The Miniaturist(8)

Nella feels drunk with all this new information, but Marin’s head seems steady. What news of the pepper treaty with the Sultan of Bantam, and what does that mean for the VOC? Johannes tells her of the clove-planters’ rebellions in Ambon, their land over-populated with trees at the VOC’s behest. When Marin demands the exact nature of their unrest, he grimaces. ‘By now, the situation will have changed, Marin, and we’ll know nothing.’

‘And that, Johannes, is too often the problem.’ She asks him about some silk due to a tailor in Lombardy. ‘Who won the import right?’

‘I forget,’ he says.

‘Who, Johannes? Who?’

‘Henry Field. A merchant with the English East India,’ he replies.

Marin thumps her fist. ‘The English.’ Johannes looks at her, saying nothing. ‘Think of what this means, brother. Think. The last two years. Allowing it to wander to another man’s purse. We haven’t—’

‘But the English buy up our Haarlem linen.’

‘With their tight fists.’

‘They say the same of us.’

From bullion to sultans via the English, Marin’s lexicon is a serious astonishment. Johannes is surely crossing a forbidden boundary – for what other woman knows this much about the ins and outs of the VOC?

Nella feels quite invisible and ignored – it is her first day here and neither of them has asked her a single question, though at least the mercenary debate gives Nella an opportunity to inspect her new husband under lowered lids. That suntanned skin – she and Marin are ghostly in comparison. Nella imagines him with a pirate’s hat, his ship beating the dark-blue waves of a faraway sea.

She goes further – picturing Johannes without his clothes, imagining the thing he has underneath the table waiting for her. Her mother has told her what wives can hope for – a rising rod of pain, the chance it won’t go on too long, the wet clam dribble between your legs. There are enough rams and ewes in Assendelft to know exactly what happens. ‘I don’t want to be just that kind of wife,’ she told her mother. ‘There is no other kind,’ came the reply. Seeing her daughter’s expression, Mrs Oortman had softened slightly, taking Nella in her arms and patting her stomach. ‘Your body is the key, my love. Your body is the key.’ When Nella asked what exactly she was supposed to unlock, and how, her mother had demurred. ‘You’ll have a roof over your head, thanks be to God.’

For fear the other two might see these memories cross her face, Nella stares at her plate. ‘Enough about all that,’ Marin says. Nella jumps, as if her sister-in-law has read her mind. Johannes is still talking about the English, swilling the amber ale at the bottom of his glass.

‘Have you spoken to Frans Meermans about his wife’s sugar?’ Marin interrupts. His silence makes her grim. ‘It’s just sitting in the warehouse, Johannes. It arrived from Surinam over a week ago and you still haven’t told them what you’re going to do with it. They’re waiting.’

Johannes puts down his glass. ‘Your interest in Agnes Meermans’ new wealth surprises me,’ he says.

‘I’m not worried about her wealth. I know how Agnes wants to breach these walls.’

‘Always your suspicions! She wants me to distribute her sugar because she knows I’m the best.’

‘Well, sell it and be done with them. Remember what is at stake.’

‘But of all the things I might sell, you push for this! What about lekkerheid, Marin – the craving craze for all things sweet – what might your Pastor say?’ Johannes turns to his wife. ‘My sister thinks sugar is not good for the soul, Nella, but she wants me to sell it anyway. What do you make of that?’

Nella, remembering her rebuffed request for marzipan, feels grateful for his sudden attention. Souls and purses, she thinks, these two are obsessed with souls and purses.

‘I’m merely keeping my head above the flood,’ Marin says, her voice tight. ‘I fear my God, Johannes. Do you?’ Marin grips her fork like a small trident. ‘Please just sell the sugar, brother. It is to our advantage that there is no Guild of Sugar-sellers. Our own prices, to whom we want. Get rid of it and soon. It would be best.’

Johannes stares at the untouched loaf still resting in the middle of the damask. Nella’s stomach rumbles and she clutches it instinctively as if her hand will keep it quiet. ‘Otto would not approve of our new kind of free trade,’ Johannes says, his eyes flicking to the door.

Marin drives her fork tines into the damask cloth. ‘He’s a Dutchman. A pragmatist. He’s never even seen a cane plantation.’

‘He nearly did.’

‘He understands our business as well as we do.’ Her grey eyes bore into his. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Do not speak for him,’ Johannes says. ‘He works for me, not you. And this tablecloth cost thirty guilders, so kindly stop making holes in everything I own.’

‘I was at the docks,’ Marin snaps. ‘The burgomasters drowned three men yesterday morning, one after the other. Hung weights on their necks. Put them in sacks and threw them in the water.’

Somewhere in the hallway, a plate clatters. ‘Rezeki, bad dog!’ comes Cornelia’s cry, but Nella notices both Johannes’ dogs are in the corner of this room, fast asleep. Johannes closes his eyes, and Nella wonders how drowning men have anything to do with stocks of sugar, or Otto’s opinions, or Agnes Meermans trying to breach their walls.