I Am Rembrandt's Daughter (10 page)

I notice Carel watching me. Shame, then anger wells up inside me. I must be a curiosity to him, like the arm in the jar in Vader’s studio.

Gerrit van Uylenburgh stands up. “I saw you at the wedding,” he says, brushing off the knees of his black breeches. “You are all grown up now. How old are you?”

“Almost fourteen.” Just give me the money and I shall leave.

He nods. “Well, I suppose the old man keeps you busy.”

“Yes, mijnheer.”

“He hasn’t changed a bit, I see. Does what he pleases when he pleases.”

“Yes, mijnheer.” I glance at the door.

“Well, we aren’t here to disparage your father, are we?” He fluffs back the remains of his hair. “As I told Titus, I might have a buyer for this piece. How much does your vader ask?”

I look at him stupidly. “I can’t say.”

“He sent you here with a painting to sell and you don’t know the price?”

Tears of frustration burn at my throat. It was all I could do to lug the canvas out of the house while Vader was on a walk along the river. I was so occupied with getting away with the painting while not sweating onto the fresh cap I had donned in case I saw Carel that I had not thought of the selling price.

“Cagey as ever—my vader warned me about him,” van Uylenburgh says. “Doesn’t want to limit his offer, does he? Well, this kind of rough thing doesn’t fetch much, no matter what kind of game your vader wants to play. But the buyer did ask specifically for this picture.”

“May I ask,” I say, “who it is?” Titus would want to know.

“He wishes to remain anonymous.” Van Uylenburgh glances at Carel. “At least until after the purchase is made. Then he will reveal himself.” He holds open the door. “I shall send word of his offer. Thank you for bringing the painting. It must have been a beast to carry.”

I cannot move. As eager as I was for
buchts
, I had not thought of the possibility of returning home without any. Stupid! Had I not heard Vader complain a thousand times how slow buyers were to pay? Now I have nothing with which to calm Vader’s temper when he finds the picture missing.

“I have got other clients coming soon.” Van Uylenburgh looks over my head in case I had not caught his meaning.

“Dank u wel.”
I bob my good-bye and hasten away.

Outside, the fishy smell of the canal quickly overtakes the sheepy odor of the house of van Uylenburgh. I am thinking how Vader is going to roar, when I hear someone call, “Cornelia!”

Carel strides toward me, the tassels of his collar bouncing on his taut chest. He has run out without his cassock. I touch my cap, then my throat. Why had I not worn Moeder’s red beads? I had them in my hand, but I am so stupid about them. I’ve done nothing wrong, I can wear them all I want. Now I look but plain and young.

“I’m glad your vader’s picture has a buyer,” he says.

Vader again. I start walking along the canal.

He falls in stride beside me. “I could not get it out of my mind after I saw it,” he says. “It was almost as if you could feel what was inside of each person.”

I glance at him.

He looks over his shoulder. “I had to get out of there. I am apprenticed to Ferdinand Bol, who has got a studio in van Uylenburgh’s house, but van Uylenburgh thinks I am his errand boy. He works me to the bone if I let him.” When he smiles, the sunlight catches his golden lashes. His eyes are the bright blue of a jay’s wing.

My gaze dives for the bricks of the walkway. “How soon will van Uylenburgh pay? Not that it matters.”

“It might be weeks. Buyers are notorious for not paying until their arms are twisted. I don’t know who this one is—some are worse than others. The richer they are, the slower they pay.”

“That’s not fair.”

“That is the way it is.” We stop at the bridge. A brisk March wind blows his blond curls off his forehead. His skin is tawny, almost as golden as his hair. At that moment, the death bells of the Westerkerk sound, their deep ringing almost as loud at this remove as at home.

“Someone has died again,” he says.

I notice the sprinkling of golden freckles on his face when he frowns. “Yes.”

“Does it seem to you that they have been ringing more than usual these days?”

I thought only I noticed them. “Are they?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I could count them. I don’t remember them going so often, not since the beginning of …” He scowls and takes a breath.

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.