The Anatomy Lesson (5 page)

Rembrandt turns to see the terrified expression on his servant’s face as she enters the room and curtsies to him. She is accustomed to his women by now, but still she blushes.

“I have been expecting the
liefhebbers
since the hour mark, so perhaps they can wait for me a moment,” he answers not unkindly. He stands, brushes off his shirtsleeves, and moves away from the model, to ease Femke’s discomfort. “I will not detain Tulp; please send word to assure his wife. Tell Isaac he’s free to come upstairs after he has checked the etching press, but I believe we’re low on wax. The visiting artists arrive in the next hour, do they not?”

“Yes, Master Rembrandt,” she says. “They will want a tour of the studio.”

“Please ask Sabine to lay out suitable attire for me. And explain to them that we use real models for our mythical figures so they are not shocked by our model here.”

Her mouth turns up into the hint of a smile. “Can I bring you some beer, master?”

“Yes, Femke, my tankard has gone empty. Send the
liefhebbers
in after that is done.”

Femke curtsies again but she doesn’t leave, though her gaze fixes on the floor. “I’m sorry to prolong my disturbance, master,” she adds.

“Yes? What else is there?”

“A note has come for you from that scurrilous wharf rat they call Fetchet.”

Rembrandt laughs. “Femke, what has he done to you?”

“Nothing, master. It’s just what I hear about him from the other girls.”

“He’s a curio dealer, Femke, which means he’s required to be a scurrilous wharf rat. How else would he manage to scavenge those exotic oddities I seek?” He holds out a hand so that she will bring him the note.

Femke takes a few steps forward and holds a piece of paper out to him as if holding a dead mouse by its tail.

He laughs, accepting it. “Now I’m amply intrigued.”

Rembrandt passes out of the room and back into his main studio. He reads what it says, then uses a piece of charcoal to write a response on the back of the note, and hands it back to Femke. “I’ve agreed to welcome him before noon. Let him up when he arrives.”

First, to make himself presentable. He is still in his painter’s shirt and black wool breeches, sans doublet or jerkin. Perhaps he should put on something more befitting of this elegant audience. On the floor to one side of the studio lie several items of clothing he’s borrowed from Uylenburgh to pose for a new self-portrait: a black cape, a fur-lined cloak, a pair of long black riding gloves, a soldier’s pewter gorget, and a bright red embroidered cloak. All of them look like costumes rather than clothes: too pompous and absurd.

He finds a hand mirror on the side table and inspects his face. He tilts the mirror to try and catch some small amount of light from the dour sky. His face seems pinched, his nose too bulbous, his lips too pursed, his brow already wrinkling at twenty-six. The dark curls of hair on his chest sprout about the untied neckline and his chin could use a shave. His hair is not kempt either. Boundless, red, curly, it’s always a thicket through which no comb dares venture. He places a small amount of etching wax into his palms and presses his hands against his hair, attempting to give it shape. Perhaps a cap would help keep his hair in place, he thinks.

He uses the remaining wax to pat down the stray whiskers on his chin. Wild as his hair on his head can be, what emerges from his chin is stubborn, unyielding, and patchy as a mangy dog’s. He always tries to trim off what comes in except for a thin shelf of hair under his bottom lip and the red fuzz that manages to find fertile soil over his top lip. He finds a white scarf and wraps it around his neck, adding what he hopes will be a touch of formality to his attire—since no ruff is to hand.

One last glance in the looking glass before someone catches him in the act: let us try not to be too vain.

THE BODY

Joep and Aris sit in silence, unable to ignore the sound of the crowd assembling outside in the square. The sound builds and builds until they either have to put their hands over their ears or else talk to each other.

“I guess they’ll be jeering at us?” says his cell mate, Joep the tailor.

Aris looks up from the floor to see if his cell mate is asking a question or making a joke. For the first time since they’ve been together in the cell, it occurs to Aris how frail and small his cell mate seems, and how his shoulders curve inward as if to armor his chest. Or maybe all those years of sewing have bent him this way.

The tailor adds plaintively, “It’s unnecessary, don’t you think? We’re already damned.”

“You’ve never been to a hanging?” Aris asks.

The tailor shakes his head, frowning, as if the suggestion is absurd. “I would find such a thing very unsavory.”

Aris laughs.

“What?” asks Joep. “What’s funny?”

Seeing the truly earnest expression on the tailor’s face, Aris laughs even harder. “So, today’s your first hanging and it’s your own. You have to admit it’s a little bit funny.”

The tailor shifts across his plank of wood, not finding any comedy in the matter.

“I’ve performed on many a Justice Day,” says Aris, a little proudly. “I was even hauled up in Haarlem once. They whipped me and branded me and put the noose around my neck and just left me on the rope. Public exposure for three days.”

Joep has turned pale, as if he’s just realized he’s been condemned. He tugs at the collar of his shirt. His breathing is shallow and Aris thinks he might start to cough or sneeze again, or both. “The magistrate will still hear me, won’t he?” Joep says, mostly to himself. “I didn’t really speak my case when I should have. I still have time, don’t I?”

“The magistrate can’t do anything for us now, tailor. But don’t fret. If you’re innocent as you say, you’ll soon be welcomed in glory. Or if you’re guilty as sin like I am, you’ll have a good time in perdition with me. At least this way, you’ve got witnesses to your death, and you won’t be freezing in an alley all alone.”

Aris’s voice has turned hoarse and weary. He has not comforted the tailor, who still looks pitiably afraid. The poor man nods slowly but keeps clutching his collar. He rocks back and forth.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to kneel and pray,” he says, after some consideration.

Aris shrugs. The tailor moves slowly from the bench to the floor, his knees finding the impressions in the dirt they’ve made several times already. Once he’s clasped his hands together, he looks over his shoulder at Aris.

“Why don’t you join me?” he says.

“I told you before, tailor, I gave up that bad habit in my youth.”

“I know you’ve had your disagreements with God, but remember that he cares for all souls, and he is always listening. If you repent now, he will hear you.”

Aris shakes his head. “I hear you when you’re down there, Joep. You’re not repenting. You’re still telling God that he should know you’re innocent. What kind of redemption are you going to get with that?”

“God knows the truth. He knows I am no sinner. He will protect me.”

“Go to it then, tailor. Time’s a-wasting.”

Aris has been in many a cell with many a man who’s claimed his innocence. He’s done it himself when he was innocent, and sometimes when he wasn’t. He knows what desperation looks like. This tailor is so fragile and timid it is hard to imagine that a fly would be concerned in his company, let alone a burly fishmonger. For himself, Aris has nothing to say to God. He made his peace with his fate a long time ago.

The tailor begins to pray in a whisper: “O God, holy redeemer, who wills not the death of a sinner but rather wills that he be converted and live, I beseech you, through the intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary … hear my case. I have sinned, Lord, I have coveted a married man’s wife, but you, all-seeing God, know my sins have not transgressed beyond thinking. Lord … if you hear me now …”

Looking at the tailor’s back, Aris thinks of his father’s back—so often curved into that same posture, hands cupped into pious striving. The last time he’d ever prayed had been by his father’s side. But that was a lifetime ago.

“Oh merciful Jesus, lover of souls, I beseech you, by the agony of your most sacred heart, and by the sorrows of your immaculate mother, wash clean in your blood the sinners who are to die this day …”

Aris stops listening to the tailor. He had not tried to retract his confession. He knew that this crime was bad enough that they’d try to put him back into the house of corrections again, and he couldn’t live like that, like a man in a cage. Once in Utrecht when he’d got eight years, he’d planned to stab a guard so they’d give him the rope. Better that than to live in a rasp house. He would’ve done it, too, if he hadn’t felt sorry for his jailors.

“Look down, Lord, upon the sinners in this cell. See my innocence and redeem this sinner who sits beside me, refusing to seek your forgiveness. It is his ignorance that makes him proud. He is a weak sinner, like me, Lord, and deserves your utmost compassion—”

“Hey,” Aris breaks in. “Don’t waste your breath on me, tailor. Save yourself, and let the rest of us damned be damned.”

Joep opens one eye to see how angry he’s made his cell mate. His hands are still clasped and his head still tucked. “I beseech you for the grace to move this sinner, who is in danger of going to hell, to repent,” he continues tentatively, closing his eyes again and bowing lower to the ground in case Aris decides to hit him. “I ask this because of my trust in your great mercy. Amen.”

The tailor makes a final bow to the floor and sits back on his haunches. When he opens his eyes, he turns and smiles serenely at Aris. That smile with all its solace makes Aris want to spit at the tailor or say something cruel to put him back in his place, to remind him they’re equals: both destined for the hangman in a matter of minutes.

“You waste your prayers,” says Aris.

“Compassion is never wasted,” Joep says calmly. “You can join me in his glory. But first you must repent. You must confess with an open soul.”

Aris doesn’t answer the tailor. He moves across the bench to get some distance, so he doesn’t hit the prayerful bastard. Then, finding this is not far enough, stands and walks to the corner of the cell. “I’m finished with this life. I’m ready for my executioner.”

“You can still receive God’s glory,” says the tailor. “Confess and you’ll be redeemed.”

Aris feels vengeful blood rushing through his whole arm down to his bandaged stump. His phantom hand tightens into a hard fist, the nails of his nonexistent fingers digging into his imaginary palm. He feels the muscle in his forearm tighten, and the subsequent pain of the stymied force. He’s standing in the corner of the cell, his back toward his cell mate, when Joep’s name is called from the hall.

The tailor stands with dignity and puts a hand on Aris’s shoulder. When Aris turns around, the tailor reaches for his good hand to shake it. “I will see you on the scaffold. Do not waste these final moments. If you confess all before the Holy Father, your soul will fly free to heaven and your human vessel can be left behind.”

Aris regards his cell mate coldly, as he hears the jangling keys and their footsteps drawing near.

“If not for yourself,” the tailor adds, hearing them coming for him, “at least say a prayer for my sake.”

At last, the guards are unlocking the door, the sound of it unbearable for both of the convicts. Joep steps back to admit them into the cell. He doesn’t fight them when they grab him by the arms and yank him into the hall and put the leg-irons on him.

“Hey, tailor,” Aris says.

Joep turns. Aris wants to say something comforting, something that will make the tailor go bravely to the scaffold. Instead, he winks—a conspirator’s wink, one condemned man to another. Joep looks as though he’s been slapped. He shakes his head in befuddlement as the guards shove him down the hall.

CONSERVATOR
’
S NOTES, TRANSCRIBED FROM DICTAPHONE

Painting diagnosis: Rembrandt’s
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
, 1632

The painting is secured now, its breadth balanced between the two easels, its full bulk resting comfortably on their wide pine planks. I’m so pleased we decided to use the two easels instead of just one. Looking at it here in the studio, there would’ve been no other way for it to balance. It is such a big body.

I’m impressed all over again by its sheer bulk, which dwarfs me, and even Claes, who is six foot two. When he was seated before it this morning with his scope, for a split second it appeared as though he himself were among the surgeons. I prepare myself for many such strange, passing illusions.

You forget, when it hangs on the gallery wall, that the figures are all life-size. Nine life-size men, including the corpse. Today I begin with the painting diagnosis.

I have parted the curtains on the skylight to allow daylight to fall upon its surface, as per my instructions. Claes says twenty minutes max each day for two weeks. “Let it breathe,” were his words, actually, as if it were a young Bordeaux. His approach is ninety-nine percent science, one part mysticism. It’s that one percent that worries me.

Yet, I have drawn back the shade. And there is miraculously sun today. On the way to work the rain ceased. It has been four hours now and still it has not started again. Here we both are. The painting and I, soaking in daylight.

So, we begin.

Day One, painting restoration. Mauritshuis, the Royal Picture Gallery, under the direction of Claes van den Dorft. My name is Pia
de Graaf and I’m senior conservator for the museum. Today we begin a two-week restoration of the Rembrandt van Rijn masterwork
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
, the cynosure of the royal collection.

The painting was commissioned by the Surgeons’ Guild of Amsterdam in 1632, and hung in their guild chamber in the Waag (weighing house) along with other important paintings, next to the chimney. This museum, then called the Royal Cabinet of Paintings, acquired the work in 1828 after a kind of ideological bidding war against the Rijksmuseum. Though it was passionately argued by that institution that the painting should always live in Amsterdam, where it was painted in 1632, our director countered successfully that it was in fact a key treasure of the Dutch state, one of the most prized works of our Golden Age. Both are true: this is the first painting that catapulted Rembrandt to fame, back in 1632 in Amsterdam, making him a famous painter in that city and also a prized son of Holland. Of course, it could just as easily be argued that it deserves to be in any collection in the world nowadays; it is the first major work that made Rembrandt’s name.