Long past midnight, I’m sitting next to Evert on the edge of a set of steps, gazing out at the empty market square. A lone reveler is still staggering about, drunk and shouting, but otherwise the square is deserted. Flaming torches give off some light in the darkness, the pale moon is likewise doing its best. I fiddle with the bracelet I got from Matthias, but stop when I see Evert is looking.
“You have beautiful hands,” he says. “So small and delicate. You should see mine.” He holds up his hands, which are covered in scars, and we both laugh. “And a lovely bracelet. That’s lapis lazuli, isn’t it?”
I nod. “I got it from Matthias before he went away.”
“I thought as much.”
We both stare out at the square for a while in silence.
“Do you still love him?” Evert asks after a time.
His question hangs in the air like a bubble until I sigh. “I don’t know. I was completely in love with him, but that feeling is fading. It would have been more difficult if he’d been here.”
“It will pass.”
I nod. “And Gesina?”
Now it’s his turn to be silent. “Gesina and I were young and in love when we got married,” he says eventually. “She was very beautiful, and I couldn’t believe my luck when she said yes. Mostly because she came from a rich family and I wasn’t such a good prospect for her. But the future looked promising. I inherited the pottery from my parents—along with my brothers, of course. I bought them out. I was determined to make something of the business. It didn’t go as well as I’d thought. The competition in everyday earthenware was fierce and the rich preferred the exclusive porcelain from China. I did my best, but I couldn’t give Gesina the life of luxury she’d been expecting. She hated having to help out in the shop, which she saw as a terrible insult to her dignity. Though she did it, I could feel her silent resentment. Even our children helped out in the business, as little as they were. I was training our son, Cornelis, as a potter; both the girls did chores.”
He falls silent and it’s only after a few minutes that I ask quietly how many children he had.
“Three,” says Evert. “Cornelis was the oldest, then came Magteld and Johanna. They were twelve, eight and five when they died. Between them came two others, but they died as babies.”
I don’t say anything, I just squeeze his hand.
“For a long time I thought I could have rescued them. That I should have run upstairs, even though it was already an inferno, or at least tried to get up there. I know it would have been pointless. By the time I made it up there I would have been burned to a crisp, I’d have died with my family. And that’s how it should have been. Instead, I shrank from the flames, I stood hesitating for seconds, while upstairs I could hear my children screaming. I’ll never forgive myself for that. And neither will God: he punishes me for it every night in my dreams.”
A heavy silence stretches out between us.
“Sometimes I wonder,” I say, “whether we don’t punish ourselves much more harshly than God does.”
“That might be true.” He looks at me, but the darkness hides the expression on his face. I only have his voice to go on, and it sounds endlessly sad. Then he seems to rouse himself. He sits up a bit straighter and asks, “And what about you? What’s your story?”
I shrug. “I’ll tell you some other time.”
As the summer wears on, each Monday finds me standing outside Carel’s door on Doelen Street at eight o’clock. I’m not his only pupil but I am the only woman. On the other days of the week they paint nude models, but for the most part I paint city scenes and flowers.
“It isn’t enough,” I say one morning at the end of September. “If I’m to be able to paint the Chinese figures well, I can’t carry on doing flowers and dragons. How can I paint people if I have no knowledge of anatomy?”
“But the Chinese wear baggy clothes.” Carel is standing before a recently finished painting that is about to be picked up by a client. “You can hardly take part in the lessons with live models. I understand it’s frustrating, but it simply isn’t possible.”
“How can women ever become master painters if they can’t study the human form? Men get every opportunity to do so!”
“There are women enrolled in the Guild of Saint Luke. Judith Leyster from Haarlem, for example. A highly talented artist.”
“I know, there’s one in Alkmaar too: Isabella Bardesius. So how were they trained?”
“Same as you, by specializing in still lifes. Though they have also done portraits.” Suddenly Carel turns the canvas he’s been staring at so that it’s facing me, easel and all. “Be honest, what’s wrong with this kind of painting?”
I go and stand next to him. I hadn’t seen his latest work yet, it’s only just finished. The paint is wet and gleams in the morning light. On the canvas there’s a little bird with yellow feathers and a red beak. Despite its fierce gaze, it’s clear that this is a pet because the tiny creature is chained by its foot to a special perch fastened to a wall. It’s a small, intimate painting. I look at it, struck dumb by its simplicity and beauty.
“Magnificent,” I say eventually.
“I’m calling it The Goldfinch. I don’t really want to part with it.”
“I understand. Wouldn’t you rather keep it yourself?”
“Yes, but that way I’d die of hunger.”
We examine the painting in a companionable silence.
“You’re right,” I say. “There’s nothing wrong with still lifes at all.” I go back to my place behind my easel. “How did you end up in Delft?”
For a moment it seems as if Carel hasn’t heard me, because he keeps his back to me and doesn’t react. It’s only when I resume painting that he starts to talk.
“Alice was my great love,” he says, his eyes focused resolutely on the painting. “She was pretty, funny and my best friend. We grew up together, she was my neighbor. When we were little we agreed to marry each other when we were older.” He turns and adds, “And that’s what we did.”
I can hear from his voice that this isn’t the end of the story.
“Alice wanted to move to Amsterdam. She had wealthy relatives there, who helped me to pay my apprentice fees. That’s how I was apprenticed to Rembrandt, and I soon received my own commissions once I was a master painter myself. It was a wonderful time, Alice and I enjoyed life. But things never stay as they are. Everything that’s good and beautiful always falls apart.” He comes and sits down next to me, staring with unseeing eyes at the canvas I’m working on. “Alice was desperate to have children. When she was still a child herself, she already knew what their names would be. We had three children, and not one of them made it to their first birthday. Alice died in childbirth during her third labor.”
“How awful . . .”
“My career was going from strength to strength, but I’d had enough of Amsterdam. I went back to Middenbeemster and there I stayed until I met Agatha a couple of years ago. She was a widow, we understood each other’s grief. After we got married we came to live in Delft, where she’s from.”
“What a sad story,” I say softly.
“It’s a normal story, there are so many of them. Sooner or later we all get our fair share of sorrow. The only thing you can hope is that it comes later rather than sooner, so you can at least know some happiness first. But I don’t need to tell you that, do I?”
I look at him, confused.
“I know you, Catrin. I know who you are.”
“You know who I am?”
“How many years separate us? Ten or so? De Rijp, Graft and Middenbeemster are right next to each other. I’ve got friends and relatives living in all three villages. I knew Govert, your husband, very well. And I go home sometimes, so I’ve heard the rumors.”
This news comes like a kick to the gut. To hide my feelings, I carry on painting even though my hand is shaking. “What rumors?”
“I think you know exactly what I mean. Is that why you left, Catrin?” His face is friendly, his voice contains no accusation. “I know what Govert was like. He had two faces. On the outside he could be quite charming, but he had another side. I’m sure you found that out for yourself.”
Unable to speak, I sit still as stone, like an animal in a trap. “Yes,” I say eventually.
“So you’ll have been relieved when he died.”
“He was stone drunk. He was lying in bed, sleeping it off. When I left the room he was snoring loudly, when I came back half an hour later, he was dead.”
He frowns. “Why did you leave De Rijp?”
“Why not? I always wanted to leave, even as a girl. After Govert died, there was nothing to keep me there.”
“There are those who saw it as running away.”
“It was. I was running away from the confinement of that village. I wanted a new life, to be free, to meet new people.”
“And do you like it?”
I stare at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“What I said. Do you like your new, free life?”
I have to think about that for a minute. “Yes,” I say finally. “I miss my family, but I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back.”
“No,” says Carel under his breath. “If I were you, that would be the last thing I’d do.”