Tulip Fever (8 page)

Jan

If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.

—HORACE, Ars Poetica

The sandglass has emptied. Jan turns it upside down for the second time. It is five o’clock. She is not going to come.

How foolish, to think she would. Gerrit has swept the floor and tidied up the room. This morning his servant returned, chastened and purple-faced, from his drinking binge, but Jan was too distracted to be angry with him. Remorse always makes Gerrit punctilious; he has even rubbed clean the windowpanes, after his fashion. The table is laid for two: smoked meat, cheese, wine and marzipan tarts, powdered with sugar, that Jan bought this morning. Gerrit has been banished to the kitchen. The boy has been sent home.

Sophia will not come. How mad he is to imagine, for a moment, that she might. Why should she risk everything for him? He can offer her nothing, only love.

The sand, just a thread, falls through the pinched waist of the hourglass. So far just a pimple rests on the bottom. As Jan watches, it grows. He doesn’t even know Sophia. He feels he has known her all his life, she has made her home in his heart, but he is just a deluded fool. For a fleeting moment he is actually glad that she’s not coming, for if she stays away she will be saved from possible ruination. He is actually worried for
her
. This is not like him. But then none of this is.

The heap of sand increases. The bigger it grows, the more his hopes fade. Outside in the street two men bellow drunkenly. Jan’s neighborhood, Jordaan, is too disreputable for a refined lady like Sophia. He looks around the studio and sees it through her eyes. The white sheet pinned saggingly to the ceiling; its accompanying cobwebs. The plinth, draped with cloth, where his models sit. On the walls hang curling prints; a large crack runs from floor to ceiling. Plaster casts—a hand, a leg—dangle from hooks. The whole place reeks of linseed oil.

Jan comes from a family of craftsmen. His father is a silversmith and his two brothers are glass painters. He is used to living among the tools of his trade, but how could he have expected a gentlewoman like Sophia to gamble on her reputation for this? He has even had clean sheets put on his bed, in idiotic readiness.

The sandglass is half filled. She is not coming. Jan sits down on the chest and pulls on his shoes. He gazes for the last time at the meal—the long-stemmed wineglasses, the bowl of fruit, the powdered tartlets. Like a still life they will sit there, stilled at four o’clock, forever unconsumed. They are objects pregnant with possibilities, with a future that will now only exist in his imagination. He looks at them with an artist’s eye: the white cloth distorted through the twin glasses, the metallic gleam of knife and jug. Despite everything, this harmonious arrangement pleasures his senses.

“Gerrit!” he calls. “Clear the table. I’m going to the tavern.”

He hears a faint sound. At first he thinks it is the tree outside, tapping at the window. He gets up and puts on his cloak. His legs feel leaden, as if he has been wading through a bog.

He hears the tapping again. It is at the door.

Jan strides across and opens it.

Sophia stands there. “It’s me,” she says.

14

Maria

Love can neither be bought nor sold—its only price is love.

—JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

Maria sits side by side with Willem on the back step. The sun is sinking; the high wall casts the courtyard into shadow. It is a small, enclosed yard and receives the sun only briefly at this time of year. Her broom leans against the wall like a sentry.

Willem strokes her fingers one by one. “You should rub some fat into these, my lovely. Goose fat. That’ll make you a lady.”

“It’ll take more than that,” Maria laughs.

She leans against him. The stone step freezes her bottom but she doesn’t dare move with him into the house; she is not sure if her mistress is still at home. The letter seemed to have upset her; maybe it contained bad news from her family. Since yesterday her mistress has been acting strangely. Twice this afternoon she put on her cloak to go out and then took it off again. The last time Maria saw her she was sitting next to the front door twisting a tendril of her hair around her finger.

“Maria, my darling, I’ve got something to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“I love you and you love me.” Willem puts his hand around her waist. “I think I’m right in saying that.”

“Of course I love you. Yesterday I bubbled over a duck. I feel all shivery when I see you. Can’t you tell?”

“So you and me—let’s get married.”

She nods. Happiness floods her. Over the wall, in the apple tree next door, a blackbird pours out its song like coins, like sweet wine; oh, her head is spinning.

“Of course I want to marry you, Willem, but we don’t have any money.”

“You wait.” He taps the side of his nose. “I’ve got plans.”

“What plans?”

“I can’t divulge them, not at this moment. Suffice it to say that I’m going to make a lady of you and we’ll have a place to live and then we can have babies.”

Babies
. Maria closes her eyes. There are six of them, always six. She can feel them already, fighting for a place on her knee. In her dreams they are fishes but now they are suddenly, sturdily, real. Their laughter echoes with the birdsong.

“How are you going to find this money?” Maria asks.

Willem takes her hand and presses it to his heart. “Trust me, oh, my sweetness, my love.” Already, like a husband, he is taking control. Even his voice sounds deeper. “Let’s just call it a business venture.”

He wants to marry her! Maria gazes at the single flower bed. Shoots have pushed through the soil; how hopeful they are. Lumps of earth have been dislodged by their blunt, blind determination. Spring is here at last. She leans her head on Willem’s shoulder and thinks: in all this city there are no two people as happy as us.

15

Sophia

Those who wade in unknown waters will be sure to be drowned.

—JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

Jan lives on the ground floor of a house in the Bloemgracht, but a mile from my home. He wants to escort me part of the way back, but we must not be seen together, so I slip out of his studio and hurry down the street. The sun is sinking; the sky blushes pink for me. The whole city is blushing, her buildings ruddy with shock. The canal is molten. The water, reflected on the houses, dances on the brickwork. The windows are on fire.

Between my legs I am damp from love.
Only an hour—I
can only stay an hour
. What an hour that was. If I have no other, I shall remember it all my life.

I cross the Wester-Markt, my head down, and cut through a side street. I hurry like a criminal escaping from the scene of my wickedness. The lower parts of the houses here are whitewashed—paint roughly splashed around their doors and windows. If only I, in such a way, could conceal my blemishes.

“Sophia, my dear! Fancy seeing you here.”

I stagger back; we nearly collided.

“Are you walking this way? What a charming dress; you must tell me where you purchased the material.”

It is Mrs. Mijtins, our lawyer’s wife. She hurries along beside me.

“You must tell me your secret.”

“What do you mean?” I ask sharply.

“You’ve been keeping it so well hidden. You promised to tell me but you never did.”

“Tell you what?”

“The name of your dressmaker, of course. Remember, when you came to our musical evening? Mine is utterly incompetent; she came recommended by Mrs. Overvalt but she hardly knows how to turn a hem. And the wretched girl always seems to have a running cold. My, you
do
look well! Burgundy suits you—
such
a pretty fabric—it brings out the color in your cheeks. If only my daughters had your looks—slow down, dear. Oh, those young legs! I can hardly keep up with you.”

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