The Fox Is Feverish
The next morning, refreshed by her musician rebellion and her decision to stay for Christmas, Nella plans to make her way to the Kalverstraat with her longest letter yet for the miniaturist.
Dear Madame (I know you are Madame – you have neighbours willing to talk),
I thank you for the eight dolls, and the miniature of my parakeet. I am sure it was you on the Herengracht bridge, watching my despair as I realized I had lost my childhood’s last surviving link. Is the reappearance of my little bird an offer of comfort or a sharp lesson?
Do you know what your delivery boy has done, the unhappiness he’s caused? I assume it was you who returned the Englishman’s puppet back to our front step – be you proud artisan or pesterer, I cannot tell. I am sorry that your excellent work was hurled upon the ice, but your intentions remain a mystery, and some people are unnerved.
They tell me the burgomasters have banned images of people in all forms. I wonder whether you fear their wrath – the worlds you make, your tiny idols which have crept into my mind and plan to stay. You have not sent me anything for a while, and though it is true that I worry what you might send, my greater concern is that you will cease completely.
I assume I still have it in my power to request items, do I not? Therefore, kindly make for me a verkeerspel board, my favourite game of strategy and chance. I am not returning to my childhood home for Christmas, and my life is short of such amusements. Therefore, content me with a miniature version.
One day, we will meet, you and I. I insist upon it. I am sure that it will happen. I feel you are guiding me, bright star, but there is terror in my hope that your light is not benign. I will not rest until I know more of you, but in the meantime, written missives must take the place of better understanding.
Enclosed is another promissory note, for five hundred guilders. Let that be the oil on your front door’s stubborn hinges.
With thanks and anticipation,
Nella signs the letter: Petronella Brandt.
She looks out of her window to admire the white stretch of ice. The city is beautiful tipped in frost like this, the air thin, the bricks redder and the painted windowframes like pristine eyes. To her surprise, she sees Otto hurrying along the canal path. It piques Nella’s curiosity, so not bothering with breakfast or putting on a coat, she puts the letter in her pocket and follows him quickly, slipping out of the house unseen.
Otto crosses Dam Square, past the looming new building of the Stadhuis, where Frans Meermans has a post and may be working even now. Sell his wife’s sugar, Johannes, Nella thinks, sending him a silent message as she skips over the sand which has been scattered for easy passage on the cobbles. Again, she remembers Marin in her bath, questioning the air, ‘What have you done?’ It would be better if the Meermanses were not in their lives at all.
After the suppression of St Nicholas’s Day, the people of Amsterdam seem to be taking full advantage. The sun is high, the Old Church bells ring to the sparkling rooftops, and the sound is magnificent. Four high bells peal to the skies, ringing the coming birth of the Holy Child, and one lower bell – God’s voice, deep and true and long – strikes under their clamour. In the name of communal obedience, it seems some music can play loud.
The smell of cooking meat fills the air, and Otto walks past a spiced-wine stall which has been erected, flagrantly facing the front entrance to the church. Pastor Pellicorne shoos the vintners away, whilst Amsterdammers look longingly at the trestle bowing under the weight of the wine-tureens.
‘Tighter than a piglet’s arse, that one,’ a man mutters. ‘The guild arranged it, the burgomasters gave permission!’
‘God before guilds, my friend,’ replies his friend, putting on a haughty voice.
‘That’s what Pellicorne wants us to think.’
‘Cheer up. Look,’ says the second man, revealing under his coat two small flagons of steaming red liquid. ‘Even got a piece of orange in it.’
They hurry off to less salubrious surroundings and Nella feels pleased they have got away, even more pleased that they don’t stop to gawp at Otto. Pellicorne’s glance rests on her, but she pretends she hasn’t noticed.
Otto enters the Old Church, his head down. Nella shivers as she steps inside, for the church seems colder than the air. Even though she’s supposed to be following Otto, she can’t help looking round for a bright blonde head, a gold beacon among the plain brown and white of the church interior. She pats the letter in her pocket. At this festive time, might not the miniaturist make another visit – to remember her family in Norway, to pray for clemency from the Burgomasters? The threads of Nella’s imagination begin to spool, embroidering conversations, patches of which it stitches loosely together. Who are you, why are you, what do you want? The problem is this – heading straight towards the miniaturist seems to make her disappear. And yet, she is so often there, watching and waiting. Nella wonders which one of them is hunter, which one prey.
She keeps her eyes on Otto. The chairs clustering the pulpit are mainly empty, save for a single person here or there who perhaps has nowhere else to be. Normally, of course, worship is done communally, people making sure everyone else sees them at prayer as if this will make the prayer more pure. Otto takes a seat, and unseen by him, Nella moves round and watches him from behind a pillar.
His lips move in a fever. This is no serene prayer – this is almost distraught. It’s astonishing that Otto should be here, alone – what has driven him to such a need to be witnessed in the house of God, given who he is, and what might happen? Nella sees the twisting of Otto’s hands, the panic in his body. Something stops her going towards him. It would not be right to interrupt someone in that state.
Nella shivers, her gaze straying over the chairs, along the white walls, up onto the ceiling covered with old Catholic pictures. She wants so much for the miniaturist to reveal herself. Maybe she’s hiding here right now, watching them both?
Behind her the organ starts up, a booming that shakes Nella to her very core. She doesn’t like thundering organs, preferring the lighter pluck of the lute, the recorder’s reedy ease. A cat, who has come in to shelter from the cold, slinks over the graves, its fur standing to a point. Its movement makes Otto look up and Nella ducks behind the pillar. She covers her ears from the booms of the organ and closes her eyes, dizziness taking her.
A hand touches her sleeve. Nella screws her eyes tighter, not daring to look. It is the moment – it is the woman, she has come.
‘Madame Brandt?’ says a voice.
Nella opens her eyes. Agnes Meermans stands before her, looking thinner than last time, her plain face narrowed, glowing white amidst a muffle of rabbit and fox. She retains her grasp on Nella’s sleeve. ‘Madame Brandt?’ she repeats. ‘Are you quite well? You aren’t even wearing a coat. For a moment I thought the Holy Spirit was upon you!’
‘Madame Meermans. I came – to pray.’
Agnes links her arm through Nella’s. ‘Or to keep an eye on your savage?’ she whispers, motioning beyond the pillar where Otto sits. ‘Very wise. You cannot be too careful, Nella. What’s wrong with him that he looks so distracted?’ Agnes emits her dry ha. ‘Come,’ she says, draping one of her foxes around Nella, pulling it too tight. Nella can smell that fruity pomade again. The fur is wetly cold.
‘We have not seen Marin much at church,’ Agnes observes, patting down the fur round Nella’s neck. She cannot seem to keep her fingers still, and Nella notices how blank they are, devoid of rings. Their absence makes Agnes seem half-naked. The organ stops suddenly, and Agnes is uneasy, as if something is cracking deep beneath her well-polished veneer. ‘Nor have we seen Brandt,’ she continues. ‘Nor you.’
‘My husband is travelling.’
Agnes’ nostrils flare. ‘Travelling? Frans didn’t say.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t know. I believe he is working on your behalf, Madame. He has gone to Venice.’ She tries to pull away. ‘I must go back, Madame Meermans. Marin isn’t well.’
Though she wants to escape, Nella immediately regrets her excuse. Agnes’ eyes widen. ‘Why?’ she says. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘A winter malady.’
‘But Marin’s never sick,’ Agnes says. ‘I could send round my physician, though Marin never trusts them.’
The organ’s notes begin again, falling one upon the other, to Nella’s ears a crashing anti-harmony. ‘She will be well, Madame. It is the season for colds.’
Agnes places her hand on Nella’s sleeve again. ‘This might spring Marin from her sick bed. You tell her this: my entire inheritance is still in his warehouse on the Eastern Islands.’ She’s almost hissing. ‘Those cane-fields are unreliable, Madame – who knows when the next crop will come? Your husband hasn’t sold a single loaf of what we’ve managed to refine. And now it seems he’s gone to Venice empty-handed? We need that money.’
‘He will dispatch it, I’m sure. His word is enough—’
‘Frans went to the warehouse. He saw with his own eyes. I could barely believe it when he told me. Piled up to the ceiling! It won’t be long, Agnes, he said. It will crystallize. Our money will rot before we’ve even plucked it.’
The organ notes vibrate in Nella’s ribcage as she absorbs Agnes’ growing agitation. She looks around the pillar for Otto, but he is nowhere to be seen. ‘Be assured, Madame—’
‘My husband won’t be taken for a fool!’ Agnes snaps. ‘He wondered whether Johannes Brandt was the best man for the task, but I insisted. Me. The Brandts think they can have it all, but they can’t. Don’t laugh at him, Madame. Or me.’ As quickly as she gripped, Agnes pulls away. Nella watches her hurry up the church, hunched over and unusually graceless. Opening the small side door, Agnes disappears.
Nella decides the best thing is to go home and tell Marin about this unsettling exchange. Yet again, the miniaturist languishes unvisited. I will send Cornelia with my letter, she thinks, her head spinning from Agnes’ fury. She turns out of the church and back towards the Herengracht.
As she approaches the house in a rush to tell Marin, she knows that something is wrong. The front door is wide open, a gaping maw onto the unlit hall. She can hear the sounds of the dogs barking, but no human voices. She hesitates, then moves soundlessly up the steps to the side of the door.
It is his boots she sees first. Softest calfskin leather, by now a little scuffed. The sight of them slides her stomach. Horrified, she watches Jack Philips, fevered-looking, the malice written on his face, stride across the hallway tiles.