The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (18 page)

NOT ONE DROP
of rum is left. “Lady Luck was passin’ indifferent to yer tonight, Mr. de Z.” Grote snuffs out all but two candles. “But there’s always another day, eh?”

“Indifferent?” Jacob hears the others close the door. “I was shorn.”

“Oh, yer mercury profits’ll keep famine an’ pestilence at bay for a fair while yet, eh? ’Twas a risky stance yer took with the sale, Mr. de Z., but so long as the abbot’s willin’ to indulge yer, yer last two crates may yet earn a better price. Think what riches
eighty
crates’d fetch, ’stead o’ just eight.”

“Such a quantity”—Jacob’s head steams with drink—“would violate—”

“’Twould
bend
company rules on private trade, aye, but the trees what survive cruel winds are those what
do
bend, eh, are they not?”

“A tidy metaphor does not make a wrong thing right.”

Grote puts the precious glass bottles back on the shelf. “Five hundred percent profit, you made: word travels, an’ yer’ve two seasons at most ’fore the Chinese flood this market. Deputy van C. an’ Captain Lacy both have the capital back in Batavia, an’ they ain’t men to say, ‘Oh, dearie, but I
mayn’t
, for my quota is jus’ eight boxes.’ Or the chief himself ’ll do it.”

“Chief Vorstenbosch is here to eradicate corruption, not aid it.”

“Chief Vorstenbosch’s interests are as starved by the war as anyone’s.”

“Chief Vorstenbosch is too honest a man to profit at the company’s expense.”

“What man
ain’t
the honestest cove in his own eyes?” Grote’s round face is a bronze moon in the dark. “’Tain’t good intentions what paves the road to hell: it’s self-justifyin’s. Now, speakin’ of honest coves, what’s the true reason for the pleasure of yer comp’ny tonight?”

Along Seawall Lane, the guards clap the hour with their wooden clappers.

I am too drunk
, thinks Jacob,
to practice cunning
. “I am here about two delicate matters.”

“My lips’ll be waxed
and
sealed, on my beloved pa’s distant grave.”

“The truth is, then, the chief suspects a … misappropriation is taking place …”

“Saints! Not a misappropriation, Mr. de Zoet? Not on Dejima?”

“… involving a provedore who visits your kitchen every morning—”

“Several provedores visit my kitchen every morning, Mr. de Z.”

“—whose small bag is as full when he leaves as when he arrives.”

“Glad I am to dispel the misunderstandin’, eh? Yer can tell Mr. Vorstenbosch as how the answer’s ‘onions.’ Aye, onions. Rotten, stinkin’ onions. That provedore’s the rascaliest dog of all. Each mornin’ he tries it on, but some blackguards won’t listen to ‘Begone you shameless knave!’ an’ that one is one such one I do declare.”

Fishermen’s voices travel through the warm and salty night.

I’m not too drunk
, thinks Jacob,
to miss a calculated insolence
.

The clerk stands. “Well, there’s no need to trouble you any further.”

“There isn’t?” Arie Grote is suspicious. “There isn’t.”

“No. Another long day in the yard tomorrow, so I’ll bid you good night.”

Grote frowns. “You did say
two
delicate matters, Mr. de Z.?”

“Your tale about onions”—Jacob ducks below the beam—“requires the second item to be raised with Mr. Gerritszoon. I’ll speak with him tomorrow, in the sober light of day—the news will be an unwelcome revelation, I fear.”

Grote blocks the door. “What’s this second matter about?”

“Your playing cards, Mr. Grote. Thirty-six rounds of Karnöffel, and of those thirty-six, you dealt twelve, and of those twelve, you won ten. An improbable outcome! Baert and Oost may not detect a deck of cards conceived in sin, but Twomey and Gerritszoon would. That ancient trick, then, I discounted. No mirrors behind us; no servants to tip you the wink … I was at a loss.”

“A suspicious mind”—Grote’s tone turns wintry—“for a God-fearin’ cove.”

“Bookkeepers acquire suspicious minds, Mr. Grote. I was at a loss to explain your success until I noticed you stroking the top edge of the cards you dealt. So I did the same and felt the notches—those
tiny
nicks: the knaves, sevens, kings, and queens are all notched closer or farther from the corners, according to their value. A sailor’s hands, or a warehouseman’s, or a carpenter’s, are too calloused. But a cook’s forefinger or a clerk’s is another matter.”

“It’s custom’ry,” Grote says, swallowing, “that the house be paid for its trouble.”

“In the morning we’ll find out if Gerritszoon agrees. Now, I really must—”

“Such a pleasant evenin’; what say I reimburse your evening’s losses?”

“All that matters is truth, Mr. Grote: one version of the truth.”

“Is this how you repay me for makin’ you rich? By black
mail
?”

“Suppose you tell me more about this bag of onions?”

Grote sighs, twice. “Yer a bloody ache in the arse, Mr. de Z.”

Jacob relishes the inverted compliment and waits.

“Yer know,” the cook begins, “yer know o’ the ginseng bulb?”

“I know ginseng is valued by Japanese druggists.”

“A Chinaman in Batavia—quite the gent—ships me a crate on every year’s sailin’. All well an’ good. Problem
is
, the magistracy taxes the stuff come auction day: we was losin’ six parts in ten till Dr. Marinus
one day mentioned a
local
ginseng what grows here in the bay but what’s not so prized. So …”

“So your man brings in bags of the
local
ginseng …”

“… and leaves”—Grote betrays a flash of pride—“with bags of the Chinese.”

“The guards and friskers at the land gate don’t find this odd?”

“They’re
paid
not to find it odd. Now, here’s my question for you: how’s the chief goin’ to act on this? On this an’ everythin’ else you’re snufflin’ up? ’Cause this is how Dejima works. Stop all these little
perquisites
, eh, an’ yer stop Dejima itself—an’
don’t
evade me, eh, with your ‘That is a matter for Mr. Vorstenbosch.’”

“But it
is
a matter for Mr. Vorstenbosch.” Jacob lifts the latch.

“It
ain’t
right.” Grote clamps the latch. “It
ain’t
just. One minute it’s ‘private trade is killin’ the company’; next it’s ‘I’m not a man to sell my own men short.’ Yer can’t have a cellar full o’ wine
and
yer wife drunk legless.”

“Keep your dealings honest,” Jacob says, “and there is no dilemma.”

“Keep my dealings ‘honest’ an’ my profits is potato peelin’s!”

“It’s not I who makes the company’s rules, Mr. Grote.”

“Aye, but yer do its dirty work ’appily enough, though, don’t yer?”

“I follow orders loyally. Now, unless you plan on imprisoning an officer, release this door.”

“Loyalty looks simple,” Grote tells him, “but it ain’t.”

J
ACOB RETRIEVES THE DE ZOET PSALTER FROM UNDER THE
floorboards and kneels in the corner of the room where he prays on his bare knees every night. Placing his nostril over the thin gap between the book’s spine and binding, Jacob inhales the damp aroma of the Domburg parsonage. The smell evokes Sundays when the villagers battled January gales up the cobbled high street as far as the church; Easter Sundays, when the sun warmed the pasty backs of boys idling guiltily by the lagoon; autumnal Sundays, when the sexton climbed the church tower to ring the bell through the sea fog; Sundays of the brief Zeeland summer, when the season’s new hats would arrive from the milliners in Middelburg; and one Whitsunday when Jacob voiced to his uncle the thought that just as one man can be Pastor de Zoet of Domburg
and
“Geertje’s and my uncle”
and
“Mother’s brother,” so God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit are an indivisible Trinity. His reward was the one kiss his uncle ever gave him: wordless, respectful, and here, on his forehead.

Let them still be there
, prays the homesick traveler,
when I go home
.

The Dutch Company professes an allegiance to the Dutch Reformed Church but makes little provision for its employees’ spiritual well-being. On Dejima, Chief Vorstenbosch, Deputy van Cleef, Ivo Oost, Grote, and Gerritszoon would also claim loyalty to the Dutch Reformed faith, yet no semblance of organized worship would ever be tolerated by the Japanese. Captain Lacy is an Episcopalian; Ponke
Ouwehand a Lutheran; and Catholicism is represented by Piet Baert and Con Twomey. The latter has confided to Jacob that he conducts an “unholy mess of a holy Mass” every Sunday, and is frightened of dying without the ministrations of a priest. Dr. Marinus refers to the Supreme Creator in the same tone he uses to discuss Voltaire, Diderot, Herschel, and certain Scottish physicians: admiring, but less than worshipful.

To what God
, Jacob wonders,
would a Japanese midwife pray?

Jacob turns to the Ninety-third Psalm, known as the “Storm Psalm.”

The floods have lifted up, O Lord
, he reads,
the floods have lifted up their voice
 …

The Zeelander pictures the Westerscheldt between Vlissingen and Breskens.

… the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise
 …

The Bible’s storms, for Jacob, are North Sea storms, where even the sun is drowned.

… than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea
 …

Jacob thinks of Anna’s hands, her warm hands, her living hands. He fingers the bullet in the cover and turns to the Hundred and Fiftieth Psalm.

Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet … with the psaltery and harp
.

The harpist’s slender fingers and sickle-shaped eyes are Miss Aibagawa’s.

Praise Him with the timbrel and dance
. King David’s dancer has one burned cheek.

THE SUNKEN-EYED
Interpreter Motogi waits under the awning of the guild and notices Jacob and Hanzaburo only when the invited clerk is directly in front of him. “Ah! De Zoet-
san
 … To summon with little warning causes a great trouble, we fear.”

“I’m honored”—Jacob returns Motogi’s bow—“not troubled, Mr. Motogi …”

A coolie drops a crate of camphor and earns a kick from a merchant.

“… and Mr. Vorstenbosch has excused me for the entire morning, if need be.”

Motogi ushers him into the guild, where the men remove their shoes.

Jacob then steps onto the knee-high interior floor and passes into the spacious rear office he has never yet ventured into. Sitting at tables arranged in the manner of a schoolroom are six men: Interpreters Isohachi and Kobayashi of the first rank; the pox-scarred Interpreter Narazake and the charismatic, shifty Namura of the second rank; Goto of the third rank, who is to act as scribe, and a thoughtful-eyed man who introduces himself as Maeno, a physician, who thanks Jacob for allowing him to attend, “so you may cure my sick Dutch.” Hanzaburo sits in the corner and pretends to be attentive. For his part, Kobayashi takes pains to prove that he bears no grudge over the peacock-fan incident and introduces Jacob as “Clerk de Zoet of Zeeland, Esquire” and “Man of Deep Learning.”

The man of deep learning modestly denies this paean.

Motogi explains that, in the course of their work, the interpreters encounter words whose meanings are unclear, and it is to illuminate these that Jacob has been invited. Dr. Marinus often leads these unofficial tutorials, but today he is busy and nominated Clerk de Zoet as his substitute.

Each interpreter has a list of items that evade the guild’s collective understanding. These he reads out, one by one, and Jacob explains as clearly as he can, with examples, gestures, and synonyms. The group discusses an appropriate Japanese substitute, sometimes testing it on Jacob, until everyone is satisfied. Straightforward words such as “parched,” “plenitude,” or “saltpeter” do not detain them long. More abstract items such as “simile,” “figment,” or “parallax” prove more exacting. Terms without a ready Japanese equivalent, such as “privacy,” “splenetic,” or the verb “to deserve,” cost ten or fifteen minutes, as do phrases requiring specialist knowledge—“Hanseatic,” “nerve ending,” or “subjunctive.” Jacob notices that where a Dutch pupil would say, “I don’t understand,” the interpreters lower their eyes, so the teacher cannot merely explicate but must also gauge his students’ true comprehension.

Two hours pass at the speed of one but exhaust Jacob like four, and he is grateful for green tea and a short interval. Hanzaburo slopes away without explanation. During the second half, Narazake asks how “He has gone to Edo” differs from “He has been to Edo”; Dr. Maeno wants to know when one uses “It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”;
and Namura asks for the differences among “If I see,” “If I saw,” and “Had I but seen”; Jacob is thankful for his tedious hours of schoolboy grammar. The last queries of the morning come from Interpreter Kobayashi. “Please may Clerk de Zoet explain this word: ‘repercussions.’”

Jacob suggests, “A consequence; the result of an action. A repercussion of spending my money is being poor. If I eat too much, one repercussion shall be”—he mimes a swollen belly—“fat.”

Kobayashi asks about “in broad daylight.” “Each word I understand, but meaning of all is unclear. Can we say ‘I visit good friend Mr. Tanaka in broad daylight’? I think no, perhaps …”

Jacob mentions the criminal connotations. “Especially when the miscreant—the bad man, that is—lacks both shame and fear of being caught. ‘My good friend Mr. Motogi was robbed in broad daylight.’”

“‘Mr. Vorstenbosch’s teapot,’” asks Kobayashi, “‘was stolen in broad daylight’?”

“A valid example,” agrees Jacob, glad that the chief isn’t present.

The interpreters discuss various Japanese equivalents before agreeing on one.

“Perhaps next word,” continues Kobayashi, “is simple—‘impotent.’”

“‘Impotent’ is the opposite of ‘potent’ or ‘powerful’; that is, ‘weak.’”

“A lion,” Dr. Maeno proposes, “is strong, but a mouse is impotent.”