Rembrandt's Mirror (31 page)

Just then she opened her eyes, smiling at him. Her lips moved but he heard no sound so he put his ear by her mouth. ‘I love you,' she said.

‘I love you too,' he whispered.

‘Love Cornelia for the two of us,' she said.

‘Yes.'

‘I'm sorry.'

He wanted to tell her it was all right but only managed to nod.

Then he said what he knew he must say. ‘You can, you know. If it's time, if you can.'

He couldn't say the word
go
.

He was not sure if she had heard him, for she closed her eyes again; her breathing so very faint. He cradled her hand in his and lay down next to her again. He knew that she could feel him. When would they be lost to one another? The next minute, the next hour? Would the sun ever rise again for her? The church tower struck two. He remembered someone telling him once that most people die in the early hours because the body is at a low ebb. He tried to stay awake, having convinced himself that she would go soon and wanting to keep his promise, but he fell asleep again.

The next time he woke up he was surprised to see her standing in the corner of the room. It was very dark but he could just about see her. She had put the shift on again. He felt hope. She had somehow found the strength. He looked where she had lain and saw her body there on the bed, eyes open, lifeless and next to her he saw himself asleep.

The girl in the corner was smiling as she told him, ‘I have died.'

She was holding her hand out to him. He went and took it. It did not occur to him to question what he saw, so relieved was he to see
her happy. Something had changed about the room as if it had grown larger and the walls seemed less solid. Even though he could not see it with his eyes, he felt a sensation similar to that of sunlight on his skin. As if an invisible light was shining down on them, embracing them. She felt it too, for she was looking towards it.

He wanted to get closer to this warmth that seemed like the very distillate of love. Holding hands, they moved towards it, or it towards them, and he found himself thinking that he would not have expected that pure love felt thick and warm as treacle. Not only on the outside of him but inside too. It filled him so entirely that he could not imagine ever feeling fear again, or even remembering what the sensation of fear felt like.

He'd always believed his life to be the mill and grist of existence; but now his life seemed so insubstantial compared to this. He also knew with perfect certainty that this was where she belonged.

He watched her happy face, and all the time they were going further into the heart of the invisible light. He was only too happy to come along but then she looked at him. There was a pause and even though she was not telling him, he knew to go no further. She kissed him. And he still felt the warmth of her lips on his mouth when he awoke.

The light of dawn blinked in the shutters and he knew without needing to look that she had died. Her body was lying as he had seen it in his sleep. He got out of the bed, opened the windows and shutters wide, letting the orange sunrise flood the room. He stood surveying the city – how the light sparkled on the rooftops and on
the little ripples in the canal. He felt as if he'd not seen light until today, or only a narrow part of it. He'd pay proper attention to it from now on.

He went into the yard to wash and dress before Titus and Cornelia were awake and then he'd have to tell them and comfort them.

PART IV

Four years later

Self-Portrait with Two Circles

Rozengracht, Jordaan, Amsterdam, 1667

The sun is dim and hazy in the sky, kissing the IJ before disappearing. The North Star is there as the gracht falls perfectly silent. The ropes hang slack. No carts or goods, the doors are shut for sleeping – until the morrow. But there are footsteps. Prince Cosimo stands at a familiar door, in puffed-up robes, a dozen courtiers fringing him. He takes it upon himself to knock. An old man opens the door and the prince with a little bow explains, ‘I could not have left Amsterdam without seeing Rembrandt.'

The painter looks unimpressed. He'll likely tell him – prince or not – that he has closed up for the day, but he thinks better of it and invites him in. It's probably because he hopes to relieve him of a fair few guilders. He always liked on-the-spot sales best.

After they have gone, the sweat and sickly perfume of the prince's party still hangs in the air, so Rembrandt opens the windows wide and returns to the three-quarter-length portrait of himself that is sitting on the easel: an imposing figure on a mottled grey background, one hand on the hip, the other holding a palette, brushes
and maulstick. The clothes in the picture are simple, a long brown tabard and white cap. He frowns – the composition has all the vitality of a cowpat drying in the sun. He sits down in an armchair, closes his eyes and considers finishing for the day. Then he gets up again, goes to the window for some fresh air. There's the Ursa Major constellation – Callisto. She's not the brightest constellation in the sky but he likes her best. To avoid melancholy creeping up on him, he goes back to the canvas, loads his brush with brown and starts the motion of a circle in the air like the stars around Polaris. When the brush reaches the canvas, it deposits paint on it. He's drawn a perfect half circle. He does the same on the other side. But the traces of his brush are faint so he retraces them with small brushstrokes. The cowpat of the mantled figure is now wedged between two arcs. That's all it's taken to bring the picture to life. He no longer feels tired or sad.

For a moment the figure he has painted looks like a mirror-image of himself; solid, weight on both feet, arm on hip, palette poised. The two globes will be interpreted as two separate worlds, as there's a tradition of depicting the initial unity of Creation ruptured in two: heaven and earth, invisible and visible realms.

He wonders which of the two circles represents the invisible and if he should make one circle look different from the other. But is heaven really another place from earth? He leaves the two circles the same. Let whoever is looking at them make up their own mind about which is which, or if they are one and the same.

There is yet another knock on the door. He tries to ignore the
thumping, but whoever it is has the persistence of a courting pigeon. So in the end he goes downstairs and opens the door to tell them to come back another time. It's a couple, a man and a woman. They stand at a demure distance, a few steps down from the front door, their faces a mixture of surprise and embarrassment.

Both are dressed in immaculate black from head to toe. The only aspect that can be construed as ornamental is the man's curly hair. It hangs rather listlessly about his head. She has fair skin and a full mouth but the lips are drawn in, as if she is wishing herself to be elsewhere and yet her honey-coloured eyes look up at him. The young man finds his voice. ‘May we speak with you?'

‘About what?' says Rembrandt. He's still only interested in finding a reason to get rid of them.

‘A commission,' says the young man.

The woman has her arm hooked through the man's and both exude such unabashed hopefulness that he cannot bring himself to say no. Not yet anyway.

‘Please come in,' he says and leads the way to the studio. Once they get there, the couple look around; there is nowhere for them to sit. He always hated the place to be crowded with chairs. Seats only encourage students to take breaks. The couple appear to be waiting for an invitation to speak.

‘What can I do for you?' he says.

‘We have just become betrothed.'

They look at each other and there's a long pause as if they've fallen into a reverie. At last the man says, still unable to take his
eyes off her, ‘We would be honoured if you were to paint our portrait.'

Rembrandt says nothing. He does not want to paint them.

The young man clasps his hands together like a petitioner, tries hard to think of something heartfelt to say, but the only word that comes is, ‘Please.'

‘Both of us,' she adds and blushes. ‘I mean, both of us together in one picture.'

She has the kind of face that displays her sentiments whether she wants it to or not. The kind of face he likes to paint. Oh, look at them! How close they stand together, their elbows always touching. He really ought to paint them.

He says he'll do it. They look surprised and he is too.

Isaac and Rebecca

A few days later they arrive for their first sitting. He asks them to stand where the light is good. They are both a little beyond the customary age for marriage. He is much taller but he stoops so as not to tower over her. She has rosy cheeks and her face is a picture of half a dozen conflicting emotions. The young man, perhaps aware of her discomfort, stands somewhat awkwardly by her side as if trying to wrap himself around her, like a safe harbour. Dear Lord, thinks Rembrandt, what have I got myself into? At least they are not the types to interfere.

‘Come a little this way,' he tells them, trying to turn them more into the light but without losing that intertwinedness. But now they stand like choirboys, arms by their sides, and the humble black they are wearing won't do at all.

‘I'll make a quick sketch now,' he tells them, ‘and then you'll be back for more sittings.'

Eager nodding from the couple.

‘I have my own way of working. It will take several months.'

Not quite so eager nodding.

He sits down in his chair, paper on his lap, and watches them. She's anxiously fingering her dress and the man's arm creeps further around her back.

Rembrandt is getting impatient with their unease. He jumps up and tells them, ‘I'll paint you as the biblical couple Isaac and Rebecca – you know, a sacred marriage.'

They look pleased.

He continues. ‘Remember, they had to flee and live in exile. Isaac feared, with Rebecca being so beautiful, that other men desiring her for themselves would want to do away with him. So they pretended to be brother and sister.'

Now they look confused.

‘A hazardous situation,' says Rembrandt, ‘but remember they were chosen for one another by God. I'd like to paint them – you – when meeting in secret, in an arbour. You must imagine yourselves in this kind of place. You have not been alone with one another for many a week, you are man and wife . . .'

The woman is trying to catch the man's eyes. He even considers telling them that Isaac and Rebecca were caught sporting with one another by King Abimelech. But if he does they will certainly leave.

He takes a bench over to them and motions for them to sit down, to calm them. He says, ‘Just pretend I am not here.'

They are sitting as if in the stocks. The story he's told them has made everything worse. But it matters that he gets to paint this picture.

‘Lovely,' he says, ‘I must fetch my chalks. Please excuse me. I have
to go to the furthest corner of the attic to retrieve them. I'll be ten minutes at least.'

He leaves and closes the door. As soon as he's gone they start exchanging glances. She still looks very uncomfortable. It's a wonder she does not insist they leave. They must badly want their picture. Time passes.

The young man puts his arm around her. His hand is resting lightly on her shoulder. There's a stillness in the room. He has his head inclined as if he is listening to her every breath. She finally settles into his embrace.

Rembrandt must see this – where is he gone? He is outside the studio, staring at the white wall. Then he crouches down to a little hole in that wall but he stops short of putting his eye to it. He's lined them up with that hole – a peep-hole into bare humanity. What a clever ploy, but now he can't bring himself to look through it. If only he would look. He must look.

But he won't because he's afraid. And now the noise of rain against the window is drawing his attention. He watches the droplets flowing down the glass, merging and then away. He too wants to be washed away.

He thinks of the two circles he's drawn – would they be joined one day or is he, standing in the middle, the bridge between the spheres?

He makes his choice, goes back and looks. The woman gathers up the fabric of her dress, bunching it tight within her hand, as if it is the next best thing to gathering him, her love. She takes the ball
of cloth and presses it against her womb. Rembrandt steps away again, unable to bear the longing in his heart. But all the same, he has decided that he will paint the dress in red.

He stands looking at the white wall, notices a spider making a web between the wall and window. It is excreting a near invisible thread, making the radial spokes. Rembrandt probes his cheek with his fingers, feels the slack place where his teeth used to be. Perhaps another year or two, he thinks. The spider has begun a loose spiral from the centre of the web. Next he'll do a second tighter spiral. Methodical. He shrugs his shoulders and puts his eye back at the hole.

The woman's gaze, like the man's, is inward. They have forgotten where they are. The man's right hand rests on her breast – her heart – his fingers soft, receptive as if it were possible to listen with his hand. Rembrandt knows it is. It is.

The woman's hand comes up to welcome his. She places her fingertips on the back of the man's hand, as if to seal their union. And so they stay.

Rembrandt tells himself that he is a gout-ridden fool for not having brought any paper. He rushes to the door, opens it a crack and whispers to them, ‘Stay as you are, I beg you.'

Then he walks in quietly as if trespassing on a holy scene. He sketches them quickly, then dismisses them and starts painting from memory as soon as they have left.

Over the next few weeks, while the spider sits in its web waiting, Isaac comes to wear gold, not the usual tired brocade but a highly
textured fabric that glistens with a light of its own. Rembrandt takes the palette knife and plasters paint onto the canvas, layer upon layer. He is the maker of mountain ridges and valleys. More sculpture than painting. The sleeve of the man is becoming the brightest part of the picture and the more he models it into being the more he feels a great ease of movement in his limbs. It takes no effort at all. On this at least age has no claim. The oil paint flies on to the canvas as if each lump knows where it belongs. So solid a thing and yet as ethereal as song.

Finally the vast golden sleeve is done and he turns to her carmine dress. He weaves strands of orange, brown, gold and his own soul into the red until it dissolves into a rubied sea of all compassion. He drizzles the same red over her shoulder and works it into the background too. Nothing is excluded.

Finally, when he reaches the outer edges of the canvas, he does not want the painting to stop there. And so he wills the golden light and the sea of carmine to go on, beyond the edge.

He feels the thing he could not name before. Feels it so clearly now. A glow within; it is the same light he is painting. The light he has seen in the night of her death and now he knows – it is for this world too. The visible and invisible. Not two separate spheres but one.

Rembrandt continues to work on the limitless dress. A dress to dress all things. And as he does, all the world is clad in the immeasurable.

Would you believe it, and I honestly mean what I say
,

I should be happy to give ten years of my life if I

could go on sitting here in front of this picture for a

fortnight with only a crust of dry bread for food?

Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo in 1884 about Rembrandt's
Isaac and Rebecca