I Hanging Day THE BODY At the first toll of the Westerkerk bell Adriaen Adriaenszoon bolts awake in a dank stone jail inside Amsterdam''s town hall. He is shivering and sweating at the same time. Shivering because winter gnaws through his meager leather jerkin, sweating because of the nightmare out of which he''s just awakened. What he remembers is no more than an assemblage of symbols--a dog, a wall made of doors, an old woman with a pail full of sand--but fear is pounding through him insistently, demanding he return to sleep to see out the dream. There is the promise of solace through one of those doors, and a bed to lie on, something tells him. But his eyes will not close again. His other senses are already registering the day. Horse''s hooves tromp in the puddles somewhere nearby.
There''s a whinny and the sound of clacking steel on cobblestones. The street, which he can see only through the tiny window, is glistening from last night''s downpour. The air smells of mineral soil, sweat, and piss. He crosses himself before remembering where he is, then glances around nervously in hopes that no guards have seen this. He presses his callused palm through his coarse hair and slumps against the cold wall. There''s only his cell mate, Joep van de Gheyn, the fishmonger killer, still asleep on the plank against his own wall. Aris wipes his sweat from his brow with his left hand, then rubs the stump over its bloody bandages, stifling the throbbing of the limb, which pulses with every heartbeat. "That''s all right now.
Easy there," he says, massaging the limb. Hearing the bells ringing out the final chimes of the morning hour, he slaps himself to full wakefulness. This is his last day living. Each time the bells ring he''s one step closer to the gallows. # Outside, there''s a festive feeling in the frigid air. Damp and cold as it is, with clouds that hang so low they form a ceiling over the city''s tile rooftops, there''s still a raw excitement that pulses like a current through Amsterdam''s quiet canals and byways. Some would call it bloodlust. The streets echo with silence, hollow and expectant, like an empty tankard waiting to be filled.
As dawn starts to creep across the water and the wharves from the swampy eastern marshlands, workers from the docks arrive with wood planks to build the hangman''s scaffold. They drop the boards like pieces of a coffin on the square and the hammering begins. Nearby, vendors are setting up their stalls to sell delftware, wool mittens, or fresh-baked bread to all who''ll come to gawp. Tacked to the town hall door is the justice day schedule: * R. Pijnaker, age fifteen, will receive a birching for willfully stealing from a tavern keeper''s till. * Brothel madam S. Zeedijk shall be beaten upon her neck with a rolling pin for general lewdness, moral corruption, and running a house of debauchery. * Three burglary conspirators, R.
Tolbeit, A. Schellekamp, and F. Knipsheer, to be flogged and branded with the Amsterdam A on their chests before being banished from the city for their brazen attempt to break into a diamond cutter''s shop. * A confined convict H. Peeters shall be whipped and marked with burning spears for his violation of confinement and other evil acts before his lifelong imprisonment is renewed. * German convict E. Eisenstein caught smoking in the rasp house and, when scolded, cursed and spit at his jailors, shall have an ear sliced off. He will return to the rasp house to work the twelve-blade saws cutting brazilwood for the dye works until his hands are as good as his ears.
* The hanging of J. v. d. Gheyn, the notorious murderer of good fishmonger Joris van Dungeon. * The hanging of A. Adriaensz, alias Aris Kindt, evildoer and recalcitrant thief. Adriaen Adriaensz, Adriaen, son of Adriaen of Leiden, alias Aris Kindt, Hans Kindt, or Arend Kint: he''s used different names in different towns where he was arrested, then banished, then arrested again. Arend was his father''s nickname for him, meaning "eagle.
" These days he goes by Aris, which means nothing. It was others who tacked on "Kindt" or "The Kid" years ago, on account of his small stature and since he was still lithe and smooth-skinned when he committed his first crimes. # Aris draws his jerkin tighter, clinging to it with his one hand making a fist over his heart. His nightmare has already fragmented into shapes--the terrible slimness of a starving dog''s back, a room of doors leading onto still other doors, his own hands painted gold, clutching a goose feather pillow. A goose feather pillow. Beside him, snoring, is Joep van de Gheyn, the fishmonger killer. By profession he is a tailor--a fact that Aris finds secretly ironic, since he has spent much of his own adult life stealing fine coats from tailors'' shops. Still asleep like a babe in his mother''s arms, the tailor has his hands pressed together in prayer under his pulpy jowls, his left foot kicking an invisible attacker.
Idiot, thinks Aris. Still sitting, he extends his foot out toward his cell mate and nudges Joep in the ribs, not gently. "Sleep when you''re dead," he says. The cell mate''s eyes open, and without knowing that he''s just been victim of a minor assault, he comes coughing out of sleep. His hacking continues until he sits up straight, only to emit two consecutive sneezes. He pulls a dirty rag out of his pocket and blows his nose profusely. "Well, then," he says, blinking his eyes to daylight. The two convicts sit in their small cell, neither one fully awake.
In the idle haze of this first hour of the last day of his own life, Aris thinks: A pillow? Has he ever laid his head on a goose feather pillow? Flora, comes the answer. When she''d mended him those months after he''d got that beating in the tavern. Flora. There she was, her proud, sturdy shoulders, the catlike curve of her neck, that comforting broad backside. She had cradled his bruised head and placed a pillow underneath, hadn''t she? Flora. Would Flora be out there? THE HANDS The tolling of the Westerkerk bell can be heard more distinctly at the stately canal-side mansion belonging to Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, who is pacing across the checkered marble floor of his sitting room. He is preparing himself to recite the speech he intends to give tonight, his wife, Margaretha, as his test audience.
She is propped up in a high-backed wooden chair in front of him, with an enormous swath of damask silk she''s embroidering in her lap, her hands motionless, waiting. How lovely to have the new church so close by their home, she thinks, though she doesn''t always love the half-hour bell. What she does love is when the organist plays something special at the hour, like her favorite, Sweelinck. She would like to go and see that carillon some afternoon soon if Nicolaes could be persuaded to join her. The churchwarden from the Westerkerk has invited them personally, because of her husband''s position, of course, but he hasn''t yet accepted. Of late, he has been so preoccupied with politicking that he has no time for any leisure activities. Tomorrow will be election day at last, and tonight he has the opportunity to convince the city''s current burghermasters and aldermen that he is sufficiently learned and stoical to be elevated beyond a mere magistrate. She hopes her husband will accept the warden''s offer.
It is a rare thing that such a grand church should be erected so close to their home, and she could use a small diversion from the household and his five children. Perhaps she will suggest the warden as a useful ally in his campaign. They might even be among the city''s first visitors to the beautiful tower. What a view there must be from up there! Tulp takes a ceremonial step forward. "Most excellent and ornate men of Amsterdam: Honorable Burgomaster Bicker, Amsterdam burghers, gentlemen of the Stadtholder''s court, magistrates, inspectors Collegii Medici, physicians, barber-surgeons ." he begins a bit shakily. "Welcome to the second public dissection of my term as praelector of the Amsterdam Surgeons'' Guild ." He continues, and Margaretha follows the rhythms of his inflections and gathers the melody of his voice, working its way up and down the scale.
She begins drawing her needle back and forth through the fabric, looking down on each stitch to check her progress on the tulip she is incorporating into the damask curtains of the entry hall. She has based the design on the potted admirael over on the mantel, a recent gift to her husband from Roemer Visscher, in appreciation for treating the poet''s gallstones. So far, she has managed to complete the white of the petals and now she is continuing with the red parts; her embroidered flower has no stem. She is considering adding a stem now, but that would involve going back upstairs to get the green floss in the basket that she''d absentmindedly left on the landing. The green floss. If only she''d remembered to bring down the green floss. She doesn''t want to disrupt her husband, who''s lost sleep for several nights already in anticipation of the important evening ahead, but if she had the green floss she could perhaps finally finish this tulip while listening. "At the request of the governors of our noble guild, I do humbly come before you to offer my annual lecture upon the human body and the fabric of nature .
" He has commissioned this new painter at Uylenburgh''s studio to commemorate his dissection tonight. It''s his second year as praelector, but.