Tulip Fever (27 page)

CORNELIS SITS, NUMB. Around him swirl currents of activity. He hears muffled voices upstairs; doors opening and closing. Heavy footsteps descend the stairs; strange men are removing his wife. Something bumps against the wall. Cornelis cannot bear to look up. What right have they to do that? She does not belong to them.

A cup of hot gruel has been placed in his hand. He has a sense that Mrs. Molenaer is here fussing over him, fussing with the baby. It is the middle of the night, but the neighboring women are rallying round. He is sure they are being kind but he hasn’t the energy to thank them, nor even see who they are.

None of this is happening. He cannot take it in; it is still a dream. Sophia is playing a joke on him, as she joked with her sisters. She is too alive to die. Her sewing frame lies on her chair, where she left it; her foot warmer sits on the floor waiting for her long narrow foot to place itself on it again. When he opens his eyes she will be sitting there, lifting her face to smile at him before she bends down again to her work. The light is dim; she raises the sewing frame closer to her face. She shifts in her seat, with a little sigh, to rest the other foot on the warmer.

God cannot play this cruel trick on him yet again. What sort of God is this, who would do it? . . . Cornelis is on the beach . . . he is a boy again. His father presses a shell to his ear. A roaring fills his head—a roaring from far away.
“It is
the breath of God,”
says his father.
“Everything in your heart,
He can hear it.”

OUTSIDE, THE ROAR HAS SUBSIDED. The storm is over. Cornelis seems to be lying in his bed, in the Leather Room. He gazes at the window. Dawn has broken; gray light filters through the thick panes of glass. He can now feel Sophia’s absence in the house—a hollowness, a stillness, simply the lack of her. His wife has been washed away like driftwood; how quietly, how uncomplainingly she has slipped in and out of his life. His years with her seem like a dream, dreamed up by an old man who has gazed into paintings and known that, even if those people ever stood there, poised in a room, they have long since gone. They are but shadows . . . the gleam of a dress, burgundy red in the candlelight, the tilt of a head, the proffered glass of wine that has long since been drunk. That was never drunk in the first place. They have gone, and even his pictures are turned to the wall.

He thinks: art remains in the present tense, long after we humans are consigned to dust. He feels this has some significance, but he is too fatigued to work out the meaning.

He must have been dozing. The doctor, before he went, gave him a draft of something chalky and bitter. Grief has not hit Cornelis yet; it waits in the shadows like a footpad.

Maria comes in. He has forgotten about Maria. She looks unsteady on her feet; for a moment he thinks she is drunk. Staggering into the room as if she is in pain, she supports herself by holding on to a chair.

She says: “This is a terrible loss, sir.” She looks all disordered—gray, damp face; matted hair.

He vaguely remembers that she should have been here— where was she?—but his brain is fuddled. Besides, he has no energy to rebuke her now.

“Oh, sir, what can I say?”

“My poor girl.” She is not drunk; he realizes this now. She is just overcome with grief. “I can see this has devastated you too.”

She sits down heavily in the chair. “Oh, sir,” she says.

“You look quite undone.”

She nods, wordlessly, and gazes into the crib. There is a tiny, mewling sound, a sound in miniature. He has forgotten about the baby. Maria leans over—she stops halfway, grimacing in pain—then she lifts out the moving bundle.

“What has happened tonight, sir, is very terrible. It is God’s will that your wife was taken, but it is also His will that He has given you a daughter.” She holds the baby in her arms and strokes the damp, dark hair. “A beautiful, healthy daughter and for that we must be thankful.” She kisses the baby, breathing in her scent. “I will care for her as if she was my own child.”

Cornelis starts crying—deep, racking sobs. He has no energy to hide this from her. When Maria sees him her own eyes brim with tears. She moves beside him and places his daughter in his arms.

46

After the Storm

They are generally not so long-lived, as in better airs, and begin to decay early, both men and women, especially at Amsterdam . . . Plagues are not so frequent, at least not in a degree to be taken notice of, for all suppress the talk of them as much as they can, and no distinction is made in the registry of the dead, nor much in the care and attendance of the sick; whether from a beliefof predestination, or else a preference for trade which is the life of the country before that of particular men.

—WILLIAM TEMPLE, Observations upon the Netherlands, 1672

After the storm the city lies becalmed. It is a sunny morning, still and cold. Branches litter the streets like broken limbs. People clear away the wreckage. They swarm around like ants whose anthill has been scuffed; how doggedly they rebuild their lives. The Dutch are a hard-working, resourceful people; when their land is flooded they pump out the water and drain it again. They are used to repairing the ravages caused by the wrath of God, for He has sent these tempests to test them.

Along the Herengracht the sun shines on the great gabled houses. It warms their new red brickwork and the stone scrollwork around their doors; it blazes on the leaded glass of their many windows. How impressive they are. Monuments to the wealth and good fortune of those who live within them, for this is the noblest street in the city.

The opposite side of the street, however, is plunged in shadow. There is a hush about it; the blind windows reveal no sign of life. In Cornelis Sandvoort’s house the shutters are closed. During the night a death occurred; he lost his young wife in childbirth. He is a widower for the second time. Neighbors pause outside, shaking their heads. How cruel, for it to happen to him again when he should surely expect his wife to outlive him, providing him with comfort in his declining years. And some say that she was suffering from a pestilence too. Just a rumor, but the body has been removed for the safety of her surviving family. There will be no days of mourning around an open casket.

Mr. Sandvoort must be sleeping; he was up all night. The neighbors do not yet disturb him, to offer their condolences. But if they listen carefully they can hear, through the shutters, the faint mewl of a baby. One life has been taken, to bring another into the world.

47

Jan

He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet and drinketh damage.

—PROVERBS 26

Jan is woken by a knock at the door. The sun is shining; it is midday. After his tumultuous night he fell asleep at dawn and slept like the dead.

Gerrit stands there. He looks awkward—his hands hanging, his big meaty face blushing. “Just come to say good-bye, sir, and to express my best wishes for the future.”

“Ah! You’ve come for your money.”

Gerrit shuffles his feet.

“Let me get dressed,” says Jan, “and I will go and fetch it for you.”

“I’ll come back later—”

There is another knock at the door. Gerrit opens it while Jan pulls on his breeches. Doctor Sorgh comes in. He looks exhausted—gray skin, bruised shadows around his eyes.

Jan gives him a chair. “I received the message.”

Sorgh nods. “It all went according to plan. A straightforward delivery, thank the Lord; she is a healthy young woman.”

Jan is still groggy. For a mad moment he thinks the doctor means Sophia. Then he realizes. “I’m most grateful to you,” he says, buttoning up his shirt.

“I have come to collect the balance.” The doctor indicates the servant. “Can we talk freely?”

Jan shakes his head. His bladder is bursting. He wishes the doctor would come back later, when he can think clearly. It is hard to think of payment for something he can scarcely believe has happened.

He says to Gerrit: “Go into the kitchen and fetch some wine for Doctor Sorgh.”

Gerrit leaves. Doctor Sorgh says: “You have the bill for my services and those of the midwife. There is a small extra charge for the—shall we say pallbearers? They were not included in the original agreement.” He passes him a piece of paper. “But it adds little to the final amount.”

“Come back this afternoon, at your pleasure, and I will settle up with you then.”

Jan explains the situation. How, a month earlier, he bought the Semper Augustus bulb for a large sum. The grower, Mr. van Hooghelande, has been guarding the bulb for him under the tightest security.

“You know what’s happened to its value these past few days?” Jan’s voice rises in excitement. “The price doubled, then slumped, and now, if I can believe the information I’ve been given—and there’s no reason to doubt it; my source is impeccable—when trading closed last night the price had reached four times the sum I paid for it, and today it rose again!”