The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

by David Mitchell

  “But Mr. de Zoet may pass through sea gate and away, over ocean. But I—all Japanese”—Ogawa listens to Hanzaburo and his friend’s conspiratorial grumbles—“prisoners all life. Who plot to leave is executed. Who leave and return from abroad is executed. My precious wish is one year in Batavia, to speak Dutch … to eat Dutch, to drink Dutch, to sleep Dutch. One year, just one year …”

  These are new thoughts for Jacob. “Do you recall your first visit to Dejima?”

  “Very well I recall! Before Ogawa Mimasaku adopt me as son. One day, master announce, ‘Today, we go Dejima.’ I—” Ogawa clutches his heart and mimes awe. “We walk over Holland Bridge and my master says, ‘This is longest bridge you ever cross, because this bridge go between two worlds.’ We pass through land gate and I see giant from story! Nose big like potato! Clotheses with no tie strings but buttons, buttons, buttons and hair yellow, like straw! Smell bad, too. Just as astonishment, I first see kuronbô, black boys who skin like eggplant. Then foreigner opened mouth and say, ‘Schffgg-evingen-flinder-vasschen-morgengen!’ This was same Dutch I study so hard? I just bow and bow, and master hits my head and says, ‘Introduce self, foolish baka!’ so I say, ‘My name is Sôzaemon degozaimsu weather is clement today I thank you very well, sir.’ Yellow giant laugh and says, ‘Ksssfffkkk schevingen-pevingen!’ and points to marvel white bird who walk like man and tall as man. Master says, ‘This is ostrich.’ Then much bigger marvel, animal big as shack, blocks out sun; nyoro-nyoro nose he dips in bucket and drinks and shoots water! Master Ogawa say, ‘Elephant,’ and I say, ‘Zô?’ and master says, ‘No, foolish baka, it is elephant.’ Then we see cockatoo in cage, and parrot who repeat words, strange game with sticks and balls on table-of-walls, called ‘billiards.’ Bloody tongues lying on ground here, there, here, there: cud of betel juice, spat by Malay servants.”

  “What,” Jacob has to ask, “was an elephant doing on Dejima?”

  “Batavia sent for gift for shogun. But magistrate sent message to Edo to say he eat much food so Edo discuss and say, no, company must take elephant back. Elephant die of mystery ill very soon—”

  Running footsteps thump up the stairs of the watchtower: it is a messenger.

  Jacob can tell from Hanzaburo’s response that the news is bad.

  “We must go,” Ogawa informs him. “Thieves in house of Chief Vorstenbosch.”

  “THE STRONGBOX BEING too heavy to steal,” Unico Vorstenbosch says, showing the audience crowded into his private quarters, “the robbers heaved it around and staved in the back with a hammer and chisel—look.” He pulls a strip of teak from the iron frame. “When the hole was big enough, they extracted their prize and made good their escape. This was not petty theft. They had the right tools. They knew exactly what they were after. They had spies, spotters, and the skills to smash a strongbox in complete silence. They also had a blind eye at the land gate. In short”—the chief resident glares at Interpreter Kobayashi—“they had help.”

  Constable Kosugi asks a question. “The headman asks,” translates Iwase, “when last time you saw teapot?”

  “This morning. Cupido checked it was unscathed by the earthquake.”

  The constable heaves a weary sigh and issues a flat observation.

  “Constable say,” Iwase translates, “slave is last who see teapot on Dejima.”

  “The thieves, sir,” Vorstenbosch exclaims, “were the last to see it!”

  Interpreter Kobayashi tilts his shrewd head. “What was value of teapot?”

  “Exquisite craftsmanship, silver leafing on jade—a thousand kobans could not buy another. You have seen it yourself. It belonged to the last Ming ruler of China—the ‘Chongzhen’ emperor, as I gather he is known. It is an irreplaceable antique—as someone surely told the thieves, damn their eyes.”

  “Chongzhen emperor,” observes Kobayashi, “hang himself from pagoda tree.”

  “I did not summon you here for a history lesson, Interpreter!”

  “I hope earnestly,” Kobayashi explains, “that teapot is not curse.”

  “Oh, it’s cursed for the damned dogs who stole it! The company is the owner of the teapot, not Unico Vorstenbosch, and so the Company is the victim of this crime. You, Interpreter, shall go with Constable Kosugi to the magistracy now.”

  “Magistracy is close tonight.” Kobayashi wrings his palms. “For O-bon festival.”

  “The magistracy”—the chief hits the desk with his cane—“will have to open!”

  Jacob knows the look on the Japanese faces: impossible foreigners.

  “May I suggest, sir,” says Peter Fischer, “that you demand searches of the Japanese warehouses on Dejima? Perhaps the sly bastards are waiting until the fuss has died down before smuggling your treasure away.”

  “Well spoke, Fischer.” The chief looks at Kobayashi. “Tell the constable so.”

  The interpreter’s tilted head denotes reluctance. “But precedent is—”

  “Hang precedent! I am the precedent now, and you, sir, you”—he pokes a chest that, Jacob would wager a sheaf of banknotes, has never been poked before—“are paid usuriously to protect our interests! Do your job! Some coolie, or merchant, or inspector, or, yes, even an interpreter stole the company’s property. This act insults the company’s honor. And by damn, I shall have the Interpreters’ Guild searched, as well! The perpetrators shall be hunted down like pigs, and I shall make them squeal. De Zoet—go and tell Arie Grote to make a large jug of coffee. None of us shall be sleeping for some time yet …”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE STATEROOM IN THE CHIEF’S HOUSE ON DEJIMA

  Ten o’clock in the morning of September 3, 1799

  “THE SHOGUN’S REPLY TO MY ULTIMATUM IS A MESSAGE FOR ME,” complains Vorstenbosch. “Why must a piece of paper rolled up in a tube spend the night at the magistracy, like a pampered guest? If it arrived yesterday evening, why wasn’t it brought to me straightaway?” Because, Jacob thinks, a message from the shogun is the equivalent of a papal edict, and to deny it due ceremony would be capital treason. He keeps his mouth shut, however; in recent days, he has noticed a growing coolness in his patron’s attitude toward him. The process is discreet: a word of praise to Peter Fischer here, a curt remark to Jacob there, but the onetime “Indispensable de Zoet” fears that his halo is dimming. Nor does Van Cleef attempt to answer the chief resident’s question. Long ago, he acquired the courtier’s knack of distinguishing the rhetorical question from the actual. Captain Lacy leans back on his groaning chair with his head behind his hands and whistles between his teeth very softly. Waiting on the Japanese side of the state table are Interpreters Kobayashi and Iwase and just two senior scribes. “Magistrate’s chamberlain,” Iwase offers, “shall bring shogun’s message soon.”

  Unico Vorstenbosch scowls at the gold signet on his ring finger.

  “What did William the Silent,” wonders Lacy, “say about his moniker?”

  The grandfather clock is grave and loud. The men are hot and silent.

  “Sky this afternoon is …” remarks Interpreter Kobayashi “… unstable.”

  “The barometer in my cabin,” agrees Lacy, “promises a blow.”

  Interpreter Kobayashi’s expression is courteous but blank.

  “A ‘blow’ is a storm,” explains Van Cleef, “or gale, or typhoon.”

  “Ah, ah.” Interpreter Iwase understands. “‘Typhoon’ … tai-fû, we say.”

  Kobayashi dabs his shaved forehead. “Funeral for summer.”

  “Unless the shogun has agreed to raise the copper quota,” Vorstenbosch says, folding his arms, “it is Dejima that shall need a funeral: Dejima, and the well-feathered careers of its interpreters. Speaking of which, Mr. Kobayashi, do I take it from your studied silence regarding the company’s stolen item of chinaware that not one inch of progress has been made toward its recovery?”

  “Investigation is continuing,” replies the senior interpreter.

  “At the speed of a slug,” mutters the chief resident. “Even
if we do remain on Dejima, I shall report to Governor-General van Overstraten how indifferently you defend the company’s property.”

  Jacob’s sharp ears hear marching feet; Van Cleef hears them, too.

  The deputy goes to a window and looks down onto Long Street. “Ah, at last.”

  TWO GUARDS STAND on either side of the doorway. A bannerman enters first: his pennant displays the three-leafed hollyhock of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Chamberlain Tomine enters, holding the revered scroll tube on a perfect lacquered tray. All the men in the room bow toward the scroll, except Vorstenbosch, who says, “Come in, then, Chamberlain, sit down, and let us learn whether His Highness in Edo has decided to put this damned island out of its misery.”

  Jacob notices the half-repressed winces on the Japanese faces.

  Iwase translates the “sit down” part and indicates a chair.

  Tomine looks with distaste at the foreign furniture but has no choice.

  He places the lacquered tray before Interpreter Kobayashi and bows.

  Kobayashi bows to him, to the scroll tube, and slides its tray to the chief.

  Vorstenbosch takes up the cylinder, emblazoned on one end with the same hollyhock insignia, and tries to pull it apart. Failing, he tries to unscrew it. Failing, he tries to find a toggle or catch.

  “Pardon, sir,” murmurs Jacob, “but it may need a clockwise twist.”

  “Oh, back to front and topsy-turvy, like this whole blasted country …”

  Out slides a parchment wound tight around two dowels of cherry-wood.

  Vorstenbosch unrolls it on the table, vertically, like a European scroll.

  Jacob has a good view. The ornate columns of brushstroked kanji characters offer, to the clerk’s eyes, moments of recognition: the Dutch lessons he gives Ogawa Uzaemon involve a reciprocal aspect, and his notebook now contains some five hundred of the symbols. Here the clandestine student recognizes “Give”; there, “Edo”; in the next column, “ten” …

  “Naturally,” Vorstenbosch sighs, “nobody at the shogun’s court writes Dutch. Would either of you prodigies,” he looks at the interpreters, “care to oblige?”

  THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK counts off one minute; two; three …

  Kobayashi’s eyes travel down, up, and across the scroll.

  It is not so arduous or long, thinks Jacob. He is dragging the exercise out.

  The interpreter’s ponderous reading is punctuated by thoughtful nods.

  Elsewhere in the chief’s residence, servants go about their business.

  Vorstenbosch refuses to satisfy Kobayashi by voicing his impatience.

  Kobayashi growls in his throat enigmatically and opens his mouth …

  “I read once more, to ensure no mistake.”

  If looks really could kill, thinks Jacob, watching Vorstenbosch, Kobayashi would be screaming the agonies of the damned.

  Vorstenbosch tells his slave Philander, “Bring me water.”

  From his side of the table, Jacob continues to study the shogun’s scroll.

  Two minutes pass. Philander returns with the pitcher.

  “How,” Kobayashi turns to Iwase, “may one say ‘rôju’ in Dutch?”

  Iwase’s considered reply contains the words “first minister.”

  “Then,” Kobayashi announces, “I am ready to translate message.”

  Jacob dips his sharpest quill into his inkpot.

  “The message reads: ‘Shogun’s first minister sends cordialest greetings to Governor-General van Overstraten and chief of Dutchmen on Dejima, Vorstenbosch. First minister asks for’”—the interpreter peers at the scroll—“‘one thousand fans of finest peacock feathers. Dutch ship must carry this order back to Batavia, so fans of peacock feathers will arrive next year trading season.’”

  Jacob’s pen scratches out a summary.

  Captain Lacy belches. “’Twas my breakfast oysters … past their ripest …”

  Kobayashi looks at Vorstenbosch, as if awaiting his response.

  Vorstenbosch drains his glass of water. “Speak to me about copper.”

  With innocent insolence, Kobayashi blinks and says, “Message says nothing about copper, Chief Resident.”

  “Do not tell me”—a vein throbs in Vorstenbosch’s temple—“Mr. Kobayashi, that this is the sum of the message.”

  “No …” Kobayashi peers at the left of the scroll. “First minister also hope autumn in Nagasaki is clement and winter is mild. But I think, ‘Not relevant.’”

  “One thousand peacock-feather fans.” Van Cleef whistles.

  “Finest peacock-feather fans,” corrects Kobayashi, unembarrassed.

  “Back in Charleston,” says Captain Lacy, “we’d call that a begging letter.”

  “Here in Nagasaki,” says Iwase, “we call that order of shogun.”

  “Are those sons of bitches in Edo,” asks Vorstenbosch, “toying with us?”

  “Good news,” suggests Kobayashi, “that Council of Elders continues discussions on copper. To not say ‘no’ is to half say ‘yes.’”

  “The Shenandoah sails in seven or eight weeks’ time.”

  “Copper quota,” Kobayashi purses his lips, “complicated matter.”

  “Contrariwise, it is a simple matter. Should twenty thousand piculs of copper not arrive on Dejima by the middle of October, this benighted country’s sole window onto the world is bricked up. Does Edo imagine the governor-general is bluffing? Do they think I wrote the ultimatum myself?”

  Well, says Kobayashi’s shrug, it is all beyond my power …

  Jacob lets his quill rest and studies the first minister’s scroll.

  “How reply to Edo on peacock fans?” asks Iwase. “‘Yes’ may help copper …”

  “Why must my petitions,” Vorstenbosch demands, “wait until kingdom come, yet when the court wants something, we are supposed to act”—he clicks his fingers—“thus? Does this minister suppose peacocks are pigeons? Might not a few windmills please His Elevated Eye?”

  “Peacock fan,” says Kobayashi, “enough token of esteem for first minister.”

  “I am sick,” Vorstenbosch complains to heaven, “sick of these damned”—he thumps the scroll on the table, causing the Japanese to gasp in horror at the disrespect—“‘tokens of esteem’! On Mondays it is ‘The magistrate’s falconer’s guano sweeper asks for a roll of Bangalore chintz’; on Wednesdays, ‘The city elders’ monkey-keeper requires a box of cloves’; on Fridays it is ‘His Lord So-and-so of Such-and-such admires your whalebone cutlery: he is powerful friend of foreigners,’ so, hey diddle diddle, it is chipped pewter spoons for me. Yet when we need assistance, where are these ‘powerful friends of foreigners’ to be found?”

  Kobayashi savors his victory under an ill-fitting mask of empathy.

  Jacob is provoked into a rash gamble. “Mr. Kobayashi?”

  The senior interpreter looks at the clerk of uncertain status.

  “Mr. Kobayashi, an incident occurred earlier during the sale of peppercorns.”

  “What in hell,” asks Vorstenbosch, “have peppercorns to do with our copper?”

  “Je vous prie de m’excuser, Monsieur,” Jacob seeks to assure his superior, “mais je crois savoir ce que je fais.”

  “Je prie Dieu que vous savez,” the chief warns him. “Le jour a déjà bien mal commencé sans pour cela y ajouter votre aide.”

  “You see,” Jacob speaks to Kobayashi, “Mr. Ouwehand and I argued with a merchant regarding the Chinese ideogram—the konji, I believe you call them?”

  “Kanji,” says Kobayashi.

  “Forgive me, the kanji, for the number ten. During my stay in Batavia, I learned a small number from a Chinese merchant and, perhaps unwisely, used my limited knowledge instead of sending to the guild for an interpreter. Tempers grew heated, and now I fear a charge of dishonesty may have been made against your countryman.”

  Kobayashi sniffs fresh Dutch humiliation. “What kanji of argument?”

  “Well, sir, Mr. Ouwehand said that the kanji for ‘ten’ i
s”—with a show of clumsy concentration, Jacob inscribes a character on his blotter—“drawn thus …”

  “But I told Ouwehand, no; the true character for ‘ten’ is writ … thus …”

  Jacob fouls the stroke order to exaggerate his ineptitude. “The merchant swore we were both wrong. He drew”—Jacob sighs and frowns—“a cross, I believe, thus …”

  “I became convinced the merchant was a swindler and may have said as much. Could Interpreter Kobayashi kindly tell me the truth of the matter?”

  “Mr. Ouwehand’s number,” Kobayashi points to the topmost character, “is ‘thousand,’ not ‘ten.’ Mr. de Zoet’s number, too, is wrong: it mean ‘hundred.’ This,” he indicates the X, “is wrong memory. Merchant wrote this …” Kobayashi turns to his scribe for a brush. “Here is ‘ten.’ Two strokes, yes, but one up, one across …”

  Jacob groans with contrition and inserts the numbers 10, 100, and 1,000 beside the corresponding characters. “These, then, are the true symbols for the numbers in question?”

  Cautious Kobayashi examines the numbers a final time and nods.

  “I am sincerely grateful,” Jacob says and bows, “for the senior interpreter’s guidance.”

  The interpreter fans himself. “There are no more questions?”

  “Just one more, sir,” says Jacob. “Why did you claim that the shogun’s first minister requests one thousand peacock-feather fans when, according to the numerals you were just kind enough to teach me, the number in question is a much more modest one hundred”—every eye in the room follows Jacob’s finger on the scroll, resting on the corresponding kanji “hundred”—“as written here?”

  Ramifications hatch from the appalling hush. Jacob thanks his God.

  “Well, ding-dong bell,” says Captain Lacy. “Pussy is in the well.”

  Kobayashi reaches for the scroll. “Shogun’s request not for eyes of clerk.”

  “Indeed not!” Vorstenbosch pounces. “It is for my eyes, sir; mine! Mr. Iwase: you translate this letter so we may verify how many fans we are dealing with—one thousand, or one hundred for the Council of Elders and nine hundred for Mr. Kobayashi and his cronies? But before we begin, Mr. Iwase, refresh my memory: what are the penalties for willfully mistranslating a shogunal order?”