The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

by David Mitchell

  “I’ll sell six crates,” the young clerk announces. “Not eight.”

  Enomoto understands; he scratches an ear and looks at Grote.

  Grote’s smile says, Nothing to worry about. “A moment, Your Grace.”

  The cook steers Jacob into a corner, near Weh’s hiding place.

  “Listen: Zwaardecroone set the sell peg at eighteen per chest.”

  How can you know, Jacob wonders, astonished, about my backer in Batavia?

  “’Tain’t no import how I know, but I do. We’re up to six times that, yet here you are harpin’ for more? No better price’ll come knockin’, an’ six chests ain’t on the table. It’s eight, see, or nothin’ at all.”

  “In that case,” Jacob tells Grote, “I choose nothing at all.”

  “’Tis plain we ain’t makin’ ourselfs clear! Our client is an exalted personage, eh? Irons in every fire: at the magistracy; in Edo; a moneylender’s moneylender; a druggist’s druggist. Word has it, he’s even”—Jacob smells chicken livers on Grote’s breath—“lendin’ to the magistrate to pay graft till next year’s ship from Batavia comes in! So when I promised him the entire supply o’ mercury, that’s exactly—”

  “It appears you shall have to unpromise him the entire supply.”

  “No no no,” Grote almost whinnies. “You ain’t understandin’ what—”

  “It was you who hatched a deal on my private goods; I refuse to dance to your piper; so now you stand to lose your brokerage fee. What am I not understanding?”

  Enomoto is saying something to Yonekizu; the Dutchmen break off their argument.

  “Abbot say,” Yonekizu clears his throat, “six crates only is sale today. So he buy just six crates today.” Enomoto continues. Yonekizu nods, clarifies a couple of points, and translates. “Mr. de Zoet: Abbot Enomoto credits your private account in Exchequer with six hundred thirty-six kobans. Magistracy scribe bring proof of payment in company ledger. Then, when you satisfied, his men remove six crates of mercury from Warehouse Eik.”

  Such speed is unprecedented. “Doesn’t Your Grace wish to see it first?”

  “Ah,” says Grote, “Mr. de Z. bein’ such a busy cove, I took the little liberty o’ borrowin’ the key from Deputy van C. an’ showin’ our guest a sample—”

  “Yes, that was a liberty you took,” Jacob tells him. “A big one.”

  “Hundred an’ six a box,” Grote sighs, “deserves a little ’nitiative, eh?”

  The abbot is waiting. “Do we deal mercury, Mr. Dazûto?”

  “Deal he does, Your Grace.” Grote smiles like a delighted weasel.

  “But the paperwork,” asks Jacob, “the bribes, documents of sale …?”

  Enomoto swats away these difficulties and expels a pfff of air.

  “Like I say”—Grote bows—“‘a most exalted personage.’”

  “Then …” Jacob has no more objections. “Yes, Your Grace. The deal is agreed.”

  A sigh of punctured anguish escapes the much-relieved Arie Grote.

  Wearing a calm expression, the abbot gives Yonekizu a sentence to translate.

  “‘What you not sell today,’” Yonekizu says, “‘you sell soon.’”

  “Then the lord abbot”—Jacob remains defiant—“knows my mind better than I.”

  Abbot Enomoto has the last word: the word is “Affinity.” Then he nods at Kosugi and Yonekizu, and his retinue leaves the warehouse without further ado.

  “You can come out now, Weh.” Jacob is obscurely troubled, despite the likelihood of his going to bed tonight a much richer man than when the earthquake threw him from it this morning. Provided, he concedes, Lord Abbot Enomoto is as good as his word.

  LORD ABBOT ENOMOTO is as good as his word. At half past two, Jacob walks down the steps from the chief’s residence in possession of a Certificate of Lodgment. Witnessed by Vorstenbosch and Van Cleef, the document can be redeemed in Batavia or even at the company’s Zeeland offices in Vlissingen on Walcheren. The sum represents five or six years’ salary from his former job as a shipping clerk. He must repay the friend of his uncle in Batavia who lent him the capital to buy the medicinal mercury—the luckiest gamble of my life, Jacob thinks; how nearly I bought the bêche-de-mer instead—and no doubt Arie Grote has not done badly from the deal, but, by any measure, the transaction made with the enigmatic abbot is an exceptionally lucrative one. And the remaining crates, Jacob anticipates, shall fetch an even higher price, once other traders see the profit that Enomoto earns. By Christmas of next year he should be back in Batavia with Unico Vorstenbosch, whose star should, by then, be even brighter as a consequence of purging Dejima of its notorious corruption. He could consult with Zwaardecroone or Vorstenbosch’s colleagues and invest his mercury money in a yet bigger venture—coffee, perhaps, or teak—to generate an income that might impress even Anna’s father.

  Back on Long Street, Hanzaburo reappears from the Interpreters’ Guild. Jacob returns to Tall House to deposit his precious certificate in his sea chest. He hesitates before taking out a paulownia-handled fan and putting it in his jacket pocket. Then he hurries to the weighing yard, where, today, lead ingots are being weighed and checked for adulterants before being returned to their boxes and sealed. Even under the supervisors’ awning, the heat is sleepy and torrid, but a vigilant eye must be kept on the scales, the coolies, and the numbers of boxes.

  “How kind of you,” says Peter Fischer, “to report for duty.”

  News of the new clerk’s profit on his mercury is common knowledge.

  Jacob cannot think of a reply, so he takes over the tally sheet.

  Interpreter Yonekizu watches the adjacent awning. It is slow work.

  Jacob thinks about Anna, trying to remember her as she is and not merely as in his sketches of her.

  Sun-coppered coolies prize off the nailed-on lids from the crates …

  Wealth brings our future together closer, he thinks, but five years is still a long, long time.

  Sun-coppered coolies hammer the lids back on to the crates.

  Four o’clock, according to Jacob’s pocket watch, comes and goes.

  At a certain point, Hanzaburo wanders away without explanation.

  At a quarter to five, Peter Fischer says, “That is the two-hundredth box.”

  At a minute past five, a senior merchant faints in the heat.

  Immediately, Dr. Marinus is sent for, and Jacob makes a decision.

  “Would you excuse me,” Jacob asks Fischer, “for a minute?”

  Fischer fills his pipe with provocative slowness. “How long is your minute? Ouwehand’s minute is fifteen or twenty. Baert’s minute is longer than an hour.”

  Jacob stands; his legs have pins and needles. “I shall return in ten.”

  “So your ‘one’ means ‘ten’; in Prussia, a gentleman says what he means.”

  “I’ll go,” mutters Jacob, perhaps audibly, “before I do just that.”

  JACOB WAITS AT the busy crossroads, watching the laborers pass to and fro. Dr. Marinus is not long in coming: he limps past, with a pair of house interpreters carrying his medical box to attend the fainted merchant. He sees Jacob but does not acknowledge him, which suits Jacob. The turd-scented smoke escaping his esophagus at the end of the smoke-glister experiment cured him of any desire for Marinus’s friendship. The humiliation he suffered that day has caused him to avoid Miss Aibagawa: how can she—and the other seminarians—ever regard him as anything but a half-naked apparatus of fatty valves and fleshy pipes?

  Six hundred and thirty-six kobans, he admits, salve one’s self-esteem, however …

  The seminarians leave the hospital: Jacob predicted that their lecture would be cut short by Marinus’s summons. Miss Aibagawa is rearmost, half hidden by a parasol. He withdraws a few steps into Bony Alley, as if he is going to Warehouse Lelie.

  All I am doing, Jacob assures himself, is returning a lost item to its owner.

  The four young men, two guards, and one midwife turn into Short Street.

  Ja
cob loses his nerve; Jacob regains his nerve. “Excuse me!”

  The retinue turns around. Miss Aibagawa meets his eyes.

  Muramoto, the senior student, greets Jacob. “Dombâga-san!”

  Jacob removes his bamboo hat. “Another hot day, Mr. Muramoto.”

  He is pleased that Jacob remembers his name; the others join his bow. “Hot, hot,” they agree warmly. “Hot!”

  Jacob bows to the midwife. “Good afternoon, Miss Aibagawa.”

  “How”—her eyes betray a droll mischief—“is Mr. Domburger’s liver?”

  “Much better today, I thank you.” He swallows. “I thank you.”

  “Ah,” says Ikematsu, with mock sobriety. “But how is in-tus-sus-cep-tion?”

  “Dr. Marinus’s magic cured me. What did you study today?”

  “Kan-somu-shan,” says Kajiwaki. “When cough blood from lungs.”

  “Oh, consumption. A terrible disease, and a common one.”

  An inspector approaches from the land gate: a guard speaks.

  “Your pardon, sir,” says Muramoto, “but he says we must leave.”

  “Yes, I shan’t detain you. I just wish to return this”—he produces the fan from his jacket and proffers it—“to Miss Aibagawa, who left it at the hospital today.”

  Her eyes flash with alarm: they demand, What are you doing?

  His courage evaporates. “The fan you forgot in the hospital.”

  The inspector arrives. Glowering, he speaks to Muramoto.

  Muramoto says, “Inspector ask, ‘What is?’ Mr. Dombâga.”

  “Tell him …” This is a terrible mistake. “Miss Aibagawa forgot her fan. At Dr. Marinus’s hospital. I am returning it.”

  The inspector is unimpressed. He issues a curt demand and holds out his hand for the fan, like a schoolmaster demanding a schoolboy’s note.

  “He ask, ‘Please show,’ Mr. Dombâga,” translates Ikematsu. “To check.”

  If I obey, Jacob realizes, all Dejima, all Nagasaki, shall learn how I drew her likeness and pasted it, in strips, onto a fan. This friendly token of esteem, Jacob sees, shall be misconstrued. It may even light the touch paper of a minor scandal.

  The inspector’s fingers are troubled by the stiff catch.

  Blushing in anticipation, Jacob prays for some—for any—deliverance.

  Quietly, Miss Aibagawa says something to the inspector.

  The inspector looks at her; his grimness softens, just a little …

  … then he snorts with gruff amusement and hands her the fan. She gives a slight bow.

  Jacob feels admonished by this narrowest of escapes.

  THE BRIGHT NIGHT is raucous with parties, both on Dejima and ashore, as if to frighten away the bad memory of the morning’s earthquake. Paper lanterns are strung along Nagasaki’s principal thoroughfares, and impromptu drinking parties are taking place at Constable Kosugi’s house, Deputy van Cleef’s residence, the Interpreters’ Guild, and even the land gate’s guardroom. Jacob and Ogawa Uzaemon have met on the watchtower. Ogawa brought an inspector to ward off accusations of fraternizing, but he was already drunk, and a flask of sake has set him snoring. Hanzaburo is perched a few steps below the platform with Ouwehand’s latest much put-upon house interpreter: “I cured myself of herpes,” Ouwehand boasted, at the evening mustering. An overladen moon has run aground on Mount Inasa, and Jacob enjoys the cool breeze, despite its soot and smell of effluence. “What are those clustered lights,” he asks, pointing, “up above the city?”

  “More O-bon parties, in … how to say?… place where bury corpses.”

  “Graveyards? You never hold parties in graveyards!” Jacob thinks of gavottes in Domburg’s graveyard and almost laughs.

  “Graveyard is gate of dead,” says Ogawa, “so good place to call souls to world of life. Tomorrow night, small fireboats float on sea to guide souls home.”

  On the Shenandoah, the officer of the watch strikes four bells.

  “You truly,” Jacob asks, “believe souls migrate in such a manner?”

  “Mr. de Zoet not believe what he is told when boy?”

  But mine is the true faith. Jacob pities Ogawa. Whilst yours is idolatry.

  Down at the land gate, an officer is barking at an inferior.

  I am a company employee, he reminds himself, not a missionary.

  “Anyway.” Ogawa produces a porcelain flask from his sleeve.

  Jacob is already a little drunk. “How many of those are you hiding?”

  “I am not on duty”—Ogawa refills their cups—“so drink to your good profit today.”

  Jacob is warmed by the thought of his money and by the sake roaring down his gullet. “Is there anyone in Nagasaki who doesn’t know how much profit my mercury yielded?”

  Firecrackers explode in the Chinese factory across the harbor.

  “There is one monk in very very very highest cave,” Ogawa says, pointing up the mountainside, “who has not heard, not yet. To speak with sobriety, however: price goes higher, this is good, but sell last mercury to Lord Abbot Enomoto, not another. Please. He is dangerous enemy.”

  “Arie Grote has the same fearful opinion of His Grace.”

  The breeze carries over the smell of the Chinamen’s gunpowder.

  “Mr. Grote is wise. Abbot’s domain is small, but he is …” Ogawa hesitates. “He is much power. Besides shrine in Kyôga, he has residence here in Nagasaki, house in Miyako. In Edo, he is guest of Matsudaira Sadanobu. Sadanobu-sama is much power … ‘kingmaker,’ you say? Any close friend such as Enomoto is also power. Is bad enemy. Please, remember.”

  Jacob drinks. “Surely, as a Dutchman, I have safety from ‘bad enemies.’”

  When Ogawa makes no reply, the Dutchman feels less safe.

  Beach fires dot the shoreline, all the way to the bay’s mouth.

  Jacob wonders what Miss Aibagawa thinks of her illustrated fan.

  Cats tryst on Deputy van Cleef’s roof, below the platform.

  Jacob surveys the hillsides of roofs and wonders which is hers.

  “Mr. Ogawa: in Japan, how does a gentleman propose to a lady?”

  The interpreter decodes. “Mr. de Zoet want to ‘butter your artichoke’?”

  Jacob loses half a mouthful of sake in spectacular fashion.

  Ogawa is very concerned. “I make mistake with Dutch?”

  “Captain Lacy has been enriching your vocabulary again?”

  “He give tuition for I and Interpreter Iwase on ‘Gentlemanly Dutch.’”

  Jacob lets it pass for now. “When you asked for your wife’s hand in marriage, did you first approach her father? Or give her a ring? Or flowers? Or …?”

  Ogawa fills their cups. “I not see wife before wedding day. Our nakôdo made match. How to say nakôdo? Woman who knows families who want marriage …”

  “An interfering busybody? No, forgive me: a go-between.”

  “‘Go-between’? Funny word. ‘Go-between’ go between our families, achi-kochi”—Ogawa moves his hand like a shuttle—“describes bride to father. Her father is rich merchant of sappanwood dye in Karatsu, three days’ journey. We investigate family … no madness, secret debt, et cetera. Her father come in Nagasaki to meet Ogawas of Nagasaki. Merchants lower class than samurai, but …” Ogawa’s hands become the pans of a weighing scale. “Ogawa stipend is safe, and we involve sappanwood trade via Dejima, and so father agrees. We meet next in shrine on wedding day.”

  The buoyant moon has freed itself from Mount Inasa.

  “What about,” Jacob speaks with sake-inspired frankness, “what about love?”

  “We say, ‘When husband love wife, mother-in-law loses her best servant.’”

  “What a joyless proverb! Don’t you yearn for love, in your hearts?”

  “Yes, Mr. de Zoet say truth: love is thing of heart. Or love is like this sake: drink, night of joy, yes, but in cold morning, headache, sick stomach. A man should love concubine, so when love dies he say, ‘Goodbye,’ easy and no injury. Marriage is different: mar
riage is matter of head … rank … business … bloodline. Holland families are not same?”

  Jacob recalls Anna’s father. “We are exactly the same, alas.”

  A shooting star lives and dies in an instant.

  “Do I not keep you from welcoming your own ancestors, Mr. Ogawa?”

  “My father performs rituals at family residence tonight.”

  The cow lows in the Pine Tree Corner, upset by the firecrackers.

  “To speak with sincerity,” says Ogawa, “my blood ancestors is not here: I was borned at Tosa Domain, on Shikoku, which is big island”—Ogawa points east—“that way, to father of low retainer of Lord Yamanouchi of Tosa. Lord gave my schooling and sent me in Nagasaki for learn Dutch under Ogawa Mimasaku’s house to make bridge between his Tosa and Dejima. But then old Lord Yamanouchi died. His son has no interest in Dutch studies. So I was ‘marooned,’ you say? But then Ogawa Mimasaku’s two sons died in cholera, ten years ago. Much, much death in city that year. So Ogawa Mimasaku adopted me, to continue family name.”

  “What about your own mother and father back on Shikoku?”

  “Tradition says, ‘After adoption, do not go back.’ So I not go back.”

  “Didn’t you miss them?” Jacob recalls his own bereavement.

  “I had new name, new life, new father, new mother, new ancestors.”

  Does the Japanese race, wonders Jacob, derive gratification from self-inflicted misery?

  “My study of Dutch,” says Ogawa, “is great … solace. Is correct word?”

  “Yes, and your fluency,” the clerk says, quite sincerely, “shows how hard you work.”

  “To progress is difficult. Merchants, officials, guards not understand how hard. They think, My work I do: why lazy and foolish interpreter cannot do same?”

  “During my apprenticeship”—Jacob unfolds his stiff legs—“to a timber company, I worked at the ports of not only Rotterdam but also London, Paris, Copenhagen, and Gothenburg. I know the vexations of foreign languages, but unlike you, I had the advantages of dictionaries and an education populated by French schoolmasters.”

  Ogawa’s “Ah …” is full of longing. “So many places, you can go …”

  “In Europe, yes, but not one toe can I put past the land gate.”