FICTION | Jennifer L. Shaw Transformations

FICTION

Transformations

NOVEL EXCERPT

By Jennifer L. Shaw

What was the strange object displayed at eye level on top of the cabinet? Maria drew nearer, examining it closely. It appeared to be a sculpture of tiny skeletons among rocks and red trees, enacting some sort of drama. A macabre theater piece.

“You like my creations, then?” Ruysch said. It was more a statement than a question.

Maria hesitated. “Well, yes, I do like them.”

“Everything you see here has been preserved from the human body.”

These tiny bones couldn’t possibly be real skeletons. “But they’re so small.”

“The unborn,” said Ruysch. “That accounts for the size. These rocks at the center are stones from the bladder, kidney, and gallbladder.”

She looked again at the intricate branches of the red trees. “But the trees, are they not corals?”

“Ah! That’s where you’re wrong. Think again.” The man, his smile wide, was enjoying this guessing game. When she didn’t answer, he said with enthusiasm, “These are the vessels that carry our blood! I inject them with wax. Mix it with other substances to give it color. I’ve perfected the viscosity so the liquid can enter

the smallest vessels. Isn’t it beautiful? The patterns! But not only pleasing to the eye. Useful as well, to those who wish to observe the precise course of the arteries. Look at how delicately they branch! Observation. That is the key to knowledge. See how I’ve positioned the figure at the center, atop the stones? It’s as if he’s laughing!”

“Yes, I see,” she said, gazing at a small skeleton that appeared to be drying its eye-sockets with a cloth. “And this one is crying?”

“Right you are. And look, that handkerchief. I’ve made it out of a piece of lung tissue. Look at the detail—the membrane is so thin, filled with countless blood vessels.”

“It looks like a piece of embroidery,” she said. “Quite beautiful.”

“It reminds me of the Psalm: My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought like an embroidery in the lowest parts of the earth.”

She nodded. She knew this Psalm. David’s admonition that nothing escapes the Lord, all knowing and all seeing.

“We’re wrought in our mothers’ wombs, embroidered of vessels like these,” Ruysch said, as if entranced.

She read the engraved plaque attached to the walnut pedestal: Death spares no one. Not even defenseless babes. She took in a quick breath thinking of her own siblings. Looking around the room, she realized that each cabinet had a similar object sitting on top.

“Come,” Ruysch said, then moved quickly on to the next cabinet. This one held a much larger skeleton. “A little girl,” Ruysch said. “Must have been three or four years old. Look at the whiteness of the bones! Aren’t they marvelous? I joined all the parts together with their natural ligaments. Injected them with my red wax.” He pulled a magnifying glass out of his

pocket and handed it to her. “Look here. We see not only the capillary branches, those can be seen with the naked eye, but others that are much finer. It’s simply wrong that some parts of the body aren’t filled with blood. We are, all of us, blood and bone. Not the four humors as so many still believe.”

Maria stared at something that dangled from a silk thread tied to the thing’s right hand. “The heart?” she murmured. Then read, “All things hang by a slender thread.”

“It’s Ovid: Omnia sunt hominum tenui pendenti filo,” Ruysch said. “But come, let me show you more.”

Skeletons playing what appeared to be musical instruments— all made in one way or another from bones, stones and vessels. A skeleton lying on a bier, carried as if to the grave by two other skeletons. Everywhere, the macabre assemblages.

“So much death,” Maria said.

“Ah, but we mustn’t fear it,” said Ruysch. “That’s why I’ve made this place. The bones, vessels and skeletons are amusing, no? But come look. I’ve recently made a discovery that allows me not only to preserve the body, but to give it the appearance of life.” He led her by the arm back to the cabinet with the paned glass front and took out jars, placing them on an adjacent table well-lit by the nearby windows.

She took a sharp breath in, steadied herself on the table’s surface, forced herself not to look away. Tiny humans floated in the liquid. They were pale, somewhat gray, but posed in ways that made them appear alive, asleep. One of them sat upon a red cushion, a little white linen cap on its head. A girl, she could see from the exposed anatomy that was visible between its little thighs.

“The cap?”

“That’s just linen. Sewed by my Rachel. Several years ago.

She was no more than a girl. Before she was apprenticed to Willem Van Aelst. She has always been so adept with her hands, so precise. I think that’s why she’s become such a successful painter. That’s the placenta she’s sitting on,” Ruysch said, gesturing to the little fetus.

Maria felt her stomach turn.

Ruysch brought another jar to the table. “Compare,” he said as he placed it next to the seated fetus.

Maria flinched and put her hand to her mouth. The head of a baby floated in the clear liquid, its lips pink, plump, with little wrinkles. It had color in its cheeks, soft golden down above its brows, lashes where its closed eyes met. Around its neck, a delicate tatted lace collar. So peaceful, floating there gently, as if asleep.

“You can see that in the first, I hadn’t yet perfected my technique. There is much less detail, less color.”

The man spoke as one artist to another. As if there were nothing unusual about the kind of art he practiced. What would have happened if she had been making such objects? Any woman would be drowned for witchcraft before she ever had a chance to perfect her technique. And yet, she was as fascinated as she was horrified. For here she, and anyone who knew Ruysch or could pay the cost of admission, could see beyond the surfaces of the body—see things that perhaps God had never intended for human eyes. But in seeing them, she could learn. Observation, Rusych had said it was the key to understanding. That was certainly something she had believed for a very long time. “It’s … it’s beautiful,” she said. “The lace.”

“Rachel’s handiwork. We made it together just last year.”

“But how?”

He took out another jar. “My latest work,” he said, placing it

next to the sleeping baby head.

Maria jumped. It was like the other specimen, but its eyes were open, looking right at her.

Ruysch laughed. “They’re glass eyes. I had them made by an artisan in Venice. Quite beautiful.”

Feeling dizzy, she grabbed onto the table to steady herself. She tried to compose herself, to ward off the memories brought on by Ruysch’s creations. She closed her eyes, made a fist, opened it, closed it. Her hand. Her mother had taken her wrist and placed it on the swollen belly. Something under the skin jumped against her hand! She startled. Her mothered laughed, said: Don’t be frightened. That’s your baby brother or sister. Warm and love-filled, that voice.

But the warmth had soon been replaced by screams of pain and her sister Sara dragged her away from her mother. And then, when they returned to her mother’s room, all was quiet. She sat outside the door, listening, to make sure Mother was still alive. Pregnancy was a frightening thing. She had learned this as a young girl. Frightening and fragile and miraculous.

The next time her mother grew big and she tried to feel her mother’s belly, not a laugh, but a slap. When the screams started, she ran to her mother’s bed, held onto the frame and wouldn’t let go. A strange woman pulled her away and drew the curtains around the bed saying, It’s alright dear. Just the pains of labor and pushed her out the door. And when the screams abated, she heard only low voices, her mother’s sobs. All the mirrors were turned to the wall, the shutters closed.

Where is my baby sister? She had asked over and over again. She had received answers from no one. Finally, sister Sara told her the truth. The baby was with God in heaven. Sometimes when babes were born, they were already dead. The woman

who had sent her out of the room (she learned the woman was called a midwife) said she should thank the Lord her mother had survived. Had her mother lived in Amsterdam, one of her babies might have been a specimen in Ruysch’s collection, put on display for all and sundry.

“Madame Merian?”

Ruysch’s voice brought her back to herself.

“Perhaps you’ve seen enough for one day.” Ruysch offered her a warm smile.

She nodded. “Perhaps I have.”

As they walked back into the domestic portion of the house, Ruysch said, “You know, my dear, that in carrying out my work I have never harmed a soul. It’s unfortunate how many babes don’t survive childbirth, despite the best intentions and care. But it is better, is it not, to make something of beauty out of death? I’m fortunate to have the cooperation of the midwives I train.”