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When Vivi plopped down on the couch beside me one afternoon and said that she wanted to go to Italy to “take in the culture”, I thought she had lost her mind. I knew Italy was a place with a lot of mortal historical significance and pasta. But it was not a place my sister had ever mentioned before or expressed any interest in visiting.
I stated my surprise and she quickly launched in a monologue about the food and the art and the architecture and the art and the sunsets and the art. I should have seen the pattern after the tenth reference to art but then she followed-up with, “especially the Renaissance paintings – Renaissance art is the birth of all modern art forms.” I have no idea if that’s true but I was pretty certain that Vivi’s sudden interest in becoming ‘art savvy’ has something to do with a pink-haired artist that had recently started returning her texts.
When I asked her with what money we would go to Italy she said, “the same money I use to pay rent on this apartment – leaves”. When I asked her how we would be allowed to board an international flight without passports, she held up three of the shiny blue documents emblazoned with a golden eagle emblem. When I told her she had to convince Oak she scoffed and said, “not a problem.”
It turned out to be a problem.
“No,” was his immediate response that evening when Vivi presented her trip plans like a glorified travel agent. “I don’t want to miss my cartoons.”
Vivi and I both frowned. I didn’t think Oak would jump at the opportunity but I hadn’t expected him to be so… mortal in his response. Vivia persevered. “You’ll get to go on your first plane ride! Imagine being up so high in the sky that you can’t even see the ground because the clouds are below you!”
Oak got off the couch and went searching for the controllers to his PS4. “I’ve been flying before, on ragworts. And they weren’t made of icky metal,” he shrugged and settled himself on the floor to start up a game.
“There will be gelato,” Vivi moved on to stronger ammunition. “It’s like ice cream but better.”
Oak raised an eyebrow and paused as he scrolled through the game menu. Then he shrugged again, “Nothing is better than Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.”
Finally, Vivi brought out the big guns, “Pizza is from Italy. There’s pizza everywhere. We can have pizza for dinner every night.” This last bit made me raise my eyebrows. I certainly had not agreed to this meal choice. Of course Oak was hooked from the first word.
“Pizza every night for dinner!” he exclaimed, controller forgotten. “We can really have it every night? You promise?” I almost tell her not to, if only to spare my body ten days of carbs.
“I promise,” she ruffles his hair with a giant smile. “I’ll even let you pick the toppings.”
At this I have to interject, “You can pick Vivi’s toppings. I’m reserving the right to make my own decisions.” I could have told Vivi to lead with the pizza but I enjoyed watching her sweat it for a bit with Oak. They had a funny dynamic.
“Then it’s settled,” she proclaims, “Mes amici – we are going to Italia!”
***
And that is how I now find myself in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, surrounded by a group of hungover, sun-tanned American college students on a study abroad trip. By surrounded I mean literally. We are all squished, shoulder-to-shoulder, on a landing of the stairs inside the museum. From the outside the building looked huge, but once inside, the space was overstuffed with tourists and students, making the galleries and hallways feel miniscule.
I hate it. Vivi loves it. I haven’t seen Oak for the past half hour and I assume he’s running around somewhere laughing at the statues of naked fae and satyrs. I catch a tidbit of the conversation happening next to me - something about Brittany and Mason hooking up at Jenny’s birthday party last night - and I lose my ability to tolerate the inanity a moment longer. I push and shove and elbow and receive plenty of rude looks and few comments but I soldier on until I have forced my way up the stairs and into the next gallery. Vivi follows in my wake.
Finally we are free of their gaggle and I even have a little space to myself. I shake off the feeling of being a human sardine and look up at the painting before me. I’m taken aback. It’s a large oil on canvas with a dark background and three human figures. Two of them are committing murder; the other is dying.
It’s an old painting. Everything in this museum is old so I suppose that’s to be expected. I don’t know anything about historical context clues but I suspect by the clothing that the scene is several centuries in the past. A half naked man with scruffy hair and a beard is lying face up on a white bed streaked with blood. Above him stand two women. One woman pins him down on the bed, her face harsh with concentration. He is struggling against her grip, clearly caught unaware. The other woman is slicing open his throat.
The blood gushes out from the wound and drips slowly down the white sheets, spilling in rivulets. The woman with the knife is looking down at him, her features set and focused on the task at hand. I can see the muscles in her forearms pulled tight, the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, suggesting that she planned this attack.
The painting is gorgeous.
“That’s you, you know,” Vivi says, gesturing to the painting.
“What?” I shake my head to clear my thoughts. The central woman in the painting has dark curly hair, pinned on top of her head. She has a round face and a significantly endowed chest. She looks nothing like me. I tell Vivi as much.
“Not the likeness,” Vivi laughs a little, “your name.”
I frown and look at the tiny plaque below the painting again. It reads “Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi”. I’ve never heard of the artist and the name Holofernes means nothing to me. “Judith?”
“Well, Mom probably thought that was too formal,” Vivi tilts her head and regards the painting from a different angle. “So she shortened it to Jude. But I definitely remember her telling me that she was naming you after a painting by an Italian woman named Artemisia. I asked her to show it to me once but she said she didn’t have a picture and it was too gory, besides. As if.”
I’m taken aback by Vivi’s story. Our mother had never told me this before, nor had my father. At some point in my childhood I learned that Jude was typically a boy’s name. A few other girls had teased me on the playground, but I liked being different. I never asked my parents where the name came from.
“What, you thought it was that sappy Beatles song?” Vivi recalls the well-known song that, even in my short time in the mortal realm, I was familiar with, due to its popularity.
“I guess so?” I say, “I never really thought about it.”
“The Beatles were way too mainstream for Mom and Dad,” she assures me. “They preferred eighties grunge.” I smile at a faint musical memory that Vivi’s words drum up. Our parents were nothing close to mainstream. The swords and the corsets and the Renaissance fairs did away with that.
I look again at the painting.
“What does the guide book say?” I ask, suddenly eager for more information. What about this painting, this artist, drew my mother’s eye? What did Judith do that made my mom want to gift her daughter with that name? It’s been a long time since I thought about my parents this way and I’m quickly reminded by all the questions I will never ask them.
“Let’s see,” Vivi flips through a few pages until she finds the correct passage. “Judith Slaying Holofernes is a painting by the Italian early Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi completed in 1610 and now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy – as are we,” she pauses, “along with a billion other sweaty people.”
I nod in agreement as a group of elderly tourists slowly push past me. It’s frustrating to feel so cramped. I know that Italy, specifically Florence, is a major tourist destination but even with that knowledge the number of people feels ridiculous. I try not to think of the open stretches of forest in faerie, where I could run and ride and train and nap for hours without another being disturbing me. Of course, I have to remind myself, just because I couldn’t see them doesn’t mean those forests weren’t filled with creatures looking to do mischief.
“The work shows the scene of Judith beheading Holofernes,” Vivi continues. “The scene has been common in art since the early Renaissance, as part of the group of subjects art critics have called the "Power of Women.”
I snort. I don't know much about the Renaissance but I doubt it was a friendly time for women. Still, I take a few more moments with Judith and Artemisia. The more I stare at the painting, the more details I notice, like the deep red blanket covering the man’s lower region, suggesting royalty. I think the way Judith is bent towards the bed, in motion, further hints at a surprise attack. There are a few small scrapes on her hands. Like her, my hands have been covered in blood before. I too, have taken lives and left weak men to die in beds of their own hubris.
Vivi hmms at something in her book, “According to the foot notes, the Power of Women is the representational practice of bringing together at least two, but usually more, well-known figures from the Bible, ancient history, or romance to exemplify a cluster of interrelated themes that include the wiles of women, the power of love, and the trials of marriage.” She adds with sarcasm, “Well they’ve covered all the important bits there, heteronormative idiots.”
I chuckle a little at Vivi’s dig. As I’m looking at the blood smears on the bed sheets I inspect the knife more closely. The blade is long, although still not long enough to be called a sword. Judith wields it in her right hand, gripping the man’s head with her left. The hilt is adorned, although not ostentatiously. Judith wears a dress with some embellishments. She must be of at least middling nobility. And there’s the other woman in the painting, lending assistance.
“Who’s the other woman?” I ask. I am now all too happy to appease Vivi’s desire to take on the role of tour guide.
“Her maidservant,” she informs me. “Even Judith didn’t go it alone.”
I glance at my older sister and the wink she gives me tells me that the suggestion in her comment was intentional. Vivi has been subtle but not silent about encouraging me to mend my relationship with Taryn. I know she means well but I still don’t think Vivi totally grasps how deeply Taryn betrayed me. It’s not just about pretending to be me and asking for favors in my name. It’s about throwing in her lot with Madoc. Taryn chose a side, and she never told me or asked me to choose with her.
Begrudgingly, I realize that I did the same to her in turn.
I don’t indulge Vivi’s comment with a response. Instead I turn back to the painting, looking for more details. It’s such an active scene, the artist catching all figures in the middle of movement. Judging by the amount of blood, Judith must be just at the start of pulling the knife across his jugular, meaning to tear his head right off. It won’t be a clean cut. It’s vicious and it looks personal.
“The man’s name is Holofornes?” the word tastes foreign. “What did he do?”
Vivi clears her throat, “The subject takes an episode from the apocryphal Book of Judith in the Old Testament, which recounts the assassination of the Assyrian general Holofernes, by the Israelite heroine Judith,” Vivi continues. “The painting shows the moment when Judith, helped by her maidservant, beheads the general after he has fallen asleep drunk.”
I roll my eyes. Of course he was drunk. A faint thought of another drunk leader comes to mind but it fades the more I pay attention to Holofornes. I have to look down at him because the picture is hanging so that the viewer is eye level with the featured woman. I gaze into Holofernes’s upside down face, his features frozen forever in shock at the killing blow dealt by this woman above him.
“A general,” I say. Like someone else I know.
Vivi takes a moment to respond, “Yes.” I can tell by her tone that she has also made the connection. We both look at the painting in silence. Although I assume we are thinking of the same man, I know we are both seeing very different things. After a meaningful pause, Vivi lets out an exasperated sigh and turns back to the book. “Art historians have suggested that Gentileschi drew herself as Judith and Holofernes as her mentor, Agostino Tassi.”
I nod at Artemisia’s intention. Another layer to her story.
“It says here he raped her,” Vivi sounds startled. I turn to see she’s looking at the guidebook with raised eyebrows. “At the time, Tassi was working with her father in the studio in their home. There was a trial and he was convicted, sentenced to two years in prison for the crime.”
I frown at this new knowledge. Vivi shuts the book and is quiet beside me. It takes me a few moments before I can look at the painting again. I still see the same scene, but this time it’s a self-portrait of a renowned artist, dressed up in a costume from an even older tale, cutting off the head of the man who befriended her father, mentored her in her craft, and sexually assaulted her. That is a certain type of vengeance.
“Jude,” I almost don’t want to look away from the masterpiece, but something in Vivi’s tone requests I meet her gaze. “Madoc,” she says slowly, taking care to look me in the eye. For a split second her glamour drops and I am looking into slanted cat eyes. “Madoc never…”
I’m still waiting for the end of her sentence when I realize what she is asking. She continues to look straight at me, refusing to let me drop my gaze. I set my mouth firmly. “No,” I say clearly. “Nothing like that.” Madoc, by his own admission, has done me many wrongs. Furthermore, considering all the cuts and bruises he bestowed upon me in weapons training, I can’t even say that he never touched me inappropriately. But never in any way like Tassi.
Vivi holds my gaze for another long moment. I wonder if she thinks I am lying. For perhaps the first time I ponder how many times my own faerie sister has questioned my honesty. Today she decides to take me at my word and nods briefly, opening her guidebook again and turning towards a doorway into a new gallery.
“And in the next room we’ll find one of the museum’s most celebrated pieces,” Vivi reads in a dramatic tone. “A shield painted by Caravaggio himself, depicting the dreaded snake covered head of Medusa.”
“Well, that’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” I comment and Vivi laughs. She wrangles Oak when he runs in front of us and we join the human conveyor belt of people shuffling into the next room. Before we turn the corner I look back over my shoulder at the painting. I smile.
Slay girl, slay.