The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (33 page)

'Good day,' Jacob stands aside, 'Interpreter Ogawa.'

The older man's hands are hidden in his sleeves. 'Clerk de Zoet.'

'I haven't seen the younger Mr Ogawa for . . . it must be four days.'

Ogawa Mimasaku's face is haughtier and stonier than his son's.

An inky growth is spreading out from near his ear.

'My son,' says the interpreter, 'is very busy outside of Dejima at this time.'

'Do you know when he shall be back at the Guild?'

'No, I do not.' The tone of rebuff is intentional.

Have you discovered
, Jacob wonders,
what I asked your son to do?

From the Customs House comes the noise of outraged hens.

A carelessly tossed stone
, he frets,
can sometimes result in a rock-fall
.

'I was concerned he might be sick, or . . . or unwell.'

Ogawa Mimasaku's servants are staring at the Dutchman with disapproval.

'He is well,' says the older man. 'I report your kind concern. Good afternoon.'

'You find me . . .' Vorstenbosch is peering at a bloated cane toad in a specimen jar '. . . enjoying a quiet discourse with Interpreter Kobayashi.'

Jacob looks around before realising the Chief means the toad. 'I left my sense of humour in bed this morning, sir.'

'But not, I see,' Vorstenbosch looks at Jacob's portmanteau, 'your Report.'

What lies behind
, Jacob wonders,
this shift from 'our' to 'your'
.

'The gist, sir, you know from our periodic meetings . . .'

'Law requires
details
, not gist.' The Chief Resident holds out his palm for the black book. 'Details beget facts, and facts, judiciously sent forth, become assassins.'

Jacob removes the
Investigation
and delivers it to the Chief.

Vorstenbosch balances it in his hands, as if determining its weight.

'Sir, if you'd forgive me, I'm curious about -'

'- the post you are to hold in the forthcoming year, yes, but you shall wait, young de Zoet, with everyone else, until the Officers' Supper tonight. The copper quota was the penultimate component of my future plans, and this -' he holds up the black book '- this is the last.'

* * *

During the afternoon Jacob works with Ouwehand in the Clerks' Office, copying this season's Bills of Lading for the archives. Peter Fischer makes restless exits and entrances, radiating even more hostility than usual. 'A sign,' Ouwehand tells Jacob, 'that he thinks the head clerkship is as good as yours.' Evening brings steady rain and the coolest air of the season, and Jacob decides to bathe before supper. Dejima's small Bath House is attached to the Guild's kitchen: the pans of water are heated on copper-plated hobs jutting through the stone wall, and precedent permits the ranked interpreters to treat the facility as their own, despite the exorbitant price the Company is obliged to pay for charcoal and faggots. Jacob undresses in the outer changing room and crouches to enter the steamy enclosure, little larger than a big cupboard. It smells of cedar wood. Damp heat fills Jacob's lungs and unplugs the clogged pores on his face. A single storm-lamp, steam-fogged, provides enough light for him to recognise Con Twomey soaking in one of the two tubs. 'So it
is
the sulphur of Jean Calvin,' says the Irishman, in English, 'making war on my nostrils.'

'Why,' Jacob ladles lukewarm water over himself, 'it's the Popish heretic, first in the bath, again. Not enough work, is it?'

'The typhoon gave me all I could wish for. 'Tis daylight I lack.'

Jacob scrubs himself with a wad of sailcloth. 'Where's your spy?'

'Drowned under my fat arse, he is. Where's your Hanzaburo?'

'Stuffing his face in the Guild's Kitchen.'

'Well, with the
Shenandoah
leaving next week, he must fatten himself up whilst he may.' Twomey sinks up to his chin like a dugong. 'Come a twelve-month, my five years' service'll be finished . . .'

'Are you fixed,' Jacob turns away to scrub his groin, 'on going home?'

They hear the cooks talking in the Interpreters' Guild.

'A new start in the New World might suit better, like, I'm thinking.'

Jacob removes the wooden lid from the bathtub.

'Lacy tells,' says Twomey, 'the Indians're being cleared west of Lousiana . . .'

Warmth sinks into every muscle and bone in Jacob's body.

'. . . and no man afraid of hard work need go without. Settlers need carts to get where they're going and houses once they're there. Lacy reckoned I could work my passage to Charleston from Batavia as ship's carpenter. I've no appetite for war, or being pressed into fighting for the British. Would you go back to Holland in the present weather?'

'I don't know.' Jacob thinks of Anna's face by a rainy window. 'I do not know.'

'A Coffee King you'll be, sure, with a plantation up in Buitenzorg, or else a Merchant Prince with new warehouses along the Ciliwung . . .'

'My mercury didn't fetch
so
high a price, Con Twomey.'

'Aye, but with
Councillor
Unico Vorstenbosch pulling strings for you . . .'

Jacob climbs into the second tub, thinking of his
Investigation
.

Unico Vorstenbosch
, the clerk wants to say,
is a fickle patron
.

Heat soaks into his joints and robs him of the urge to speculate aloud.

'What we need, de Zoet, is a smoke. I'll fetch us a couple of pipes.'

Con Twomey rises like a stocky King Neptune. Jacob sinks until only a small island of lips, nostrils and eyes remains above the water.

When Twomey returns, Jacob is in a warm trance with his eyes shut. He listens to the carpenter rinse and re-immerse himself. Twomey makes no mention of smoking. Jacob mumbles, 'Not a shred of leaf to be had, then?'

His neighbour clears his throat. 'I am Ogawa, Mr de Zoet.'

Jacob lurches and water spills. 'Mr Ogawa! I - I thought . . .'

'You so peaceful,' says Ogawa Uzaemon, 'I do not wish disturb.'

'I met your father earlier but . . .' Jacob wipes his eyes, but with the steamy dark and his far-sightedness, his vision is no better. 'I've not seen you since before the typhoon.'

'I am sorry I could not come. Very many things happen.'

'Were you able to - to fulfil my request, regarding the dictionary?'

'Day after typhoon, I send servant to Aibagawa Residence.'

'Then you didn't deliver the volume yourself?'

'Most trusted servant delivered dictionary. He did not say, "Parcel is from Dutchman de Zoet." He explained, "Parcel is from Hospital on Dejima." You see, it was misappropriate for me to go. Dr Aibagawa was ill. To visit at such hour is bad . . .
breeding
?'

'I am sorry to hear it. Is he recovered now?'

'His funeral was conducted a day before yesterday.'

'Oh.'
Everything
, Jacob thinks,
is explained
. 'Oh. Then Miss Aibagawa . . .'

Ogawa hesitates. 'There is bad news. She must leave Nagasaki . . .'

Jacob waits and listens, as droplets of condensed steam fall.

'. . . for long time, for many years. She shall not return more to Dejima. Of your dictionary, of your letter, of how she thinks, I have no news. I am sorry.'

'The dictionary be damned - but . . . where is she going, and why?'

'It is domain of Abbot Enomoto. Man which bought your mercury . . .'

The man who kills snakes by magic
. The Abbot looms in Jacob's memory.

'. . . he want her to enter temple of . . .' Ogawa falters '. . . female monks. How say?'

'Nuns?
Pray
don't tell me Miss Aibagawa's going to a
nunnery
.'

'Species of nunnery, yes . . . on Mount Shiranui. There she is going.'

'What use is a midwife to a pack of nuns? Does she
want
to go?'

'Dr Aibagawa had great debts with money-lenders, to purchase telescopes et cetera.' Pain strains Ogawa's voice. 'To be scholar is costly. His widow must now pay these debts. Enomoto makes contract, or deal, to widow. He pays debts. She gives Miss Aibagawa for nunnery.'

'But this is tantamount,' Jacob protests, 'to selling her into slavery!'

'Japanese custom,' Ogawa sounds hollow, 'is different to Dutch--'

'What say her late father's friends at the Shirando Academy? Shall they stand by doing nothing whilst a gifted scholar is sold, like a mule, into a life of servitude up some bleak mountain? Would a son be sold to a monastery in such manner? Enomoto is a scholar too, is he not?'

Cooks in the Interpreters' Guild can be heard laughing through the wall.

'But,' Jacob sees another implication, '
I
offered her sanctuary here.'

'Nothing can be done.' Ogawa stands up. 'I must go now.'

'So . . . she prefers incarceration to living here, on Dejima?'

Ogawa steps out of the bathtub. His silence is blunt and reproachful.

Jacob sees how boorish he must appear in the interpreter's eyes: at no small risk, Ogawa tried to help a lovesick foreigner, who now rewards him with resentment. 'Forgive me, Mr Ogawa, but surely if--'

The outer door slides open and a cheerful whistler enters.

A shadow parts the curtain and asks, in Dutch, 'Who goes there?'

'It is Ogawa, Mr Twomey.'

'Good evening to you, Mr Ogawa. Mr de Zoet, our pipe must wait. Chief Vorstenbosch wishes to discuss an important matter with you in his bureau. Straight away. My bones tell me there is good news waiting.'

* * *

'Why the glum face, de Zoet?'
Investigation into the Misgovernance of Dejima
sits in front of Unico Vorstenbosch. 'Lost in love, have we?'

Jacob is appalled that his secret is known even to his patron.

'A quip, de Zoet! Nothing more. Twomey says I interrupt your ablutions?'

'I was just finishing in the Bath House, sir.'

'Cleanliness being next to godliness, I am told.'

'I make no claims on godliness, but bathing wards off the lice; and the evenings are a little cooler now.'

'You
do
look drawn, de Zoet. Did I drive you too long, too exactingly, on' - Vorstenbosch drums his fingers on the
Investigation
- 'on your assignment?'

'Exacting or not, sir, my work is my work.'

The Chief Resident nods, like a judge hearing evidence.

'May I hope that my report does not disappoint your expectations, sir?'

Vorstenbosch unstoppers a decanter of ruby Madeira.