The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

by David Mitchell

  Baert wins the trick. “I may take twin gold-skinned Misses for the night.”

  Gerritszoon plays the seven of diamonds, announcing, “The devil.”

  “Judas damn you,” says Baert, losing the ten of clubs, “you damn Judas.”

  “So how was it,” asks Twomey, “the sea did call you, Ivo?”

  “From our twelfth year—that is, whenever the director decided we was twelve—we’d be set to ‘fruitful industry.’ For girls, this was sewin’, weavin’, stirrin’ the vats in the laundry. Us boys, we was hired out to crate makers an’ coopers, to officers at the barracks to go-for, or to the docks, as stevedores. Me, I was given to a rope maker, who set me pickin’ oakum out o’ tarry old ropes. Cheaper than servants, us; cheaper than slaves. Drijver’d pocket his ‘acknowledgment,’ he’d call it, an’ with above a hundred of us at it ‘fruitful industry’ it was, right enough, for him. But what it did do was let us out o’ the orphanage walls. We weren’t guarded: where’d we run to? The jungle? I’d not known Batavia’s streets much at all, save for the walk from the orphanage to church, so now I could wander a little, takin’ roundabout ways to work an’ back, an’ run errands for the rope maker, through the Chinamen’s bazaar an’ most of all along the wharfs, happy as a granary rat, lookin’ at the sailors from far-off lands …” Ivo Oost plays the jack of diamonds, winning the trick. “Devil beats the pope, but the knave beats the devil.”

  “My rotted tooth’s hurtin’,” says Baert, “hurtin’ me frightful.”

  “Artful play,” compliments Grote, losing a card of no consequence.

  “One day,” Oost continues, “I was fourteen, most like—I was deliverin’ a coil o’ rope to a chandler’s an’ a snug brig was in, small an’ sweet an’ with a figurehead of a … a good woman. Sara Maria was the brig’s name, an’ I … I heard a voice, like a voice, without the voice, sayin’, ‘She’s the one, an’ it’s today.’”

  “Well, that’s clear,” mutters Gerritszoon, “as a Frenchman’s shit pot.”

  “You heard,” suggests Jacob, “a sort of inner prompting?”

  “Whatever it was, up that gangplank I hopped, an’ waited for this big man who was doin’ the directin’ an’ yellin’ to notice me. He never did, so I summoned my courage an’ said, ‘Excuse me, sir.’ He peered close an’ barked, ‘Who let this ragamuffin on deck?’ I begged his pardon an’ said that I wanted to run away to sea an’ might he speak with the captain? Laughter was the last thing I expected, but laugh he did, so I begged his pardon but said I weren’t jokin’. He says, ‘What’d your ma ’n’ pa think of me for spiritin’ you away without even a by-their-leave? And why d’you suppose you’d make a sailor, with its aches an’ its pains an’ its colds an’ its hots an’ the cargo-master’s moods, ’cause anyone aboard’ll agree the man’s a very devil?’ I just says that my ma ’n’ pa’d not say nothin’, ’cause I was raised in the House of Bastardy, an’ if I could survive that, then, no disrespect, but I weren’t afeard o’ the sea nor any cargo-master’s mood … an’ he di’n’t mock or talk snidey like but asked, ‘So do your custodians know you’re arranging a life at sea?’ I confessed Drijver’d flay me alive. So he makes his decision an’ says, ‘My name is Daniel Snitker an’ I am cargo-master of the Sara Maria an’ my cabin boy died o’ ship fever.’ They was embarkin’ to Banda for nutmeg the next day, an’ he promised he’d have the captain put me on the ship’s book, but till the Sara Maria set sail he bade me hide in the cockpit with the other lads. I obeyed sharpish, but I’d been seen boardin’ the brig an’ right ’nuff the director sent three big bad wolfs to fetch back his ‘stolen property.’ Mr. Snitker an’ his mates pitched ’em in the harbor.”

  Jacob strokes his broken nose. I am convicting the lad’s father.

  Gerritszoon discards an impotent five of clubs.

  “I b’lieve”—Baert puts nails in his purse—“the necessessessary house is callin’.”

  “What yer takin’ yer winnin’s for?” asks Gerritszoon. “Don’t yer trust us?”

  “I’d fry my own liver first,” says Baert, “with cream an’ onions.”

  TWO JARS OF RUM sit on the plank shelf, unlikely to survive the night.

  “With the weddin’ ring in my pocket,” sniffs Piet Baert, “I … I …”

  Gerritszoon spits. “Oh, quit yer blubbin’, yer pox-livered pussy!”

  “You say that”—Baert’s face hardens—“’cause you’re a cesspool hog what no’un’s ever loved, but my one true love was yearnin’ to marry me, an’ I’m thinkin’, My evil luck is gone away at long last. All we needed was Neeltje’s father’s blessin’ an’ we’d be sailin’ down the aisle. A beer porter, her father was, in St.-Pol-sur-Mer, an’ it was there I was headed that night, but Dunkirk was a strange town an’ rain was pissin’ down an’ night was fallin’ an’ the streets led back where they’d come an’ when I stopped at a tavern to ask my way the barmaid’s knockers was two juggly piglets an’ she lights up all witchy an’ says, ‘My oh my, ain’t you just strayed to the wrong side o’ town, my poor lickle lambkin?’ I says, ‘Please, Miss, I just want to get to St.-Pol-sur-Mer,’ so she says, ‘Why so hasty? Ain’t our ’stablishment to your likin’?’ an’ thrusted them piglets at me, an’ I says, ‘Your ’stablishment is fine, Miss, but my one true love, Neeltje, is waitin’ with her father so’s I can ask for her hand in marriage an’ turn my back on the sea,’ an’ the barmaid says, ‘So you are a sailor?’ an’ I says, ‘I was, aye, but no more,’ an’ she cries out to the whole house, ‘Who’ll not drink to Neeltje, the luckiest lass in Flanders?’ an’ she puts a tumbler o’ gin in my hand an’ says, ‘A little somethin’ to warm your bone,’ an’ promises her brother’ll walk me to St.-Pol-sur-Mer, bein’ as all sorts o’ villains stalk Dunkirk after dark. So I thinks, Yes, for sure, my evil luck is gone away at long, long last, an’ I raised that glass to my lips.”

  “Game girl,” notes Arie Grote. “What’s that tavern named, by the by?”

  “It’ll be named Smokin’ Cinders afore I leave Dunkirk again: that gin goes down an’ my head swims an’ the lamps are snuffed out. Bad dreams follow, then I’m wakin’, swayin’ this way an’ that way, like I’m out at sea, but I’m squashed under bodies like a grape in a wine press, and I think, I’m dreamin’ still, but that cold puke bungin’ up my earhole weren’t no dream, an’ I cries, ‘Dear Jesus, am I dead?’ an’ some cackly demon laughs, ‘No fishy wriggles free o’ this hook that simple!’ an’ a grimmer voice says, ‘You been crimped, friend. We’re on the Venguer du Peuple, an’ we’re in the Channel, sailin’ west,’ an’ I says, ‘The Venguer du What?’ an’ then I remember Neeltje an’ shout, ‘But tonight I’m to be engaged to my one true love!’ an’ the demon says, ‘There’s just one engagement you’ll see here, matey, an’ that’s a naval one,’ an’ I thinks, Sweet Jesus in heaven, Neeltje’s ring, an’ I wriggles my arm to see if it’s in my jacket, but it ain’t. I despair. I weep. I gnash my teeth. But nothin’ helps. Mornin’ comes an’ we’re brought up on deck an’ lined along the gunwale. ’Bout a score of us southern Netherlanders there was, an’ the captain appears. Captain’s an evil Paris weasel; his first officer’s a shaggy hulkin’ bruiser, a Basque. ‘I am Captain Renaudin, an’ you are my privileged volunteers. Our orders are to rendezvous,’ says he, ‘with a convoy bringin’ grain from North America an’ escort her to Republican soil. The British shall try to stop us. We shall blast them to matchwood. Any questions?” One chancer—a Swissman—pipes up, ‘Captain Renaudin: I belong to the Mennonite Church, an’ my religion forbids me to kill.’ Renaudin tells his first officer, ‘We must inconvenience this man o’ brotherly love no longer,’ an’ up the bruiser steps an’ shoves the Swissman overboard. We hear him shoutin’ for help. We hear him beggin’ for help. We hear the beggin’ stop. The captain asks, ‘Any more questions?’ Well, my sea legs come back fast ’nough, so when the English fleet is sighted on the first o’ June, two weeks later, I was loadin’ powder into a twenty-four-pounder.
The Third Battle of Ushant, the French call what happened next, an’ the Glorious First o’ June, the English call it. Well, blastin’ lagrange shot through each other’s gunports at ten feet off may be ‘glorious’ to Sir Johnny Roast Beef, but it ain’t glorious to me. Sliced-open men writhin’ in the smoke; aye, men bigger an’ tougher ’n you, Gerritszoon, beggin’ for their mammies through raggy holes in their throats … an’ a tub carried up from the surgeon’s full o’ …” Baert fills his glass. “Nah, when the Brunswick holed us at the waterline an’ we knew we was goin’ down, the Venguer weren’t no ship o’ the line no more: we was an abattoir … an abattoir …” Baert looks into his rum, then at Jacob. “What saved me that terrible day? An empty cheese barrel what floated my way is what. All night I clung to it, too cold, too dead to fear the sharks. Dawn come an’ brought a sloop flyin’ the Union Jack. Its launch hauls me aboard an’ squawks at me in that jackdaw jabber they speak—no offense, Twomey.”

  The carpenter shrugs. “Irish would be my mother tongue, now, Mr. Baert.”

  “This ancient salt translates for me. ‘The mate’s askin’ where you’re from?’ an’ says I, ‘Antwerp, sir: I got pressed by the French an’ I damn their bloods.’ The salt translates that, an’ the mate jabbers some more what the salt translates. Gist was, ’cause I weren’t a Frenchie, I weren’t a prisoner. Nearly kissed his boots in gratefulness! But then he told me if I volunteered for His Majesty’s Navy as an ordinary seaman I’d get proper pay an’ a new set o’ slops—well, almost new. But if I di’n’t volunteer, I’d be pressed anyhow, and paid salty sod-all as a landsman. To keep from despairin’, I asked where we’re bound, thinkin’ I’d find a way to slip ashore in Gravesend or Portsmouth an’ get back to Dunkirk an’ darlin’ Neeltje in a week or two … and the salt says, ‘Our next port o’ call’ll be Ascension Island, for victualin’—not that you’ll be settin’ foot ashore—and from there it’s on to the Bay o’ Bengal …’ an’, grown man that I am, I couldn’t keep from weepin’ …”

  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 blackmail?”

  “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 th
ese 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.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  CLERK DE ZOET’S QUARTERS IN TALL HOUSE

  Morning of Sunday, September 15, 1799

  JACOB 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.