Rembrandt's Mirror by Kim Devereux

inert and heavy but sleep would not come, despite or perhaps because of my strange happiness. I thought over and over about what had happened; the drawing and how it moved me even now, my recklessness, his unconcern with my having followed him – as if convention meant nothing to him – and his care for Elsje’s fate. That fate, I told myself, should teach me to appreciate what I had and not be so careless.
    I was plagued by thirst. I got up and walked over the cold flagstones to pour diluted beer from a jug. The fizzing bubbles glistened in the moonlight. I was more awake than ever. The moon was fat in the window, forcing its glare on me. If there had been curtains to pull I might have returned to my nest, but with the moon so bright the idea held no appeal. I had left some knitting in the linen room upstairs. I’d fetch it. Perhaps a few rows would send me to sleep.
    The cylinder that held the worn stairs seemed narrow and twisted. The treads and walls absorbed any light that came up from the hall below. I should have brought a candle; I felt as though I was climbing into the gullet of some beast.
    Faint moonlight glowed in the small circular window that looked down into Rembrandt’s room. I supposed these peep-holes allowed servants to check, without causing a disturbance, if any of the rooms needed attending.
    At this time of night there would be nothing to see but no harm in taking a quick look into his room. I stood on tiptoe. My vantage point was high up, just below the ceiling of the tall double-heightbedroom. So high that there would be little risk of being noticed even by day.
    Moonlight entered through a pair of floor-to-ceiling windows on the left, flooding the room. I could make out the velvet cushions, ornate mantelpiece and the pile of clothing he had discarded on the floor. I could study everything at my leisure. Everything except him, for he was in his bed. As it was a box bed, positioned against the wall with the peep-hole, I could not see in.
    A sound. My heart relocated to my throat. The noise was coming from below me. The door to his room was opening. Geertje walked in with a candle, an apparition in her long nightshift. She closed the door, headed straight for the bed and disappeared into it. I don’t know how long I stood and stared at nothing. If I’d arrived a minute earlier or later, I would not have seen her, would not have known. After a while my fingers were stiff from gripping the window ledge. There was nothing to do but return to my room. I felt alone again. I descended the stairs as quietly as I could and passed his bedroom door before finally reaching my own bed. My heart was still throbbing all the way to my temples. Was he looking at her now, like he’d looked at the bird? It didn’t matter how moving his drawings were. He was a man with no respect for the Lord, who gobbled down his food without saying prayers. They were godless, both of them.
    What else was he capable of? I’d been right to worry when he’d looked at me in the linen room. And what a coincidence that I had climbed the stairs just then. Of course it was not coincidence but the goodness of the Lord.
    I got out of bed again and fell to my knees. Even if kneeling had been abolished by the Church it was the only way I knew to adequately thank the Lord for preserving me by showing me the truth.
    As soon as I woke, I recalled the events of the previous night. I could not help but imagine her and Rembrandt in the act, although this was hampered by the fact that I was not entirely sure of what it involved. Besides, I should not be imagining such a thing at all. But even as I quickly dressed, I could not purge my mind of the vision: them wrapped around one another, cosy in the box bed. So I prayed to the Lord, ‘Dear Father, I have sinned, I have noticed ungodly acts and have kept them in my thoughts.’
    I tried to submit myself to God’s mercy but lacked the faith that I would