Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach Page B

think about tomorrow. Someone might betray her; she knows this is only too possible. She might even betray herself. God waits in judgment. He is the one she has most profoundly betrayed. But she locks that muscle in her heart. Not now, she thinks. Not yet.

    I HAVE INVENTED a doctor—a man recommended by my singing teacher, whom Cornelis has never met. My husband is anxious about my condition; he wants his own physician to attend me but I’ve persuaded him otherwise. He bends to my every wish. He humors me; he treats me like a precious piece of Wan-Li porcelain.
    In these early weeks Maria craves cloves. I tell Cornelis of my craving. He brings home marzipan pastries, flavored with cloves. Maria devours them in the kitchen. He orders Maria to prepare hippocras —spiced wine made with cloves—and watches me fondly as I drink. Alone in the kitchen Maria drinks the dregs.
    For I do, in fact, almost believe it myself. After all, I am a woman; I have been created for motherhood. Since girlhood I have been brought up with this in mind and my condition seems so natural, after three years of marriage, that I can almost convince myself it is real. As the weeks pass I am discovering in myself a capacity for self-deception. This in itself is not surprising; since I have become an adulteress I have learned how to dissemble. I have become an actress in the most dangerous theater of all—my home. And I have not yet reached the stage of all-too-solid deceit—strapping a pillow around my waist—I have not yet faced that. This phantom pregnancy, so far, is an abstraction—nausea and a craving for cloves.
    Maria and I are close—closer than I have been to my sisters, close in a way nobody else could comprehend. Only Jan knows our secret. Maria suffers from sickness—not in the mornings but later in the day. I hear her retching in the kitchen and run in to hold her clammy forehead. I feel responsible for her convulsions, as if I have caused them; I feel it should be me who suffers. In fact, I do feel nauseous too.
    She is carrying my child and our complicity binds us together. We are locked in this house with our secret. These silent rooms, bathed in light through the colored glass— they guard our treachery. Our only witnesses are the faces that gaze from the paintings—King David; a peasant raising a tankard; our own selves, Cornelis and me, posed in our former life. These are our mute collaborators.
    When we’re alone, our positions are reversed. I look after Maria; I am her servant. If she is tired I put her to bed in the wall; I scour the cooking pots and sweep the floor before my husband returns. “Polish the candle sticks,” she bosses, “he always notices.”
    To the outside world, however, she is my servant and I am a pregnant wife. Cornelis, the proud father-to-be, has told the news to our friends and acquaintances. Blushing, I have accepted their congratulations. Our neighbor Mrs. Molenaer has sent around an herbal infusion to ease my sickness. “It will disappear after three months,” she says. “It always does.”
    I give it to Maria, who drinks it. She says it makes her feel even worse. Later Mrs. Molenaer visits and asks if I am feeling better. “Oh, yes,” I reply as Maria, her face gray, serves us pastries. But who notices a servant?
    “When is the confinement?” asks Mrs. Molenaer. “When is the happy day?”
    “In November.”
    “Your family lives in Utrecht, am I right? They must be very happy at the news.”
    “Oh, they are.”
    “Will your mother attend the birth?”
    “My mother is unwell. I doubt that she could undertake the journey.”
    Why so many questions? They make me nervous. A woman in my condition is the focus of attention; I hope it will not last. I feel a cheat, of course, as if I have copied out someone else’s verse and been praised for writing it myself. I need all my energies to keep my wits. My family, for instance. Cornelis believes that I have sent a letter to my mother and