Tulip Fever Read online

  For a moment he loses her. She has darted left, down the Berenstraat. A dog barks, flinging itself against a closed door. Where is she going, and why so fast? It is dark now. She avoids the main thoroughfares; she darts down side alleys, flitting like a ghost. Behind shutters, men roar with laughter. Light briefly illuminates her, as she passes a window. Then she is gone, swallowed up by the night.

  She is running now. How light she is; she is almost flying! Willem pants behind her, keeping his distance. But she never turns; she seems oblivious. Pots clatter in kitchens; roasting meat mingles with the smell of drains.

  Behind doors people are eating their dinners but Willem feels oddly sealed off. It is as if he and this flitting figure have become detached from the normal life of the city. It is just him and her, drawn by some powerful tide. His lungs burn; his purse bumps against his thigh.

  They are in the Bloemgracht now. Maria taps at a door. Willem hides behind one of the trees that line the street. He hears a tiny, wet sneeze, strangely human. It is a puppy, playing in the dust. It darts at his leg; he nudges it away with his foot.

  The door opens. Candlelight flickers on Maria, briefly, and she steps in.

  Willem’s heart is hammering. He crosses the street and approaches the window. The lower half is closed by shutters. The upper glass, however, is illuminated from within. Willem thinks: perhaps it is a doctor’s house. Somebody is ill and Maria has run here for help. He thinks: maybe she is friends with a servant here, to whom she has lent some household item. She needs to retrieve it before her master and mistress return.

  Why then is his heart beating so fast? There is a bench beside the front door. Willem climbs onto it.

  He looks down, into the room. He sees bare floorboards, an easel and a chair. For a moment he thinks that the room is empty but he hears faint voices. Then they move into view.

  It is Maria and a man. He cannot see Maria’s face; she is below him, her back to the window. The man is laughing. He rests his forehead against hers, shaking with laughter. His black curly hair presses against her cap. Then she takes his head in her hands. It is a gesture of the utmost tenderness. She raises his face to hers, her hands threaded through his hair. She holds his face in her hands as if it is the most precious object she has ever held. And then she kisses him.

  Willem’s legs buckle beneath him. He slides down to a sitting position. Then he gets up and stumbles away, blindly.

  19

  Sophia

  Fresh mussels can be compared to

  The blessed women-folk

  Who speak modestly and virtuously

  And always look after their household;

  All wives must regularly bear

  The burden of their mussel-house.

  —ADRIAEN VAN DE VENNE, Tableau of Foolish Senses, 1623

  Jan has already turned the sandglass upside down again. Time is running out, for when this hour has trickled through I must go. How strange, that a heap of sand has contained so much joy! Jan’s past is in there too, measured in grains, but these two hours belong to us.

  “If you were a truly great painter—”

  “If?” he snorts. “If?”

  “Could you paint an hourglass and fill the painting with such joy that everyone who sees it can understand what has happened?”

  He gazes at me tenderly. “Has it ever happened to anyone else like this?”

  We are lying on his bed. Jan drinks from his glass. Then he turns my face to his, opens my lips and spills the sweet wine into my mouth. “It’s you I want to paint—now—just as you are.”

  “No, don’t leave me.”

  He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “How could I possibly?”

  Maria’s clothes, my spent disguise, lie on the floor. They look somehow emptier than normal clothes, as if exhausted by the role they have had to play. They are my chrysalis; I split them and emerged, a creature transformed. I am a butterfly whose life span is just one hour.

  Jan slices a piece of ham. I watch the muscles of his back shift under his skin. “You like the fat?”

  I nod greedily. He slides the slice of ham into my mouth. It is the most corrupt of sacraments. Ah, but it is delicious!

  “I’m committing a mortal sin,” I say, my mouth full. “Has God put His hands over His face and turned the other way?”

  Jan shakes his head. “God’s watching us. If He truly loves us, if He’s a generous God, won’t He want us to be happy?”

  I swallow the ham. “Your faith is like putty. How easily you mold it to your own desires.”

  He spills more wine into my mouth. “Drink His blood then; see if it makes you feel better.”

  “That’s wicked!” I splutter.

  Suddenly the mood is broken. “You know what’s wicked? You know what’s a sin?” Jan’s voice rises. “That you’re locked up in that great tomb with somebody you don’t love—”

  “No—”

  “Who’s caged you up, who’s sucking the life out of you to warm his old bones—”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Who’s bought you like one of his precious paintings and you’ve let yourself be bought!”

  “I’ve not! You don’t know anything. He’s a kind man. You mustn’t talk about him like this. He supports my mother and my sisters, he’s saved my family, without him they’d be destitute—”

  “Exactly. He’s bought you.”

  I start crying. Jan holds me in his arms. He kisses my wet face—my nose, my eyes. I sob because I cannot bear him to tell me this and now our moment is ruined. And all the time the sand is running out.

  “Forgive me, my love,” he murmurs. “I’m just jealous.”

  “Of him?”

  “Of what he has—your sweet face, your sweetness in his house . . .” He stops.

  I cannot tell him the truth, not yet. How the thought of going back to my husband’s bed repulses me. I still feel loyalty to Cornelis, even while I am betraying him.

  I say: “I am not really in the house. I don’t exist there. I’m like an empty husk, like those clothes. I have disappeared from there.” This seems just as much a betrayal, but now I’ve said it and it is too late.

  Jan gazes at me. I point to the print hanging on the wall next to the dismembered plaster limbs. It’s a Day of Judgment. God, in a shaft of light, sits above the writhing bodies. “Can you turn that the other way?” I whisper.

  Jan jumps up and tears the print off the wall. It falls to the floor. Then he comes to me one last time before the sand runs out.

  20

  Willem

  Where the wine is in, the wit is out.

  —JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

  Willem staggers through the streets. He is sobbing; his heart is broken. It is pitch dark; the light in his life has been extinguished. He has walked a long way; he is somewhere near the Nieuwendijk. He feels the chillness of water beside him. Why not just fling himself into the canal and end this torment?

  He hears a roar of laughter. Ahead, he sees a tavern. Light glows through its windows. He hears music and voices raised in song. He hesitates. Where else can he go? What else is he to do now his life is in ruins?

  He pushes open the door. A smell of sweat and tobacco fills his nostrils. The room is crammed with people; how oblivious they are in their merriment! A fiddler scrapes his violin. Women sit on men’s knees, weighing them down; they shift their buttocks, making themselves at home. Couples are dancing, bumping into the furniture. Customers bang their mugs on the table, singing lustily.

  “On Monday morning I married a wife Thinking to live a sober life But as it turned out I’d better been dead Than rue the day that I got wed!”

  Serving girls, holding foaming pitchers of beer, push their way between the bodies. Choking in the tobacco smoke, Willem sits down.

  “On Tuesday morning I went to the wood Thinking to do my wife some good, I cut a twig of holly so green, The roughest and toughest that ever was seen . . .”

  “What’s up wit
h you, you miserable gek? Come to drown your sorrows?”

  The man sitting next to him raises his eyebrows.

  Willem wipes his nose on his sleeve. Blubbing, at his age! The humiliation of it.

  “Women,” Willem replies. “Women trouble.” He speaks like a man of experience.

  The fellow nods his head. “Women! They’re all the same. Can’t trust ’em an inch, the sletten.”

  “I walloped her leg and I walloped her wig,

  Until I broke my holly twig . . .”

  He has a kind face, this fellow. His cheek is disfigured by a scar. It runs to his chin, pulling down one eye. This gives him a sorrowful look. He, too, has been in the wars.

  “On Sunday morning I dined without A scolding wife or a bawling bout, I could enjoy my bottle and friend And have a fresh wife at the week’s work’s end!”

  Willem decides to confide in his fellow drinker. He tells him how much he loved Maria and the surprise he was bringing her tonight.

  “I’m not a gambling man, you understand, but I thought I would give it a try. This fellow I know, he tipped me the wink. Admiral Pottebackers, they’re the ones, he said, they’re going to go through the roof. A small investment now and in a couple of months you’ll rake it in. I liked the name, being a patriotic sort of fellow and seeing the ships go by where I grew up. There was other admirals to choose from, plenty of tulips called admirals’ names, but I plumped for that.”

  “And did you?”

  “What?” asks Willem.

  “Rake it in?”

  Willem nods and pats his purse. “Know what I started with, what I scraped together? Nearly ruined me too. Ten florins.”

  “And how much is in there?”

  Tears well into Willem’s eyes. “I was going to tell her tonight—I can put this money toward a little shop, maybe with lodgings above, I won’t have to tramp the streets, I can give her a home and we can get married.” He starts sobbing.

  “How much, you poor tosspot?”

  “Seventy-eight florins, that’s how much.” Willem wipes his nose on his sleeve. “It’s a blessed miracle. I don’t make that much money in six months, not unless I’m lucky; it’s a miracle come to me just like that, just a few old bulbs, but where’s my darling to share it?”

  The fellow seems to have bought him a brandy. Willem gulps it down; it burns his throat.

  “Women!” says the man. “Fuck ’em.” He snorts with laughter. “Fuck ’em, that’s all they’re good for.”

  He clicks his fingers; Willem’s glass is refilled.

  “Drink up, we’ve all been diddled by them, the scheming little cows, but you’re with friends here. And this is an honest place—can’t be too careful, carrying cash like that around—it’s an honest establishment, they don’t water the wine here, they don’t stuff rags in the beer pitchers, not like some places I know.”

  “A boy to me was bound apprentice Because his parents they were poor I took him from the Haarlem poorhouse All for to sail on the Spanish shore . . .”

  Willem’s head swims; he is unaccustomed to strong spirits. Then there is a girl sitting opposite him. She seems to have appeared from nowhere.

  “Allow me to introduce my little sister Annetje,” says the man. “She’s had her heart broken too, haven’t you, my sweet?”

  The girl sighs. “Oh, I’ve been led up the garden path and no mistake.”

  “My poor little innocent sis,” says the fellow. “This is—”

  “Willem.”

  “That’s a nice name.” She is not as pretty as Maria; she has a bony little face with two pink blotches on her cheeks. But when she smiles her eyes twinkle. “Where do you come from, Willem?”

  He tells her the name of his fishing village. “It’s just a little place, you won’t know of it.”

  “Oh, yes, I do,” she replies. “I was born near there.” She moves round and sits next to him, nice and snug. “You and me, we’re two of a kind.” She gestures around the room. “They don’t understand what it’s like for us, this big wicked city, what it’s like for you and me. This man, he lured me here. He said he loved me and then when I wouldn’t submit to his filthy lust—I’m only a poor girl but I’m keeping my precious gift, it’s the only treasure I possess—when I wouldn’t submit to him he threw me out, into the street, without even a good-bye.” Her eyes are brimming with tears. “I loved him just like you did, like you said.”

  Willem puts his arm around her. He can feel her sharp shoulders; compared with his comfortable Maria she feels as frail as a bird. “Don’t cry,” he says. “I’ll look after you.”

  More drinks are put in front of them. Annetje raises her glass. “Here’s to us and the folks back home.”

  He gulps it down. Warmth spreads through him; the room sways. “She’s so pretty,” he says. “I knew she couldn’t love a dolt like me.”

  Annetje snuggles against him. “I think she’s stupid. I think you’re very handsome.” She puts her hand on his knee.

  He is on a ship; the room rocks to and fro. Bunches of hops, hanging from the ceiling, sway in time to the stamping feet. Annetje’s brother seems to have disappeared.

  “Here’s a health to the man and the maid,

  Here’s a health to the jolly dragoon,

  We’ve tarried here all day and drunk down the sun

  Let’s tarry here and drink down the moon!”

  He gazes around. He loves them all. Dimmed by smoke, they seem to be dancing in a dream, and now Annetje has dragged him to his feet and they are dancing too, except his feet won’t do what he tells them to do. He staggers; she props him upright. She grips him tight; she has strong little arms. Up on the wall a row of plates loom forward and recede; surely they will topple down and crash.?

  Time passes; he seems to have been here forever. The music quickens and now Annetje is laughing. Her teeth are stained by tobacco; with a vague sort of surprise he realizes that she is very young, hardly more than a girl. Where is her brother? The fellow should be looking after her. She presses herself against Willem and he feels a shameful stir of desire. How could he, when he loves Maria? The minx. The trollop. Fuck ’em.

  “You’re happy now.” Annetje giggles in his ear. “Something tells me you’re getting very happy.” She clutches him tighter, rubbing herself against him. “Want to take me home?”

  He nods. He must look after her. She is lost, like himself; they must comfort each other. And her hard, insistent little body is making his bones melt.

  She leads him through the crowd. An old lady grins at them, baring her gums. She says something to Annetje, who leans over and whispers in her ear. Somebody bumps against Willem; he staggers and regains his balance. Looking at the woman again, he realizes that she is not old, in fact—hardly beyond thirty years. His brain is befuddled. Nothing, tonight, is what it seems.

  Gripping his hand, Annetje leads him upstairs.

  “Where do you live?” he asks.

  “My lodging is here,” she says. “I’ve got a little room. We’re one big happy family.”

  They walk down a narrow passage. There are doors on both sides. Behind one of them a woman shrieks with laughter. It’s an eerie sound, like a bird he used to hear at night on the marshes.

  And then Annetje has closed the door behind them. It is a tiny room, just space for a bed. Willem’s wits are slow at the best of times; it is only now that, drunkenly, he realizes what she is. For a moment he is disappointed; another dream vanishes. Then he is relieved. She is a prostitute. He doesn’t have to protect her now; he can do what he wants with her.

  The thought arouses him. He has never been with a prostitute before, but all the other fellows have—the fishermen he deals with, the stall holders down in the market. Even his younger brother Dierk, if he can believe him.

  “Don’t be shy,” Annetje whispers, pulling him onto the bed. She lies next to him. It is a tight fit; he is jammed against the wall. She takes his hand under her skirt and pushes his finger into her hole. Ho
w warm and slippery it is! “See how wet you’ve made me?” she groans. “Something tells me you’re a big boy. . . . Got a surprise for me in there?”

  With fast, expert fingers she unlaces Willem’s breeches and slides her hand inside. His member is standing up stiff and strong. “Fuck me!” she gasps. Her surprise sounds genuine. His member is indeed enormous. When he was younger it had embarrassed him, this great heavy thing rearing up, but now he feels a certain innocent pride in it. “Funny puppy’s face,” she says. “You’d never guess it . . . what a truncheon!”

  She strokes it; her breath quickens. He, too, can hardly bear it. He is trembling; in a moment he will spurt through her fingers.

  “Aren’t I the lucky girl tonight,” she murmurs.

  “How much?” This is what a man should ask.

  “A joystick like yours, I’ll do you for free.”

  She lays him on his back, hoists up her skirts and starts to mount him. Then she pauses. “Oh-oh, nature calls,” she says. “Must have a piss; be back in a moment.” She climbs off him, bends down and gives it a kiss. “Now, you stay there, you big bad boy.”

  The door closes. Her footsteps patter away down the passage.

  Willem lies there, throbbing. His confused brain can hardly remember what has happened tonight. Maria? She is lost to him now. The bed gently rocks on the swell of his inebriation. He feels seasick, but not unpleasantly so. He has joined the men now; soon he will be inside her hot little kut and he can do what he likes with her, nothing will surprise her. He gazes down his body. Sturdily, in eager anticipation, the crimson head rears up.

  I’ll do you for free. His heart swells. If Maria could see him now! A tough little whore and she’s going to do him for nothing. That’s the sort of man Maria has spurned. He lies there, grinning. Aren’t I the lucky girl tonight!