Tulip Fever

  “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.”

  16

  Jan

  The draperies that clothe figures must show that they are inhabited by these figures, enveloping them neatly to show the posture and motion of such figures, and avoiding the confusion of many folds, especially over the prominent parts, so that these may be evident.

  —LEONARDO DA VINCI, Notebooks

  Painting is an act of possession. All objects, however humble, are gazed upon with the same focused sensuality. Animal, vegetable or mineral, they are all equal; the curve of an earthenware jug is as lovingly painted as a woman’s breast. An artist’s passion is truly dispassionate.

  Now, however, it is different, for he has possessed her. This is the third and final sitting; after today he will take the canvas home and complete it in his studio. Now Jan has touched the body beneath the dress, now he has held Sophia naked in his arms, he is paralyzed. This demure, seated wife is his sweetheart. She is no longer an arrangement of cobalt-blue dress, fur-trimmed jacket and pale skin tones. His composition has been disordered by love.

  Sophia is radiant; she blazes. Surely her husband can sense it, next to him? Cornelis may be a pedantic old fool, but how could he not feel the charge in the room?

  These questions are distracting. Jan realizes that he has been standing, brush in hand, for minutes on end. Cornelis must notice. The apparitions on Jan’s canvas, gaining ghostly shape—these figments of his imagination that bear a passing resemblance to real people—they look rebuffed, as if he has betrayed them too. His brush strokes Sophia into being, but in the painting she will be locked forever into wifeliness, a woman sitting obediently beside her husband.

  That is his excuse, that he has lost her. Jan fears, however, that he cannot paint the truth of her; it is beyond his powers. He blames the convention in which he is trapped, but if he were a great painter she would come alive and radiate love to everyone who will gaze at her on the canvas. They will understand that she is capable of passion. He must convey that or he has failed.

  As he paints he hears her voice. I loved you from the first moment I saw you.

  How surprising she was! He thought that she would swoon from guilt and remorse.

  It’s too late for that now. I wanted to come. I want to be here. Nothing matters, only this.

  When they climbed into his bed he was so overcome that at first he had failed her. What—I’ve ruined myself for nothing? she had whispered, laughing.

  I can’t believe that you’re here, he had replied.

  She had taken his hand. I’m just a woman—here, feel . . . just flesh and blood.

  The world is chaotic. All artists know this, but they try to make sense of it. Sophia has made sense of it for him. She has stitched it together like the most beautiful cloak. Her love has sewn it together and they can wrap it around themselves and be safe from the world. Nobody can reach them.

  Except that they have had one hour alone together and this is her life and Cornelis is here and why cannot he die?

  The library floor is laid with black and white marble squares. It is a human chessboard. Jan narrows his eyes until the room blurs. He lifts up his queen, Sophia. He lands her on the other side of her husband. Then he picks up the husband and flings him away.

  JAN PACKS UP. Cornelis bids him good-bye and goes into another room. They hear his footsteps recede; a far door closes.

  Sophia accompanies Jan to the door. “I was nearly discovered,” she whispers. “A woman saw me, a woman I know.”

  They swing round.

  Maria, tears streaming down her face, comes running across the room. She holds a bird by its leg. “The cat killed it. Look—it’s the blackbird that sings in the apple tree next door.”

  “Poor thing.” Sophia looks at it. “But don’t cry.”

  “It meant so much to me,” sobs Maria. “And you know what’s going to happen when a blackbird dies—”

  “Maria! Stop it.” Sophia ushers Jan into the street.

  “Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning,” whispers Jan. He drops his paint rag. Sophia bends down to pick it up with him. “At the footbridge . . .” He whispers the name of the street.

  “I’m going to bury it in the flower bed,” says the maid.

  17

  Sophia

  The praise of a woman mainly exists in the care she gives to her household. For the turtle is always at home, and carries its house along under all circumstance.

  —J. VAN BEVERWIJK, 1639

  It is raining. I hurry down the Street of Cheeses, down toward the
harbor. The place is deserted. In the shops the huge Goudas sit like boulders; they sit in judgment.

  Maybe he won’t come—not now it is raining. Maybe he doesn’t love me enough. I wish there were some people around. There is safety in crowds; I feel exposed, hurrying along alone. Yet my heart pounds with excitement.

  Over the past week the city has been transformed. Even if he does not come today he exists, he breathes this air and walks these streets. Every building is dear to me because it is also familiar to him. Yet it is a city of the utmost danger. The houses stand here, slap up against the street; they gaze into it. So many windows, the houses are crammed with windows—vast windows here at street level, closest to me, windows jammed together on the upper floors, rows of spying windows topped by a spy hole up at the top, in the gables. Some shutters are closed, some half open. Shadows lurk behind the latticed glass. Behind an open casement— why is it open?—a curtain stirs.

  And then there are all those corners. They are laid with gunpowder; danger waits around each of them. Sophia! Fancy seeing you here . How easily I can be betrayed by those who mean me no harm.

  I slip round a corner. The wind slaps my face. I lean into it but it tries to blow me back, back to the Herengracht where I belong. It is March, but winter has returned; my face is numb with cold. I hurry along beside the canal; the salt air stings my nostrils. The merchants’ houses are tall here, six stories high. Up above me doors open into space. Hoists jut from them; hooks hang suspended above my head.

  Then I see him. Ahead of me is the footbridge; Jan is hurrying toward me on the other side of the canal. He waves; my heart lurches. I knew he would come. I quicken my steps. A boat is approaching. In a few minutes the footbridge will break open, separating me from my beloved. Laughing, I race toward it.

  Jan stops. For a split second I wonder why. Then I see three men, dressed in black, emerging from a warehouse. One of them is my husband. He breaks away from the group and approaches me.

  “My dear love, what are you doing here? You’re soaked.”

  My mind works quickly. Down a side street I see a surgeon’s pole, jutting from a shop. It is striped red, white and blue—red for bleeding, blue for a shave and white for fractures and teeth pulling.

  “I have to have a tooth pulled,” I say. “I have a terrible toothache.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me? Why don’t you go to the surgeon in the Prinsengracht?”

  “Mrs. Mijtins recommended this one.”

  “I will accompany you.” Cornelis turns to the men. “Be so kind and wait for me back in the office.”

  “No, go back to your work.”

  “But—”

  “Please, sir. I will be all right. And look—the rain has stopped.”

  “But you cannot return unaccompanied; you’ll be feeling unwell—”

  “Maria is coming to collect me. Please go.”

  Cornelis pauses, stroking his beard. The two men wait restlessly. I know I have won.

  He kisses me on the cheek and then he leaves. I walk down the side street toward the surgeon’s shop. Behind me I hear footsteps.

  It is Jan. He cups my elbow and steers me into a tavern. We sit down at a table. The place is half empty; I recognize nobody here. Besides, I am not a frequenter of alehouses and this one is some distance from my home.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask him. “If I go to your studio I’ll be seen. Sooner or later I’ll be seen.”

  “You look so beautiful.” Gazing at me, Jan rubs my face with his handkerchief. “Come home to my bed.”

  “I cannot! I’ll be seen.”

  “Come when it’s dark.”

  “I will still be seen.”

  “My darling, I cannot live without you.”

  A girl brings us glasses of beer. On the wall hangs a birdcage. Inside it a parrot moves along its perch, claw by claw. It moves as close to us as it can get; then it cocks its head and watches us with one eye.

  “And now I’m believed to have a tooth missing,” I say.

  “I would pull all my teeth out for you.”

  “No! I’ve got one old man already, isn’t that enough?”

  Suddenly we burst into laughter. We lean against each other, shaking. How can I mock my husband? I will be consumed by the fires of hell.

  “How can you bear him to kiss you?”

  “Don’t—”

  “Those scrawny arms around you, I cannot bear it—”

  “Stop it!”

  It is true, of course. Cornelis’s sour breath . . . his gray, loose skin . . . the other part I cannot bear to think about— but I keep quiet. Isn’t this treachery enough?

  Under the table Jan takes my hand. “Come to me tonight.”

  I gaze at him—his wild wet hair, his blue eyes. And I am lost.

  “WHY ARE YOU NOT READY?” asks Cornelis. “It is six o’clock.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “But you enjoy playing cards with the Konicks. Last time you won, remember? And they have just taken delivery of a spinet. You told them last week how much you wanted to try it.”

  “My tooth still hurts.”

  “Oh, my poor dear—let me look—”

  I move back. “No—”

  “It must be painful—”

  “The oil of camphor eases the pain, but I want to have an early night.”

  “Then I will stay with you.”

  “No!”

  “It is no pleasure without you by my side.”

  “I would rather be alone,” I reply. “I am no company tonight. Truly, dearest—I will go to bed early. Please go— they are your oldest friends—please, I beg you.”

  Cornelis fetches his cloak and goes to the door. Suddenly I run after him and fling my arms around his neck. Surprised, he turns; our noses bump. This awkwardness throws us off balance.

  “I’m so sorry,” I mutter into his beard.

  “Sorry? To show me such affection?” He holds me tightly.

  Just for a moment I wish none of this had happened. If only we could turn back the clock and be as we were—contented, safe within these rooms. I cannot recognize this new woman whose heart beats within me—an impostor, who should be thrown out of this house in disgrace.

  “I am unworthy of you,” I whisper.

  “How can you say that?” He smooths my hair. “You are my joy, my life.”

  We embrace, again, and then he is gone.

  18

  Willem

  Every man is the architect of his own fortune.

  —JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

  Dusk is falling. Willem makes his way toward the Herengracht. The wind has died down. It has been a wild day with a gale blowing from the Baltic. No fishing boats could put to sea. Another whale has been washed up a few miles along the coast. Unlike Maria, he knows that this is a good omen. He has made his living from fish, and look! Today of all days the ocean has belched up the most magnificent catch. God is on his side.

  Willem walks briskly, a spring to his step. Countless times, bowed by his basket, he has plodded these streets. This evening the only weight he feels is the purse in his jerkin. He cannot wait to see Maria’s face. She didn’t believe him when they sat in the garden. Let’s just call it a businessventure.

  He is still numb with shock. Normally he is not a gambling man but these are not normal times. Before today, before everything changed, he had considered them kappisten—hooded ones, madmen. But he has joined the tulip speculators now and who is he to consider it lunacy?

  Money can multiply, just like that. How truly miraculous! . . . A few meetings, his new friends huddled in a cloud of tobacco smoke; numbers, senseless to him, chalked on a board. Packages passed from hand to hand.... How astoundingly easy it has been, for he has gambled at random and struck lucky each time. Until recently money has been doggedly earned—a florin here, some stivers there, a handful of coins. He has worked himself to exhaustion, rising at dawn to tramp down to the fish market, hail and sleet, all
weathers. He never complained because he is not that sort, but truly he was a kappisten then. Icy fish, icy fingers pulling out slobbery strings of guts. Bent with his basket, he has tramped the streets in blistering wind, knocking on doors and trying to smile though his face is frozen. Only the thought of Maria has kept him warm.

  Maria! Forget whales; she is his prize catch. She says she loves him and he still cannot believe it. He has had little experience of women. They don’t take him seriously. It is something about his face; it makes them giggle. They have been affectionate enough, but when he has tried to make love to them they have burst into laughter. They call him “clown-face,” and when he looks doleful they laugh louder, saying he looks even funnier. It hurts his feelings.

  Now he has Maria. But has he? Can she really love him? She is so pretty—plump and ripe like a fruit. And she is such a flirt. The vegetable man was showing me his carrots. Men look at her in the street; she challenges them with her bold stare. Can he trust her? Of course I love you. I feel all shivery when I see you. She refuses to marry him until he has some money. That is understandable; she is a practical woman. Well, wait until he opens his purse; see her face then.

  Maria is not expecting him; he will surprise her. Tonight her master and mistress have gone out to play cards; she will be alone. Even so, Willem approaches the side door, down the alleyway, the one he uses when he steals in after dark.

  Willem stops dead. A figure emerges from the door. She closes it behind her and hurries off, away down the alley. It is Maria. She slips like a shadow between the buildings.

  Willem is going to call out but something stops him. Maria looks so purposeful, so intent. He follows her down the alley, keeping his distance. There is something odd about her. She emerges into the Keisergracht and glances to the right and the left. He can glimpse her more clearly now. Under her shawl she wears her white cap, the one with long flaps that conceal her face.

  She turns right and hurries along, keeping close to the houses. How furtive she looks! She moves fast; he has to break into a trot to keep her in sight. This, too, is unlike Maria. She usually ambles, swaying her hips, taking her time.