Viva Jacquelina!

by L. A. Meyer

  “As such, you are nothing but a common slut.” She puffs up. “I, however, am a respected student here, like Señor Amadeo Romero and the others. You will stand naked before us and I will draw you, but I will not like it. I have no wish to gaze upon your dirty body and I so wish you were not here.”

  Ah, Clarissa, my enemy, my friend, my sister-in-arms, where are you now? Causing trouble and breaking hearts, I hope.

  I take spoon from mouth to look up at my present tormentor. Somehow I get the feeling that this girl and I will never call each other “sister” with any affection, but I do not care about that. I run my finger around the interior of the bowl of stew, and it encounters a nice small marrowbone. I take it up, bite off the top, and suck on it loudly.

  I lean back in my chair, legs spread wide, bone in hand, and grin up at her. “But Amadeo Romero just might, eh?”

  She is astounded.

  “Puta!” she spits as she turns and rushes out the kitchen door.

  “The dirtiness of my body could be resolved by a nice bath!” I call after her retreating form. “Can you arrange that, Señorita Carmelita Gomez, Respected Student?”

  She does not answer and I go back to my stew. Ummmm . . .

  I do not care about any of her opinions, nor am I concerned over what any of them think. My once-slack belly is now full, and for the moment, it is content and so am I. As my hunger abates, I look around the rafters of the kitchen hung with much good food, and I ponder things.

  Do you realize, Señorita Carmelita Gomez, that, discounting what I already have put in my belly, there is much here that I could steal if any of you should turn your backs for even a moment? Oh, yes, I am quite an accomplished thief, born and bred to the art. Ah, yes, now, what would I take from here to stuff into my bag? Hmmm, well, maybe some of those fat sausages hanging there, all dark brown and shiny with goodness, or perhaps those thick and heavy braided breads? Why, they could sustain me for weeks as I make my way back to Lisbon. I know the watery route and I’m confident I could get there, many days away from your silly little kingdom, you smug little bitch. Know, too, that given a darkened alcove and a moment’s notice, I could whip out my shiv and slit that nasty little throat of yours.

  Ah, yes, but let us not speak of that. I will stay to see just how things lie here at Casa Goya. There might possibly be something profitable for both me . . . and my mission. Who knows? There were some pretty fancy people portrayed in those portraits I saw in the studio. One of them looked like she could be a princess. Hmmm . . .

  I may stay, and I may not. We shall see.

  Soon after Carmelita Gomez had rushed out in a fury, Amadeo Romero entered. Somehow I thought it would be so.

  He stands before me.

  “Please be seated, Señor Romero, and join me in a glass of rioja.”

  No wine has yet been offered to me, but this does the trick. He signals to someone and a bottle and two glasses are produced. He pulls out a chair and sits across from me. It is he who pours the ruby red wine.

  “Muchas gracias, Señor,” I say, lifting the glass to him. I pick up the small cloth that has been provided for me, and dab it at my lips, playing things much more demure and ladylike now that my demanding gut has been satisfied for the time being. “Perhaps you will tell me how things are here at La Quinta Goya?”

  He gazes at me over the rim of his glass and says, “I will do that, Señorita, but first you must tell me something of yourself. To begin with, how came you by that very interesting thing on your neck?”

  With my wig off, my dragon tattoo is now quite visible to them what deigns to look. The wine is now warming the stew in my belly, so I proceed to tell him, sticking pretty much to the truth . . . and I tell him also of the other tattoo, the one on my hip, and how I got it. Why not? He’s going to see it soon, anyway.

  “You seem to have had many adventures, Señorita. I am amazed.”

  “True, but there were none of them that I really wanted to have, and they were much more terrifying than amazing,” I say. “But now that I have told you something about my poor self, Señor, you must tell me of how things lie here. I need to know.”

  “Well, the cook, whom you have already met, is Ramona.”

  Ramona, from her station at the stove, raises a ladle in greeting upon hearing her name uttered.

  “You are a very good cook, Ramona,” I call over to her, having just tasted the results of her skill. “My compliments.”

  She nods her head in appreciation but does not turn around.

  “And you have been er . . . welcomed by Señorita Gomez.”

  Here I give him a knowing wink, and he smiles in return and continues.

  “There are two other students, a young man named Asensio Julia and a lad named Cesar Rivera. You shall meet them later, as there will be a class this afternoon and you will be required to be there . . . in a servant’s role, this time.”

  “Of course, Señor. I expect nothing more.”

  “And Maestro has a manservant, Manuel Garcia, and there is the chambermaid, Paloma, and that is all. It is a very simple household.”

  “Does he have a wife? Goya, I mean.”

  “Yes. Her name is Josefa, but she is quite ill. You will not see much of her. They have had many children over the years but only one, Javier, survived infancy. So sad. Maestro has many very gloomy days.”

  Ah, the Black Cloud of Despair. I know it well.

  “I heard you tell the Maestro that you are from America. Is that true?”

  I point to my Golden Dragon tattoo and my shorn hair. “Look at me. Where else could I have come from?”

  He smiles at that.

  “Actually, when I first saw you at our door in your mantilla, I mistook you for a Maja.”

  “And what is that, Señor?” I ask, but I don’t get to find out, not just yet, anyway.

  “Amadeo!” barks Carmelita from the door. “Enough hanging about with the servants! The class is starting!”

  I go into the studio with some trepidation. The other students are there, setting up their easels. Since they are putting boards on them, to which sheets of paper are attached, it is plain that the class will be in drawing. They look at me with some interest as I enter.

  Before reporting for duty at the studio, I had been taken upstairs and shown my bed in a small room that I will share with Paloma. It looks comfortable enough—better than the hard ground upon which I have been sleeping, that’s for sure. Paloma, herself, plump and round of face and black of hair, seems to be a cheerful sort and I know we will get along. Gracias a Dios that I don’t have to sleep in the same room with that mean Carmelita.

  I am introduced to the others and give a slight bob of the head at the mention of each name. I have put my wig back on so as not to attract any more attention than I already have. Paloma has lent me a servant’s white mobcap, which I perched on top of my fake tresses. I decided to leave my mantilla up in my room, figuring it would be in the way. When I saw the work that had to be done, I knew that I was right in thinking that.

  After the introductions, I am led by Amadeo to a workbench on the other the side of the room and shown how to grind pigments into paints.

  “Here. You see the glass plate here? You’ll note the surface has some tooth, some roughness to it. Bueno. Now you take this spatula and ladle over some of this color. It is yellow ochre. Maestro uses a lot of it. And we put it right there.”

  I look on attentively. Oil paints! I have never worked with oil paints! Not that I’m likely to be allowed that pleasure here, but we shall see.

  “Then we add some oil . . .”

  He takes a flagon and dribbles a bit on the bright powder.

  “Not too much . . . That’s it. Now you take the spatula and mix it up into as smooth a paste as you can make.”

  I take the tool and whip it back and forth through the puddle of color. Looks good enough to me, but I find it is not.

  “Now, Jacquelina, you must take the muller to it,” he says, and he grasps
a thing that looks like a squat potato masher, except that the handle, sticking up from its back, is off center. He grunts a bit as he lifts it and places it flat down on the mess of powder and oil, and then he starts to spin it around and around. It makes a swooshing sound as it does its work.

  “You see, the color must be ground into the oil or it will not be smooth. Here, you try it.”

  I put my hand on the handle and attempt to move the thing around like Amadeo did, but it does not move. I grind my teeth and try again, but it is just too heavy. Madre de Dios! This thing must weigh half as much as I do! What do they expect of me?

  “Here, chica, let me help you,” says Amadeo, coming around behind me and putting his arm about my waist and placing his hand over mine on the muller. He starts it spinning again. “See, you just have to get it started and then it goes a lot more easily.” He takes away his hand, and wonder of wonders, I am able to keep it going. Well, that’s much better, isn’t it?

  I sneak a look over at Carmelita and note that she has not missed a bit of this and is not pleased. If looks could kill, I would be dead.

  “Keep it going for about five more minutes, and then ladle it into one of those bladders there. Then clean off the platen with turpentine, and mix the raw umber next. It’s right there.”

  “Thank you, Amadeo,” I murmur as he removes his arm. “I will try to do it to your utmost satisfaction.”

  Is that a growl from Carmelita? I certainly hope so.

  Amadeo goes back to his easel and takes up a piece of charcoal and gets ready for the arrival of the Master.

  He does not have to wait long. The door opens and Maestro Goya enters the room and is followed shortly by a large man dressed in working clothes. The big man says nothing but goes behind a dressing screen, and presently his clothing appears, looping over the screen, piece by piece. There was a red robe hanging on that screen, and it snakes over the edge and disappears. I keep grinding.

  I find that by keeping both of my hands on the muller handle I can keep it going without too much trouble, but I do have to get my shoulders into it.

  The man emerges from behind the screen and steps up on a low platform, his broad face impassive.

  “Pose, please,” says Goya, and the man drops the robe and stands there completely naked. He is very strongly built—plainly a workingman who labors with his hands and his strong back. All his muscles stand out in sharp definition, without his even flexing them. His legs are like the trunks of trees, his arms like truncheons, his chest as broad as a barrel. Indeed, a fine figure of a man . . . and a perfect male model.

  “With the spear, Jorge,” orders the Master, and the man picks a spear from the rack of props on the back wall and assumes a gladiatorial posture. Goya adjusts the pose slightly, and then says, “Begin.”

  I finish up the yellow ochre and turn to the dull brown raw umber. As I mix and grind away, I watch the progress of the students—they are all quite good—and I listen to Goya’s advice to each.

  I am getting the hang of this grinding business, and I am glad of that, for I always like to do my duty, and do it well, but . . .

  But what I’d really like, in my heart of hearts, is to be at my very own easel, with my own piece of charcoal in my hand, and my own eye on the model . . .

  Chapter 14

  Dinner involves the entire staff of Estudio Goya. It is cooked by Ramona, of course, and is served by Paloma and by me, at a long table at the far end of the kitchen, just off the pantry. I had been relieved of my color-grinding duties after the drawing class was over, and I stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen, my shoulders and elbows aching.

  “Here, muchacha, set out the glasses and pour the wine,” says Paloma, upon seeing me enter. She hands me a tray of glassware. “Over there.”

  I see, at the end of the kitchen, a large, heavy oaken table that is already set with plates and utensils for a goodly number of people. Wearily, I set out a glass at each place and then look about for the bottles of wine, but there is only an empty pitcher on the tabletop.

  Paloma sees my confusion and points to a large cask set into the wall, with a wooden spigot sticking out of it.

  Comprehension dawns. I take the pitcher and stick it under the spigot and turn the handle so that the rich red wine spills out. Looking about and seeing that the other kitchen help is occupied, I let some spill over my thumb and then stick my thumb in my mouth. At least I’ll get a little, anyway.

  Ummmm . . .

  Whipping thumb out of mouth, I turn to pouring the wine into the individual goblets. When I am done, I turn to Paloma for further instruction.

  “Here. Put out the food,” she orders, and bowls of steaming dishes are thrust toward me. I take them and place them about the table.

  The rest of the household pours into the room. A tall man, mustachioed like many men in this country, and dressed in a suit and tie, goes to take his place at the head of the table. That would be Manuel Garcia, Goya’s manservant. It is plain he functions as butler also.

  Carmelita Gomez comes in, cuts me a glance, and sits at the foot of the table. In an English household, that would be the place of the head house-mistress, in charge of all the maids. Here, I don’t know what she is.

  The students then wander in, laughing and joking, and they, too, take their places.

  I stand about, waiting to be told what to do.

  Carmelita points to a chair, three places from her, on the left side of the table.

  “You sit there.”

  I am a bit taken aback at this, but I go over to place the Faber bottom in the chair as instructed.

  Well, why should the help not sit with the others? The students are really just apprentices, and the practice of art is merely a trade, like any other.

  Paloma, her duties done, comes to sit next to me. The young student Cesar is on my other side. Amadeo is farther down the table, as is Asensio, who is next to him. Ramona eventually comes to sit opposite me.

  When all are seated, Señor Garcia leads the grace recitation, preceded and followed by everyone making perfunctory Signs of the Cross. The bowls are passed and all begin eating, and needing no further encouragement, I dig in, too. It is all wondrous good—there is a thick mutton stew with gravy with mashed something or other, maybe parsnips, maybe potatoes, and good thick and crusty bread. Butter, too.

  Well, this is a bit of all right, I’m thinking.

  I’m tucking it in, trying to stay inconspicuous for a change, when the boy Cesar pipes up with, “You are from America, Señorita? Could you tell us something of that place?”

  I take a sip of wine, dab the lips on the cloth provided, and say, “Of course, young sir, but first you must call me Jacquelina, or rather Jacky, as that is how I am called in America. Can you do that, Cesar?”

  He gives it a try. “Jack-ie. How’s that?”

  “It will serve, if I may call you Cesar?”

  “Por supuesto, Jack-ie.”

  “Bueno. Now tell me about Maestro Goya, and I will tell you about America. Did he come from a rich family; was he—?”

  “Oh, no, Miss,” says Cesar, eager to tell the story. He is a pleasant-looking lad, slightly built and about my height—curly dark hair, good straight nose, yes, all in all, a quite presentable young man. “He comes from Fuendetodos, a very poor part of Aragón. His father was a simple gilder, a man who puts gold leaf on things to make them pretty. One day, when Maestro was a boy, he was out tending pigs and he took a burnt stick from a fire and drew a pig on a nearby wall. A priest going by asked Goya how he learned to draw so well and Maestro replied that no one had taught him. So then the priest arranged for the boy to be educated and he was apprenticed to the studio of a local artist named Jose Luzan to take art lessons.”

  “Must have been some pig,” I murmur, my nose in my stew. I am ignored.

  “Then he did go there and later on to here in Madrid, where he worked even harder, made some good connections, got some good commissions, and now he is the greatest artist i
n all of Spain, one who paints kings and queens,” concludes Cesar, plainly proud to be a member of Goya’s studio.

  The Faber ears perk up at that. Hmmm . . . Kings? Queens? Perhaps . . . perhaps I shall stick around for a bit. Where there is royalty, maybe there will be a chance to do my duty for King, Country, and General Wellesley . . . and, possibly, opportunity for some mischief of my own.

  “They tell the same story about other artists,” says Asensio Julia. “Giotto, for one. Do not believe all you hear, boy.”

  Asensio sits to Amadeo’s right, and both have managed to get themselves into some very elegant clothes in the time between the last class and dinner—silken shirts, fancy embroidered vests, tight black trousers tucked into fine leather boots. I sense that they have something planned for the evening.

  I also sense that Cesar doesn’t like being called boy.

  He looks up, resentful. “They will go to El Café Central, Jack-ie. It is the favorite place of the Majos. There will be music and dancing and beautiful Majas, and all will be gay—and they won’t take me with them.”

  “Someday, Pepito,” laughs Amadeo, rising. “When you are grown into a man. You, too, may be a Majo. Asensio, are you ready?”

  Asensio, a slim, dark man, with luminous eyes and straight black hair that hangs by his face, gets to his feet. He wears a thin mustache on his upper lip and a small pointed beard on his chin. He nods to Manuel Garcia.

  “Señor. May we be excused?”

  The butler nods assent, and the two turn to leave. Before Amadeo exits, he looks back at me.

  “Perhaps, Jack-ie, you will come with us soon. I did take you for a Maja when first I laid eyes upon you. You might have fun.”

  “I am sure I would, Amadeo, but I have no fine clothes to wear.”

  “What does a slut need with clothes?” spits out Carmelita, standing and flinging down her napkin. “I am excused!”

  With that, she flounces out of the room. I have the feeling that she is less annoyed with me than with the fact that Amadeo is going out without her.

  “I hope you will forgive our Señorita Gomez,” intones Señor Garcia from the head of the table. “She is high-strung. I shall speak to her tomorrow. As for you, Señorita, welcome to our house. I hope you will be happy here.”