Tulip Fever (21 page)

IT IS NIGHT. I step into the courtyard. The flowers breathe courage on me. I invest them with courage, knowing that their blowsy lives are soon over. Despite their beauty, they are insensible. Little do they know that we recognize, through their brief blossoming, the futility of human endeavor.

I pause, breathing in their scent. There is a purity about our love of flowers; it is an act of homage untempered by greed. Tulips are the exception to this; when I think of them lust rises within me, a shameful wave of heat. I think: next year I shall plant tulips in this narrow bed. Then I realize that there will be no next year.

I pace around the yard like a condemned prisoner. In the darkness I feel a crunch under my foot. When I was being prepared for marriage I was told the proverb of the snail: she is a good housewife, carrying her home with her wherever she goes.

Well, this particular snail is gone; and her house with her.

34

Jan

PIETER I like you very much. That is why I want to propose to you this advantageous transaction. I do it without any self-interest, and out of pure friendship. HANS I am listening carefully, my friend. PIETER I have a bulb of the tulip “Harlequin.” It is a very beautiful variety, and in addition much sought after on the market. HANS But I never had anything to do with flowers in my whole life. I don’t even have a garden. PIETER You don’t understand a thing. Please listen to me; don’t interrupt, because who knows, maybe today a great fortune is knocking at your door. Can I go on? HANS Yes, yes, of course. PIETER Well, the “Harlequin” bulb is worth a hundred florins, and maybe even more. In the name of our unblemished (as I said) friendship, I will let you have it for fifty florins. Still today, without any effort, you can make quite a lot of money. HANS This is indeed a splendid proposition. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Only tell me, please, what am I to do with this “Harlequin”? After all, I will not stand at the street corner . . . PIETER I will tell you the whole secret. But note it down well in your memory. Why are you fidgeting? HANS I am listening, only I’m a bit dizzy. PIETER Do exactly as I say. Go to the inn At the Lion. Ask the innkeeper where the tulip vendors meet. You will enter the room he indicates. Then someone will say in a very thick voice (but don’t you be put off by it): “A stranger has come in.” In answer to that, cluck like a chicken. From that moment on you will be included in the community of vendors.

—CONTEMPORARY PLAY, QUOTED IN Z. HERBERT, Still Life with a Bridle

A week has passed and Jan, in his studio, is trying to make a deal with the man he attempted to rob. It is unnerving to stand there with him in broad daylight, but there is no way the man can recognize him. He is the only grower Jan has heard of—his name was given to him by a drinker in the Cockerel tavern, who said that Claes van Hooghelande had a substantial hoard, rigorously guarded. Jan is only too aware of this now.

The tulip grower fidgets. He looks restless, as if he is longing to get back to his house. He has told Jan that all his bulbs are now lifted and stored under lock and key. There is a manic gleam in his eye.

“I have five Semper Augustuses,” he says, his voice hoarse with excitement. “A little out of your league.”

The trouble is, the bulbs he has brought along are also out of Jan’s league. Jan has the money from Sophia’s pawned jewelry, his own savings and a loan from Mattheus, but there is still a shortfall. At this stage he needs to buy heavily. He has ordered a bagful of Goudas—red-and-yellow, the cheapest of the flames—plus several thousand
azen
of some Admirals whose full names he didn’t catch.
I’ve wasted my time collecting taxes
, joked Claes,
I’ve joined the
navy now
. Only if Jan buys heavily now will he make the fortune that is, literally, a matter of life and death.

“Take a painting.” He grabs Claes’s arm and leads him to the canvases. “Take a
Raising of Lazarus
. That’s worth thirty florins.”

He pulls out canvases and panels and leans them against the wall. Jacob, who is grinding pigment, stares.

“Take a
Sacrifice of Abraham
; take a
Landscape with Cows.
”

“But, sir—” says Jacob.

“Be quiet!” barks Jan. “Take a
Woman Taken in Adultery
.”

Claes van Hooghelande stands there, scratching his head. “What about that still life over there? Those flowers?” He points to a panel, propped in the corner. “Look— see there—between the columbine and the guelder rose— see that tulip? That’s a General of Generals.”

“It is?”

“You painters, you’re such ignoramuses.”

“We just paint what we see.”

“Oh, yes?” replies Claes. “Daffodils and lilies, blooming together? That’s impossible.”

“Not impossible when
I
paint them.” Now it is Jan who fidgets.

“Such a graceful tulip, such a poem of blooms,” says Claes. “You have caught it to perfection—the drop of dew—”

“Thank you, but—”

“Strange, isn’t it? That flowers are transient but a painting lasts forever.” Claes’s voice throbs with emotion. “Yet one bulb of that tulip is three times more precious, in financial terms, than your painting of it. Try to sort that one out.” Recovering himself, he speaks briskly. “Throw in that painting and you have a deal.”

Jacob gasps. Jan ignores him.

JUST BAGS OF ONIONS, that is what they look like. For them, Jan has paid as much as he makes, with luck, in a year’s work. How homely they look. Yet they are more valuable than jewels, than paintings, than gold. Stored within those bulbs, fattened by sunshine and rain, is his future.

Jan feels too restless to work. He longs to speak to Sophia. He misses her desperately; she is so near yet so far, locked into her echoing prison. He wants to tell her about Claes, the manic gleam in his eye and those loose breeches that he kept hitching up. He longs to tell her everything in his head, those words he stores up for her until they meet again. Is she thinking of him now? What is she doing— sewing, gazing out of the window, the sun shining on that beautiful bumpy nose? He longs for her so much that he feels winded. He tells himself: just a few months and we will be together, forever.

He walks past her house but there is no sign of life, no face at the window. Maybe she is shopping. He walks down to the marketplace but it is late; the stall holders are packing up. It has been such a strange day that he has lost track of time.

Coachmen lounge beside their horses, waiting for fares. When a customer arrives they throw a dice to decide who will take him. Jan thinks: how stolid we look, but underneath we are all gamblers. We are a people possessed. And mine is the biggest gamble of all.

THAT NIGHT HE DREAMS that people are tulips, stem necks rising from their ruffs. Their heads nod; they bend this way and that in harmonious agreement. It seems entirely natural that Amsterdam is peopled with blooms.

He is in the town square, calling out to Sophia. She walks toward him, nodding. It must be Sophia; he recognizes the violet dress. He asks her to accompany him across the seas. She nods more vigorously. Her petals fall, revealing a naked stalk.

JAN’S FRIEND MATTHEUS knows a crooked doctor. His name is Doctor Sorgh. He performed an abortion on a maid that Mattheus had impregnated and was paid with a painting of
Peasants Carousing
.

“Why do you want him?” Mattheus leers. “Got some tart in the family way? When will you stop fucking around and settle down with a nice girl, eh? Gerrit makes a terrible wife. Wrong shape, for a start.”

Jan meets the doctor in an apothecary’s shop down by the docks. This turns out to be a mistake. Doctors hate apothecaries because they steal their custom. They belong to the same guild and pass themselves off as physicians, sitting under their stuffed crocodiles and giving muttered consultations. They even wear the same outfits—black robe and coat, pointed hat.

“Why did you want to meet me here?” snaps Doctor Sorgh.

Jan thought it seemed appropriate. The doctor flounces out and they sit down in a nearby tavern.

“So what is it?” asks the doctor.

“You did my friend a service some years ago. Both parties were satisfied and he recommended you as someone of discretion.”

Doctor Sorgh has a narrow, foxy face and ginger hair. Jan needs to trust him. This man holds three lives in his hand—four, counting the baby. By now Jan feels a certain protectiveness toward Maria, who is the most vulnerable of them all. He feels almost as responsible as if he has impregnated the girl himself.

“I want you to deliver a woman of a child. The woman’s safety is of the utmost importance—”

“You think I’m incompetent?”

“No!” How touchy this man is! “No—but there are some unusual circumstances about the case. Secrecy, for a start.” Jan pauses. He has to take this man into his confidence; he has to tell him the whole story, otherwise their plan won’t work. He swallows a mouthful of beer and begins. Telling a stranger like this, hearing his own voice telling it, unsettles Jan. The whole enterprise sounds insane.