The Miniaturist(73)
‘Your self-pity is what keeps us from doing anything. You had your chance—’
Marin lashes out her arms and pins Nella by the wrists against the wall. ‘Get off me!’ Nella cries, weakened by the magnificence of Marin’s fury. Cornelia staggers back in horror.
‘I’m not abandoning my brother,’ Marin says. ‘He has abandoned me. I have kept our secrets, as he never could, I have paid his debts as much as I’ve paid mine – and I know you think that now you understand us, but you don’t.’
‘I do.’
Marin releases her. Nella sags against the panelling. ‘No, Petronella,’ Marin says. ‘The knot’s tied too tight for you.’
Hidden Bodies
Nella stands on the step of Johannes’ house, the eve of new year passing with no ceremony. She wants to be splintered by the cold, transfigured by the light. The canal path is empty, the ice a ribbon of white silk between the Herengracht houses. The moon above is larger than she has ever seen it, larger even than last night; an astonishing pale circle of power. It looks as if she could reach out and touch it, that God has pushed it down from the heavens for her human hand to hold.
She hopes Johannes can see this moon through the bars of his cell, somewhere in the bowels of the Stadhuis. His attempt at escape has made him look so guilty. Where is Otto now – where is the miniaturist, still hiding from view? If it weren’t for Cornelia, Nella thinks, I might run away too. While the house dwindles, occupant by occupant, the cabinet feels fuller, ever more alive.
From the open door behind her a strange smell has begun to emanate, and Nella comes back into the house. It is not coming from the kitchens. From upstairs, she hears a distant gulping, caught gasps of air. She follows the odd scent and sound up the staircase and along the dark corridor, to where a fine line of candlelight runs round Marin’s door. No sweet lavender nor sandalwood this time; this is a rotting-vegetable stench that makes Nella gag.
It’s some awful incense Marin’s burning, she thinks, some misguided perfume block. But the gulping sound is a sob. Nella listens, bending down to look through the keyhole, and discovers it has been blocked.
‘Marin?’ she whispers.
There is no reply, just the sobbing. Nella pushes on the slightly open door. The rooms stinks – a tang of matted undergrowth, roots and bitter leaves macerated to release their secret properties. Marin is on her bed, holding a glass of green mixture the colour of canal water, as if the very silt off the Herengracht has been ladled in. Her collection of animal skulls has been swept to the floor, some broken into uneven shards of yellow bone. A map on the wall has been ripped in two.
‘Marin? What by all the angels—’
At the sound of Nella’s voice, Marin looks up, her face tear-streaked, her eyes closing in relief. Her hand goes slack and she lets Nella remove the glass. Nella places her hand on the side of Marin’s face, on her neck, her chest, attempting to calm her shaking body, her unending tears. ‘What is it?’ she asks. ‘We will save him, I promise.’
‘Not him. I’m not—’
Marin cannot make a sentence. The strange pliancy of Marin’s body still beneath her fingers, Nella smells the vile mixture, and it makes her feel ill. She thinks of Marin’s sicknesses, her headaches, the new appetite for sugar, for apple tarts and candied nuts. Marin’s tiredness, her moodiness; the hive you mustn’t kick for fear of being stung. Her bulky clothes, her slower way of moving. Marin’s black dresses lined with fur, her secret love note, ripped to nothingness. I love you. I love you. From back to front, I love you. ‘What have you done?’ Marin had cried into the air, lying in her lavender bath.
Marin does not stop Nella’s probing hands, and so further Nella goes, slower, over her sister-in-law’s full, firm breasts, to the top of her stomach, hidden deep beneath swathes of high-waisted skirts.
When she presses down, Nella utters a cry.
Time stops. There are no words. Just a hand on a womb, and wonder and silence. Marin’s concealed stomach is hard and huge, full as the moon. Marin? Nella whispers her name, not sure if she’s even spoken out loud.
She exhales as the baby turns in its tiny home, and when a small foot kicks she drops to her knees. Still Marin stays silent, head erect, eyes pouched with tiredness, fixed on an invisible horizon before her, the exertion of keeping the secret draining from her face.
This is not a small baby. This is a baby that is nearly ready to arrive.
‘I wouldn’t have drunk it,’ is all Marin says.
The walls of the room seem nothing more than the flats of a stage set, falling, and beyond them another landscape never glimpsed. An unpainted place stretching out in all directions, no signposts or landmarks; just endless space. Marin sits very still.
Nella thinks of the little cradle in the cabinet house and a shiver runs up her body. How did the miniaturist know about this? Marin’s gaze is on the candle – beeswax, no burning tallow, just the pleasant smell of honey. The flame dances like a sprite, a little god of light mocking their paralysis of thought. How to start, what to say?
‘You tell no one,’ Marin whispers finally.
‘Marin, there must be no more secrets within this house. Cornelia will have to know.’
Marin sighs. ‘If she doesn’t already. I’ve been soaking my rags in pig’s blood so she wouldn’t be suspicious.’ Her eyes flick toward Nella. ‘And you know full well this house’s keyholes.’