Tulip Fever (32 page)

“It’s only a
bulb
,” someone says. “They all look the same anyway. How can you tell?”

Indoors, Jan has taken refuge in the kitchen. He cannot bear to see his guests’ faces, and conversation has long since dried up. They are growing mutinous, he can feel it. They are, of course, doubting the existence of this bulb. They suspected he was lying to them and now their suspicions have hardened into certainty. They have been the victims of a colossal confidence trick and however much he has tried to reassure them—telling them that Gerrit will soon be back, that three groups of speculators are waiting at the Cockerel, ready to bid for the bulb—however much he tells them that soon they will have the money in their hands he knows that their faith in him—tenuous at the best of times—has drained away.

Jan sits there, gazing at a pile of fingers; he dropped the plaster arm during packing and swept the bits into the corner. How could he have entrusted Gerrit with the bulb? The man is a half-wit. No—it is Jan himself who is the idiot. He should have insisted on going himself. He could have dragged the doctor with him. He must have been mad.

Sophia must be getting worried. He has hardly had time to think about her; she has faded into the background. Her death, though feigned, seems somehow to have removed her from the drama of the living. She will be waiting for a message that he has cashed in the bulb and discharged his debts; she will be awaiting his arrival. He is due to spend the night with her at Mattheus’s house before they set sail at dawn. Lysbeth is cooking them a celebratory goose.

And then Jan hears it: the faint sound of singing. He goes into the studio and hurries to the window. It is very faint, but it’s heading this way. He recognizes it as a parent, through a jabber of voices, knows the voice of his child.

“Come all you maidens fair That are just now in your prime . . .”

The voice grows nearer. In the street, the crowd titters and moves aside. Gerrit lumbers out of the darkness.

“I’ll have you keep your gardens clean And let no man steal your thyme . . . With a heigh da-di-do and a hey da-di-di . . .”

Gerrit staggers, recovers himself and heads for the front door.

Jan flings it open. Gerrit stumbles in.

“Where in God’s name have you been?” demands Jan. “I told you to come straight home!”

“I been . . .” Gerrit’s speech is slurred. “I been . . . fighting the Spanish . . .” One arm is folded over his chest, protecting something. He waves his other arm wildly in the air. “Swish swish! . . . I fought them and I won.” He gazes, blinking, at the men in the room. “Hello. Having a party? Can I join in?”

“No,” says Jan. “We are not having a party. We are waiting for you.” He sits Gerrit down on a chair. “Where is the package?” He speaks slowly, as if to the deranged. “The packages I asked you to collect. Where are they?”

“Got them here.” Gerrit opens his jerkin, proudly, and pulls out two paper parcels. They are battered by now; the string is coming loose. “Got them, just like you said.”

He passes them to Jan. Jan takes the parcels to the table. The men stare, mesmerized. There is no sound except for Gerrit’s wheezing lungs; he is breathing heavily from his exertions.

Jan unties the first package. Inside lie lumps of pigment, loosely wrapped in tissue paper.

There is a silence. Jan opens the other package. There are crumbs and broken bits of pastry.

“Sorry, sir,” mumbles Gerrit. “G-g-got a bit . . . knocked about a bit . . . fighting, see . . . fighting the Spanish . . .”

Jan whispers: “Where is the tulip bulb?”

Gerrit looks at him; his mouth hangs open. “The what?”

“The third package, Gerrit. It had a tulip bulb in it.”

“The onion? I ate it.”

58

Sophia

If you peel an onion, you cry.

—JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

I have a nosebleed.

“I get them too, when I’m agitated,” says Lysbeth. She is ironing a dress for me to wear. She brings over the hot iron. “Here, lean over this. Let a few drops fall on it; that’ll do the trick.”

I lean over the iron. The drops of blood land with a sizzle. Suddenly I miss Maria and her superstitions. We have been through so much together, more than anyone will ever know, and I will never see her again. I will never find out if she and the baby are thriving. Will her ruse work, the ruse about the wet nurse? Will the baby’s resemblance to Maria become too apparent? These are questions I can no longer ask. Death has removed me from the living and soon I will leave this country for good.

I feel lonely. The only person to whom I have spoken is this woman Lysbeth, whom I have never met before. Where is Jan? I fling back my head and press a handkerchief into my nostrils. The iron didn’t cure my nosebleed. I am full of blood; I am too much alive.

Why isn’t he here? Outside, the church bells peal eight o’clock. Lysbeth goes downstairs to baste the goose. I take out my rosary beads—I was clutching them in my hand when I died, they are all I have with me. “
Holy Mary, Mother
of God
. . .” I count the beads, praying for him to come. It feels wicked, to pray for our treachery to succeed, but I am past redemption now.

At least my nosebleed has stopped. I take off my night-dress and put on the clothes Lysbeth has laid out for me—a shift, a petticoat and a black dress and bodice. I have decided not to wear an exotic disguise; I am not in the mood for any more pantomimes. I shall wear plain black and the blue cloak that the grocer’s wife wore when she was the Madonna.

I sit on the bed, waiting. Outside there is a roar and childish shrieks. Mattheus is chasing his children up and down the stairs.

“I’m the bogeyman! I’m coming to get you!” he bellows.

Lysbeth calls up to him: “Don’t excite them. They won’t eat their dinner.”

Footsteps thunder along the passage and then there is silence. Somewhere outside, far away, a dog barks. I feel cut off from this boisterous family, from life itself. In Utrecht my mother and sisters will be grieving. I cannot bear to think of their tears. I have left Cornelis a note instructing him, in the event of my death, to continue supporting them, but though this may ease their circumstances it will not heal their sorrow. Not far from here, in the house in the Herengracht, Cornelis will be mourning his dead wife. How can I do this to them? How can I be so cruel, to sacrifice their happiness for my own? I can sail to the ends of the earth, but they will remain forever in my guilty heart.

Outside, the church bells toll the quarter. My hands are trembling as I smooth the blue cloak over my knees. Jan should be here by now. What is happening? He has sent no message, nothing.

The house seems strangely quiet. Even Mattheus’s booming voice has stopped. I do not dare to leave this room; the children must not see me.

And then I hear footsteps on the stairs. They are slow, heavy footsteps, the tread of an elderly man.

It is Cornelis. He has opened the coffin and found it filled with sand. He has discovered my deceit.

The stairs creak, as loud as pistol shots, as he approaches. Surprisingly, I stay calm. In fact, a curious feeling of relief spreads through me. It is all over.

The door opens and Jan steps into the room.

He looks terrible. His face is gray; he seems to have shrunk. He sits down on the bed—no greeting, nothing.

He says: “We are ruined.”

IT TAKES ME A WHILE to understand what he is telling me. It is something about Gerrit eating the bulb. What on earth is Jan talking about? He says they have taken everything.

“Who?”

“My creditors. They’ve taken my paintings, my chests, everything.” He pauses. “They want to take out a charge against me. The doctor can’t—if he does, it will all be revealed, what he’s done—but the others may do so. My assets aren’t worth enough to cover my debts. Not a quarter of them.”

It is only then that he takes my hand. He pulls me down beside him on the bed and kneads my fingers.

“I’m so very sorry, my love. I was a fool. But how can even a fool predict something so preposterous?”

There is a silence. “What we did was worse than preposterous,” I say.

We sit there, side by side. I am thinking of our wickedness—our profound and unpardonable wickedness. God was watching us all the time. I knew He was, in my heart.

“We did something very terrible—” I begin.

“Listen, my darling—”

“We did it,” I say. “And we have been punished.”

“We love each other.” He grabs my chin and turns my face to his. “
We love each other
. That’s why we started all this, don’t you remember?”

I cannot reply. I gaze at his face—his blue, glittering eyes; his madman’s hair.

“You have died,” he says. “We cannot stay in Amsterdam; we’ve got to get away. We can still do it. We’ll have to start all over again, with nothing, but we can do it. Can you live with me in poverty?”

I do not listen.
Let me kiss her
, Cornelis cries as he is pulled away from my body. Far away, in the darkness, my mother has lost her daughter.

“We’ll manage, my sweetheart.” Jan speaks with passion. “We can still sail tomorrow; all is not lost. I’ll ask Mattheus to lend us the money for our passage and I will pay him back when I’ve found employment . . . by all accounts there’s plenty of work out there . . .” He clutches my shoulders. “Do not despair, my only darling.”

God has been watching us all the time. God is all-seeing. I knew that, of course; I was just blinded by my own greed. God has done this to punish us.

Jan is looking at me, reading my thoughts. “God will pardon us. Don’t have doubts, Sophia. Not now.”

We sit there in silence. Outside, the dog is barking. A smell of cooking drifts up the stairs. I cannot speak. It all makes sense; it was only a matter of time. There is a terrible symmetry to it: we committed the crime and for this we must be punished. God has driven Gerrit—bumbling, drunken Gerrit—to do His work. It has all fallen into place.

There is a long pause. My mind is made up. I turn to Jan, put my arms around him and kiss him deeply. How passionately he responds, with what relief. I dig my fingers into his hair and cradle his face in my hands. How I have loved him.

Our bodies are pressed together, but bodies tell their own lies. Mine has lied so often in the past. I hold Jan close, drinking in his kisses as if I will never stop. I am betraying him now, just as all those months we have been betraying others.

Then I ease myself out of his arms. “Go and ask him, then,” I say, stroking his hair. “Go and ask Mattheus to lend us the money. I will wait for you here.”