Tulip Fever (31 page)

55

Gerrit

The pot goeth so long to the water, til at last it commeth broken home.

—JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

Gerrit’s head swims. Outside, apparently, the performers and the donkey have disappeared. It’s magic—puff, and they’re gone. Here in this smoky tavern, however, they have taken on the stuff of legend.

Word has passed from drinker to drinker. In the telling the donkey has grown smaller—
just a little mite, just a baby
. The man has grown into a monster of evil and now he is firmly believed to be a Spaniard.

Gerrit swells with pride. Apparently, now, the donkey is his own little country—so vulnerable, so brave. The Spaniard tries to beat it into submission.
Down
, he orders.
Down on your knees!
And along comes Gerrit the Brave, the toast of the tavern, the toast of the city, the toast of his people who struggle against their Popish invader.

It’s heady stuff, being a hero. Gerrit says he’s hungry and here, in front of him, the huge breasts hove into view. Mistress what’s-her-name—she’s told him but he cannot remember—she places in front of him a platter of smoked herring, bread and cheese.

Gerrit feels profoundly contented. Everybody is roaring drunk and so is he. He’s told them his life story and they have drunk to that. He told them about when he was a child, how he worked a treadwheel in a ropeworks; their eyes brimmed with tears. He told them about the time he fell through the ice; they roared with laughter. He told them about working for Jan van Loos. “Five years I’ve served him and tomorrow I’m a free man.” They raise their glasses and drink to that. They are his orchestra and he is the conductor. And he has lost his stutter; the words flow from his lips.

Munching a mouthful of fish, he tries to remember that thing about magic. What did he think? It seemed clever at the time. He is a bit befuddled but if he tries hard . . . He doesn’t want to lose his audience now.

“Magic, it’s like this, see.” He picks up the package of pigments and fumbles open the string. “Here’s these lumps of colors . . . my master—hey presto!—he turns them into trees, into beautiful ladies . . .” Inside, there is an onion. He has opened the wrong parcel. He chuckles. “Hey presto, it’s an onion!”

Another roar of laughter. Magic, see? Actually, an onion is just what he fancies; he is partial to an onion with his herring. “That’s no onion,” says somebody, but Gerrit doesn’t hear.

Somewhere behind him a fiddler strikes up a tune. People move away and start singing.

Gerrit picks up the knife and laboriously—he had better be careful, the knife’s sharp—he peels off the skin. His hands refuse to obey him. Shaking with merriment, he admonishes them. “Don’t be dunces,” he tells them. Clumsily they are slicing up the onion. Today everything strikes him as hilarious—donkeys, onions, life.

He shovels in a mouthful of herring. Then, with the knife, he spears a round of onion and shoves it in too. Mm . . . He’s ravenous . . . as hungry as a horse, as hungry as a donkey . . . The attention has moved away from him but he doesn’t mind. He concentrates on eating.

He sits there bent over his plate. He shovels in the onion and the herring; he tears off a piece of bread and stuffs that into his mouth too. Something tastes curious but he is too hungry to care. Mouth half full, he shoves in some more. He gobbles it all up and soon it is gone.

Look! Just like magic. His plate is empty.

Gerrit leans back in the settle and belches with satisfaction.

56

Sophia

Every sin carries its own punishment.

—JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

Lysbeth, Mattheus’s wife, carries a pile of costumes into the room and heaps them onto the bed. I shall need something to wear for my journey down to the harbor; the luggage will be sent separately from Jan’s house.

“You can choose a disguise,” says Lysbeth. “They belong to my husband; he keeps them here for his clients. Some of them like dressing up for their portraits. A grocer down in the Rokin, he and his wife had themselves painted as the Archangel Gabriel and the Madonna.”

I could escape as the Virgin Mary! After all, she is accustomed to miracles. I blush at this blasphemous thought—I am not myself tonight—but no thunderbolt strikes me. And I have got away with worse.

Lysbeth sits down on the bed. “It’s so brave.” She sighs. “Faking your death, eloping to the East Indies, and all for love.”

“I have done a terrible thing.”

“I do envy you,” she says. This sounds heartfelt. Mattheus isn’t an easy man to live with. Outside the room, children thunder up and down the stairs. There are seven of them. Lysbeth bears them uncomplainingly, just as she patiently bears her husband’s numerous infidelities and bouts of drunkenness. Jan has told me all about them. Mattheus lives a precarious life. His fortunes rise and fall— as well as painting, he deals in pictures and property and makes some spectacular losses. Once, the bailiffs came to cart away their furniture and only left the bed because, at the time, Lysbeth was giving birth in it. She is a docile, long-suffering wife and she supports her husband through thick and thin. Mattheus invariably crawls home; she always forgives him for she is a real Christian; she does not finger her rosary mouthing lies, as I do.

I look at the heap of costumes. How shall I depart: as Pallas Athena? As a Jewish Bride? I can be a figment of my own imagination. If I were an angel I could fly to Batavia. They lie on the bed, the other selves I could become. The prospect is dizzying. I could become a creature of mythology, who never existed. No—who exists more vividly than the millions of us who simply die, uncelebrated in anyone’s imagination.

How strange I feel today. It is hardly surprising. I have disappeared from the world. I have no idea what the future holds. What is Batavia? A jumble of syllables and a vision of eternal summer. The fog of Holland lifts like a curtain to reveal—what? I have thrown away everything—my marriage, my family, my life in that great house—for invisibility. For love.

Mattheus’s voice booms up through the floorboards. “Sit on his knee, dear! Arms around him—here—like this.”

The pupils have gone. Now Mattheus has hauled in some drunks from the local alehouse. According to Lysbeth he is painting his fifteenth
Peasants Carousing
. Or is it
Merrymakers in a Brothel
? They are painted to give both enjoyment and moral instruction, depicting the disastrous consequences of inebriation and sensual indulgence. Mattheus has his favorite models, but they are often in a state of inebriation themselves. Judging by his voice, so is he. But he will get it painted; he is a true professional and besides, he has the stamina of an ox.

Time passes. Outside, the low winter sun has slipped behind the church. I wish Jan would come. He should have sold the bulb by now. I want to see him. I want to run my fingers over his face and know that he is alive. Until then I do not know if I am living or dead. Tonight is our last night in this country. I still cannot believe it.

A guffaw floats up through the floorboards. “I said carousing,” yells Mattheus. “Not bloody fucking!” There is a bellow of laughter.

Suddenly Lysbeth says: “I’d cut off my right arm to keep him sober.”

She leaves, abruptly.

57

Jan

He that lies down with dogs gets up with fleas.

—JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

It is six o’clock. A great flaming sunset, a sunset that suffused the sky with fire, has long since been extinguished. Darkness has fallen. In Jan’s studio a small crowd has now gathered. Men sit on the bed; they lean against the wall smoking their pipes. Throughout the afternoon his creditors have gathered here one by one. Doctor Sorgh, the landlord and the boy from the East India Company have been joined by the butcher, the tavern keeper and a local loan shark, to all of whom Jan owes large sums of money. Each time there is a knock at the door Jan springs up: “He’s here!” But Gerrit has still not returned.

Food and drink have been brought in. At first glance it looks as if Jan is holding a party. There is, however, little conversation. Stony-faced, his creditors wait. They are going to sit it out. Doctor Sorgh takes out his pocket watch yet again and looks at it. The butcher leans against the wall, cracking his knuckles. They look like the grimmest of passengers waiting for a coach that will never arrive.

Outside in the street, another small crowd has gathered. Word has got around: Jan van Loos is taking delivery of the most valuable tulip bulb in the world. If rumor can be believed, its price today has risen sky-high. Whispers pass from person to person. It is worth a chest full of gold; it is worth a ship filled with gold; it is worth a fleet of ships filled with gold; it is worth the entire contents of Stadholder Frederik Hendrik’s Treasury. It is worth enough gold to feed every man, woman and child in the Republic for all their lives. It’s worth all the gold of this Golden Age and then more.