The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

by David Mitchell

  Jacob asks, “There was no higher authority to appeal to?”

  Twomey’s answer is a bitter laugh. “After midnight, I heard a noise. I said, ‘Who’s there?’ an’ my reply was a cold chisel, slid beneath the gap under the door, and loaves in a square of sailcloth an’ a water bag. Footsteps ran off. Well, with the chisel I made short work of prizing away a couple of planks. Off I ran. The moon was full an’ bright as the sun. The encampment has no walls, you understand, ’cause the emptiness is the walls. Convicts ran off all the time. Many crawled back, beggin’ for water. Some were brought back by blacks who were paid in grog. The rest died, I doubt not now … But the convicts were mostly unschooled, an’ when word spread that by walking north-by-northwest across the red desert you’d reach China—aye, China—hope made it true, so it was China I was bound for that night. I’d not gone six hundred yards when I heard the rifle click. It was him. The major. He had slipped me the chisel and bread, you see. ‘You’re a runaway now,’ he said, ‘so I can shoot you dead, no questions asked, you stinking Irish vermin.’ He came as close as we are now, an’ his eyes were shining, an’ I thought, This is it, an’ he pulled the trigger an’ nothing happened. We looked at each other, surprised, like. He lunged the bayonet at my eye socket. I swerved but not fast enough”—the carpenter shows Jacob his torn earlobe—“an’ then it all went slow, an’ stupid, an’ we were pulling at the gun, like two boys arguin’ over a toy … an’ he tripped over an’ … the rifle swung around an’ its butt whacked his skull an’ the fecker didn’t get up.”

  Jacob notices Twomey’s trembling hands. “Self-defense isn’t murder, in either the eyes of God or of the law.”

  “I was a convict with a dead marine at my feet. I scarpered north, along the shore, an’ twelve or thirteen miles later, as day broke, I found a marshy creek to slake my thirst an’ slept till the afternoon, ate one loaf, an’ carried on walkin’, an’ so it went for five more days. Seventy, eighty miles, perhaps, I covered, like. But the sun burned me black as toast, an’ that land sucks your vigor away, an’ some berries made me sick, an’ soon I was wishin’ the major’s rifle had gone off, ’cause it was a lingering death I was in for. That evening the ocean changed color as the sun went down, an’ I prayed to St. Jude of Thaddeus to end my suffering however he thought fit. You Calvinists may deny saints, but I know you’ll agree that all prayers are heard.” Jacob nods. “An’ when I woke at dawn, on that forsaken coast, uninhabited an’ hundreds of miles long, it was to the sound of a rowing shanty. Out in the bay was a scaly-looking whaler flying the Stars an’ Stripes. Her boat was coming ashore for water. So I was there to meet the captain an’ bade him a pleasant morning. Says he, ‘Escaped convict, ain’t you?’ Says I, ‘That I am, sir.’ Says he, ‘Pray give me a solitary reason why I should kick the balls of the best customer in the Pacific Ocean—the British governor of New South Wales—by shipping one of his runaways?’ Says I, ‘I am a carpenter who’ll work aboard your ship for landsman’s pay for one year.’ Says he, ‘We Americans hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that’ll be three years, not one, and your wages are life and liberty, not dollars.” The carpenter’s pipe has gone out. He rekindles the bowl and takes a deep draft. “Now to why I’m telling you this. Earlier, in the stateroom, Fischer mentioned a certain major who’s there, on the British frigate.”

  “Major Cutlip? Not the luckiest of names in our language, as you know.”

  “It sticks in this runaway convict’s memory for another reason.” Twomey looks at the Phoebus and waits.

  Jacob lowers his pipe. “The marine … your tormentor? He was Cutlip?”

  “You’d think these coincidences’d not happen, not off the stage, not in life …”

  Repercussions fill the air. Jacob hears them, almost.

  “… yet time and again, the world plays this … this same … feckin’ game. It’s him! George Cutlip of the marines, late of New South Wales, washes up at Bengal, a hunting chum of the governor’s. Fischer let slip the Christian name at lunch, so there’s no doubt. Not a shadow.” Twomey utters a dry bark in lieu of a laugh. “Your decision about the captain’s proposal an’ all, it’ll be hard enough as it is, but if you do a deal, Jacob … if you do a deal, Major Cutlip’d see me an’ know me an’, by God, he’d settle my outstanding balance, an’ unless I killed him first, I’d be feedin’ the fish or feedin’ the worms.”

  The autumn sun is an incandescent marigold.

  “I would demand guarantees, the protection of the British crown.”

  “We Irish know about the protection of the British crown.”

  ALONE, JACOB WATCHES the troublesome Phoebus. He employs a method of moral bookkeeping: the costs of cooperation with the English would be exposing his friend to Cutlip’s revenge and possible charges of collaboration, if a Dutch court ever assembles again. The costs of rejecting the English are years of destitution and abandonment until the war ends and someone thinks to come and relieve them. Might they be forgotten, quite literally, grow sick, grow old, and die here, one by one?

  “Knock-knock, eh?” It is Arie Grote, in his stained chef’s apron.

  “Mr. Grote, please come in. I was just … I was just …”

  “Cogitatin’, eh? Lot o’ cogitatin’ afoot today, Chief de Z ….”

  This born trader, Jacob suspects, is here to urge me to collaborate.

  “… but here’s a word to the wise.” Grote glances around. “Fischer’s lyin.’”

  Eyes of sunlight from waves blink and blink on the papered ceiling.

  “You have my very closest attention, Mr. Grote.”

  “Specific’ly, he lied ’bout Van Cleef bein’ keen on the deal. Now, I’d not jeopardize our card games by revealin’ all, so to speak, but there’s a method called the art of lips. Folks reck’n yer know a liar by his eyes, but ’tain’t so: ’tis lips what gives a man away. Different liars’ve diff’rent tellers, but for Fischer, when, say, he’s bluffin’ at cards, he does this”—Grote sucks in his lower lip a fraction—“and the beauty is, he don’t know he does it. When he spoke o’ Van Cleef earlier, he did it: he’s lyin’, plain as it’s writ on his face. Which it is. An’ if Fischer’s lyin’ ’bout specifics, he’s bendin’ the generalities, too, eh?”

  A stray breeze brushes the bedraggled chandelier.

  “If Chief van Cleef is not working with the English …”

  “He’s locked up in a hold: which ’splains why Fischer, an’ not the chief, comes ashore.”

  Jacob looks at the Phoebus. “Suppose I’m the British captain, hoping to earn the glory of capturing the only European factory in Japan … but the locals are known to be prickly in their dealings with foreigners.”

  “All what’s known of ’em is they ’ave no dealin’s with foreigners.”

  “The English need us to effect a transition, that’s plain, but …”

  “… but give it a year, an’ two trading seasons in the bag …”

  “Nice fat profits; an embassy to Edo; Union Jack fluttering on the pole …”

  “Interpreters learnin’ English: sudd’nwise your Dutch workers … well … ‘Hang on, these Dutch butterboys’re prisoners of war!’ Why’d they pay us a shillin’ of our back wages, eh? I’d not, if I was this Penhaligon, but oh, I’d give the butterboys their free passage right ’nough …”

  “The officers to a jail in Penang, and you hands, you’d be pressed.”

  “‘Pressed’ bein’ English for ‘enslaved by His Majesty’s Navy.’”

  Jacob tests each joint of the reasoning for weaknesses, but there are none. Van Cleef’s lack of written orders, Jacob understands, was his order. “Have you spoken about this matter with the other hands, Mr. Grote?”

  The cook bends his bald, clever head. “All mornin’ long, Chief de Z. If you smell this same stinky rat as we do, our vote’s to
fold up this Anglo-Dutch entente, eh, into pretty little squares for use as privy paper.”

  Jacob sees two dolphins out in the bay. “What’s my ‘teller’ in the art of lips, Mr. Grote?”

  “My ma’d never forgive me f’ corruptin’ a young gent with card-sharpery.”

  “We could play backgammon, during future quiet seasons.”

  “A proper gentl’man’s game is gammon. I’ll supply the dice …”

  TEA IS COOL LUSH green in a smooth pale bowl. “I’ll never know,” says Peter Fischer, “how you stomach that spinach water.” He flexes and rubs his legs, stiff after twenty minutes of sitting on the floor. “I wish these people would get around to inventing proper chairs.” Jacob has little to say to Fischer, who is here to urge the magistrate to allow trade with the British behind a Dutch veneer. Fischer refuses to countenance any opposition from the hands and officers on Dejima, so Jacob has not yet declared it. Ouwehand gave Jacob permission to act in his name, and Marinus quoted Greek. Interpreters Yonekizu and Kobayashi are consulting each other across the anteroom in anxious mutters, conscious now that Jacob might understand. Officials and inspectors enter and leave the Hall of Sixty Mats. The place smells of beeswax, paper, sandalwood, and—Jacob inhales—fear?

  Fischer speaks up. “Democracy is a quaint diversion for the hands, De Zoet.”

  “If you’re implying,” Jacob says, putting down the tea bowl, “that I somehow—”

  “No, no, I admire your cunning: the easiest way to control others is to give them the illusion of free will. You shan’t, of course”—Fischer tests the lining of his hat—“upset our yellow friends with talk of presidents, et cetera? Shiroyama shall be expecting to parley with the deputy chief. That is, with me.”

  “You are set on recommending Penhaligon’s proposal?”

  “One must be a scoundrel and a fool to do otherwise. We disagree on trivial matters, De Zoet, as friends may. But you, I know, are neither scoundrel nor fool.”

  “The matter,” equivocates Jacob, “is in your hands, it appears.”

  “Yes.” Fischer takes Jacob’s compliance at face value. “Of course.”

  The two men look out over walls and roofs, down to the bay.

  “When the English are here,” says Fischer, “my influence will rise …”

  This is counting chickens, thinks Jacob, before the eggs are even laid.

  “… and I will remember old friends and old enemies.”

  Chamberlain Tomine passes, his eyes acknowledging Jacob.

  He turns left, through a door decorated with a chrysanthemum.

  “A face like his,” observes Fischer, “belongs on cathedral gutters.”

  A gruff official appears and talks to Kobayashi and Yonekizu.

  “You understand,” Fischer asks, “what they are saying, De Zoet?”

  The register is formal, but Jacob gathers that the magistrate is unwell. Deputy Fischer is to consult with his highest advisers in the Hall of Sixty Mats. Moments later, Interpreter Kobayashi confirms the message. Fischer pronounces, “This is acceptable,” and tells Jacob, “Oriental satraps are figureheads with no idea of political realities. It is better to speak directly with the marionette masters.”

  The gruff official adds that, owing to the confusion created by the British warship, one Dutch voice is deemed to be better than two: the head clerk may wait in a quieter area of the magistracy.

  Fischer is doubly pleased. “A logical measure. Head Clerk de Zoet”—he claps the Dutchman’s shoulder—“may drink spinach water to his heart’s content.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE ROOM OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM AT THE MAGISTRACY

  Hour of the ox on the third day of the ninth month

  “GOOD AFTERNOON, MAGISTRATE.” DE ZOET KNEELS, BOWS, AND with a nod acknowledges Interpreter Iwase, Chamberlain Tomine, and the two scribes in the corner.

  “Good afternoon, Acting Chief,” replies the magistrate. “Iwase shall join us.”

  “I will need his talents. Your injury is better, Iwase-san?”

  “It was a crack, not a fracture.” Iwase pats his torso. “Thank you.”

  De Zoet notices the go table, where the game with Enomoto waits.

  The magistrate asks, “Is this game known in Holland?”

  “No. Interpreter Ogawa taught me the”—he consults with Iwase—“the ‘rudiments’ during my first weeks on Dejima. We intended to continue playing after the trading season … but unfortunate events occurred ….”

  Doves trill, a peaceful sound on this frightened afternoon.

  A gardener rakes the white stones by the bronze pond.

  “It is irregular,” Shiroyama says, turning to business, “to hold council in this room, but when every adviser, sage, and geomancer in Nagasaki is crowded into the Hall of Sixty Mats, it becomes the Hall of Six Mats and Six Hundred Voices. One cannot think.”

  “Deputy Fischer will be delighted with his audience.”

  Shiroyama notes De Zoet’s courteous distancing. “First, then”—he nods at his scribes to begin—“the warship’s name, Fîbasu. No interpreter knows the word.”

  “Phoebus is not a Dutch word but a Greek name, Your Honor. Phoebus was the sun god. His son was Phaeton.” De Zoet helps the scribes with the strange word. “Phaeton boasted about his famous father, but his friends said, ‘Your mother just claims your father is the sun god, because she has no real husband.’ This made Phaeton unhappy, so his father promised to help his son prove that he was indeed a son of heaven. Phaeton asked, ‘Let me drive the chariot of the sun across the sky.’”

  De Zoet pauses for the benefit of the scribes.

  “Phoebus tried to change his son’s mind. ‘The horses are wild,’ he said, ‘and the chariot flies too high. Ask for something else.’ But, no, Phaeton insisted, and so Phoebus had to agree: a promise is a promise, even in a myth—especially in a myth. So the following dawn, up, up, up the chariot climbed, from the east, driven by the young man. Too late, he regretted his stubbornness. The horses were wild. First, the chariot drove too high, too far, so all the rivers and waterfalls of earth turned to ice. So Phaeton drove closer to earth, but too low, and burned Africa, and burned black the skins of the Ethiopians, and set alight the cities of the ancient world. So in the end the god Zeus, the king of heaven, had to act.”

  “Scribes: stop.” Shiroyama asks, “This Zeus is not a Christian?”

  “A Greek, Your Honor,” says Iwase, “akin to Ame-no-Minaka-nushi.”

  The magistrate indicates that De Zoet may continue.

  “Zeus shot lightning at the chariot of the sun. The chariot exploded, and Phaeton fell to earth. He drowned in the River Eridanos. Phaeton’s sisters, the Heliades, wept so much they became trees—in Dutch we call them ‘poplars,’ but I do not know whether they grow in Japan. When the sisters were trees, the Heliades wept”—De Zoet consults with Iwase—“amber. This is the origin of amber and the end of the story. Forgive my poor Japanese.”

  “Do you believe there is any truth in this story?”

  “There is no truth at all in the story, Your Honor.”

  “So the English name their warships after falsehoods?”

  “The truth of a myth, Your Honor, is not its words but its patterns.”

  Shiroyama stores the remark away and turns to the pressing matter. “This morning, Deputy Fischer delivered letters from the English captain. They bring greetings, in Dutch, from the English King George. The letter claims that the Dutch Company is bankrupt, that Holland no longer exists, and that a British governor-general now sits in Batavia. The letter ends with a warning that the French, Russian, and Chinese are planning an invasion of our islands. King George refers to Japan as ‘the Great Britain of the Pacific Ocean’ and urges us to sign a treaty of amity and commerce. Please tell me your thoughts.”

  Drained by his myth-telling, De Zoet directs his answer to Iwase in Dutch.

  “Chief de Zoet,” Iwase translates, “believes the English wanted to intimidate
his countrymen.”

  “How do his countrymen regard the English proposal?”

  This question De Zoet answers directly: “We are at war, Your Honor. The English break promises very easily. None of us wishes to cooperate with them, except one”—his gaze strays to the passageway leading to the Hall of Sixty Mats—“who is now in the pay of the English.”

  “Is it not your duty,” Shiroyama asks de Zoet, “to obey Fischer?”

  Kawasemi’s kitten skitters after a dragonfly across the veranda.

  A servant looks at his master who shakes his head: Let it play …

  De Zoet considers his answer. “One man has several duties, and …”

  Struggling, he enlists Iwase’s help. “Mr. de Zoet says, Your Honor, that his third duty is to obey his superior officers. His second duty is to protect his flag. But his first duty is to obey his conscience, because God—the god he believes in—gave him his conscience.”

  Foreign honor, thinks Shiroyama, and orders the scribes to omit the remark. “Is Deputy Fischer aware of your opposition?”

  A maple leaf, fiery and fingered, is blown to the magistrate’s side.

  “Deputy Fischer sees what he wishes to see, Your Honor.”

  “And has Chief van Cleef communicated any instructions to you?”