“I’m going now to pray for them all,” I said instead. “Will you come with me?”

He did not want to, but I managed to persuade him—I did not want to face a strange church alone again. We found one not far away, and although the service did not comfort me, I prayed hard for our family.

Afterwards Frans and I walked along the Schie River. We said little, but we each knew what the other was thinking—neither of us had heard of anyone recovering from the plague.

When she saw my face Maria Thins laughed. “Don’t worry. He’s finished. He doesn’t need this now. When you’re done here make sure you dust all the chairs and set them out by the middle window. And open all the shutters.” She left, cradling the pewter bowl in her arms.

Without the bowl and brush the tabletop was transformed into a picture I did not recognize. The letter, the cloth, the ceramic pot lay without meaning, as if someone had simply dropped them onto the table. Still, I could not imagine moving them.

I put off doing so by going about my other duties. I opened all the shutters, which made the room very bright and strange, then dusted and mopped everywhere but the table. I looked at the painting for some time, trying to discover what was different about it that now made it complete. I had seen no changes in it over the past several days.

I was still pondering when he entered. “Griet, you’ve not yet cleared up. Be quick about it—I’ve come to help you move the table.”

“I’m sorry for being so slow, sir. It’s just—” He seemed surprised that I wanted to say something—“I’m so used to the objects where they are that I hate to move them.”

“I see. I will help you, then.” He plucked the blue cloth from the table and held it out. His hands were very clean. I took the cloth from him without touching them and brought it to the window to shake out. Then I folded it and placed it in a chest in the storeroom. When I came back he had gathered up the letter and the black ceramic pot and stored them away. We moved the table to the side of the room and I set up the chairs by the middle while he moved the easel and painting to the corner where the scene had been set.

It was odd to see the painting in the place of the setting. It all felt strange, this sudden movement and change after weeks of stillness and quiet. It was not like him. I did not ask him why. I wanted to look at him, to guess what he was thinking, but I kept my eyes on my broom, cleaning up the dust disturbed by the blue cloth.

He left me and I finished up quickly, not wanting to linger in the studio. It was no longer comforting there.

That afternoon van Ruijven and his wife visited. Tanneke and I were sitting on the bench in front while she showed me how to mend some lace cuffs. The girls had gone over to Market Square and were flying a kite near the New Church where we could see them, Maertge holding the end of the string while Cornelia tugged the kite up into the sky.

I saw the van Ruijvens coming from a long way off. As they approached I recognized her from the painting and my brief meeting with her, and him as the moustached man with the white feather in his hat and the oily smile who had once escorted her to the door.

“Look, Tanneke,” I whispered, “it’s the gentleman who admires the painting of you every day.”

“Oh!” Tanneke blushed when she saw them. Straightening her cap and apron, she hissed, “Go and tell mistress they’re here!”

I ran inside and found Maria Thins and Catharina with the sleeping baby in the Crucifixion room. “The van Ruijvens have come,” I announced.

Catharina and Maria Thins removed their caps and smoothed their collars. Catharina held on to the table and pulled herself up. As they were leaving the room Maria Thins reached up and straightened one of Catharina’s tortoiseshell combs, which she only wore on special occasions.

They greeted their guests in the front hall while I hovered in the hallway. As they moved to the stairs van Ruijven caught sight of me and paused for a moment.

“Who’s this, then?”

Catharina frowned at me. “Just one of the maids. Tanneke, bring us up some wine, please.”

“Have the wide-eyed maid bring it to us,” van Ruijven commanded. “Come, my dear,” he said to his wife, who began climbing the stairs.

Tanneke and I stood side by side, she annoyed, me dismayed by his attention.

“Go on, then!” Catharina cried to me. “You heard what he said. Bring the wine.” She pulled herself heavily up the stairs after Maria Thins.

I went to the little room where the girls slept, found glasses stored there, polished five of them with my apron and set them on a tray. Then I searched the kitchen for wine. I did not know where it was kept, for they did not drink wine often. Tanneke had disappeared in a huff. I feared the wine was kept locked away in one of the cupboards, and that I would have to ask Catharina for the key in front of everyone.

Fortunately, Maria Thins must have anticipated this. In the Crucifixion room she left out a white jug with a pewter top, filled with wine. I set it on the tray and carried it up to the studio, first straightening my cap, collar and apron as the others had done.

When I entered they were standing by the painting. “A jewel once again,” van Ruijven was saying. “Are you happy with it, my dear?” he addressed his wife.

“Of course,” she answered. The light was shining through the windows onto her face and she looked almost beautiful.

As I set the tray down on the table my master and I had moved that morning Maria Thins came over. “I’ll take that,” she whispered. “Off you go. Quickly, now.”

I was on the stairs when I heard van Ruijven say, “Where’s that wide-eyed maid? Gone already? I wanted to have a proper look at her.”

“Now, now, she’s nothing!” Catharina cried gaily. “It’s the painting you want to look at.”

I went back to the front bench and took my seat next to Tanneke, who wouldn’t say a word to me. We sat in silence, working on the cuffs, listening to the voices floating out from the windows above.

When they came down again I slipped around the corner and waited, leaning against the warm bricks of a wall in the Molenpoort, until they were gone.

Later a man servant from their house came and disappeared up to the studio. I did not see him go, as the girls had come back and wanted me to build up the fire so they could bake apples in it.

The next morning the painting was gone. I had not had a chance to look at it one last time.

He stopped what he had been doing, ignoring the indignant sounds from the old woman he had been helping. “I suppose if I were young and smiled at you you’d do anything for me too,” she scolded as he handed the packages to me.

“She’s not smiling,” Pieter replied. He glanced at his father, then handed me a smaller package. “For your family,” he said in a low voice.

I did not even thank him—I snatched the package and ran.

Only thieves and children run.

I ran all the way home.

My parents were sitting side by side on the bench, heads bowed. When I reached them I took my father’s hand and raised it to my cheek. I sat next to them and said nothing.

There was nothing to be said.

It was at the end of the summer that my sister died. That autumn was rainy. I spent much of my time hanging laundry on racks indoors, shifting them closer to the fire, trying to dry the clothes before mildew took over but without scorching them.

Tanneke and Maria Thins treated me kindly enough when they found out about Agnes. Tanneke managed to check her irritation for several days, though soon she began again to scold and sulk, leaving it to me to placate her. Maria Thins said little but took to cutting off her daughter when Catharina became sharp with me.

Catharina herself seemed to know nothing of my sister, or did not show it. She was nearing her confinement, and as Tanneke had predicted she spent most of her time in bed, leaving the baby Johannes to Maertge’s charge. He was beginning to toddle about, and kept the girls busy.

The girls did not know I had a sister and so would not understand that I could lose one. Only Aleydis seemed to sense that something was wrong. She sometimes came to sit by me, pushing her body close to mine like a pup burrowing into its mother’s fur for warmth. She comforted me in a simple way that no one else could.

One day Cornelia came out to the courtyard where I was hanging up clothes. She held out an old doll to me. “We don’t play with this anymore,” she announced. “Not even Aleydis. Would you like to give it to your sister?” She made her eyes wide and innocent, and I knew she must have overheard someone mention Agnes’ death.

“No, thank you,” was all I could say, almost choking on the words.

She smiled and skipped away.

The studio remained empty. He did not start another painting. He spent much of his time away from the house, either at the Guild or at Mechelen, his mother’s inn across the square. I still cleaned the studio, but it became like any other task, just another room to mop and dust.