Plowshares in the Palatinate

The black ribbons still hung on the doors in Amsterdam but they became faded and tattered under the strengthening sun and ever-warmer days of approaching summer, flapping and fraying in the brisk spring winds. Eventually these announcements of deaths were taken down, door by door, and occasionally new wreaths for the birth of a child were put up in their places, but the new graves that were the more palpable reminders of the event continued for some months to grow a different shade of greenery than the grassy meadows and older interments. These sites were a sore and constant reminder of the city’s losses. Gilles took care to cover his mouth and nose as he passed by these places and, when no one was looking, to cross himself as well. He had not had anything to do with the Catholic Church since he had left France but after the epidemic, he found his thoughts turning to it more and more these days. He wondered about all the graves that were not in holy ground and about all of the souls who had never received any last rites. He hoped that God and the devil would take care of all of them, and that the spirits of the dead would not stay by the graves to greet passersby at night, particularly when he had to travel by these spots in the dark on his way back home from working late at night at Msr. Ste Germaine’s. In the early part of the summer, everyday life was still muted, still quieter than it had been before, but little bits of children’s laughter were heard again in the streets, accompanied by the healthy cries of new babies. The merchants returned to the Dam, the women to the markets, and the men to the taverns. Elsje still appeared to be healthy and she grew larger and rounder as the months passed. Gilles was amazed, curious, and sometimes repelled by her new body all at the same time, although he certainly was not going to tell his wife this. Gilles didn’t mention that he still worried about the child’s health and Elsje’s chances of surviving childbirth. Perhaps God waited and schemed to take vengeance on Elsje and the child for Gilles’ sins. The priests in France had always been very clear and certain about this, that God had all of eternity to wait for his revenge, to come back and pay the wages of sin at the worst possible moment. The priests of Gilles’ youth had assured him that God might forgive a great deal after confession, almost anything, except for abandoning the Catholic Church or missing sacraments. “Do not punish them for my transgressions!” Gilles prayed silently as he watched Elsje, smiling and humming as she worked, but he could not shake off these fears. If he lost Elsje and then was left with a blind child, he felt he would have little choice but to leave it in the city orphanage that was already filled to the brim with such children and he didn’t know how he might comfort Elsje if their first child did not survive. Gilles wondered if it might be wise to reserve a part of his heart and not give it completely over to a wife or children. He thought of the intense pain that still lingered over the loss of his own older brother and of Ste Germaine’s lost wife and child. He thought also of all the tiny graves that he had to walk by every day on his way to and from work. Later that night, when he and Elsje were in bed, he gingerly put his hand on her stomach. He only wanted to be sure that the child was still alive and not already dead. A great rolling movement in her stomach was followed by a sturdy bump to his hand. “Ha ha!” Elsje laughed out loud. “He just kicked your hand off! He’s a strong one!” Gilles had not previously thought much of the child as anything but a lump that would later become a howling baby, without gender or characteristics, but now the thought occurred to him that it would be a little boy or a little girl, a blond or a redhead, thin or chubby, looking like his mother or father or perhaps like Elsje. “Are you so sure it’s a boy?” he asked her, but he too, was certain that it must be a son. “Absolutely! We will call him Yellas, after you. Yellas Yellasen.” “Ah! And not the French, Gilles Gillessen?” he teased his wife. “He has to have some middle names, too.” “Why? Aren’t two names enough?” she asked. “No one but royalty needs more than one name, unless you are from Zeeland, over where Claes Martenszen is from.” “My family always has more than two names,” Gilles said, “to honor our ancestors. Why don’t you have any more than one or two names? Is there a legal limit?” “All right then, how about Jean Hendrick Gilles Yellasen or Jean Gilles Hendrick Yellasen, after your father and mine.” Gilles groaned. “That’s too many ‘Gilles’! Too many ‘Hendricks’! How will we keep everyone straight?” “What do you want to name him then, Pieter Stuyvesant Gillessen?” Elsje teased him. “Why not Gilles Jean Montroville?” “Now that would be confusing and I see that you would leave my father out completely! He wouldn’t like that, and with Jean Durie being your friend and no one here knowing that Jean is your father’s name as well, would people not wonder who the father of my child might be?” “You wanted to name him for my father and my father’s name is Jean,” Gilles said defensively. “Maybe we could name him Jean-Paul or Jean-Louis.” Gilles had thought more to honor his best friend with the naming of his son rather than his father, but Elsje didn’t need to know that. “Agh! They will think he is a little Frenchman!” Elsje made a face. “And what is wrong with that?” Gilles’ reply was to tickle his wife and they both rolled over each other laughing. Elsje’s weight on top of Gilles’ caused one of the hemp ropes supporting the straw-filled mattress to snap and they both laughed even harder, tears starting down Elsje’s face in uncontrollable fits of laughter. “Hendrick Cornelius Barent Teunis Gillessen!” She offered, purposely leaving off both the Gilles and the Montroville name. “Francois Rene Louis Pierre de Montroville!” Gilles fired back. “Next you will say you want him baptized in the Catholic Church too!” Elsje was still laughing heartily but Gilles was not: He had not given a thought to this very important matter before this moment. He did want his child baptized in the Catholic Church for if the child’s life ended prematurely, he wanted to know that he had done all that he could for the infant’s soul. He did not say anything more but Elsje appeared not to notice his silence. She snuggled down into his arms, closed her eyes and sighed contentedly as she fell asleep. Gilles was not sleepy though, and he looked down at her peaceful face, still streaked with tears of merriment. He wanted his child baptized by a priest but where could he find one in Amsterdam, no ordinary priest, but one who would also do it discretely, with regard to Gilles’ delicate legal situation? There were Catholic churches in the city, of course, the Dutch being fiercely liberal in that they allowed everyone to share their freedoms and their city with them, even those under whose auspices they had suffered so much, the very men who would deny them the same liberties if they were in control of the country. These renegade churches were frequently conspicuous only because they were missing the bell towers that were allowed only for houses of worship that were of the Protestant persuasion, the right Protestant persuasion. There were services of many kinds that were held in the attics of private homes, too. Perhaps Gilles could somehow explain to Elsje that a Catholic baptism was important to him or, as head of his new family, he might just insist on having it done for his son. If she objected to it though, he didn’t know what he would do. He fell asleep as he pondered this, dreaming of churches and priests, a blond-haired son and his own older brother, no longer dead as he had been these several years past, but hale and hearty, now grown to full manhood, standing over their bed and smiling down at Gilles as he slept.