The Anatomy Lesson Read online

  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.

  The painting was lined three times from 1785 to 1877, and then wax lined in 1877 and 1908. The varnish was regenerated five times and there is a record of ten cleanings, the last four in 1877, 1908, 1946, and 1951. The last time we took it off the wall was in 1996, so while we are cleaning it and removing some of the darkening varnish, this is an opportunity to examine the work and possibly to make a number of new observations.

  We have secured funding for the current restoration and examination based on new evidence that leads us to believe we can make certain new discoveries about the painting. Recently, researchers in Amsterdam discovered in a 1632 justitieboek that details the entire criminal history of the dead man in the painting, one Adriaen Adriaenszoon, alias Aris Kindt (or Aris the Kid).

  At the same time, a physician in Groningen has recently conducted a medical experiment to dissect an arm so he could compare it to the dissected arm in this portrait. Contrary to the opinion of medical historians heretofore, who criticized the painting for certain anatomical inaccuracies, this recent study reveals that Rembrandt actually got it mostly right. Together, these new pieces of evidence give us reason to believe that Rembrandt may have worked from life on this painting. That is, he used a real cadaver as a model, and it’s even possible he may have known the dead man in question.

  Therefore, the purpose of our current restoration is twofold: first and most practical is to remove a layer of old varnish, which has dimmed aspects of its coloring and possibly obscured certain elements of the painting. We want to bring the painting back to life, give it more vitality—health—as it were. My strategy will be to do as little to the painting as possible. Only to repair what needs to be repaired and to remove anything that’s been added that appears to be unnecessary. To bring out the painting that is already there and to eliminate any obscuring values.

  The second purpose is investigative. We seek to explore how this new evidence informs our understanding of the painting. People sometimes invent stories about works of art based just on other stories; but as conservators we use the painting itself to tell the story in the same way that a forensic scientist might—looking for evidence of different possible scenarios. I will try to get a response from the painting itself. To look at it in good light, to write down what I see.

  Claes likes to say we are conducting our own dissection of the dissection masterpiece. Rembrandt, as it were, under the surgeon’s scalpel. The first step, the most important step, is simply to look at the painting. The work this first week is really about looking. To see the painting in natural light, with a torch, a head loupe, a scope, and much stronger light to get a sense of its physicality.

  Then we can compare what we see with the naked eye to what we discover using x-radiographs. To figure out what is there. We already have an image in our minds from looking at it on the wall, but what can we discover from the brushstrokes? From the palette? From examining the painting technique, the use of pentimenti? The ground, the underpainting? Were there parts that changed over time? Or when he was painting?

  Sometimes, as a conservator, I spend hours and hours just looking at a painting and very little time actually working on it. Every day, I come in and I look at the painting and I try to understand it a little bit more, before I do actual painting of any kind. I try not to do any painting at all, if I can avoid it. It is the painter’s job to paint. It is the restorer’s job to resist painting. You try to still your hand, to avoid using the brush. You must do as little as possible for the maximum possible effect.

  You look and you look and you look, and then you have to decide what the goal is. For me, the decision to use my brush at all will be limited to fixing damages. But to get to that point, I first need to understand what’s meant to be in the picture and what’s not. I can’t be too speculative. I have to stick to the facts, to be able to talk about what you can prove or what you can see.

  The doctors of the seventeenth century used to talk about “ocular testimony” when they looked at a body. That’s what we’re seeking here, too, with this technical study. We can devise our story, but it has to be based on what we can actually see.

  So many stones came. They broke big things and small things. Bowls my mother made, the milk jug, eggs ready for market. There were never much to break and there’s nothing left to break anymore, that’s certain.

  Everyone in Leiden knew Adriaen were to be strung up before word got to me. That’s why the boys called me witch. That’s why the stones came. They pulled cobblestones out the lane and threw them at my house. Broke windows. Sent things flying. “Witch!” they called me. “Crone!”

  The voices weren’t just boys’. Some I knew from market, other times selling their wares. They were the same voices that shouted, “Clay pots, six for a stiver!” or “Goat’s cheese! Goat’s milk!” I could swear I heard Hendrijke the potter, and Maartje the wagoner’s wife. Them were voices I knew. “Hag!” they screamed. “Whore.”

  There were no one else there but me, and, well, the babe in my belly. I’ve lived alone since Adriaen went. Mother died years ago and father left before her. I hired a man once to tend the mill for a time, but when the earnings dried up he left, willing. The mill didn’t yield much and so I just tend to the animals, grow my patch of garden out back, manage the barn, and feed the chickens. The eggs bring a few stivers, and what little rye there is from the mill I ride to the bakers for barter. I never took money to lie with a man, no matter what them townsfolk like to say. Nor crafted any magic.

  When I heard the first shouts, saw the stones, I ran to Doc Sluyter’s. His family were the one sheltered my great-aunt in the Alteration. She were a Catholic, you know, and they accused her of idolatry. The doc were surprised when he saw the bulge under my apron. That’s how long it’s been since we’ve seen him. He hushed my screaming and said it weren’t Spaniards this time. He sat me down and told his servant to leave us be.

  “Adriaen was arrested in Amsterdam,” he said, after I’d caught my breath. “They sentenced him to death, Flora. He’s to go hanging. That’s the news from Amsterdam.”

  He said it so quickly I didn’t get his meaning.

  “Your Adriaen,” he said very slowly, “been caught in Amsterdam. They’ll hang him now. That’s why the townsfolk stone you. That’s why they curse your house.”

  I said to the doc that he had to be wrong because they don’t hang a man for fighting and thieving and that’s all Adriaen eve
r did. Doc Sluyter shook his head. “He’s gone too far this time,” the doc said. “Tried to steal the cloak off a burgher. Used violence, they say. Tried to kill the man.” The look on his face were like a closed door. “The hangman will string him up and feel no remorse.”

  I still don’t know why he said that part, the part about “no remorse,” because what does Doc Sluyter know about the hangman’s heart? I knew Adriaen didn’t try to kill someone. That weren’t who he was. He were a weak and lost soul, my Adriaen, but he were never a cruel man, never like that: empty.

  Then that door opened in the doc’s soul and he looked into my eyes and his own eyes went moist.

  “That child you’re carrying,” he went on in his deepest voice, nodding to my belly, “is going to be the child of a hanged man. The bastard child of a murderer.”

  That’s when I put both hands on my belly to protect my unborn child. I got angry, ’cause a doctor knows that evil words over pregnant belly can split a babe in two and make it come out two headed. I told him, “Don’t you talk so in front of my son.”

  I’ve always known he’ll be a boy. From the way he sits in my belly and from the way he kicks right up against my ribs. I know, too, he’ll look just like Adriaen. I already named him. He is Carel, a free man.

  Doc Sluyter kept talking, but he turned his face away from me this time. “There’s more,” he said. “They won’t bury him in Amsterdam. They’ll put him to the gibbet.”

  I guess I fell down then, because when I opened my eyes next I were on his table. There were a lot of other men around me now, hovering like crows, all shaking their heads and clucking as if I were down with the black death. I could feel my chest and neck cupped. I could feel my skin tight and my wrists tingling where they’d stuck me. I heard one of them saying, “Isn’t it a pity for that child?” The rest of them murmuring.

  I pushed myself up from that table and brushed off the cups, the glass cracking on the ground. Doc Sluyter shushed me and told me I needed rest, but I told him I didn’t want my unborn to be cleaved to pieces with their ominous words. The other men tried to hold me down, too, but I pushed back.