Rembrandt's Confession Page 2

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  A cloud of dust lifted up from the floor - he remembered he left the front door open.

  Somewhere deep in the back of the room a man shouted in anger. 'What the hell do you think you're doing. Close the goddamn door.'

  Caught by the sudden burst of anger he took his hand after door which slammed shut behind him.

  Darkness. Except for beams of light high up everything went dark.

  At the back of the room he could just make out a figure sitting with his back to him in front of a large canvas on an easel - to his left a large oak table.

  'Dust, stupid dust.' The man bellowed. 'Why can't I have somewhere to work without dust all around me.'

  The artist turned his concentration back to his work, mumbling and groaning as he mixed colours on his palette.

  That was the smell, he realised, oil paint. The historian did not dare to take another step.

  'What do you want?' The artist shouted - sounding less angry than before.

  'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you.'

  The artist put his brush down - took a deep breath then his shoulders slumped - as if giving in. 'I don't mind being disturbed,' he said calmly. 'No one ever disturbs me in these days of...' His voice faded, lost in thought. 'Sometimes I could do with the company.' Suddenly he threw his hands up into the air in anger. 'I just hate all this dust. It ruins my work.'

  Slowly, the historian ventured into the room -careful not to step on the paintings and drawings that littered the floor. What was this place, he wondered. A messy reproduction of an artist's studio complete with grumpy old artist?

  'Maybe you could get the cleaners in?'

  The artist turned on his high stool to get a better look at the visitor. 'A cook is expensive enough. I haven't been able to afford a house cleaner in five years.'

  The historian ran his finger over an empty picture frame resting up against a dozen others, then stared at the result - black.

  The artist turned back to his painting. 'There was always a cleaning lady. There was always someone to look after the little one, and another to make up the oil colours, another who cooked. I never had to wait or ask for anything. Everything was arranged, even my pocket money. She used to look after everything.' The old man lowered his head, 'then she passed away,' he said, as if the very words cut into his heart.

  'Who?'

  'Hendrijckje, the last love of my life.'

  An old Dutch name, the historian knew, and rarely used these days. But did the old man actually say pocket money? 'You were given pocket money?'

  His mood lightened and he chuckled at the idea of what he was about to tell. 'Well, how can I say. It was one of those arrangements we made about? let me think? eight years ago, sixteen hundred and sixty, if my mind has not gone totally mad. We formed what you might call a company, or, at least, they formed a company.

  Sixteen hundred and sixty? The museum must be trying to create a reproduction.

  'They?' The historian asked.

  'Hendrijckje and Titus my son, under my close supervision of course.'

  Although he was not an art historian he realised the overweight man dressed in ancient garments, with a round face, scraggly beard and curly white hair covered with a round white cap was someone playing the great artist Rembrandt van Rijn.

  The artist lowered his voice, as if about to tell the secret. 'You see, I was not allowed to form a company.'

  The reproduction was convincing enough. He decided to go along with it.

  'Why would someone not be allowed to form a company?'

  Rembrandt wiped his brushes on a stained cloth, then turned his eye on his most recent work. 'It's not that I was not allowed to form a company but I needed to create a place of safekeeping.'

  'I'm sorry, I don't understand. Why would you need to create a place for safekeeping. What were you protecting? '

  'HAAA,' he shouted at the top of his voice - and raised his arms towards the hanging paintings. 'Look around you, my life, this is my life, children are not only of flesh and blood. These are also my children. Some wish to protect their money, others their land. I protect my mind, my colours, my children, my paintings.'

  The artist turned and gazed at the historian with certain suspicion. 'You like my paintings?'

  He looked around. Many he knew through his study or had seen in the Rijksmuseum or Rembrandt house. Self-portraits, paintings of Jan Six, Titus as a boy, Bathsheba at her bath, the list of works he recognised were endless.

  'Yes. Very much.

  'You want to buy one?'

  The historian laughed in surprise. 'Me? No thank you, I don't think I could afford it. '

  'That's the problem these days,' the artist grumbled. 'No one can afford my paintings. The great artist has become too old and too expensive, or could it be too pitiful for old friends and men of learning to buy credible works of art.'

  Rembrandt left his stool, pushed his way past the historian and pointed to the paintings on the wall. 'But that doesn't stop them from coming to look, you know?

  'Who comes.'

  The old artist scratched his head. 'Who comes where?'

  'Here. Who comes here to look?'

  'Oh, that. All the old fools who are still alive and enjoying the better qualities of life but afraid to put their money where their mouth is. I've become a museum where they would gather to have a smoke, drink my liquors and look at my paintings. A less expensive pastime than buying them, don't you think?

  His face lit up like little boy, he giggled. 'What would you say if I charge them to look at my paintings? Would they then be willing to come as often as they do? Maybe I should just charge for the nourishment they receive. What do you think?'

  Hans Benting was confused. Should he play along with this or just leave. The artist was either an incredible actor or the Amsterdam Museum had hired a total lunatic. He looked around for cameras but there were none to be seen. Maybe they were hidden.

  'Well? Are you going to answer me or not? What do you think?'

  He decided to go with it. 'Of course, why not. You are not a charity.'

  'Ah, well said. I never thought of that. No I am not a charity.'

  'In fact, why not open your door to everyone who might wish to admire your work and charge a small fee.'

  The artist looked confused, and scratched his chin. 'I don't know. Somehow I just cannot imagine people paying to see the paintings that adorns these walls.'

  Rembrandt strolled around the room, carefully stepping over the canvases. He stopped to look up at a painting and grumbled. 'Yet these are not just paintings. Vondel wrote about dreams and thoughts on pieces of parchment. Written words embroidered into poetry and manuscripts such as his Gijsbrecht van Amstel. A great play?'

  He quickly turned to a number of drawings laid flat on the large table. 'I made a drawing of it once?' He frustratingly searched through many drawings of all sizes. 'I'm sure it's somewhere among these? '

  Some drawings fell to the floor - he ignored them.

  The historian picked up the drawings. He was about to put them on the table when he stopped to look. Two drawings of Titus, both as a young boy. One of him reading a book - the other at a desk, drawing.

  'I'll get someone to tidy this up some day,' the artist moaned.

  'This is your son?'

  A look of pain appeared in Rembrandt's face - his whole body seemed to sink into itself as the historian handed him the drawings.

  'He was one of the most caring loving children I have ever met. Whenever I needed his help he was there. Whenever I asked him to do something which I knew he would frown upon he did it without question.'

  Laying the drawings on the table, he lovingly stroked them. 'My beautiful boy was frail from birth. He never managed to build up his health when he was young. Unlike me he never lied, cheated, or hurt a soul on this Earth. I was so proud when he married his Magdalena in February of this year. Seven months later on the eighth day of September I wept like an old woman whe
n we buried his body in the Westerkerk. It was so sad. His poor Magdalena. Did you know she is now expecting his child in the New Year?'

  This was taking the act a step too far he thought, and becoming all too real.

  'No. I didn't know.'

  'The baby will never know its father, just as poor Titus never got to know his mother.' Rembrandt pointed to a painting of Saskia on the wall. 'His mother, my Saskia, died when he was no more than one-year-old? ' His voice faded, as if lost in thought, then he turned abruptly to the historian. 'For years they tried to take everything away from me,' he hissed, 'my money, my house, they even tried to take away my mistress.'

  'They?'

  'They.' He shouted angrily. 'They, the authorities.' His raised finger shot out at the historian. 'But I always managed to keep myself from turning to him.' Rembrandt directed his accusing finger to a painting of Jesus on the cross hanging on the far wall. 'Asking him to help me, to care for me, to protect me from a life on the street. But for Titus I turned, and I prayed.' His voice rose once again in anger. 'And I begged and begged and begged a thousand times...'

  The old man dropped to his knees in front of the canvas. 'The tears of my soul wept so much. I thought I would drown his Magdalena and myself in my own ocean of grief.'

  He fell forward on his hands - shaking - tears dropped onto a blank canvas in front of him. He grabbed it with one hand then got up off the floor and rushed over to the historian and held the blank canvas up to his face. 'There is nothing on this parchment, yet I can bring it to life with my brushes, I can give it life.'

  He then turned his wild gaze to the painting of the Last