The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (11 page)

'I
saw
you,' van Cleef snatches a guard's sleeve, 'you damned
thief!
'

A shower of bright red nutmeg berries spills across the floor.

'Baert! Fischer! Show these blasted robbers out of our warehouse!' The deputy makes herding motions towards the door, shouting, '
Out! Out!
Grote, frisk whoever looks suspicious - aye, just as they frisk us. De Zoet, watch our merchandise or it'll sprout legs and walk.'

Jacob stands on a crate, the better to survey the departing visitors.

He sees the burnt maid step into the sunlit alley, assisting a frail scholar.

Contrary to his expectations, she turns and waves her hand.

Jacob is delighted by this secret acknowledgement and waves back.

No
, he sees,
she is sheltering her eyes from the sun . . .

Yawning, Hanzaburo enters, carrying a pot of tea.

You didn't even ask her name
, Jacob realises.
Jacob de Bonehead
.

He notices that she left behind the closed fan on the crate of raw sugar.

Storm-faced van Cleef leaves last, pushing past Hanzaburo, who stands at the threshold holding the pot of tea. Hanzaburo asks, 'Thing happen?'

* * *

By midnight, the Chief's Dining Room is foggy with pipe-smoke. The servants Cupido and Philander play 'Apples of Delft' on viol da gamba and flute.

'President Adams is our "Shogun", yes, Mr Goto,' Captain Lacy flicks crumbs of pie-crust from his moustache, 'but he was
chosen
by the American people. This is the point of democracy.'

The five interpreters exchange a cautious look Jacob now recognises.

'Great lords, et cetera,' Ogawa Uzaemon clarifies, '
choose
President?'

'Not lords, no.' Lacy picks his teeth. 'Citizens. Every one of us.'

'Even . . .' Interpreter Goto's eyes settle on Con Twomey '. . . carpenters?'

'Carpenters, bakers,' Lacy belches, 'and candlestick makers.'

'Do Washington's and Jefferson's slaves,' ask Marinus, 'also vote?'

'
No
, Doctor,' smiles Lacy. 'Nor do their horses, oxen, bees or women.'

But what junior geisha
, wonders Jacob,
would wrestle an ape for a leg?

'What if,' asks Goto, 'people make bad choice and President is bad man?'

'Come the next election - four years, at most - we vote him out of office.'

'Old President,' Interpreter Hori is maroon with rum, 'is
executed
?'

' "Elected", Mr Hori,' says Twomey. 'When the people choose their leader.'

'A better system, surely,' Lacy holds his glass for van Cleef's slave Weh to fill, 'than waiting for death to remove a corrupt, stupid or insane Shogun?'

The interpreters look uneasy: no informer is fluent enough in Dutch to understand Captain Lacy's treasonous talk, but there is no guarantee that the Magistracy has not recruited one of the four to report on his colleagues' reactions.

'Democracy,' says Goto, 'is not a flower who bloom in Japan, I think.'

'Soil in Asia,' agrees Interpreter Hori, 'is not correct for Europe and America flowers.'

'Mr Washington, Mr Adams,' Interpreter Iwase shifts the topic, 'is royal bloodline?'

'Our revolution,' Captain Lacy clicks his fingers to order the slave Ignatius to bring the spittoon, 'in which I played my part, when my paunch was flatter, sought to
purge
America of royal bloodlines.' He spews out a dragon of phlegm. 'A man might be a great leader - like General Washington - but why does it follow that his children inherit their pa's qualities? Are not inbred royals more often dunderheads and wastrels - proper "King Georges" one might say - than those who climb the world using God-given talent?' He mumbles an aside in English to Dejima's secret subject of the British monarch. 'No offence intended, Mr Twomey.'

'Now I'd be the
last
fecker here,' avows the Irishman, 'to take offence.'

Cupido and Philander strike up 'Seven White Roses For My One True Love'.

Baert's drunken head droops and settles in a plate of sweet beans.

Does her burn
, Jacob wonders,
register touch as heat, cold or numbness?

Marinus takes up his stick. 'The party shall excuse me: I have left Eelattu rendering the Estonian's shinbone. Without an expert eye, tallow shall be dripping from the ceiling. Mr Vorstenbosch, my compliments . . .' He bows to the interpreters and limps out of the room.

'Does the law of Japan,' Captain Lacy's smile is soapy, 'permit
polygamy
?'

'What is po-ri-ga-mi, Deputy?' Hori stuffs a pipe. 'Why need permit?'

'You explain, Mr de Zoet,' van Cleef is saying. 'Words are your forte.'

'Polygamy is . . .' Jacob considers '. . . one husband, many wives.'

'Ah. Oh.' Hori grins and the other interpreters nod. 'Polygamy.'

'Mohammedans sanction four wives.' Captain Lacy tosses an almond into the air and captures it in his mouth. 'Chinese may round up seven under one roof. How many may a Japanese man lock up in his personal collection, eh?'

'In all countries, same,' says Hori. 'In Japan, Holland, China; all same. I say why. All mans marry first wife. He' - leering, Hori makes an obscene gesture with a fist and finger - 'until she' - he mimes a pregnant belly - 'yes? After
this
, all mans keep number wives his purse
says
he may. Captain Lacy plans to have Dejima wife for trading season, like Mr Snitker and Mr van Cleef?'

'I'd rather,' Lacy bites a thumbnail, 'visit the famous Maruyama District.'

'Mr Hemmij,' recalls Interpreter Yonekizu, 'ordered courtesans for his feasts.'

'Chief Hemmij,' says Vorstenbosch, darkly, 'partook of many pleasures at the Company's expense, as did Mr Snitker. Hence, the latter dines on hard-tack tonight, whilst we enjoy the rewards of honest employees.'

Jacob glances at Ivo Oost: Ivo Oost is scowling at him.

Baert lifts his bean-spattered face, exclaims, 'But, sir, she ain't really my aunt!', giggles like a schoolgirl and falls off his chair.

'I propose a toast,' declares Deputy van Cleef, 'to all our absent ladies.'

The drinkers and diners fill one another's glasses. 'To all our absent ladies!'

'Especial,' gasps Hori, as the gin burns his gullet, 'to Mr Ogawa here. Mr Ogawa, he marry this year a beauty wife.' Hori's elbow is covered with rhubarb mousse. 'Each night' - he mimes riding a horse - 'three, four, five gallopings!'

The laughter is raucous but Ogawa's smile is weak.

'You ask a starved man,' Gerritszoon answers, 'to drink to a glutton.'

'Mr Gerritszoon want girl?' Hori is solicitude personified. 'My servant fetch. Say you want. Fat? Tight? Tiger? Baby cat? Gentle sister?'

'We'd
all
like a gentle sister,' complains Arie Grote, 'but what o' the money, eh? A man could buy a brothel in Siam for a tumble with a Nagasaki doxy. Is there no case, Mr Vorstenbosch, for the Company providin' a subsidy, eh, in this quarter? Consider poor Oost: on his
official
wages, sir, a little . . . feminine consolation, eh, would cost him a year's wages.'

'A diet of abstinence,' replies Vorstenbosch, 'never hurt anyone.'

'But, sir, what vices might a red-blooded Dutchman be pushed to without a conduit for the, eh, unloosin' o' Nature's urges?'

'You miss your wife, Mr Grote,' Hori asks, 'at home in Holland?'

' "South of Gibraltar",' quotes Captain Lacy, ' "all men are bachelors." '

'Nagasaki's latitude,' says Fischer, 'is, of course, well
north
of Gibraltar.'

'I never knew,' says Vorstenbosch, 'you were a married man, Grote.'

'He'd as soon not,' Ouwehand explains, 'hear the subject raised, sir.'

'A mooing West Frieslander slut, sir.' The cook licks his brown incisors. 'When I consider her at
all
, Mr Hori, 'tis to pray the Ottomans'll storm West Friesland an' make off with the bitch.'

'If not like wife,' asks Interpreter Yonekizu, 'why not do divorce?'

'Easier said than done, sir,' Grote sighs, 'in the so-called Christian lands.'

'So why marry,' Hori coughs out tobacco smoke, 'at first place?'

'Oh, 'tis a long an' sorry saga, Mr Hori, what'd not be of interest to--'

'On Mr Grote's last trip home,' obliges Ouwehand, 'he wooed a promising young heiress at her town-house in Roomolenstraat who told him how her heirless, ailing papa yearned to see his dairy farm in the hands of a gentleman son-in-law, yet everywhere, she lamented, were thieving rascals
posing
as eligible bachelors. Mr Grote agreed that the Sea of Courtship seethes with sharks, and spoke of the prejudice endured by the young colonial
parvenu
, as if the annual fortunes yielded by his plantations in Sumatra were less worthy than old monies. The turtledoves were wedded within a week. The day after their nuptials, the taverner presented the bill and each says to the other, "Settle the account, my Heart's Music." But to their genuine horror, neither
could
, for bride and groom alike had spent their last beans on wooing the other! Mr Grote's Sumatran plantations evaporated; the Roomolenstraat house reverted to a co-conspirator's stage prop; the ailing father-in-law turned out to be a beer-porter in rude health, not heirless but hairless, and--'

A belch erupts from Lacy. 'Pardon: 'twas the Devilled Eggs.'

'Deputy van Cleef?' Goto is alarmed. 'Do Ottomans invade Holland? This news is not in recentest
fusetsuki
report . . .'

'Mr Grote,' van Cleef brushes his napkin, 'spoke in jest, sir.'

'In jest?' The earnest young interpreter frowns and blinks. 'In jest . . .'

Cupido and Philander are playing a languid air by Boccherini.

'One grows despondent,' ruminates Vorstenbosch, 'to think that, unless Edo authorises an increase in the copper quota, these rooms shall fall for ever silent.'

Yonekizu and Hori grimace; Goto and Ogawa wear blank faces.

Most of the Dutchmen have asked Jacob whether the extraordinary ultimatum is a bluff. He told each to ask the Chief Resident, knowing that none of them would. Having lost last season's cargo aboard the doomed
Octavia
, many would be returning to Batavia poorer men than when they left.

'Who
was
that bizarre female,' van Cleef squeezes a lemon into a Venetian glass, 'in Warehouse Doorn?'

'Miss Aibagawa,' says Goto, 'is daughter of doctor and scholar.'

Aibagawa
. Jacob handles each syllable in turn.
Ai-ba-ga-wa . . .

'The Magistrate give permission,' says Iwase, 'to study under Dutch doctor.'