Bile rises in Judith’s throat.
“If you please, sir”—his breath is hot upon her neck—“my people have turned from the one true God”—his fingers travel up her back—“and He has sent me here to work with you as your servant”—in her hair, on her throat—“and together what we accomplish will astonish all the earth.”
A deep growl rumbles through the beast. “My servant?”
No turning back now. “Ready and willing.”
And then he devours her.
49.
Judith is not careful,
no pure and virtuous woman.
She would not let a man
shove her down,
banish her from the studio
only to call her back again
to be a prop.
It’s not that I’ve abandoned
Susanna
(I couldn’t)
but more than that:
a thrumming surges
through my veins
since Tino showed his hand.
Something fiery,
fierce, impassioned.
Echoes of Judith,
widow of Bethulia.
My mother’s Judith.
As with Susanna,
the men get her wrong.
Father’s Judith cradles
a pristine severed head
like the baby she never knew
she longed for.
Allori’s porcelain-faced warrior
wears not a speck of blood
as she displays the captain’s head
like a basket of fresh-cut flowers.
Caravaggio’s Judith shows
vague concern as she glides
her blade through a tender cut of meat.
The men do not paint the blood.
But blood’s the heart of Judith.
My mother did not hold back
on the blood when she told me
Judith’s truth.
How can anyone capture her
without understanding
the horror of her actions,
the strength it took,
the stains that stayed forever?
How does the body’s life force
leave its vessel while
the heart still beats
but the end has begun?
I’m only guessing—
I’m no da Vinci
yet I know the heart is powerful
and so the blood must arc
in great, triumphal bursts.
It must splatter Judith’s breast,
her servant’s face.
This is no moment of passion.
This is war.
I paint the blood.
Consider
What’s coming next is not the stuff of bedtime stories. It may frighten you. It should.
When Judith’s back hits the pallet, even she wonders if she can do this. She cannot change her course, but still she considers: might it be better to turn the sword on herself? Or worse, join his side? Forget her husband’s sacrifice, her people, her faithful servant, and stay in the suffocating embrace of this monster?
Because he is a monster. But he’s strong, and powerful, and from most perspectives, he’s on the winning side. She has to ask herself—and women have asked themselves this question for centuries—would she rather be suffocated slowly for the rest of her life, or die quickly trying to accomplish something?
(What would you choose, love?)
There will be no more asking questions once a sword is in her hand.
50.
Tuzia appears,
a grizzled apparition
of my future
as a maidservant to men.
She doesn’t usually climb the stairs,
just hollers from below
because her hips
her knees
her aching feet betray her.
But now she scowls
from the doorway
at my canvas
covered in triumphal
arcs of blood.
She is no artist,
but this art pays her wages.
We share a bedroom,
endure the men together.
Is it so much to wish
the only other woman
in this house
might see my work
and understand?
Apparently it is.
What is it, Tuzia?
Anyway it’s all
first fire now.
How could she
make meaning
from a canvas
filled with blood?
I have not seen Signor Tassi in days.
Her girlish crush
grates on me,
pestle on mortar.
I shouldn’t judge.
She’s not the first
to be swayed
by Tino’s wink,
his smile.
That’s none of my concern.
Is he not your teacher?
Not anymore.
I turn back to Judith,
turn back to the blood.
Wonder
Judith must distract herself from the task at hand (and neck and breast and calf). Instead of the pressing, weighty, smothering things at the forefront of her mind, Judith prepares for the blood.
Driving a sword through a man’s neck is bound to be messy, after all.
(It is not my place to tell your father how to paint. But have you ever noticed how little blood his Judiths have?)
Though she prepares herself, even Judith has no idea how much blood there will be. Whether it will dribble out, tepid, or erupt, scorching, with so much force it splatters her breasts, her mouth, her eyes, intermingles with her fear, her rage, her gut instinct to protect her people, avenge her husband, and make sense of what she’s lost.
However much blood there will be, Judith is certain the captain pinning her down at this very moment is a powerfully strong man. His whole being will spring into action the moment he feels a blade against his neck.
She thinks his muscled arms will flail up in the faces of two women bearing down on him with all their might. For soon it will be her turn.
Soon she will be on top.
51.
The hours float by
on a torrent of blood.
I don’t know how long
I paint; I only know
my hands are covered
in vermillion.
My face is streaked as well.
When boots clomp up the stairs
I brace for complaints:
I’m wasting time
on Judith’s blood
instead of doing a client’s bidding.
But Judith took off a head.
I can handle Father.
Instead:
Getting messy?
Sudden havoc
in my heart,
fumbling panic.
I shove my skirts down,
streak my legs with red,
and grope for Judith,
as though some paint on canvas
could guide me,
shield me,
tell me why
he’d return
after what he broke the last time.
I told you not to come back.
I try to force the trembling
from my voice.
Watch your passion.
It’s dangerous.
What can he tell a woman
about danger?
He studies my canvas.
I hate his eyes on Judith.
You’ve done worse.
I no longer care about pleasing you.
Except I do.
If he changed his tune,
took me on for the Quirinal,
told me again I am the painter
in this house,
I would find a way
to forget.
But what does that make me?
It’s such a pity your father
can’t see your progress.
Does that bother you?
There’s no cajoling now.
No soothing words
and promises.
I turned him down.
Such sins cannot be forgiven.
Of course, I have only
to tell him you’re progressing
and he’ll be even more besotted
with me than before.
He’s a worthless talent, your father,
but as friends go, he’s incredibly loyal.
He’d never deny me a thing I asked for.
I am not a thing,
to be handed
from one man
to another.
He advances on my easel
but I will not let him
touch my work again.
You forget your place, little girl.
You don’t scare me.
I’m still owed
payment for your lessons.
I’ll be sure you’re paid in full.
You certainly will.
Something has shifted,
a glint in his eye,
a thing that makes him monstrous
but could flip around
and charm a queen.
We’re done here.
I cringe at the youth
—the fear—
in my voice.
I’ve no authority.
He is teacher, I am student,
man and girl
power, nothing.
We’re done painting.
His fingers dig into
my arm.
The sudden realization
of what’s going to happen next
descends
a weight upon
my chest
impossible to dodge.
I focus on those pulsing points of pain,
his fingers digging in.
It’s going to grow so much worse
but if I keep my focus
on one constant bit of suffering
I might survive.
Survive
Judith survives.
Remember this, my love, if nothing else: Judith survives what should destroy her.
She gasps for breath beneath the captain’s arm—a fallen tree across her body would weigh less. His breath reeks of wine and meat and man. She tolerated it before, but now he’s passed out, drunk on more than wine. For how long, though, there’s no time to stop and wonder.
He mutters something as Judith wrestles from beneath his heft. She freezes until he’s still again. Then Judith sits, pulls on her dress, and tries to force from her mind the ache between her legs, the echo of his grunts, the smell, the taste, the choking fear.
(I do not tell you these things to frighten you. You will not know for many years, my love, but it is not always like that. I promise.)
For Judith, there will be time later to remember, and hopefully forget. Right now, though, she must focus.
She fetches Abra—faithful Abra—hunched outside, a captive audience to every grunt and heave. Abra edges inside the tent, face white, eyes skating from her lady’s hair and rumpled dress to the passed-out monster mere feet away.
“We have to do this,” Judith says.
Abra doesn’t move.
“Now.”
Abra’s voice is barely more than a breath. “You’re sure he won’t wake up?”
Of course he’ll wake up. Beheadings are nasty that way. Judith knows this. It’s why she must be sure the moment he awakes, the blade is halfway through the neck.
“You know the plan.”
Abra’s breath comes in short gasps.
Judith grasps her servant, her sister, by the hands.
“Abra. I need you more than ever. So breathe and prepare yourself. We’re already in motion.”
Abra’s hands stir inside Judith’s. She squeezes back. She isn’t sure, but she will move forth anyway, because her sister told her to.
(Sometimes that’s all you need, my love—another woman’s faith in you.)
As they made their way to the camp, Judith repeated the plan more times than Abra has fetched water from a well: On the count of three, Abra will press down on the captain’s chest with all her strength. She’ll kneel on him if she has to. Judith will be ready with the sword, moving fast enough so his throat’s cut before he can scream.
Judith hauls the captain’s sword from the side of his pallet, where he kept it at the ready even after he’d stripped off all else. She staggers under its weight. If she can barely lift the sword, how can she possibly carry out this deed?
Abra waits for her command. Judith is the captain now.
“Be ready for blood,” she murmurs.
“Blood?”
“One . . .”
“Judith!”
“Two . . .”
“I don’t—”
“Three!”
52.
At five or six years old,
my only knowledge of the studio
was the fumes wafting down the stairs.
But overcome with curiosity,
I snuck inside one day, surveyed
the beckoning pots of paint.
I started slapping color
on the canvas.
I didn’t understand
what Father knew:
everything that came before
was as important as,
more important than
the act of painting.
Without stretching
and greasing the canvas,
straining the oil through linen,
extracting the impurities
and grinding the colors,
there was no painting.
I barely remember my father’s rage
when he laid eyes on the canvas I ruined.
What’s forever entrenched:
the stab to my gut when the colors,
so glorious in my mind,
globbed together,
dribbled down,
puddled on the floor
like a child’s accident.
Because sometimes
it doesn’t turn out
the way you thought it would.
Sometimes what you imagine
in your head isn’t what comes out
of the paintbrush.
And then you start to realize
something has gone horribly, horribly wrong,
and there’ll never be a way to put it back the way it was.
Escape
The deed is done. You might think the story ends here. In some versions, it does. But Judith is nowhere near safe. Perhaps that’s why she can’t release the captain’s sword.
Blood still gushes from his neck, while the head lolls on the ground. The thud it made on impact reverberates in Judith’s brain. She’s slick with residue. There’s no time to wash away the terror.
Someone will have heard the struggle. They would have expected to hear a struggle of some sort. But now it’s quiet. Soldiers can smell blood. They could burst in at any moment. Still, Judith cannot unclamp her fingers from the weapon.
“Judith. We have to go.”
Abra’s voice jolts Judith from whatever spell has clutched her in
its grip. She scrambles off the body, horror-stricken that she stayed astride a moment longer than she had to.
Clear, tangible actions. These will save Judith. Or at least give her the best chance. “We have to take the head.”
Abra stumbles to the far corner of the tent. “I’m not touching it.”
“You don’t have to.” Judith crosses to the head, forces herself to look directly at what she’s done.
“Don’t you want his soldiers to see it?”
“I’d love for his soldiers to see it. To see the terror on the great warrior’s face. But spite serves no one and our people will need the assurance he’s dead. Get me the basket of bread.”
Abra stares at Judith as though she’s just suggested they stop and have a bite to eat.
Voices in the distance—but not distant enough—finally loosen Judith’s fingers from the sword. She scrambles for the basket of provisions and the head.
No time for revulsion. No time for vacant eyes that showed no life even before the throat was slit, or dangling bits of sinew, dripping blood.
Judith hoists the head, heavier than expected, into the basket. She covers it, as though that will block out the horror. Her plan only went this far. But there is so much farther still to go.
53.
Blood stains
my hands
my dress.
Mingled with the blood,
paint.
Which is which,
I do not know,
which is me
(maybe both),
only that I will never be
pure
again.
Part of me longs
to crawl behind an easel,
curl up in a ball,
sleep forever.
But also power surges
through my veins,
I long to run
as hard and fast as I can
until my feet bleed—
why is there
so much
blood?
I’m torn between the urges,
curl up or sprint
and somehow instead of either
I stand and stare
at the blood
on my hands.
When I paint
I spend more time
on hands than faces.
Anyone can paint a face—
two eyes, a mouth, a nose.
Hands are so much more complex,
tell whole stories of their own:
clenched fists, ecstatic palms,
fearful fingers white with terror.
Blood Water Paint Page 8
