There is a knock on her door. Nella shoves the letter under a book, draws the curtains on the cabinet and gathers up the miniaturist’s mottoes.
‘Come,’ she says.
To her complete surprise, Johannes shuffles in. ‘Did you find him?’ she asks, drawing her robe around her and pocketing the mottoes. She finds herself unable to say Jack’s name out loud, but surely that is who Johannes has been with these two nights, though no one dared to say it.
‘Alas, no,’ he replies, holding his hands out like a clumsy thief, as if Jack has slipped through his fingers.
‘You’re like a child, Johannes, lying about a stolen puffert.’
He raises his eyebrows, and although Nella is surprised at her own directness, increasingly with Johannes she finds it difficult to hide her feelings. He doesn’t deny this accusation, but tries to soften her. ‘Petronella,’ he says. ‘I know you’re not a child.’
His kindness almost hurts more than his cruelty. ‘There is much I cannot understand,’ she says, sitting up on the cover of her bed, glancing at the closed cabinet. ‘Sometimes in this house, I see a crack of light, as if I have been given something. And yet other days, I feel shrouded in ignorance.’
‘By that measure, indeed we are all of us children,’ Johannes says. ‘I didn’t mean what I said in the salon. When Marin – she makes me—’
‘Marin just wants you to be safe, Johannes. As do I.’
‘I am safe,’ he replies.
Nella closes her eyes at this, feeling a deep unease. How hard it must have been for Marin all these years, caring for someone who thinks the force of his own will is enough to fight the troubles of existence! He is a citizen of Amsterdam – surely he knows he cannot survive here alone?
‘This is not the marriage you imagined for yourself,’ he says.
She stares at him. A glimpse of parties, a feeling of security, the dying laughter of chubby babies – it falls between them and fades to black. All that belongs to another Nella, one who will never exist.
‘Perhaps I was foolish to imagine anything.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘We are born to imagine.’ He still hovers, unwilling to leave. Nella thinks again of her latest delivery from the miniaturist, the buns and cakes arranged in a tiny basket, hiding behind the mustard-coloured curtains.
‘Johannes, did you manage to sell any of Agnes’ sugar in Venice?’
He collapses on the end of her bed. ‘It’s a mountain, Nella,’ he sighs. ‘Literally. Metaphorically. Finding buyers, at this time of year, will take a while.’
‘But did you find any?’
‘A couple, yes. A cardinal and one of the Pope’s courtesans. People seem to have less to spend these days.’ He smiles sadly.
‘You will have to think of something for the rest. Marin would be bothering you even more if she knew you’d only found two buyers. You must consider yourself fortunate it’s only me.’
Johannes smiles. ‘I wasn’t expecting the woman you’ve turned out to be.’
Nella’s first obsession is an elusive Norwegian woman who moulds her life through miniatures, and her second is keeping Johannes’ wealth from rotting near the sea. It was not the picture her mama had painted back in Assendelft.
‘You only know me slenderly.’
‘I was complimenting you,’ Johannes says. ‘You are extraordinary.’ He pauses, looking embarrassed. ‘Come January I’ll be gone again, and I’ll make their profit for them. My stock always sells.’ He opens his arms wide, as if the stature and ornament of his Herengracht house should be sufficient proof.
‘But do you promise, Johannes?’
‘I promise.’
‘I believed your vow once,’ Nella says. ‘I pray this time you hold it true.’ In the background, the pendulum clock marks its velvet time. ‘Here,’ she says, lifting off the bed and gently parting the curtains of the cabinet. ‘I want you to have this.’
She puts the puppet of Rezeki in his hand and Johannes looks down, blinking with tired eyes, not sure at first what he’s seeing. ‘Rezeki?’ he utters.
‘Keep her safe.’
For a moment Johannes pauses, his eyes riveted to the tiny model in his hand. Then he lifts it up, touches the silky grey fur, the small intelligent eyes, the slender legs. ‘I’ve never seen such a thing. In all my travels.’
Nella notices that he does not comment on the red mark. If Johannes doesn’t choose to see it, she supposes, so much the better. ‘Your wedding present,’ she whispers. ‘I know Rezeki was never human-shaped, but still – don’t tell the burgomasters.’
Johannes looks at her, too moved to speak, clutching the gift like a talismanic comfort. Nella closes the door on him, listening to his quiet tread back to his own room, feeling strangely at peace.
But at dawn the next day, she finds herself woken roughly by Cornelia. The sky is split in streaks of orange and dark blue – it cannot be later than five o’clock. Nella shivers out of her dreams of red-soaked cloths and shrinking rooms, quickly conscious of the cold morning air.
‘What is it?’
‘Wake up, Madame, wake up.’
‘I am awake. What’s wrong?’ she asks. As she focuses on Cornelia’s looming, drawn face, fear plummets through her. ‘What’s happened to Johannes?’
Cornelia’s hands fall from Nella’s body like a pair of dead leaves.
‘Not the Seigneur. It’s Otto,’ she whispers, her voice breaking. ‘Otto’s gone.’