I closed my eyes then and he removed his fingers. When I opened them again he had gone back to his easel and taken up his palette.
I sat in my chair and gazed at him over my shoulder. My ear was burning, the weight of the pearl pulling at the lobe. I could not think of anything but his fingers on my neck, his thumb on my lips.
He looked at me but did not begin to paint. I wondered what he was thinking.
Finally he reached behind him again. “You must wear the other one as well,” he declared, picking up the second earring and holding it out to me.
For a moment I could not speak. I wanted him to think of me, not of the painting.
“Why?” I finally answered. “It can’t be seen in the painting.”
“You must wear both,” he insisted. “It is a farce to wear only one.”
“But—my other ear is not pierced,” I faltered.
“Then you must tend to it.” He continued to hold it out.
I reached over and took it. I did it for him. I got out my needle and clove oil and pierced my other ear. I did not cry, or faint, or make a sound. Then I sat all morning and he painted the earring he could see, and I felt, stinging like fire in my other ear, the pearl he could not see.
The clothes soaking in the kitchen went cold, the water grey. Tanneke clattered in the kitchen, the girls shouted outside, and we behind our closed door sat and looked at each other. And he painted.
When at last he set down his brush and palette, I did not change position, though my eyes ached from looking sideways. I did not want to move.
“It is done,” he said, his voice muffled. He turned away and began wiping his palette knife with a rag. I gazed at the knife—it had white paint on it.
“Take off the earrings and give them back to Maria Thins when you go down,” he added.
I began to cry silently. Without looking at him, I got up and went into the storeroom, where I removed the blue and yellow cloth from my head. I waited for a moment, my hair out over my shoulders, but he did not come. Now that the painting was finished he no longer wanted me.
I looked at myself in the little mirror, and then I removed the earrings. Both holes in my lobes were bleeding. I blotted them with a bit of cloth, then tied up my hair and covered it and my ears with my cap, leaving the tips to dangle below my chin.
When I came out again he was gone. He had left the studio door open for me. For a moment I thought about looking at the painting to see what he had done, to see it finished, the earring in place. I decided to wait until night, when I could study it without worrying that someone might come in.
I crossed the studio and shut the door behind me.
I always regretted that decision. I never got to have a proper look at the finished painting.
Catharina arrived back only a few minutes after I had handed the earrings to Maria Thins, who immediately replaced them in the jewelry box. I hurried to the cooking kitchen to help Tanneke with dinner. She would not look at me straight, but gave me sideways glances, occasionally shaking her head.
He was not at dinner—he had gone out. After we had cleared up I went back to the courtyard to finish rinsing the laundry. I had to haul in new water and reheat it. While I worked Catharina slept in the great hall. Maria Thins smoked and wrote letters in the Crucifixion room. Tanneke sat in the front doorway and sewed. Maertge perched on the bench and made lace. Next to her Aleydis and Lisbeth sorted their shell collection.
I did not see Cornelia.
I was hanging up an apron when I heard Maria Thins say, “Where are you going?” It was the tone of her voice rather than what she said that made me pause in my work. She sounded anxious.
I crept inside and along the hallway. Maria Thins was at the foot of the stairs, gazing up. Tanneke had come to stand in the front doorway, as she had earlier that day, but facing in and following the look of her mistress. I heard the stairs creak, and the sound of heavy breathing. Catharina was pulling herself up the stairs.
In that moment I knew what was going to happen—to her, to him, to me.
Cornelia is there, I thought. She is leading her mother to the painting.
I could have cut short the misery of waiting. I could have left then, walked out the door with the laundry not done, and not looked back. But I could not move. I stood frozen, as Maria Thins stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs. She too knew what would happen, and she could not stop it.
I sank to the floor. Maria Thins saw me but did not speak. She continued to gaze up uncertainly. Then the noise on the stairs stopped and we heard Catharina’s heavy tread over to the studio door. Maria Thins darted up the stairs. I remained on my knees, too weary to rise. Tanneke stood blocking the light from the front door. She watched me, her arms crossed, her face expressionless.
Soon after there was a shout of rage, then raised voices which were quickly lowered.
Cornelia came down the stairs. “Mama wants Papa to come home,” she announced to Tanneke.
Tanneke stepped backwards outside and turned towards the bench. “Maertge, go and find your father at the Guild,” she ordered. “Quickly. Tell him it’s important.”
Cornelia look around. When she saw me her face lit up. I got up from my knees and walked stiffly back to the courtyard. There was nothing I could do but hang up laundry and wait.
When he returned I thought for a moment that he might come and find me in the courtyard, hidden among the hanging sheets. He did not—I heard him on the stairs, then nothing.
I leaned against the warm brick wall and gazed up. It was a bright, cloudless day, the sky a mocking blue. It was the kind of day when children ran up and down the streets and shouted, when couples walked out through the town gates, past the windmills and along the canals, when old women sat in the sun and closed their eyes. My father was probably sitting on the bench in front of his house, his face turned towards the warmth. Tomorrow might be bitterly cold, but today it was spring.
They sent Cornelia to get me. When she appeared between the hanging clothes and looked down at me with a cruel smirk on her face, I wanted to slap her as I had that first day I had come to work at the house. I did not, though—I simply sat, hands in my lap, shoulders slumped, and watched her show off her glee. The sun caught glints of gold—traces of her mother—in her red hair.
“You are wanted upstairs,” she said in a formal voice. “They want to see you.” She turned and skipped back into the house.
I leaned over and brushed a bit of dust from my shoe. Then I stood, straightened my skirt, smoothed my apron, pulled the tips of my cap tight, and checked for loose strands of hair. I licked my lips and pressed them together, took a deep breath and followed Cornelia.
Catharina had been crying—her nose was red, her eyes puffy. She was sitting in the chair he normally pulled up to his easel—it had been pushed towards the wall and the cupboard that held his brushes and palette knife. When I appeared she heaved herself up so that she was standing, tall and broad. Although she glared at me, she did not speak. She squeezed her arms over her belly and winced.
Maria Thins was standing next to the easel, looking sober but also impatient, as if she had other, more important things to attend to.
He stood next to his wife, his face without expression, hands at his sides, eyes on the painting. He was waiting for someone, for Catharina, or Maria Thins, or me, to begin.
I came to stand just inside the door. Cornelia hovered behind me. I could not see the painting from where I stood.
It was Maria Thins who finally spoke.
“Well, girl, my daughter wants to know how you came to be wearing her earrings.” She said it as if she did not expect me to answer.
I studied her old face. She was not going to admit to helping me get the earrings. Nor would he, I knew. I did not know what to say. So I did not say anything.
“Did you steal the key to my jewelry box and take my earrings?” Catharina spoke as if she were trying to convince herself of what she said. Her voice was shaky.
“No, madam.” Although I knew it would be easier for everyone if I said I had stolen them, I could not lie about myself.
“Don’t lie to me. Maids steal all the time. You took my earrings!”
“Are they missing now, madam?”
