The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (96 page)

She slips between the bigger, taller onlookers, unnoticed . . .

. . . and adjusts her headscarf, the better to hide her burn.

She places her cool palms on Jacob's fever-glazed face.

Jacob sees himself, when he was young, in her narrow eyes.

Her lips touch the place between his eyebrows.

A well-waxed paper door slides open.

Acknowledgments

Firstly, the author wishes to thank the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Dutch Fund for Literature for providing an invaluable residency at NIAS for the first half-year of 2006.

Secondly, general thanks to Nadeem Aslam, Piet Baert, Manuel Berri, Evan Camfield, Wayson Choy, Harm Damsma, Walter Donohue, David Ebershoff, Johnny de Falbe, Tijs Goldschmidt, Tally Garner, Henry Jeffreys, Jonny Geller, Trish Kerr, Martin Kingston, Sharon Klein, Tania Kuteva, Hari Kunzru, Jynne Martin, Niek Miedema, Cees Nooteboom, Al Oliver, Hazel Orme, Lidewijde Paris, Jonathan Pegg, Noel Redding, Michael Schellenberg, Mike Shaw, Alan Spence, Doug Stewart, Ruth Tross, Professor Arjo Vanderjagt, Klaas and Gerrie de Vries, Carole Welch my patient editor, Professor Henk Wesselling, Dr George E van Zanen.

Thirdly, specific thanks to Kees 't Hart, Ship Manager Robert Hovell of HM Frigate
Unicorn
in Dundee, Archivist Peter Sijnke of Middelburg and Professor Cynthia Vialle of the University of Leiden for answering a plethora of questions. Research sources were numerous, but this novel is indebted especially to the scholarship of Professor Timon Screech of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, Beatrice M. Bodart-Bailey's annotated translation of Kaempfer's
Japan: Tokugawa Culture Observed
(as read by Captain Penhaligon) and Annick M. Doeff's translation of her ancestor Hendrik Doeff's memoir,
Recollections of Japan
.

Fourthly, thanks to the in-house illustrators Jenny and Stan Mitchell, and in-house translator of Japanese sources Keiko Yoshida.

Lastly, thanks to Lawrence Norfolk and his family.