‘Oh, do you, Mr Miniaturist?’ Nella says out loud.
She tips up the rest of the package and an array of minuscule domestic items fall out. Irons as long as two barley grains, tiny baskets, woven sacks, a few barrels and a mop, a brazier for drying clothes. There are pots and pans, tiny fish knives and forks, an embroidered cushion, a rolled-up tapestry that reveals a portrait of two women and a man. Nella is convinced that is the same as the stitched story hanging on Johannes’ wall downstairs – Martha and Mary, arguing over Jesus. Fear starts to mingle with her indignation.
In a small gold frame, a vase of flowers has been painted in oils, complete with a crawling caterpillar. It’s a common motif, Nella tells herself, trying to keep calm, looking at the life-size version that Cornelia has just flipped over on the wall. There are a few exquisitely bound books, some no bigger than a stuiver coin, covered in unreadable handwriting. She flicks through their pages, half-expecting to find a love note – but there is none. There are two small maps of the Indies, and a Bible with a big B upon the front.
A separate package catches Nella’s eye, glinting through the cloth. Nestling in the folds she finds a tiny golden key, hanging on a ribbon. She swings it in the cold morning light. It is beautiful, no longer than her little fingernail, intricately wrought with a carved pattern running down its neck. Too small to open any door, Nella thinks. Useless but ornate.
There is nothing else in the package – no note, no explanation, just the strange motto of defiance and this flurry of gifts. Cornelia swore she delivered the letter telling the miniaturist to desist. So why didn’t he obey me?
But as she looks at these pieces – their extraordinary beauty, their unreachable purpose, Nella wonders if she really wants the miniaturist to cease. The miniaturist himself clearly has no desire to do so.
Tenderly, Nella places the new items in the cabinet, one after the other. She feels a fleeting sense of gratitude that takes her by surprise.
‘Where are you going?’ Marin asks as Nella crosses the hallway an hour later.
‘Nowhere,’ Nella replies, her mind already on the sign of the sun, on the explanations which lie behind the miniaturist’s door.
‘I thought so,’ Marin says. ‘Pastor Pellicorne is preaching at the Old Church and I assumed you would want to attend.’
‘Is Johannes coming?’
Johannes is not coming, having claimed the need to be at the bourse, attending the latest figures being bandied on the trading floor. Nella wonders whether it is worship that her husband is avoiding.
Desperate to visit the Kalverstraat, Nella deliberately lags behind Marin, whose feet are pounding the canal paths as if they have done her a personal disservice. Rezeki, never that happy without her master, is at the bourse with Johannes. Not wanting to leave Dhana behind, Nella walks with the second whippet, the dog trotting obediently at her side, wet black nose tipped up towards her new-adopted mistress.
‘Do you usually take dogs to church?’ Nella asks Cornelia.
The maid nods. ‘Madame Marin says they can’t be trusted on their own.’
‘I could bring Peebo.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ says Marin from over her shoulder, and Nella marvels at her ability to eavesdrop.
It is a brilliant day, the terracotta rooftops almost vermilion, the temperature cold enough to dilute any stench from the canal. Carriages clatter by, the waterways full of vessels loaded with men, women, bundles of goods, even a few sheep. They walk up the Herengracht, up Vijzelstraat and over the bridge onto the Turf Market leading towards the Old Church. Nella looks longingly towards her original destination, before Cornelia reminds her that unless Madame looks in the direction she is going, Madame will trip upon the cobbles.
From the boats, from their windows, from the canal path, the people stare. With every step they take past the tall and slender silk merchants’ houses on the Warmoestraat, past the shop windows selling Italian maiolica, Lyons silk, Spanish taffeta, porcelain from Nuremburg and Haarlem linen, the Amsterdammers impress upon them a selection of looks. For a moment, Nella wonders what it is they have done, then she sees the muscles tense in the back of Otto’s neck. He calls to Dhana to put her on the lead. ‘It speaks!’ Nella hears someone say to a peal of laughter.
When Otto passes there’s hardly a face that doesn’t open in surprise to see him walking with these women. Some expressions curdle to suspicion, others to disdain or outright fear. Some are blankly fascinated, others seem unbothered, but it doesn’t make up for the rest. As the party drops down off the Warmoestraat approaching the back of the Old Church, a man with smallpox scars, sitting on a low bench at a door, calls out as Otto passes by. ‘I can’t find work, and you give that animal a job?’
Marin wavers but Cornelia stops walking. She strides back and raises her fist inches from his cratered skin. ‘This is Amsterdam, Hole-Face,’ she says. ‘The best man wins.’
Nella makes a strangled, nervous laugh which dies as the man lifts his own fist to Cornelia’s face. ‘This is Amsterdam, bitch. The best man knows the right friends.’
‘Cornelia, hold your tongue,’ calls Marin. ‘Come away.’
‘He should have his cut out!’
‘Cornelia! Sweet Jesu, are we all of us animals?’
‘Ten years Toot’s been here, and nothing’s changed,’ the maid mutters, coming back to her mistress. ‘You think they’d be used to it.’
‘Hole-Face, Cornelia. How could you?’ Marin says, but Nella hears a distinct note of approval in her voice.
Otto gazes towards a horizon far beyond the buildings of Amsterdam. He does not look at Hole-Face. ‘Dhana,’ he calls. The dog finally stops, perks her head up and trots towards him. ‘Don’t go too far, girl,’ he says.
‘Me, or the dog?’ Cornelia sighs.
Though people continue to goggle, no one else offers their commentary. Nella notices how they look at Marin too. Unusually tall for a woman, with her long neck and head held high, Marin is like the figurehead on the bow of a ship, leaving waves of turning faces in her wake. Nella sees her through their eyes, the perfect Dutchwoman, immaculate, handsome and walking with a purpose. The only thing missing is a husband.
‘How it looks, that Johannes does not come to church,’ Nella hears Marin observing to Otto. In the face of his silence, Marin turns back to the girls. ‘Did he invite the Meermanses to dinner?’ she asks Nella.
Nella hesitates, on the cusp of a lie. ‘Not yet,’ she replies.
Marin stops, unable to hide her fury, her mouth held in an undignified O of shock as she accuses Nella with a flash of her grey eyes.
‘Well, I couldn’t make him invite them,’ says Nella.
‘My God,’ Marin cries, stepping in a puddle of slop. She strides ahead, leaving the other three behind. ‘Must I do it all?’