The Dutch Wife (8 page)

“After that, the tribal council knew they had to get rid of him: they couldn’t risk the fetish turning against the whole tribe. The Shaman demanded that the offender be turned loose in the jungle after dark to be tormented to death by the night-demons. But the Chief was more humane and opted for the more traditional method of clubbing him to death. He argued the man deserved that consideration because he’d done his awful act publicly, for them all to see. If he’d done it privately, they might never have known and the tribe would have been doomed.

“So it was that punishment we’d witnessed. I was looking forward to finding out more about the fetish, but the next day, I came down with a little bout of malaria. I’d have sweated it out and stayed a few more days to do some research. But Efua told me one of the canoemen, after too much palm beer, had let it slip that I’d attempted to eat a banana on the boat. The Boma Shaman deduced that my fever was some kind of punishment by the river spirits and that the entire tribe might suffer for allowing me to stay in their village. He wanted all five of us to have our heads crushed—quite amicably of course—to placate the river spirits. It was time for us to leave, so even though I was quite feverish, we did.”

– 11 –

ROWLAND VANDERLINDEN SIPPED WATER
from his glass.

Rachel watched him, fascinated. She’d never met anyone who’d been through such things. Here most of us were, she was thinking, preoccupied with nothing but pedestrian ideas—while men like Rowland Vanderlinden were unravelling the mysteries of the universe. She was deeply flattered that he should confide in someone as unsophisticated as she was. She hoped more and more it might be his way of wooing her.

“Of course, the fetish matter was interesting,” said Rowland. “But what impressed me most was that it was because of his favourite wife’s suicide that he destroyed it. He obviously loved her so much, nothing else mattered to him. Isn’t it astounding what a man will do for the woman he loves?”

“Yes, it really is,” Rachel said. She was thinking, though she barely knew him, that it would be wonderful to have someone like Rowland die for love of her. But she put that idea out of her head. “I’m so glad you got away. I mean, I don’t like the idea of fetishes. They sound awful and primitive.”

“Do you mind if I call you Rachel?” he said, smiling.

“Of course not,” she said.

“It’s such a pleasure to see you again,” he said. “I’m so glad you agreed to come for lunch. I’ve thought about you often since that night in Queensville. I’m sure your father said something unflattering about me. He has quite a reputation for not liking experts.”

“Well, he didn’t say he didn’t like you,” she said.

He laughed at that. “What exactly did he say?”

“Oh, that he doesn’t think intellectuals really understand what the law’s for,” she said.

“I’m not surprised to hear that,” Rowland Vanderlinden said. He frowned and tried to sound like her father: “‘You intellectuals can’t see the difference between right and wrong. It’s always shades of grey. You’d never find anyone guilty of anything.’” Rowland laughed. “He’s from the old school, all right.”

Rachel laughed too, pleased that he didn’t seem to mind her father too much.

While they waited for more coffee, he told her a little about his own family. Like the Judge, his ancestors had come from Holland long ago—to escape religious persecution. They’d settled in the north country and farmed the land. Rowland’s father had become a schoolteacher and made sure his son received a good education.

“Isn’t it odd we both have famous names?” Rowland said. “I mean, Dafoe’s almost like Daniel
Defoe
—you know, the man who wrote
Robinson Crusoe
.”

“Yes,” Rachel said. “But I’ve never heard of anyone called Vanderlinden.”

“Not many people know the name,” said Rowland. “You remember John Locke? He called himself Vanderlinden when he was an exile in Holland. He may actually have borrowed the name from my ancestors.”

Rachel admitted she’d no idea who John Locke was, either.

“The philosopher,” Rowland said. “You know: the
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
and all that stuff about the random association of ideas?” He saw she knew nothing about it and smiled. His fingers touched her fingers on the table to reassure her. “Oh, don’t worry, Rachel. It’s not important. The important things in life aren’t found in philosophy books.”

She was so thrilled at his touch she could hardly breathe.

“My mother had Dutch ancestors too,” he said. His voice became so soft she was suddenly aware of the clatter of restaurant noises. “My father always told me that if I ever got married, I couldn’t do better than to get myself
a Dutch Wife
.”

Rachel was startled. “A Dutch Wife!” she said. “That’s what my father always called my mother. He used to say, ‘You can’t go wrong with a Dutch Wife.’”

They both laughed and looked at each other with delight.

– 12 –

SIX MONTHS AFTER THAT CONVERSATION,
Rachel Dafoe and Rowland Vanderlinden were married in a civil ceremony at the Queensville Registry Office. Her father hadn’t been very keen, either on the speed with which she married “the first man she’d met”; or on her choice of such an unconventional groom (Rowland’s engagement gift to her was a shrunken head from South America, which had pride of place on the Dafoe living-room mantelpiece till it somehow managed to fall into the fire when only the Judge was at home).

For his daughter’s sake, he tried to get along with Rowland, though he feared such a marriage couldn’t possibly endure. It was clear to him that Rowland was obsessed with his studies in remote parts of the world and showed no signs of giving them up for the domestic life. Indeed, he’d just been awarded a Lifetime Endowment from the National Association of Anthropologists.

From the Judge’s standpoint, Rowland didn’t seem to understand that stability was necessary for a marriage. “He doesn’t have his heart in it,” he remarked to one of his clerks.

But Judge Dafoe didn’t have to tolerate his son-in-law for long. A year after the marriage, his own unreliable heart let him down for the last time. He died, as he would have wanted to, at the bench. It was in the Spring Sessions, and he’d just passed a life sentence on a woman who’d tried, unsuccessfully, to poison her husband and her three children. Suddenly he leaned back in his chair and stopped talking. His eyes were still open, so it took the court officials a while to realize he was dead; his head had always looked so much like a skull.

He was buried, as he’d requested, in Camberloo, his second residence, where he’d intended to retire.

Her father’s death stunned Rachel. She’d lost someone quite irreplaceable—a human being who loved her no matter what she did. She was well aware already that the kind of love that existed in her marriage to Rowland Vanderlinden was of a much less durable sort.

“Easily built, easily destroyed,”
the Judge used to say ominously.

In the year following his death, it was apparent to her that her relationship with Rowland Vanderlinden was indeed beginning to crumble.

Rowland now spent most of each week at the Museum, writing papers on various anthropological matters, staying overnights in his apartment in the city. On weekends, when he was home with her in Queensville, he would write up his notes. After that, he was like a dog circling around its basket, sniffing here and there, not finding a satisfactory place to rest. He would talk to Rachel occasionally about his work, but he was impatient and always made her feel stupid. As though her own ideas were little fish that ought to be thrown back into the Lake till they grew up.

Even making love was only a temporary distraction for him; his mind seemed to be elsewhere.

When he was sent on a field trip to Egypt on behalf of the Museum, Rachel persuaded him to allow her to go with him—the first time she’d ever left Canada. Aside from the sea voyage and a few days in a hotel in Cairo, the rest of the experience turned out to be most unpleasant for her: living in a tent in the desert sands, with no privacy, yet unable to communicate with the hordes of Egyptian workers; on top of that, there were the stifling heat, biting flies and onslaughts of mosquitoes. She had nothing to do. Rowland, on the other hand, was in his element: passionate about stone slabs with incomprehensible writing and buried papyri; and obviously popular with the locals.

They’d been there only a month when she became violently ill, probably from the water. An Egyptian physician recommended Rowland take her home. Reluctantly, for his project was unfinished, he packed up and brought her back to Canada.

After a week in Queensville, she could see he was restless again. “But I’m sure he still loves me,” she’d say to herself. “And I’m sure I still really love him.” She willed herself to believe that, for she was afraid she might easily come to hate him.

BY THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY
of her father’s death, Rachel couldn’t put up with the situation any longer. She imagined the Judge telling her what she already knew: “You’ve made a blunder.” Had he been there, he’d have dealt with the problem on her behalf. But he wasn’t, so she steeled herself to face it alone.

One Saturday night, she and Rowland were sitting at the back of the house. He was writing in his notebook, and she was watching the sun go down on the Lake.

She felt now was the time to speak. “You’ve changed,” she said to Rowland, as though she were reciting the opening lines of some traditional play.

“What do you mean?” he said, putting down his notebook but giving her no help.

“You’re no longer the man I married,” she said, surprised at how spontaneously she used the well-worn phrase.

He looked at her in the failing light and gave an unexpected answer. “Ah, but I am,” he said. “I am.”

Her heart sank, for she knew he was right.

They were silent for a while.

“I can’t go on like this,” she said, sticking to her lines regardless. “I’m not the kind of Dutch Wife you needed.”

He didn’t seem shocked. “I have an idea,” he said in the growing darkness. “The British Museum’s just received a load of artifacts from a new dig. They’d like me to go over and help with the cataloguing. Maybe I should go. That would give us a chance to think about our situation.”

“How long do you think you’d be gone?” she said.

“Four or five weeks, perhaps,” he said. The horizon of the Lake had almost completely disappeared now. “We could settle things when I came back. One way or another.”

TWO DAYS LATER,
he was packed for England. Before going out the front door for the last time, he took her hand. “No matter what happens,” he said, “remember this: if you ever need me, you only have to send for me.” Then he picked up his bag and left.

FOR TWO MONTHS,
she neither sent for him nor heard anything from him. Then a telegram came saying he’d be catching the train from Halifax and would be home the next day.

Thus it came about that she was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for him, her mind made up to settle things once and for all. She heard the ringing of the doorbell. She opened the door. A fair-haired man with a rugged face and pale blue eyes, a man who looked nothing like Rowland Vanderlinden, was standing there, saying: “I’m your husband.”

And she let him in.

– 13 –

IN HIS BED IN CAMBERLOO HOSPITAL,
Thomas Vanderlinden stopped talking. He reached over for the oxygen mask, put it to his face and breathed deeply. He closed his eyes and his head sank back in the pillows.

I was a bit worried, for he suddenly looked so tired. “Are you all right?” I said.

“I’ll be fine,” he said between breaths. “Don’t go yet.” Whatever his illness was, his battle with it had weakened him, and now he had to beat a tactical retreat.

In the silence that followed, I thought I heard voices in the corridor, but it was only the murmur of some piece of equipment in the nurses’ station.

Thomas put down his mask. “So, that was the story my mother told me,” he said. “It was all news to me.” He glanced towards the bedside cabinet at her photograph as a young woman looking out with that self-sufficient expression. “She always liked her own way,” he said. “I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

He closed his eyes again and took a few more breaths from the mask.

Of course, I was itching to ask some questions. Principally,
why
his mother had let in a complete stranger claiming to be her husband. And, even after they’d become lovers, why she wouldn’t let the man tell her who he really was. But I could see Thomas was exhausted. “I should go,” I said.

He put his thin hand on my arm.

“Will you be able to come and see me tomorrow?” he said.

“Of course I will,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “I’ve a lot more to tell you—if you’re interested.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m interested.”

He nodded and lay back with his eyes closed again, the mask to his face. He looked as though his soul was gradually seeping out of his body.

– 14 –

THAT NIGHT, I ATE A LATE DINNER,
then poured myself a second glass of wine and phoned my wife on the West Coast. She was about to travel north for a trial and would be out of touch with me for a while. I didn’t look forward to that, for we enjoyed talking to each other. When she was at home with me, we always used to enjoy our after-dinner conversations over a glass of wine.

One of our recurrent topics was the nature of love and the various theories about it. The idea that it might only be an illusion, a romanticization of animalistic impulses, we didn’t even consider. We both favoured the notion that, in its perfection, love was the uniting of the only two souls in the world destined for each other (we liked to think that was our own state).

Just for the sake of argument, I’d once posited the counter-theory: namely, that love is divided into a million pieces and can be reassembled only by making love to as many people as possible in one’s life. Oddly enough, we’d agreed that, though that theory might sound a little self-serving, from certain points of view it might also be a form of idealism.