Chapter 28
Claire
My daughter’s presence has changed everything about my life.
I’d thought her to be a quiet and reserved girl when we first met, but she simply did not know me very well.
As soon as she became comfortable, she let her true self emerge.
That self is an intensely funny observer of life who is endlessly curious.
Marie-Celeste has quickly become capable in Dutch.
“This language sounds like someone trying to clear their throat while simultaneously eating a croissant and riding a bicycle over cobblestones,” she says with a giggle when I compliment her.
“Or perhaps they’re all choking on their smoked cheese.
” Marie-Celeste isn’t trying to be mean.
She simply loves making me laugh and she does it regularly as she regales me with tales of her wanderings through Amsterdam and Bussum, her eyes sparkling with mischief as she describes our neighbors’ obsession with cleanliness.
As an outsider to Holland and to the Dutch people, she sees them as captivating as animals in a zoo.
“Our neighbor Mevrouw van der Meer scrubs her stoop three times a day,” she tells me.
“Three times! And that’s not even particularly zealous because down the road Beatrix Bakker scrubs hers four times a day.
It’s as though they are competing in an eternally frustrating task to prove they are superior to the other in terms of tidiness.
” Marie-Celeste demonstrates the vigorous scrubbing motion, her face set in an exaggerated mask of grim determination.
“The entire street is like this,” she continues.
“I saw a man actually get down on his hands and knees to inspect his sidewalk for dirt. I was mortified when he caught me watching, but then I discovered they’re always watching me as well.
” She pauses for dramatic effect, clearly enjoying herself.
“They have these tiny mirrors mounted outside their windows. Spionnetjes. At first, I thought they were for light or decoration. But no! They’re for spying on everyone while pretending not to! ”
Their wooden shoes also bring her constant delight.
“These klompen are lethal, Claire.” She still calls me Claire.
It is better than madame, but I would prefer Mother.
“The noise they make is like a hundred horses on cobblestones. I tried a pair at the market when I thought no one was looking. I’m certain half the street was watching through their spionnetjes as I nearly broke my ankle. ”
We live together in the boardinghouse, but we will move in about a month.
Jo has been traveling constantly to prepare shows in cities all over Holland, but she made sure she returned to meet Marie-Celeste a month after her arrival and even purchased her a beautifully bound diary and a new fountain pen for her studies.
My daughter had done her homework on Jo, reading her most recent writings on the women’s movement.
“I loved what you said about how it is up to us to awaken men,” Marie-Celeste gushed at their first meeting. “I agree that advancing women will benefit men too.”
“But the men are so afraid the women will surpass them,” Jo countered.
“Oh, we will. We simply can’t let them know that yet.” They both chuckled. They are similar in their sardonic and wry senses of humor. And both wickedly quick and smart in a way that I know I will never be.
“I wish it were as clear to everyone,” Jo said.
“Oh, I think it will be for the next generation of children. At least in cities where they are exposed to these ideas. I have only been here a short time, but I tutor some of the children every day after my own studies. They have seen their parents broken down by fourteen-hour workdays and low wages. They believe things can be different. Children as young as ten. It is remarkable.”
“That is why we need more teachers like yourself spreading the word to them. Are you studying with Madame Jensen?”
“I am. She is wonderful.”
“That she is; the improvements she has made in the education for girls are remarkable.” The two of them launched into a conversation about educating girls that I only partly followed.
My shame over what I did to bring my daughter here rose in my throat, but I had to swallow it down.
What is done is done and no one is truly worse off for it.
By selling the painting and sketches I took from the train, I brought Marie-Celeste here and secured us a lease for the new year.
I gave enough money to her parents that they have settled their debts and they are considering moving to a new village.
Her former fiancé found himself a new girl and Marie-Celeste told me she worries for her but that she feels like she can do nothing.
I tell her she cannot focus on that. All she can do is send prayers.
Jo has not asked about my finances. She has her guilt as well and I let her believe that the accounting work I have picked up with a local tulip dealer is covering everything.
Brick by brick I will build a life for my daughter and me, and I am trying not to resent Jo’s inability to help.
She has her own priorities, and I respect them, but I also now have my own.
I am left to pack up most of our things in the boardinghouse when Jo sets off once again, this time for Germany.
I’ve said goodbye to our final boarders, some of whom have returned year after year and become almost like family to me.
The distinguished Mrs. Ballot is as spry as ever and has visited for a month every year to spend time with her local paramour.
I will even miss the families with their hordes of unruly children, whom I have seen grow into equally unruly young people.
But now I have my own family, and when Jo is gone, I spend as much time with Marie-Celeste as possible, wandering the countryside around Bussum and taking the train into Amsterdam, the largest city she’s ever been to, having never spent any time in Paris.
For all she teases about the people here, she does adore a Dutch pancake, a tiny cloud-like poffertje sprinkled in powdered sugar. We purchase them from a street cart, watching them fluff up and brown in their distinctive dimpled brass pans.
We’re devouring our second serving of them on a bench in Vondelpark, watching the wealthy residents take their afternoon strolls, when a man crosses over the path in front of us and pauses.
“Look who it is,” he sneers.
My daughter gazes on him with the same curiosity she has for everyone she meets.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Israels,” I say evenly.
His waistcoat buttons are misaligned, and his eyes have the glassy, unfocused look of a man who has not been to sleep in some time.
“Ladies.” He attempts a courtly bow that nearly sends him sprawling.
“You simply must hear about the most extraordinary vision I had last night as I worked.” He fumbles in his coat pocket, producing a handful of crumpled sketches.
“The outline of dreams, you see,” he murmurs as he smooths out one of the sketches to reveal a series of interconnected concentric circles. “It continues in an unending loop.”
My daughter giggles. It is the kind of absurdity that she delights in. But Israels, even in his current state, is not a man used to women laughing at him.
“Who are you?” His focus shifts to my daughter, lingering too long on her delicate young body. I want to wrap her cloak tightly around her and shield her from his gaze. But she is unconcerned. She has no idea of my history with him. She extends her hand out to him boldly.
“I am Marie-Celeste.”
“Nog een hoer?” he questions under his breath, and thankfully the girl’s Dutch is not yet good enough to pick up on the meaning of his slang. He has asked if she is just another whore, a cutting reference to my past.
“She is my daughter.” I am surprised at this declaration and clearly Marie-Celeste is too.
It is the first time I have introduced her so directly.
In Bussum everyone assumes she is a relation who has come to live with me as my ward, but I have not discussed her as my child except with Jo.
“We must go.” I stand and hold tightly to her arm, pulling her up from the bench as she continues to stare at his sketches.
“Stay.” He tugs on my arm too tightly to bring me back to the bench.
“I am sorry. We cannot. We are expected somewhere. But it was lovely to see you again, Mr. Israels.”
He doesn’t have the strength to be much more forceful. It’s clear he needs to fall into the nearest bed, his own or someone else’s.
“Good day, sir.” I hustle the two of us down the path.
“Who is he?” Marie-Celeste asks. “How do you know him?”
I fill my lungs with the crisp late-summer air and try to put it into the right words.
“When we first arrived here in Amsterdam, Jo made his acquaintance. She was very lonely then, a new widow. He is an artist and they had much in common.”
“Were they lovers? Jo and this man?”
I should not be taken aback. Marie-Celeste is nearly a grown woman.
“They were,” I say honestly. “For some time. It was very tumultuous. I think that she hoped she could tame him somehow, and he is the kind of man who is untamable, in my opinion. He always said he could not marry her. His excuse was that he did not want to play second fiddle to her dead husband and her brother-in-law’s legacy that possessed her.
But I believe he was unwilling to give up all the other women and the attention they gave him.
But they went on and on and it nearly drowned her on many occasions.
It took everything she had to break free from him. ”
“Is Jo happy in her current marriage?”
“I think she is often content and often frustrated, but from what I can tell that is the state of most marriages.”
“Have you ever wanted to marry?”
“No,” I say much more quickly than I expected to.
It is a truth I have not spent much time considering, but a truth nonetheless.
A man in my house, despite the obvious benefits in our society, seems like a burden best avoided for me.
But I try to temper my answer. I still want this young girl to believe in all the possibilities.
“I have not been lucky enough to fall in love.”
“And Jo was in love with that man?”
“Yes. Or something like love. I worried about her constantly. He was such a distraction, and her health deteriorated during those years. Johan Cohen, for all his flaws, was a much better fit. Being a mistress was not a life for someone like Jo. And people talked. There was much gossip and none of it good for what she has been trying to accomplish. If she had stayed with him, she would not be where she is now.”
“You have a lot of opinions about her life?”
“I’ve been very invested in it.”
“To the detriment of your own,” Marie-Celeste says.
This makes me stop. “What are you saying?”
“Forgive me. I spoke out of turn.”
“No.” I grasp her hands in mine, needing her to continue. “I want to hear all your thoughts.”
“You have worked so hard for Mrs. Van Gogh. You have devoted so much to her. And it seems to me that you have kept your own life small. Please do not take this badly. I do love the life you have built for yourself from practically nothing. I know your circumstances in Paris were not ideal. But it feels like you have been afraid to hope for something more.”
This is the first time she has mentioned what she knows about my past. And how can I tell her that all this time she was my something more? I let her continue as we wind our way back home.
“You do not seem to have many friends, only acquaintances. More companionship could do you well.”
“You raise good points, my dear,” I manage.
They are all things I have chosen not to think too much about.
I have not seen my life as small; I have seen it as comfortable and more than a woman like me could have hoped to have.
But I like that Marie-Celeste dreams bigger than her station, that she wants more than to be content and that she also seems to want that for me as well.
“I apologize again for overstepping.”
“No. Stop that.” I interrupt her. “We must never be afraid to say anything to one another. I know this relationship is new for both of us, and it is unconventional to say the least, but I hope we can always be honest.”
“I would like that,” she says, grabbing my hand.
“But it is a lot to digest, to take in how someone else sees me.”
“I understand. And I want you to know that I also have much respect for you. I do not know if I could have done what you have done.”
“My girl, you are already braver than I ever was. You are building a life for yourself that is completely unexpected, and I cannot wait to see what you accomplish.”
We walk in silence for a bit, her arm casually looped through mine. She’s taller than I am already, long and lithe, her hair a golden auburn tumbling down her back.
As we exit the park, I feel a figure behind me, his hot breath on my neck. As I turn, Isaac leans into me and hisses into my ear, so quietly Marie-Celeste cannot hear.
“I know it was you who kept me from her. But does Jo know all your secrets? Does she know about your meetings with Monsieur Swanson?”
My jaw drops; the blood in my veins turns to ice. He smirks, more lucid now.
“The canals here have ears. Everyone is always listening.”