Barbara Mujica I Am Venus (retail) (epub)

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.ALSO BY BÁRBARA MUJICAThe Deaths of Don BernardoAffirmative ActionsFar from My Mother’s HomeSanchez Across the StreetFridaSister TeresaTo my husband, Mauro, with loveThis edition first published in hardcover in the United States in 2013 byThe Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.141 Wooster StreetNew York, NY 10012www.overlookpress.comFor bulk and special sales, please contact sales@overlookny.com,or write us at the address above.Copyright © 2013 by Bárbara MujicaAll rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.ISBN: 978-1-4683-0764-1ContentsALSO BY BÁRBARA MUJICADEDICATIONCOPYRIGHTPROLOGUEPART ONE1 SEVILLE 16192 THE VIRGIN ON THE PEDESTAL 16193 BEYOND THE MOON 16194 SECRETS 1622–16235 THE LADY ON THE ORB 16236 VENUS SPEAKS 16607 ALTERATIONS 1623–16248 RIVALS AND PLOTS 1626–16279 NEW DIRECTIONS 1628–1629PART TWO10 ADVENTURES AND ADVENTURERS 162911 ACROSS THE PLAZA 1629–163012 VENUS INTERRUPTA 1660; 1630–163213 FAMILY BUSINESS 1633–163514 APPEARANCES 1636–163815 THE BIRTH OF VENUS 1660; 1644; 166016 THE FACE IN THE MIRROR 1652; 166017 MENINAS 1656–165818 REVELATIONS 1660EPILOGUEAUTHOR’S NOTEABOUT THE AUTHORPROLOGUEI WAS RECLINING ON THE DIVAN FACING THE WALL, MY BACK TO the artist.Gossamer sunbeams caressed my left shoulder and buttocks.He had posed me looking away from the window, but I could feel the fingers of light warming my body.They stretched over my arm toward the plush red curtain that hung around the foot of the bed.I lay on a maroon silk sheet that would, one day, turn charcoal-colored.The luster of flesh against the sheen of the cloth filled the scene with light and created an atmosphere of luxurious intimacy.That’s what he said: “luxurious intimacy.” He was a well-spoken man.He was, after all, a courtier.Madrid is a strange city.Palatial residences stand alongside squalor.A fishmonger can live on the same street as a duke.Velázquez had a studio in the king’s gallery, but he’d chosen to paint this particular piece in the private apartments of a patron.I’d snuck in through the servants’ door and didn’t know who the house belonged to.Perhaps Don Gaspar, as some people said, but perhaps not.Velázquez wouldn’t tell me.The morning bustle filtered through the open window.The grunt of pack mules carrying produce to market.The throaty croon of a drunken soldier—Madrid was full of them.The curse of a scurrying servant who had slipped on the contents of a chamber pot that someone had emptied onto the street.The cry of a buñolera hawking her sweet, sticky fritters.The clop-clop of an aristocrat’s elegantly appointed horse.French peddlers offering trinkets—glass beads, ribbons, earthenware crocks.Foreigners had flocked to Madrid after the king’s father had expelled the Moriscos—Moors who had converted to Catholicism.The new arrivals filled the void—they became artisans, weavers, and of course street hawkers.The streets were full of them crying out in their mangled Spanish, “Buy a shell comb for your hair, señora! Buy a button to adorn your pretty dress!”Velázquez moved toward me.I could hear the soft shuffle of his slippers against the tile floor.Even though I’d been posing for him for weeks, he was never satisfied with the tilt of my head.He gently lifted my arm and placed it over the back of the divan, then bent it at the elbow and laid my right ear on my open hand.I sensed his gaze on my back and tried not to squirm.Soon my outstretched upper arm would start to ache, but even then, I would force myself to lie very still.Velázquez—I nearly always called him Velázquez, not Diego—made a sound that conveyed neither satisfaction nor its opposite.He remained motionless a moment, then ran his finger over the nub of my shoulder.It tickled, but he wasn’t being playful.He was interested in the crescent shadow on my upper arm created by the height and angle of the elbow.He leaned over my torso and adjusted the white silk that lay beneath the maroon-colored sheet.Then he tipped my buttock slightly forward in order to better capture the curve of my left hip against the intense whiteness.“Perfecto,” he whispered.He stepped back to his easel.I could hear the swish of brush against canvas, and I concentrated as hard as I could on not moving.We both knew we were taking a chance.The Inquisition forbade the depiction of nudes under pain of excommunication, which is what made it so exciting—and so frightening.Our very salvation was at stake.Excommunication transforms you into an outcast.The bishop expels you from the Christian community in a public ceremony.A bell tolls as if you were dead, and then they close the gospel and snuff out a candle.No one speaks to you.People snub you in the street.Sometimes they spit at you.You can’t receive Christ’s sacred body in your mouth or drink his sacred blood, but of course, they don’t take away confession, just in case you want to repent.If you show remorse in confession, the priest can help you get the excommunication lifted.But if they don’t lift it before you die, you’ll go straight to hell.Sometimes I close my eyes and picture myself in flames.I feel my whole body smarting, then stinging, then throbbing.I see my flesh turning red and blistering.I smell the putrid odor of burning tissue.My flesh turns purple and falls from my bones, and then I disintegrate.I hear myself shrieking, but eventually the shrieks grow weaker and weaker until they fade away.Then it all starts all over again because that’s what hell is: never-ending fire, never-ending agony.Was he worth risking hell for?For Velázquez, I would have risked a thousand hells.Outside, the clickety-click of coach wheels against cobblestone.The high-pitched stammer of a blacksmith’s anvil.The gravelly cry of a flower vendor—claveles! rosas! The Arabic refrain of a kitchen slave chopping carrots.Velázquez moved toward me and once again adjusted the tilt of my head [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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