Kerry Postle - The Woman in the Painting

I shuddered.

The girl’s hand, still on my shoulder, felt the tremor within. ‘Artists! Who do they think they are? Gods?’ she cried, as if reading my thoughts. ‘Look at you, with your bright eyes!’

I lowered my eyelids to stop her from seeing any more. I looked down at my lamp-black-stained hands, the soot in and around my fingernails. As I hid them in the folds of my shirt I discovered the holes at the elbows of my tattered sleeves. My fingers slipped through to the bones. They stung to the touch, felt wet and sticky. I guessed they were bleeding. My eyes drifted up towards the hands and attire of the proud plebeian leading away his trusty steed that was no more a steed than I was now an artist’s apprentice, never mind an artist.

What was that saying my father liked so well? Something about every ass thinking himself worthy to stand with the nobleman’s horses? Well, I was the ass. The man’s clothes were no worse than my own, and, in many ways better, I realised, as my fingers now covered the recently made tears in my sleeves. But I still couldn’t think of myself as a plebeian, no matter what I looked like, no matter that I’d been cast out. Ass, yes. Plebeian, never. I rubbed my shoulder blades, half hoping to raise angel wings from beneath the skin, for in that moment to be a fallen angel far outshone life as a common man.

‘All right! Take it easy! I only wanted to make sure they hadn’t hurt you.’ I’d brushed the girl’s hand off my shoulder a little too brusquely while checking for feathers. The indignation in her voice pulled me back to myself.

‘Thank you. For stopping,’ I said again, remembering the tens of Rome’s finest who hadn’t.

‘It was nothing,’ she said, her voice soft once more.

‘My name is Pietro,’ I told her.

‘Margarita,’ she replied. Although I already knew that.

She held out a hand, helped me to my feet, then led me to the side of the street. I staggered slightly and leant against the wall to steady myself. To hope she hadn’t noticed was too much to ask for, that I knew already, but I had hoped for a little sensitivity in the way she addressed it. Instead she went for the blunt approach. ‘You’ve had the wind knocked out of you right enough,’ she said. ‘Your eyes look like cockroaches on a bedsheet. Your hair’s gone grey with the dust and your …’ but then she stopped mid-flow. And for that I was truly grateful.

My eyes, screwed up and looking for the ground beneath to gape open and swallow me whole, lifted to see what or who had caused this direct-talking girl to desist. Striding towards us was a papal party, as intimidating as an invading army, and there, at the head of the group, was a fierce-faced Cardinal, red robes flowing, his band of mercenaries marching behind him. The Cardinal’s eyes swivelled left and right, sweeping all before him. The disgust they registered as he looked upon me turned to desire as they fell upon Margarita. I thought I saw recognition cross his face. But if I did, it vanished as quickly as it had arrived.

Besides, by the time he looked at her again she had turned her back towards him, a gesture of defiance so flagrant I expected one of his thuggish entourage to drag her away by the hair. I was relieved when they didn’t. She was uncouth and lowborn, and to accept charity from such a person did kindle some sparks of resentment, but I was starting to appreciate her kindness and recognise its value – despite her unchecked tongue – in this city that to me seemed now full of hostility and danger.

‘That was Bibbiena.’ She almost spat the words out. That she had failed to say ‘ Cardinal Bibbiena’ did not surprise me. I was beginning to get the measure of the girl. ‘The man’s a worm-head,’ she continued as she arched her neck after Bibbiena and his men. ‘Good. The piece of filth has gone. Time I was going too. You’ll be all right?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ I lied, strangely invigorated by her use of the local vernacular. ‘I’ll take myself home and I’ll be fine.’

She put one hand on my shoulder again. I did not recoil. She nodded, satisfied with my answer. ‘Look after yourself, Pietro, and if you ever happen to be in Trastevere, come and say hello. My father runs a bakery there, on Via Santa Dorotea. His name’s Francesco Luti.’

‘Many thanks … Margarita. And you too … l-l-l …’ I could not say ‘look after yourself’. I satisfied myself with a repeated ‘many thanks.’ She smiled. She’d touched me and she knew it and she plunged her fingers in my dust-coated hair to acknowledge the fact, giving it a vigorous, sisterly ruffle before setting on her way. And with that she was gone, dancing her way along the street, head bobbing and dark brown hair rippling behind like a stream as she swung her basket up and down, all thoughts of Cardinal Bibbiena gone.

It was in my mind that I would probably never see this girl again, and, for the briefest of moments, this saddened me. I was rubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand, when I noticed a growing din coming from an exuberant group of young men. You had to be careful in Rome, even in the daytime. A cardinal and his followers was one thing, the arrival of noisy groups of men charging along the street was something else. It could herald danger for a boy on his own, a boy like me, no matter what Margarita believed.

Margarita. For a moment I hoped she would come back; she seemed more than capable of handling thugs. But as the sounds grew clearer it was evident that the approaching group did not have violence on their minds. Artists and apprentices, wielding nothing more dangerous than paintbrushes, paint, and paper, were heading towards me. Relief and trepidation flooded my senses in equal measure.

I put a hand up to shade my eyes for fear of being recognised and to hide their tell-tale puffiness. I needn’t have worried. Not a head turned my way. Every boy in the group had eyes only for their leader and they jostled with one another to get close to him.

As heads parted I saw him for myself. Even from afar, I understood why these young men were leaping like spring hares. There he was, a handsome young man, surrounded by excited young men dressed in the latest fashions, with him the most fashionable of them all. His brilliant white shirt billowed like a dazzling sail, his black velvet jacket was slung over his shoulder as if that was the way it was meant to be; his perfect hose were well tailored and, as my eyes fought to find a break lower down in the wall of bodies around him, I caught sight of well-sculpted calves. As for his hair, topped by a black velvet cap, he wore it longer than most young men of Rome at the time but it looked all the more attractive for that. Long, dark, and neat, it framed the most luminous of faces out of which shone the most beguiling of smiles. I watched him, transfixed.

And the closer he got the more I felt sure I knew him. Who was this beautiful man? I racked my brains. I’d seen him very recently. But where? At one of the studios? Had I happened across a likeness of him? That was it: the miniature portrait, the one Giulio had passed round only that morning. ‘Likes to pose more than paint! Look at him! Steals the ideas of others. No originality. The man’s a pretty-faced apprentice. Nothing else .’ I recalled the fierce red patches of resentment on Sebastiano’s face as he raged against the likeness of the clear-faced person here before me. Yes, I knew this man: it was the artist Raphael Sanzio.

Awe, warm and comforting, flooded my soul as Sebastiano’s ‘pretty-faced apprentice’ drew near, rapidly followed by an unpleasant chill; I recognised two of the boys vying to get close to him. A sense of shame lapped all around me with its icy waves. Luigi and Federico had been kicked out of Michelangelo’s workshop the same time as me. They’d had nowhere to go. The memory of my having sneered at them stung like a newly opened wound. They would have the last laugh now, if they saw me. I averted my eyes.