A Young Wife Read online

  Another staircase across the landing rose to a second landing, where there was a door ajar to a darkened room. Minke sensed movement inside and caught a quick glimpse of a woman’s pale face. After that the house was a warren of short staircases and landings zigzagging to a large room at the top, the sickroom, from the smell of it. It had two closet beds against the right-hand wall, both with the doors drawn. A small table and chair stood next to one of the beds, and on the table were bottles of medicine. Like the rest of the house, the room was dark, cluttered, and stuffy.

  Meneer DeVries, in his soft voice, announced that he’d brought a wonderful girl to help. He pulled open the door to one of the closet beds and leaned in, blocking Minke’s view. When he stood back, Minke had a shock. The woman’s face seemed a skull covered in the palest translucent skin. Her eyes were unnaturally large. Her hair hung in dark strands, unwashed, but her gown was pure white, bleached and starched and ironed so stiffly that its collar came to painful-looking points against her wasting neck. Minke wanted to throw open a window. She was afraid she would gag.

  “Come!” Meneer DeVries motioned Minke in with the enthusiasm of a man delivering a wonderful prize. “Elisabeth, this is Minke, your relative from Enkhuizen.” He patted the side of the bed, and Minke did as instructed, using the stepstool to climb up and sit on the side of the bed. She looked down on Mevrouw DeVries, whose large eyes took Minke in fully—her face, her clothing, her hands.

  “I’m here to care for you.”

  Meneer DeVries cleared his throat, and when Minke turned, she saw that two more people had entered the room. “My son, Willem. We all call him Pim. My daughter, Griet.”

  Minke knew right away that Griet’s had been the face in the shadow. Griet was about Minke’s age, perhaps a year older. She had her father’s ginger-gold hair and a well-fed look about her. Her eyes darted from Minke to her father. Pim was smaller than his sister but seemed several years older.

  “So, Enkhuizen, is it?” Griet looked her over, top to toe.

  Minke nodded.

  “Where is that, Papa?” Griet turned to her father. “I mean”—she waved a hand as if to take in the whole country—“I just can’t place it.”

  “The Zuiderzee,” Pim answered. He had a wide forehead and stiff posture.

  “Minke drove us out of a ditch!” Meneer DeVries beamed at her. “Did you hear that, Elisabeth? We veered off the road, and Minke saved the day.”

  “You drove Papa’s car?” Griet turned to her father. “I want to drive the car. Why can’t I drive the car?”

  Meneer DeVries shook his head with impatience. “We were stuck,” he said. He turned abruptly and pulled open the doors to the second bed, addressing Minke. “You’re to sleep here with the doors open in case my wife should need you. Dinner at half past.”

  He ushered his children from the room, leaving Minke alone with her patient. In her whole life, she had never slept all by herself in a bed. She had shared a bed with Mama and Papa when she was little, and for the past six years, she’d shared a bed with Fenna.

  “You must excuse them,” Mevrouw DeVries whispered. She was sitting up taller, propped by pillows. She raised her shoulders and dropped them. “Sander has let them do what they like.”

  “It must be difficult for them to see you ill,” Minke said.

  She looked beyond Minke to the window. “They’ll survive.”

  “I only meant—”

  Mevrouw winced briefly, in pain. “I should be turned twice a day,” she said quietly. “Bedsores.” She drifted off, eyes half shut, then open again. “When I need my medicine—” She took a quick breath. “Bring it immediately, no matter what. Anywhere in the house. Feel.” She guided Minke’s hand to the side of her abdomen. Minke’s hand lay on something hard and misshapen as a stone. She felt both revulsion and a determination not to take her hand away. If Elisabeth had to live with this, Minke could certainly bear to touch it. She shut her eyes, and when she opened them, Mevrouw DeVries had fallen asleep.

  Very slowly, Minke removed her hand and tried to get her bearings. She missed home already. She wanted her mother. Mama would know how to proceed. Minke cracked open the window to breathe in the cold air and clear her head. Across the canal were more houses just like the one she was in—made of gray stone and with fancy carved scrolls at their peaks. She counted the stories: six. She’d never seen such tall buildings except for the Drommedaris—a large fortress—in Enkhuizen and the Westerkerk, of course. At home the houses were small, with the kitchen, parlor, and beds downstairs and storage in the attic.

  She bit her lip. What would Mama do? She scanned the room. Mama would say, First things first. Before it grew dark, she must unpack. She slipped her few belongings into the drawers of the wardrobe and hung up her two dresses, keeping an eye on Mevrouw.

  Moments after she was done, the door opened. Meneer DeVries entered carrying an oil lamp. Mevrouw DeVries did not stir. He raised the lamp to his wife’s face. “She was beautiful once, like you,” he said. Minke glanced quickly down at the floor, uncomfortable that he would say such a thing in front of his wife. “I’ve come to tell you it’s time for dinner.”

  GASLIGHTS BURNED IN the dining room. Pim and Griet stood side by side behind their chairs at a long table, waiting. Minke marveled at the furniture, which was large and strange, not at all what they had at home. And the walls had tapestries of Chinese men scowling out. Even the table service was bizarre, with a spinning island at the center that held colorful platters and bowls. The DeVrieses used beautifully decorated metal pots in all sizes and shapes, with fabulous designs of animals and women. She wondered who had cooked the meal. Certainly not Griet, who sat with her arms folded, looking sullen.

  “Papa tells us you’re a nurse,” Pim said, tucking a linen napkin beneath his chin.

  She eyed Meneer DeVries, who astonished her by nodding in affirmation. Well, best not contradict him, although why he would fib was a mystery to her.

  “She’s too young to be a nurse,” Griet said, as if Minke weren’t present. “She’ll die, you know. The doctors have said. I’m sure Papa told you.”

  The serving girl entered just then, and the cook came to the open door to peer from the steamy kitchen at Minke, who smiled and said hello.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Griet asked.

  “Of course,” Minke responded.

  “And?”

  “I’ll care for her as if she were my own mother.”

  “I’m very busy,” Griet said, pouting. “If that’s what you mean.”

  “I only meant what I said.”

  Meneer DeVries gave her an approving look that said she had passed a test of some sort. After that, the family talked with one another as if Minke weren’t present, which suited her fine. What she learned of them was this: Meneer DeVries was anxious about his business. In fact, all three of them were anxious. It had something to do with new laws from The Hague, with the possibility of war, rumors about the confiscation of ships sailing under Dutch colors. Minke understood none of it, only that Meneer was worried. It was easier for her to follow when the conversation turned to the children. Pim was a student at the university, studying the law, and Griet was delaying her marriage because of her mother’s illness. She was clearly unhappy about it, worried her fiancé wouldn’t wait. She complained about all there was to do—the mending and washing and so on. “I hope you sew,” she said to Minke after they’d finished dessert.

  “I enjoy sewing a great deal,” Minke said. “I made this dress.” She opened her arms to show it off.

  “She can help with the wedding dress, then,” Griet said to her father.

  “First things first,” Meneer DeVries said. “Minke will have a great deal to do.”

  IN THE MORNING, Minke washed at the basin. Should she wake Mevrouw DeVries? No. Let her sleep. It was her own decision, and no one was there to tell her otherwise. She opened the window to air the room, which smelled of urine. The chill air woke Mevrouw DeVries. “Love
ly,” she said.

  “Do you take breakfast, Mevrouw DeVries?”

  The woman studied her. “You’re very young. Please call me Elisabeth.”

  “I’m fifteen,” Minke said, confounded by the request. To call a grown woman by her given name was improper, but she would try. “Shall I bring tea?”

  Elisabeth shut her eyes.

  Minke went into the hall, intending to go to the kitchen, but a tray had been left at the door. Coffee, two poached eggs. Everything was cold. Tomorrow she would wake earlier.

  A knock came as Minke was trying to spoon a tiny amount of egg between Mevrouw DeVries’s parched lips. “Yes?” she said.

  Pim opened the door but seemed hesitant to enter.

  “Ah, my sweet son, the advocate, is here,” Elisabeth said, smiling.

  “Not yet,” Pim said, blushing. “I mean I’m not a lawyer yet. Not that I’m not here.”

  “You’ve noticed our little Minke,” Elisabeth said, causing Pim to blush more deeply. Minke understood what it was that made Pim’s posture seem odd. He had the start of a hunchback; his curved spine had thrust his head permanently forward.

  “Good morning, Mother.” Griet’s voice was shrill. She kissed her mother’s cheek, then picked up the bottle of morphine. “How much has she had, Minke?”

  “Nothing,” Minke said. “She’s not had pain. When does the doctor come?”

  “What can a doctor do?”

  Minke was alarmed again at what this family said in front of Elisabeth, but the older woman seemed unfazed. “Who provides the morphine if not the doctor?”

  “Papa gets it. We’ll inject it when she can no longer swallow. Right, Mother?”

  “So I understand,” Elisabeth said. Minke was struck by the woman’s passivity, quite the opposite of what she had expected, given Meneer DeVries’s description to Fenna.

  “How much do I give?” Minke asked.

  “Mix it with sugar syrup, give a little. If it doesn’t work, give more. You’re the nurse,” Griet said.

  After the children left, Minke could hear Griet calling out to the housekeeper and the cook, her voice plaintive at first, then rising to a shout when they didn’t come quickly enough. Elisabeth was sleeping again.

  Now what to do? It was still early, and the day stretched out before her. She ran a finger along the decorative trim of the wardrobe and came up with a smudge of dust. She could hear people in the house. The bell ringing at the door, people coming and going downstairs. Visitors? But none for Elisabeth. Minke used her cloth to clean dust from tabletops and soot from the sill. She ran it over the photographs on the wall and the objects that adorned the surfaces. Such odd things Elisabeth had. Minke peeked into a small ornamental purse, dusty but colorful and thickly embroidered with the tiniest beads. Inside was a pot of rouge. On another table lay a brown object with a small opening at the top that was lined with a wide collar of dented silver. It surprised her with its lightness, and on closer inspection, she saw it was a gourd of some type, hollowed. A long silver straw with a porous silver bulb stuck out of the opening on top.

  “Maté,” Elisabeth said, causing Minke to fumble with the item.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Elisabeth motioned her to the bed, took the silver straw in her mouth, and whispered, “The bombilla. To drink their special tea. Their yerba maté.”

  “Who does?”

  “Gauchos.”

  “What are gauchos?”

  “Horsemen in Argentina. Adorned in silver. Their saddles, their horses. Oh, how they ride.”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  “Once.” Elisabeth pointed to a small wooden statue on a shelf. It was of a man, roughly carved and painted, with a slouch hat, black beard, and wide red pantaloons stuffed into high black boots. Without warning, she threw back her head and let out a terrifying groan, more animal than human.

  Hands trembling, Minke immediately mixed sugar and water together in a small dish and added the morphine from its dark brown bottle, a teaspoonful, as Griet had instructed. She pulled Elisabeth up as far as she dared—the woman was light in her arms—and slipped the spoon between her lips. Elisabeth sank back against the pillow, her face vacant.

  Minke sat at the bedside, shaken. What if she’d given too much? She smoothed the woman’s forehead, pulled the covers over her, and was reassured by her steady breathing. She was shocked anew to see how clearly visible Elisabeth’s skull was beneath her skin, how atrocious her hair, which had been braided once but had grown out and was loose at the roots. Minke undid the clasp, meaning only to rebraid it, but found it incredibly dirty. “Shall I wash it?” she whispered.

  Elisabeth slept.

  The task took the afternoon. Minke washed one small section of hair at a time, then dried it with a towel to keep Elisabeth’s bed from becoming damp. Elisabeth’s hair, which had seemed the color of lead, was jet black, threaded with silver. When the hair was mostly dry, Minke spread it over the pillow and combed it smooth, and when that was done, she braided it back into its thin rope. Through it all, Elisabeth slept.

  Meneer DeVries came into the room as Minke was finishing. He watched her with a fatherly pride. She felt very pleased with herself for her ingenuity, and this only the first day.

  “Aha,” he said. “You’ve discovered the yerba maté cup!”

  “It’s unusual,” Minke whispered.

  “Then it’s yours,” he said.

  “But it belongs to Mevrouw DeVries.”

  He glanced at his wife and shrugged.

  “DID I HEAR Mother cry out today?” Griet said at dinner. “I thought I did.” She looked from her brother to her father for corroboration.

  “She had pain,” Minke said. “I administered the morphine immediately.”

  “Do you have a beau?” Griet asked, flashing the shiny ring on her finger at Minke.

  Minke blushed and shook her head. Griet kept her so off balance.

  “There, Pim,” Griet said, smirking. “I’ve asked her. Now the field is yours.”

  “Oh, Griet, for God’s sake,” Pim said, and then to Minke, “I apologize for my sister. It seems that’s all I do.”

  “But you’re the one who wants to know,” Griet insisted.

  “Your mother told me about the gauchos,” Minke said, changing the subject and sparing poor Pim.

  “Did she now!” Meneer DeVries became alert. “Yes. She accompanied me once to Buenos Aires. We saw them on an outing to the countryside.”

  “They are such filthy creatures,” Griet said.

  And so was your mother’s hair. Minke wished she had the nerve to say that aloud. It was a disgrace. “So you’ve seen them, too? The gauchos?”

  “No, of course not, but how could they possibly be clean? They’re outdoors all the time, and they bed down with their horses. Right, Papa?”

  Meneer DeVries gave his daughter an indulgent smile. “What did Elisabeth tell you about the gauchos, Minke?”

  “They thunder across the fields on horses decked with silver.” Elisabeth hadn’t said exactly that, but it was how Minke pictured the scene.

  “The pampas,” Griet said. “In Argentina they’re called the pampas. And anyway, they’re not fields. They’re much bigger. They’re pampas.”

  “The pampas, then,” Minke said. “Even better.”

  “It isn’t better or worse,” Griet said. “It’s just the correct word. That’s all.”

  FROM THEN ON Minke took as many meals as she could in the room with Elisabeth. She’d lost her appetite because of the constant smell, her task of emptying the bedpan several times a day, and of doing for Elisabeth what she’d only ever done for herself. She grew bolder, bathing Elisabeth daily because it must be especially important to someone who spent all her days in bed. Not only that, but Elisabeth visibly relaxed into the warmth of Minke’s skin moving over hers.

  The first time, the process took forever to figure out, but she finally devised a workable plan. She helped Elisabeth roll to the forward ed
ge of the bed so she could slip a length of oilcloth under her and cover it with a towel. She then very gently placed Elisabeth on the towel. While she was being moved, Elisabeth wrapped her arms around Minke’s neck and hung on with surprising strength.

  Minke washed one arm with warm water, then a warm rinse and a towel dry before moving on to the next, then each leg. Trying to appear confident in spite of her nervousness, she reached under the covers and washed Elisabeth’s breasts, watching her face for the slightest expression of shock or distaste; finding none, she gently pulled Elisabeth’s legs open to wash the area there. Elisabeth did not resist. Nor did she meet Minke’s eyes. With no experience in any of this, Minke acted on a single instinct: It was what she would want were she in Elisabeth’s condition. When she was finished, she removed the towel and oilcloth. She had never felt such intimacy with anyone. She knew Elisabeth’s body everywhere, the bones in particular, the way they connected with tendons and sinew, ball and socket, the spine like a row of knots.

  WEEKS PASSED, BLENDING into one another. Outside Minke’s window, the canal sealed over with black ice, softened during a thaw, and froze solid again. People skated past the house during the deepest of the freezes, and Minke wished she could be with them, laughing and racing instead of sitting in the quiet room with its expectation of death.

  Meneer began to make it a practice to come to the room at dusk after a day of work. He often seemed harried and paced the small room with his hands clasped behind his back, talking with Elisabeth or, it seemed, more at her than with her, as she said very little. He spoke of what he read in the newspapers, of rumors that abounded all over Amsterdam. A crackdown of some sort was expected. That’s all Minke could glean from what he said. When he’d calmed himself, he would take a chair and draw it to Elisabeth’s bed. For her part, Minke drew her own chair to the far corner of the room, near the window, to allow the DeVrieses some privacy.

  If Elisabeth was fast asleep, and increasingly, this was the case, Meneer would kiss her tenderly, pull the covers up to her chin, close the cabinet door, and draw his chair close to Minke’s at the window. Sometimes he spoke a little, asking her about the day. Other times he sat in silence. One evening he seemed particularly upset. He didn’t even try to speak to Elisabeth but brought his chair to the window and sat, his leg quivering in agitation.