Tulip Fever

by Deborah Moggach

  Here is your child, said the midwife, placing the baby in his arms. May our Lord grant you much happiness through him, else may He call him back to Him soon . . . The smell of spiced wine, the fragrance of his son’s damp head. His wife eating a restorative meal of buttered bread and ewe’s milk cheese.

  How blessed he was. A son, an heir. What rejoicing was heard in his house that night. He offered up his prayers of thanksgiving: we yield Thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father . . . He kissed his wife. He put on the feathered cap of fatherhood, made of quilted satin. His whole country was enveloped with his gratitude. Was its birth not miraculous too—wrested from the ocean, blessed by God? Constantijn Huijgens, poet and humanist, Secretary to the Stadholder—a man whom Cornelis holds in the highest esteem—he says of their country: the Lord’s benevolence shines from every dune.

  In the corner of the room, dim in the shadows, stands the wheeled chair in which his sons learned to walk—a wooden pyramid, on castors. It is dusty and now simply looks like a piece of apparatus. Within its cage he placed his sons and watched their legs working as they propelled themselves from room to room, stopping at the flights of steps. Cornelis thinks: once again I shall hear the noise of its castors, rattling over the floors.

  He sorts out the baby clothes. This is woman’s work, but he wants to do it. He never thought he would open this chest again. Sophia is unaware of its existence. He will get Maria to wash and air the robes and store them in the linen closet in readiness.

  Cornelis, carrying the bundle, walks upstairs. He hears voices in the front room and goes in.

  A strange sight greets him. Maria lies on the bench beneath the window. A gypsy woman bends over her.

  Sophia swings round and stares at Cornelis. “Dearest!” she says. “I had no idea you were in the house.” She catches her breath. “We met this woman in the market. She can predict whether it will be a boy or a girl.”

  Meanwhile Maria has jumped up. She looks flushed. “Sorry, sir.” She turns to Sophia. “Go on, miss.”

  Sophia settles herself on the bench, lying on her back. The gypsy woman dangles a string above her belly; a ring is tied to it.

  “Clockwise it’s a boy; the other way it’s a girl,” Sophia tells him.

  “Lie still,” says the gypsy.

  A moment passes. The ring starts to rotate, gently. They watch it.

  “It’s a boy,” says the gypsy.

  Sophia sits up. She stares, wide-eyed, at Maria. Why? Maria’s hand is pressed to her mouth. Cornelis smiles benignly. They are just young girls, having fun. Sophia and her maid seem inseparable nowadays—always whispering behind closed doors. Pregnancy, he has noticed, causes women to close ranks. Still, he wishes that his wife could have a more suitable confidante, somebody of her own class.

  Cornelis pays the old woman; she leaves.

  It’s a boy. Despite his suspicion of gypsies Cornelis wants to believe it. He turns to his wife but she has fled; he hears her slippers pattering upstairs. He had no idea that she was superstitious; pregnant women, he decides, can behave in a most peculiar manner. He doesn’t remember dear Hendrijke acting like this.

  Clutching the baby clothes, Cornelis smiles indulgently. It’s a boy. He always knew this, in his heart.

  “DO YOU REMEMBER, my dear, that I am traveling to Utrecht tomorrow, to visit my mother?”

  “I will accompany you,” Cornelis replies.

  “No.” Sophia lays her hand on his arm. “I will only be gone for two nights; you have business to attend to. Isn’t it tomorrow that you’re expecting the shipment from England?”

  “But in your condition—”

  “It is an easy journey. Please, dear husband, this is a women’s matter. My mother and I—we see each other so rarely—we have so much to talk about. And she is too frail for company. I would rather visit her alone.”

  Cornelis understands this. However, he feels rebuffed that his wife’s constitution can bear a fifty-mile round trip to Utrecht yet be unable to stand him lying with her in bed. She will not even allow him to gaze at her body. Her modesty in this matter makes him feel excluded. How he longs to touch her swollen breasts!

  Sophia strokes his beard. She knows he likes this. “I’ve prepared your favorite hutspot,” she murmurs. “Can you smell it cooking?”

  “Your sickness has gone?”

  She nods. “I feel much improved.” She does indeed look well—flushed cheeks, bright eyes. “Mutton, chicory, artichokes, prunes . . . all your favorites, stewed with lemon juice and ginger . . .”

  He still feels hurt. “Why do we never eat fish nowadays?” he asks petulantly. “You know I like fish, but we have had none for weeks.”

  “You told me you were tired of it, remember? You said that soon we would be sprouting fins.”

  “It was just a joke.”

  “Besides, I haven’t wanted to cook it; the smell made me ill.”

  She kisses him and leaves, the keys at her waist jangling. He hears her humming as she makes her way to the kitchen. What wayward creatures women are. Who would have thought that a visit to her mother would make her so skittish? Her moods switch so violently. Recently, when he suggested that they engage another servant, she had snapped at him.

  “I can manage. Maria is quite enough.”

  “This house is too large for one maid,” he had replied, reasonably.

  “I don’t want a man in the house, not in my condition. Let us wait until the baby is born.”

  She is carrying his child, however. He loves her and he will humor her every whim. It is a beautiful evening. Cornelis fetches his pipe and gazette. He sits on the seat outside his front door. The sunshine, blazing between the leaves of the linden tree, dapples his house with light. His neighbor Mr. Molenaer, sitting on his step, nods and smiles. Cornelis sits in peace, reading about the treacherous policies of Louis XIII. How corrupt is the French court, how venal the Spanish. Here, all is peaceful in the golden evening sun. Families have emerged to sit outside on their front steps. Children play at their parents’ feet. Maria appears and empties a pail of slops into the canal. How bonny she looks nowadays, how fat and flourishing. In other countries servants are treated like slaves; here, in his enlightened city, they are considered one of the family. In the kitchen he can hear Sophia and Maria laughing like sisters. They have their girlish secrets—and why not, if it keeps them happy?

  Cornelis’s mind wanders. He thinks of Sophia’s real sisters and the wretched circumstances in which they were living, three years before when he first visited their home. Their father, before he died, had been declared bankrupt. The bailiffs had removed the printing press and other assets from the house; the upper floors had been let to tenants. The girls and their mother were living in two rooms on the ground floor, eking out a living by taking in sewing.

  A colleague of Cornelis, with whom he did business in Utrecht, had organized an introduction—for Cornelis was a rich widower looking for a wife and here were three girls of marriageable age. Sophia, the eldest, had served him spiced buns. How beautiful she was—shy and modest but not uneducated. After all, she had been brought up among books. She knew the old masters, and that afternoon they had discussed the relative merits of Titian and Tintoretto.

  What a world he could teach her! Sophia was clay, waiting to be molded by his expert hands; she was fertile soil, waiting to be planted with the choicest of blooms. And she had responded to his advances. Demurely, at first, but there was no mistaking the warmth with which she had accepted his invitation of a trip in his carriage. Cornelis remembers that day down to the smallest detail, for the past, even the near past, is more vivid to him than the present.

  They had driven into the countryside. Sophia gripped the window ledge. Entranced, she gazed at the fields, the grazing cows, the rows of willow trees as if she were a child seeing them for the first time. He thought: she is the daughter I never had. He gazed at the nape of her neck— the downy skin beneath her coiled-up hair—and longed to stroke it with
his finger. Such a wave of desire he felt for her. Fleshly conversation —those were his words for sexual congress with his wife. A companionable, mutual comfort. This was different. This young girl—how desperately he wanted to protect her, but how he wanted to possess her too! His heart was thrown into confusion.

  The sky, the vast blue sky, was heaped with clouds. Below it lay a field covered with strips of bleaching linen. The strips of cloth, straight as rulers, stretched into the distance. The sun slid out from behind the clouds. The cloth, so blinding white; the cloud shadows moving over it. Far away, figures toiled, unrolling another strip.

  She pointed. “Look at them. It’s as if the earth is in pain and they’re wrapping it in bandages to make it well again.”

  Beneath his ribs his heart shifted. It was then that he truly fell in love.

  THE SUN SLIPS BEHIND the houses opposite. Their stepped gables loom up, as jagged as teeth. Cornelis shivers and gets to his feet. He remembers the field of cloth. Now he thinks of the world as his child, as dear and as precious. The linen strips, they are swaddling bands, ready to wrap around his baby and hold it safe. His faith has been restored to him; God has finally heard his prayers.

  This is a comforting thought. Why, then, does he feel so uneasy?

  31

  Sophia

  Conduct thyself always with the same prudence as though thou went observed by ten eyes and pointed at by ten fingers.

  —CONFUCIUS

  I want to hold you in my arms and feel you dreaming. His writing is branded in my heart. It is childish writing—Jan is an artisan; he has had little education, less than me, in fact. Words of love will forever, for me, be clumsily formed.

  We are going to spend a night together. Not just one night, two!—for such is my greed. My husband thinks that I am going to Utrecht. By now I have written to my family, telling them about my condition. They would have been eager to see me. I feel as guilty about betraying them as I do about Cornelis. At some point I must, indeed, visit them, but I have been putting it off—they know me so intimately that they are bound to tell I am lying. My little sister Catharijn, in particular—she is sharp-eyed; she will guess there is something suspicious going on. I shall have to face them sometime but not now, not yet.

  Come to me and spend the night. I cannot believe it is really going to happen. When I slip into his studio during the day we cannot be alone—his pupil is there, sometimes his servant; once we were interrupted by a man coming to look at Jan’s work and I had to hide behind the bed curtains. As for the evenings—even when my husband goes out it is riskier, now, to leave the house, because it is high summer and the light lingers until nine. I have lost my ally, the darkness— that vast cloak that enveloped me more effectively than my own. Even when I succeed in getting there we only have an hour. At ten o’clock the night-watch trumpet sounds and those who are out return to bed. What a blameless, hard-working nation we are. In bed by ten, faithful husbands and faithful wives. It is no city for lovers, for those out late on the streets are viewed with suspicion.

  It is mid-morning. Cornelis is at work when I leave the house. He has given me some gifts for my family. I have hidden them in the attic. For some reason this seems as wicked as my larger deception.

  I cross myself, praying for a safe voyage. No gale-tossed ocean holds more terrors than these sunny streets. No Spanish fleet, its guns trained in my direction, is as dangerous as my neighbors on their way to market.

  TIME EXPANDS AND CONTRACTS. We hoard it like misers or watch it spill out like shaken cloth in front of us. Our dreams are broken by it—at night they are punctuated by the whir of the night watchman’s rattle and his singsong voice, jolting us awake to the hour. Then silence closes over us again. When I am alone in the house it seems endless— minutes crawl past.

  In Jan’s studio, however, I urge it to stay still. How can the sand fall so fast? But time spent there, when finished, has no end; it is with me always. And now time has a new momentum—nine months, which quicken as they carry us helplessly toward November. From that moment it is unimaginable. In November, we step out of the building into space, and this time I cannot imagine flying.

  Just now, however, time feels motionless. Jan and I have spent the day in his bed. I have no idea of the hour; outside, the street noises seem miles away, in another country. He has sent Jacob home and given Gerrit the day off. He has stocked up with food for a siege of love.

  On the floor, among my discarded clothes, lies my cushion. I am only five months pregnant; it is a small cushion, green velvet, that I have stolen from the library. Now that it is detached from my body it looks absurdly humdrum. I have grown fond of my fabric child, my plump accomplice.

  I say: “I will have to use a pillow soon.”

  “What are we going to do, Sophia? We have to face it sooner or later.”

  “Live for the moment,” I reply blithely. “Isn’t that what you said, when you were painting our portrait? Grasp it while you can.”

  “But what’s going to happen when the baby is born? Even if we run away he will find us.”

  “Ssh—let us not talk about it now.”

  “He’ll track us down. There’s nowhere we can go that is far enough.”

  Jan is right. We have realized, upon reflection, that our plan will not work. Cornelis is a powerful man with influential connections. He knows the ships’ captains; how can we travel undetected? Should we arrive at the East Indies, even then we would not be safe. Cornelis is in communication with traders there; he owns a spice plantation. Nowhere in the world will be safe.

  “God will give us an answer,” I reply.

  “You really think that He’s on our side?”

  “Where’s your Bible? Get a key.”

  Maria has told me about this. It is her transaction with God when she has to make a decision. Jan climbs into bed, carrying his Bible. It rests like a paving stone on our knees. I close my eyes, open a page at random and place his hand, holding the key, on some words.

  “Read it out.”

  He reads: “Thy breasts are like two young roe deer that are twins, which feed among the lilies. . . . Thy lips, o my spouse, drop as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under thy tongue.” Jan closes the Bible. “That’s our answer.” He laughs, rolling on top of me. The Bible falls to the floor with a thud; the bed vibrates.

  BEFORE WE SLEEP Jan sponges my face with warm water. I squat on his nightpot. As I do so he kneels beside me, unfixing my hair. These tender preparations make me weak with love. Every object here moves me, for he has touched it. Even the dusty floorboards, for they have borne the weight of him. The smell of linseed oil is more aromatic than all the spices of the East.

  That night I sleep in his arms. My beloved is white and ruddy; his cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers, his lips like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. I have never slept naked with a young man before. How sweet is his body, how sweet his breath! We sleep entwined. His skin is firm and smooth. He stirs and turns, cupping himself round my back, cupping my breasts in his hands. I am as tall as he is; we were made for each other. He presses his feet against mine, twin feet.

  Far away, through my dreams, I hear the singsong: two of the clock! . . . three of the clock! My happiness is measured in hourly beats. Throughout the city citizens lie together, husbands and wives, in their wall cupboards. In the drawers beneath them lie their children, lawfully begotten. Families sleep, snug in their furniture. I have left all that behind; I have pulled out to sea . . . tonight I am adrift and there is no returning to my former life.

  Jan breathes into my hair. He exhales his dreams; they seep into me like sea mist. Shamefully I think: if only Cornelis would die. My lover and I could sleep together every night, for the rest of our lives.

  This is such a monstrous thought that I put it from my mind. Instead, I dream of how it would have been if I had met Jan first and were free to marry him, to love him blamelessly. It was nobody’s fault that I married Cornelis— oh, there was
pressure from my mother, but I could have resisted her. I have only myself to blame for what was, I now see, a sacrifice of my youth and my hopes. I did it to save my family from ruin, but what terrible ruination awaits us all now, if I cannot think of a way to extricate myself and Jan from this reckless plan we have set in motion?

  If only Cornelis were dead.

  Suddenly I sit up, wide awake. Jan stirs; he runs his tongue down my backbone.

  “I have thought of a plan,” I say.

  “What plan?” he murmurs dozily.

  “There is only one way we can escape. And for him never to think to look for us.”

  It is an idea so obvious, so breathtakingly simple, that I am amazed I didn’t think of it before.

  IF THIS PLAN is to succeed we need money, a large amount of money. Quite how much, we need to find out. We need some now, to put it into action. Then we will need a great deal more money in November, when the baby is born.

  We are sitting on the bed; sunlight streams over the half-shutters. A bird sings outside the window; a child shouts. We have lost track of time. We have eaten nothing. I still feel winded, as if I have been hit with a sackful of sand.

  “Remember what my husband said, about the madness that has gripped our country?”

  “You are the madness, sweetheart.” He strokes my wrist. “You are the one who’s gripped me.”

  For once I don’t respond. “This tulipomania.”

  Of course he knows of it. Everyone has been infected, it has spread like fever; in the past year it has grown out of control. Secret deals are struck in taverns; huge fortunes have been made. Our staid burghers have become men possessed.

  “One bulb—remember what he said? One bulb sold for all those goods—horses, silver . . .”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “One bulb sold for the price of a house—I heard last week—the freehold of a house on the Prinsengracht . . .”