bed. Surely that’s allowed. Only now does he notice the plump but determined shadow in the corner. Geertje’s still there, keeping watch. She gets up, dismissed by an unspoken signal from her mistress.

What to say? Saskia is silent too. Where’s her hand? He feels under the warm cloth for her palm. She does not object. There it is, the skin sweaty, the flesh strangely cold. His fingers fold around hers and he’s adrift no more. He beds down and rests his head next to hers on that mountain of pillows. Her hair tickles his cheek but he does not move. It’s a privilege to be so close to her.

He’s tired. How long has it been since they slept in the same bed? Perhaps he could have a little sleep now. Suddenly she jolts up, coughing. He sits up too, wants to help but he can only wait and watch with empty hands. While she’s coughing uncontrollably she’s searching for something under the covers. Then she pulls out a cloth and presses it hard against her mouth, her fingers blanched.

Then it’s over, silence, as if nothing has happened. She takes away the cloth and puts it under the covers. She is still gasping for air. Before he can say anything she asks between breaths, ‘How is it progressing? Is it how you wanted it?’

He can’t help grinning. ‘Yes, yes, it’s nearly there. It will burst their little heads when they see it.’

‘You’ve told them, haven’t you?’

‘I told them they’re going to get a group portrait like no other. Maybe I should have charged them twice the going rate as they are getting all the drama and action of a history painting thrown in as well.’

‘You are charging them nearly twice the going rate,’ she says, almost laughing.

‘Ah yes, that is true, my dove,’ he says.

Her expression changes. ‘How is Titus? Is Geertje looking after him well?’

‘He’s doing splendidly. She won’t let him out of her sight. Yesterday, she says, he crawled all the way from the kitchen to the storeroom and then started pulling himself up on boxes. He can’t wait to walk. He’s a strong lad.’

He wants her to know that Titus will live. Then she’ll get better soon, for Titus.

‘I’ll get him,’ he says. ‘Shall I? Only this once; I’ll stand by the door with him so you can see him.’

She looks uncertain but finally she nods. He’s intoxicated by the thought of them all being together for a few moments.

He’s only nine months old but Titus is heavy in his arms. He’s in a contented mood. Geertje has a way with him or maybe he’s just naturally cheerful. The baby tries to finger his moustache but thankfully his hand goes wide of the target. They’ve reached the door. ‘Look, Titus, there’s your Mammie.’ He holds him up, hands under his arms. Saskia raises her hand in a wave. ‘Hello, Titey. What’s your Pappie doing holding you up like a fisherman showing off his catch?’

Then he bounces him up and down in the air and Titus chuckles with glee. Saskia is laughing but she’s also close to tears.

‘You’re beautiful, you know, just like your parents,’ he says, nodding and hoping that Titus will nod back. If only Saskia did not look so sad. Her tired smile tells him it’s enough. ‘All right, Squiglet, time to go.’

He raises Titus’s little hand in a wave and Saskia returns the gesture and then they leave. Geertje has been hovering in the corridor all this time as if to prevent any harm to her charge. He hands over the baby.

When he returns to Saskia, even before he can sit down, she says, ‘W...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Contents