I jump down from the driving seat and introduce myself. In a few short sentences I tell him how I came to know his nephew and that the rest of the family is dead.
‘They’re dead? All of them?’ A look of defeat appears on Jan’s face, and at the same time he takes a step backwards. ‘And now you’re bringing him here? Do you want us to get the plague too?’
‘Lucas isn’t sick. If he’d been infected, we’d be seeing it by now. You’re his uncle, can you take him in?’
Jan doesn’t answer straightaway. A thin woman with a pinched face appears behind him, looking us up and down. ‘Who are they, Jan? Oh God in heaven, is that Lucas?’ For a second she’s astounded, then she realises why her nephew’s on her doorstep.
‘Cornelis and Maria are dead,’ she whispers.
‘Are they Lucas’s parents?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Maria’s my sister. And the other children? Are they all …’
I nod.
Tears appear in Barbara’s eyes but she makes no moves to welcome her nephew. Lucas stays sitting in the wagon and stares down at his aunt and uncle expressionlessly.
‘He hasn’t got the plague,’ I say.
‘No, it doesn’t look like it.’ Barbara hesitates for a second before walking over to the cart. ‘Come down, lad, then we’ll go inside. Are these your things?’
‘It’s all his, apart from this.’ I grab my pack out of the back. ‘If you’ve got any more questions, I live on The Gheer. The Lotus Flower pottery.’
‘We know it,’ says Jan.
‘Do you know if …’ Afraid to hear the answer, I stop talking halfway through my question.
They both shake their heads. ‘We never go to that part of town,’ says Jan.
‘I understand. I’ll just have to go and see. All the best, Lucas.’
‘Bye,’ he says.
I nod, turn and walk away.
I rush back through town to my house. On the market square I glance anxiously at the Mechelen Inn, which thankfully has no P on the door. I stride over the square and go up Corn Market, which leads onto The Gheer. As I go, I count the Ps and bundles of straw on the doors and feel a cautious optimism begin to grow. When The Lotus Flower comes into view I break into a run over the last stretch.
The shock of the huge white P on the door is like a blow to the chest. All the air is knocked out of me, I can feel myself growing faint. I stand frozen in front of the door to the pottery. It can’t be true.
The shop has been boarded shut, the fold-down hatches from the windows are floating uselessly in the canal, all life has been extinguished. I go to the window and peer inside through a gap between two planks. The goods are in the shop as usual. There’s no one to be seen.
‘Catrin?’
I turn quickly. Jacob is standing behind me with his cap in his hands.
‘You’re back,’ he says.
I look at him without saying anything, trying to put off the inevitable question. But I don’t even need to ask, the answer is written all over Jacob’s face.
‘Evert?’ I whisper.
‘It was quick. He got a boil and it was all over. Some people fight for days, but it wasn’t like that.’ He keeps turning his cap over and over in his hands and sighs. ‘The employees all fled. Anna had already gone. Suddenly there was no one left. That’s why I just nailed the whole thing shut.’
The sadness that wells up in me is so raw I’m gasping for breath. I wobble and Jacob grabs my arm.
‘Come with me,’ he says.
He takes me to Angelika and Quentin, who receive me with open arms. They take me to the living room and give me red wine to bring a little colour back to my cheeks.
I listen numbly to their story of Evert’s last days and his concern for me. They say he made them promise to look after me. They confirm that he didn’t suffer for long and died quicker than they’d all expected. And then the conversation turns to the other victims we know, like Adelaide and her twins. Isaac is the only one left, spared because he was away on business in Haarlem. By the time he came back to Delft, his wife and children had already been buried.
Anna died too. A couple of days after I left, she fled to a niece in Leiden to escape the plague. She found herself in the very city where the plague wrought the most havoc. Her children, who stayed in Delft and remain in good health, brought the sad tidings.
The terrible news strikes me dumb. There’s no next step with grief, you only have as many tears as your body can produce. At a certain point, you can’t even cry any more, you just go very quiet.
I slowly get up.
‘What are you going to do?’ asks Angelika.
‘I’m going home,’ I say. ‘Quentin, Jacob, could you take those planks off the windows please? I want to go inside.’
There’s an uncanny silence in the workshop. The vats of tin glaze, the potter’s wheels and the crates of finished pottery are standing there as if it’s a normal Sunday and the work’s going to go on as usual tomorrow. Only the dried-out paint in the pots and the cold ovens reveal there’s nothing more going on. Now that the planks have been removed from the windows, sunlight is streaming in again, revealing the layer of dust covering the trays of earthenware and the tables.
‘If there’s anything I can do for you …’ says Quentin.
Without turning around I say, ‘I’d just like to be alone for a while.’
Their footsteps retreat, the door closes. I take a deep breath, shut my eyes and let the pain come.
‘Evert,’ I whisper.
Over the past few weeks I’ve imagined our reunion so often it’s hard to believe I’m never going to see him again, that he has vanished from my life without my being able to care for him in his final hours, without my being able to say a proper goodbye. What did he feel when he discovered the swelling? Did he think of me when the fever wracked his body and internal bleeding made him weak? And where was he buried? In the church or in a mass grave, as often happens during an epidemic? I hope with all my heart it was the church.
I wander aimlessly through the empty workshops, through the shop, and go upstairs. There’s a musty air in the living quarters, the smell of rooms where windows have not been opened for a long time. Otherwise it’s as though Evert could return at any moment. A plate of beans and fish untouched on the table, a jug of stale beer next to it. An accounts book open on the table, which he was probably leafing through when the plague overcame him.
The sheets and the straw mattress have been taken off the bed. The regulations dictate that whenever anyone dies of the plague, their bedding has to be burnt to prevent infection.
I stare down at the empty bed for a couple of seconds, then I throw open the windows.
Evert has been laid to rest in the New Church. Accompanied by Quentin, Angelika, Johannes and Digna, I visit his grave. I stand for a long time staring down at the flagstones with the inscription and trying to imagine him lying under them. Still in a state of disbelief, I squat down and trace the letters of his name.
Matthias should be here, and Adriaan. I sent word to Amsterdam and got a letter back saying Adriaan was recuperating from the plague and too weak to travel. Brigitta was fine. And Matthias is sailing in some far-flung corner of the globe with no inkling of what’s been going on here.
Maybe he’ll never come back, he’ll stay away in that unknown world. Maybe he’s dead too.
‘You made Evert very happy, Catrin,’ says Johannes. ‘And he hadn’t been a happy man for a long time. I’m glad he had a few wonderful months.’
I simply nod and walk over to Adelaide’s grave. We pray, then stand talking for a while before slowly leaving the church.
‘Maybe it’s a little early to be asking, but do you know what you’re going to do now?’ Angelika asks once we’re home. She has come back with me and we’re having a drink in a sunny corner of the abandoned yard.
I take a sip of beer and shake my head. ‘No idea.’
‘You could sell the company. It’s going well, it’ll br
ing in a pile of money. And it’s yours now.’
That’s true. I don’t need to go looking for a job, I don’t need to keep house for anyone or mop a kitchen, I’ve got a business. A business I don’t know the first thing about.
‘There’s interest in The Lotus Flower. A couple of people have already enquired about whether it’s going on the market.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’
‘I understand, lovey, I really do. You played a big part in its success, it will be hard to see it passing into other hands. But what are you supposed to do, with Evert gone? As his widow, you’ve got the right to continue his business, but as a woman, you’re not entitled to sign contracts. You have to leave the business side of things to a man.’
‘I can take on a foreman.’
‘Or you can sell the company to Quentin and me, and come to work for us. We could do with a good painter.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Of course. We’ll pay you a good wage.’
I turn my gaze to where Quentin and Jacob are filling in the nail-holes in the window frames with a mixture of sawdust and wood glue.
Kicking in my belly distracts me and I look down. What would Evert have wanted? For me to be able to provide for myself and our child, for starters. Undoubtedly, he’d have liked to pass his company on to his child, be it a boy or a girl. What I want has nothing to do with it, I owe it to him to try and keep The Lotus Flower going.
43
It turns out to be no trouble finding new workers. As soon as I let it be known I’m going to reopen The Lotus Flower, they stream in from all over. Highly skilled craftspeople, some of them from far away to the south, who fled when the plague was raging in Flanders. I take on a new housekeeper, Hilly, a young woman in her early twenties who knows how to work.
And in all fairness, Jacob is a great help too. Who would have thought I’d ever value him like this? Together we judge the suitability of the potters, painters, treaders, ballers and stokers who come asking for work. I’m the one who makes the final decision, but Jacob asks such good questions and has such reasonable arguments that I can’t ignore his opinion.
I rehire Klaas and Lambert, who both took refuge from the plague with their families nearby and are glad to be able to get back to work. Jacob doesn’t see them as an asset and tries to change my mind, but I dig my heels in. Evert never complained about these lads, and he’d definitely have kept them on.
‘It’s your funeral,’ says Jacob, shrugging. ‘The problem isn’t that they’re young, it’s that they’re slow, too. Lazy. But for the time being, we need people. We can always get rid of them later.’
He’s using the word ‘we’ a lot, I notice, but I don’t say anything about it. It’s probably an expression of his investment. As long as it’s clear who’s in charge, I don’t much care.
One week after my return, I find Frans on my doorstep. ‘I heard you were back,’ he says. ‘And that Evert’s dead.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry. My condolences.’
I nod.
‘Is it true The Lotus Flower is opening again?’
‘Yes, in a few days.’
‘Are you going to run the company?’
‘Yes. I’d like you to come back, Frans. I need you.’
Frans observes me in silence for a few seconds. ‘How are you going to go about it?’
‘As a widow, I’m entitled to continue my husband’s business. I just need a master potter, and someone who can deal with the business side of things for me.’
‘And have you got anyone?’
‘Not yet. Jacob is helping me, but he doesn’t know anything of those matters.’
Frowning, Frans’s eyes wander up along the gable of the shop. ‘I do. Evert always included me in his deals.’
‘Excellent, then you can deal with the administration, the contracts, the deliveries, that sort of thing, and I’ll run the studio. We’ll hire someone to take care of the kilns.’
‘I want a raise.’
‘You’ll get one,’ I say, and hold the door open a little wider.
Hard work is an excellent remedy for grief. It doesn’t fill the emptiness in your soul but it does ensure you’ve got no time to dwell on it for long. I miss Evert, I miss his sturdy, warm body, his deep voice and the loving way he looked at me. Will anyone else ever look at me like that again? Fine, Jacob, but that’s different. His eyes seem to burn through my clothing, no matter how many layers I’ve got on.
Whenever we need to discuss business matters, I make sure I’m not alone with him. And there’s plenty to discuss. Quentin helps me find a master potter, Christiaan Zegers, who has only been living with his family in Delft for a short time. Once he’s in the picture, everything falls into place in no time. The Lotus Flower comes back to life. Carts full of clay roll into the yard and dump their loads into brick troughs, so the air bubbles can be stamped out of them. In the workshops, potters are sitting behind their wheels, the vats are filled with tin glaze and the ovens are brought up to temperature. White-and-blue pottery is being produced again and business is booming. That I, a woman, am running the company doesn’t seem to bother anyone, as long as they get a good-quality product. And they do. It has a perfectly glazed surface and the cobalt blue decorations are skilful and precise.
We get so many orders that the drying tables are full of clay plates, bowls and platters waiting until they’re dry enough to go in the kiln. I free up space in the attic of the living quarters so we can dry pieces there too.
One day I’m busy in the attic when someone comes clumping up the ladder. I glance over my shoulder and see Jacob’s head appear out of the trapdoor. I straighten up immediately.
‘I came to see whether you needed any help,’ says Jacob as he enters.
‘No, I won’t until later on this afternoon. The potters are still busy making everything. I’m getting some space ready.’
‘This is a lovely room. Nice and big.’
I nod and turn my back, hoping he’ll go away. And I hear footsteps, but they’re coming closer. When I turn to face him, he’s right behind me. I recoil but he immediately takes another step towards me. He says nothing, just looks at me and I know what’s coming.
‘Jacob, don’t …’ I say. He pulls me to him and presses his mouth to mine. I wrestle free from his grip and glare at him.
‘What the hell are you thinking!’
‘Come on, Catrin. You can’t honestly say you don’t feel something between us.’
‘I feel nothing. Oh, except annoyance about you coming up here to bother me. Go downstairs and leave me alone.’
He looks at me, stunned, then chuckles lightly. ‘Always so stubborn. A man has to make an effort to get you, eh? You like that. Well, I think that’s all well and good, but we’ve been playing that game for long enough. I want things to be clear.’
‘Game? What are you talking about? I think I’ve made myself abundantly clear.’
For a second, my reaction seems to wrong-foot him but he soon recovers. He puts his hands in his pockets to show he won’t touch me again. ‘I love you.’
Now it’s my turn to be surprised. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me. I love you. I want you. I was already in love with you back when you were married to Govert.’
I can hardly believe my ears. ‘Then you’ve got a funny way of showing it.’
‘Why? I’ve never done you any harm, have I? I protected you.’
‘You threatened me, blackmailed me and demanded half my savings.’
Jacob heaves a sigh. ‘Are we back on that again? I did you a huge favour by keeping my mouth shut and in exchange for that you gave me a helping hand when I was broke. Wasn’t that a fair exchange? Catrin, listen, giving you up was the last thing I would have done. Mart hired me to track you down, but I never told him where you were. Why? Because I’ve always known we’re meant for each other. Don’t you see how alike we are? We’re two of a ki
nd. We know what we want and won’t let anyone stop us from getting it.’
In the silence that follows, I can’t think of anything to say except that he’s got the whole thing wrong, but that doesn’t seem a sensible thing to say while I’m alone with him here in the attic. We stare at each other until Jacob pipes up again.
‘I’ve overwhelmed you,’ he says. ‘It’s too soon after Evert’s death, even if we both know why you married him. Not that I blame you, I understand completely. Just let me know when you’re ready for a new relationship. I’ll wait for you.’
And with those words, he turns and goes downstairs.
44
Sometimes, when you think you understand life with all its highs and lows, when you think it can no longer throw you with all its terrible surprises, it takes a turn you hadn’t foreseen. I have no idea how to handle this situation, or what Jacob will do if I refuse him. At the same time, I ask myself whether I haven’t judged him wrongly. It doesn’t matter, I’m not attracted to him. I don’t need him either, there are enough suitors who will appreciate the charms of a widow with a successful business. Remarrying is the best option for most women when they find themselves on their own, but for now I have no desire whatsoever to find another husband.
One Saturday morning, after I’ve handed out the wages, Klaas stays behind. He waits until everyone else has left the office. ‘I’d like to say something,’ he says.
I wait expectantly.
‘I just wanted to say I’m glad you carried on the company. The boss would’ve liked that.’
‘I think so, too.’ I smile warmly.
‘And I haven’t said so before, but I think it’s a real shame he’s gone.’
‘Yes,’ I say softly.
‘I don’t understand it either. I was afraid I’d get sick, too. The boss said it was only a cold and he didn’t have the plague, so I didn’t need to go. Then he showed me he didn’t have any swellings, so I stayed. The next day he didn’t appear, and when Frans went to look, he was dead.’
‘Sit down, Klaas. Tell me, how long was my husband ill? When did it start?’
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