Goya's Glass

by Monika Zgustova

  In the end I found out that the Goyas had lost their youngest daughter, Pilar. Deep down I felt that Paco deserved it. If I was suffering . . .

  One day he appeared. It was the Feast of the Epiphany. He burst, breathless, into my chamber, collapsed into my arms, dug his nails into my back.

  “Have you remembered me?”

  I nodded, sadly.

  “Me, too . . . always.”

  Coming from that taciturn man, these three words represented a full-fledged declaration of love. He had never told me that he loved me. I believe he didn’t want to desecrate his feelings with words.

  “You are not ill anymore?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I never believed you were. Thank you, Teresa.”

  It was the first time that he had addressed me in that fashion. The weak person needs the confirmation of words. And I was the weak person, in the moment.

  We lived as we had before. He painted me. Now I posed for him with pleasure. He included me in the picture with the stream, the lagoon, and the wood, and the air full of silvery cobwebs, which could only be breathed here in the Coto de la Doña Ana. He painted me dressed as a maja, with a black dress, a black mantilla, a black veil. On canvas, I look sad. Even though I smiled like before, I didn’t feel lighthearted anymore. And he painted what he saw inside me. In the picture I wear my two rings, one with my name, the other with the name of Goya. I point out the sand and the words that I inscribed there: SOLO GOYA. If in my first portrait, when I wore the white dress with the red sash, Francisco painted me as a cold, haughty, and arrogant woman, like a demon wearing a charming dress the color of innocence, in this picture I am a black angel. And a sad maja.

  I felt as if they had poured three sacks of sand from the banks of the Guadalquivir into my insides. Francisco painted; he stood upright in front of the canvas, under the blazing spring sun, half-naked, even at midday; streams of sweat ran down his back and chest, more because of the effort he was making than because of the temperature. He was painting; he needed nothing else. He knew what he was and what he wanted to do, whereas I was sinking into a sea of uncertainty. In the morning I destroyed what I had built up during the previous evening. I did silly things that afterward I was ashamed of. I made up for them with difficulty, and then ended up doing them again. I moved in a vicious cycle. No, my portrait brought me no blessings. The Muslims are right: to depict the human image brings bad luck.

  Between the painter and I there was a shadow. I did not forgive Francisco. Why did I have to forgive him if forgiveness is a sign of one’s own weakness, if forgiveness is giving in? And he . . . Again I noticed the old recrimination in his eyes. One night he said to me: “You are a witch.”

  The same word, the same charge used by the mother of my husband on the day he was buried.

  “Why?” I whispered in the darkness.

  “You put a spell on my daughter. My little Pilar is dead. Just as you did with your husband. And now with me. What am I doing here?”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “What am I doing here? Now that I have completed your portrait, I paint little. I simply stare, eat, and drink more than I should, and pay no attention to my obligations.”

  “You can go, if you wish.”

  He embraced me in the darkness.

  “Don’t tell me that. You know that I cannot.”

  “But you wish to, do you not?”

  “Yes. But I will not do it.”

  “You will.”

  “I cannot, I tell you. I cannot.”

  “You will see all right.”

  “Perhaps, who knows.”

  I now felt as if all of me had turned into black marble. For quite a while I was unable to recover: I trembled, I had shivers, I don’t know if I was suffering from a love that was never to be, or if I was starting to relish a new victory.

  “I am suffering, Teresa. Can you not see it?”

  “But why?” I asked in a low voice.

  “I cannot go on living like this. I need some form of security.”

  “Do you not have me?”

  “No, it isn’t that.”

  “Are we lacking something, perhaps?”

  “I do not feel well.”

  “But why?” I whispered again in the night.

  “I need some form of security.”

  “Like what?”

  “If we live together, we ought to marry.”

  I burst out laughing, a strident laugh, full of victory.

  “Evil witch!” he spat in the darkness.

  He took me in a violent fashion, as if he wanted to punish me. I heard a few sobs. Then he went quickly to his bedroom.

  He was mine.

  Really? No, with that man such a thing was not possible. He wants to go, after all! He himself has admitted it.

  He wants to go? Very well, he shall go then, I thought. But first he will experience certain things. The Duchess of Alba does not let herself be tortured so easily. The duchess is a woman who, when she enters a salon, stops the music. And the man who can torture her without being punished for it has not yet been born.

  I sat down at my desk and wrote a letter to Manuel Godoy, prime minister and lover of the queen, asking him to leave everything and to come and see me at once, to keep absolutely quiet about the existence of this letter, and not to be surprised at anything he might see when he arrives.

  “María, come here. Closer, talking aloud tires me. That’s right, come closer. The concert was no good. Didn’t you hear how out of tune they were? It is as if since the death of Don José music has fallen into a decline. Nothing can be listened to. Do you know what I want now? I want Juan and Manuela to dance a fandango for me. A very fiery fandango. Listen, María, do you remember the Coto de la Doña Ana? And our Palacio del Rocío?”

  “Yes, and the magnificent portrait of Your Highness, which the royal painter did at that time. I still don’t understand why milady didn’t take it.”

  “What? The picture or the man?”

  “I am talking about the picture, milady.”

  “Why have you gone all red? My good woman! Why did I not take it? That is my business, María. What I really regret is not having kept that man.”

  “There are few men like the royal painter. Apart from the fact that he believes in demons and witches and paints winged monsters. But on the other hand, he carries an image of Saint Pilar around with him everywhere. But for you, my dearest María Teresa, it is better to forget about him. If it is a man with a large family, as I have always told you. No, do not cry, child! Oh, I didn’t want to make you sad, my little one.”

  “I am not crying. Let’s see, María. When Don Manuel came, how long had it been since Francisco was with us?”

  “Ooh, it would be better for Your Highness not to recall that episode. I don’t know; I don’t want to think about it. It was not long afterward, a matter of weeks.”

  It was the month of February. Spring was in the air. Through the open windows you could hear the cries of the birds that always rest at the Coto de la Doña Ana on their way to warmer climates and on their way back. We were having lunch, Francisco, Godoy, that boastful, good-looking man, and myself. After Godoy’s arrival I accepted visits from Francisco only very occasionally, and less and less frequently. He made some dreadful scenes, he yelled and bellowed and took me as if I were a cheap harlot.

  We ate fruits de mer and fish, each dish with special silver cutlery. That peasant Francisco didn’t know how to handle them very well; I mocked him for it and Godoy joined in. Paco was sweating. I conversed with Godoy in French. We spoke fast. Aragonese Paco didn’t understand us and huge drops of sweat rolled down his forehead. Afterward, Godoy and I began to talk in low voices, so that the half-deaf painter couldn’t manage to make out anything more than isolated words, sounds, laughter. Finally I arranged a journey by carriage to the coast, just he and I and then spoke loud enough so that Francisco could make out what was going on. The blood rushed to his face, but he kep
t control of himself.

  “I think I am in the way here,” he said in a hoarse voice and got up.

  I let out an especially joyful laugh while patting Godoy’s hand, so that he too, laughed.

  “You don’t know how to do anything other than leave, Don Francisco. Where are you going? To cry on your wife’s shoulder?” I mocked him.

  I was triumphant, and afraid. Francisco had already staggered out the door.

  After a while María came in to tell me that the royal painter felt ill. I stopped eating dessert and rushed to Francisco’s room.

  I walked across his studio. Another portrait, a large bust of me, just started was cut to pieces, and another had been cut through by a dagger. The painter had collapsed onto the bed, white as a sheet, his lips bitten until they bled. I kissed him. I cleaned the blood away with kisses, as I had done, a long time ago, with the roe deer. He didn’t so much as move. I shook him gently.

  “Paco, my love, forgive me,” I whispered.

  The man didn’t move.

  “Paco, Paco, my love, do you hear me?” I exclaimed in a panic.

  The man opened his eyes, and gave me an ugly look. When he saw my expression, he softened a little. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “Paco, say something, my love . . . ”

  He looked at my lips.

  “I hear nothing,” he said in a hoarse voice, “only the echo of the tide in my head.”

  “My love, what can I do for you?”

  He read the question on my lips. With the last of his forces he said with a grating voice: “Don’t go out for a ride with that conceited oaf. Stay with me.”

  “Francisco, the Duchess of Alba never changes her plans. You didn’t change yours either, before Christmas. But what does this matter? What matters is that I am with you!”

  “I can’t hear you. I’m as deaf as a post. But I know what you are telling me. I will never hear you again; all I have left is this dreadful tide,” he said, hoarse. He covered his ears with his hands and turned face down.

  “Paco, my love, you will always be mine, only mine,” I whispered desperately, even though the man who was lying down could not hear me.

  I had María come in so that she could take care of him.

  I went with Godoy to see the sunset by the sea, but I was restless and came back quickly.

  I ran up to Francisco’s chambers. His portrait, cut into slithers, stared at me. The drawing album and the portrait of the black maja had disappeared. As had Francisco. Instead of him I found a self-portrait. He had done it with ink and brush. I know of no other painting so full of disgrace and unhappiness as this one. The curls of Francisco’s hair, the chin covered with the hair of his beard, the face of a destroyed man. And what eyes! It was as if they were looking straight into hell itself, as if they saw a dance of monsters such as those he often saw everywhere. Or, what is worse, as if he were looking at any empty space that cannot be filled in any possible way. In that look there is all the horror that a man is capable of feeling. And something in it that was addressed to me. The face of a destroyed man.

  “María! Where is Goya?”

  “The royal painter left an hour ago.”

  “For Madrid? A messenger, fast!”

  “Perhaps for Seville, or possibly for Cadiz. Or for Madrid, who knows? The royal painter was not feeling at all well. I think he is seriously ill. But no human effort could have kept him here.”

  “María, I’ll make you pay for this. You should have stopped him no matter what! Wicked thing! Monster!”

  “Your Highness knows perfectly well that no one can do anything against the will of the royal painter.”

  “Harpie! You are the cause of my disgrace!”

  That same evening I got rid of that conceited fool Godoy. The next morning I went to Madrid. I didn’t find Francisco there and nobody could give me any news of him.

  I wanted to wait, but time for me had ceased to exist.

  A little later I went to Italy to make time reappear.

  While abroad, I decided to start a new life again. It was the most reasonable thing to do. When I came back to Madrid I went to live in my little palace in the Moncloa, where I had yet to reside ever. I was determined not to let myself be plagued by memories. To be free, independent, like before! I bought new furniture so as to get rid of the old. I changed the paintings on the walls. I had new dresses made up for me. In the mornings I, who had adored tea and coffee, stayed in bed until late having chocolate and lady fingers, and looked out the window at the clouds chasing each other. Midday, the obligatory lever. In the afternoon, conversations to which I invited new people, young poets, painters, philosophers. I received piles of banned books from Paris, which I read aloud at these sessions. Nothing could happen to the Duchess of Alba, even though a hundred wretched consciences might decide to denounce her to the Inquisition.

  And one day Goya’s name came up. Without wanting to, I paid attention. They said that the painter had just made a new series of etchings and that it was something never seen before in Madrid, in Spain, or in all Europe. Each of the etchings was blasphemous in its own way. General interest in them continued to grow, said my fellow conversationalists. Madrid spoke of nothing else but these etchings, which showed the perfidy of women, the corruption of priests, and the ridiculousness of those in power. In vain I tried to change the subject; nobody was interested in anything else. The past appeared to me, drawn in vivid colors. There was no way I could escape it. I could not free myself from it, I saw that clearly.

  I shut myself up in my palace with a few servants and no one else. I told everyone not to come looking for me because I felt indisposed and needed rest.

  It was winter. I stayed in bed all morning. At midday I made an effort to get up, but didn’t have enough energy to so much as do my hair. Little by little I even stopped washing myself. I sat in the salon with a book on my knee, which I was unable to read. I focused on a space on the wall. I could spend hours and hours doing that. But I didn’t know how the hours passed. I only know that all of a sudden it started to get dark and night fell. I had the feeling that as soon as it was daytime, the evening and the shadows were already on their way. It was as if I were barely alive in an endless night. I couldn’t get up, I weighed so much. In the evening they brought me dinner, which I either left without touching or ate little without hunger, just to give me something to do. I went to bed early, and in the darkness, I counted the seconds as they passed. And so my days were spent. Sometimes I saw visions: the monstrous owls and billy goats of Francisco’s pictures pecked at me and tore me open with their horns. The nights left me exhausted and I didn’t get up until after midday. On other days I had the horse saddled up so as to find forgetfulness in the speed of the ride. I found it, certainly, for half an hour, an hour at most, but as soon as I stopped the owls of the nightmare came in flocks, herds of chimerical asses and goats besieged me, bleating and howling.

  One day, as usual, I was sitting in bed with my arms by my side and looking at nothing in particular. I thought of a few words that Madame de Sévigné had written over a hundred years ago: “Je dois à votre absence le plaisir de sentir la durée de ma vie en toute sa longueur.” How absurd! I thought. The French are comical, they even glean plaisir from melancholy and sadness. Nonetheless I would like to be French so as to know how to turn pain into beauty. To your absence, Francisco, I owe the pleasure of feeling the length of my life to its full extent. Magnificent!

  I asked the maid to bring me the book and, once I had found the sentence, I let my eyes wander a few lines down: “Pour moi je vois le temps courir avec horreur et m’apporter en passant l’affreuse vieillesse, les incomodités et enfin la mort.”

  I couldn’t go on reading. The pages fell to the floor, the draught chased after them. It does not matter, I thought. Nothing matters. I had to take off my stockings before going to bed, and I couldn’t. I managed to take off the left one, but had no energy left to remove the right one: a
sad, unbeautiful Pierrot.

  “María! Come here and sit next to me. No, I don’t want to scold you, I just want to get to the bottom of something. Come on, sit down. And now tell me how things really went that time when . . . But first you have to give me your word of honor that you will tell me the truth and nothing but the truth. Do you remember my long illness, when I didn’t even leave the house? Good. Did you say something to Don Francisco or was it he who . . .”

  “Your Highness, I would never have dared to speak of it, but as you wish me to . . . Your Highness surely does not realize that . . .”

  “Leave the highnesses out of it and get to the point. You are a walking headache.”

  “Milady, your condition was very serious. Spiritually, I mean. I went to see the royal painter and told him about the state you were in. Goya did not hesitate for a moment. Immediately he sat down and wrote you a letter. He told me that it was an invitation for you to come and see his latest work. He told me that he was very proud of it and that it was the best thing he had created up until that moment. He was concerned about your health. I was pleased about that. I knew that a man like him wouldn’t let me down because he carried the Saint Pilar of Saragossa with him wherever he went.”

  “María, when talking about himself, Francisco would never, but never, have used the verb ‘create.’ You know that I have an aversion to that type of grandiloquence. What else? And the majas?”

  “Your Highness, pardon milady, I have told you all that I know. If, at the time in question, I hid from you that fact that I had gone to see the royal painter on my own initiative, it was because I sensed that my visit would have irritated. If I did it, it was only and exclusively for the good of milady.”

  “‘Only and exclusively for the good of . . .’ Come off it, you clown. I asked you what you knew of the majas?”

  “I did not know anything about them. The royal painter told me only that I was not to deliver the letter to you until the day afterward. An order that I obeyed.”

  “Ooh! Oh! Getting something out of you is . . . Thank you and go!”