I’d like to leave Alkmaar but I’m better off staying. As long as I don’t know what the mood in my village is like, I’d rather not be seen there. Traveling to De Rijp in secret is impossible. Everyone who travels that route knows each other and if I go on foot I’ll be spotted sooner or later. If I want to see my family, I’m better off waiting until they come back to the cheese market.
I find dingy lodgings on Houttil Square with Stien, an old woman who rents out all the rooms in her house and lives in a little shed in the yard. It’s right by where the market is held. That works out well because I want to stay out of sight as far as I can. I get my fresh air in the yard and only venture out into the street to fetch something to eat.
It’s a shame, I would have liked to speak to old acquaintances and walk around the city a little. Instead, I help Stien with her vegetable patch. Naturally, she’s curious and wonders why I’m hiding myself away. To keep her from becoming suspicious, I’ve prepared my story. I’m unmarried, pregnant and running away from my angry family. I’m waiting for the baby’s father, who’s at sea and doesn’t know yet.
Stien accepts my story at face value, she’s probably heard stranger things. She takes on the role of protector, does my shopping and cooks for me, so I don’t have to go out at all anymore. Her warmth and generosity make me feel terribly guilty for lying like that, but I push the feelings aside. I’m not doing her any harm, after all.
After a couple of days, she comes home with news about the approaching plague, which has been raging for a while in The Hague, Rotterdam and Delft and has reportedly spread to Leiden and Amsterdam.
“It’s on its way,” she says somberly. “Not long now and it’ll be our turn.”
“How bad is it in Delft?” I ask, but she doesn’t know. Rumors are going around that there are a hundred victims a day in Leiden and Amsterdam.
“There’s nothing in Haarlem yet, so maybe we’ll be spared as well,” says Stien.
The situation in Haarlem is monitored with great concern. Every day, crowds rush to Tree Gate to hear what the men from the boats have to say.
In Leiden bodies are being left on the street to be collected, in Amsterdam, ringing the bells for the dead has been banned because it causes so much fear. My thoughts regularly turn to Adriaan and Brigitta.
Despite all these somber reports, life in Alkmaar goes on as usual. There are a few restrictions, since strangers are no longer allowed within the walls. Only farmers from the surrounding areas are admitted to the city to supply the market. The weekly cheese market is going ahead on Friday as well. This week’s may be the last, so they’re expecting crowds. On Thursday evening, the first farmers begin coming into the city with carts and wagons via the dyke, and on barges up the River Zeglis.
They don’t just bring cheese but also vegetables and fruit, bread and rusks, chickens and other poultry, fish and meat. Alkmaar doesn’t have a big central square for holding a market so little stalls spring up along every bridge and canal path. Only the stretch of quayside by the weighing house is reserved for the cheese market. Houses were demolished last year to make more space and create something resembling a small square.
I venture out into the streets in the hope of seeing my family. My father will want to make the most of this opportunity to get rid of as many of his cheeses as possible before the plague comes to put a stop to his business, my mother will already have pulled up the beetroots, leeks and cabbages from the vegetable patch. But no matter how hard I look, I don’t find them. Disappointed, I am about to turn and head back to my room when Bertha comes round the corner. There’s no point pretending we haven’t seen each other, we practically bumped into one another. She stops, visibly uncomfortable with the situation.
I hold open my arms. “I don’t have the plague, Bertha.”
“I never said you did. We just didn’t have any room.”
“If I was infected, I’d be sick by now. Half the town would have caught it.”
“I know. Oh, Catrin, I’m sorry. We were scared to death when you started talking about the plague. But we were telling the truth, we didn’t have any space. Although you would have been able to stay in our private quarters, of course.”
“It’s fine. I understand.”
“You’re my friend. At least, I hope you still are. I should have helped you instead of sending you away.”
We embrace and Bertha asks where I’m staying. I say that it’s better she doesn’t know in case the bailiff comes back to make more inquiries.
“I’d never tell him. And he has other things on his plate, now that the plague is on its way. It seems people can’t talk about anything else.”
“When it comes to it, you both need to go away, to your family in Schagen.”
“And what about the inn? We can’t leave it unattended. You know what would happen.”
I do know. Even though it’s understandable that people flee, it doesn’t make them popular with those who stay behind. Not everyone has the means to up and leave, and all too often the houses of those who run from the plague end up looted or vandalized.
“You have to go anyway,” I insist. “Better to lose your inn than your life.”
Bertha shakes her head despondently. “I know for a fact that Emil won’t hear of it. He says God ordains who will get the plague, so there’s no point running away. And I agree with him.”
“I don’t,” I say. “God has no sympathy for the foolhardy. He gave us minds to think and feet to run, and if the plague comes, I intend to use them.”
The next day our hopes that Alkmaar will be spared are dashed. The news blows through the city like a gale: nine sick!
The victims are admitted to the plague house on Paternoster Row straightaway. Not only to treat them but also to isolate them and prevent it from spreading, since in the meantime, the city has filled up with traders and farmers from the surrounding area.
I’m up early. The first cheeses are being piled up by the weighing house, every layer neatly covered with grass to protect the cheese from the sun. From seven o’clock onward, goods can be laid out, the market begins at ten. Long before then I’m standing in front of the weighing house. From there I have a good view of the goods being delivered via the canals and the activity inside the building itself. This is where all the sold cheeses are weighed to establish how much tax is to be handed over to the city. Inside are two giant scales flanked by weighing masters who supervise the process.
Outside on the quayside, the cheeses are piled up in neat rows. It’s a good deal less busy than I’d been expecting. The word “plague’ is dropped constantly and from snatches of conversation I learn that many farmers turned back at the gate. My parents must have done the same, otherwise I would have seen them. Despite the growing conviction that they aren’t coming, I carry on looking out for them.
To my right is the White Rose apothecary’s shop, which is doing a roaring trade. There’s a queue all the way to the bridge.
“Garlic and cloves,” says one person. “If you chew on them all day, you’re protected from the plague fumes.”
An old man informs everyone that you have to spread a paste made of sourdough, pigeon droppings, onions, figs, lily bulbs and scorpion oil onto the swellings. The last ingredient is the only one that is hard to come by; he hopes the apothecary has it.
Everyone knows of a medicine. The more exotic the ingredients, the more faith people have in it. I remember that Dr. Geelvinck, who treated Brigitta, recommended something too. What was it again? We were talking about the medicinal properties of laudanum. He told me there was an oriental medicine in it, opium, a wonder drug that was even said to ward off the plague.
In a rush of hope, I join the queue. Laudanum is expensive; when I picked it up for Brigitta I’d been shocked, but I have enough money with me. If it works, no price is too high.
It takes a while until I can get inside the shop. It’s dingy after the glaring sunlight. My eyes slowly become accustomed to the change and an amazing display of exotic items emerges from the gloom. In cupboards that reach to the ceiling are pots and jars with mysterious labels, the shelves are covered with stones of every imaginable color, dried salamanders, whale bone and little skeletons and tubs of peppercorns, cloves and mustard seed.
Apothecary Moeriaans peers at me inquiringly from behind the counter. I’ve been here many times, but not so often that he knows me. I ask for laudanum and he raises his eyebrows.
“Laudanum? For the plague?”
“Yes. It works preventively.”
“Who told you that?”
“A doctor in Amsterdam.”
Boudewijn Moeriaans sniffs. “Where they’re dying in the streets?”
I shrug, there’s no point getting into a discussion with the man. “Have you got it or not?”
“Of course we have, how much do you want?”
“How much have you got?”
It has grown quiet in the shop. The other customers are following the exchange with interest, and when Moeriaans puts one little crockery jug after another on the counter, they start muttering. After the tenth jug, I hold up my hand, I can’t afford any more. This is costing me a fortune. Externally unruffled, I count out the coins. A commotion erupts behind me. I buy a bag and pack up the jugs. As I leave the apothecary’s, the other customers surge forward to buy up the rest of the supply.
I’m walking back through the cheese market with the bag in my arms when I see my father. He’s talking to the market master about where he can set up his cheeses, a conversation accompanied by a lot of arm-waving. The market master points to the right and when my father turns round, he sees me. His mouth falls open. He pushes his way through the crowd toward me.
I set off in his direction too, and at the midpoint of the square we fall into each other’s arms.
“Catrin, dear God, Catrin!” he stammers.
My father has never been particularly sentimental, but now his hug almost crushes me.
“What brings you here all of a sudden? You look well!” He takes a closer look and his eyes pause on my belly. His eyes meet mine and I nod, laughing. A broad smile spreads across his face. “Where are your mother and the boys? Won’t they be pleased!”
That’s putting it mildly. When my mother and my brothers come strolling up, there is a joyful reunion and I’m pulled from one person to another and hugged much too tightly. They all talk at once and ask different questions at the same time, until my father puts an end to it.
“Quieten down, you lot. Catrin can’t get a word in like this. We’ve not got time to chat anyway. We need to get this stuff sold and head home.”
“There’s plague in the city, Pa,” I say.
“That’s why we need to be quick. We heard on the way here that it had reached Alkmaar, but we were almost here by then. So we’ll sell this lot, turn tail and run.”
At precisely ten o’clock, the bell is rung to signal that the market is open. Despite my fear of being discovered by the sheriff, I help my mother at her stall selling fruit and vegetables. In the meantime, the boys and Pa are trading on the cheese market.
It’s just the way it used to be. Now and again, I look over at my family members and a warm feeling floods through me, like liquid happiness. My mother sees me looking and pinches my cheek.
“I’m so glad to see you again,” she says. “And how wonderful that you’re having a baby. How far along are you?”
“Five and a half months.”
“Are you staying here until the birth? You’re coming home with us, aren’t you?”
I nod and we smile at each other.
Two hours later it’s time to go. The remains of our last-sold cheeses are dribbling from the cheese carriers on the handcart as my father drops the profits into a leather wallet.
“We’re off,” he says.