Rembrandt's Mirror by Kim Devereux Page A

shot up from the chair, again pointing at the door. Her response was to embrace him firmly around his waist; he – despite being taller than her – reminded me of a child who has outgrown his mother’s fond embraces. Hisreluctance was perplexing. I’d come to think of their involvement as one of the established routines of the household. And how dared she be so persistent against his wishes?
    Now he was trying to prise her arms away but she held fast – the scene was comic for he looked like a man equal to the task. In the end it required a sudden and almost violent movement from him to extract himself. Then he grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards the door but her feet were braced against the floor. They remained like this, neither of them gaining an inch. All of a sudden, she went towards him, even pushing him, sending him backwards into the sharp corner of the bed. My hand went to my mouth; it looked so painful.
    He straightened himself up with an expression like that of my brother Berent when I’d put his playing cards into the fire. He’d pulled my hair so hard that I’d fallen over. But Rembrandt did nothing, except that he shouted, loud enough for me to hear, ‘Go, now, please.’ But still she did not obey, as if she had some hold over him.
    He was staring at her, his mouth slightly open, his chest rising and falling. She played with the long cord on the collar of her nightdress, wrapping it slowly around her index finger and then letting it unravel again. No response from him. I was beginning to feel like a spectator at a boxing match, desperate to learn which opponent would triumph. But in a secret corner of my being I was afraid it would not be the outcome I’d started to hope for.
    In the meantime she’d turned her back on him, wandered overto the mantelpiece and made a show of studying the painting there – a portrait of him – as if she was a visitor touring the house. Rembrandt’s fingers curled into fists. And she, bizarrely, started speaking to the portrait. I mean she addressed it with all the looks and smiles with which one would a person. Rembrandt disappeared from view and then I heard the door opening below. For a frightful second I thought I would be discovered, but he returned to the room, and again dragged Geertje by her wrist. But she was unwilling to budge. He gave up and shouted, ‘Enough of your games, go now, for heaven’s sake!’ My hands too had become clenched.
    The open door allowed me to hear them easily now. She sneered, ‘You are no master, you only play at theatre up there with your so-called assistants who make you all the money because you,’ she paused, as if to carefully choose her words, ‘ you can’t do it anymore. You scratch away at paper with your pencil all day but when did you last produce a proper painting?’
    â€˜You wouldn’t know a work of art if it turned up between your legs.’
    She smiled. ‘I think I might.’
    What had happened? He seemed less angry now. He went to close the door, took a few steps towards her and pointed at the floor.
    She slowly knelt down and got on all fours. Maybe I ought to have quietly gone back to bed, for my own sanity, but I remained, unable to stop watching.
    Her head and shoulders were just outside my view no matter how much I pressed my face against the glass. He knelt down behindher, put one hand on her hip and with the other lifted the hem of her nightshirt. I took my face away from the glass. They would do it like animals. I turned my back against the wall and placed my hand on my stomach to keep nausea at bay. I had to pack straight away and leave. But no, I couldn’t. It was past curfew. There were only thieves and the night watchmen on the street after ten. I’d have to stay until the morning and leave before daybreak. There were shuffling sounds from the room. I remembered the sight of the farmer’s bull on top of