The Other Rembrandt

Just like the one my husband went to sea in. As a chippie and—in his spare time—the ship’s trumpeter. He attempted to provoke me with that once we met, asserting he’d got the trumpet off a guy who’d died in Germany. I take into account asking him what the guy had died of, simply because I’d was hoping it used to be not anything catching, and he’d checked out the trumpet after which at me, giggling, as if I’d made a shaggy dog story. He’d looked like a decent sufficient guy again then, and my brother knew him. yet on the other hand, my brother appeared to recognize all people. it can rate me, that. My brother’s friendliness. Sssh . . . the guard’s relocating off back now and that i can hold writing. He’ll opt for his pipe and lean opposed to the wall and puff rusty, grey smoke as much as the moon like he was once a burgomaster with the total of Amsterdam to respond to to him. Amsterdam, even writing the identify takes me again there. I take into accout the mute chilly of Rembrandt’s apartment within the wintry weather. How the most staircase whistled with the wind, and the way the scent of the canal got here in bitter in the summertime. Boys used to pee within the nonetheless water, aiming for the geese, their urine making fast citrine rainbows opposed to the Amsterdam sky. Rembrandt regularly scolded the men, even if he might usually piss in a pot within the studio. as soon as he even urinated in a pail of gesso. The scent lingered, bitter and acrid, much more than the stink of uncooked umber and charcoal. yet not anyone complained. definitely I by no means did. even if his palms made paint smears on my petticoats and infrequently his hair was once disheveled with grease. i might fill a tub for him by way of the fire—it may take many years, part an afternoon—and as soon as I ducked him lower than the water, washing his hair with an analogous cleaning soap the whores use. yet I didn’t inform him that. while I rubbed his hair dry it crackled like kindling. He depended on me. Even relied on me to shave him, the blade opposed to his neck, the surface pock-marked within the creases, the razor slipping like an ice skate over his chin. After I have been with him for over a 12 months he stuck me taking a look at his books. He used to be by no means a reader, unlike the various lecturers that sat for him. Rembrandt gathered books as he accrued armor and metalware, for his or her attractiveness, no longer for his or her content material. but even though i might rub the silver trays with lemon and salt to wash off the tarnish, even if i might money my smile of their reflections—keeping my mouth closed for my tooth weren't good—I was once now not interested by silver. yet I enjoyed the books and desired to learn. for all time that i used to be transforming into up, operating in a tavern the place they believe you a whore for being there, i needed to learn, so he taught me. occasionally he used to be sufferer, generally speedy to anger, shouting out the phrases as if I must have mastered them as he stated them. yet i used to be a prepared learner and that happy Rembrandt. And while I had proven such promise, he stated he might train me to put in writing. It took over a 12 months, simply because he used to be busy, now not simply because i used to be sluggish to profit. He may push the writing slate over to me, nodding on the letters I had made, making me write a reputation over and over. now not my identify, his.