AT FOUR MINUTES to four o’clock, Jacob presses blotting paper over the page on his desk in Warehouse Eik. He drinks another cup of water, of which he shall sweat every last drop. The clerk then lifts the blotter and reads the title: Sixteenth Addendum: True Quantities of Japanned Lacquerware Exported from Dejima to Batavia Not Declared on the Bills of Lading Submitted Between the Years 1793 and 1799. He closes the black book, fastens its ties, and puts it into his portfolio. “We stop now, Hanzaburo. Chief Vorstenbosch summoned me to the stateroom for a meeting at four o’clock. Please take these papers to Mr. Ouwehand in the clerks’ office.” Hanzaburo sighs, takes the files, and drifts disconsolately away.
Jacob follows, locking the warehouse.
Floating seeds fill the sticky air.
The sunburned Dutchman thinks of a Zeeland winter’s first snowflakes.
Go via Short Street, he tells himself. You may catch sight of her.
The Dutch flag on Flag Square twitches, very nearly lifeless.
If you mean to betray Anna, Jacob thinks, why chase the unobtainable?
At the land gate, a frisker sifts a handcart of fodder for contraband.
Marinus is right. Hire a courtesan. You have the money now …
Jacob walks up Short Street to the crossroads, where Ignatius is sweeping.
The slave tells the clerk that the doctor’s students left some time ago.
One glance, Jacob knows, would tell me if the fan charmed or offended.
He stands where she passed, maybe. A couple of spies are watching.
When he reaches the chief’s residence, he is accosted by Peter Fischer, who appears from the under way. “Well, well, aren’t you just the dog who mounted the bitch today?” The Prussian’s breath smells of rum.
Jacob can only suppose Fischer is referring to this morning’s fans.
“Three years in this godforlorn jail … Snitker swore I would be Van Cleef’s deputy when he left. He swore it! Then you, you and your damned mercury, you come ashore, in his silk-lined pocket …” Fischer looks up the stairs to the chief’s residence, swaying uncertainly. “You forget, De Zoet, I am not a weak and common clerk. You forget—”
“That you were a rifleman in Surinam? You remind us all daily.”
“Rob me of my rightful promotion and I shall break all your bones.”
“I bid you a soberer evening than your afternoon, Mr. Fischer.”
“Jacob de Zoet! I break my enemy’s bones, one by one …”
VORSTENBOSCH USHERS Jacob into his bureau with a conviviality not shown for days. “Mr. van Cleef reports you ran the gauntlet of Mr. Fischer’s displeasure.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Fischer is convinced that I devote my every waking minute to the frustration of his interests …”
Van Cleef pours a rich and ruby port into three fluted glasses.
“… but it might have been Mr. Grote’s rum making the accusation.”
“There’s no denying,” says Vorstenbosch, “that Kobayashi’s interests were frustrated today.”
“I never saw his tail,” agrees Van Cleef, “so far back between his stumpy legs.”
Birds scrat, thud, and issue dire warnings on the roof above.
“His greed trapped him, sir,” says Jacob. “I just nudged him.”
“He’ll not,” Van Cleef laughs into his beard, “see it that way!”
“When I met you, De Zoet,” begins Vorstenbosch, “I knew. Here is an honest soul in a swamp of human crocodiles, a sharp quill among blunt nibs, and a man who, with a little guidance, shall be a chief resident by his thirtieth year! Your resourcefulness this morning saved the company’s money and honor. Governor-General van Overstraten shall hear about it, I give my word.”
Jacob bows. Am I summoned here, he wonders, to be made head clerk?
“To your future,” says the chief. He, his deputy, and the clerk touch glasses.
Perhaps his recent coolness, Jacob thinks, was to avert charges of favoritism.
“Kobayashi’s punishment was to be made to tell Edo,” gloats Van Cleef, “that ordering goods from a trading factory that may expire in fifty days for want of copper is premature and injudicious. We’ll scare more concessions out of him, besides.”
Light skitters off the Almelo clock’s bearings like splinters of stars.
“We have,” Vorstenbosch’s voice shifts, “a further assignment for you, De Zoet. Mr. van Cleef shall explain.”
Van Cleef drains his glass of port. “Before breakfast, come rain or shine, Mr. Grote receives a visitor: a provedore, who enters with a full bag, in plain view.”
“Bigger than a pouch,” says Vorstenbosch, “smaller than a pillowcase.”
“Then he leaves with the same bag, still full, in plain view.”
“What”—Jacob banishes his disappointment that he is not to be promoted on the spot—“is Mr. Grote’s story?”
“A ‘story,’ says Vorstenbosch, “is precisely what he would regale Van Cleef or me with. High office, as you shall one day discover, distances one from one’s men. But this morning proves beyond doubt that yours is the nose to smoke out a rascal. You hesitate. You think, Nobody loves an informer, and, alas, you are right. But he who is destined for high office, De Zoet, as Van Cleef and I divine you are, must not fear a little clambering and elbowing. Pay Mr. Grote a call tonight.”
This is a test, Jacob divines, of my willingness to get dirty hands.
“I shall redeem a long-standing invitation to the cook’s card table.”
“You see, Van Cleef? De Zoet never says, ‘Must I?’ only ‘How may I?’”
Jacob indulges in thoughts of Anna reading news of his promotion.
IN THE AFTER-DINNER half dark, swallows stream along Seawall Lane, and Jacob finds Ogawa Uzaemon at his side. The interpreter says something to Hanzaburo to make him disappear and accompanies Jacob to the pines in the far corner. Under the humid trees Ogawa stops, neuters the inevitable spy in the shadows by means of an amiable greeting, and says, in a low voice, “All Nagasaki talks about this morning. About Interpreter Kobayashi and fans.”
“Perhaps he won’t try to scull us again so shamelessly.”
“Recent,” says Ogawa, “I warn, do not make Enomoto enemy.”
“I take your advice very seriously.”
“Here is more advice. Kobayashi is a little shogun. Dejima is his empire.”
“Then I am fortunate not to rely on his good offices.”
Ogawa frowns at “good offices.” “He harms you, De Zoet-san.”
“Thank you for your concern, but I’m not afraid of him.”
Ogawa looks around. “He may search apartment for stolen items …”
Seagulls riot in the dusk above a boat hidden by the seawall.
“… or forbidden items. So if such item in your room …”
“But I own nothing,” Jacob protests, “that might incriminate me.”
A tiny muscle ripples under Ogawa’s cheek. “If there is forbidden book … hide. Hide under floor. Hide very well. Kobayashi wants revenge. For you, penalty is exile. Interpreter who searched your library when you arrive, not so lucky …”
I am failing to understand something, Jacob knows, but what?
The clerk opens his mouth, but the question expires.
Ogawa knew about my Psalter, Jacob realizes, all along.
“I shall do as you say, Mr. Ogawa, before I do anything else.”
A pair of inspectors appear from Bony Alley and walk up Seawall Lane.
Without another word, Ogawa walks toward them. Jacob leaves via Garden House.
CON TWOMEY AND PIET BAERT rise and their candlelit shadows slide. The impromptu card table is made of one door and four legs. Ivo Oost stays seated, chewing tobacco; Wybo Gerritszoon spits at, rather than into, the spittoon; and Arie Grote is as charming as a ferret welcoming a rabbit. “We was beginnin’ to despair you’d ever accept my hospitality, eh?” He uncorks the first of twelve jars of rum lined up on a plank shelf.
“I intended to come days ago,” says Jacob, “but work prevented me.”
“Buryin’ Mr. Snitker’s reputation,” remarks Oost, “must be a taxing job.”
Jacob brushes aside the attack. “To make good falsified ledgers is taxing work. How homely your quarters are, Mr. Grote.”
“’F I liked livin’ in a tub o’ piss,” Grote says with a wink, “I’d o’ stayed in Enkhuizen, eh?”
Jacob takes a seat. “What is the game, gentlemen?”
“Knave and Devil—our Germanic cousins, eh, play it.”
“Ah, Karnöffel. I played it a little in Copenhagen.”
“S’prised,” says Baert, “you’d be familiar with cards.”
“The sons—or nephews—of vicarages are less naïve than supposed.”
“Each o’ these”—Grote picks up a nail from his cache—“is one stuiver off of our wages. We ante up one nail in the pot afore each round. Seven tricks per round, an’ who bags most tricks scoops the pot. When the nails is gone, the night’s done.”
“But how are winnings redeemed, with wages payable only in Batavia?”
“A touch of, eh, legerdemainery: this”—he waves a sheet of paper—“is a record o’ who won what off of who, an’ Deputy van Cleef records our ’djusted balances in the actual pay book. Mr. Snitker approved this practice, knowin’ how his men’s edge is kept sharp by these convivial, eh, pleasures.”
“Mr. Snitker was a welcome guest,” says Ivo Oost, “afore losin’ his liberty.”
“Fischer an’ Ouwehand an’ Marinus stay aloof, but you, Mr. de Z., look cut of gayer cloth …”
NINE JARS OF RUM ARE left on the plank shelf. “So I run away from Pa,” says Grote, stroking his cards, “afore he did rip out my liver, an’ off I tromped to Amsterdam, seekin’ fortune an’ true love, eh?” He pours himself another glass of urine-colored rum. “But the only love I saw was what’s paid in cash afore an’ clap in arrears, an’ not a sniff of a fortune. Nah, hunger was all I found, snow an’ ice an’ cutpurses what fed off the weak like dogs … Speculate to ’ccumulate, thinks I, so I spends my ‘inheritance,’ eh, on a barrow o’ coal, but a pack o’ coalmen tipped my cart in the canal—an’ me in after it, yellin’, ‘This is our patch, yer West Frieslander mongrel! Come back when it’s bath time again!’ Aside from this schoolin’ in monopolies, eh, that icy dunkin’ give me such a fever I couldn’t stir from my lodgin’s for a week, an’ then my cuddly landlord planted his iron toe in my arse. Holes in my shoes, naught to eat but the stinkin’ fog, I sat me down on the steps of Nieuwe Kerk, wonderin’ if I should thief a bite while I’d still strength enough to scarper, or jus’ freeze to death an’ get it over with—”
“Thief an’ scarper,” says Ivo Oost, “ev’ry time.”
“Who should gander along but this gent in a top hat, ivory-knobbed cane, an’ a friendly manner. ‘Know who I am, boy?’ I says, ‘I don’t, sir.’ He says, ‘I, boy, am your future prosperity.’ Figured he meant he’d feed me f’ joinin’ his Church, an’ so starvin’ was I I’d’ve turned Jew for a bowl o’ pottage, but no. ‘You have heard of the noble an’ munificent Dutch East Indies Company, boy, have you not?’ Says I, ‘Who ain’t, sir?’ Says he, ‘So you are cognizant of the diamond prospects the company offers stout an’ willin’ lads in its possessions throughout our Creator’s blue an’ silver globe, yes?’ Says I, catchin’ on at last, ‘That I do, sir, aye.’ Says he, ‘Well, I am a master recruiter for the Amsterdam headquarters, an’ my name is Duke van Eys. What d’ you say to half a guilder advance on your wages, an’ board an’ lodgin’ till the next company flotilla sets forth on the finny way to the mysterious East?’ An’ I say, ‘Duke van Eys, you are my savior.’ Mr. de Z., does our rum disagree with you?”
“My stomach is dissolving, Mr. Grote, but it is otherwise delicious.”
Grote places the five of diamonds: Gerritszoon slaps down the queen.
“Cry havoc!” Baert slams down a five of trumps and scoops up the nails.
Jacob next discards a low heart. “Your savior, Mr. Grote?”
Grote inspects his cards. “The gentleman led me to a tottery house behind Rasphuys, a slanty street, an’ his office was poky but dry ’n’ warm, an’ the smell o’ bacon wafted up from belowstairs an’, oh, it smelled good! I even asked might I have me a rasher or two there ’n’ then, an’ van Eys laughs an’ says, ‘Write your name here, boy, and after five years in the Orient you can build a palace of smoked hog!’ Couldn’t read nor write my name back in them days; I just inked my thumb at the foot o’ the papers. ‘Splendid,’ says van Eys, ‘and here is an advance on your bounty, to prove I am a man of my word.’ He paid me my own new an’ shiny half-guilder, an’ I was never happier. ‘The remainder is payable aboard the Admiral de Ruyter, who sails on the thirtieth or thirty-first. One trusts you have no objection to being quartered with a few other stout an’ willing lads, future shipmates and partners in prosperity?’ Any roof beat no roof, so I pocketed my booty an’ said I’d no objection at all.”
Twomey discards a worthless diamond. Ivo Oost, the four of spades.
“So two servants,” Grote continues, studying his hand, “led me downstairs, but I di’n’t rumble what was afoot, eh, till the key was turned in the lock behind me. In a cellar no bigger’n this room was twenty-four lads, my age or older. Some’d been there weeks; some was half skel’tons, coughin’ up blood … Oh, I banged on the door to be freed, but this great scabby grunt strolls over sayin’, ‘Better give me your half-guilder now for safekeepin’.’ Says I, ‘What half-guilder?’ an’ he says I can give it him volunt’ry or else he’ll tenderize me an’ have it anyways. I asks when we’re allowed out for exercise an’ air. ‘We ain’t let out,’ says he, ‘till the ship sails or unless we cark it. Now, the money.’ Wish I could say I stood my ground, but Arie Grote ain’t no liar. He weren’t jokin’ ’bout carkin’ it, neither: eight o’ them ‘stout an’ willing lads’ left horizontally, two crammed into one coffin. Just an iron grid at street level for air ’n’ light, see, an’ slops so bad you’d not know which bucket was to eat from an’ which to shit in.”
“Why didn’t you knock down the doors?” asks Twomey.
“Iron doors an’ guards with nailed truncheons is why.” Grote sweeps head lice from his hair. “Oh, I found ways to live to tell the tale. It’s my chief hobby-hawk is the noble art of survivin’. But on the day that we was marched to the tender what’d take us out to the Admiral de Ruyter, roped to the others like prisoners, eh, I swore three oaths to myself. First: never credit a company gent who says, ‘We’ve yer interests at heart.’” He winks at Jacob. “Second: never be so poor again, come what may, that human pustules like Van Eys could buy ’n’ sell me like a slave. Third? To get my half-guilder back off of Scabby Grunt before we reached Curaçao. My first oath I honor to this day; my second oath, well, I have grounds to hope it’ll be no pauper’s grave for Arie Grote when his time is done; and my third oath—oh, yes, I got my half-guilder back that very same night.”
Wybo Gerritszoon picks his nose and asks, “How?”
Grote shuffles the cards. “My deal, shipmates.”
FIVE JARS OF RUM wait on the shelf. The hands are drinking more than the clerk, but Jacob feels a drunken glow in his legs. Karnöffel, he knows, shall not make me a rich man tonight. “Letters,” Ivo Oost is saying, “they taught us at the orphanage, an’ arithmetic, an’ Scripture: a powerful dose o’ Scripture, what with chapel twice daily. We was made to learn the gospels verse by verse, an’ one slip’d earn you a stroke o’ the cane. What a pastor I might o’ made! But then, who’d take lessons from ‘somebody’s natural son’ on the Ten Commandments?” He deals seven cards to each player. Oost turns over the top card of the remnant pack. “Diamonds is trumps.”
“I heard tell,” says Grote, playing the eight of clubs, “the company shipped some head-shrinker, black as a sweep, to pastor’s school in Leiden. The idea bein’ he’ll go home to his jungle an’ show the cannibals the light o�
�� the Lord an’ so render ’em more pacific, eh? Bibles bein’ cheaper ’n rifles an’ all.”
“Oh, but rifles make f’ better sport,” remarks Gerritszoon. “Bang bang bang.”
“What good’s a slave,” asks Grote, “what’s full o’ bullet holes?”
Baert kisses his card and plays the queen of clubs.
“She’s the only bitch on earth,” says Gerritszoon, “who’ll let yer do that.”
“With tonight’s winnin’s,” says Baert, “I may order a gold-skinned Miss.”
“Did the orphanage in Batavia give you your name, also, Mr. Oost?” I would never ask that question sober, Jacob berates himself.
But Oost, on whom Grote’s rum is having a benign effect, takes no offense. “Aye, it did. ‘Oost’ is from ‘Oost-Indische Compagnie,’ who founded the orphanage, and who’d deny there’s ‘East’ in my blood? ‘Ivo’ is ’cause I was left on the steps o’ the orphanage on the twentieth o’ May, what’s the old feast day of St. Ivo. Master Drijver at the orphanage’d be kind enough to point out, ev’ry now an’ then, how ‘Ivo’ is the male ‘Eve’ an’ a fittin’ reminder o’ the original sin o’ my birth.”
“It’s a man’s conduct that God is interested in,” avows Jacob, “not the circumstances of his birth.”
“More’s the pity it was wolfs like Drijver an’ not God who reared me.”
“Mr. de Zoet,” Twomey prompts, “your turn.”
Jacob plays the five of hearts; Twomey lays down the four.
Oost runs the corners of his cards over his Javanese lips. “I’d clamber out o’ the attic window, ’bove the jacarandas, an’ there, northward, out past the Old Fort, was a strip o’ blue … or green … or gray … an’ smell the brine ’bove the stink o’ the canals; there was the ships layin’ hard by Onrust, like livin’ things, an’ sails billowin’ … an’ ‘This ain’t my home,’ I told that buildin’, ‘an’ you ain’t my masters,’ I told the wolfs, ‘’cause you’re my home,’ I told the sea. An’ on some days I’d make believe it heard me an’ was answering, ‘Yeah, I am, an’ one o’ these days I’ll send for you.’ Now, I know it didn’t speak, but … you carry your cross as best you can, don’t you? So that’s how I grew up through them years, an’ when the wolfs was beatin’ me in the name of rectifyin’ my wrongs … it was the sea I’d dream of, even though I’d never yet seen its swells an’ its rollers … even tho’, aye, I’d never set my big toe on a boat all my life …” He places the five of clubs.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet Page 12
