The Other Adonis

by Frank Deford

  Constance hears him. “Do you like the painting, Ollie? It’s based on an old proverb that goes like this: ‘Without Bacchus, the god of wine, and Ceres, the goddess of the fruits of the earth, then Venus, the goddess of love, is left out in the cold.’ So you see—”

  “Sure,” says Ollie, “the fellows are plying the wenches with the grape and a pleasant time that they might come away with a good poke.”

  “And do you believe that, Ollie? I hear you’re quite the ladies man, but do you believe that love can only come after a good time and a good wine have reduced a lass’s defenses?”

  Constance turns to her side, as if Peter Paul Rubens is surely standing there, as sure as she is hearing Ollie talk to him. And if she doesn’t quite see the master next to her, she does speak out loud, exactly as Ollie did: “No, Mr. Rubens. Once I thought that, but now I believe there can be real love—and without such blandishments.”

  “Good, good Ollie. It is my belief, too, that every man has within him a true love to pour out, if only he finds the right woman to be that vessel. With me, ’tis my dear Helena. And I only hope you should be so lucky to find your lady love.”

  “Perhaps some day,” said Ollie, keeping his counsel, for Margareta was a married woman and he would not disparage her reputation in the eyes of such a good Christian gentleman as Peter Paul Rubens.

  “Well, ’tis only proper,” Rubens exclaimed, “that the man I chose as my Adonis, who won the heart of Venus herself, shall find his own true love upon this Earth of ours.” And Constance remembered well how he had clapped Ollie upon the back before he turned away. And then Mr. Rubens was gone, and Pastorale was no longer a work in progress upon an easel in the summer of 1635, but a finished masterpiece back upon the wall this summer’s day in the here and now.

  Quickly, Constance hurried away from the studio, through the antechamber with the gold leather walls, into the kitchen with its Delft tiles, and on to the serving room. It was all so familiar, and Constance could even hear the names being called out: Jan and Frans—yes; and Danelis and Willem, Susanna, Cornelis, Basilia, Elsa. She stopped with Elsa. What was it about Elsa?

  But she had reached the dining room and there was the master’s own portrait, staring at her. Those pitch-dark eyes, the pointed nose with the pointed chestnut beard to match, the hat and the white collar tilted in such a way that seemed so reminiscent…of what? Could it be that Mr. Rubens held his head just that way when he painted? Of course. Now Constance could visualize him. And, after all, he’d been painting when he painted himself here, hadn’t he? She could see him so clearly now, head tilted just so, sketching her. Him. Ollie.

  Finally, when a group of Walloons from the south of Belgium came by, their guide chattering to them in French, Constance left the Rubens self-portrait and went upstairs where the great man died on May 30th, 1640. She glanced about his bedroom, then doubled back to another, smaller bedroom where Helena slept. Such a short bed. Constance thought: how did Margareta and I make love comfortably in such short beds? Were we that much shorter ourselves in that life?

  Down the hall she moved, to a portrait of a young woman. “Traditionally identified as Helena, Rubens’s second wife,” the card said. “Attributed to Jan Boeckhorst.” Oh yeah, Constance remembered Boeckhorst. A wiseass. She studied the portrait closer. Well, the woman did look somewhat like Helena, but Mr. Rubens himself had done so many much better renderings of Helena. Hardly knowing she’d spoken out loud, Constance had mumbled, “Didn’t quite get her.”

  A German couple standing close by glanced at Constance, then quickly moved away. Well, Constance thought to herself, that jerk Boeckhorst didn’t quite get Helena. That was Boeckhorst’s trouble. He didn’t quite get anything. Constance was sure Mr. Rubens would be furious if he knew that some curator had stuck a Boeckhorst—a Boeckhorst of his wife—up in his own house.

  She shrugged and moved on, past the linen room and the corner bedroom to Mr. Rubens’s famous portrait of Michael Ophovius. Funny place to keep it, Constance thought. Mr. Rubens had it hung downstairs where more people could see it. God, she was remembering everything now. It was all flooding back. And yet, something was driving her forward, too. She rushed past some Italians and that German couple, dashing up the stairs to the top floor to the private studio. But it was only worse there. Constance was sweating, her heart pounding as terribly as those times when she had encountered Bucky or the Madonna.

  She needed air. She rushed to the window that opened onto Wapperstraat and that purchased Constance some relief, for the window afforded a peek into the twenty-first century—with Coca-Cola and Palm beer umbrellas outside the cafés below. They were her salvation, a glimpse of modern civilization. Thank God for Coke. Constance sucked in her breath and looked all the way down Wapperstraat, past the huge shrubbery islands to the intersection with The Weir, where a bunch of African musicians were playing a melody heavy on drums and chants.

  So, composed as best she could be, Constance was ready at last, and she drew her head back into the studio. But instantly it happened again, and she was completely swallowed up by that place and time. She didn’t even realize what she was doing. But without warning, while the other tourists stared in fear and wonder, Constance contorted her body, facing back, her one hand down, her other raised high. She was Adonis again—Adonis without the spear, but otherwise Adonis. And of course, she was looking down, looking to where Venus would have been. Only:

  Constance was staring at the red and black pattern.

  But she wasn’t just imagining that she saw it. No. It was right there. The pattern was before her eyes. It was on the floor.

  The pattern that Constance had always seen was the design on the floor of Mr. Rubens’s private studio.

  All these years, this is where the vision had come from. It was not something she had just imagined. She saw it for real, right now. Exactly the way it had always been, the black and the red diamonds, clustered just so. Of course! No one could have dreamed up such an odd pattern. No, no: Constance had seen it. Well, Ollie had seen it. And she held her Adonis pose, staring at the red and black diamonds.

  The other tourists gave her a wide berth. Constance only smiled, relieved. And then, closing her eyes, she isn’t just seeing the red and black pattern, but she envisions Margareta sitting upon them—sweet and precious, looking up at her with that same heavenly smile that made her Mr. Rubens’s Madonna. And now Constance also hears a voice. It is Mr. Rubens himself. After all, he is right here in his studio painting Adonis, isn’t he? “Ah, bemint zym,” he says, making Margareta smile.

  “What?” Ollie asks.

  “I said: ah to be in love,” Rubens replies. “As we discussed downstairs the other day, Ollie. To be totally in love—as Adonis and Venus.”

  Ollie winks at Margareta because they attach the master’s words to themselves. Then, in his best, bad Flemish, Ollie repeats it: “Ja, bemint zym.” And he grins at Margareta until at last that vision of her is gone and it is only Constance again, standing alone by herself in the middle of the private studio.

  She abandons the Adonis pose and just stands there, limp. At last she knows where the red and black has come from. And then, just like that, the other awful visions start to present themselves. Bess upon the pebbles, Caterina lying on the bed, and Elsa floating along down the dirty canal. Constance can’t get them out of her mind. And she realizes that if the red and black pattern had once been real in life then these awful other visions must also be based in the actual past. Who are these women? Why are they dead in Constance’s mind’s eye? Why are they…murdered?

  “Oh no,” Constance screams out in despair, as she falls upon the floor. There, on her knees, she draws down her face to where Margareta sat, where she can only see the floor, only see the red and the black—her eyes wide, staring at the pattern until it fills her whole mind, every nook and cranny, so that nothing ugly can intrude.

  35

  Jocelyn was moving in the other direction now, away from Rubenshu
is, toward the Grote Markt. When she passed the Hilton, she went right in. There was no answer when she rang Constance’s room, so this time Jocelyn wrote out a message identifying herself, and asking Constance to call her at the Alfa Theatre Hotel, room 554. Leaving that note at the desk, she proceeded on to the Rubens Fair.

  She was instantly enchanted by it, transformed by the spirit of the period costumes, hardly less than Constance had been. And soon, like Constance, Jocelyn’s eyes fastened on the pretty young clerk in a candy stall, wearing a green and white dress with a green hat and the tall, gold feather. “How much?” Jocelyn inquired.

  “Oh, the hat’s not for sale. I have to wear these clothes all day.”

  “Well, will you sell it to me at the end of the day?”

  The salesgirl demurred. Jocelyn offered an outlandish price—three thousand Belgium francs, about ninety dollars. “Well…”

  “And I’ll throw in my hat, too,” Jocelyn said, touching the one on her head. It was a very fashionable chemille that she’d just bought in St. Petersburg. That clinched the deal, so happily, Jocelyn moved on, finding her way next up to Saint Paul’s Church where she studied the three Rubens paintings there.

  Then, she walked over to the Royal Museum, where a full two dozen of the master’s works were hung in special, great, high-ceilinged rooms with red velour banquettes. There Jocelyn sat, drinking in all the paintings: the men in their great broad-brimmed hats, their lacy millstone collars, and their fancy doublets. And the pretty women: bodices opening over chemisettes, beautiful skirts, petticoats, and aprons, feather fans, and pearl necklaces. Jocelyn beamed, too, as she saw more than one gorgeous hat much like the very green one she’d just arranged to buy.

  So now, altogether imbued with the spirit of Rubens, Jocelyn decided that she was ready to go into his house. She headed that way, up Arenbergstraat. And how close she came there to crossing paths again with Constance. It was almost as if the two women were destined to move about the same places in Antwerp, but always at a slightly different pace, in a slightly different direction. Now, even as Jocelyn approached Rubenshuis, Constance was leaving there for Saint James Church, for Rubens’s crypt.

  Saint James is located on Lange Niewstraat, an altogether undistinguished street just outside the charming reach of the old town. Streetcars run down Lange Niewstraat, with neighborhood shops and residences that are neither remarkable nor reminiscent. Notwithstanding, once Constance stepped inside the dark old Gothic church, she was immediately rushed back to Rubens’s time and she walked softly through the shadows, pausing reverentially to examine the statues and paintings that lined the walls and filled the chapels.

  No, Ollie had never been here. He’d never set foot inside any church in Antwerp.

  But Constance felt comfortable in Saint James. After all, this was Rubens’s parish church. He’d married Helena here, seen their children baptized here, confessed his sins (such as they were) here, risen every day that his gout permitted it to come here and worship. And, of course, it was here that he had chosen to be buried.

  But even more: this was Margareta’s church. And this place was her salvation. It was here where the Gansackers had found her, and here where Jan De Gruyter had spied her. And here he married her and here their two children were christened. Moreover, it was here, too, that the master had first spotted Margareta, visualizing in her countenance a Madonna’s face. Yes, in a way, all that Margareta had become was thanks to Saint James, and it was impossible for Constance not to feel that power, that warmth.

  But now, it was time for her to pay her respects to Mr. Rubens where he lay for all time behind the high altar. Constance walked softly upon the marble floor, gently now, approaching the tomb where the master rested, on either side a wife—Isabella to the left, Helena the right.

  Helena, of course, had survived him by many years, but Rubens himself had approved of this site for his earthly rest, even stipulating which one painting of his should be displayed above his tomb. “The one I choose to hang above me,” Rubens had whispered in agony, “would be the recent one of Our Lady—with the Christ Child upon her arm, surrounded by the company of divers saints.” And, of course, his request was upheld. After the Fourment family completed the chapel, that painting was taken from Rubenshuis and raised above his tomb where it has remained until this day.

  Constance drew closer, but with each step her emotions changed. She had begun to approach with reverence, in solemnity, but now as she moved nearer, there was excitement and wonder—sensations very much like those she had experienced when first she had come into gallery twenty-seven with Nina. Suddenly, in fact, her knees wobbled, and cool as it was, Constance found herself sweating.

  And if at last before her was the tomb, her eyes were drawn immediately to the painting above, to Our Lady and Child with Saints. Constance noticed St. George first—hard to miss him with the slain dragon at his feet. And then she saw some other saint (in fact, it was old Jerome) kneeling on a lion, and Mary Magdalene, ever in her ambiguity, and also here, well…Rubensesque: chubby and bare-breasted. Everywhere, too, there were angels because the Virgin holds the Christ, and the cherubs are smiling upon the happy little child.

  But now Constance is pulled nearer. She suddenly even has this urge to climb upon Rubens’s tomb, to touch the painting, to kiss it. She manages to stop herself, baffled at why she is so overcome. She looks closer. She stares at the painting. And now she doesn’t see St. George or St. Jerome or the Magdalene or the angels anymore. No, she only sees the Virgin and the Child. Because she knows Mary.

  Mary is Margareta. Margareta is Mary. Ollie’s Margareta. My Margareta. There is no doubt. Once again, Rubens has used Margareta as his Madonna.

  Constance keeps her eyes fixed on Margareta. She is alone in the chapel, no guards nearby. Only now that Constance is all by herself, she is no longer Constance. Constance Rawlings has again fallen into a trance, transformed. It is Oliver Goode now standing before the tomb, before the painting. And there is one other thing that makes Ollie’s skin tingle. It is not only Margareta in the painting that enraptures him.

  It is the baby. The child who is Jesus. Ollie somehow senses that child. He is drawn to him. He presses his fists to his head. Yes, yes, I know. The child posing in Margareta’s arms is Margareta’s own baby. And yes, it is Ollie’s child. It is their baby. My god, we had a baby, Ollie thinks. Margareta and I had a baby.

  Ollie kicks off his shoes—Constance’s clogs. He climbs upon Mr. Rubens’s tomb, and standing up there, crying now, he leans forward. First, he kisses the lips of his love, and then the forehead of their child.

  So, Nina must have had it wrong. If Margareta had Ollie’s baby, then Ollie did not kill her. Could he? Why then? Why then did Margareta scream “…oowwwwllllleeee…?”

  Ollie finally tore himself away and left Saint James, wandering over toward the Schelde, stopping for a couple of beers. After all, it wasn’t really Constance anymore. In fact, it was late in the evening before Ollie began to find his way back to Constance’s room at the Hilton. She is supposed to fly back to Chicago in the morning. If she can become Constance again by then.

  As for Jocelyn, she had left Rubenshuis and arrived at Saint James shortly after Constance had departed there. As soon as she entered the church, Jocelyn saw the guest book, and her curiosity was too great for her to wait. Even before she headed to the tomb, she turned to look at the book.

  Surely, Constance would have come to Saint James. But Jocelyn failed to see Constance’s familiar script. So, she started to sign her own name. As she wrote it, something caught her eye. It was only three lines up, a scratchy, thin black writing far different than the soft blue words that Constance had written at the Plantin-Moretus House and at Rockoxhuis.

  Jocelyn focused on that line, and her eyes bulged out as she read:

  15 Au’st.

  Cecil Wainwright

  Norfolk,

  Englande

  With my deare Sweetheart & Childe

 
36

  Now, of course, Jocelyn was almost frantic to reach Constance. She had come to Antwerp simply to experience the feel of the place where the Double Ones had lived and loved. But now she had discovered that one of them had actually come back there herself. And on top of that: these bizarre, fascinating, public notes from Constance. Jocelyn was beside herself with curiosity and excitement. Twice that night she tried Constance’s room, but neither time was there an answer. She thought about going down to the Hilton, waiting in the lobby, confronting her personally. No, too pushy. She tried the phone again. Nothing.

  In fact, Constance had been sitting there by the phone, all along. She’d read Jocelyn’s note. She knew it must be her calling, too. Meddling. The nosy bitch. After all, no one else knew that Constance Rawlings was in Antwerp—let alone at the Hilton Hotel. Mrs. Rawlings was at a convention in Las Vegas. Wasn’t she?

  Frustrated, Jocelyn looked at her watch. A quarter to eleven. Only a quarter to six in New York. She pulled out her address book and dialed Dr. Winston’s home number. No answer. Damn. Oh well, she’d leave a message on the phone machine: “Nina Winston, it’s Jocelyn Ridenhour. I’ve got so much to tell you. Sergei and Ludmilla were terrific—Double Ones!—and now I’m in Antwerp. And you’d never guess who’s here. Surprise! If you get back by seven, call me. I’m at the Alfa Theatre Hotel for two more days.” Then Jocelyn gave the country code for Belgium, the hotel number, her room.

  Quickly, as soon as she hung up, Jocelyn looked down to see if the little message light was blinking. Just her luck, Constance would finally call her back while she was on the phone for a few seconds. But no. She fidgeted. She fixed a cup of decaf at the little coffee maker across the room. And finally, approaching eleven o’clock, Jocelyn decided to try Constance one last time tonight.