The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (13 page)

Ivo Oost and Wybo Gerritszoon throw a ball to one another, in silence.

'Bow-wow,' one of them says as Jacob passes: he decides not to hear.

Con Twomey and Ponke Ouwehand smoke their pipes under the pines.

'Some blue-blood,' sniffs Ouwehand, 'has died in Miyako, so hammering and music are forbidden for two days. There'll be little work done anywhere, not just here but throughout the Empire. Van Cleef swears it's a stratagem to postpone the rebuilding of Warehouse Lelie so we'll be more desperate to sell . . .'

I am not polishing my plan
, Jacob admits.
I am losing my nerve . . .

In the Surgery, Dr Marinus is lying flat on the operating table with his eyes closed. He hums a baroque melody inside his hoggish neck.

Eelattu brushes his master's jowls with scented oil and feminine delicacy.

Steam rises from a bowl of water; light is sliced on the bright razor.

On the floor, a toucan pecks beans from a pewter saucer.

Plums are piled in a terracotta dish, blue-dusted indigo.

Eelattu announces Jacob's arrival in murmured Malay, and Marinus opens one displeased eye. '
What?
'

'I should like to consult with you on a . . . certain matter.'

'Continue shaving, Eelattu. Consult, then, Domburger.'

'I'd be more comfortable in private, Doctor, as--'

'Eelattu
is
"private". On our little paradise, his grasp of anatomy and pathology is second only to mine. Unless it is the toucan you mistrust?'

'Well, then . . .' Jacob sees he must rely on the servant's discretion as well as Marinus's. 'I'm a little curious about one of your students . . .'

'What business have
you
' - his other eye opens - 'with Miss Aibagawa?'

'None at all: I just . . . wished to converse with her . . .'

'Then why are you here, conversing with me instead?'

'. . . to converse with her without a dozen spies looking on.'

'Ah.
Ah
. Ah. So you wish me to bring about an
assignation
?'

'That word smacks of intrigue, Doctor, which would not--'

'The answer is "Never". Reason the first: Miss Aibagawa is no rented Eve to scratch
your
itch of Adam, but a gentleman's daughter. Reason the second: even
were
Miss Aibagawa "available" as a Dejima wife, which, emphatically, she is
not
-'

'I know all this, Doctor, and upon my honour, I didn't come here to--'

'- which she is
not
, then spies would report the liaison within a half-hour, whereupon my hard-won rights to teach, botanise and scholarise around Nagasaki would be withdrawn. So be gone. Deflate your testicles
comme a la mode
: via the village pimp or Sin of Onan.'

The toucan taps the dish of beans and utters 'Raw!' or a word very similar.

'Sir,' Jacob blushes, 'you
grievously
misjudge my intentions: I'd
never
--'

'It is not even Miss Aibagawa after whom you lust, in truth. It is the genus, "The Oriental Woman" who so infatuates you. Yes, yes, the mysterious eyes, the camellias in her hair, what you perceive as meekness. How many
hundreds
of you besotted white men have I seen mired in the same syrupy hole?'

'You are wrong, for once, Doctor. There's no--'

'Naturally, I am wrong:
Domburger
's adoration for
his
Pearl of the East is based on
chivalry
: behold the disfigured damsel, spurned by her own race! Behold our Occidental Knight, who alone divines her
inner
beauty!'

'Good day.' Jacob is too bruised to endure any more. 'Good day.'

'Leaving so soon? Without even offering that bribe under your arm?'

'Not a bribe,' he half lies, 'but a gift from Batavia. I had hopes - vain and foolish ones, I now see - of establishing a friendship with the celebrated Dr Marinus, and so Hendrik Zwaardecroone of the Batavian Society recommended me to bring you some sheet music. But I see now that an ignorant clerk is beneath your august notice. I shall trouble you no more.'

Marinus scrutinises Jacob. 'What sort of a gift is it that the giver doesn't offer until he wants something from the intended recipient?'

'I tried to give it to you at our first meeting. You slammed a trapdoor on me.'

Eelattu dips the razor in water and wipes it on a sheet of paper.

'Irascibility,' the doctor admits, 'occasionally gets the better of me.'

'Who is' - Marinus flicks a finger at the folio - 'the composer?'

Jacob reads the title page: ' "Domenico Scarlatti's Chefs-d'oeuvre, for the Harpsichord or Piano-Forte; Selected from an Elegant collection of Manuscripts in the Possession of Muzio Clementi . . . London, and to be had at Mr Broadwood's Harpsichord Maker, in Great Pulteney Street, Golden Square." '

Dejima's rooster crows. Noisy feet tromp down Long Street.

'Domenico Scarlatti, is it? He
has
flown a long way to be here.'

Marinus's indifference, Jacob suspects, is too airy to be genuine.

'He shall fly a long way back.' He turns. 'I incommode you no longer.'

'Oh, wait, Domburger: sulking doesn't suit you. Miss Aibagawa--'

'- is no courtesan: I
know
. I don't
view
her in that light.' Jacob would tell Marinus about Anna, but he doesn't trust the doctor enough to unlock his heart.

'Then in what light,' Marinus probes, '
do
you see her?'

'As a . . .' Jacob searches for the right metaphor '. . . as a book whose cover fascinates, and in whose pages I desire to look, a little. Nothing more.'

A draught nudges open the creaking door of the two-bed Sick Room.

'Then I propose the following bargain: return here by three o'clock and you may have twenty minutes in the Sick Room to peruse what pages Miss Aibagawa cares to show you - but the door
remains open throughout
, and should you treat her with one
dram
less respect than you would your own sister, Domburger, my vengeance shall be Biblical.'

'Thirty seconds per sonata hardly represents good value.'

'Then you and your sometime gift know where the door is.'

'No bargain. Good day.' Jacob leaves and blinks in the steepening sunlight.

He walks down Long Street to Garden House and waits in its shade.

The cicadas' songs are fierce and primal on this hot morning.

Over by the pine trees, Twomey and Ouwehand are laughing.

But dear Jesus in Heaven
, thinks Jacob,
I am lonely in this place.

Eelattu is not sent after him. Jacob returns to the Hospital.

'We have a deal, then.' Marinus's shave is finished. 'But my seminarian's spy must be blind-sided. My lecture this afternoon is on Human Respiration, which I intend to illustrate via a practical demonstration. I'll have Vorstenbosch loan you as a demonstrator.'

Jacob finds himself saying, 'Agreed . . .'

'Congratulations.' Marinus wipes his hands. 'Maestro Scarlatti, if I may?'

'. . . but your fee is payable upon delivery.'

'Oh? My word as a gentleman is not enough?'

'Until a quarter to three, then, Doctor.'

Fischer and Ouwehand fall silent as Jacob enters the Records Office.

'Pleasant and cool,' says the newcomer, 'in here, at least.'

'
I
,' Ouwehand declares to Fischer, 'find it heated and oppressive.'

Fischer snorts like a horse and retires to his desk: the highest one.

Jacob puts on his glasses at the shelf housing the current decade's ledgers.

He returned the 1793 to 1798 accounts yesterday; now they are missing.

Jacob looks at Ouwehand; Ouwehand nods at Fischer's hunched back.

'Would you know where the 'ninety-three to 'ninety-eight ledgers are, Mr Fischer?'

'I know where everything is in my office.'

'Then would you kindly tell me where to find the 'ninety-three to 'ninety-eight ledgers?'

'Why do you need them,' Fischer looks around, 'exactly?'

'To carry out the duties assigned to me by Chief Resident Vorstenbosch.'

Ouwehand hums a nervous bar of the Prinsenlied.

'Errors,' Fischer gnashes his words, 'here' - the Prussian thumps the pile of ledgers in front of him - 'occur not because we unfrauded the Company' - his Dutch deteriorates - 'but because Snitker
forbade us
to keep proper ledgers.'

Long-sighted Jacob removes his glasses to dissolve Fischer's face.

'Who has accused you of defrauding the Company, Mr Fischer?'

'I am sick - do you hear?
Sick!
- of the . . . of the never-ending inference!'

Lethargic waves die on the other side of the Sea Wall.

'Why does the Chief,' demands Fischer, 'not instruct
I
to repair the ledgers?'

'Is it not logical to appoint an auditor unconnected with Snitker's regime?'

'So
I
, too, am an embezzler, now?' Fischer's nostrils dilate. 'You admit it! You plot against us all! I
dare
you to deny it!'

'All the Chief wants,' says Jacob, 'is
one
version of the truth.'

'My powers of logic,' Fischer waves an erect index finger at Jacob, 'destroy your lie! I warn you, in Surinam I shot more Blacks than Clerk de Zoet can count on his abacus. Attack
me
, and I crush you under my foot. So
here
,' the ill-tempered Prussian deposits the pile of ledgers in Jacob's hands. 'Sniff for "errors". I go to Mr van Cleef to discuss - to make a profit for the Company this season!'

Fischer rams on his hat and leaves, slamming the door.

'It's a compliment, in a way,' says Ouwehand. 'You make him nervous.'

I just want to do my job
, Jacob thinks. 'Nervous about what?'

'Ten dozen boxes marked "Kumamoto Camphor" loaded in 'ninety-six and 'ninety-seven.'

'Were they something other than Kumamoto Camphor?'

'No, but page fourteen of our ledgers lists
twelve
-pound boxes: the Japanese records, as Ogawa can tell you, list
thirty-six
-pounders.' Ouwehand goes to the water pitcher. 'At Batavia,' he continues, 'one Johannes van der Broeck, a Customs officer, sells the excess: the son-in-law of Chairman van der Broeck of the Council of the Indies. It's a swindle as sweet as honey. A cup of water?'