The Miniaturist(89)

At the sight of him, a real-life English devil, the schepenbank sit up. ‘Are you Jack Philips, of Bermondsey, England?’ asks Slabbaert.

Jack seems momentarily uncertain in the face of the spectators’ stares and whispers. Nella, remembering his consummate performance in the hallway after stabbing Rezeki, cannot work out if he is terrified or just pretending.

‘I am,’ Jack replies. He throws down the two words like gauntlets at Johannes’ feet, his strange Dutch echoing through the chamber. A few people in the gallery snigger openly at Jack’s accent.

‘Hand him the Bible,’ Slabbaert intones and a court clerk stands up and brandishes a small, dense copy. ‘Place your hand on it and swear you will tell the truth.’

Jack places his tremulous fingers on the top cover. ‘I will,’ he says.

Johannes’ face is an unreadable mask and Jack does not return his gaze. ‘Do you recognize this man?’ Slabbaert points to Johannes, but Jack keeps his head bowed. ‘I said, do you recognize this man?’

Still Jack doesn’t look. Is this guilt, or feigned fear, just one of the tricks Jack learned in the playhouses by the River Thames? ‘Are you deaf?’ Slabbaert says, a little louder. ‘Or do you not understand me?’

‘I do understand,’ says Jack. His eyes flick towards Johannes, lingering on his crooked legs, his tattered-looking cloak.

‘What charges do you bring to him?’ asks Slabbaert.

‘I bring the charges of a sodomitic attack, assault and bribery.’

The schepenbank rustles with excitement. ‘Let me read your statement out to the assembly.’ Slabbaert clears his throat. ‘ “I, Jack Philips, of Bermondsey, England, lodging at the sign of the rabbit off the Kloveniersburgwal near Bethani?nstraat, was summarily seized and sodomitically abused late in the evening on the twenty-ninth of December. My abuser was Johannes Matteus Brandt, merchant of Amsterdam and bewindhebber of the VOC. I was taken against my will, and was stabbed in the shoulder for my resistance.” Was there anything else you wished to add?’ asks Slabbaert, peering over his eye-glasses.

‘No.’

Cornelia turns to Nella. ‘Did he just say that the Seigneur stabbed him? Does that mean Toot’s safe?’ she looks, as if she can hardly believe it. ‘One small miracle, Madame.’

But Nella cannot feel so pleased. The lie sets his servant free, yet it binds Johannes tighter to the threat of death.

‘And everything in there is correct?’ Slabbaert says, referring to the statement.

‘Yes, Seigneur. Except that when he stabbed me, he only just missed my heart.’

‘I see. And where did he seize you, Mr Philips?’

‘On the Eastern Islands. I work now and then as a stower at the VOC warehouses.’

‘And how did he appear to you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, how did Johannes Brandt behave before he – seized you?’

‘He was frenzied.’

How does Jack know a word like that in Dutch? Nella thinks.

‘Did you speak together?’

Jack is warming to his performance now. With a mastery of the actor’s pause, he waits, letting the chamber hear nothing but their own wonderings and the falling rain.

‘Did he speak to you?’ Slabbaert repeats.

‘He called me his little niece and asked me where I lived.’

‘He called you his little niece?’ Slabbaert turns to the schepenbank. ‘On all levels of life these men are unnatural. They even steal the language of the family and turn it to mockery. Did he say anything else, Mr Philips?’

‘He said he’d been watching me,’ says Jack. ‘He asked if he could come back and see my lodgings.’

‘And how did you reply?’

‘I pushed him away and told him to leave me alone.’

‘And after you pushed him?’

‘He took me by my coatsleeves and dragged me against his warehouse.’

‘And then?’ Jack goes silent. ‘And then?’ presses Slabbaert. ‘You were abused?’

‘I was.’

‘You were sodomized.’

‘Yes.’

Two members of the schepenbank explode into a fit of coughing, their chairs scraping. In the gallery, people are muttering. One of the youngest children, no more than three years old, stares between the banister spindles in horrified wonder.

The Schout leans forward to Jack, a faint flicker of delight in his amphibian eyes. ‘Did he say anything as he was attacking you?’

‘He said – he said he had to have me. That he would show me how much he loved his little niece.’

‘And did you say anything?’

Jack throws back his shoulders, showing his bloody bandage, puffing out his chest. ‘I told him he had the Devil in him. Then I told him he was the Devil, but he wouldn’t stop. He said he would show a wretch like me what it was to be taken by a man like him. He said he always got everything that he wanted, and he would beat me if I didn’t submit.’

‘We have a surgeon’s account of the plaintiff’s physical state when he came to the Stadhuis with his accusation,’ says Slabbaert, handing copies of it to the schepenbank. ‘He stabbed you, my lad. Any lower and he’d have punctured your heart.’