The Gift
For the next two nights in the house, Nella waits for Johannes to put his hands on her and start her life anew. She leaves her bedroom door ajar, the key hanging off the thick oak panel – but when she wakes in the morning, it is, like her, untouched. He seems to be working late. At night, she hears the front door creak open, and often in the early morning when the sun cracks low along the sky. The dull light seeps into her eyes as she sits up, followed by the realization she is yet again alone.
Once dressed, Nella wanders aimlessly around the rooms on the ground and first floors. At the back of the house, further away from any possible guests, the rooms are plainer, for all grandeur has been saved up for the ones whose windows overlook the street. These front chambers seem at their most beautiful when no one is in them, wearing their furniture down or placing muddy footprints on their polished floors.
She pokes her head round marble pillars and empty fireplaces, roving an untrained eye over the paintings – so many paintings! Ships with crucifix-like masts rising to the sky, hot-looking landscapes, more dying flowers, upturned skulls like brown root vegetables, broken-stringed viols, sprawling taverns and dancers, gold plates, enamelled seashell cups. To stare quickly at them all has a sickening effect. The gold-leaf leather wallpaper on the walls still smells vaguely of pig, reminding her of the Assendelft farmyards. Turning away, unwilling to be reminded of a place she thought she was so keen to leave behind – Nella is confronted with vast Bible tapestries hanging from the panels; Mary and Martha with Jesus, the wedding at Cana, clever Noah and his sturdy ark.
In the best kitchen, Nella notices Johannes’ two lutes that Cornelia keeps polished and hanging on the tiles. Reaching up to take one off its hook, Nella jumps with shock, for a restraining hand is already on her shoulder.
‘It’s not for playing,’ snaps Marin. ‘It’s a piece of craftsmanship that will be ruined by your plucking.’
‘Are you following me?’ When Marin does not reply, Nella taps the lutes. ‘Their strings are sagging. From lack of care.’
She turns on her heel and stalks upstairs. Marin’s room at the end of the first floor corridor has remained unexplored, and she eyes its distant keyhole, wondering what bare cell must lie within. Her fury almost propels her in. Who is Marin to tell her no? She is the mistress of this house, after all.
But Nella goes back to her own room, instead staring in dismay at the bloodstained feathers of the painted birds, their lizardish beaks and curving nostrils. Good God, Marin even hates music! Doesn’t she know that lutes weren’t made to hang up on a wall?
Marin will usually not converse with her unless it is an instruction, or a homily plucked out of the family Bible, usually designed to crush. When she gathers the household in the hallway to hear passages from the Holy Book, Nella is surprised to see this is Marin’s job. At home, when her father was sober he undertook it – and now Carel, aged thirteen and well practised, reads to his sisters and mother.
Other times, Marin sits on a green velvet chair in the salon, working on her ledger book. Nella’s new sister-in-law seems so diligent with the household accounts, the vertical columns a natural stave for her, the numbers her musical notes where their money trips a silent melody. Nella wants to ask more about her husband’s business, about Frans and Agnes Meermans’ sugar, but conversation with Marin is never easy.
On the third day, however, she creeps into the salon where Marin is sitting, head bent as if in prayer. The household ledger is, as usual, open on her lap.
‘Marin?’
Nella has not used Marin’s first name to her face before; she feels the strange raw daring of it, her stab at intimacy falling short.
‘Yes?’ Marin snaps her head up. She makes a show of resting her pen upon the open pages, placing her hands on the elaborate leaf carving of the chair. From the hard look in Marin’s grey eyes, Nella supposes that the exchange over the lute is not forgotten; feeling the scrutiny of her sister-in-law’s gaze, her panic rises. A blot of ink has leaked from Marin’s nib.
‘Will it always be like this?’ Nella blurts.
The bald question charges the atmosphere, stiffening Marin’s spine. ‘Like what?’
‘I – never see him.’
‘If you mean Johannes, I can assure you, he exists.’
‘Where is it that he works?’ Nella shifts the conversation to where Marin must give her a more solid answer. Her question has an almost stranger effect than the first; Marin’s face becomes a mask.
‘In several places,’ Marin replies, her voice controlled and tight. ‘The bourse, the docks, the VOC offices on the Old Hoogstraat.’
‘And – what exactly does he do in these places?’
‘If I knew that, Petronella—’
‘But you do know. I know you know—’
‘He turns mud to gold. Water to guilders,’ Marin snaps. ‘He sells other men’s stock at better prices. He fills his ships and puts them out to sea. He thinks he’s everybody’s favourite. That’s all I know. Pass me the brazier, my feet are like icebergs.’
Nella believes that may be the longest string of sentences Marin has ever spoken to her. ‘You could always light a fire,’ she replies, shunting one of the small hot braziers towards Marin, who secures it with a stamping foot. ‘I’d like to see where he works. I will go and visit him soon.’
Marin closes the ledger book, the pen still trapped inside, and stares at its battered leather cover. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
Nella knows she should stop asking questions, because she only gets told no. But she cannot help herself. ‘Why not?’
‘He’s busy.’
‘Marin—’
‘Surely your mother told you it would be like this?’ Marin cries. ‘You haven’t married the local notary.’
‘But Johannes—’
‘Petronella! He has to work. And you had to marry someone.’
‘You haven’t. You haven’t married anyone.’
Marin’s jaw tightens and Nella feels a little spark of triumph.
‘No,’ Marin replies. ‘But I’ve always had everything I wanted.’
The next morning, Marin chooses a proverb, a brimstone story from Job, and finishes with the clear waters of Luke.
‘But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.
Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger.
Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.’