The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

by David Mitchell

  Insects dirty the air over the candelabra like a malign halo.

  A rust-colored lizard sits on the blade of Jacob’s butter knife.

  “Now I prayed to God for strength. By twisting my head, I could seize the bayonet’s blade between my teeth and slowly work it loose. I lost pints of blood but refused to succumb to weakness. My freedom was won. Under the table was Joosse, my platoon’s last survivor. Joosse was a Zeelander, like Clerk de Zoet …”

  Well, now, thinks Jacob, what an opportune coincidence.

  “… and Joosse was a coward, I am sorry to say. He was too afraid to move until my reason conquered his fear. Under the coat of darkness, we left Goed Accoord behind. For seven days, we beat a path through that green pestilence with our bare hands. We had no food but the maggots breeding in our wounds. Many times, Joosse begged to be allowed to die. But honor obliged me to protect even the frail Zeelander from death. Finally, by God’s grace, we reached Fort Sommelsdyck, where the Commewina meets the Cottica. We were more dead than alive. My superior officer confessed later that he had expected me to die within hours. ‘Never underestimate a Prussian again,’ I told him. The governor of Surinam presented me with a medal, and six weeks later I led two hundred men back to Goed Accoord. A glorious revenge was extracted on the vermin, but I am not a man who brags of his own achievements.”

  Weh and Philander return with the bottles of Rhenish.

  “A most edifying history,” says Lacy. “I salute your courage, Mr. Fischer.”

  “The passage where you ate the maggots,” remarks Marinus, “rather over-egged the brûlée.”

  “The doctor’s disbelief,” Fischer addresses the senior officers, “is caused by his sentimental attitudes to savages, I am very sorry to say.”

  “The doctor’s disbelief”—Marinus peers at the label on the Rhenish—“is a natural reaction to vainglorious piffle.”

  “Your accusations,” Fischer retorts, “deserve no reply.”

  Jacob finds an island chain of mosquito bites across his hand.

  “Slavery may be an injustice to some,” says Van Cleef, “but no one can deny that all empires are founded upon the institution.”

  “Then may the devil,” Marinus says, twisting in the corkscrew, “take all empires.”

  “What an extraordinary utterance,” declares Lacy, “to hear from the mouth of a colonial officer!”

  “Extraordinary,” agrees Fischer, “not to say Jacobinical.”

  “I am no ‘colonial officer.’ I am a physician, scholar, and traveler.”

  “You hunt for fortune,” says Lacy, “courtesy of the Dutch Empire.”

  “My treasure is botanical.” The cork pops. “The fortunes I leave to you.”

  “How very ‘Enlightened,’ outré, and French, which nation, by the by, learned the perils of abolishing slavery. Anarchy set the Caribbean alight; plantations were pillaged; men strung up from trees; and by the time Paris had its Negroes back in chains, Hispaniola was lost.”

  “Yet the British Empire,” Jacob says, “is embracing abolition.”

  Vorstenbosch looks at his onetime protégé like an evaluator.

  “The British,” Lacy warns, “are engaged in some trickery or other, as time shall tell.”

  “And those citizens in your own northern states,” says Marinus, “who recognize—”

  “Those Yankee leeches grow fat on our taxes!” Captain Lacy wags his knife.

  “In the animal kingdom,” says Van Cleef, “the vanquished are eaten by those more favored by Nature. Slavery is merciful by comparison: the lesser races keep their lives in exchange for their labor.”

  “What use,” the doctor says, pouring himself a glass of wine, “is an eaten slave?”

  The grandfather clock in the stateroom strikes ten times.

  Vorstenbosch arrives at a decision. “Displeased as I am about the events in the crate store, Fischer, I accept that you and Gerritszoon acted in self-defense.”

  “I swear, sir”—Fischer tilts his head—“we had no other choice.”

  Marinus grimaces at his glass of Rhenish. “Atrocious aftertaste.”

  Lacy brushes his mustache. “What about your slave, Doctor?”

  “Eelattu, sir, is no more a slave than your first mate. I found him in Jaffna five years ago, beaten and left for dead by a gang of Portuguese whalers. During his recovery, the boy’s quickness of mind persuaded me to offer him employ as my chirurgical assistant, for pay, from my own pocket. He may quit his post when he wishes, with wages and character. Can any man on the Shenandoah say as much?”

  Lacy walks over to the chamber pot. “Indians, I’ll admit, ape civilized manners well enough; and I’ve entered Pacific Islanders and Chinamen into the Shenandoah’s books, so I know of what I speak. But for Africans …” The captain unbuttons his breeches and urinates into the pot. “Slavery’s the best life: were they ever turned loose, they’d starve before the week was out, without they murdered white families for their larders. They know only the present moment; they cannot plan, farm, invent, or imagine.” He shakes free the last drops of urine and tucks his shirt into his breeches. “To condemn slavery”—Captain Lacy scratches beneath his collar—“is, moreover, to condemn Holy Scripture. Blacks are descended from Noah’s bestial son Ham, who bedded his own mother; Ham’s lineage were thereby accursed. It’s there in the ninth book of Genesis, plain as day. ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.’ The white race, however, is descended from Japheth: ‘God shall enlarge Japheth, and Canaan shall be his servant.’ Or do I lie, Mr. de Zoet?”

  All the assembled eyes turn to the nephew of the parsonage.

  “Those particular verses are problematical,” says Jacob.

  “So the clerk calls God’s word,” taunts Peter Fischer, “‘problematical’?”

  “The world would be happier without slavery,” replies Jacob, “and—”

  “The world would be happier,” sniffs Van Cleef, “if golden apples grew on trees.”

  “Dear Mr. Vorstenbosch,” Captain Lacy says, raising his glass, “this Rhenish is a superlative vintage. Its aftertaste is the purest nectar.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WAREHOUSE EIK

  Before the typhoon of October 19, 1799

  THE NOISES OF BATTENING, NAILING, AND HERDING ARE GUSTED in through the warehouse doors. Hanzaburo stands on the threshold, watching the darkening sky. At the table, Ogawa Uzaemon is translating the Japanese version of Shipping Document 99b from the trading season of 1797, relating to a consignment of camphor crystals. Jacob records the gaping discrepancies in prices and quantities between it and its Dutch counterpart. The signature verifying the document as “An Honest and True Record of the Consignment” is Acting Deputy Melchior van Cleef’s: the deputy’s twenty-seventh falsified entry Jacob has so far uncovered. The clerk has told Vorstenbosch of this growing list, but the chief resident’s zeal as a reformer of Dejima is dimming by the day. Vorstenbosch’s metaphors have changed from “excising the cancer of corruption” to “best employing what tools we have to hand,” and, perhaps the clearest indicator of the chief’s attitude, Arie Grote is busier and more cheerful by the day.

  “It is soon too dark,” says Ogawa Uzaemon, “to see clear.”

  “How long,” Jacob asks, “before we should stop working?”

  “One more hour, with oil in lantern. Then I should leave.”

  Jacob writes a short note asking Ouwehand to give Hanzaburo a jar of oil from the office store, and Ogawa instructs him in Japanese. The boy leaves, his clothes tugged by the wind.

  “Last typhoons of season,” says Ogawa, “can attack Hizen Domain worst. We think, Gods save Nagasaki from bad typhoon this year, and then …” Ogawa mimes a battering ram with his hands.

  “Autumn gales in Zeeland, too, are quite notorious.”

  “Pardon me”—Ogawa opens his notebook—“what is ‘notorious’?”

  “Something that is notorious is ‘famous for being bad.’”r />
  “Mr. de Zoet say,” recalls Ogawa, “home island is below level of sea.”

  “Walcheren? So it is, so it is. We Dutch live beneath the fishes.”

  “To stop the sea to flood the land,” Ogawa imagines, “is ancient war.”

  “‘War’ is the word, and we lose battles sometimes.” Jacob notices dirt underneath his thumbnail from his last hour in Dr. Marinus’s garden this morning. “Dikes break. Yet whilst the sea is the Dutchman’s enemy, it is also his provider and the—the ‘shaper’ of his ingenuity. Had Nature blessed us with high, fertile ground like our neighbors, what need to invent the Amsterdam Bourse, the Joint Stock Company, and our empire of middlemen?”

  Carpenters lash the timbers of the half-built Warehouse Lelie.

  Jacob decides to broach a delicate subject before Hanzaburo returns. “Mr. Ogawa, when you searched my books, on my first morning ashore, you saw my dictionary, I believe?”

  “New Dictionary of Dutch Language. Very fine and rare book.”

  “It would, I assume, be of use to a Japanese scholar of Dutch?”

  “Dutch dictionary is magic key to open many lock doors.”

  “I desire …” Jacob hesitates. “… to give it to Miss Aibagawa.”

  Wind-harried voices reach them like echoes from a deep well.

  Ogawa’s face is stern and unreadable.

  “How do you think,” probes Jacob, “she might respond to such a gift?”

  Ogawa’s fingers pluck at a knot around his sash. “Much surprise.”

  “Not, I hope, an unpleasant surprise?”

  “We have proverb.” The interpreter pours himself a bowl of tea. “‘Nothing more costly than item that has no price.’ When Miss Aibagawa receive such a gift, she may worry, ‘What is true price if I accept?’”

  “But there is no obligation. Upon my honor, none whatsoever.”

  “So …” Ogawa sips his tea, still avoiding Jacob’s eyes. “Why Mr. de Zoet give?”

  This is worse, thinks Jacob, than speaking with Orito in the garden.

  “Because,” the clerk swallows, “well, why I wish to present her with the gift, I mean, the source of that urge, what motivates the puppet master, as it were, is, as Dr. Marinus might express it, that is … one of the great imponderables.”

  What inchoate garble, replies Ogawa’s expression, are you spouting?

  Jacob removes his spectacles, looks out, and sees a dog cocking its leg.

  “Book is …” Ogawa peers at Jacob under an invisible frame. “Love gift?”

  “I know”—Jacob feels like an actor obliged to go onstage without a glimpse of the script—“that she—Miss Aibagawa—is no courtesan, that a Dutchman is not an ideal husband, but nor am I a pauper, thanks to my mercury. But none of that matters, and doubtless some would consider me the world’s greatest fool …”

  A twisted ribbon of muscle ripples under Ogawa’s eye.

  “Yes, perhaps one could call it a love gift, but if Miss Aibagawa cares nothing for me, it doesn’t matter. She may keep it. To think of her using the book would …” Bring me happiness, Jacob cannot quite add. “Were I to give the dictionary to her,” he explains, “spies, inspectors, and her classmates would notice. Nor may I stroll over to her house of an evening. A ranked interpreter, however, carrying a dictionary, would raise no alarums. Nor, I trust, would it be smuggling, for this is a straightforward gift. And so … I would like to ask you to deliver the volume on my behalf.”

  Twomey and the slave d’Orsaiy dismantle the great tripod in the weighing yard.

  Ogawa’s lack of surprise suggests that he anticipated this request.

  “There is no one else on Dejima,” says Jacob, “whom I can trust.”

  No, indeed, agrees Ogawa’s clipped hmm noise, there is not.

  “Inside the dictionary, I would—I have inserted a … well, a short letter.”

  Ogawa lifts his head and views the phrase with suspicion.

  “A letter … to say that the dictionary is hers for always, but if”—now I sound, Jacob thinks, like a costermonger honey-talking housewives at the market—“were she … ever … to consider me a patron, or let us say a protector, or … or …”

  Ogawa’s tone is brusque. “Letter is to propose marriage?”

  “Yes. No. Not unless …” Wishing he had never begun, Jacob produces the dictionary, wrapped in sailcloth and tied with twine, from under his table. “Yes, damn it. It is a proposal. I beg you, Mr. Ogawa, cut short my misery and just give her the damned thing.”

  THE WIND IS DARK and thunderous; Jacob locks the warehouse and crosses Flag Square, shielding his eyes against dust and grit. Ogawa and Hanzaburo have returned to their homes while it is still safe to be out. At the foot of the flagpole, Van Cleef is bellowing up at d’Orsaiy, who is, Jacob sees, having difficulty shimmying up. “You’d do it for a coconut sharp enough, so you’ll damned well do it for our flag!”

  A senior interpreter’s palanquin is carried by; its window is shut.

  Van Cleef notices Jacob. “Blasted flag’s knotted and can’t be lowered—but I’ll not have it ripped to shreds just because this sloth’s too afeared to untangle it!”

  The slave reaches the top, grips the pole between his thighs, untangles the old United Provinces tricolor, and slides down with the prize, his hair waving in the wind, and hands it to Van Cleef.

  “Now run and see what use Mr. Twomey can put your damned hide to!”

  D’Orsaiy runs off between the deputy’s and captain’s houses.

  “Mustering is canceled.” Van Cleef folds the flag in his jacket and shelters under a gable. “Snatch a bowl of whatever Grote has cooked and go home. My latest wife predicts the wind’ll turn twice as fierce as this before the typhoon’s eye passes over.”

  “I thought I’d just”—Jacob points up the watchtower—“take in the view.”

  “Keep your sightseeing short! You’ll be blown to Kamchatka!”

  Van Cleef shambles up the alley to the front of his house.

  Jacob climbs up the stairs, two at a time. Once he’s above roof level, the wind attacks him; he grips the rails tight and lies flat against the platform’s planks. From Domburg’s church tower, Jacob has watched many a gale gallop down from Scandinavia, but an Oriental typhoon possesses a sentience and menace. Daylight is bruised; woods thrash on the prematurely twilit mountains; the black bay is crazed by choppy surf; gobbets of sea spray spatter Dejima’s roofs; timber grunts and sighs. The men of the Shenandoah are lowering her third anchor; the first mate is on the quarterdeck, bellowing inaudibly. To the east, the Chinese merchants and sailors are likewise busy securing their property. The interpreter’s palanquin crosses an otherwise empty Edo Square; the row of plane trees bends and whiplashes; no birds fly; the fishermen’s boats are dragged high up the shorefront and lashed together. Nagasaki is digging itself in for a bad, bad night.

  Which of those hundreds of huddled roofs, he wonders, is yours?

  At the crossroads, Constable Kosugi is tying up the bell rope.

  Ogawa shan’t deliver the dictionary tonight, Jacob realizes.

  Twomey and Baert hammer shut the door and casements of Garden House.

  My gift and letter are clumsy and rash, Jacob admits, but a subtle courtship is impossible.

  Something cracks and shatters, over in the garden …

  At least now, I can stop cursing myself for cowardice.

  Marinus and Eelattu are struggling with trees in clay pots and a handcart …

  … AND TWENTY minutes later, two dozen apple saplings are safe in the hospital’s hallway.

  “I … we”—panting, the doctor indicates the young trees—“are in your debt.”

  Eelattu ascends through the darkness and vanishes through the trapdoor.

  “I watered those saplings.” Jacob catches his breath. “I feel protective toward them.”

  “I didn’t consider damage from sea salt until Eelattu raised the matter. Those saplings I brought all the way from Hakine: un
baptized in Latin binomials, they might have all perished. There’s no fool like an old fool.”

  “Not a soul shall know,” Jacob promises, “not even Klaas.”

  Marinus frowns, thinks, and asks, “Klaas?”

  “The gardener,” Jacob replies, brushing his coat, “at your aunts’ house.”

  “Ah, Klaas! Dear Klaas reverted to compost many years ago.”

  The typhoon howls like a thousand wolves; the attic lamp is lit.

  “Well,” says Jacob, “I’d best run home to Tall House while I still can.”

  “God grant it may still be tall in the morning.”

  Jacob pushes open the hospital door: it is struck with a great blow that knocks the clerk back. Jacob and the doctor peer outside and see a barrel bounding down Long Street toward Garden House, where it smashes into kindling.

  “Take refuge upstairs,” Marinus proposes, “for the duration.”

  “I’d not want to intrude,” Jacob replies. “You value your privacy.”

  “What use would your corpse be for my seminarians were your body to share the fate of that barrel? Lead the way upstairs, lest I fall and crush us both …”

  THE WHEEZING LANTERN reveals the unburied treasure on Marinus’s bookshelves. Jacob twists his head and squints at the titles: Novum Organum by Francis Bacon; Von Goethe’s Versuch die Metamorphose den Pflanzen zu erklären; Antoine Galland’s translation of The Thousand and One Nights. “The printed word is food,” says Marinus, “and you look hungry, Domburger.” The System of Nature by Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud: the pseudonym, as any Dutch pastor’s nephew knows, of the atheist Baron d’Holbach; and Voltaire’s Candide, ou l’Optimisme. “Enough heresy,” remarks Marinus, “to crush an Inquisitor’s rib cage.” Jacob makes no reply, encountering next Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica; Juvenal’s Satires; Dante’s Inferno in its original Italian; and a sober Kosmotheeros by their countryman Christiaan Huygens. This is one shelf of twenty or thirty, stretching across the attic’s breadth. On Marinus’s desk is a folio volume: Osteographia by William Cheselden.