The Miniaturist(34)
‘Why didn’t you speak to me?’ Nella asks out loud, watching the spaces of her nine dark rooms. ‘What do I have that you want?’
No answer comes, of course, and the pieces inside the cabinet give off a shifting silver radiance. Tomorrow, Nella thinks, I will go to the miniaturist to settle their unwanted presence once and for all. It is not right, surely, to be sent things you didn’t ask for? It is a staking of forbidden territory.
Nella is glad to be out of Assendelft, true – but home is nowhere – it is neither back there in the fields nor here in the canals. Adrift, she feels shipwrecked between the idea of her marriage and its actual state, and the cabinet, beautiful and useless, is a horrible reminder of it all.
Johannes’ diffidence towards her has begun to pierce deeply. He has disappeared many times to the bourse, to the VOC, to his warehouse by the eastern taverns, where the potatoes have the fluffiest flesh. He takes no interest in her, he doesn’t come to church. At least Marin notices me enough to give me a bruise, Nella thinks. How ridiculous this is, to be grateful for a pinch! Her anchor has dropped but found no place to hold – and so it goes through her, massive, unstoppable and dangerous, plunging through the sea.
The sound of whispering rouses her from self-pity. Sitting up, Nella can still smell lily oil hanging on the air. Even I am beginning to dislike it, she thinks. She creeps across her room, straining her ears as she opens her door. The corridor is freezing, but there are definitely two voices in the hallway, words winnowing from urgent breath. They seem excited or fearful – certainly careless, their whispers coming up the house.
Nella wonders if her imagination is betraying her as the voices pause, two doors are shut, and the house falls again to quiet. She moves along the corridor, pressing her forehead between the spindles of the banister, listening vainly. But there is only silence, as if the speakers have vanished into the panelling of the wall.
When the scrabbling starts up, the hairs rise on the back of Nella’s arms. Her guts swill as she looks down to where the noise increases – but it is only Rezeki, Rezeki, peering up at her before slinking low across the tiles. The animal moves like spilled liquid, masterless, a chess piece rolling out of place.
The Wife
By midday, Cornelia has already spent hours in the working kitchen preparing for the Meermans’ dinner. The feast is to be sumptuous; a spread of winter fare, spiced to the hilt with treats from Johannes’ deals in the East.
Nella finds her sitting at the table chopping a pair of huge cabbages. ‘Hungry?’ the maid asks, looking up at her young mistress, who hovers on the bottom step, Dhana at her side.
‘Like a dog,’ Nella replies, trying to trace signs of a sleepless night on Cornelia’s face. The maid looks more flustered than anything.
‘Talk about short notice!’ Cornelia says. ‘You’ve got dried bread and herring until I’ve finished all my dishes – Madame Marin insists. This cabbage needs a dress.’ On seeing Nella’s face, Cornelia relents. ‘Oh, here. Have a puffert. They’ve just come out of the pan.’ She pushes a plate towards her, piled up with small fried pancakes dusted in sugar.
‘What did Hanna give you, in her husband’s shop?’ As Dhana moves to her bed by the stove, Cornelia’s hand hovers over the remaining cabbage. Her skin is red-raw, her fingernails white from all the soap.
‘You’re eating it,’ Cornelia says, leaning in. How round and blue her eyes are, her irises ringed in black. ‘The last of Arnoud’s best sugar. Hanna’s right. So much for sale in this city is terrible. It’s a shame the Seigneur is selling all of Agnes’ abroad.’
Cornelia’s act of sharing has cracked a carapace, and Nella feels within a sense of rising warmth. Even the cabbage seems to glow, a green orb in the friendly firelight of the open stove.
Taking a deep gulp of cold air, Nella coughs on the tinge of sewage. In summer this canal will be hell, she thinks, walking up the Golden Bend. But for now, walking alone feels wonderful – and unaccompanied women, as her husband observed on the barge, are not such a rarity that Nella feels any scrutiny. Passing through Vijzelstraat, crossing Reguliersdwarsstraat and onto Kalverstraat after asking for directions, Nella quickly finds the sign of the sun with the motto underneath: Everything Man Sees He Takes For A Toy. She knocks on the heavy door. The street is not busy – people want to stay inside where it is warm. Nella’s breath turns into moisture on the air as she knocks again.
‘Hello?’ she calls. Please answer, she thinks. ‘Hello? It’s Nella Oortman. Petronella Brandt. I need to speak with you. You sent some things I didn’t order. I like them, but I don’t understand why you did it.’
Nella puts her ear to the dense wood, straining vainly for the sound of feet. She stands back, looking up into the panes. No candles are lit from within and all is still – yet the place has the unmistakeable air of occupation.
When the face at the window appears, Nella stumbles back into the middle of the Kalverstraat, a shock of recognition stopping the breath in her throat. The glass may be thick and warped, but that hair is unmistakeable. It is the woman who watched her at church.
Her face a pale coin, blonde locks beaming through the dark glass shadows, the woman rests her palm upon the windowpane. She remains motionless in that position, casting a calm regard down onto the street.