The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (5 page)

'You study the Japanese tongue, Mr van Cleef?'

'There are rules against it, but I pick up a little from my wives.'

'Should you teach me what you know, sir, I would be greatly obliged.'

'I'd not be much of a teacher,' van Cleef confesses. 'Dr Marinus chats with the Malays as if he was born black, but the Japanese language is hard won, he says. Any interpreter caught teaching us could, feasibly, be charged with treason.'

The frisker returns Jacob's shoes and issues a fresh command.

'Off clotheses, sir!' say the interpreters. 'Clotheses off!'

'Clotheses stay on!' retorts van Cleef. 'Clerks
don't
strip, Mr de Zoet; the nasty-turdy wants us robbed of another dignity. Obey him today, and every clerk entering Japan until Doomsday would perforce follow suit.'

The frisker remonstrates; the chorus rises, 'Clotheses off!'

Interpreter Sekita recognises trouble and creeps away.

Vorstenbosch hits the floor with his cane until quietness reigns. 'No!'

The displeased frisker decides to concede the point.

A Customs guard taps Jacob's sea-chest with his spear and speaks.

'Open please,' says an unranked interpreter. 'Open big box!'

The box
, taunts Jacob's inner whisperer,
containing your Psalter
.

'Before we all grow old, de Zoet,' says Vorstenbosch.

Sick to his core, Jacob unlocks the chest as ordered.

One of the guards speaks; the chorus translates, 'Go back, sir! Step behind!'

More than twenty curious necks crane as the frisker lifts the lid and unfolds Jacob's five linen shirts; his woollen blanket; stockings; a drawstring bag of buttons and buckles; a tatty wig; a set of quills; yellowing undergarments; his boyhood compass; half a bar of Windsor soap; the two dozen letters from Anna tied with her hair ribbon; a razor blade; a Delft pipe; a cracked glass; a folio of sheet music; a moth-eaten bottle-green velvet waistcoat; a pewter plate, knife and spoon; and, stacked at the bottom, some fifty assorted books. A frisker speaks to an underling, who runs out of the Customs Room.

'Fetch duty interpreter, sir,' says an interpreter. 'Bring to see books.'

'Is not,' Jacob's ribs squeeze him, 'Mr Sekita to conduct the dissection?'

A brown-toothed grin appears in van Cleef's beard. 'Dissection?'

'
In
spection, I meant, sir: the inspection of my books.'

'Sekita's father purchased his son's place in the Guild, but the prohibition against' - van Cleef mouths 'Christianity' - 'is too important for blockheads. Books are checked by an abler man: Iwase Banri, perhaps, or one of the Ogawas.'

'Who are the -' Jacob chokes on his own saliva '- Ogawas?'

'Ogawa Mimasaku is one of the four Interpreters of the First Rank. His son, Ogawa Uzaemon, is of the Third Rank, and -' a young man enters '- ah! Speak of the Devil and listen for his feet! A warm morning, Mr Ogawa.'

Ogawa Uzaemon, in his mid-twenties, has an open, intelligent face. The unranked interpreters all bow low. He bows to Vorstenbosch, van Cleef and lastly the new arrival. 'Welcome ashore, Mr de Zoet.' His pronunciation is excellent. He extends his hand for a European handshake just as Jacob delivers an Asian bow: Ogawa Uzaemon reciprocates with an Asian bow as Jacob offers his hand. The vignette amuses the room. 'I am told,' says the interpreter, 'Mr de Zoet brings many book . . . and here they are . . .' he points to the chest '. . . many
many
book. A "plethora" of book, you say?'

'A few books,' says Jacob, nervous enough to vomit. 'Or quite a few: yes.'

'May I remove books to see?' Ogawa does so, eagerly, without waiting for an answer. For Jacob, the world is narrowed to a thin tunnel between him and his Psalter, visible between his two-volume copy of
Sara Burgerhart
. Ogawa frowns. 'Many, many books here. A little time, please. When finish, I send message. It is agreeable?' He misreads Jacob's hesitancy. 'Books all safe. I too' - Ogawa places his palm over his heart - 'am
bibliophile
. This is correct word?
Bibliophile?
'

Out in the Weighing Yard the sun feels as hot as a branding-iron.

Any minute now
, thinks the reluctant smuggler,
my Psalter will be found
.

A small party of Japanese officials is waiting for Vorstenbosch.

A Malay slave bows, waiting for the Chief with a bamboo parasol.

'Captain Lacy and I,' says the Chief, 'have a gamut of engagements in the State Room until luncheon. You look sickly, de Zoet: have Dr Marinus drain half a pint after Mr van Cleef has shown you around.' He nods a parting at his deputy and walks to his residence.

The Weighing Yard is dominated by one of the Company's tripod-scales, as high as two men. 'We're weighing the sugar today,' says van Cleef, 'for what
that
junk is worth. Batavia sent the very dregs of their warehouses.'

The small square bustles with more than a hundred merchants, interpreters, inspectors, servants, spies, lackeys, palanquin bearers, porters.
So these
, thinks Jacob,
are the Japanese
. Their hair colour - black to grey - and skin tones are more uniform than those of a Dutch crowd, and their modes of dress, footwear and hairstyles appear rigidly prescribed according to rank. Fifteen or twenty near-naked carpenters are perched on the frame of a new warehouse. 'Idler than a gang of gin-soused Finns . . .' mumbles van Cleef. Watching from the roof of a Customs House is a pink-faced, soot-on-snow-coloured monkey, dressed in a sailcloth jerkin. 'I see you've spotted William Pitt.'

'I beg your pardon, sir?'

'King George's First Minister, yes. He answers to no other name. A sailor bought him some six or seven seasons ago, but on the day his owner sailed, the ape vanished, only to reappear the next day, a freedman of Dejima. Speaking of brute apes, over there . . .' van Cleef indicates a lantern-jawed and pig-tailed labourer engaged in opening boxes of sugar '. . . is Wybo Gerritszoon, one of our hands.' Gerritszoon places the precious nails in his jerkin pocket. The bags of sugar are carried past a Japanese inspector and a striking foreign youth of seventeen or eighteen: his hair is gold and cherubic, his lips have a Javanese thickness and eyes an Oriental slant. 'Ivo Oost: somebody's natural son, with a generous glug of mestizo blood.'

The bags of sugar arrive at a trestle-table by the Company tripod.

The weighing is viewed by another trio of Japanese officials: an interpreter; and two Europeans in their twenties. 'On the left,' van Cleef points, 'is Peter Fischer, a Prussian out of Brunswick . . .' Fischer is nut-coloured, brown-haired but balding '. . . and an articled clerk - although Mr Vorstenbosch tells me you are also qualified, giving us an embarrassment of riches. Fischer's companion is Con Twomey, an Irishman of Cork.' Twomey has a half-moon face and a sharkish smile; his hair is cropped close and he is roughly tailored in sailcloth. 'Don't fret you forget these names: once the
Shenandoah
departs, we'll have a tedious eternity in which to learn all about each other.'

'Don't the Japanese suspect some of our men aren't Dutch?'

'We account for Twomey's bastard accent by saying he hails from Groningen. When were there ever enough pure-blooded Dutch to man the Company? Especially
now
' - the stressed word alludes to the sensitive matter of Daniel Snitker's incarceration - 'we must catch-as-catch-can. Twomey's our carpenter, but doubles as inspector on Weighing Days, for the infernal coolies'll spirit away a bag of sugar in a blink without they're watched like hawks. As will the guards - and the merchants are the slyest bastards of all: yesterday one of the whoresons slipped a stone into a bag which he then "discovered" and tried to use as "evidence" to lower the average tare.'

'Shall I begin my duties now, Mr van Cleef?'

'Have Dr Marinus breathe a vein first, and join the fray once you're settled. Marinus you shall find in his surgery at the end of Long Street -
this
street - by the bay tree. You shan't get lost. No man ever lost his way on Dejima, without he had a bladder-full of grog in him.'

'Fine thing
I
happened along,' says a wheezing voice, ten paces later. 'A cove'll lose his way on Dejima faster'n shit through a goose. Arie Grote's my name an'
you
'll be' - he thumps Jacob's shoulder - 'Jacob de Zoet of Zeeland the Brave an', my oh my, Snitker
did
put your nose out of joint, didn't he?'

Arie Grote has a grin full of holes and a hat made of shark-hide.

'Like my hat, do you? Boa Constrictor, this was, in the jungles of Ternate, what slunk one night into my hut what I shared with my three native maids. My first thought was, well, one of my bed-mates was wakin' me gentle to toast my beans, eh? But no no no, there's this tightenin' an' my lungs're squeezed tight an' three of my ribs go
pop! snap! crack!
an' by the light o' the Southern Cross, eh, I see him gazin' into my bulgin' eyes - an'
that
, Mr de Z., was the squeezy bugger's downfall. My arms was locked behind me but my jaws was free an' oh I
bit
the beggar's head
that
'
ard
. . . A screamin' snake ain't a sound you'll forget in an hurry! Squeezy Bugger squeezed me tighter - he weren't done yet - so I went for the worm's jugular an' bit it
clean through
. The grateful villagers made me a robe of its skin and coronated me, eh, Lord of Ternate - that snake'd been the terror of their jungle - but . . .' Grote sighs '. . . a sailor's heart's the sea's plaything, eh? Back in Batavia a milliner turned my robe to hats what fetched ten rix-dollars a throw . . . but nothing'd splice me from this last one '
cept
, mayhap, a favour to welcome a young cove whose need be sharper'n mine, eh? This beauty's yours
not
for ten rix-dollars, no no no,
not
eight but five stuivers. As good a price as none.'

'The milliner switched your Boa skin for poorly cured shark-hide, alas.'

'I'll wager
you
rise from the card table,' Arie Grote looks pleased, 'with a well-fed purse. Most of us hands gather of an evenin' in my humble billet, eh, for a little hazard 'n' companionship, an' as you plainly ain't no Stuffed-Shirt Hoity-Toity, why not join us?'

'A pastor's son like me would bore you, I fear: I drink little and gamble less.'

'Who
ain't
a gambler in the Glorious Orient, with his very life? Of every ten coves who sail out,
six
'll survive to make what hay they may, eh, but four'll sink into some swampy grave an' forty-sixty is damn poor odds. By-the-by, for every jewel or ducatoon sewn into coat lining, eleven get seized at the Sea-Gate, and only a one slips through. They're best poked up yer fig-hole an' by-the-by should
your
cavity, eh, be so primed, Mr de Z., I can get you the best price of all . . .'

At the Crossroads, Jacob stops: ahead, Long Street continues its curve.

'That's Bony Alley,' Grote points to their right, 'goin' to Sea Wall Lane: an'
that
aways,' Grote points left, 'is Short Street; and the Land-Gate . . .'