Travels in Vermeer by Michael White Read Free Book Online

seems to me to get at something much more basic—a serene, unrepeatable vision of our place, our existence on earth. I ask Kaldenbach if the painting is essentially Dutch in some way, or is it more “universal”? He exclaims, without hesitation, stabbing his finger emphatically at it: “Well, this painting could not have been painted in any other country! Look at it: it is sixty percent sky. Our clouds. Our reflections.”
    We sit another moment. Finally I rise to go, and he escorts me out onto the quiet street. I’m beginning to unlock my bike from the lamppost, fumbling with the combination, when I think of one last thing.
    â€œIn The Girl with a Pearl Earring, is the girl turning toward or away from us?” I ask.
    Kaldenbach looks befuddled, smiles and shrugs from his lofty height. “You can’t be sure, it’s impossible…”
    I know, I want to say. For all the motion implied by her over-theshoulder glance—by the out-flung headdress—it is only the fierce intensity of her glance that matters.
    I shake his hand, swing my leg over the saddle, and push off round the corner, past a bus stop and a herring stand.
    Then I pedal aimlessly through the undulant, nearly-wild byways of the Vondelpark—past clusters of slender young lovers draped over and over and over each other on blankets or on the grass, with guitars and bottles of wine or nothing but each other. I’m suddenly hitting a wall again. Jetlag slows the wheels of the wobbling bike, until I cross a footbridge, meander between two ponds full of swans, then tip over softly, as in a dream. I stretch out in a sunflower glade, and for the first time this year, I’m not wracked with anxiety over how things are going across the ocean—how I’m going to finish the divorce, yet forge a lasting relationship with my daughter—because the moment my head relaxes into the grass, I’m fast asleep.
    5. The View
    The doors of the Delft station open directly across from the original city, safe behind its ancient walls. It faces me broadside, two steeples in the center, with a fortified gate straight ahead. But instead of passing through and into the town, I turn right and follow the sidewalk around—outside the wall—toward the south end, holding a map half folded in one hand. The fact that Delft has changed so little has much to do with its attraction for me. It isn’t about the town as much as the bricks, the canals, the skies. They are the same red bricks, tea-brown canals, and high white skies that colored every moment of Vermeer’s life and art.
    In five minutes, I reach the south end, the river Schie opening up on my right, a promenade running alongside. I figure this must be the harbor in the painting, but I’m not sure. At one end, there’s a bridge to the other side, so I cross and walk along an embankment where a couple of yachts are moored. When I come to a turn—a little point projecting into the water—there’s an unmarked, flowered terrace looking out on the town. On a small, grassy slope in front of the terrace, four teen-aged girls in bikinis lie sunbathing on towels. I kneel on the walk next to them and, feeling very sheepish, say “Hi,” and then ask collectively, “Does anyone speak English?”
    â€œA little,” one girl says.
    â€œDo you know if this is the place where Vermeer painted View of Delft?”
    â€œEh, Vermeer?” repeats one, cheerfully. She’s freckled, looks sixteen, and has a mouthful of braces. I spread the map on the grass. An X marks the spot called “Delftview” on the map. Is this it? All four girls swarm about the map, talking all at once and pointing here and there at various landmarks. After a few minutes, as I see we’re getting nowhere, I thank them profusely—they’re really sweet. I step away and realize, after a moment, that it is. This has to be the standpoint.
    Simon