by Pam Lewis
My husband.
4
A RAP AT the door startled her out of sleep. “Yes!” she called, in a near panic over her unfamiliar surroundings and the rush with which the events of the previous day returned. Sander’s side of the bed was tucked in tightly, the sheet crisply folded over the blanket. He’d never come to bed! She’d waited in a state of utter anxiety, alert to every tiny noise, and then finally she must have drifted off to sleep. Now the door opened, and she held up the bedclothes. Cassian peered in and rattled off whispered questions: Had she slept well, was she ready for breakfast, should he come back later? Yes, yes, yes, she said to all three, and before he shut the door, “Where’s Sander?”
“On the dock, with the children.” Cassian took a step into the room, looking stylish this morning in sky-blue velvet. “You’re in my charge for now. He’s asked me to see to it that you have what you want while he’s busy.”
“I should go.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I should say goodbye.”
“Should?” Cassian’s mischievous grin made him look quite young. “What is the meaning of ‘should’?”
“What do you think? Should is should.” He was nice, but his philosophical talk wasn’t at all practical.
“Do you want to go?” He raised his dark eyebrows in delight. “Is it something you have anticipated, this farewell with Griet and Pim?” He steepled his fingers over his mouth.
“That’s hardly the point,” she said.
“It’s exactly the point.” He obviously meant no harm, but still she bristled at the suggestion that she had a choice in the matter. These were Sander’s children. Her stepchildren. It would be unspeakably rude to ignore them. “I must dress quickly,” she said.
“I’ll wait for you in the hall.”
She opened her closet and reached for her old blue plaid dress before spotting the three new dresses, her spirits lifting to the heavens at the sight. She pulled them out and laid them on the bed, the red on the left, the mauve in the middle, and the lovely pink on the right. She bathed using water from the pitcher and bowl. She relieved herself in the tiny toilet behind the curtain. She cleaned her teeth and brushed her long hair, all the while unable to take her eyes from the dresses. She braided her hair, tied it with a black ribbon, and quickly slipped the red dress over her head. A row of cloth-covered buttons ran up the left side. She did them up, trembling with excitement. The dress fit well enough through her slim hips, but if she had time on the voyage, she would take in the midriff. She tied the sash in the back, did up the rows of buttons at each wrist, and turned sideways to the glass, unable to believe the sheen, the sumptuous drape of skirt, the way it flattered her.
When she stepped into the corridor, Cassian backed up a step to take her in. “You look magnificent.”
“They must have cost a fortune.” She slipped her coat over the dress.
“Just enjoy them.”
“I’d better go see the children,” she said, and felt odd for having called them children, since she was more of a child than they. It helped to be wearing the red dress. It helped to know she looked stunning, that she would outshine Griet.
The deck was alive with activity, crammed with the people boarding, shouting, and pushing. Three large nuns in black woolen habits and white wimples that bunched their pudgy faces into comical pies pushed belligerently past her, and she worried they’d step on the hem of her dress. Holding up the skirts with one hand and tightly to Cassian with the other, she followed him through the crowd to the rail.
“There,” he said, pointing to the dock. “Do you see them?”
There they were: Sander, Griet, and Pim, three small figures among hundreds of others.
She pushed toward the gangways that surged with people and suitcases, boxes, even live chickens. In the press, people had begun using both the up and down gangways, so there was no way to descend.
A great wooden box, as big as a room and crowded with men peering over the sides, swung dangerously overhead and thudded onto a space cleared at the foredeck. One side fell open, and a dozen or so men poured out. She pushed her way toward it. At the box, the attendant was preparing to pull up the wooden side, and she jumped on quickly before he could object. The side was pushed back up and secured, and then the box, carrying only Minke, swung into the air; she had to hold on to the side to keep from falling. She tried to spot Sander, but she might as well have been trying to find him from a moving carousel. With one swing, she had a view of the full sky, and with the next a view of the crowd below, until the box skidded across pavement, the side fell open, and she had to run out before more men rushed aboard.
The Frisia loomed high and black. She scanned the deck rail for Cassian—she needed him to help her find Sander—and found him by his blue coat right away, still at the rail and watching her. He pointed to the base of one of the gangways.
She moved along with the crowd of men toward the gangways, her eyes lifted to Cassian as he guided her toward Sander. She couldn’t see anything in the crush. Then there they were, only a few feet away. She was practically on top of them, but they hadn’t seen her yet. Pim looked miserable, a little apart from Sander. Griet was red in the face. “You left us nothing!” she raged at Sander, clearly not caring who heard.
“I took what was mine, Griet. No more. No less.”
“Mother was such a fool to marry you.” Oh, she was vile, Minke thought. Making a scene over property only days after the death of her mother.
“Your mother bequeathed it to me, my dear. Don’t interfere when your facts are on very thin ice.” Sander was making a noticeable effort to keep his voice soft, but failing.
“On whose word? Yours?” Griet barked out an ugly laugh. Minke withdrew into the crowd before they saw her.
“You have a perfectly good dowry,” Sander said.
“It’s nothing compared to the house. Or to everything you stole. I was supposed to have what was in the lower storage.”
“It was your mother’s decision,” Sander said.
“I don’t believe anything you say.” Griet was about to say something more when she spied Minke. “Oh God, and now you! Let me see your ring. It’s probably Mother’s, too.” Griet snatched at Minke’s hand. “No ring at all!”
“Behave yourself,” Sander said.
Minke glanced to the deck of the Frisia, as though Cassian could be of any help from way up there. Griet followed her eyes. “And that weasel. He’s going, too?”
“Let’s try to part on a happy note, Griet,” Sander said.
“My stepfather lets no opportunity pass untapped,” Griet said to Minke. “Be warned.”
She was a hostile girl, Minke thought. How sad for her to be riddled with anger at this leave-taking. “Seizing opportunity is to be commended,” Minke said.
Griet threw back her head and laughed. “He does that, all right.”
“I apologize once again for my sister,” Pim said in Griet’s full hearing. “I wish you well,” he told Minke. “I sincerely do.” He addressed Sander. “Sir. Safe journey. You’re welcome in my house at any time, and Minke as well.” With that, he and Griet disappeared into the crowd.
“I only meant to say goodbye to them,” Minke said.
“Griet has never been one to allow the facts to interfere with what she thinks. Don’t let her words upset you.” Sander undid the top toggle of her coat and opened it a little at the neck, revealing the dress. “You found them!”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Come on or we’ll miss our boat.”
“Is it one of yours?” she asked.
“Quickly.” He guided her back to the gangway, and they ascended to the ship’s deck.
A great blast sounded from the single stack on deck, and dark smoke billowed out. Then another blast. Behind them, the gangway was raised and pulled onboard. Deck sailors went about their work with new efficiency. Onshore, the heavy ropes that looped over pier stubs were raised and flung at the ship, where sailors haule
d them in. Still behind her, Sander held tightly to her waist and pushed through the other passengers to the rail. All around, people waved to loved ones onshore, and those onshore waved back. When the ship emitted its final departing blast, an eerie quiet fell. The Frisia moved like a ghost ship as it separated from the dock and slid into the canal. Minke watched the stricken faces of the families on the pier and understood the stakes. The women might never see their men again.
The next blast broke the spell. People began moving, calling to one another, hoisting goods overhead. Sander whispered to her, but she found it difficult to focus on what he said—something about the canal, the side channels—over the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the brush of his lips against her neck, and above all, the way his body engulfed her as if she were a child, keeping her warm while Amsterdam receded.
THEY TOOK BREAKFAST at a table for two in the ship’s small dining room. Two young waiters barely older than she bore pitchers of coffee and tea, fresh cream, dried and pickled fish, and hard bread, cheeses, and jams.
Sander’s eyes, although heavy with fatigue from his being awake all the night before, still managed to follow the tiny silver fork as she lifted a slice of creamy white cheese from the platter, laid it on the thin hard bread, spread fig jam, then ate the confection and licked her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I like to see a woman eat,” he said.
Papa sometimes said that when he saw Mama or Fenna dive into a bowl of stew and eat with gusto, but something told her Sander didn’t mean the same thing. She wasn’t really hungry, mostly making a show of eating, and something told her clearly that he liked watching her and possibly watching her doing anything at all. He was engaged with her delicate motions, the play of tasting and touching her lips with the tips of her fingers. She took a grape, rolled it between thumb and forefinger, slipped it between her lips, and saw a weakness come over him, a slight but visible slackening in the muscles of his face. He was an older man, an important man, she thought, but he was lost in watching her. He raised his eyes to hers. She put down the fork, nudged the plate away. His attention awakened something in her. The surroundings faded; the waiters and the muffled sounds from the ship vanished, leaving only the awareness of her husband’s eyes on her lips and a slight, pleasurable tingling in her breasts.
“Let’s get some air,” he said. On the deck, he threw her against the rail and pressed against her so hard she felt the heat at his groin through their clothing. He kissed her neck; his lips were full and soft. She raised her arms to his neck and kissed him, allowing her lips to open under the pressure of his tongue, but he stepped back, took a deep breath, and shook like a dog coming out of the sea. He turned from her and took a few steps away, his expression unreadable.
“What’s the matter?” Oh, he frightened her. It was so sudden, as though he’d been shot. Again, not dead. Mama’s words echoed in her thoughts. Was this what Mama meant?
“There’s work, Minke,” he said in the tone people took when they expected the other person to know already.
“Work?” She had no idea what was happening.
“I must see to the cargo.”
“Now?”
“Now,” he said.
“Please don’t go.”
“I must.” He adjusted his clothing, straightened his vest and tie. “I’m behind already, and you have found my Achilles heel.” He breathed deeply again, as if to steady himself. “You.”
In the cabin, confused and still aroused, she threw herself on the bed and rolled onto her back. She wanted his muscled body, his sensuous lips. She ran her hands along her sides, threw off the dress and left it in a heap on the floor, fell back onto the bed, and ached with desire for her husband. But he was gone and wouldn’t be back for who knew how long. What had she done wrong? He couldn’t wait to get her out of the dining room and onto the deck, and then he couldn’t wait to get away from her. He hadn’t even brought her back here to their cabin the way he should have. He claimed work, but she’d displeased him, that was clear. She’d done something. But what? Opening her lips? That was all she could think of. It had definitely been the trigger that had sent him reeling away from her on deck. “Oh, Mama,” she groaned. “What’s happening?”
She could see Mama’s worried frown, her pale blue eyes, and her child’s face full of soft beauty. Mama would bite her lip and say it was peculiar that after pursuing Minke relentlessly, Sander would leave her alone this way.
But wait, not alone. He’d left her in the care of another man, although Mama wouldn’t understand that either. Not at all! Cassian was more like a kind, wise grandfather. He had to be sixty, anyway; she’d noticed that morning his black hair was touched with shoe polish and the tops of his hands were a crisscross of raised blue veins. Mama was used to a man who was content with where he was. Sander was another animal altogether. The idea of Sander as an animal aroused her all over again. The thought of him, her husband now. An extraordinary man, like no one in Enkhuizen, that was certain. She wasn’t entirely sure about his business. Something having to do with Elisabeth’s medicine and with the beautiful things Julianna had shown her. Something that took him all over the world. Whatever it was, it made Papa’s work as a shipbuilder look dull.
She sighed and lay back down, deflated. Comodoro Rivadavia. She had to admit to herself that it had been a disappointment. When Elisabeth had first uttered those syllables, they were the most exotic Minke could imagine, a whole series of lovely foreign sounds running together in a delicious river of syllables. She had thought them a single word, Comodororivadavia. But now not only had she seen the name written as two words, she also knew that in English, they meant the rank of the man who had discovered the port and ordered its settlement a few years earlier. Commodore Rivadavia.
She needed company. She’d find Cassian, that’s what she’d do. She stepped back into the red dress and, without another thought, set off. She knew where his cabin would be, about opposite hers and Sander’s but over on the other side, the port side. All she had to do was go forward around the wheelhouse or whatever they called it, then back down to approximately amidships. She set off down the corridor and out the glass doors to the deck, along the rail to the bow, down the other side, and through the door to his corridor.
A set of narrow metal steps led down and through another door painted a pale green, to a hallway, then another longer, downward staircase. No one was available for her to ask directions, but there was only one door, so this had to be right. Anyway, she was having fun. She raised her red skirts to her knees and skipped down the next stairs and up a few more steps, aware of the echoing clank of her heels against metal. She stopped at a place where one hallway went right and another left. She went left. After ten yards or so, a hall went off to the right; shortly after that, the chance to go left again. She really should turn back. No, she’d keep going. Just one more left turn. But the hall came to a dead end at an unmarked door. She backtracked and then wasn’t sure. She found herself at the top of a spiral staircase.
Gathering her red skirts with one hand, she stepped carefully onto the staircase and, holding the center post with her other, descended round and round to the greater darkness of the lower level, where she had to crouch because the ceiling was so low. The air was rank with body smells and smoke. A snore rose from somewhere close. At a distance, closer to the ship’s center, a crowd of men huddled about a light. It was difficult to count, but there had to be twenty or so of them, so caught up in what they were doing that they didn’t see her. She made up her mind that if anything bad happened, she could run back upstairs the way she’d come.
She took her bearings. She was at one end of a space crowded with rows of bunks. She felt her way along slowly, stumbled, and realized the row between the bunks was a labyrinth of trunks and boxes, impossible to pass through without toppling something and drawing attention to herself. She retreated and felt her way along the low sidewall, where it was darker and she wouldn’t be seen. A bark of laughter and shouts erupted.
Heart thrumming, she stopped. Had they seen her? No. She wished she knew what they were doing. She crept forward down another row of bunks, feeling her way with each step, until she was close enough to see. Gambling. Not just one game but two. Numbers were called out, dice rattled, the noise subsided, and then the hoots and calls again. If only Fenna could see her now!
Her hand lighted on something soft and warm. “Onnozelaar!” a man’s voice growled. Stupid! She recoiled, trying to withdraw to the darkness from which she’d come. The man sat up. She could make out his large shape, a shadow against the light in the distance. She turned to run but tripped. The man tumbled from his bed onto the floor and came toward her on all fours like a swaying bear.
She tried to back away but stumbled over something else.
Shapes moved in the darkness. Other men were stirring.
Someone gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet. She tried to yank away and run, but he had her. “All they talk about is women,” he hissed at her. His voice sounded young. He was pulling hard, dragging her toward darkness. She couldn’t see his face, only the bright white X of his suspenders over a dark shirt.
“Let me go!” She was terrified.
“You have to get out of here.”
“I’ll go the way I came.”
“You can’t. They’ll get you.” He pushed her forward in a direction she didn’t want to go. The man on all fours bellowed from somewhere nearby. More light became visible beyond the raucous crowd of men. “If the others see you, run like hell for the promenade.” He slipped ahead of her. “Stay low.”
“I thought there would be families.”
“Hush!” He was crouched ahead of her now, the X of his suspenders moving quickly but easy to follow. Another face from one of the bunks rose up so close that she could smell the man’s fish breath. A silence from the group of men caused her to look back. They’d spotted her. She wasn’t going to make it. Some of the men from the gambling were coming toward her. In a panic, she looked for a way out but could see nothing. She’d lost the boy in the suspenders. She backed up and felt the wall wildly for an opening. Anything. She rushed, hoping the cover of darkness at the edge of the space would protect her. There was no way to make a break for the promenade.