‘It’s the artist’s signatory mark,’ Rastro explains.
‘An impression of himself?’ I inquire with much interest.
‘A woman he loved, supposedly.’
‘A dead woman? A ghost?’ I pester.
‘He calls it a human cavity. It appears in all his paintings when they’re nearing completion. But you can ask him yourself. He’ll be down presently,’ Father Rastro gestures towards an open manhole in the corner of the ceiling that leads up to the attic. ‘Weddesteeg’s residing upstairs,’ he informs me.
A short time later the pleasing face of a man does indeed appear above our heads like a moon sliding out from between a gap in the clouds. The man waves at us in a friendly fashion. One Harmen Weddesteeg from Antwerp presumably, who swivels himself around onto a stepladder, and makes a spirited descent.
Arriving in our midst, Weddesteeg immediately begins some outrageous flirting with Paula Sánchez. (One-sided flirting, mind you.) Father Rastro seems tolerant of the painter’s familiarity with Paula. I notice that the model herself doesn’t seem to mind.
The monk hurries forward to give Weddesteeg his palette and brushes. The painter acknowledges me for the first time and Father Rastro makes a belated introduction. Weddesteeg nods acceptingly when I tell him how remarkable I find his penitent woman. ‘You’re a painter too? Oh, in that case…‘ And he takes a much greater interest in my compliments.
The figures are taking up their positions for the dramatic narrative—Rastro lifts the cloth to Paula’s soiled feet, Paula inclines her face, and the painting begins without delay. They’re keeping to a regular schedule it seems.
I stand behind Weddesteeg, feeling a bit out of place. I haven’t had a chance to ask him about the human cavity and, more importantly, a question of technical interest, about how he’s made the light shine so radiantly on the three figures, and on the horse with its majestic, springy tail.
The shrieking chicks are proving tiresome. What possessed Father Rastro to bring the nest up here? Perhaps Weddesteeg wants them in his painting. Good humouredly, I tell Weddesteeg about my goldfinch, and how I like to
paint to its musical accompaniment. When I forget to take the cage to work, I don’t paint so well.
Weddesteeg listens respectfully then blurts out: ‘Oh, drown the pathetic things and be done with it!’
Rastro, a little flustered, gets up from his genuflection. Retrieves the nest from the table and brings it over to me, holding it out like it’s the Eucharist. I open my mouth to protest, but I needn’t have worried.
‘Diego Velázquez, you can help us out. Find Luis de Pareja. He’ll be in the refectory. Get the resident boys digging up worms. Tell them to shake a water can over the birds’ beaks.’
This suits me, as I’d intended spending more time with the Morisco boy. Departing the round tower with the nest under my wing, I head down to the refectory. Luis looks surprised to see me carrying the nest. He introduces me to his friends, Benito, Remi and Camilo. These three Moriscos are a good deal shorter and younger than Luis, and they appear to look up to him. Well Remi and Benito obviously do. Camilo seems to exist in a world of his own. He’s reading a book as he comes out of the refectory, and he continues to read as we go about our business, holding the words up close to his eyes, as elderly scholars do. A priest has given the boys over into my care and we head for the courtyard to search for grubs in the flowerbeds. After we’ve fed and watered the
chicks as best we can, we lie on the grass beneath some foliage and look up at the sky for a while, (this will pass for siesta, the boys tell me). Little Remi falls asleep in the heat and I cover his face with my handkerchief to protect it from the sun. While we’re waiting for him to wake, Benito, Luis and I play knucklebones with the backbones of small animals in a shady cloister. I used to love playing this game with my younger brothers. I forget about the bells, I forget about the painting in the round tower, I forget I ever had another reason for being in the convento than visiting Luis. Camilo continues to read Virgil but he’s listening to us with one ear. I know, because he smiles weakly when we laugh. An amazing little chap, Camilo. Later on we discuss
The Aeneid
together as I might do with boys my own age in Latin school.
Luis has come up with what I think is a good idea and, when Remi wakes, the five of us head off in the direction of the orchard. (The boys are supposed to be fruit picking this afternoon.) I carry the nest and Luis and his friends carry two tin pails each. Camilo continues to read as we traipse through the vegetable gardens, surrounded by a flock of white butterflies. Long-legged Luis clambers up an apricot tree with the nest in his arms, securing it beside another nest he’s been keeping an eye on. He’s hoping against wisdom that the mother will attend to two broods at once. But the hatchlings aren’t even the same breed!
I tell Luis to climb down from the tree quickly, and not to disturb the workings of nature. The boys all seem to think Luis’s matchmaking will work out well for the swallow chicks.
When Luis says I may eat as much fruit as I please, I notice how hungry and thirsty I am, and I don’t stop eating soft fruit till my stomach complains. Late in the day, with many pounds of ripe fruit picked and neatly stored in the refectory pantry, I drink a pint of water and take my leave of the Morisco boys. My guilt about Luis is partially relieved for if he sees me as a friend he’ll realise I had nothing to do with his incarceration.
After visiting the latrines, I return to the round tower in the hope of asking the painter Weddesteeg those questions that have been intriguing me. I make my way up to the first-floor studio, but only the monk and the horse remain in the room. The painting stands drying, aired by a breeze drifting through an open window. The shadow on the left of the canvas is unaltered. (So it is to be part of the scene then, the human cavity.)
The monk has his back to me when I enter. He’s wearing a painting smock so I guess he must be acting as Weddesteeg’s apprentice while the Fleming is resident in the convento. Harmen’s brushes have been cleaned and the paint jars sealed. I don’t imagine the painter would have
done these chores himself. The monk is squatting down in front of the painting, writing something on a piece of parchment. He hasn’t heard me come in. Standing and raising his arms to the canvas, he stretches a piece of white thread across the length of the horse. He’s taking the horse’s measurements, I suppose. I’ve done this kind of thing myself, with Pacheco’s paintings, when I’ve had to make copies of them.
The monk, wiry and supple, stoops down to the floor again. I decide to leave, but the monk hears my departing footsteps and I’m forced to explain my presence.
‘I have a couple of questions for Señor Weddesteeg.’
The monk shakes his head but says considerately. ‘He’s gone into town. He doesn’t take his meals in the refectory.’
‘I’ll come back another day,’ I nod, moving back a few paces, still transfixed by the painting.
‘Of course. But don’t come tomorrow. Father Rastro has invited the Castle inspectors to view the painting, and they might arrive any time.’
Colour floods my cheeks. Father Rastro’s one step ahead of Carlos Zamorana and his invidious spy then. He must have organised the Castle inspection some time back, if it’s an official visit.
‘Father Rastro’s taking every precaution. He knows the painting may prove contentious,’ says the monk gravely.
Part of me wants to rush away, and part of me wants to stay and find out more.
‘About the buyer…‘ I begin uncertainly.
‘Doña Fillide. A long-time friend of Father Rastro’s. And recently a patron of our Order.’
A private buyer, as I imagined. And a foreigner. I’m only surprised that it’s a woman.
But then I’m not. Rastro must be attached to Doña Fillide. That’s why he’s putting himself through this risky charade.
I’m not sure if I can ask the thing I now want to ask. But if the monk’s just a Morisco, I can perhaps afford to speak candidly. He seems obliging enough.
‘Father Rastro’s doing all this for her then?’
The monk doesn’t blink. He smiles, and gestures to the painting. ‘For that one, he is.’
So it’s to be with Paula. She has made fools of us all.
‘A wonderful painting,’ I say, in parting, feeling I should give it my own stamp of approval.
The monk nods, and says ‘I know,’ with such confidence (for a minion) that I find it a little disconcerting.
The sun is just beginning to set. I stand in my side-garden and pass a sprig of parsley through an open window to Prospera who reaches out to accept my offering. Decomposing sunlight casts a copper hue; the kitchen walls have turned the burnished colour of the curved tureen in which Violeta is stirring eggs.
Prospera washing parsley. Shaking it dry over-vigorously like she’s burnt her hand. Possibly trying to shake off my stare. I loiter at the window, vaguely. Unready to come inside. I see Violeta shake her head at Prospera. Tss. Why is mistress sticking her neck in here? After hours holding my breath in a roomful of men, I crave some female company. Between the strong arms of Violeta and Prospera I float
to the surface. Permission to be myself? Not quite. Either hanging in a painting, or leaning against the window frame, I don’t quite belong.
Today Diego Velázquez visited us in the convento. Such a surprise to see him there. I didn’t find out exactly why he’d come either. Perhaps Father Rastro wanted another opinion on the painting. Diego knows one of the Mercedarian boys, so that may have been his purpose. How tall Diego’s grown since those days when I sat for his master. Then I saw him frequently. I still have a flared cape of Diego’s that Pacheco lent me to go home in one cold night. I should have returned it, I know, but a man’s cape can come in handy. And it has. It’d be too small for Diego now, but perhaps I’ll return it anyway.
The light in the kitchen is changing again, dulling the molten gleam of Violeta’s exposed elbow as she stands, arm bent, boiling eggs in the watery bouillon. The shutters creak as I press them closed. Walking round the side of the house, I find I’m still clucky about the earth I’m standing on. Paula Sánchez, a property owner! (Bishop Rizi gave me the house, but
I
chose it.)
Take off my transparent manta in the hallway and cross the indoor patio. After doing a loop around my gurgling fountain I perform a little balancing act on the stone rim. On the absent ladder-man’s behalf, I say to myself. Star jump
down from the rim then rush upstairs inspired. Change out of my convento clothes. The red dress, poor lamentable thing, is fraying at the cuffs and collar. The seams are splitting, but Harmen Weddesteeg says this isn’t a problem for the painting. In fact it helps that I look a bit worse for wear. The dress must be sponged clean for tomorrow’s sitting. I scent a pan of hot water with ambergris. Dampen a muslin cloth and gently spot the velvet. Handle with care lest thy robe fall apart. Lest thy self fall apart in the process!
I admit to feeling more at home in this Magdalen dress than any I’ve worn since being a child, those coarse plain frocks my mother stitched, then captured me in. But it’s not really the dress, it’s the company of Enrique Rastro and Harmen Weddesteeg that nurtures me. It’s the men’s desultory joking, their mirthful carry-on during the sittings when their clever conversation makes me feel I’m at the theatre, witnessing a comedia. I hope the men are conversing for my benefit, as much as they are for each other. Sometimes I venture an ‘oh’ or ‘ah’ of curiosity, but I don’t like to expose my ignorance. Listen out for praise, yes. Harmen sheds compliments like a fire sheds sparks. He’s always pretending he’s lost his sight to me.
‘Ah,’ he says, leaping down the last five steps of his ladder. ‘Where is she, where’s my Magdalena?’ He covers his eyes with his hand like he’s shielding them from the sun.
He flounders about. Stumbles towards me. Harmen takes a quick peek through the shield of his fingers. ‘My angel,’ he cajoles, stepping back, mouth agape. Am I shooting golden arrows? No, not even penitent, though I’d like to be.
Harmen drinks me up. ‘My sight is returned. I only have eyes for you, Paula.’
Once when Harmen climbed down from his loft he was actually wearing a blindfold. Can you believe it? What recklessness! He tripped over a bucket then crawled across the floor towards my amused titter. I couldn’t help loving his silliness. He made a big to-do about drawing near and fondling my bare feet. Rising, he patted my veiled head to reassure himself it was really me. Felt the bones of my face, ‘Good for sculpture, eh.’
Really? He’s too much. Then theatrically pulling his blindfold off. ‘Bless you Paula. Blind no longer!’
What a charmer. Anyone who can make me feel that special deserves my affection. Love? It looked like it might go that way for a while. I was attracted to Harmen in the beginning. Probably because I sensed he wouldn’t stoop to barter for me. There’s that supple time when getting to know another. One is open to the possibility of love. But it went no deeper with him. Or with me, to tell you the truth. It doesn’t go deep for me with many men. (A risk of heart seems beyond me.) But Harmen’s gregariousness is
compelling and he’s handsome in that sandy, solid Fleming way. I might have been receptive to something more with him, but I sensed he was privately disapproving. Or unavailable.
He told me straight out one afternoon, ‘You’ve stolen my sight Paula, but you’re not going to take my heart.’
I began to doubt my allure. Concentrated on my trade. To kneel silently for two hours takes a lot of fortitude. I have to control my impulse to call it quits or to complain about the pain it causes me to stay kneeling with my head twisted around for such a long time. Father Rastro understands my discomfort, because he’s always waiting to help me stand after each protracted sitting. He insists I walk around in the intermissions. He offers me water from a glass that he polishes clean before giving to me. The crystal sparkles in his hand. Then it’s sparkling in my hand. The water tasting sweeter than normal.
I’ve never met a person like Enrique Rastro before. At first I found him rather languid in manner, but more recently I’ve started thinking of him as serene. He’s the same, inside and outside. The outer Enrique appears to live in perfect harmony with the inner, private Enrique. He’s a glove and you touch him first on the outside. When you put your hand inside, you find the lining is the same. I’ve noticed that in the average person there’s usually some discordance
between the two, but Enrique is a perfect match. This may explain why he’s suited to the single life of a friar. A marriage has already taken place, a marriage within himself.
I’m a little starry-eyed about both Harmen and Enrique. On occasion I leave the convento physically exhausted, but mentally refreshed. As I make my way towards the river, I don’t notice the acrid smells of dying day, the stench of chamberpots spilled in gutters, the food refuse piled high in laneways. When I cross the bridge the breeze lifts the hem of my gown and twirls the manta round my body. My wings pulse like a bird’s. I float free in a wet-dry silver sky.
Having finished cleaning my red dress, I lay it down flat across the base of the closet. (It’s too threadbare to hang upon a hook.) There’s something I’m looking for. Don’t know where I put it. No daylight left to draw upon. I hover in darkness for a moment. In the absence of a reassuring image in a mirror, what aspect of myself have I retained? Just a pulse, my voice and a few threads of language tangled in my head like old necklaces in a jewellery box. Starting out again in a completely dark world I would be both powerless and anonymous; I would have no choice but to seek out the man with the nutcracker. Let the ladder-man water me as he does the neighbours’ birds and plants. I would do it for love perhaps; but after the wonder, comes the hurt. Why does the hurt last longer than the wonder?
Was the breaking not meant to happen? Is it against my nature to be broken from?
I’m contemplating love from a new angle tonight. One possibility, I think, is to enter a completely dark world and resort to the primary sensations of taste, touch and smell. Sounds, like the snapping of the nutcracker startle; they remind me of a crackling hearth. There’s a tapping nearby. Someone’s at the door. It’s only Violeta, chiding, ‘Señorita, not dressed yet!’ I take the proffered candle and she leaves me in peace.
Clinging to the leftover mood from my sojourn in the convento, I remain within my imaginings as my body moves like a wooden toy on a pulley towards my dresser. Observe the candle’s red and yellow flickering in the mirror. The flame in the reflection appears to be burning in the middle of my chest, just like the sacred heart. The illusion takes hypnotic hold of me. A soothing voice, ‘Let the blue Mary enter your wilting heart. Let the blue Mary heal your red Mary; lay them down, side by side, blue and red.’
I’m familiar with both Marys from my time with the Mercedarians. Enrique Rastro seems to delight in making me bump into every marble statue of the Virgin on our daily circuits round the seminary. Coming in and going out the snow-white Marys preside, plaster robed in sky-bright
blue. ‘The Virgin will hear your prayers,’ Father Rastro encourages, ‘She will make you strong in the Lord…‘
But, I wickedly notice, the convento shelters the Virgin’s fallen female friends too. While I’m walking beside Enrique, I’m keeping an eye out for the undergrowth of red Mary Magdalens. They are my secret allies. There’s enough russet-gowned penitents hanging about the convento—in tapestries and paintings—to make you really wonder about the priests’ sworn allegiance to the Virgin. I can tell you that such impure thoughts regarding the priests have crossed my mind more than once.
I know my conversations between colours on a painter’s palette. I’ve dabbled on a few of these discarded trays in miscellaneous artist’s studios. If the blue Mary and the red Mary converge, a violet Mary is born.
Impaled delight! The flame in the mirror, the one that is burning in the middle of my chest, flickers purple in sympathy.
Chilling conversations from the past return to plague me when I’m least expecting them. Baneful influences rise like a soupy river-mist that leaves a stain. A younger me was persuaded to think and act in ways that weren’t my own.
‘I’ll not work as a concubine,’ I told some housemother at the age of fourteen.
‘A lot of women prefer it to marriage,’ was the tart reply.
Why did the Christians I worked for never say it was a sin to sell my body? It wasn’t
my
fault I took the wrong path. Lots of women were selling their physical wares and lots of men clamouring to buy them. Yet I could have done worse. I might have ended up in the brothel with Hortense. A year after the fateful dust-storm separated us I encountered my village friend in a marketplace.
‘They keep us clean. A doctor checks for disease. And the brothel padre doesn’t make us rent our towels and sheets,’ Hortense said, both prickly and proud.
And what if the doctor
finds
symptoms of the French pox? I thought in horror. What then?
No-one has ever made me wear the yellow head-covering, the mark of the prostitute, on the streets. I can call myself a courtesan. I have held my head high, gone into grand homes, sat among ladies whose ruffs were so broad they made the wearers look like giant sun-flowers. And I’ve never caught the abominable disease. While I’m holding a parasol with Bishop Rizi’s emblem embroidered on it, no Jesuit’s going to tap me on the shoulder, bridle me in a yellow noose and pull me inside the Magdalen house. On the twenty-second of July, the feast of Mary Magdalen, rather than sensibly hiding away indoors as Bishop Rizi makes me promise to do, I’m overcome by a gnawing curiosity to go into town and look upon the repenting
whores. I hasten to Saint Peter’s, stand on pilgrims’ rise and watch the procession of polluted women in yellow scarves filing into the cathedral. I’m fascinated and vindicated by the sheer volume of women: ‘If scores of them do it, I can’t be so bad.’ A part of me yearns to follow in their wake. A part of me does join them in spirit.
I ignore the jeering crowd on pilgrims’ rise. The yellow women deserve our pity not our scorn. I get calloused hands from scratching bits of the skin on my palms while awaiting the penitents’ reappearance. How I envy their sisterhood, the way they exit the cathedral in rows with arms linked and heads held high. Purified, forgiven and privately sanctioned to sin again. Father Rastro has encouraged me to join the procession this year. ‘It would do you good to go, Paula.’ But to be herded inside and forced to confess before the flagellating mystics might make me feel worse, not better. I’ve told Father Rastro I’m still making up my mind. I cannot lie. But I cannot tell him the truth either. When the day comes around I won’t be there with the women in yellow.
Pulling open a dresser drawer I take out my make-up case. I barely notice my face in the mirror as I pat the powder on. You can only look at your face if your face consents to be looked at. There are so many people pulling on me, telling me what to think and what to do. Earlier in the afternoon the normally tolerant Harmen Weddesteeg
was having his say: ‘Turn a bit more to the right, Paula. And keep still, won’t you.’ Even the ladder-man wants me to be something else, to become a circus performer for him. I can’t think to what purpose I could put the skill of standing on a ladder unsupported. Falling into balance is a futile enterprise.
But I can pull myself out of lassitude. Think of my mother once upon a time. When I was about three I swallowed a pearl. It is my first memory. Mama said it would come out of my bottom, but after her searching and pouring water on my faeces, no pearl was found. ‘You have a pearl inside you now,’ said Mama with a worried smile. I liked the idea of Mama’s pearl living inside me. I expected it to pop out of my naval if I ate too much. That pearl is probably still inside me, worn small by the constant washing of corrosive juices, a tiny seed-pearl sewn into the lining of my stomach. When I get a tummy-ache I imagine this may be the cause. With Mama I ate a pearl and didn’t die. With Mama there was happiness and happiness, and then there was nothing.
Descant chimes interrupt my thoughts. Violeta hastens to answer the front door. It’s too late to dress for Guido Rizi. I’ll receive him in my oriental dressing gown. Tonight I have a particular reason for wanting him to arrive, and soon. I smile brazenly at myself in the mirror, rub a thin
layer of wax across my lips to make them gleam, then pick up my candle-end and hurry downstairs.