The Dutch Wife (30 page)

– 1 –

A WOMAN HOWLED
at the funeral.

IT WAS TWO DAYS AFTER
Thomas Vanderlinden’s death and the service was being held at Mount Hope Cemetery. I don’t like funerals and didn’t really want to attend. But he’d specifically asked his lawyer to invite me, and I didn’t know how to refuse a dead man’s request.

So I drove to the cemetery, which, like most cemeteries, was once on the outskirts of the town so that people wouldn’t have to be reminded constantly of mortality. But Camberloo has grown and grown until it now cautiously encircles the old graveyard. Many of the old families who settled the town almost two centuries ago were buried here, their final sleep now ruined by the roar of machines they could never have imagined. The graveyard oaks that were once taller than most buildings those old folks had ever seen are dwarfed by even the least impressive apartment towers.

I got out of my car and walked in through the north gate past a mix of old and newer gravestones—those founders of Camberloo have been joined here by thousands of latecomers from around the world, all equally “landed immigrants” at last. Some of the dead here were born in countries where it’s the tradition to put photographs of the deceased on their gravestones. The faces of many of them have become as ghostly as their owners now presumably are. As for the oldest gravestones, I could barely make out the names on them. The stones seem no longer to commemorate individual deaths so much as Death itself. Some graves had fresh flowers on them, and that made me think of Thomas Vanderlinden, tending his flower beds in the mornings. My acquaintance with him hadn’t even lasted as long as the life of one of his hardy annuals.

Thinking such melancholy thoughts, I gradually worked my way through the cemetery and joined the small group assembled at the Vanderlinden grave. Aside from the bald undertaker—
BEST’S FUNERAL SERVICES
on his breast pocket—there were four gravediggers. A woman in black was there too. She was quite tall, her face covered by a veil, so I couldn’t tell how old she was. There was also a chubby clergyman wearing a dog-collar with the undertaker’s logo on it—the in-house clergyman, I presumed. I was surprised, for I hadn’t thought of Thomas as a conventionally religious man. The clergyman smiled and nodded to me when I joined them. His left eye was bloodshot and had a slight upward cast, so that he kept one eye constantly on Heaven.

The gravestone itself was made of some kind of dark marble. The only name on it was the incised family name,
Vanderlinden
. A gleaming mahogany coffin lay on two wooden supports beside the grave.

“Let us now commence,” the clergyman said and began reading the words of the funeral service. When he came to the words “Thy servant Thomas———,” he had to look at the stone to remind himself of the last name. His earthbound eye then glanced over at the veiled woman apologetically. “I didn’t know the deceased personally,” he murmured. “I’m sure he was a good man.”

When he’d finished reading, he gave a signal, and the gravediggers took hold of the silk-tasselled ropes and started lowering the coffin into the ground.

THAT WAS WHEN
the howling began.

It wasn’t really so much a howling as a high-pitched whine, the kind you hear from a telephone wire. It was coming from the woman behind the veil. The sound was so eerie that people attending another burial, fifty yards away, were looking over at us. The undertaker and the clergyman seemed quite uncomfortable too, but the gravediggers paid no attention. They kept on lowering the coffin without so much as a glance at her. No doubt, in the course of their work, they’d seen everything.

I was wishing I’d followed my instincts and stayed home.

When the coffin reached the bottom of the grave, the ropes slackened and the howling stopped. The woman took off her glove, picked up a piece of clay and threw it down onto the coffin. It struck with a dull thud. The clergyman read a brief prayer then closed his book with finality and smiled. The gravediggers picked up their long-handled shovels, ready to begin their work. The undertaker, the sun glinting on his bald pate, nodded to them, then took the woman’s arm and led her from the graveside, followed by the clergyman. As I slipped away, I could hear the earth thumping down heavily on the coffin.

I’D ALMOST REACHED MY CAR
when I heard footsteps right behind me.

“Thank you for coming.”

I turned reluctantly, knowing who it must be. She had taken off her veil. She looked as though she was in her thirties, with a noticeable jaw, blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses and fair hair. She was quite tall and solid: a competent-looking woman, with a big black purse. She put out her gloved hand and shook my hand firmly.

“I’m Thomas’s daughter,” she said. “Miriam.”

That was certainly a surprise. I’d taken it for granted that Thomas Vanderlinden was one of those adults who never have children and retain a certain childishness of their own.

She read my mind, or my face.

“I’m sure he didn’t mention me,” she said.

We were standing on the sidewalk near my car, the sun was beating down on us and I didn’t know what to say.

“You probably thought I was a madwoman?” she said. “I mean, making that noise?”

I denied it, but I could see she didn’t believe me, for she laughed—a nice laugh that lit up her face.

“It just came into my head at the last minute,” she said. “I thought he’d like the idea of it. He once told me it was something mourners in ancient Smyrna used to do. The noise was supposed to drive the souls of the dead out of their bodies, on the off chance they didn’t want to leave.” She smiled. “I was hoping it wouldn’t drive everyone else away too.”

I relaxed, knowing she wasn’t a madwoman.

“I think he’d have liked it,” I said. “But I was surprised at seeing a clergyman. Thomas never struck me as a religious man.”

“Best’s phoned last night and said he was part of the funeral package,” she said, laughing her nice laugh. “My father always liked tradition, so I thought, why not?” Then she said: “Could I buy you a cup of coffee?”

“Great,” I said.

WE SAT IN THE COOL
of the Donut Palace on the corner of Camberloo Square. I watched her as she talked. She had the kind of face you grew to like the more you saw her. Her eyes behind her glasses were like little blue ponds. Sometimes, when she was being very serious, they’d darken the way water does when clouds get in the way of the sun. In the astute way she looked at you, I thought I could detect her father most. I discovered she was a social worker in Toronto, married, with children of her own.

“I phoned Father every week,” she said. “He told me you were his new neighbour. How do you like the house?”

“Very much,” I said. “I like everything about it. So does my cat.”

She laughed at that.

“Except for the basement,” I said. “She won’t go near it.”

She gave me an odd look when I said that but talked about her father again.

“He told me he enjoyed talking to you.”

“We used to chat in the mornings out in the yard,” I said. “I really only got to know him well when he was in hospital.”

“What did he tell you about himself?” Her blue eyes seemed to me honest and fearless.

“Well,” I said, “he didn’t actually talk much about himself. But he did talk a lot about his parents. It was quite fascinating.”

“Please,” she said. “Tell me.”

So, I began at the beginning. I gave her a rough outline of everything he’d told me in those last days in the hospital: about Rachel and her relationship with the stranger who came to her door; about Thomas’s journey to find Rowland Vanderlinden; about the revelations concerning Will Drummond; and finally about Thomas’s discovery that he was Rowland’s son. She listened to all I had to say with great interest, nodding from time to time at certain parts of the story, as though she’d heard them before.

“So that’s about it,” I said when I’d finished. “It was really incredible. But he never actually said that much about himself. For example, I’d no idea he had a family of his own.”

“He had his secrets, all right,” she said.

“Really?” I said. I was enjoying her company and she seemed to want to talk. So I said: “I’d love to hear about them.”

We ordered another cup of coffee and she began to talk about the Thomas Vanderlinden I didn’t know.

– 2 –

AFTER RACHEL VANDERLINDEN’S DEATH
, Thomas had remained a bachelor for some years. Then, in his mid-forties, he met Doris Petzel. She was a quiet woman who worked in a used bookstore but was more interested in books as objects than in reading them. She was forty by then, always meticulous in her clothing and appearance, and she had reached that stage when she assumed she’d be a spinster forever. She did have a sort of family: five cats who dominated her life and her apartment—in fact, simply put, she was their servant.

Thomas asked Doris Petzel out to dinner several times and did most of the talking, mainly about his research. She was a good listener. Sometimes, too, they shared silences that were bridged only by the clatter of the restaurant dishes and the murmur of other diners. She was a woman who was comfortable with silence.

Three big surprises were in store for Doris Petzel: the first was when, within six weeks of first asking her out, Thomas proposed; the second followed immediately when she heard herself accept; the third was just a month after their subsequent marriage, when she found herself pregnant.

By then, of course, she and the five cats were living in the Vanderlinden mansion. When she told Thomas about the pregnancy, he immediately went to his study and, within a few minutes, emerged carrying a smouldering dish. From it, a sweet, sickly smell arose.

“I’ve had this prepared for some time,” he told her. “It’s a recipe from ancient Persia I found in Herodotus. When couples discovered they were going to have a child, they’d fumigate their house with civet and myrrh for thirty days. The smell’s supposed to ensure that the child will be universally loved.”

To please him, Doris put up with the awful smell for thirty days. The five cats wrinkled their nostrils with disgust at it. In due course, Doris gave birth to a daughter, Miriam. But far from being universally loved, she was loathed by the five cats: they snarled and hissed whenever Doris fed her, or even touched her.

Naturally, the cats had to go.

MIRIAM GREW
into a contented, self-possessed child. By the age of five, she understood and accepted the nature of the household she’d been born into. Her father was more interested in his studies than in domestic life and often worked late in his office at the University. Her mother stayed at home but was always well groomed, her make-up perfect even at breakfast.

Doris had no more to say for herself then than she had before she married. One day, when little Miriam was around five, playing in the yard with a school friend, she saw her mother watching her through the kitchen window. The children were chattering the way children chatter.

Later, Doris asked her about it.

“What do you talk about?” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Miriam. “We just talk.”

“Do you just keep saying the same things over and over again?” Doris said. She seemed to believe that conversation was some kind of a trick her daughter might teach her. Miriam, of course, couldn’t help.

On other occasions, Doris would weep helplessly, and it was Miriam who would comfort her, hugging her and cooing: “There, there. Mummy’ll be all right.”

Nothing in particular seemed to set off Doris’s tears, but on one occasion she confessed to Miriam that it was the memory of her cats. She said she couldn’t forget the accusing looks they gave her as they were bundled away in a truck to be disposed of.

“I feel so guilty,” she said.

“Why?” said Miriam.

“If I hadn’t had you, they wouldn’t have had to go,” she sobbed. Then she realized what she’d said and was stricken with such extra guilt at having blamed her daughter that Miriam had to spend a long time soothing her.

WHEN MIRIAM WAS FIFTEEN
, she had a frightening dream. In the dream, she came home from school and found the house completely empty, all the furniture gone and no sign of her parents. She awoke in a state of panic and was relieved it was only a dream.

At breakfast, she told her parents about it. Doris, of course, had nothing to say. Thomas was very interested: he told her how, in the Renaissance, great stock was placed on dreams. They were taken as omens of things to come, though nowadays that idea was somewhat discredited.

Miriam asked him if he ever had ominous dreams.

He said perhaps he did, but if so, it didn’t really matter, for he could never seem to remember them. No sooner did he try, he said, than they fell apart, fragile as roses when you picked them.

MIRIAM DREAMED VARIATIONS OF HER DREAM
about the empty house several times thereafter, but she didn’t take them as omens. She came to the sensible conclusion that there was only the most tenuous link between the world of dreams and the real world. Nor did she worry about the lack of communication between her parents. Didn’t the parents of most of her school friends often seem to ignore each other too? Anyway, she was certain her parents loved her—though they’d never have said it outright—and that was what mattered most to her.

AT EIGHTEEN, MIRIAM APPLIED
to the University of Toronto and was accepted. She’d never been away from home and was looking forward to living on her own in a University residence.

On a Wednesday morning at seven o’clock, three weeks to the day before her departure, she was awakened by Doris bending over her.

“What’s wrong?” Miriam was alarmed.

“It’s your father,” said Doris. “He didn’t come home last night.” Despite the fact that she seemed distraught, she’d meticulously applied her make-up before waking Miriam.

Miriam got out of bed and the two of them sat, considering what they should do. They phoned Thomas’s office, to no avail. Miriam was for calling the police, but just then the phone rang and she picked it up, hopefully.