As Above, So Below Read online

  “Did they chop off uncle’s head?” piped Little Peter as Bruegel raised him up in his arms.

  “Yes,” Bruegel told him. “It was terrible. Filips is in heaven now. I prayed for him.” His son felt lively and whole upon his shoulder. Tears came to Bruegel eyes. “Let’s not talk about it anymore, Peter. It’s too sad. How’s Mama?”

  “She’s lying down.”

  Bruegel found Mayken in bed with her mother at her side. “She feels dreadfully uncomfortable,” said old Mayken. “I think the baby could come anytime. Did you see the execution?”

  “The baby’s almost come?” said Bruegel. “What a wonder, what a day. Filips went out with great dignity.” He paused to run his hand across Mayken’s brow. “I managed to get close enough to say farewell to him.”

  “Did you ask him if you were his brother?” asked Mayken. She knew how much this had been on her Bruegel’s mind.

  “I did. He said his father always credited the tutor. Jan Vondel. Maybe I’m not a secret noble after all.” It made Peter sad to say this. He’d grown fond of the story over the years, it made him feel less like an insignificant part of the crawling human horde. It was well and good to think of mankind blended in with nature, but for oneself—frankly one wanted a slightly superior position. But of course he did have an elevated position, he was a successful artist with a career and a studio and a family and his head still firmly upon his shoulders, thanks be to God.

  “Jan,” murmured Mayken. “A good name. I feel too limp to talk, Peter. It’s like I’m waiting for a storm to break.”

  “Should I stay with you?” The execution had left him itchy for activity and for vengeance. Mayken sensed his unsettled state.

  “No, no,” she said, distractedly waving her hand. “Do what you have to.”

  Whatever was to happen tonight, it seemed best to fully secure the new paintings. Williblad helped Bruegel and Bengt in the attic. By the time dusk fell, the panels were safely boxed, with a goodly amount of lumber left over. They made some preparations for the ghost show and then they went downstairs.

  Niay was gaily busy in the kitchen with the gin and the nutmeg. She’d ground a dozen nutmegs into powder and was heating the dust in a little water. She’d also found time to paint her lips and to change into a very filmy and revealing yellow gown. Mienemeuie and Little Peter were sitting in chairs watching her.

  “I thought you were going to press oil from them,” said Bruegel uncertainly. She already appeared a bit drunk.

  “I tried, but none came,” said Niay airily. “I think the ones at home are fresher and wetter. This should work fine. See how brown the elixir is?” She swished around the liquid in the pan and decanted it into the glass quart bottle. A portion of the gin was missing. The mixture was now the color of tea, and turbid with the softened dust of the nutmegs.

  “Don’t look so worried,” said Niay. “I won’t drink any more. Or maybe just a little cup or two so the soldiers don’t think I’m poisoning them.” She cocked her head. “Hush! They’re coming. You men get out of sight! You too, Mienemeuie. And someone put Little Peter to bed. I want our Spaniards to feel fully at liberty.” She smoothed back her hair and pinched her cheeks. “How do I look?”

  “Like a whore,” said Williblad gloomily. He and Bengt ascended to the attic, and Mienemeuie went to join the Maykens in the bedroom on the third floor. Bruegel felt more and more dubious about their plan. Perhaps today was full enough, with the executions and with Mayken on the point of giving birth. Why carry out some crackpot scheme to scare the soldiers?

  On the third floor landing he turned to start back downstairs, but now the soldiers were already in the kitchen with Niay, already drinking their nutmeg gin, their voices and laughter floating up the stairs. Hearing the voices and thinking of the prick scrawled on his painting, Bruegel steeled himself to carry through the evening’s plan.

  He peeked in at his fruitful Mayken, who was staring out the window breathing hard, Mienemeuie and her mother mopping her brow. She gave him a weak wave. He had Little Peter kiss her good night, and then he put the boy to bed in his room across the hall. Little Peter was excited, and Bruegel calmed him with a long story about sailing to Lazy Lusciousland. Finally the little head was quiet on the pillow.

  Back in the hallway he could hear Niay talking in Spanish, sounding solemn and drawing out her words for a spooky effect. Presumably she was telling the tale of Master Coecke’s ghost. José interrupted with a question, Niay answered, and then Carlos went off on one of his resentful-sounding tirades. The three voices were slurred with drink. Niay would be bringing them up to the studio soon. The clock on the wall said it was near midnight, much later than he’d thought. Time itself seemed out of joint today.

  Checking on Mayken again, Bruegel found her in an increased state of discomfort. “The birth pains have started,” said Mayken, smiling wanly at him. He went and held her hand. Her hair was damp with sweat and her face shiny with oil.

  “That’s good news,” said Bruegel. “How much longer will it be?”

  “Could be an hour, could be twelve,” said Mienemeuie. She and old Mayken had delivered Little Peter and they were ready to midwife again.

  “Little Peter took six,” said old Mayken in a lively tone. “But the second time might be faster. Isn’t this exciting? Go downstairs and fetch some clean cloths and water, Mienemeuie. What’s all that stupid noise? It sounds like a ship of fools.”

  “Niay is feeding the soldiers nutmeg and gin,” said Mienemeuie. “Remember? To make it easier for Mijnheer Bruegel to spook them out of his studio.”

  “Do you have a worm in your head, Peter?” said old Mayken with a frown. “You’re doing that silly nonsense today? While your wife is having a baby?”

  “We—well, we got started on it before we realized,” said Peter. He felt foolish indeed. On this portentous day of death and birth, he and his friends were playing a childish game.

  “Well, get them out of the kitchen,” said old Mayken. “We need more hot water from the stove, and less drunken cretins underfoot. Tell them they have to go up to the attic right away. The baby’s about to come!”

  “Can you go tell them, Mienemeuie?” said Bruegel feeling doubly foolish. “I have to go up to the studio first so I can hide in the storeroom. So I can play the ghost.”

  Old Mayken let out a wordless little shriek of impatience.

  “Do you mind if I leave you, Mayken?” said Bruegel, wanting very much to edge out of the room.

  “Be careful, Peter,” said Mayken.

  “Bless you, darling,” he said, and kissed her forehead. The finger of God was about to touch down into this room, about to incarnate a fresh human life. Bruegel imagined the tiny new soul hovering nearby, ready to pop into the baby at the moment of birth. Mayken felt another pang, she closed her eyes and moaned.

  “Go wave your silly sword,” said Mienemeuie, shoving him ahead of her towards the door. “That’s men’s work. Meanwhile we’ll be doing women’s work. Bringing a new person into the world.” She clattered off down to the kitchen.

  Up in the darkened attic, Bengt and Williblad were idly staring out the window, watching the passersby on the moonlit Hoogstraat. Williblad lit his lantern to help Bruegel see. It was a clever affair with a sliding, light-proof shutter. In the faint light, Bruegel quickly daubed green watercolor paint on his face and put on the old green silk caftan and turban. Bengt handed him the scimitar.

  “Careful with the blade,” said Bengt. “While we were waiting, I sharpened it, just in case. Do you think you could take off a head with a single blow, Master Bruegel?”

  “If those soldiers disappear, their sergeant’s going to come looking for them,” said Bruegel. “And if the sergeant finds bloodstains on our floor, we’ll dangle from the gibbet. We’re only going to scare them.”

  “They better not go too far with Niay,” said Williblad.

  “Now who’s the peasant and who’s the birdsnester?” said Bruegel unable to resist the dig.
The old rivalry was never quite dead. He heard himself letting out a nasty chuckle.

  “Fie!” said Williblad angrily. “How do you know that Mayken didn’t—”

  “Hush,” said Bengt, cutting him off. “They’re coming.”

  Downstairs Mayken began letting out rhythmic cries of pain.

  The three men retreated into the storeroom. Williblad slid the dark shutter over the lantern’s single pane, completely hiding the light. Mayken was silent again. Steps came up the stairs and into the attic. They heard José stagger about the studio and stop in the middle of the room to vomit onto the floor. There was a thud as the oaf collapsed onto his pallet, abruptly followed by snores. This was followed by whispering, giggling, and a quiet rustling that was Niay and Carlos lying down as well.

  Everything was quiet for a few minutes and then came another of Niay’s low giggles and the sound of Carlos’s boots coming off and hitting the floor. Williblad opened the shutter of the lantern by a hairsbreadth so that he and Bruegel could see each other. Williblad still looked angry, and the sight made Bruegel want to burst with laughter, and now, seeing the glee in Bruegel’s face, Williblad himself began to grin. This was madness. Downstairs Mayken let out a long, wavering moan.

  A slight tremor began pulsing through the floor, accompanied by wet noises. Carlos and Niay were making the two-backed beast. A giggling snort escaped Bengt. Willibald stamped loudly and pulled open a goodly chink in the lantern’s shutter. The floor’s shuddering ceased and Carlos let out a questioning grunt.

  Williblad was beaming the ray of light down upon Bruegel’s convex mirror, which lay at the ready upon the storeroom floor. Holding the lantern in one hand, Williblad took a flat leather cutout in his other hand. It was the shape of a dog-headed demon with dangling arms, great rows of teeth and a long, forked tongue. Slowly he moved the wayang kulit puppet back and forth above the mirror. Looking up at the ceiling, Bruegel saw a warped, shadowy demon floating in the midst of a faint glow.

  “Una sombra fantasmal!” cried Niay, her voice most convincingly filled with terror. Carlos said something. Williblad intensified the light and passed the lantern to Bengt so as to free both hands. “El espectro del Señor Coecke!” added Niay, even more agitated than before. Williblad was moving the arms of the puppet so that the shadow looked as if it were reaching downward. José’s snoring fizzled out. He woke and yelped in fear.

  It was time. Bruegel swung open the storeroom door and stepped out, holding Master Coecke’s scimitar at the ready. The wayang kulit show on the ceiling filled the room with throbbing, eerie light. Slowly, step by step, Bruegel walked forwards. José, Niay, and Carlos were sitting bolt upright, their clothes in a tangle, their faces flushed bright red from the poisons of the nutmeg. José was trembling; Carlos was naked, beleaguered, and at a loss. Bruegel flourished his scimitar, gloating at the vandals’ discomfiture. He took another step forward—José broke and ran.

  The big, soft soldier scurried across the room and went crashing down the stairs: down past the bedrooms, down past old Mayken’s studio, down past the kitchen, down into the basement. Bruegel gave Niay a meaningful glance. If she would flee too, then Carlos would surely follow. But the nutmeg-addled Niay was gazing at him with a complete lack of recognition. Evidently, in her delirium, she truly took Bruegel for a ghost.

  “Ayudame, Carlos!” she cried, worming around behind the wiry little soldier. It must have meant “Help me,” for Carlos squared his shoulders, snatched up his sword, and sprang at Bruegel. Bruegel froze, holding his scimitar at a defensive angle. He knew nothing, really, about sword-fighting.

  The naked Carlos opened his attack with a heavy downward slash of his blade. Bruegel blocked the blow with his scimitar, more by chance than by design. The shock of the impact traveled into the scimitar’s hilt and numbed his hand. He stepped backwards towards the storeroom, and Carlos struck again. This time the blow knocked the scimitar from Bruegel’s hand. Carlos raised his sword for a death blow. Downstairs, Mayken’s cries were coming every instant. What a strange time this would be to die. And to die an utter buffoon.

  “Niay!” called Bruegel, not liking for Carlos to hear his voice, but desperately wanting for this hopelessly addled woman to take the emergency action they’d planned. If Carlos grew violent, Niay was to dart forward with her pin to paralyze him.

  “Niay!” cried Bruegel again. If she acted now, they could carry the felled Carlos down to the basement, and when he woke he’d never be sure what happened. But Niay sat dazed upon Carlos’s pallet, staring with her eyes as big as saucers. Bruegel turned tail and flung himself into the sanctuary of the storeroom, with Carlos and his sword close behind.

  Inside the storeroom, Williblad waited pressed against the wall beside the door, and Bengt stood backed into the far corner with the lantern. Carlos saw Bengt, but he didn’t see Williblad, and the half-American was upon the soldier before he could resist. There was a thud, a gargling cry, and then Williblad had disarmed Carlos and seized his neck in both hands. Carlos flailed at Williblad, clawing his face. Bruegel got behind the soldier and pinioned his arms. Williblad kept on choking Carlos; the veins stood out in Williblad’s forehead from the effort. Slowly Carlos slumped down towards the floor. His tongue slid out of his mouth, dark and thick and bloated. Williblad didn’t let up. Two minutes later Williblad had strangled Carlos to death.

  The three men looked at each other in silence. Bruegel wondered about what they’d just done. Was the killing of Carlos a justifiable retribution for the beheading of Filips de Hoorne? Self-defense? Or was it a mortal sin? If a sin, to what priest would one dare confess it to? A baby’s first, coughing wail sounded through the floorboards.

  “My wife!” exclaimed Bruegel, wanting to run down to her. But first he had to conclude the episode up here. “You’re a noble friend, Williblad. I’m sorry I teased you before. We were overwrought.”

  “Go see your baby,” said Williblad with a half smile.

  “I have an idea,” mused Bengt, staring down at the nude corpse. “We’ll crate him up. Like a boxed painting. We’ll ship him off with the other panels. A fitting revenge for daubing on Master Bruegel’s picture, eh? Boxed like a painting himself.”

  “Good,” said Bruegel, edging out of the storeroom towards the stairs. “Do it right away.”

  “And how’s the mad Niay?” said Williblad walking across the studio to where she still sat on the bed, her skirts up around her waist.

  “I saw a ghost,” said Niay, her eyes unblinking. “It came out of the ceiling.”

  “You need to sleep,” said Williblad in an even tone. “Sit here and watch us work, Niay, and then we’ll go down to our shed.” He pulled down her skirts and patted her cheek. “My little spider. Caught in her own web.”

  Bruegel found Mayken propped against a pillow with a tiny red baby in her arms. The baby’s eyes fastened on Bruegel, truly seeing him. The eyes of God. Bruegel felt unclean, as if Carlos’s death were stuck to him.

  “It’s a boy,” said Mayken. “Let’s call him Jan. For your true father.”

  Upstairs Bengt and Williblad began hammering.

  The baby woke them many times in the night, which seemed to last a hundred years. Bruegel was plagued by every manner of strange dream: of Filips’s head, of the shuddering in the attic floor, of baby Jan’s eyes, of a painting that was a corpse, of a father who denied him, of blood and swords. Every facet of the long strange day was mixed up together, as in the maddest scenes of Master Bosch.

  At sunrise Bruegel stopped trying to sleep. His stomach was gnawing with hunger pangs and he felt weak. Yesterday he hadn’t eaten lunch or supper. When he used the chamber pot there was an unusually large amount of bright red blood in his stool. He drank some milk, and then he went to the shed in the garden and woke Niay.

  She was her old self again, and full of apologies. The gin and nutmeg had gotten the better of her. She confessed she’d never actually sampled the decoction before; it was more potent than expected. A
t Bruegel’s request, she went down to the basement to wake José and find out his state of mind. It was important to know this right away, for if the news was bad, there was no time to lose. Bruegel sat on a stump by the shed waiting for Niay’s report.

  A patch of the sleeping Williblad was visible through the half-open door, lit by the gray light of dawn. Williblad had saved his life again. A costly friend, but a lethal enemy. And now Bruegel was a father again, with a second son. Peter and Jan. Might both be painters? This business with his stomach—how much time did it leave him? A moot point if Alva learned of Carlos’s murder. Bruegel felt a slight pang of remorse. Perhaps they’d get away with the killing. But his stomach could well do him in.

  He looked around the yard, feeling lonely for Waf. It would have done him good to have that long furry dog to pet. Poor Waf. Poor Carlos. In his worry and weariness, Bruegel glimpsed something moving at the very edge of his vision, a sly exultant figure seen more with the mind than with the eye. It was lean stinking Death, skeleton Death passing by. Bruegel had seen him before, at that peasant wedding years ago. What was it poor Father Michel had said about the months? February in September.

  Niay reappeared from the basement with her report. Everything was fine. José was unclear about what had happened the night before, but above all he knew that he never wanted to sleep in the haunted attic again. On hearing that Carlos was gone, José had expressed neither surprise nor concern. José had said that Carlos was looking for an excuse to desert, and that seeing the ghost had probably decided him. José hadn’t liked Carlos all that well anyway, and was just as glad to be rid of him. José was planning to grab some food and to go tell his sergeant that Carlos had disappeared.

  Bruegel spent the rest of morning sitting with Mayken, staring at Jan, and discussing the baby with Little Peter. Jan’s gaze wasn’t so sharp today as it had been yesterday. Big and Little Peter concluded that a baby could see clearly in the hours after he was born, and that then he rested for a day. Little Peter said it was good that Jan had sharp eyes, since they were a family of painters. He was enthralled by the baby’s tiny fingers, and he loved it when the baby took hold of his own larger finger.