“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.

It became harder to hide what I was doing when he wanted me to help him make the paints. One morning he took me up to the attic, reached by a ladder in the storeroom next to the studio. I had never been there before. It was a small room, with a steeply slanted roof and a window that let in light and a view of the New Church. There was little there apart from a small cupboard and a stone table with a hollow place in it, holding a stone shaped like an egg with one end cut off. I had seen a similar table once at my father’s tile factory. There were also some vessels—basins and shallow earthenware plates—as well as tongs by the tiny fireplace.

“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.

The solution to the problem of the colors came unexpectedly from Tanneke. Since Franciscus’ birth the nurse had been sleeping in the Crucifixion room with Tanneke. From there she could get easily to the great hall to feed the baby when he woke. Although Catharina was not feeding him herself, she insisted that Franciscus sleep in a cradle next to her. I thought this a strange arrangement, but when I came to know Catharina better I understood that she wanted to hold on to the appearance of motherhood, if not the tasks themselves.

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.