Naughty girl, I muttered, regretting my softness.
I found Tanneke in the cooking kitchen, Johannes in her lap.
Cornelia said you wanted me.
Yes, shes torn one of her collars and wants you to mend it. Wouldnt let me touch itI dont know why, she knows I mend collars best. As Tanneke handed it to me her eyes strayed to my apron. Whats that there? Are you bleeding?
I looked down. A slash of red dust crossed my stomach like a streak on a window pane. For a moment I thought of the aprons of Pieter the father and son.
Tanneke leaned closer. Thats not blood. It looks like powder. How did that get there?
I gazed at the streak. Madder, I thought. I ground this a few weeks ago.
Only I heard the stifled giggle from the hallway.
Cornelia had been waiting some time for this mischief. She had even managed somehow to get up to the attic to steal the powder.
I did not make up an answer fast enough. As I hesitated, Tannekes suspicion grew. Have you been in the masters things? she said in an accusing tone. She had, after all, modelled for him and knew what he kept in the studio.
No, it was I stopped. If I tattled on Cornelia I would sound petty and it would probably not stop Tanneke from discovering what I did in the attic.
I think young mistress had better see this, she decided.
No, I said quickly.
Tanneke drew herself up as much as she could with a sleeping child in her lap. Take off your apron, she commanded, so I can show it to the young mistress.
Tanneke, I said, gazing levelly at her, if you know whats best for you, youll not disturb Catharina, youll speak to Maria Thins. Alone, not in front of the girls.
It was those words, with their bullying tone, that caused the most damage between Tanneke and me. I did not think to sound like thatI was simply desperate to stop her from telling Catharina any way I could. But she would never forgive me for treating her as if she were below me.
My words at least had their effect. Tanneke gave me a hard, angry look, but behind it was uncertainty, and the desire indeed to tell her own beloved mistress. She hung between that desire and the wish to punish my impudence by disobeying me.
Speak to your mistress, I said softly. But speak to her alone.
Though my back was to the door, I sensed Cornelia slipping away from it.
Tannekes own instincts won. With a stony face she handed Johannes to me and went to find Maria Thins. Before I settled him on my lap I carefully wiped away the red pigment with a rag, then threw it in the fire. It still left a stain. I sat with my arms around the little boy and waited for my fate to be decided.
I never found out what Maria Thins said to Tanneke, what threats or promises she made to keep her quiet. But it workedTanneke said nothing about my attic work to Catharina or the girls, or to me. She became much harder with me, thoughdeliberately difficult rather than unthinkingly so. She sent me back to the fish stalls with the cod I knew she had asked for, swearing she had told me to buy flounder. When she cooked she became sloppier, spilling as much grease as she could on her apron so that I would have to soak the cloth longer and scrub harder to get the grease out. She left buckets for me to empty, and stopped bringing water to fill the kitchen cistern or mopping the floors. She sat and watched me balefully, refusing to move her feet so that I had to mop around them, to find afterwards that one foot had covered a sticky puddle of grease.
She did not talk kindly to me any longer. She made me feel alone in a house full of people.
So I did not dare to take nice things from her kitchen to cheer my father with. And I did not tell my parents how hard things were for me at the Oude Langendijck, how careful I had to be to keep my place. Nor could I tell them about the few good thingsthe colors I made, the nights when I sat alone in the studio, the moments when he and I worked side by side and I was warmed by his presence.
All I could tell them about were his paintings.
One April morning when the cold at last had gone, I was walking along the Koornmarkt to the apothecary when Pieter the son appeared at my side and wished me good day. I had not seen him earlier. He wore a clean apron and carried a bundle, which he said he was delivering further along the Koornmarkt. He was going the same way as me and asked if he could walk with me. I noddedI did not feel I could say no. Through the winter I had seen him once or twice a week at the Meat Hall. I always found it hard to meet his gazehis eyes felt like needles pricking my skin. His attention worried me.
You look tired, he said now. Your eyes are red. They are working you too hard.
Indeed, they were working me hard. My master had given me so much bone to grind that I had to get up very early to finish it. And the night before Tanneke had made me stay up late to rewash the kitchen floor after she spilled a pan of grease all over it.
I did not want to blame my master. Tanneke has taken against me, I said instead, and gives me more to do. Then, of course, its getting warmer as well and we are cleaning the winter out of the house. I added this so that he would not think I was complaining about her.
Tanneke is an odd one, he said, but loyal.
To Maria Thins, yes.
To the family as well. Remember how she defended Catharina from her mad brother?
I shook my head. I dont know what you mean.
Pieter looked surprised. It was the talk of the Meat Hall for days. Ah, but you dont gossip, do you? You keep your eyes open but you dont tell tales, or listen to them. He seemed to approve. Me, I hear it all day from the old ones waiting for meat. Cant help but some of it sticks.
What did Tanneke do? I asked despite myself.
Pieter smiled. When your mistress was carrying the last child but onewhats its name?
Johannes. Like his father.
Pieters smile dimmed like a cloud crossing the sun. Yes, like his father. He took up the tale again. One day Catharinas brother, Willem, came around to the Oude Langendijck, when she was big with child, and began to beat her, right in the street.
Why?
Hes missing a brick or two, they say. Hes always been violent. His father as well. You know the father and Maria Thins separated many years ago? He used to beat her.
Beat Maria Thins? I repeated in wonder. I would never have guessed that anyone could beat Maria Thins.
So when Willem began hitting Catharina it seems Tanneke got in between them to protect her. Even thumped him soundly.
Where was my master when this happened? I thought. He could not have remained in his studio. He could not have. He must have been out at the Guild, or with van Leeuwenhoek, or at Mechelen, his mothers inn.
Maria Thins and Catharina managed to have Willem confined last year, Pieter continued. Cant leave the house hes lodged in. Thats why you havent seen him. Have you really heard nothing of this? Dont they talk in your house?
Not to me. I thought of all the times Catharina and her mother put their heads together in the Crucifixion room, falling silent when I entered. And I dont listen behind doorways.
Of course you dont. Pieter was smiling again as if I had told a joke. Like everyone else, he thought all maids eavesdropped. There were many assumptions about maids that people made about me.
I was silent the rest of the way. I had not known that Tanneke could be so loyal and brave, despite all she said behind Catharinas back, or that Catharina had suffered such blows, or that Maria Thins could have such a son. I tried to imagine my own brother beating me in the street but could not.
Pieter said no morehe could see my confusion. When he left me in front of the apothecary he simply touched my elbow and continued on his way. I had to stand for a moment looking into the dark green water of the canal before I shook my head to clear it and turned to the apothecarys door.