Girl with a Pearl Earring (28 page)

Every night I swabbed my ear and pushed a slightly larger needle through the hole to keep it open. It did not hurt too much until the lobe became infected and began to swell. Then no matter how much clove oil I dabbed on the ear, my eyes streamed with tears when I drove the needle through. I did not know how I would manage to wear the earring without fainting again.

I was grateful that I wore my cap over my ears so that no one saw the swollen red lobe. It throbbed as I bent over the steaming laundry, as I ground colors, as I sat in church with Pieter and my parents.

It throbbed when van Ruijven caught me hanging up sheets in the courtyard one morning and tried to pull my chemise down over my shoulders and expose my bosom.

“You shouldn’t fight me, my girl,” he murmured as I backed away from him. “You’ll enjoy it more if you don’t fight. And you know, I will have you anyway when I get that painting.” He pushed me against the wall and lowered his lips to my chest, pulling at my breasts to free them from the dress.

“Tanneke!” I called desperately, hoping in vain that she had returned early from an errand to the baker’s.

“What are you doing?”

Cornelia was watching us from the doorway. I had never expected to be glad to see her.

Van Ruijven raised his head and stepped back. “We’re playing a game, dear girl,” he replied, smiling. “Just a little game. You’ll play it too when you’re older.” He straightened his cloak and stepped past her into the house.

I could not meet Cornelia’s eye. I tucked in my chemise and smoothed my dress with shaking hands. When finally I looked up she was gone.

The morning of my eighteenth birthday I got up and cleaned the studio as usual. The concert painting was done—in a few days van Ruijven would come to view it and take it away. Although I did not need to now, I still cleaned the studio scene carefully, dusting the harpsichord, the violin, the bass viol, brushing the table rug with a damp cloth, polishing the chairs, mopping the grey and white floor tiles.

I did not like the painting as much as his others. Although it was meant to be more valuable with three figures in it, I preferred the pictures he had painted of women alone—they were purer, less complicated. I found I did not want to look at the concert for long, or try to understand what the people in it were thinking.

I wondered what he would paint next.

Downstairs I set water on the fire to heat and asked Tanneke what she wanted from the butcher. She was sweeping the steps and tiles in front of the house. “A rack of beef,” she replied, leaning against her broom. “Why not have something nice?” She rubbed her lower back and groaned. “It may take my mind off my aches.”

“Is it your back again?” I tried to sound sympathetic, but Tanneke’s back always hurt. A maid’s back would always hurt. That was a maid’s life.

Maertge came with me to the Meat Hall, and I was glad of it—since that night in the alley I was embarrassed to be alone with Pieter the son. I was not sure how he would treat me. If I was with Maertge, however, he would have to be careful of what he said or did.

Pieter the son was not there—only his father, who grinned at me. “Ah, the birthday maid!” he cried. “An important day for you.”

Maertge looked at me in surprise. I had not mentioned my birthday to the family—there was no reason to.

“There’s nothing important about it,” I snapped.

“That’s not what my son said. He’s off now, on an errand. Someone to see.” Pieter the father winked at me. My blood chilled. He was saying something without saying it, something I was meant to understand.

“Your finest rack of beef,” I ordered, deciding to ignore him.

“In celebration, then?” Pieter the father never let things drop, but pushed them as far as he could.

I did not reply. I simply waited until he served me, then put the beef in my pail and turned away.

“Is it really your birthday, Griet?” Maertge whispered as we left the Meat Hall.

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Why is eighteen so important?”

“It’s not. You mustn’t listen to what he says—he’s a silly man.”

Maertge didn’t look convinced. Nor was I. His words had tugged at something in my mind.

I worked all morning rinsing and boiling laundry. My mind turned to many things while I sat over the tub of steaming water. I wondered where Frans was, and if my parents had heard yet that he had left Delft. I wondered what Pieter the father had meant earlier, and where Pieter the son was. I thought of the night in the alley. I thought of the painting of me, and wondered when it would be done and what would happen to me then. All the while my ear throbbed, stabbing with pain whenever I moved my head.

It was Maria Thins who came to get me.

“Leave your washing, girl,” I heard her say behind me. “He wants you upstairs.” She was standing in the doorway, shaking something in her hand.

I got up in confusion. “Now, madam?”

“Yes, now. Don’t be coy with me, girl. You know why. Catharina has gone out this morning, and she doesn’t do that much these days, now her time is closer. Hold out your hand.”

I dried a hand on my apron and held it out. Maria Thins dropped a pair of pearl earrings into my palm.

“Take them up with you now. Quickly.”

I could not move. I was holding two pearls the size of hazelnuts, shaped like drops of water. They were silvery grey, even in the sunlight, except for a dot of fierce white light. I had touched pearls before, when I brought them upstairs for van Ruijven’s wife and tied them round her neck or laid them on the table. But I had never held them for myself before.

“Go on, girl,” Maria Thins growled impatiently. “Catharina may come back sooner than she said.”

I stumbled into the hallway, leaving the laundry unwrung. I climbed the stairs in full view of Tanneke, who was bringing in water from the canal, and Aleydis and Cornelia, who were rolling marbles in the hallway. They all looked up at me.

“Where are you going?” Aleydis asked, her grey eyes bright with interest.

“To the attic,” I replied softly.

“Can we come with you?” Cornelia said in a taunting voice.

“No.”

“Girls, you’re blocking my way.” Tanneke pushed past them, her face dark.

The studio door was ajar. I stepped inside, pressing my lips together, my stomach twisting. I closed the door behind me.

He was waiting for me. I held my hand out to him and dropped the earrings into his palm.

He smiled at me. “Go and wrap up your hair.”

I changed in the storeroom. He did not come to look at my hair. As I returned I glanced at
The Procuress
on the wall. The man was smiling at the young woman as if he were squeezing pears in the market to see if they were ripe. I shivered.

He was holding up an earring by its wire. It caught the light from the window, capturing it in a tiny panel of bright white.

“Here you are, Griet.” He held out the pearl to me.

“Griet! Griet! Someone is here to see you!” Maertge called from the bottom of the stairs.

I stepped to the window. He came to my side and we looked out.

Pieter the son was standing in the street below, arms crossed. He glanced up and saw us standing together at the window. “Come down, Griet,” he called. “I want to speak to you.” He looked as if he would never move from his spot.

I stepped back from the window. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said in a low voice. “I won’t be long.” I hurried to the storeroom, pulled off the headcloths and changed into my cap. He was still standing at the window, his back to me, as I passed through the studio.

The girls were sitting in a row on the bench, staring openly at Pieter, who stared back at them.

“Let’s go around the corner,” I whispered, moving towards the Molenpoort. Pieter did not follow, but continued to stand with his arms crossed.

“What were you wearing up there?” he asked. “On your head.”

I stopped and turned back. “My cap.”

“No, it was blue and yellow.”

Five sets of eyes watched us—the girls on the bench, him at the window. Then Tanneke appeared in the doorway, and that made six.

“Please, Pieter,” I hissed. “Let’s go along a little way.”

“What I have to say can be said in front of anyone. I have nothing to hide.” He tossed his head, his blond curls falling around his ears.

I could see he would not be silenced. He would say what I dreaded he would say in front of them all.

Pieter did not raise his voice, but we all heard his words. “I’ve spoken to your father this morning, and he has agreed that we may marry now you are eighteen. You can leave here and come to me. Today.”

I felt my face go hot, whether from anger or shame I was not sure. Everyone was waiting for me to speak.

I drew in a deep breath. “This is not the place to talk about such things,” I replied severely. “Not in the street like this. You were wrong to come here.” I did not wait for his response, though as I turned to go back inside he looked stricken.

“Griet!” he cried.

I pushed past Tanneke, who spoke so softly that I was not sure I heard her right. “Whore.”

I ran up the stairs to the studio. He was still standing at the window as I shut the door. “I am sorry, sir,” I said. “I’ll just change my cap.”

He did not turn round. “He is still there,” he said.

When I returned, I crossed to the window, though I did not stand too close in case Pieter could see me again with my head wrapped in blue and yellow.

My master was not looking down at the street any longer, but at the New Church tower. I peeked—Pieter was gone.

I took my place in the lion-head chair and waited.

When he turned at last to face me, his eyes were masked. More than ever, I did not know what he was thinking.

“So you will leave us,” he said.

“Oh, sir, I do not know. Do not pay attention to words said in the street like that.”

“Will you marry him?”

“Please do not ask me about him.”

“No, perhaps I should not. Now, let us begin again.” He reached around to the cupboard behind him, picked up an earring, and held it out to me.

“I want you to do it.” I had not thought I could ever be so bold.

Nor had he. He raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak, but did not say anything.

He stepped up to my chair. My jaw tightened but I managed to hold my head steady. He reached over and gently touched my earlobe.

I gasped as if I had been holding my breath under water.

He rubbed the swollen lobe between his thumb and finger, then pulled it taut. With his other hand he inserted the earring wire in the hole and pushed it through. A pain like fire jolted through me and brought tears to my eyes.

He did not remove his hand. His fingers brushed against my neck and along my jaw. He traced the side of my face up to my cheek, then blotted the tears that spilled from my eyes with his thumb. He ran his thumb over my lower lip. I licked it and tasted salt.

I closed my eyes then and he removed his fingers. When I opened them again he had gone back to his easel and taken up his palette.

I sat in my chair and gazed at him over my shoulder. My ear was burning, the weight of the pearl pulling at the lobe. I could not think of anything but his fingers on my neck, his thumb on my lips.

He looked at me but did not begin to paint. I wondered what he was thinking.

Finally he reached behind him again. “You must wear the other one as well,” he declared, picking up the second earring and holding it out to me.

For a moment I could not speak. I wanted him to think of me, not of the painting.

“Why?” I finally answered. “It can’t be seen in the painting.”

“You must wear both,” he insisted. “It is a farce to wear only one.”

“But—my other ear is not pierced,” I faltered.

“Then you must tend to it.” He continued to hold it out.

I reached over and took it. I did it for him. I got out my needle and clove oil and pierced my other ear. I did not cry, or faint, or make a sound. Then I sat all morning and he painted the earring he could see, and I felt, stinging like fire in my other ear, the pearl he could not see.

The clothes soaking in the kitchen went cold, the water grey. Tanneke clattered in the kitchen, the girls shouted outside, and we behind our closed door sat and looked at each other. And he painted.

When at last he set down his brush and palette, I did not change position, though my eyes ached from looking sideways. I did not want to move.

“It is done,” he said, his voice muffled. He turned away and began wiping his palette knife with a rag. I gazed at the knife—it had white paint on it.

“Take off the earrings and give them back to Maria Thins when you go down,” he added.

I began to cry silently. Without looking at him, I got up and went into the storeroom, where I removed the blue and yellow cloth from my head. I waited for a moment, my hair out over my shoulders, but he did not come. Now that the painting was finished he no longer wanted me.