Travels in Vermeer by Michael White Read Free Book Online Page B

where the pews face the other way. Because of its location, here in the Papenhoek, where Mass had to be held in secret, I see the luminous little chapel as a sort of memorial. And it’s a lovely place, which Kaldenbach had described as “hallowed ground.” Yet I feel nothing.
    What had I expected? The cast of north light filtering down from the left as in the paintings, stray sounds of the Markt, stillness of the hours? It is, but it isn’t here. The chapel, belonging to another age, has nothing to do with Vermeer. It isn’t his space anymore. I realize immediately that this is how it should be. I swallow, pause for a moment, then turn to go.
    Abruptly the Nieuwe Kerk carillon begins to chime, shivering through the modern stained glass. I can’t place the song, some sort of country waltz. Then I remember that the bells were replaced the year Vermeer was painting View of Delft . These are the same bells he would’ve heard—reverberating through every square inch of his studio—for most of his working life. So I listen and listen and wait for the carillon to end before taking my leave, out through the side entrance, back toward the Markt again.
    My next stop is but a couple of dozen yards away: the Nieuwe Kerk itself. It is a high, bright sanctuary, dominated by William of Orange’s ornate marble mausoleum, placed where I might expect an altar. This Dutch landmark (the architect was Hendrick De Keyser, who also designed Amsterdam’s beloved Westerkerk) is probably the grandest monument in the entire country, always a mainstay of the tour circuit. Painters came for inspiration and beggars worked the area for easy pickings even in Vermeer’s day. It’s an operatic, canopied deathbed effigy complete with weeping cherubs, a likeness of the beloved hero’s dog, and the memento mori of grinning skulls. Which gives me a faint case of the creeps.
    The Markt happens to be a market this particular day, and I wind my way very slowly through the rows of fragrant fish stalls, cheese stalls. The steeple chimes the hour again, but the pigeons milling about the square—wherever they find a few square feet—don’t fly away or even stir.
    I walk circuitously toward the leaning tower of the Oude Kerk, visible over a bank or two of rooftops. The older, brick and white stone church, like the newer one, was originally Catholic, but was stripped bare by iconoclasts during the Reformation. Walking into it, it feels unfinished, undecided, and in fact, its gothic cruciform shape was never completed. There’s only part of one of the crossing halls, the northern one. I walk on the foot-worn markers, tour the entire space—without finding any trace of Vermeer at all—then go back to the entrance, and purchase a guide map in the souvenir shop.
    Vermeer’s grave is located a bit off center, where the crossing would have been. There’s only the chiseled name and dates on a stone perhaps sixteen inches square: an ordinary stone in the floor. I stare at it balefully. Suddenly I don’t know why I’m here. My visit to Delft is over.
    I resign myself to wandering aimlessly. I buy a big, conical purple candle for Sophia, because it’s goofy and sparkly and I know she will love it. For myself, I buy a small Delft porcelain plate, painted a rich ultramarine, because it looks authentic—it looks like Delft. It depicts a long-tailed bird, maybe a pheasant.
    Eventually, late afternoon, I stumble onto the tourist information office in the center of the city. The girl at the desk is probably a university student, twenty or twenty-one. Thin, brunette, thick glasses, reading a fat paperback novel I can’t make out. I say I’m looking for Vermeer. She fishes for a brochure beneath the counter, but stops, mid-gesture, and looks at me again, a conspiratorial look in her great dark eyes.
    â€œThere’s nothing left,” she confides.
    â€œI know,” I say.