The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (22 page)

'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 cognisant 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 Head Quarters 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 Saviour." 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 Saviour, 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 below stairs an',
oh
, it smelt 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 studies his hand, 'lead me downstairs but I din'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 safe-keepin'." Says I, "What half-guilder?" an' he says I can give it him volunt'ry or else he'll
tenderise
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 headlice 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 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 Curacao. My first oath I honour 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.
Karnoffel
, 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 offence. '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.'

'Its 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, northwards, out past the Old Fort, was a strip o' blue . . . or green . . . or grey . . . 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.

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
Ju
das.'

'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 "acknowledgement", he'd call it, an' with above an 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 din'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' 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 harbour.'

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