Sometimes the girl came and spent hour after hour standing in place, yet when I looked at the painting the next day nothing had been added or taken away. There were just areas of color that did not make things, no matter how long I studied them. I only knew what they were meant to be because I cleaned the objects themselves, and had seen what the girl was wearing when I peeked at her one day as she changed into Catharina’s yellow and black bodice in the great hall.

I reluctantly set out the colors he asked for each morning. One day I put out a blue as well. The second time I laid it out he said to me, “No ultramarine, Griet. Only the colors I asked for. Why did you set it out when I did not ask for it?” He was annoyed.

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s just—” I took a deep breath—”she is wearing a blue skirt. I thought you would want it, rather than leaving it black.”

“When I am ready, I will ask.”

I nodded and turned back to polishing the lion-head chair. My chest hurt. I did not want him to be angry at me.

He opened the middle window, filling the room with cold air.

“Come here, Griet.”

I set my rag on the sill and went to him.

“Look out the window.”

I looked out. It was a breezy day, with clouds disappearing behind the New Church tower.

“What color are those clouds?”

“Why, white, sir.”

He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Are they?”

I glanced at them. “And grey. Perhaps it will snow.”

“Come, Griet, you can do better than that. Think of your vegetables.”

“My vegetables, sir?”

He moved his head slightly. I was annoying him again. My jaw tightened.

“Think of how you separated the whites. Your turnips and your onions—are they the same white?”

Suddenly I understood. “No. The turnip has green in it, the onion yellow.”

“Exactly. Now, what colors do you see in the clouds?”

“There is some blue in them,” I said after studying them for a few minutes. “And—yellow as well. And there is some green!” I became so excited I actually pointed. I had been looking at clouds all my life, but I felt as if I saw them for the first time at that moment.

He smiled. “You will find there is little pure white in clouds, yet people say they are white. Now do you understand why I do not need the blue yet?”

“Yes, sir.” I did not really understand, but did not want to admit it. I felt I almost knew.

When at last he began to add colors on top of the false colors, I saw what he meant. He painted a light blue over the girl’s skirt, and it became a blue through which bits of black could be seen, darker in the shadow of the table, lighter closer to the window. To the wall areas he added yellow ocher, through which some of the grey showed. It became a bright but not a white wall. When the light shone on the wall, I discovered, it was not white, but many colors.

The pitcher and basin were the most complicated—they became yellow, and brown, and green, and blue. They reflected the pattern of the rug, the girl’s bodice, the blue cloth draped over the chair—everything but their true silver color. And yet they looked as they should, like a pitcher and a basin.

After that I could not stop looking at things.

“I would like you to grind some things here for me, Griet,” he said. He opened a cupboard drawer and took out a black stick the length of my little finger. “This is a piece of ivory, charred in the fire,” he explained. “For making black paint.”

Dropping it in the bowl of the table, he added a gummy substance that smelled of animal. Then he picked up the stone, which he called a muller, and showed me how to hold it, and how to lean over the table and use my weight against the stone to crush the bone. After a few minutes he had ground it into a fine paste.

“Now you try.” He scooped the black paste into a small pot and got out another piece of ivory. I took up the muller and tried to imitate his stance as I leaned over the table.

“No, your hand needs to do this.” He placed his hand over mine. The shock of his touch made me drop the muller, which rolled off the table and fell on the floor.

I jumped away from him and bent down to pick it up. “I’m sorry, sir,” I muttered, placing the muller in the bowl.

He did not try to touch me again.

“Move your hand up a little,” he commanded instead. “That’s right. Now use your shoulder to turn, your wrist to finish.”

It took me much longer to grind my piece, for I was clumsy and flustered from his touch. And I was smaller than him, and unused to the movement I was meant to make. At least my arms were strong from wringing out laundry.

“A little finer,” he suggested when he inspected the bowl. I ground for a few more minutes before he decided it was ready, having me rub the paste between my fingers so I would know how fine he wanted it. Then he laid several more pieces of bone on the table. “Tomorrow I will show you how to grind white lead. It is much easier than bone.”

I stared at the ivory.

“What is it, Griet? You’re not frightened of a few bones, are you? They are no different from the ivory comb you use to tidy your hair.”

I would never be rich enough to own such a comb. I tidied my hair with my fingers.

“It’s not that, sir.” All the other things he had asked of me I was able to do while cleaning or running errands. No one but Cornelia had become suspicious. But grinding things would take time—I could not do it while I was meant to be cleaning the studio, and I could not explain to others why I must go to the attic at times, leaving my other tasks. “This will take some time to grind,” I said feebly.

“Once you are used to it, it will not take as long as today.”

I hated to question or disobey him—he was my master. But I feared the anger of the women downstairs. “I’m meant to go to the butcher’s now, and to do the ironing, sir. For the mistress.” My words sounded petty.

He did not move. “To the butcher’s?” He was frowning.

“Yes, sir. The mistress will want to know why I cannot do my other work. She will want to know that I am helping you, up here. It’s not easy for me to come up for no reason.”

There was a long silence. The bell in the New Church tower struck seven times.

“I see,” he murmured when it had stopped. “Let me consider this.” He removed some of the ivory, putting it back in a drawer. “Do this bit now.” He gestured at what was left. “It shouldn’t take long. I must go out. Leave it here when you are done.”

He would have to speak to Catharina and tell her about my work. Then it would be easier for me to do things for him.

I waited, but he said nothing to Catharina.

Tanneke was not happy sharing her room with the nurse, complaining that the nurse got up too often to tend to the baby, and when she did remain in bed she snored. Tanneke spoke of it to everyone, whether they listened or not. She began to slacken her work, and blamed it on not getting enough sleep. Maria Thins told her there was nothing they could do, but Tanneke continued to grumble. She often threw black looks at me—before I came to live in the house Tanneke had slept where I did in the cellar whenever a nurse was needed. It was almost as if she blamed me for the nurse’s snores.

One evening she even appealed to Catharina. Catharina was preparing herself for an evening at the van Ruijvens’, despite the cold. She was in a good mood—wearing her pearls and yellow mantle always made her happy. Over her mantle she had tied a wide linen collar that covered her shoulders and protected the cloth from the powder she was dusting on her face. As Tanneke listed her woes, Catharina continued to powder herself, holding up a mirror to inspect the results. Her hair had been dressed in braids and ribbons, and as long as she kept her happy expression she was very beautiful, the combination of her blond hair and light brown eyes making her look exotic.

At last she waved the powder-brush at Tanneke. “Stop!” she cried with a laugh. “We need the nurse and she must sleep near me. There’s no space in the girls’ room, but there is in yours, so she is there. There’s nothing to be done. Why do you bother me about it?”

“Perhaps there is one thing that may be done,” he said. I glanced up from the cupboard where I was searching for an apron for Lisbeth. He was standing in the doorway. Catharina gazed up at her husband in surprise. He rarely showed interest in domestic affairs. “Put a bed up in the attic and let someone sleep there. Griet, perhaps.”

“Griet in the attic? Why?” Catharina cried.

“Then Tanneke may sleep in the cellar, as she prefers,” he explained mildly.

“But—” Catharina stopped, confused. She seemed to disapprove of the idea but could not say why.

“Oh yes, madam,” Tanneke broke in eagerly. “That would certainly help.” She glanced at me.

I busied myself refolding the children’s clothes, though they were already tidy.

“What about the key to the studio?” Catharina finally found an argument. There was only one entrance to the attic, by the ladder in the studio’s storeroom. To get to my bed I would have to pass through the studio, which was kept locked at night. “We can’t give a maid the key.”

“She won’t need a key,” he countered. “You may lock the studio door once she has gone to bed. Then in the morning she may clean the studio before you come and unlock the door.”

I paused with my folding. I did not like the idea of being locked into my room at night.

Unfortunately this notion seemed to please Catharina. Perhaps she thought locking me away would keep me both safely in one place and out of her sight. “All right, then,” she decided. She made most decisions quickly. She turned to Tanneke and me. “Tomorrow you two move a bed to the attic. This is only temporary,” she added, “until the nurse is no longer needed.”

Temporary as my trips to the butcher and fishmonger were meant to be temporary, I thought.

“Come with me to the studio for a moment,” he said. He was looking at her in a way I had begun to recognize—a painter’s way.

“Me?” Catharina smiled at her husband. Invitations to his studio were rare. She set down her powder-brush with a flourish and began to remove the wide collar, now covered with dust.

He reached out and grasped her hand. “Leave that.”

This was almost as surprising as his suggestion to move me to the attic. As he led Catharina upstairs, Tanneke and I exchanged looks.

The next day the baker’s daughter began to wear the wide white collar while modelling for the painting.

Tanneke was not listening—she was too full of her victory to notice the logic in her mistress’s words.

“Mistress has agreed to it,” I said simply.

Maria Thins gave me a long sideways look.

Sleeping in the attic made it easier for me to work there, but I still had little time to do so. I could get up earlier and go to bed later, but sometimes he gave me so much work that I had to find a way to go up in the afternoons, when I normally sat by the fire and sewed. I began to complain of not being able to see my stitching in the dim kitchen, and needing the light of my bright attic room. Or I said my stomach hurt and I wanted to lie down. Maria Thins gave me that same sideways look each time I made an excuse, but did not comment.

I began to get used to lying.

Once he had suggested that I sleep in the attic he left it to me to arrange my duties so that I could work for him. He never helped by lying for me, or asking me if I had time to spare for him. He gave me instructions in the morning and expected them to be done by the next day.

The colors themselves made up for the troubles I had hiding what I was doing. I came to love grinding the things he brought from the apothecary—bones, white lead, madder, massicot—to see how bright and pure I could get the colors. I learned that the finer the materials were ground, the deeper the color. From rough, dull grains madder became a fine bright red powder and, mixed with linseed oil, a sparkling paint. Making it and the other colors was magical.