As Above, So Below Page 32

  Jonghelinck’s footmen carried the six paintings through the hall and into a special hexagonal salon. With Bengt’s help they uncrated them, with Waf very much underfoot. The guests came in to watch.

  “Be careful not to shatter those boxes,” called Jonghelinck as they worked. “I may need to use them again.”

  “What for, Nicolas?” exclaimed Bruegel. “You’ll not want to part with these panels anytime soon!” But Jonghelinck didn’t answer him. Bruegel felt a preliminary flicker of unease across his tender stomach. But what was there to worry about? The pictures clearly belonged here.

  Bengt had prepared hooks on the backs of the panels, and before long the wonderful Seasons were on the salon’s six walls. It was a noble room with cream-colored walls painted with green vines, a marble floor inlaid with pink alabaster roses, a great chandelier and any number of candle-filled sconces. A few standing chandeliers were brought in as well to increase the lighting. The air was perfumed by a great, heated silver bowl of red wine spiced with cloves and nutmeg. For an hour, the excited guests walked this way and that, exclaiming over the new works. Ortelius was particularly transported; he kept making notes on a piece of paper. Even the vain Floris could do nothing but call for a toast. They raised their glasses and Ortelius stepped forward to deliver an erudite, richly rhetorical encomium.

  “Eupompos, the painter, on being asked whom of his predecessors he had chosen as a master, replied by pointing to a crowd of men: it is Nature itself that we must imitate, not an artist,” declaimed Ortelius, reading from his piece of paper. “This observation so well applies to our friend Bruegel that he turns the maxim on its head. More than the painters’ painter, Bruegel is the painters’ Nature, and I mean by this that he deserves to be imitated by all. Our Bruegel paints the things that can’t be painted. In these works around us there is as much thought as paint. Yet Bruegel adds no false elegance to his paintings; more than any other, he paints the world as it is. And in this wise, he achieves true beauty. Let us drink to our friend, the most perfect artist of his century.”

  Flushed with excitement, Ortelius raised both his arms high, then drank from his cup. The others cheered and drank as well. Bruegel was glowing, he felt as if his bones were made of light. How good it was to be here. Mayken was beaming, and even Williblad across the room was giving him a warm and friendly smile.

  “I’m honored to know you, Peter,” said Hans Franckert, standing at his side.

  “What a nice speech Ortelius gave,” added his wife, Hennie. She was a handsome woman with a kind, thin face. “You must be very proud, Peter.”

  “It’s wonderful to have all of you here,” said Bruegel, looking around the room. His eyes were wet from his emotion at Ortelius’s kind words, and the many candles seemed surrounded by haloes. He laughed a little foolishly, at a loss for words.

  “And how is Little Peter?” asked Hennie. “We’ve been meaning to get down to Brussels to visit you and Mayken. Is the boy walking yet?”

  “Since Christmas,” said Bruegel, for the moment too overcome to say more.

  “He practiced by leaning on Waf and letting the dog lead him around,” added Mayken with a laugh. “Waf’s been very patient.” Hearing his name, the white-haired wolfhound nuzzled her hand.

  Still more guests were arriving, including none other than Peter Huys and Anja, who squealed and came running up to him, her big cheeks squeezing her eyes into slits. She’d grown rather stout. Anja was another person whom Bruegel and Mayken had been uneasy about encountering at Jonghelinck’s.

  “Well, well, Peter! We’re both old married parents now!” Anja made an awkward curtsy to Mayken, not quite able to bring herself to say hello to her old rival—not that Mayken had ever thought of herself that way. What an unequal contest it had been. Bruegel thanked his stars for letting him end up with Mayken.

  Anja mimed a quick look around the room. “What enormous pictures! We’re glad to have a chance to see them. And what a palace your patron Jonghelinck has.”

  “Mijnheer Bruegel,” said round Peter Huys with a formal bow that he punctuated with the sound of a fart. “I’m simply bursting with pleasure to see you.” He fanned the air, clapped Bruegel on the back, and lowered his voice as if to a confidential tone. “I thought you’d broken in Anja for me, but she’s as wild as an ass in a lion’s skin.”

  “Did you want a wife or a cabbage?” said Anja, on the last word shooting a hard look at Mayken. “I’ll go take a closer look at the pictures. Is anyone shitting, Peter?”

  “Of course,” said Bruegel, with a grin. “In the yard of the farmhouse at the back of The Harvesters.”

  “How common she is,” remarked Mayken as Anja walked off. “What did she mean by that question?”

  “Oh, when I was doing my drawings for the Seven Sins, Anja and I used to joke about what might be my artistic trademark. Bosch had his owls, I have my shitting men,” said Bruegel calmly. If Anja was a bit coarse, she was still part of Bruegel’s past. One’s life was a seamless whole. Today it seemed as though everything could fit together. Even Williblad. He was still on the far side of the room, with Ortelius fluttering about to keep his wineglass full.

  “Williblad’s drinking too much,” remarked Mayken. “I hope he doesn’t make trouble. Do remember that you promised not to get into a fight.”

  “I’ve forgiven him,” said Bruegel, almost meaning it. Williblad really looked quite pathetic. He was a drunkard with a smashed face making his living as something like a manservant. Bruegel squeezed Mayken’s hand, and added, “I was sorry to see how badly they damaged his nose.”

  “Ortelius doesn’t seem to mind,” said Mayken, not liking the sight of the mapmaker’s attentions to Williblad.

  Now Floris and de Vos approached, Floris rather red in the face, Bruegel braced himself to listen to Floris brag about his career as usual. But in the presence of the six large landscapes, even Floris had to momentarily deviate from his customary torrent of self-regard. “The Hunters in the Snow,” he said. “Exquisite. The dogs against the glowing snow: their legs and curly tails.” He glanced at Waf. “This beast is one of them, no?”

  “Indeed,” said Bruegel.

  “I was just studying your Gloomy Day like this,” said de Vos, making a little viewing frame by sticking out his thumbs and forefingers and joining them with one hand turned over. For the moment, even this friend of Bruegel’s youth seemed to be in awe of him. “I was looking, looking, looking,” continued de Vos. “And each little piece is a perfect composition. Worlds within worlds. It’s as Ortelius says. ‘Bruegel’s work is like Nature herself.’ ”

  “I like that idea,” said Mayken, holding up her hands to make her own little frame. “I’m going to try it.” She wandered over to look at the panels again, discussing them with the other guests and, Bruegel noticed, coincidentally moving closer to Williblad. He told himself it didn’t matter if they talked. He trusted Mayken. But his stomach didn’t fully seem to realize this.

  By now Floris had heard enough talk about Bruegel’s prowess. “Perhaps in a bit we can go look at my Labors of Hercules, eh?” he asked Bruegel. “Jonghelinck has the series installed in a slightly larger salon than this. And he’s got my Liberal Arts series as well. Twenty pictures by me, all told. How many of yours does he own?”

  “I thought about this on the ride up,” said Bruegel, turning to this topic with satisfaction. “A pleasant topic. I make it sixteen. The Fall of Icarus, the Merchants Driven from the Temple that he got from Fugger, a pair of landscapes called the Parable of the Sower and the Temptation of St. Anthony, my Low Lands Proverbs, the Battle of Carnival and Lent, the Wine of St. Martin—that’s St. Martin on a horse with a crowd of guzzling beggars—and then there’s my big Tower of Babel, the Bearing of the Cross, the Adoration of the Kings, and now the six Seasons.” While listing the pictures he’d been ticking them off on his fingers, with de Vos helping by holding out some of his fingers too. “Yes, sixteen in all,” concluded Bruegel. To him it seemed li
ke an amazingly high number, more pictures than he could hold in his mind at the same time.

  “The greater part of your life’s work, isn’t it?” said Floris with a shake of his head. Here it came. The man never tired of doling out Olympian advice. “You paint too slowly, Peter. With fellows like de Vos helping me, I turn out twice that many pictures in a single year.”

  Bruegel resisted pointing out that all Floris’s pictures were alike and that none of them were memorable. Instead he just said, “You should meet my apprentice,” and motioned to Bengt, who’d been absorbed in talking to one of Jonghelinck’s daughters, a lively red-haired girl with a weak chin.

  Bengt was pleased to meet a famous artist, but when the overbearing Floris suggested that he might be willing to take Bengt Bots on as his own apprentice, Bengt demurred. “Master Bruegel still has so much to give me,” said Bengt. “The world is a parable he’s teaching me to understand.” Bengt was learning well. For the moment Floris was silenced.

  “Stout lad,” said Bruegel, clapping Bengt on the shoulder. It was good to have this youth to stand by him. And now Mayken rejoined him as well. He truly felt like the master of his destiny. His wife, his apprentice, and this room filled with his finest paintings—it was all just as he’d always dreamed.

  And then Jonghelinck walked over, with the scorklike Jerome Cock at his side. “Nicolas tells me he’s not going to order any new pictures from you for a while,” cawed Cock. “So take a rest from painting and draw me something new to sell.”

  “Hush, Jerome,” said Jonghelinck. “I need to give Peter and Frans the bad news myself.”

  “You don’t like the new panels?” exclaimed Mayken, ready for battle. “How can you say such a thing!”

  “They’re exquisite,” said the embarrassed Jonghelinck, awkwardly paddling the air with his oversized hands. “But the thing is—I’m in severe financial straits. The Antwerp City Fathers feel I was delinquent in not collecting excise taxes upon Daniel de Bruyne’s wine. There’s talk of malfeasance. I don’t know who’s been speaking to them. I’d hoped de Bruyne could help me set things right, but he’s dropped out of sight. I’m sure he’ll return from Burgundy in good time, but meanwhile I’m to give the city cash or goods worth—oh—tens of thousands of guilders. More than you can imagine.”

  “It’s a shame you went in with a Frenchman,” snapped Floris. “Filthy curs. But painters like Bruegel and I can find other customers, eh?” Floris’s face suddenly darkened. “You are going to pay Peter the agreed-upon price for his Seasons, aren’t you, Nicolas?” For all his self-centeredness, Floris was always ready to defend the rights of his fellow artists.

  “Of course,” said Jonghelinck, taking out a purse of gold. “I’ll make good on it now. I just wish I would be able to enjoy owning your Seasons for a bit longer, Peter.”

  “What do you mean by that?” said Bruegel, the ground seeming to give way beneath his feet.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. To make up for my debt to the city, I’m turning over a good part of my art collection to them next month. All sixteen of your pictures, Peter, and twenty by you, Frans—they’re part of what the city will receive. They’ll be crated up and kept in storage. If all goes well, I should have them back quite soon, but—”

  Mayken said something, and then Floris interrupted with some other comment, but Bruegel had stopped listening. His stomach felt as if he’d been kicked by a mule. The better part of his life’s work was to be boxed up and stored in an attic of the town hall? The fools! All in vain!

  Jonghelinck tried to press a bag of gold coins into his hand, Bruegel pushed him away, Mayken took the gold for him.

  Jonghelinck’s bad news had spread quickly among the guests. What had begun as a christening had taken on the air of a funeral. With Bengt and Mayken trailing after him, Bruegel took one last sad walk around the salon, bidding farewell to his paintings. The paint was scarcely dry on the The Hunters in the Snow. This was the hardest one to let go of, this perfect picture, so like today’s ride through the snow. The world is a parable.

  “Hard news, Master Bruegel,” murmured Bengt.

  “It won’t be forever,” consoled Mayken.

  And, yes, she was right. Today was gone, gone forever, yet his picture would live on. A crate was no coffin, and someday it would spring open again. His soundly constructed painting would be no worse for the wait.

  To wait and to wait. Bruegel heaved a deep, weary sigh, a sigh from the bottom of his aching gut. The thing was—so much of his life had already been spent waiting. And who knew how much more time remained?

  The party was breaking up. Jonghelinck had a bedroom prepared for Bruegel and Mayken, but in his anger at the financier’s poor stewardship of his paintings, Bruegel haughtily insisted they had somewhere better to stay. Jonghelinck took the slight ungraciously. Mayken spoke with him for a bit to smooth things over, and while she was talking, Bruegel walked around the now-deserted hexagonal salon yet one more time. And then he, Mayken, and Bengt were bundled up and standing outside, the last glimpses of his pictures still swimming in Bruegel’s eyes.

  “Where are we going to sleep?” wondered Mayken. It was a bitter cold night with tiny dustlike flakes of snow falling. The other guests had already departed, with Wagemaeker and his wagon long gone as well. Bruegel, Mayken, Bengt, and Waf were alone in the mansion’s courtyard.

  “We can walk to the market square from here,” said Bruegel. “It’s not so far. We’ll get a room over the Blue Boat tavern. Do you have Jonghelinck’s gold in a safe place, Mayken? We wouldn’t want to lose that too.”

  “Right here,” said Mayken, patting her breasts. “But, Peter, the Blue Boat will have lice and bedbugs. I don’t want to bring lice home to Little Peter. Most of the Blue Boat customers are soldiers and whores. We’ll barely sleep at all.”

  “It’ll have to do,” said Bruegel, barely stopping himself from adding a remark that Anja had liked the Blue Boat fine. In truth, he felt a little abashed at losing his temper with Jonghelinck. A minute ago they’d been inside the mansion, and now they were freezing in the snow. Thanks to Bruegel’s pigheadedhess. But how could Jonghelinck simply box up his panels and put them in storage with the city! He turned halfway back towards the mansion’s door, almost wanting to go back inside and argue some more.

  “Come on, then, Peter,” said Mayken, tugging his sleeve. “I only hope we don’t meet a cutpurse in the streets.”

  “You’ve got me and Waf,” said Bengt, throwing back his head and blowing out a frosty plume of breath. “Lord, but it’s cold. Mevrouw Bruegel’s right. Let’s be on our way.”

  As it happened, two figures were waiting for them in the darkness beyond Jonghelinck’s gate. Waf yelped in fear, and Bengt started backwards so abruptly that he stepped on Bruegel’s foot. But it was only Ortelius and Williblad. “Come back to my house, Peter,” said Ortelius. “I invite you three to spend the night.”

  “Jonghelinck is a crooked bastard to do this to you,” said Williblad Cheroo, throwing his arm across Bruegel’s shoulders. The dashing half-American was quite drunk. “Come on home with Abraham and me and we’ll talk about old times. I promise not to mention anything about fucking Mayken. Ah, damn me for a honking goose, I just did. Forgive me, Mayken. Throw paint on me if you like, Peter. I envy you. I’d like to be a painter.”

  “Scurvy fop,” said Bruegel, with an anger that was partly feigned. In truth, he welcomed the distraction. It was better to be trading words with Cheroo than to be grieving over the loss of his pictures. “Mayken’s lucky she escaped you. What is it you do for Ortelius now? Are you his valet? How far you’ve fallen!”

  “Mayken lucky?” slurred Cheroo as the five of them walked down the icy lane together. The snow had stopped; the stars were hard, pitiless pinpoints. “It’s you who’s lucky, Peter. A twice-plowed field bears richer harvest. You should do me honor.”

  For all the sting in what Cheroo said, Bruegel sensed more despair than malice behind his banter
. But even so, this was too much.

  “Hold your tongue,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. “And no, Abraham, we don’t want to stay with you.”

  The blood in Bruegel’s temples was pounding. Mayken grabbed his arm, lest he do something rash. Towing Mayken along, Bruegel strode forward through the snow, seeking to leave Williblad and Ortelius behind. He had no wish to end this long day with a drunken street brawl.

  Maddeningly, the besotted Cheroo kept pace. The man was beyond controlling. “You asked what I do with Ortelius?” continued Cheroo. “Well, most nights I let him unfasten my codpiece and he plunders the treasures of the New World—like so many others before him, eh? Whoops!”

  In his haste to keep up with Bruegel, Cheroo had lost his footing. His feet shot out from under him and he fell jarringly to the ground. For the moment, none of the four others made a move to help him up. Only Waf seemed to have pity for the coppery man, stepping forward to give his side an encouraging nudge with his long white nose.

  “Careful there, Williblad,” said Ortelius, glaring down at Cheroo. “And tell Peter and Bengt you were joking about what you said before.”

  “About my codpiece?” asked Cheroo. “But in relation to you or to Mayken?”

  “Damn the man,” said Bengt. “Don’t speak of my Master’s wife that way, Cheroo. Let’s kick his ribs in, Master Bruegel. I saw some soldiers do it to a sailor last week.”

  “Don’t,” said Mayken quietly.

  There was a moment of silence. Bruegel looked down at Cheroo, moved by his evident despair and by his poor, crooked nose. He and Williblad were little gnats in the great, spinning world. Why make things harder for each other? Why not behave as if he were finally enlightened?

  “The world’s kicked us all enough,” said Bruegel. He leaned over and held out his hand. “Come on, Williblad.”

  “All right,” said Williblad, taking Bruegel’s hand and slowly rising to his feet.