The Miniaturist(24)
‘I will not hurt you, Petronella.’
Nella looks through the window towards the unending flow of house-fronts passing by. Closing her legs together tight, she imagines the moment of penetration – is there something in her that will rip, will it feel as painful as she fears? Whatever the sensation, she knows she cannot avoid it, that it must be overcome.
‘I am quite serious,’ Johannes says. ‘Quite serious.’ Now it is his turn to lean towards her. The smell of trapped salt and cardamom, his strange maleness, threatens to overpower her. ‘Nella, Nella, are you listening?’
‘Yes. I am, Johannes. I – you will not hurt me.’
‘Good. You have nothing to fear from me.’
As Johannes says this, he withdraws, staring at the canalside houses. Nella thinks of the picture in Marin’s travel book, the native and the conqueror, acres of misunderstanding between their bodies. Night has fallen fully. She looks at the lights of the smaller boats, and feels completely alone.
Marriage Parties
The Guild of Silversmiths’ feast chamber is large and full of people, whose faces blend into a blur of eyes and mouths and feathers bouncing off the brims of hats. Around them, the sound of silverware on silverware builds, male laughter hitting the walls to a subtler counterpoint of women’s titters. There is an almost monstrous presence of food. Long tables draped in white damask have been lined up, piled with plates of chickens, turkeys, candied fruit, five-meat pies and twisted silver candelabra. Johannes links his arm tight through Nella’s and they skirt the dizzying array, keeping close to the dark mahogany panelling. It seems that whispers and snickering run the room in their wake.
The other wives glide to their places, seeming to know where to sit. They are all in black, the skin above their bosoms covered with lace jabots, a sliver of white flesh on show. One woman in particular darts her eyes, glittering like jet in the candlelight, focusing their intent on Nella. Her stare couldn’t be more different than that of the woman on the Kalverstraat. ‘Smile, and sit with me,’ Johannes says, proffering the woman a hard-boiled grin. ‘Let us put something in our stomachs before facing the masses.’ Nella thinks she might be eaten alive were it not for the food.
They take their seats at a table where a first course of crab has been laid.
‘I find much of myself in food,’ observes Johannes, holding his crabbing fork aloft. Nella, staring at the shining silver chargers and the doughty jugs of wine, wonders what he means. In the presence of these other people, his problems with Marin are forgotten. Johannes is genial, aware of the gazes of the gathered company, chatting to his junior bride as if they’ve spent two decades together weathering the seven seas.
‘Cumin seeds, studding a new cheese, remind me that I am capable of delight,’ Johannes says loudly. ‘Delft butter – so fine and creamy, so different from the others, gives me enormous satisfaction. I sell China-ware plates in Delft and pick it up in pats. And Cornelia’s marjoram and plum beer makes me happier than a successful deal. She must make you some.’
‘My mother makes it,’ Nella replies, the chomping, clattering noises of the feast beginning to daunt her. She feels drained by the chamber’s energy, as crystallized as the chunks of sugar-dusted fruit.
‘Figs and sour cream for an early breakfast in summer,’ Johannes goes on, oblivious. ‘A particular joy, taking me back to childhood, only the taste of which I now remember.’ He looks at her. ‘You remember yours, no doubt, for it was not so long ago.’
Nella wonders if this sharp point is deliberate, or a symptom of his nerves, being out here in company, under its scrutiny. At any rate, she wants to disagree. Right now, her childhood feels incredibly distant. It has been replaced with uncertainty, a low level of constant dismay. The stone of fear splits into a sick anxiety in her stomach; she hates the room’s cacophony, the timbre of this conversation, the invasion of the unfamiliar.
‘I left my cradle long ago,’ she murmurs, thinking of the miniaturist’s unwanted nursery offering and feeling even more at sea.
‘Memory through food,’ Johannes says. ‘Food is a language in itself. Parsnips, turnips, leeks and endives – and yet I crunch when no one else can hear. And fish! Flounder, sole, dab and cod are my favourites, but I’ll eat anything else offered up by the seas and rivers running round my republic.’
Nella senses there is something protective in the way he is talking, as if he hopes his words will keep her mind from straying to worry. ‘What do you eat when you’re on the oceans?’ she asks, summoning the courage to play along.
He puts his fork down. ‘Other men.’
Nella offers a laugh, a shy burst that falls between them and lands on the tablecloth. Johannes pops another piece of crab into his mouth. ‘Cannibalism is the only way to survive once the food runs out,’ he says, ‘but I’d rather have potatoes. My favourite tavern in this city is on the Eastern Islands, by my warehouse. Their hot potatoes have the fluffiest flesh.’ He prods the crab on his plate. ‘It is my secret place.’
‘But you’ve just told it to me.’
He lays his fork down. ‘So I have,’ he says. ‘So I have.’ He seems caught by her observation, and looks away towards his crab. With nothing to say, Nella also examines the splayed and perishable flesh, its pincers the colour of ink, its shell turning angrier shades of red. Ripping off a leg and using his fork to scoop out the last of the fibrous whiteness, Johannes calls a greeting to one of the silversmiths. Nella manages a small mouthful of her own crab. It tastes salty, and it sticks in her teeth.