The Miniaturist(97)
Slabbaert clears his throat, looking at him with unconcealed loathing. ‘You wish to speak?’
Like a bird with broken wings, Johannes lifts his arms as far as they will reach. Jack lets out a cry as the drapes of Johannes’ dark cloak fall crookedly to the floor.
‘You put on that costume in the morning, Pieter Slabbaert,’ Johannes says. ‘As do you, Frans Meermans – and you both hide your own sins and your weaknesses in a box under your beds, and you hope we’ll forget them in the dazzle of your robes.’
‘Talk of yourself, Johannes Brandt, not me,’ says Slabbaert.
Johannes looks at him. ‘Am I the only sinner in this room?’ he asks, turning round, looking up at the rows of the gallery. ‘Am I?’
No answer comes. A stillness has descended on the crowd. ‘I have worked for this city,’ Johannes says, ‘from the moment I was old enough. I sailed to lands I didn’t think existed, even in my dreams. I saw men fight and die and work for this republic, on hot beaches and high seas, risking their lives for a glory greater than the one they’d been handed at birth. Striving, building, never once complacent. Schout Slabbaert picks on my African servant, a man from Dahomey. Does the Seigneur even know where Dahomey is, as he drinks his sugared tea, or eats his little buns? Frans Meermans criticizes my freedoms but suffers no guilt enjoying his own. Find a map, Seigneurs, and learn.
‘We took in an orphan girl. I sponsored apprentices, worked tirelessly against the drowning waves. And the waves will drown us all, Seigneurs. I have seen the ledger books, I have seen how the VOC is crumbling into the waters – but I have exploited no man’s need in the process, I have never perjured a soul with bribes. I tried to make my wife happy, as in the times we spent together, she made me. But the problem is, Seigneurs – Mesdames – those with no horizons want to pull yours down. They have nothing, only bricks and beams, not one jot of God’s great joy.’ He looks at Jack. ‘I pity them, truly. They will never hold the republic in the glory I have seen.’
Walking like an old man, Johannes approaches Meermans. He lifts his hand, and Meermans flinches, expecting a blow. Johannes touches his shaking shoulder.
‘Frans,’ he says. ‘My forgiveness is all yours.’ Meermans seems to sag under the force of his touch. ‘And you, Jack Philips?’
Jack lifts his gaze and meets Johannes’ eye. ‘Me?’
‘You are a stone, thrown upon a lake. But the ripples you create will never make you still.’
‘Get him out!’ shouts Slabbaert, pointing at Johannes.
The men of the schepenbank stare at the prisoner in mystification, as if, like a giant among men, his mere touch has the power to crumple. The chamber becomes a cacophony of mutterings and tuts, and Pellicorne looks sick with excitement. Death is hovering in the air, hinting at them all, its terror or its bliss beyond. They don’t want Johannes to go, they want to keep him here. Rich men have tried to silence them before, but not a single one has ever worn his power so lightly, or pointed out a magistrate’s false teeth and raised a laugh.
But Johannes is taken out, and the schepenbank gather round Slabbaert in a half-circle as Meermans stumbles to a distant chair, white and shaken. The power of the state is about to exercise itself and people’s bodies are tense. Nella is no different. She feels a pressure between her legs, as if she might wet herself with fear.
Minutes pass. Ten, then twenty, thirty. It is horrific to watch these men decide Johannes’ fate. There is always the chance of pardon, Nella thinks – but Slabbaert, squatting in the middle of their crescent, keeps up his murmur in the other men’s ears.
Eventually they break apart, returning to their chairs. The Schout lumbers into the main square of flagstones and calls for Johannes Brandt to be brought forth once more. Unaccompanied, the prisoner walks slowly back in, dragging his damaged feet. Johannes stops opposite the Schout, and looks straight into his eyes. Nella stands up in the shadows and raises her arm. I’m here, she whispers, but Johannes is focused on Slabbaert’s face, and Nella finds no louder voice to beat her terror.
‘You have been caught,’ Slabbaert says. ‘The crime of sodomy seeks to destroy the holiness and integrity of our society. You are so swollen with your self-belief and wealth that you have forgotten your God. Your pleasure was overheard and witnessed, but so was your sin.’
Slabbaert circulates the centre square of the chamber. Johannes holds his hands behind his back. Something is rising inside Nella; she chokes on the effort of keeping it in.
‘Death comes to all of us,’ Slabbaert intones. ‘It is the only sure thing in this life.’
No, Nella thinks. No, no, no.
‘For the foul crime you have committed, let it be heard today, the ninth day of January 1687, that I, Pieter Slabbaert, Schout of Amsterdam, and these six members of this city’s schepenbank, find you, Johannes Matteus Brandt, guilty on the count of the sodomitic attack on Jack Philips, guilty of assault and subsequent bribery. Therefore, I declare your just punishment is to be weighted down at the neck, and to be drowned in the sea, this Sunday at sundown. Let the new baptism of Johannes Brandt be a warning to you all. And may God have mercy on his sinning soul.’
There is a moment – one split-hair second of time – when the chamber falls out of Nella’s reach. Free of a body, of a mind, she grapples with the air, trying to stop her crashing world. Then, as Johannes collapses to the floor, the pain Nella has tried to keep at bay floods through her. The chamber becomes shrill with noise, swamping her, pushing her under. She tries to resist, forcing herself past the people on her aisle, knowing only that she must escape this room before she faints. Already they are pulling Johannes up, dragging him out, his feet lifting from the flagstones.