Tulip Fever (34 page)

He misses her chuckling laugh and her chapped hands, her robust good humor and sudden lapses into dreaminess. He misses her body. He has traveled the world but its center of gravity lies between her sheets.
East or west, home is
best
. He is a Dutchman, through and through.

Maria might be married; she might have left Mr. Sandvoort’s employment and gone to live with the man in whose passionate embrace Willem last saw her. She might have forgotten all about him. Of course he has thought of this, every hour of every day, but it will not deter him from trying to find her. He is a grown man, now, with money in his pocket. He has faced worse foes than this. And if he loses the battle and finds that she no longer loves him . . . this is something he cannot contemplate, not tonight.

The houses of the Herengracht loom up in the moonlight. The bells toll eight; Willem smells cooking. Behind their shutters the families will be eating their dinners. How strange, yet familiar, these houses seem. In his former life he has knocked on their doors.
Fresh cod! Fresh haddock!
Such a journey he has made, through such storms, and to them it is simply a night like any other. Under his feet the street still sways with the swell of the sea. He has dreamed about returning here for so many months that he can hardly believe it is happening; he will wake up and find he is still swaying in his hammock on his rocking ship. The moon accompanies him in the water, his light of navigation.

He reaches the house. His heart beats faster. For a moment his courage fails him. Maria was his friend, that is the terrible thing; she was his dearest companion and now he dreads to see her. He shifts the bag onto his other shoulder and walks up to the front door. The window shutters are open. He looks through the glass.

In the front room an oil lamp glows on the table. The chairs are covered with black cloth and the paintings are turned to face the wall.

Willem stands, rooted to the spot. The blood drains from his body. Maria has died. He knows this is a stupid reaction. She is a servant; her death would not plunge a house into mourning. Besides, she is too young to die. The idea is unthinkable. The world, however, is full of strangeness. He can presume nothing anymore.

It is, of course, the old man who has passed on. That is the obvious explanation. It must be recent. Maria and her mistress will be in mourning—if, that is, Maria still lives in the house. She has probably married and moved away months before. She may not even know that her old employer has died.

All this passes through Willem’s head as he knocks on the door—diffidently, as a sign of respect. A long time passes. He knocks again, more loudly this time.

Finally he sees movement inside the house. A flickering candle appears in the front room. Willem presses his nose against the windowpane. The old man, wearing his cap and dressing gown, looms out of the darkness and shuffles across the room. The candlelight burnishes his beard. There is the grind of bolts, then the sound of a key. The door is opened.

Willem gathers his wits. “I am sorry to disturb you, sir. I have come to see Maria. Is she still in your employment?”

The old man peers at him. “Who are you?”

“I am Willem. I used to sell you fish. She is an acquaintance of mine.” He tries to swallow. “She is not dead, is she?”

Mr. Sandvoort stares at him. “No.” He shakes his head. “No, she is not dead. Follow me.”

Willem closes the door behind him and follows Mr. Sandvoort across the parlor, through the back room and down the passage. The old man pauses. “No,” he says. “It was my wife who died.”

“Your wife?”

Willem, stumbling on the steps, follows him down into the kitchen. Warmth and a smell of cooking greet him. The table is laid for two. Maria sits in the corner, washing a baby.

She straightens up and stares at him. “Willem!”

Her face lights up, then her expression hardens. Willem looks from her to the baby. For a mad moment he thinks that the baby belongs to her and the old man—the scene looks so domestic, almost as if they are married. His head spins.

Maria rises to her feet. Her eyes are narrowed to slits. The baby dangles from her hands as if she is holding up a prize salmon. She starts wrapping it in a cloth.

“What are you doing here?” she asks coldly.

“I came to see you.”

She looks at his clothes. “Where have you been?”

“I joined the navy,” he says. “We docked tonight.”

Mr. Sandvoort addresses Maria. “Are you all right, my dear?”

She nods and sits down heavily. Willem perches on a chair. He feels unwelcome but he is not going to leave, not yet. He must say something to the old man. “I am so sorry, sir, that your wife passed away.”

“She died in childbirth,” says Maria. “This is her baby. Her name is Sophia.”

“Ah.” Willem feels uncomfortable. Maria is still looking at him coldly, through narrowed eyes. She doesn’t look pleased to see him at all. There is no ring on her finger but that proves nothing. She might be carrying on with this man illicitly; after all, she did the same thing with Willem. He feels a stab of pain. How rosy she looks in the firelight!

Mr. Sandvoort clears his throat. “Shall I leave you with this young man, Maria? You will be safe?”

Maria nods. She is still looking at Willem. Mr. Sandvoort leaves the room. They listen to his steps, shuffling away.

“Why did you leave me?” Maria blurts out. “How could you do such a thing?”

“Me? What about you?”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I saw you,” he replies. “With that man.”

“What man?”

“You know who I mean.”

“What man?” Her voice rises. “What man? Where?”

“I followed you that night. I saw you kissing.”

“Kissing? What do you mean?”

“Don’t lie, Maria—”

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand you. Why have you come here, after all these months, if you’re just going to shout at me?”

“I’m not shouting!”

Her eyes fill with tears. “I thought you loved me.”

“Of course I loved you!”

“That was why you left me, was it? Because you loved me? You broke my heart, Willem.” She starts to cry.

“All right,” he says. “If you love me, come away with me.”

“What?”

“Come away with me, now.”

“Now?”

“Marry me.”

“But, Willem—”

“You think I’m not rich enough? I’m not as rich as he is?”

“As
who
is?” she yells.

“I’ve got money—you want money, I’ve got money.” He fumbles in his pocket.

“I don’t want money. What’s the matter with you?”

“Show me you love me. Tell me you’ll come away with me.”

“I cannot.”

“See? You don’t love me.”

“Willem, I can’t leave! I’ve got the baby.”

“Get a nurse.”

“I cannot. I have to stay here with the baby. You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand, all right—”

“You
don’t
!” she shouts.

The baby starts crying.

Maria, her face pink, picks her up. “I cannot leave her, because she’s mine.”

“What?”

“She’s mine, you dolt. She’s mine, she’s ours. She’s
yours
!”

The baby yells. Maria stares, distraught, at Willem. The baby is screaming now.

Maria unlaces her bodice. Her blouse falls from her shoulders. She puts the baby to her breast.

Willem stares at her as she suckles the child. Tiny fingers press at her flesh, as if playing a tune. The baby’s damp curls, plastered to its head, are shockingly black against Maria’s white skin. In the stunned silence he can hear a moist sound as the infant sucks; it is a secret, greedy sound, a sound of focused intensity. He has heard it before, with puppies. His mind works laboriously; he is trying to count back the months. Neither of them hears the door opening.

“Are you all right, my dear? All that shouting—”

Cornelis stops, in the doorway, and stares at Maria. The crying has ceased. In the candlelight Maria is naked to the waist. The old man stares at his baby, drinking at her breast.

62

Jan

Hear my prayers, o Lord, and let my crying come unto Thee.
Hide not Thy face from me in the time of my trouble.

—PSALM 102

Jan, Lysbeth and Mattheus have been searching the streets in three different directions. They are searching at random because nobody can guess where Sophia has gone. Lysbeth suggested she might have returned to her home in the Herengracht, to give herself up and beg her husband’s forgiveness. Jan cannot believe she would do such a thing. Mattheus has suggested she might be heading back to her family in Utrecht, but Jan cannot believe she would do this either.

He hardly listens to their speculations because he knows what Sophia is going to do. That is the terrible thing. He knows her through and through; he knows her inside out. There is only one thing left to her now and it will just be a matter of time before he finds that he is right.

Though what satisfaction can there be in being proved correct? When he returns to the house he finds Mattheus is already there. On the floor lies a sodden blue cloak.

“I found it in the canal,” says Mattheus. “I pulled it out with a stick.”

He says that there was no sign of a body.

“We can go back and look,” he says. “But how can we order the canal to be dragged? How can we look for somebody who is already presumed to be dead?”

63

Cornelis

For I have eaten ashes as if it were bread; and mingled my drink with weeping.

—PSALM 102

Cornelis is in a state of shock. He has suffered many blows in his life but now he feels as if his vital organs have been removed from his body. His frame barely supports him. Willem has poured him a glass of brandy, but Cornelis’s hand is trembling and he cannot raise it to his lips.

His wife is alive. She has faked her death so that she can run away with the painter Jan van Loos.