The Miniaturist(23)

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, like chocolate and tobacco – and diamonds, silk and books, the market is open. There’s no guild for them. I can name my price – or Frans and Agnes Meermans can.’

‘So why are we going to the silversmiths’ guild?’

He grins. ‘Free meal. No, I jest. They want me to increase my patronage, and it’s good to be seen doing just that. I’m the crack in the wall that leads to the magic garden.’

Nella wonders how magic his garden is, how much he can truly afford to stretch his purse strings open. Marin seemed so uneasy about his expenditure on the cabinet house, and what was it Otto said? Things will spill over. Don’t be silly, she thinks. You live on the Herengracht now.

‘Marin seems very keen for you to sell Frans Meermans’ sugar,’ she dares, immediately regretting her decision. There is a long pause, so long, that she believes she would rather die than endure it any longer.

‘It’s Agnes Meermans’ plantation,’ Johannes says eventually. ‘But Frans has taken over the managing of it. Agnes’ father died last year with no sons – though not for want of going at it till his final breath.’ He stops himself on seeing Nella’s blushes. ‘My apologies. I did not mean to be coarse. Her father was an awful man – and yet Agnes inherited his acres of cane fields – a woman’s name on the papers, despite all her father’s best efforts. And now she’s handed them to Frans. Overnight these cones of sugar have made them both quite venal. It’s what they’ve been waiting for.’

‘What have they been waiting for?’

He grimaces. ‘A good opportunity. I’m storing the cones in my warehouse, and have agreed to sell them. My sister constantly doubts I will.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Marin sits indoors and has ideas, but does not understand the nuances involved in actual trade. I’ve been doing this for twenty years – for too long,’ he sighs. ‘One must tread carefully, and yet she crashes like an elephant.’

‘I see,’ Nella says, though she has no idea what an elephant is. It sounds like an elegant flower, but Johannes didn’t seem to be paying his sister a compliment. ‘Johannes, is Marin – friends with Agnes Meermans?’

Johannes laughs. ‘They have known each other a long time, and sometimes it’s hard to love a person you know too well. There’s your answer. Don’t look shocked.’

The observation lodges in Nella like a shard of ice. ‘Do you really think that, Johannes?’

‘When you have truly come to know a person, Nella – when you see beneath the sweeter gestures, the smiles – when you see the rage and the pitiful fear which each of us hide – then forgiveness is everything. We are all in desperate need of it. And Marin is – not so forgiving.’ He pauses. ‘There are – ladders in this society. . . and Agnes loves to climb them. The problem is, she never loves the view.’ His eyes glitter on an invisible joke. ‘Anyway. I’ll bet you a guilder Frans is wearing the biggest hat in the room, and Agnes will have made him wear it.’

‘Do wives often attend these feasts?’

He smiles. ‘Women are usually proibidas, except for special occasions. Though there is a freedom among Amsterdam ladies that the French and English lack.’

‘Freedom?’

‘Ladies can walk alone on the street. Couples can even hold each other’s hands.’ He pauses again, looking through the window. ‘It is not a prison, this city, if you plot your path correctly. The foreigners may tut, with their well-I-nevers and alors, but I’m sure they’re envious.’

‘Of course,’ Nella replies, again not understanding his alien words, not seeing at all. Proibidas. Over her short stay in the house Johannes has often spoken in other languages, and it mesmerizes her when he does it. He doesn’t seem to be showing off – it’s more a reaching for something his own tongue can never achieve. Nella realizes that no man – no person, in fact – has ever talked to her the way he has tonight. Despite the mysterious allusions, Johannes treats her like an equal; he expects her to understand.

‘Come here, Nella,’ he says.

Obediently, with a little fear she moves towards him and he tips her chin gently to lengthen her neck. She stares back at him and they size each other up like slave and master at a market. Taking her face in his hands, he brushes the contour of her young cheek. She leans forward. The tips of his fingers are roughened, but this is what Nella has waited for. Her head thrums at the feel of his touch. She closes her eyes, remembering her mother’s words – the girl wants love. She wants the peaches and the cream.

‘Do you like silver?’Johannes asks.

‘Yes,’ Nella breathes. She will not babble this moment away.

‘There’s nothing more beautiful in the world than silver,’ Johannes says. His hands drop from her face, her eyes snap open and she feels a swoop of embarrassment at her craned position. ‘I’ll have a necklace made for that throat.’

His voice sounds far away from the roar of her thoughts. Nella pulls back, rubbing her gullet as if bringing it back to life. ‘Thank you,’ she hears herself say.

‘You’re a wife now. We’re supposed to dress you up.’

Johannes smiles, but the sentence is brutal to Nella, and a stone of fear hardens in her gut. She finds she has nothing to say.