The Miniaturist(38)

‘Marin always used to be the strongest,’ Agnes observes, a faint wisp of spite.

Nella is saved from replying by the sound of Rezeki’s bark.

‘Ah!’ says the guest, rearranging her dress. ‘Your husband is finally home.’





Exchanges


The meal, for all of Nella’s hunger and Cornelia’s cooking talent, is excruciating. Over the downy white expanse of cloth, Agnes drinks three glasses of Rhenish and talks of Pastor Pellicorne’s excellent sermons and his piety, of the importance of always being grateful – and what about those petty thievers with their severed hands she’s seen being let out of the Rasphuis?

‘What is the Rasphuis?’ Nella asks.

‘The male prison,’ Agnes replies. ‘The Spinhuis is where wicked women are sent, the Rasphuis where they tame the wild men. It’s where the lunatics live,’ she continues, craning forward and boggling her eyes in some approximation of madness. It is a shocking sight and when Agnes persists in it, Frans stares into the tablecloth. ‘Abandoned by their families, paid for with a stipend to the prison to keep them safe.’ She points a ringed finger at Nella. ‘But the really wild men get sent to the torture chamber in the bottom of the Stadhuis, next to the storerooms for the city’s gold.’

Marin says little, throwing glances at her brother, who matches Agnes glass for glass and then one extra by the time Cornelia removes the first course.

Johannes holds himself together, but he is glassy-eyed, his stubble unshaved silvering his tanned face. He considers his plate with extra concentration, plunging his fork into the chunks of pigeon slicked in ginger sauce. As Agnes becomes more foolish, Meermans takes over, trying to impress with his mercantile talk. He wants to discuss cane juice and copper equipment, sugar loaves, the degree to which one must punish a slave. Johannes chomps on his carrots with a barely muted ferocity.

Eventually, the plum pie and thick cream has been fought with and swallowed down, the meal is done, and the real reason for their being there can be avoided no longer. At a nod from Marin, Cornelia comes in with the sugar loaf on a China-ware plate, as tentative as if she were carrying a newborn child. Behind her, Otto enters with a tray of spoons.

Nella examines the sugar loaf, a conical, glittering structure the length of her forearm, the crystals tightly compacted.

‘Half of the crop was loaved before it shipped,’ Meermans says. ‘The other half has been refined in Amsterdam.’

‘Spoons?’ says Johannes, handing them out. Everyone takes an implement. ‘Cornelia, Otto, you should try,’ he says. ‘You’re the likely experts.’

Agnes’ nostrils flare and she purses her lips. Gingerly, Cornelia accepts a spoon and passes one to Otto. As Johannes pulls out a small flick-knife and stands to make the first incision, Meermans rises from his chair and draws a dagger from his belt. ‘Allow me,’ he says, brandishing the blade. Johannes smiles and sits back down. Marin remains rigid, both hands resting on the damask cloth.

The first white shaving lands in a curl at the base of the cone. ‘For you,’ says Meermans, handing it with a flourish to his wife. Agnes beams. He hands out more shavings, leaving Johannes and Otto till last. ‘Incroyable,’ he says, popping his own curl in his mouth. ‘Your father may not have been blessed with sons, my dear, but in his sugar he got the prize.’

Nella feels the shaving melt in her mouth, sweet and granular, vanished in a moment. It leaves a sheen of vanilla behind, and tacks her tongue onto her palate. Marin holds her spoon, her eyes averted from the waiting sweetness. Agnes’ eyes never leave her as Marin’s knuckles tighten on the handle, her mouth barely opening as she swallows it quickly.

‘Exceptionally good,’ Marin says; a thin smile.

‘Another taste, Madame?’ says Agnes.

‘Cornelia, what do you think of it?’ Johannes asks. Marin throws the maid a warning glance.

‘Very good, Seigneur. Delicious.’ Cornelia’s voice is the most timid Nella has ever heard.

‘Otto, what do you think?’ Johannes asks.

‘Now God be thanked, but you are going to make our fortunes, Brandt!’ Agnes interrupts. Johannes smiles, accepting another white curl from the glistening loaf. Nella watches Otto wipe his mouth delicately, every move one of controlled economy.

‘When are you going to Venice?’ asks Meermans. ‘All those palazzos and gondolas – it’ll be home away from home.’

Marin, who had been trying another shaving, puts down her spoon. ‘Venice?’ she says.

‘What is a gondola, dearest?’ Agnes asks her husband, her voice stupid, her eyes shining with Rhenish wine and a desire to be loved.

‘C’est un bateau,’ he replies.

‘Oh,’ says Agnes.

‘I’ll be gone within the month,’ says Johannes. ‘Perhaps you would like to join me, Frans? Ah,’ he adds, putting up a finger. ‘I forget how hard you find the water.’

Meermans sniffs. ‘Very few men bear choppy waves.’

‘True.’ Johannes drains his glass. ‘But there are always those who can.’

Marin rises from the table. ‘Petronella, will you play the lute?’

‘The lute?’ With Marin’s warning not to pluck her brother’s strings rising in her mind, Nella cannot conceal her surprise.