The Miniaturist(65)

Nella opens Smit’s List once more. The miniaturist’s mottoes, pressed between the pages, fall from the opened spine like scattering confetti. She finds the miniaturist’s advertisement. Trained with the great Bruges clockmaker, Lucas Windelbreke. All, and yet nothing. Every time I go to her house, Nella thinks – every time, foolishly bashing on her unopened door – I want all and I certainly achieve nothing. A different approach is required, and as she stares at the advertisement, Nella wonders why she didn’t think of it before. There will be no more long letters, no more witty, semi-philosophical retorts, no more tulips and turnips or running in the cold to be embarrassed on the Kalverstraat.

She hurries to her mahogany writing table, remembering how she waited on Johannes’ doorstep that first day, the people wandering up the Herengracht, the blind boy with the herring, the women laughing. Had the miniaturist known me even then? Had she known how much I looked forward to a room, a desk, a piece of paper to embellish my unhappy welcome?

Drawing out a sheet, Nella dips the pen and begins her letter:

Dear Seigneur Windelbreke,

I am writing to enquire about an apprentice you once had.

All I know of her is that she is female and has a tall, fair-haired appearance, and stares as if she would look into my soul. She has crept into my life, Seigneur, and the miniatures she sends are becoming more unnerving. How is it that she will not respond to me directly, yet chooses to make me the focus of her work?

Tell me how she came to you and why she left. What forces move within her to make my life in miniature – unasked for, exquisite, mysterious in their message? I named her my teacher but now, God save me, I call her a prophet – but if she was once a spying devil you had to cast out, then you must write to me.

I wait with painful anticipation,

Petronella –





There is a knock on her door. Nella shoves the letter under a book, draws the curtains on the cabinet and gathers up the miniaturist’s mottoes.

‘Come,’ she says.

To her complete surprise, Johannes shuffles in. ‘Did you find him?’ she asks, drawing her robe around her and pocketing the mottoes. She finds herself unable to say Jack’s name out loud, but surely that is who Johannes has been with these two nights, though no one dared to say it.

‘Alas, no,’ he replies, holding his hands out like a clumsy thief, as if Jack has slipped through his fingers.

‘You’re like a child, Johannes, lying about a stolen puffert.’

He raises his eyebrows, and although Nella is surprised at her own directness, increasingly with Johannes she finds it difficult to hide her feelings. He doesn’t deny this accusation, but tries to soften her. ‘Petronella,’ he says. ‘I know you’re not a child.’

His kindness almost hurts more than his cruelty. ‘There is much I cannot understand,’ she says, sitting up on the cover of her bed, glancing at the closed cabinet. ‘Sometimes in this house, I see a crack of light, as if I have been given something. And yet other days, I feel shrouded in ignorance.’

‘By that measure, indeed we are all of us children,’ Johannes says. ‘I didn’t mean what I said in the salon. When Marin – she makes me—’

‘Marin just wants you to be safe, Johannes. As do I.’

‘I am safe,’ he replies.

Nella closes her eyes at this, feeling a deep unease. How hard it must have been for Marin all these years, caring for someone who thinks the force of his own will is enough to fight the troubles of existence! He is a citizen of Amsterdam – surely he knows he cannot survive here alone?

‘This is not the marriage you imagined for yourself,’ he says.

She stares at him. A glimpse of parties, a feeling of security, the dying laughter of chubby babies – it falls between them and fades to black. All that belongs to another Nella, one who will never exist.

‘Perhaps I was foolish to imagine anything.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘We are born to imagine.’ He still hovers, unwilling to leave. Nella thinks again of her latest delivery from the miniaturist, the buns and cakes arranged in a tiny basket, hiding behind the mustard-coloured curtains.

‘Johannes, did you manage to sell any of Agnes’ sugar in Venice?’

He collapses on the end of her bed. ‘It’s a mountain, Nella,’ he sighs. ‘Literally. Metaphorically. Finding buyers, at this time of year, will take a while.’

‘But did you find any?’

‘A couple, yes. A cardinal and one of the Pope’s courtesans. People seem to have less to spend these days.’ He smiles sadly.

‘You will have to think of something for the rest. Marin would be bothering you even more if she knew you’d only found two buyers. You must consider yourself fortunate it’s only me.’

Johannes smiles. ‘I wasn’t expecting the woman you’ve turned out to be.’

Nella’s first obsession is an elusive Norwegian woman who moulds her life through miniatures, and her second is keeping Johannes’ wealth from rotting near the sea. It was not the picture her mama had painted back in Assendelft.

‘You only know me slenderly.’

‘I was complimenting you,’ Johannes says. ‘You are extraordinary.’ He pauses, looking embarrassed. ‘Come January I’ll be gone again, and I’ll make their profit for them. My stock always sells.’ He opens his arms wide, as if the stature and ornament of his Herengracht house should be sufficient proof.