The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

by David Mitchell

  … all waiting for one spring evening to ignite their small hearts.

  The higher the altitude, the climber sees, the deeper life must hide from winter. Sap is sunk to roots; bears sleep; next year’s snakes are eggs.

  My Nagasaki life, Uzaemon considers, is as gone as my childhood in Shikoku.

  Uzaemon thinks of his adoptive parents and his wife conducting their affairs, intrigues, and squabbles, but not guessing that they have lost their adopted son and husband. The process will take many months.

  He touches the place over his midriff where he carries Orito’s letters.

  Soon, beloved, soon, he thinks. Just a few hours more …

  By trying not to remember the creeds of the order, he remembers them.

  His hand, he finds, is gripping his sword hilt tight enough to blanch his knuckles.

  He wonders whether Orito is already pregnant.

  I will care for her, he swears, and raise the child as my own.

  Silver birches shiver. Whatever she wishes is all that matters.

  “WHAT WAS IT LIKE,” Uzaemon asks a question he’s never asked Shuzai before, “the first time you killed a man?” Sycamore roots grip a steep bank. Shuzai leads for another ten, twenty, thirty paces, until the path arrives at a wide and lapping pool. Shuzai checks the steep, surrounding terrain, as if for ambushers …

  … and cocks his head like a dog. He hears something Uzaemon does not.

  The swordsman’s half smile says, One of ours. “Killing depends on circumstances, as you’d expect, whether it’s a cold, planned murder, or a hot death in a fight, or inspired by honor or a more shameful motive. However many times you kill, though, it’s the first that matters. It’s a man’s first blood that banishes him from the world of the ordinary.” Shuzai kneels at the water’s edge and drinks water from his cupped hands. A feathery fish hovers in the current; a bright berry floats by. “That reckless lordling of Iyo I told you about?” Shuzai climbs onto a rock. “I was sixteen and sworn to serve the greedy dolt. The feud’s history is too long to explain here, but my role in it had me blundering through a thicket on the flank of Mount Ishizuchi one stewed night in the sixth month, separated from my comrades. The frogs’ racket smothered other sound and the darkness was blinding, and suddenly the ground gave way and I fell into an enemy ditch. The scout was as unprepared as I was, and the ditch so stuffed with our two bodies that neither of us could reach our swords. We fumbled and writhed, but neither of us yelled for help. His hands found my throat and clamped and squeezed, tight as Death. My mind was red and shrieking and my throat was crumpling and I thought, This is it … but Fate disagreed. Long ago, Fate had chosen for the enemy lord’s crest a crescent moon. This insignia was attached to my strangler’s helmet so poorly that it snapped off in my hand, so I could slip its sharp metal point through the slit of his eye mask, through the softness behind it, and side to side like a knife in a yam until his grip on my windpipe weakened and fell away.”

  Uzaemon washes his hands and drinks some water from the pool.

  “Afterward,” says Shuzai, “in marketplaces, cities, hamlets …”

  The icy water strikes Uzaemon’s jawbone like a Dutch tuning fork.

  “… I thought, I am in this world, but no longer of this world.”

  A wildcat paces along the bough of a fallen elm, bridging the path.

  “This lack of belonging, it marks us”—Shuzai frowns—“around the eyes.”

  The wildcat looks at the men, unafraid, and yawns.

  It leaps down to a rock, laps water, and disappears.

  “Some nights,” Shuzai says, “I wake to find his fingers choking me.”

  UZAEMON IS HIDING in a deep, weather-sculpted crater, like a molar’s indentation, a wiry-rooted scramble above the track, with the two mercenaries going by the names Kenka and Muguchi. Kenka is a lithe man of many small and fluid motions, while Muguchi is a stockier, cut-lipped miser of words. From their crater, the men have a partial view of the halfway gatehouse, just an arrow shot away. Smoke blows down from the structure’s crude vent. Uphill, upwind, and above the bluff, Shuzai and four of the men are waiting for the guards to change. Across the river, something tears through the wood.

  “Wild boar,” mutters Kenka. “Sounds like a fat old thumper.”

  They hear a shadowy far-off bell that must belong to the Shrine of Mount Shiranui.

  As improbable as a theatrical backdrop, Bare Peak hangs in the sky under clouds massy and crumpling.

  “Rain’d be useful,” remarks Kenka, “so long as it waits till we’re done. It’d wipe our tracks, swell the rivers, make the roads worse for horses, and—”

  “Voices?” Muguchi’s hand demands quiet. “Listen—three men …”

  Uzaemon hears nothing for a minute or more, until the embittered voice on the track below is very near. “Before we was married, she was, ‘No, after we’re married I’m yours but not till then,’ but since the wedding she’s all, ‘No, I ain’t in the mood, so paws off.’ All I did was knock sense into her, like any husband would, but since then the demon in the blacksmith’s wife jumped into mine an’ now she won’t look at me. Can’t even divorce the she-viper, for fear her uncle’d take back his boat, an’ then where’d I be?”

  “High an’ dry,” says a second companion, passing below. “That’s where.”

  The three approach the gates. “Open up, Buntarô,” one calls out. “It’s us.”

  “It’s ‘us,’ is it?” The shout is muffled. “An’ who might ‘us’ be?”

  “Ichirô, Ubei, and Tôsui,” answers one, “and Ichirô’s moanin’ ’bout his wife.”

  “We can find room for the first three, but leave the last outside.”

  TEN MINUTES LATER, the three off-duty guards emerge. “So, Buntarô,” says one, as they draw into earshot. “Serve us up the juicy bits.”

  “Those’re ’tween me, Ichirô’s wife, and his tell-no-lies futon.”

  “Tight as a turtle’s slit, you are, you …” The voices fade away.

  Uzaemon, Kenka, and Muguchi watch the gate, wait, and listen.

  Minute follows minute follows minute follows minute …

  There is no sunset, just a steady fading of the light.

  Something’s gone wrong. Fear hisses inside Uzaemon.

  Muguchi announces, “Done.” One of the gatehouse gates swings open. A form appears and waves a hand. By the time Uzaemon has scrambled down to the track, the other men are halfway to the gatehouse. Waiting for the interpreter at the gate is Kenka, who whispers, “Don’t speak.” Inside, Uzaemon finds a sheltered porch and a long room built on props and stilts over the river. There is a rack for pikes and axes, an upended cooking pot, a smoldering fire, and three large sacks suspended by ropes from a rafter. First one and then another of the sacks moves, and a bulge shifts, betraying an elbow or knee. The nearest sack, however, hangs motionless as a bag of stones.

  Bara is wiping a throwing knife on a bloodied rag …

  The river flowing underneath clamors with human syllables.

  Your sword didn’t kill him, Uzaemon thinks, but your presence here did.

  Shuzai leads Uzaemon up through the rear gates. “We told them we meant them no harm. We told them nobody need be hurt. We said that although samurai cannot surrender, farmers and fishermen can. They agreed to be gagged and bound, but one tried to outwit us. There’s a trapdoor in the corner, over the river, and he made a lunge for it. He almost reached it, and had he escaped, things would have gone badly for us. Bara’s throwing knife opened his throat, and Tsuru only just saved the body from being washed down to Kurozane.”

  Is Ichirô’s wife, Uzaemon wonders, now both adulteress and widow?

  “He didn’t suffer.” Shuzai grips his arm. “He was dead within a few seconds.”

  BY NIGHT, Mekura Gorge becomes a primordial place. The twelve-strong raiding party walks in single file. The track now rises above the river, clinging to the steep side of the gorge. The aches and creaks of beeches and
oaks give way to heavy-breathing evergreens. Shuzai has chosen a moonless night, but the clouds are disintegrating, and the starlight is bright enough to gild the darkness.

  He didn’t suffer, Uzaemon thinks. He was dead within seconds.

  He places one sore foot in front of the other and tries not to think.

  A quiet life of schoolmastering, Uzaemon imagines a future, in a quiet town …

  He places one sore foot in front of the other and tries not to think.

  Maybe a quiet life was all the slain guard wanted, as well …

  His earlier zeal to take part in the raid on the monastery has gone.

  His mind’s mind shows him the scene of Bara wiping his knife on the bloodied cloth, over and over, until at last the men arrive at Todoroki Bridge.

  Shuzai and Tsuru discuss how best to sabotage it later.

  An owl cries, in this cedar or that fir … once, twice, nearby …

  The shrine’s last chime of the day, loud and close, announces the late Hour of the Rooster. Before it rings again, Uzaemon thinks, Orito will be freed. The men wrap their faces in black cloth, leaving only a narrow band for their eyes and noses. They proceed stealthily, not expecting an ambush but not discounting the possibility. When Uzaemon snaps a twig underfoot, the others turn around, glaring. The incline lessens. A fox barks. The tunnel-like succession of torî gates begins, slicing the crosswind. The men stop and gather around Shuzai. “The shrine is four hundred paces uphill.”

  “Junrei-san.” Shuzai turns to Uzaemon. “Here is where you wait. Remember your sage: ‘One pays an army for a thousand days to use it for one.’ That day is now. Hide away from the path, but stay warm. You’ve come farther than most ‘clients’ ever do, so there’s no dishonor in waiting here. Once our business in the monastery is accomplished, I’ll send for you, but don’t approach the shrine until then. Don’t worry. We are warriors. They are a handful of monks.”

  UZAEMON CLIMBS A short distance through stony ice and drifts of pine needles, to a sheltered bowl out of the worst of the wind; he crouches and stands repeatedly until his hamstrings ache but his legs and torso are warmed through. The night sky is an indecipherable manuscript. Uzaemon remembers last studying the stars with De Zoet on Dejima’s watchtower, back in the summer, when the world was simpler. He tries to imagine a sequence of pictures entitled The Bloodless Liberation of Aibagawa Orito: here are Shuzai and three samurai, scaling the wall; here, three monks in the gatehouse, surprised into submission; and here comes the head monk, hurrying across the ancient courtyard, muttering, “Lord Enomoto will be displeased, but what choice have we?” Orito is woken and ordered to dress for a journey. She ties her headscarf around her beautiful, burned face. The last picture gives her expression when she recognizes her rescuer. Uzaemon shivers and performs some exercises with his sword, but it is too cold to concentrate, so he turns his thoughts to choosing a name for his new life. Unwittingly, Shuzai has selected his given name—Junrei, the pilgrim—but what about a family name? He may discuss this with Orito: perhaps he could adopt her Aibagawa. I am tempting Fate, he warns himself, to snatch my prize away. He rubs his cold-gnawed hands, wondering how much time has passed since Shuzai led the attack, and finds he has no inkling. An eighth of an hour? A quarter? The shrine bell hasn’t rung since they crossed Todoroki Bridge, but the monks have no reason to mark the hours of the night. How long should he wait before concluding that the rescue has foundered? Then what? If Shuzai’s masterless samurai were overcome by force, what chance would a former interpreter of the third rank have?

  Thoughts of death creep through the pine trees toward Uzaemon.

  He wishes the human mind were a scroll that could be rolled up …

  “JUNREI-SAN, WE HAVE THE—”

  Uzaemon is so startled by the speaking tree that he falls on his backside.

  “Did we startle you?” A boulder’s shadow turns into the mercenary Tanuki.

  “Just a little, yes.” Uzaemon steadies his breathing.

  Kenka appears from the tree. “We have the woman, safe and sound.”

  “That’s good,” says Uzaemon. “That’s very, very good.”

  A calloused hand finds Uzaemon’s and lifts him to his feet. “Was anyone hurt?” Uzaemon meant to ask, “In what state is Orito?”

  “Nobody,” says Tanuki. “Master Genmu’s a man of peace.”

  “Meaning,” adds Kenka, “he shan’t have his shrine polluted by bloodshed for the sake of one nun. But he’s also a wily old fox, and Deguchi-san wants you to come and check that the man of peace isn’t fobbing us off with a decoy before we leave and they barricade the gate.”

  “There are two nuns with burned faces.” Tanuki uncorks a small flask and drinks from it. “I went inside the House of Sisters. What a strange menagerie Enomoto’s assembled! Here, drink this: it’ll protect you from the cold and bolster your strength. Waiting is worse than doing.”

  “I’m warm enough.” Uzaemon shivers. “There’s no need.”

  “You have three days to put a hundred miles between yourself and Kyôga Domain, preferably on Honshu. You won’t get that far with a chill in your lungs. Drink!”

  Uzaemon accepts the mercenary’s gruff kindness. The spirit scalds his throat. “Thank you.”

  The trio make their way back down to the tunnel of torî gates.

  “Assuming you saw the correct Aibagawa-san, in what state is she?”

  The pause is long enough for Uzaemon to fear the worst.

  “Gaunt,” answers Tanuki, “but well enough, I’d say. Calm.”

  “Her mind’s sharp,” adds Kenka. “She’s not asking us who we are: she knows her captors might overhear. I can see why a man might go to all this time and expense for a woman like that.”

  They arrive at the track and begin the climb through the torî gates.

  Uzaemon notices a strange elasticity in his legs. Nerves, he thinks, are natural.

  But soon the path is undulating like the slow swell of waves.

  The last two days have been taxing. He steadies his breathing. The worst is over.

  Past the torî gates, the ground flattens. The shrine of Mount Shiranui rears up.

  Roofs hunker behind high walls. Weak light escapes a gap in the gates.

  He hears Dr. Marinus’s harpsichord. He thinks, Impossible.

  His cheek presses the frosted leaf mold, soft as a woman’s midriff.

  AWARENESS BEGINS in the membranes of his nose and spreads through his head, but his body cannot move. Questions and statements assert themselves like a throng of sickbed visitors: “You fainted again,” says one. “You are indoors in Mount Shiranui Shrine,” says another, and then they all speak at once: “Were you drugged?”; “You are sitting upright on a cold floor of beaten earth”; “Yes, you were drugged: Tanuki’s drink?”; “Your wrists are bound behind a pillar and your ankles are tied”; “Was Shuzai betrayed by some of his men?”

  “He can hear us now, Abbot,” says an unknown voice.

  The tip of a glass bottle brushes Uzaemon’s nostril.

  “Thank you, Suzaku,” says a voice he knows but cannot yet place.

  The smell of rice, sake, and pickled vegetables suggests a storehouse.

  Orito’s letters. There is an emptiness at his midriff. They’re gone.

  Wasps of pain crawl in and out through the stump of his brain.

  “Open your eyes, Ogawa the Younger,” says Enomoto. “We aren’t children.”

  He obeys. The lord of Kyôga’s face rises in lantern-lit darkness.

  “You are an estimable scholar,” says the face, “but a risible thief.”

  Three or four human shapes watch from the edges of the storeroom.

  “I didn’t come here,” Uzaemon tells his captor, “to steal anything that is yours.”

  “Why oblige me to spell out what is obvious? Mount Shiranui Shrine is an organ in the body of the Domain of Kyôga. The sisters belong to that shrine.”

  “She was neither her stepmother’s to sell no
r yours to buy.”

  “Sister Aibagawa is a glad servant of the Goddess. She has no wish to leave.”

  “Let her tell me so from her own lips.”

  “No. Some habits of mind from her old life had to be”—Enomoto pretends to search for the right verb—“cauterized. Her scars are healed, but only a negligent lord abbot would allow a dithering onetime sweetheart to pick at them.”

  The others, thinks Uzaemon. What about Shuzai and the others?

  “Shuzai is alive, well,” says Enomoto, “and drinking soup in the kitchen with my other ten men. Your plot put them all to some trouble.”

  Uzaemon refuses to believe. I’ve known Shuzai for ten years.

  “He is a loyal friend.” Enomoto tries not to smile. “But not your loyal friend.”

  A lie, Uzaemon’s mind insists, a lie. A key to pick the lock of my mind …

  “Why would I lie?” Midnight-blue watered silk flows upward as Enomoto reseats himself much closer. “No, the cautionary tale of Ogawa Uzaemon pertains to discontent. Adopted into a once-illustrious family, he climbed by talent to a high rank, enjoying the respect of the Shirandô Academy, a secure stipend, a pretty wife, and enviable trading opportunities with the Dutch. Who could want more? Ogawa Uzaemon wanted more! He was infected with that sickness the world calls true love. In the end, it killed him.”

  The human forms around the edges bestir themselves.

  I shan’t beg for my life, Uzaemon avows, but I shall learn why and how. “How much did you pay Shuzai to betray me?”

  “Come! The lord of Kyôga’s favor is worth more than a hunter’s bounty.”

  “There was a young man, a guard, who died at the halfway gate …”

  “A spy in the pay of the lord of Saga: your adventure gave us a pleasing way to kill him.”