A Young Wife Read online

  “What’s the matter?” It felt like an intrusion into Meneer’s private life to ask him such a thing, but it would be worse to say nothing when he was in such a terrible state.

  “The damn government,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  He seemed about to say something else but shook his head sharply as though to dislodge whatever thought was there. “I have too much on my mind,” he said.

  “It must be so difficult,” she said. “You work so hard and your wife is so ill. I can’t imagine. And while I understand none of it, I hear you speak of problems having to do with your business. It’s a great deal for one person to carry.”

  He gave her such a lovely sweet smile that she felt very drawn to him. “I don’t want to worry you.” He tipped her face to the light. “You’re doing a splendid job, the jewel in the household, if you ask me. Elisabeth adores you.” He looked long into her eyes. “And I as well.” He sat back in his chair. She could barely see him in the low light. “What do you think of us?”

  The only answer was one she dared not utter—that it shocked her how little attention Elisabeth received from the children. But she had to say something. “You’re all quite different from one another.”

  He burst out laughing. “A diplomat!” he said. “Did you hear that, Elisabeth?”

  THE HARD SWELLING on Elisabeth’s abdomen grew. Her pain came more often, and when it did, it was severe, sudden, and caused her to scream out. Minke mixed the morphine, then raised Elisabeth up a bit so it would be easier to swallow. From the time Elisabeth asked for the morphine to the time Minke was able to pour it into a spoon and administer it—her hands steadier now that she was experienced—Elisabeth’s screams, Alstublieft, Alstublieft, please, please, became so loud she could be heard all along the street, or so Griet said. One of these times, Griet came into the room to ask why Minke couldn’t move more quickly to ease her mother’s suffering. “The neighbors will think we’re beating her,” Griet said. “She mustn’t shout so.”

  Minke said she was sorry, that she knew how difficult it must be for Griet to hear her mother’s distress. She would try to do better in the future. She had learned to speak to Griet this way. To agree with her and mollify her, even when she was furious and knew there was nothing she could do better.

  “I hope this doesn’t happen to me when I’m old. I’ll kill myself first,” Griet said to her.

  Minke busied herself with the medicines. She liked to keep the table orderly, the spoon clean, the sugar already dissolved into a syrup.

  “Is she asleep?” Griet asked.

  Wasn’t it obvious?

  Griet took up the bottle of morphine, poured some into the spoon, and swallowed it.

  “Are you mad?”

  “It’s lovely,” Griet said, her face relaxing into a far-off smile. “Have you tried it?”

  “Of course not.” Minke snatched the bottle from the table. “Your mother needs this.”

  “There’s plenty more, believe me,” Griet said vaguely. The effects of the morphine had been immediate. “Papa gets it from the Indies. Or the coca leaves or opium or something. I don’t know exactly. All I know is it feels divine.”

  Minke looked Griet in the eye. “Then you must ask him for your own and not use your mother’s.”

  Griet smiled sweetly at Minke. “Papa sails in three weeks, you know. Whether Mother is dead or alive.”

  That did it. She took Griet by the arm and pulled her into the hall.

  “What are you doing!” Griet squirmed clumsily, still giggling. “Who do you think you are?”

  “What if she hears you?” Minke said. “Don’t say those things in her presence.”

  “You can’t tell me how to behave, and I can say whatever I like.”

  “But she’s your mother!”

  “She’s as good as dead. Just look at her. I wish she’d hurry up and die.”

  Minke hit Griet with the back of the fist that still contained the bottle of morphine, letting it smash to the floor. Griet grabbed at Minke for balance, and they both fell on the shards. Immediately, the housekeeper, Julianna, was there, dragging them both to their feet. She made them face each other and apologize. Minke crossed her fingers behind her back and did as she was told, just as she used to with Fenna. Griet got away with saying nothing.

  “You, miss, come with me,” Julianna said to Minke.

  “You’re in for it now,” Griet said.

  Minke followed Julianna’s swaying bottom, dreading what was about to happen. She fully expected to be taken to Meneer, told on, and fired. But Julianna went down all the landings to the first floor, through the kitchen door, and once inside she wheeled around, a big smile across her face. “Slapped her, did you?” She threw back her head, laughing. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “She was saying terrible things, taking Elisabeth’s medicine.”

  “I’m not allowed to lay a hand on either of them, not that the boy ever needed it.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  Julianna shook her head. “Quick. Come see.” She led the way through a door at the front of the kitchen, down a few steps to a crowded warehouse. She pulled back a curtain of heavy canvas and shone the lamp first on her own devilishly grinning face and then onto what was inside. Shelves and shelves of textiles, brocades, silks in beautiful green and gold. She lifted the lids off trunks that held more treasures, dusty but still beautiful—bronze statues, intricately carved wooden animals and ivory fans. Julianna beamed and pointed to a dozen or more boxes neatly stacked. “Open,” she said.

  Inside were dozens of tiny brown bottles just like the ones for Elisabeth’s morphine. Julianna’s head bobbed with expectation. “You see?”

  “Yes, but what is all this?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Once I knew everything, but now Mevrouw is sick and I am no longer permitted to speak with her. What have you heard? What’s to become of things when she dies?”

  “I don’t know,” Minke said. “Griet said Meneer sails in several weeks.” Immediately, she realized she should have kept her mouth shut. This was gossip of the lowest sort.

  “This was one of the finest households in Amsterdam.”

  “I think it’s quite grand,” Minke said.

  Julianna shook her head adamantly. “A different house when the father was alive.”

  “Elisabeth’s?”

  “Pim and Griet’s.”

  “But Meneer—”

  “He isn’t their father,” Julianna said, as though Minke should have known. “He came sniffing around before that poor man was cold in his grave. Him with his honey voice and his flowers.” She pointed to the stacks of boxes. “And that.”

  “He loves Elisabeth very much.”

  “Elisabeth, is it?”

  “I wish the children came more often to see her.”

  “Spoiled to the bone, that Griet is. And Pim. Poor little thing. He can’t bear it. He sobs and carries on. It’s not good for Elisabeth to see too much of him. It’s as though he were dying and not she. She’s the only decent one in the lot.”

  “We mustn’t talk this way about them,” Minke said.

  “What way? It’s the truth. They’ll both be gone soon enough. Her to her maker, and him? Who knows?”

  “He has business interests around the world. He’s told me about it.”

  Julianna rocked with laughter. “Right,” she said.

  AT DINNER THAT night, Griet had a bruise on the side of her face. Minke was sure she would be fired for what she had done. And while she would be happy to be far away from Griet, who would tend to Elisabeth? She dreaded what Meneer DeVries would say, but if he fired her, she would tell him everything—what Griet had said and done.

  But he said nothing. Didn’t he know? He couldn’t have failed to see the bruise. After dinner, Pim came to Elisabeth’s room. Minke, leaning on the windowsill, got up to leave, to let him be alone with his mother, but he stopped her. “It’s the way Griet is. She’s be
en indulged. No one blames you.”

  “She hates me,” Minke whispered. “From the beginning.”

  “Of course she does,” Pim said. “Why do you think you haven’t met the fiancé?”

  “There really is a fiancé?”

  Pim grinned. “Griet’s a brat, but she’s not stupid.” He glanced at his sleeping mother, and tears welled in his eyes, wetting his cheeks. He wiped them away and turned from her.

  Just then Meneer DeVries entered the room, looking over the tops of his spectacles. “You mustn’t keep Minke from her work, Pim.”

  “We were only chatting.”

  “You’d do better to chat with your mother,” Meneer DeVries said.

  Pim turned, bowed stiffly, and left.

  “I hope he wasn’t bothering you,” Meneer DeVries said.

  “Not at all, Meneer DeVries.”

  “You must call me Sander.”

  It was difficult enough to call Elisabeth by her first name, but another fish altogether with a man.

  “You’re fatigued.” He placed his large hands gently on her shoulders, warming them.

  “Yes,” she said. Every night, at the slightest noise from Elisabeth, Minke’s eyes opened wide. If a second sound came, she bolted from bed to check. When she went back to bed, there she’d be, fully awake, her mind racing.

  “How can I help you?”

  “It will pass, Meneer.”

  “Sander.”

  “Sander.”

  He slipped his hands about her waist, smiling broadly and looking from Minke to Elisabeth in her closet bed, half sitting, her eyes slightly open. She could be awake or asleep. It was difficult to know lately. “Elisabeth’s waist was as slim as yours once.” Meneer DeVries squeezed his hands harder, thumb to thumb and pinkie to pinkie. Minke drew in her breath sharply, from surprise at what he was doing, and the effort made her waist even smaller. “There!” he said triumphantly. She placed her hands over his, intending to take them from her waist, but he held firm. “No need to be embarrassed, right, Elisabeth?”

  Elisabeth lay quietly. “I must see to her,” Minke said.

  “In a moment, but first, over there in the storage.” Meneer let go and pointed to the cupboard beneath the window. “Open it and remove the box, please.”

  Minke swung up the lid, reached in, and found a long, heavy box made of lustrous dark wood.

  “Look inside,” he instructed. She sat on her bed with the box on her lap and lifted the lid. Inside was a silver-handled blade in a sheath. “It’s called a facón.”

  Minke lifted it, feeling a thrill pass through her. The sheath was beautiful, decorated and embossed with a tree design and a pair of clasped hands.

  “Let me show you how it’s worn.” Meneer DeVries had her stand with her back to him. She jumped when he slid the cool knife, sheath and all, under the waistband of her skirt at the back. “You wear it in the back, this way, so if you’re thrown from your horse, you won’t fall upon your sword and die.”

  The feel was extraordinary, cold against the thin fabric of her chemise and so terribly heavy that she had to widen her stance to support it.

  “Tell her about the thunderstorms, Sander,” Elisabeth said, and Minke jumped again. So she was awake.

  “You tell her, my dear.”

  Elisabeth pushed wider the door to her bed. Her face looked lively. “One crash after the other. Lights up the whole earth. The sound roars for hours. Terrifying.” She fell back on her pillow and shut her eyes. “Magnificent.”

  MINKE MARKED THE level of morphine in the bottle by tying a strand of her translucent hair around it. After giving Elisabeth each dose, she could adjust the hair in minuscule amounts, the better to see if Griet had slipped in and taken any of it. She didn’t care that Griet might take the morphine. But it mattered very much that there should be enough for Elisabeth. She didn’t believe there was an endless supply; if they ran out, Elisabeth would suffer.

  As it was, Elisabeth had entered a new phase in which she mostly slept and had little use for the bedpan. Minke fed her sips of water and soup, but solid food was out of the question. At the same time, the house became more active, as though it had already transcended her death. Meneer DeVries’s trunks were packed and waiting in the hall downstairs. Griet could be heard traipsing up and down the stairs, calling out orders. She sometimes came into the room and stood beside her sleeping mother, staring down, saying nothing. Pim occasionally sat with his mother, racked with sobs. Early one morning, Meneer DeVries came to Elisabeth’s room and woke Minke. “I’m taking you home today,” he said. “No need to pack your things. I’ll have them sent along.” He was all business. All haste.

  “But Elisabeth!” Minke said. She had a vision of Elisabeth abandoned in her room, dying alone.

  “Griet can manage.”

  It was the fight. He must have found out about the fight. Griet would have said Minke attacked her. Maybe Griet had accused Minke of stealing morphine. Minke waited for him to leave the room before she dressed, throwing her hair sloppily up with pins, weeping at the suddenness of her dismissal and feeling guilt over something she hadn’t done.

  Elisabeth lay against the pillows, her neck stretched as if drawn to the light in the room. Minke took her carefully in her arms. “I’ll be thinking of you day and night.” Elisabeth made no sign of acknowledgment. Minke laid her back. “I’ll know when your time comes.”

  MENEER DEVRIES WAS calling to her from the door. She practically flew down the half-flight of stairs leading to the first-level parlor and jumped in surprise when she saw a stranger sitting on the sofa there. He was a dark, tidy-looking man, clad in a black velvet jacket, his hands resting atop a walking stick. Meneer DeVries called again; she had time to say only a quick hello to the stranger before taking the next flight of stairs to the door, where Meneer DeVries paced anxiously. He helped Minke into the Spijker, hastened back into the house, and shut the door behind him. She waited, shivering with cold, watching people pass by the car and admire it. He was gone a long time, so long she wondered if he’d forgotten about her. Should she go back inside to call for him? Finally, the door opened and he came outside wiping his face with his handkerchief, turning back, turning again. In and out, back and forth. And then he was in the car without a word of explanation and they were on their way.

  As suddenly as Minke had come to Amsterdam, she was leaving. Meneer DeVries was agitated behind the wheel. He spoke not a word, but when they were well out of Amsterdam, she finally got up the nerve to ask him, because she had to know. “Have I done something wrong?”

  He seemed shaken. “My sweet girl. Of course not.”

  “Griet says you’re going to South America.”

  “In three days’ time,” he said, making her wonder about her belongings. Would she truly get them back, or would Griet throw them out? And what of Elisabeth? It felt cruel to leave her to the care of that girl. Oh, who was she fooling? She was the outsider. She was the help. Elisabeth had made her feel important, but the truth was, she could be brought in and discharged by any one of them.

  At her house in Enkhuizen, Meneer DeVries pulled his car to a stop. Mama came to the door and threw her arms around Minke. Papa had tears in his eyes.

  “A word,” Meneer DeVries said to them brusquely. “Alone.”

  Minke had no place to go but up to the attic like a scolded child. Her only solace was that Fenna wasn’t there or she’d have had to face her sister’s triumph over her obvious failure in Amsterdam. Meneer DeVries would be telling her parents about the fight with his daughter. She would tell her parents the truth, and they would believe her, not anyone else.

  “Minke!” Her mother’s voice came from downstairs, the familiar nervous laughter floating along behind it.

  Meneer DeVries sat where she’d seen him the first day. He was beaming with pleasure. Her father was standing before the stove, his hands tapping up and down his thin chest as if he didn’t know where to put them. He cleared his throat. “Minke,” he blu
rted out before she had the chance to sit, “Meneer DeVries has asked for your hand in marriage.”

  * * *

  * Meneer is the equivalent of the English Mr., Mevrouw is the equivalent of Mrs.

  2

  PAPA PULLED ON his unlit pipe. Mama stared at the floor. Only Meneer DeVries looked directly at her.

  “What?” Minke said. “Are you mad?”

  He reached out, but she snatched her hand back. He spoke gravely to her. “How can I say this other than directly? Minke, Elisabeth died this morning.”

  He might as well have told her the sky was made of ice cream. “She did not. I was there.”

  He gave a woeful shake of the head. “We all knew it was imminent. There were so many signs.” His voice was deep. “The fingernails. The discoloration. Surely you saw that. And in these past few days she has often been unconscious.”

  She hadn’t noticed any discoloration. And although Elisabeth slept a great deal, “unconscious” was an exaggeration. “I was right there this morning. And so were you.”

  “Do you recall that after I brought you to the car this morning I returned to the house? It was then Griet told me. She was beside herself; she had gone to Elisabeth’s room immediately and found her expired.”

  “And you said nothing?”

  “I thought it best you hear the news in the company of your family.”

  “You were mistaken, Meneer DeVries. And now I’m the last to know.” Tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away. “Who was that man in the parlor?” she demanded, apropos of nothing more than a desire to change course.

  “Minke, your tone! You will apologize,” Mama said.

  “But Mama, she was alive when I left the room,” Minke said. “How could she have died in that brief time? I was gone not two minutes.”