Maria Thins was also moving about in her rooms next to the storeroom. It was a restless house, and it made me restless too. I made myself sit in my lion-head chair to wait. I was not sleepy. I had never felt so awake.

Finally Catharina and Cornelia went back to bed, and Maria Thins stopped rustling next door. As the house grew still, I remained in my chair. It was easier to sit there than do what I had to do. When I could not delay any longer, I got up and first peeked at the painting. All I could really see now was the great hole where the earring should go, which I would have to fill.

I took up my candle, found the mirror in the storeroom, and climbed to the attic. I propped the mirror against the wall on the grinding table and set the candle next to it. I got out my needlecase and, choosing the thinnest needle, set the tip in the flame of the candle. Then I opened the bottle of clove oil, expecting it to smell foul, of mould or rotting leaves, as remedies often do. Instead it was sweet and strange, like honeycakes left out in the sun. It was from far away, from places Frans might get to on his ships. I shook a few drops onto a rag, and swabbed my left earlobe. The apothecary was right—when I touched the lobe a few minutes later it felt as if I had been out in the cold without wrapping a shawl around my ears.

I took the needle out of the flame and let the glowing red tip change to dull orange and then to black. When I leaned towards the mirror I gazed at myself for a moment. My eyes were full of liquid in the candlelight, glittering with fear.

Do this quickly, I thought. It will not help to delay.

I pulled the earlobe taut and in one movement pushed the needle through my flesh.

Just before I fainted I thought, I have always wanted to wear pearls.

Every night I swabbed my ear and pushed a slightly larger needle through the hole to keep it open. It did not hurt too much until the lobe became infected and began to swell. Then no matter how much clove oil I dabbed on the ear, my eyes streamed with tears when I drove the needle through. I did not know how I would manage to wear the earring without fainting again.

I was grateful that I wore my cap over my ears so that no one saw the swollen red lobe. It throbbed as I bent over the steaming laundry, as I ground colors, as I sat in church with Pieter and my parents.

It throbbed when van Ruijven caught me hanging up sheets in the courtyard one morning and tried to pull my chemise down over my shoulders and expose my bosom.

“You shouldn’t fight me, my girl,” he murmured as I backed away from him. “You’ll enjoy it more if you don’t fight. And you know, I will have you anyway when I get that painting.” He pushed me against the wall and lowered his lips to my chest, pulling at my breasts to free them from the dress.

“Tanneke!” I called desperately, hoping in vain that she had returned early from an errand to the baker’s.

“What are you doing?”

Cornelia was watching us from the doorway. I had never expected to be glad to see her.

Van Ruijven raised his head and stepped back. “We’re playing a game, dear girl,” he replied, smiling. “Just a little game. You’ll play it too when you’re older.” He straightened his cloak and stepped past her into the house.

I could not meet Cornelia’s eye. I tucked in my chemise and smoothed my dress with shaking hands. When finally I looked up she was gone.

The morning of my eighteenth birthday I got up and cleaned the studio as usual. The concert painting was done—in a few days van Ruijven would come to view it and take it away. Although I did not need to now, I still cleaned the studio scene carefully, dusting the harpsichord, the violin, the bass viol, brushing the table rug with a damp cloth, polishing the chairs, mopping the grey and white floor tiles.

I did not like the painting as much as his others. Although it was meant to be more valuable with three figures in it, I preferred the pictures he had painted of women alone—they were purer, less complicated. I found I did not want to look at the concert for long, or try to understand what the people in it were thinking.

I wondered what he would paint next.

Downstairs I set water on the fire to heat and asked Tanneke what she wanted from the butcher. She was sweeping the steps and tiles in front of the house. “A rack of beef,” she replied, leaning against her broom. “Why not have something nice?” She rubbed her lower back and groaned. “It may take my mind off my aches.”

“Is it your back again?” I tried to sound sympathetic, but Tanneke’s back always hurt. A maid’s back would always hurt. That was a maid’s life.

Maertge came with me to the Meat Hall, and I was glad of it—since that night in the alley I was embarrassed to be alone with Pieter the son. I was not sure how he would treat me. If I was with Maertge, however, he would have to be careful of what he said or did.

Pieter the son was not there—only his father, who grinned at me. “Ah, the birthday maid!” he cried. “An important day for you.”

Maertge looked at me in surprise. I had not mentioned my birthday to the family—there was no reason to.

“There’s nothing important about it,” I snapped.

“That’s not what my son said. He’s off now, on an errand. Someone to see.” Pieter the father winked at me. My blood chilled. He was saying something without saying it, something I was meant to understand.

“Your finest rack of beef,” I ordered, deciding to ignore him.

“In celebration, then?” Pieter the father never let things drop, but pushed them as far as he could.

I did not reply. I simply waited until he served me, then put the beef in my pail and turned away.

“Is it really your birthday, Griet?” Maertge whispered as we left the Meat Hall.

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Why is eighteen so important?”

“It’s not. You mustn’t listen to what he says—he’s a silly man.”

Maertge didn’t look convinced. Nor was I. His words had tugged at something in my mind.

I worked all morning rinsing and boiling laundry. My mind turned to many things while I sat over the tub of steaming water. I wondered where Frans was, and if my parents had heard yet that he had left Delft. I wondered what Pieter the father had meant earlier, and where Pieter the son was. I thought of the night in the alley. I thought of the painting of me, and wondered when it would be done and what would happen to me then. All the while my ear throbbed, stabbing with pain whenever I moved my head.

It was Maria Thins who came to get me.

“Leave your washing, girl,” I heard her say behind me. “He wants you upstairs.” She was standing in the doorway, shaking something in her hand.

I got up in confusion. “Now, madam?”

“Yes, now. Don’t be coy with me, girl. You know why. Catharina has gone out this morning, and she doesn’t do that much these days, now her time is closer. Hold out your hand.”

I dried a hand on my apron and held it out. Maria Thins dropped a pair of pearl earrings into my palm.

“Take them up with you now. Quickly.”

I could not move. I was holding two pearls the size of hazelnuts, shaped like drops of water. They were silvery grey, even in the sunlight, except for a dot of fierce white light. I had touched pearls before, when I brought them upstairs for van Ruijven’s wife and tied them round her neck or laid them on the table. But I had never held them for myself before.

“Go on, girl,” Maria Thins growled impatiently. “Catharina may come back sooner than she said.”

I stumbled into the hallway, leaving the laundry unwrung. I climbed the stairs in full view of Tanneke, who was bringing in water from the canal, and Aleydis and Cornelia, who were rolling marbles in the hallway. They all looked up at me.