Tulip Fever

by Deborah Moggach

  The crowd roars louder. Gerrit stands there, his mouth hanging open. How does the fellow do it? It’s magic! Gerrit’s wits try to grapple with this; it is beyond his understanding. It is like these pigments, here in the parcel. Just lumps and crystals, that is all they are. Jan will make them disappear. He will transform them into trees. The sky!

  Gerrit stands there, as enchanted as a child. There’s another fellow, dressed as an Oriental. He’s swallowing nails. Nails. Gerrit cannot bear to look. He squeezes his eyes shut and next moment, when he opens them, the man is blowing flames out of his mouth.

  And then a donkey is dragged on. It is pitifully thin and wears a dunce’s hood on its head. The man looks like a gypsy—wizened, with a flourishing mustache. He is dressed up as a teacher and carries a blackboard, which he props up in front of the donkey. He cracks his whip; the beast won’t budge.

  Gerrit stands, rooted to the spot. A cripple rattles his tin at him but he takes no notice. The man cracks his whip again.

  “Time for class, Dobbin!”

  The crowd titters. Gerrit is a simple, softhearted man. He loves all defenseless creatures—puppies, kittens. He especially loves donkeys—their big, furry heads, their ears. Maybe it’s because he has been called a donkey himself; when Jan gets angry with him he calls him an ass.

  The donkey refuses to go down on its knees. It stands there on its dainty hooves, its great head hanging. It looks so sad, its ears poking out of the holes in its hood. They move back and forth, separately.

  “Time for your sums, Dobbin!” The man cracks his whip again. The donkey lifts up its head and brays—a noise of bottomless despair.

  Suddenly the man loses his temper. He whips the donkey once, hard. The crowd titters. Then he starts whipping it in earnest—hard, stinging strokes.

  Gerrit’s eyes fill with tears. The poor dumb creature. The crowd is laughing now. How could they? The donkey stands there, rocked by the stings of the whip.

  Something snaps. Gerrit drops his parcels and pushes through the crowd.

  “That’s not n-n-n-nice!” he bellows.

  The man gazes at him. Gerrit grabs the whip out of the man’s hand.

  Like a showman, Gerrit flourishes the whip. It hisses above his head. The crowd gasps. Then—thwack!—he hits the donkey man. He whips the bastard harder and harder; the whip sings through the air. The man cowers, backing off, his hands over his face. The crowd roars louder.

  And now Gerrit is chasing the donkey man across the square. The crowd applauds, pressing back to let him pass. The fellow zigzags around the stalls and vaults over a box of apples. Gerrit thunders after him in pursuit. The man sprints down an alley and is gone.

  SUDDENLY, GERRIT IS A HERO. People are patting him on the back. He is being propelled into the nearby tavern. Voices jabber around him. “You saw him off and no mistake!” Gerrit feels limp. He trembles with shock, for he is not a violent man. In fact, he has never hit anybody in his life.

  Somebody sits him down at a table. “He deserved it,” says a voice, “the cowardly rascal!”

  “It just didn’t seem right,” mutters Gerrit modestly. “Poor donkey . . . poor dumb creature. I’m a poor dumb creature, but does my master beat me?”

  There is an explosion of laughter. Gerrit blushes, pleased at his own wit. A tankard of beer is put in front of him.

  “It’s on the house.” A big, blowsy woman smiles at him.

  “Just the one,” he says. “Then I must be on my way.” He is still trembling; he can hardly lift the tankard to his lips.

  “I heard the commotion,” says the woman. “I saw what you did. Know something? I’ve buried two husbands and you’re more of a man than both of them put together.”

  Gerrit is gazing, mesmerized, at her breasts. Both of them . . . They are the largest breasts he has ever seen. They have a life of their own, shifting like creatures trying to get comfortable under her blouse. He gulps down his beer.

  Other people join them. The lady tells them about Gerrit’s valiant exploit.

  Gerrit says: “I’m a poor old donkey myself, but does my master beat me?”

  They roar with laughter all over again. He is hugely enjoying himself now.

  A boy comes in. He puts three packages on the table. “You dropped these,” he says.

  Gerrit stares at them. Phew! That was a near miss. All this excitement, it has been wiped clean from his mind. He nearly lost them. Truly he is an ass.

  He rises to his feet. “I’d better be off.”

  Someone sits him down again. Another brimming tankard is put in front of him.

  54

  Jan

  By so much the more are we inwardly foolish, by how much we strive to seem outwardly wise.

  —JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

  There is a knock at the door. Thank God! Gerrit has returned.

  Jan jumps to his feet and opens it. His landlord steps into the room.

  “Oh,” says Jan.

  “Just checking,” says the man. He is a skinny, shrewd fellow who lives in the next street.

  “You too?” asks Jan. “Think I’m going to leave without saying good-bye?”

  “Just checking. Can’t be too careful. Seeing as you owe me two months’ rent. Seeing as—let’s admit it—we’ve had some arrears in the past.”

  Doctor Sorgh shifts in his seat. He darts a look in Jan’s direction. He sighs, as if his suspicions were indeed well founded.

  “You’ll have the money by the end of the afternoon,” says Jan. “So will these other gentlemen. I’ll bring it round personally.”

  “I think I’ll wait here.” The landlord looks at the doctor and the boy, sitting there. “I assume that’s what you’re doing too? May I join you?” He sits down.

  “Gerrit will be here shortly,” says Jan. He adds pathetically: “He’s bringing us cakes.” Where in God’s name is his servant, the bumbling ass? He turns to the doctor. “What time is it?”

  Doctor Sorgh takes out his pocket watch. “Ten minutes past three.”

  55

  Gerrit

  The pot goeth so long to the water, til at last it commeth broken home.

  —JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

  Gerrit’s head swims. Outside, apparently, the performers and the donkey have disappeared. It’s magic—puff, and they’re gone. Here in this smoky tavern, however, they have taken on the stuff of legend.

  Word has passed from drinker to drinker. In the telling the donkey has grown smaller—just a little mite, just a baby. The man has grown into a monster of evil and now he is firmly believed to be a Spaniard.

  Gerrit swells with pride. Apparently, now, the donkey is his own little country—so vulnerable, so brave. The Spaniard tries to beat it into submission. Down, he orders. Down on your knees! And along comes Gerrit the Brave, the toast of the tavern, the toast of the city, the toast of his people who struggle against their Popish invader.

  It’s heady stuff, being a hero. Gerrit says he’s hungry and here, in front of him, the huge breasts hove into view. Mistress what’s-her-name—she’s told him but he cannot remember—she places in front of him a platter of smoked herring, bread and cheese.

  Gerrit feels profoundly contented. Everybody is roaring drunk and so is he. He’s told them his life story and they have drunk to that. He told them about when he was a child, how he worked a treadwheel in a ropeworks; their eyes brimmed with tears. He told them about the time he fell through the ice; they roared with laughter. He told them about working for Jan van Loos. “Five years I’ve served him and tomorrow I’m a free man.” They raise their glasses and drink to that. They are his orchestra and he is the conductor. And he has lost his stutter; the words flow from his lips.

  Munching a mouthful of fish, he tries to remember that thing about magic. What did he think? It seemed clever at the time. He is a bit befuddled but if he tries hard . . . He doesn’t want to lose his audience now.

  “Magic, it’s like this, see.” He picks up the packa
ge of pigments and fumbles open the string. “Here’s these lumps of colors . . . my master—hey presto!—he turns them into trees, into beautiful ladies . . .” Inside, there is an onion. He has opened the wrong parcel. He chuckles. “Hey presto, it’s an onion!”

  Another roar of laughter. Magic, see? Actually, an onion is just what he fancies; he is partial to an onion with his herring. “That’s no onion,” says somebody, but Gerrit doesn’t hear.

  Somewhere behind him a fiddler strikes up a tune. People move away and start singing.

  Gerrit picks up the knife and laboriously—he had better be careful, the knife’s sharp—he peels off the skin. His hands refuse to obey him. Shaking with merriment, he admonishes them. “Don’t be dunces,” he tells them. Clumsily they are slicing up the onion. Today everything strikes him as hilarious—donkeys, onions, life.

  He shovels in a mouthful of herring. Then, with the knife, he spears a round of onion and shoves it in too. Mm . . . He’s ravenous . . . as hungry as a horse, as hungry as a donkey . . . The attention has moved away from him but he doesn’t mind. He concentrates on eating.

  He sits there bent over his plate. He shovels in the onion and the herring; he tears off a piece of bread and stuffs that into his mouth too. Something tastes curious but he is too hungry to care. Mouth half full, he shoves in some more. He gobbles it all up and soon it is gone.

  Look! Just like magic. His plate is empty.

  Gerrit leans back in the settle and belches with satisfaction.

  56

  Sophia

  Every sin carries its own punishment.

  —JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

  Lysbeth, Mattheus’s wife, carries a pile of costumes into the room and heaps them onto the bed. I shall need something to wear for my journey down to the harbor; the luggage will be sent separately from Jan’s house.

  “You can choose a disguise,” says Lysbeth. “They belong to my husband; he keeps them here for his clients. Some of them like dressing up for their portraits. A grocer down in the Rokin, he and his wife had themselves painted as the Archangel Gabriel and the Madonna.”

  I could escape as the Virgin Mary! After all, she is accustomed to miracles. I blush at this blasphemous thought—I am not myself tonight—but no thunderbolt strikes me. And I have got away with worse.

  Lysbeth sits down on the bed. “It’s so brave.” She sighs. “Faking your death, eloping to the East Indies, and all for love.”

  “I have done a terrible thing.”

  “I do envy you,” she says. This sounds heartfelt. Mattheus isn’t an easy man to live with. Outside the room, children thunder up and down the stairs. There are seven of them. Lysbeth bears them uncomplainingly, just as she patiently bears her husband’s numerous infidelities and bouts of drunkenness. Jan has told me all about them. Mattheus lives a precarious life. His fortunes rise and fall— as well as painting, he deals in pictures and property and makes some spectacular losses. Once, the bailiffs came to cart away their furniture and only left the bed because, at the time, Lysbeth was giving birth in it. She is a docile, long-suffering wife and she supports her husband through thick and thin. Mattheus invariably crawls home; she always forgives him for she is a real Christian; she does not finger her rosary mouthing lies, as I do.

  I look at the heap of costumes. How shall I depart: as Pallas Athena? As a Jewish Bride? I can be a figment of my own imagination. If I were an angel I could fly to Batavia. They lie on the bed, the other selves I could become. The prospect is dizzying. I could become a creature of mythology, who never existed. No—who exists more vividly than the millions of us who simply die, uncelebrated in anyone’s imagination.

  How strange I feel today. It is hardly surprising. I have disappeared from the world. I have no idea what the future holds. What is Batavia? A jumble of syllables and a vision of eternal summer. The fog of Holland lifts like a curtain to reveal—what? I have thrown away everything—my marriage, my family, my life in that great house—for invisibility. For love.

  Mattheus’s voice booms up through the floorboards. “Sit on his knee, dear! Arms around him—here—like this.”

  The pupils have gone. Now Mattheus has hauled in some drunks from the local alehouse. According to Lysbeth he is painting his fifteenth Peasants Carousing. Or is it Merrymakers in a Brothel ? They are painted to give both enjoyment and moral instruction, depicting the disastrous consequences of inebriation and sensual indulgence. Mattheus has his favorite models, but they are often in a state of inebriation themselves. Judging by his voice, so is he. But he will get it painted; he is a true professional and besides, he has the stamina of an ox.

  Time passes. Outside, the low winter sun has slipped behind the church. I wish Jan would come. He should have sold the bulb by now. I want to see him. I want to run my fingers over his face and know that he is alive. Until then I do not know if I am living or dead. Tonight is our last night in this country. I still cannot believe it.

  A guffaw floats up through the floorboards. “I said carousing,” yells Mattheus. “Not bloody fucking!” There is a bellow of laughter.

  Suddenly Lysbeth says: “I’d cut off my right arm to keep him sober.”

  She leaves, abruptly.

  57

  Jan

  He that lies down with dogs gets up with fleas.

  —JACOB CATS, Moral Emblems, 1632

  It is six o’clock. A great flaming sunset, a sunset that suffused the sky with fire, has long since been extinguished. Darkness has fallen. In Jan’s studio a small crowd has now gathered. Men sit on the bed; they lean against the wall smoking their pipes. Throughout the afternoon his creditors have gathered here one by one. Doctor Sorgh, the landlord and the boy from the East India Company have been joined by the butcher, the tavern keeper and a local loan shark, to all of whom Jan owes large sums of money. Each time there is a knock at the door Jan springs up: “He’s here!” But Gerrit has still not returned.

  Food and drink have been brought in. At first glance it looks as if Jan is holding a party. There is, however, little conversation. Stony-faced, his creditors wait. They are going to sit it out. Doctor Sorgh takes out his pocket watch yet again and looks at it. The butcher leans against the wall, cracking his knuckles. They look like the grimmest of passengers waiting for a coach that will never arrive.

  Outside in the street, another small crowd has gathered. Word has got around: Jan van Loos is taking delivery of the most valuable tulip bulb in the world. If rumor can be believed, its price today has risen sky-high. Whispers pass from person to person. It is worth a chest full of gold; it is worth a ship filled with gold; it is worth a fleet of ships filled with gold; it is worth the entire contents of Stadholder Frederik Hendrik’s Treasury. It is worth enough gold to feed every man, woman and child in the Republic for all their lives. It’s worth all the gold of this Golden Age and then more.

  “It’s only a bulb,” someone says. “They all look the same anyway. How can you tell?”

  Indoors, Jan has taken refuge in the kitchen. He cannot bear to see his guests’ faces, and conversation has long since dried up. They are growing mutinous, he can feel it. They are, of course, doubting the existence of this bulb. They suspected he was lying to them and now their suspicions have hardened into certainty. They have been the victims of a colossal confidence trick and however much he has tried to reassure them—telling them that Gerrit will soon be back, that three groups of speculators are waiting at the Cockerel, ready to bid for the bulb—however much he tells them that soon they will have the money in their hands he knows that their faith in him—tenuous at the best of times—has drained away.

  Jan sits there, gazing at a pile of fingers; he dropped the plaster arm during packing and swept the bits into the corner. How could he have entrusted Gerrit with the bulb? The man is a half-wit. No—it is Jan himself who is the idiot. He should have insisted on going himself. He could have dragged the doctor with him. He must have been mad.

  Sophia must be getting worrie
d. He has hardly had time to think about her; she has faded into the background. Her death, though feigned, seems somehow to have removed her from the drama of the living. She will be waiting for a message that he has cashed in the bulb and discharged his debts; she will be awaiting his arrival. He is due to spend the night with her at Mattheus’s house before they set sail at dawn. Lysbeth is cooking them a celebratory goose.

  And then Jan hears it: the faint sound of singing. He goes into the studio and hurries to the window. It is very faint, but it’s heading this way. He recognizes it as a parent, through a jabber of voices, knows the voice of his child.

  “Come all you maidens fair That are just now in your prime . . .”

  The voice grows nearer. In the street, the crowd titters and moves aside. Gerrit lumbers out of the darkness.

  “I’ll have you keep your gardens clean And let no man steal your thyme . . . With a heigh da-di-do and a hey da-di-di . . .”

  Gerrit staggers, recovers himself and heads for the front door.

  Jan flings it open. Gerrit stumbles in.

  “Where in God’s name have you been?” demands Jan. “I told you to come straight home!”

  “I been . . .” Gerrit’s speech is slurred. “I been . . . fighting the Spanish . . .” One arm is folded over his chest, protecting something. He waves his other arm wildly in the air. “Swish swish! . . . I fought them and I won.” He gazes, blinking, at the men in the room. “Hello. Having a party? Can I join in?”

  “No,” says Jan. “We are not having a party. We are waiting for you.” He sits Gerrit down on a chair. “Where is the package?” He speaks slowly, as if to the deranged. “The packages I asked you to collect. Where are they?”

  “Got them here.” Gerrit opens his jerkin, proudly, and pulls out two paper parcels. They are battered by now; the string is coming loose. “Got them, just like you said.”