The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (89 page)

Jacob sees the English Captain open his mouth and bellow . . .

'
Fire!
' Jacob's eyes clench tight: he puts his hand on the Psalter.

Rain baptises each second until the cannons explode.

Staccato thunder bludgeoned Jacob's senses. The sky swung sideways. One tardy cannon fired after the others. He has no memory of throwing himself on to the Watchtower's decking, but here is where he finds himself. He checks his limbs. They are still there. His knuckles are grazed and, mysteriously, his left testicle is aching, but he is otherwise unharmed.

All the dogs are barking and the crows are crazed.

Marinus is leaning on the railing. 'Warehouse Number Six needs re-building; there's a big hole in the Sea Wall behind the Guild; Constable Kosugi shall probably -' from Sea Wall Lane comes an almighty sigh and crash '- shall certainly be lodging elsewhere tonight, and I pissed my thigh from fear. Our glorious flag, as you see, is unhurt. Half of their shots flew over us . . .' the doctor looks landwards '. . . and caused damage ashore.
Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, Auri sacra fames
.'

The frigate's smoke-shroud is being torn by the breeze.

Jacob stands up and tries to breathe normally. 'Where's William Pitt?'

'Ran off: one
Macaca fuscata
is cleverer than two
Homines sapientes
.'

'I didn't know you were a veteran of battle, Doctor.'

Marinus blows out a mouthful of air. 'Did close-range artillery knock any sense into you, or are we staying?'

I can't abandon Dejima
, Jacob knows,
and I am terrified of dying
.

'Staying, then.' Marinus clicks his tongue. 'We have a short interval before the British resume their performance.'

Ryugaji Temple intones the Hour of the Horse, as on any other day.

Jacob watches the Land-Gate. A few uncertain guards venture out.

A group run from Edo Square, over Holland Bridge.

He remembers Orito being led away into the palanquin.

He wonders how she is surviving and prays a wordless prayer.

Ogawa's dogwood scroll-tube is snug in his jacket pocket.

If I am killed, let it be found and read by somebody in authority . . .

Some of the Chinese merchants are pointing and waving from their roofs.

Activity in the
Phoebus
's gun-ports promises another round.

If I don't keep talking
, Jacob realises,
I shall crack like a dropped dish
.

'I know what you
don't
believe in, Doctor: what
do
you believe?'

'Oh, Descartes' methodology, Domenico Scarlatti's sonatas, the efficacy of Jesuits' bark . . . So little is actually
worthy
of either belief or disbelief. Better to strive to co-exist, than seek to disprove . . .'

Clouds spill over the mountain ridges; rain drips off Arie Grote's hat.

'Northern Europe is a place of cold light and clear lines . . .' Jacob knows he is spouting nonsense but cannot stop '. . . and so is Protestantism. The Mediterranean world is indomitable sunshine and impenetrable shade. So is Catholicism. Then this . . .' Jacob sweeps his hand inland '. . . this . . . numinous . . . Orient . . . its bells, its dragons, its millions . . . Here, notions of transmigrations, of karma, which are heresies at home, possess a - a--' The Dutchman sneezes.

'Bless you.' Marinus splashes rainwater on his face. 'A plausibility?'

Jacob sneezes again. 'I am making little sense.'

'One may make most sense of all when one makes no sense at all.'

Up a slope of crowded roofs, smoke haemorrhages from a cleft house.

Jacob tries to find the House of Wistaria, but Nagasaki is a labyrinth. 'Do believers in karma, Doctor, believe that one's . . . one's unintentional sins come back to haunt one not in the next life but within this one, within a single lifetime?'

'Whatever your putative crime, Domburger,' Marinus produces an apple for them each, 'I doubt it can be so bad that our current situation is a measured and justified punishment.' He puts his apple to his mouth--

The artillery blast this time knocks both men over.

Jacob comes to, curled up like a boy under blankets in a haunted room.

Fragments of tile smash on the ground.
I lost my apple
, he thinks.

'By Christ, Mahomet and Fhu Tsi Weh,' says Marinus, 'that was close.'

I survived twice
, thinks Jacob,
but troubles come in threes
.

The Dutchmen help one another up like a pair of invalids.

The Land-Gate's doors are blown away and the tidy ranks and files of guards in Edo Square are no longer tidy. Two shots tore through the soldiers in two different places:
like marbles
, Jacob recalls a boyhood game,
through wooden men
.

Five or six or seven flesh-and-blood men are down, twitching and screaming.

There is chaos and shouting and running and places of bright red.

More fruits of your principles
, mocks an inner voice,
President de Zoet
.

The
Phoebus
's sailors have stopped taunting them now.

'Look below.' The doctor points to the roof underneath. A shot passed first through one side, then out through the other. Half the stairs going down to Flag Square were knocked away. As they watch, the roof ridge collapses into the upper room. 'Poor Fischer,' remarks Marinus. 'His new friends have broken all his toys. Look, Domburger, you've made your stand and there's no dishonour in--'

Timber sings and the Watchtower stairs crash to the ground.

'Well,' says Marinus, 'we could jump into Fischer's room . . . possibly . . .'

Damn me
, Jacob trains his telescope on Penhaligon,
if I run now
.

He sees gunners up on the quarterdeck. 'Doctor, the carronades . . .'

He sees Penhaligon training his telescope on him.

Damn you, watch and learn
, Jacob thinks,
about Dutch shopkeepers
.

One of the English officers appears to be remonstrating with the Captain.

The Captain ignores him. Barrels are lifted to the mouths of the ship's deadliest close-range guns. 'Chain-shot, Doctor,' says Jacob. 'Hazard that leap.'

He lowers his telescope: there is no gain in looking further.

Marinus throws his apple at the
Phoebus
. '
Cras Ingens Iterabimus Aequor
.'

Jacob imagines the dense cones of shrapnel hurtling towards them . . .

. . . about forty feet wide by the time they reach the platform.

The shrapnel will tear through his clothes, skin and viscera and out again . . .

Don't let death
, Jacob reproves himself,
be your final thought
.

He tries to map, backwards, the tortuous paths that led to this present . . .

Vorstenbosch, Zwaardecroone, Anna's father, Anna's kiss, Napoleon . . .

'You have no objection if I say the Twenty-third Psalm, Doctor?'

'Provided you have no objection if I join you, Jacob.'

Side by side, they grip the platform's rail in the slippery rain.

The pastor's son removes Grote's hat to address his Creator.

' "The Lord
is
my shepherd; I shall not want." '

Marinus's voice is a seasoned cello's; Jacob's is shaking.

' "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me . . ." '

Jacob closes his eyes and imagines his uncle's church.

' ". . . in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake." '

Geertje is at his side. Jacob wishes she had met Orito . . .

' "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . ." '

. . . and Jacob still has the scroll, and
I'm sorry, I'm sorry . . .

' "I will fear no evil: for thou
art
with me; thy rod and thy staff . . ." '

Jacob waits for the explosion and the swarm and the tearing.

' ". . . they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me . . ." '

Jacob waits for the explosion and the swarm and the tearing.

' ". . . in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil . . ." '

Marinus's voice has fallen away: his memory must have failed him.

' ". . . my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me . . ." '

Jacob hears Marinus shake with quiet laughter.

He opens his eyes to see the
Phoebus
tacking away.

Her mainsails are falling, catching the wet wind and billowing . . .

* * *

Jacob sleeps fitfully in Chief van Cleef's bed. An habitual maker of lists, he lists the reasons for his fitful sleep: first, the fleas in Chief van Cleef's bed; second, Baert's celebratory 'Dejima Gin' so-named because gin is the only drink it doesn't taste of; third, the oysters sent from Magistrate Shiroyama; fourth, Con Twomey's ruinous inventory of damage inflicted to the Dutch-owned properties; fifth, tomorrow's meetings with Shiroyama and Magistracy officials; and sixth, his mental record of what History shall call the
Phoebus
Incident, and its ledger of outcomes. In the profit column, the English failed to extract one clove from the Dutch or crystal of camphor from the Japanese. Any Anglo-Japanese accord shall be unthinkable for two or three generations. In the debit column, the factory's complement is now reduced to eight Europeans and a handful of slaves, a roster too lean even to be called 'skeletal' and unless a ship arrives next June - unlikely if Java is in British hands and the VOC is no longer extant - Dejima must rely on loans from the Japanese to meet its running costs. How welcome a guest the 'Ancient Ally' will be when reduced to rags remains to be seen, especially if the Japanese view the Dutch as partly responsible for conjuring up the
Phoebus
. Interpreter Hori brought news of damage ashore: six soldiers dead in Edo Square, and another six injured; and several townspeople burnt in a fire begun when a ball struck a kitchen in Shinmachi Ward. The political consequences, he intimated, were even farther-reaching.

I never heard
, Jacob thinks,
of a twenty-six-year-old Chief Resident . . .

. . .
or
, he tosses and turns,
of a factory so beset by crises as Dejima
.