Tulip Fever (25 page)

Mrs. Molenaer

Fear is a great inventor.

—JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

Mrs. Molenaer sits in her parlor. She is singing a ditty to her baby, Ludolf, as she wipes his bottom.

Sleep, little child, sleep,
Outdoors is walking a sheep
A sheep with white feet,
That’s drinking the milk so sweet . . .

Baby Ludolf gazes up at her with fathomless understanding. How lucky she is. Each day, before she rises, Mrs. Molenaer offers up a prayer of thanks. She lives in a handsome house in the Herengracht. Her husband is a kindly man who loves his family. As Chief Inspector of Hygiene he holds a prominent position in society. He gives generously to the poor and has a fine baritone voice. In the evenings he sits in his cap and dressing gown, surrounded by his children, and says,
There is no greater happiness on earth than this
. He plays droughts for hours, patiently, with his eldest son.

Mrs. Molenaer is roused from her reverie by a battering at the door. Her maid ushers in Sophia, her heavily pregnant next-door neighbor.

“The baby’s started,” gasps Sophia, clutching her belly. “Please could you get a message to my husband, down at his warehouse?” She stops, doubled over in pain. She breathes heavily for a moment and then straightens up. “And could you send the de Jonghs’ groom to this address?” She shoves a piece of paper into Mrs. Molenaer’s hand. “It is where the midwife lives. Tell him it’s urgent.”

Mrs. Molenaer rises to her feet. “My dear, I will come to the house with you—”

“No! My maid will attend on me until the midwife arrives.” Sophia hurries out. Mrs. Molenaer frowns. Why on earth didn’t the maid deliver the message herself? Fancy letting her mistress do it, in her state. What a fat, lazy slattern that Maria is! Mrs. Molenaer has always thought so. Whenever she has seen her lately the girl seems to be sitting down, taking a break from her none-too-onerous duties. She has grown huge with sloth. And she’s pert too.

Mrs. Molenaer washes Ludolf’s bottom with a damp cloth. Her maidservant would not behave like that. But then she has always been blessed with excellent servants. It is just another aspect of her great good fortune.

41

Cornelis

How you stare at this flower, which seems to you so fair,
Yet it is already fading in the sun’s mighty glare.
Take heed, the one eternal bloom is the word of God.
What does the rest of the world amount to? Nothing.

—JAN BRUEGHEL THE ELDER

Cornelis paces up and down. Cries of pain float down from Sophia’s bedchamber. Each cry pierces his heart. If he could but bear the baby for her. He would give up everything—his house, his wealth—to ease her agony.

On the table sits the sandglass. He has already turned it twice; she has been in labor for two hours. He paces back and forth across the floor. The marble squares measure out the intervals between her cries . . . black . . . white . . . black . . . white . . . like some grotesque game of chess.
We
are but playthings of God
.

The room seems unnaturally still, as if it is holding its breath. Outside, it is overcast; daylight barely filters through the window. On the shiny oak table, with its bulbous legs, sit the sandglass, an uneaten apple and a pair of polished candlesticks. They look like the stillest of still lifes.
Natures mortes
, the French call them—a phrase that has always unsettled him.

A yell comes from upstairs—hoarse, indescribable, an inhuman noise that drains his blood. On the wall hangs
Susannah and the Elders
. Her plump flesh taunts Cornelis.

He used to find it arousing—how disgusting that seems now, for look where his brutish desires have led him: to inflict this suffering on the woman he loves best in the world. How obediently Sophia submitted to his lust, night after night, and what is the result? This horror, where he cannot follow her.

Oh, most powerful and glorious God, we Thy creatures, but
miserable sinners, do in this our hour of distress cry unto Thee for
help . . . save her, oh, Lord . . .

Black . . . white . . . black . . . white . . . now there are fewer steps between her cries. The contractions are coming faster.

Look down, we beseech Thee, and hear us calling out of the
depth of our pain . . . hear me, oh, Lord my God . . .

Black . . . white . . .

For we adore Thine divine majesty and implore Thy goodness
. . . help, Lord, and save us for Thy mercy’s sake . . .

The midwife hurries downstairs and into the room. “Please send for Doctor Sorgh,” she says.

“What has happened?”

“There is no cause for alarm. I simply need some assistance.”

The midwife tells him the doctor’s address. Where is that damn maid? Cornelis grabs his cloak; he will have to go himself. How could Maria disappear when she is most needed? Upon his arrival home, when he rushed in to see Sophia, she told him that Maria had popped out on an errand to the tailor’s, but that was hours ago. The tailor’s shop is only a few streets away. Where in God’s name is she?

Cornelis rushes out to get the doctor himself. It has started to rain.

42

Jan

Grasp all, lose all.

—JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

In a fug of tobacco smoke Jan paces up and down his studio. Outside it is raining. Noon . . . He has turned the sandglass three times since the urchin brought Sophia’s note. Maria has been in labor for three hours.

Jan feels helpless—a mere man, when two women are in danger. For weeks, absorbed by his own business, he has hardly given Maria a thought. Now he feels for her with every bone in his body. He fears for them both; Sophia is taking her own terrible gamble. What a woman she is. What women they are! He is impotent. He can do nothing except smoke pipe after pipe of tobacco. In sympathy, his stomach is gripped by cramps. He urges Maria to give birth to a healthy child, for its delivery will be his deliverance.

Oh, Lord, if in Thy wisdom Thou spare this woman, I will
mend my ways and serve Thee in righteousness all the days of my
life . . .

He needs God now. How blithely he has broken one Commandment after another:
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’swife . . . Thou shalt not commit adultery
. . . How he laughed at Sophia’s religious scruples. Once they leave Holland he will become a changed man. He might even convert to Catholicism.

He pictures Batavia. He has more information about the place now. Gone are its pagan palm trees and sensual self-indulgence; that was simply a daydream. Batavia, he has learned, is altogether more sensible. Built on the ruins of ransacked Jakarta, the town is growing into a little Amsterdam: gabled dwellings, canals, bridges, a courthouse and churches. There are even mills to pull energy out of the suffocating heat.

Jan makes a bargain with God. If in His goodness He spares them and they survive the journey, he and Sophia will live like model citizens. They will be pillars of this new colony and go to church twice every Sunday. He promises God this, with all his heart.

43

Cornelis

Mankind’s hopes are fragile glass and life is
therefore also short.

—ANON.

Cornelis lets the doctor into the house. They are both soaking wet. Doctor Sorgh makes for the stairs. When Cornelis tries to accompany him he puts his hand on his arm. “Remain here, sir,” he commands.

“But I—”