The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (3 page)

She snatches away the linen sheet just as the baby's mouth opens.

He inhales once; twice; three times; his crinkled face crumples . . .

. . . and the shuddering newborn boiled-pink despot howls at Life.

II

Captain Lacy's Cabin on the
Shenandoah
, Anchored in Nagasaki Harbour

Evening of the 20th July, 1799

'How
else
,' demands Daniel Snitker, 'is a man to earn just reward for the daily humiliations we suffer from those slit-eyed leeches? "The unpaid servant," say the Spanish, "has the right to pay himself", and for once, Damn Me, the Spanish are right. Why so certain there'll still
be
a Company to pay us in five years' time? Amsterdam is on its knees; our shipyards are idle; our manufactories silent; our granaries plundered; The Hague is a stage of prancing marionettes tweaked by Paris; Prussian jackals and Austrian wolves laugh at our borders: and Jesus in Heaven, since the bird-shoot at Kamperduin we are left a maritime nation
with no navy
. The British seized the Cape, Coromandel and Ceylon without so much as a Kiss-my-Arse: and that Java itself is their next fattened Christmas goose is plain as day! Without neutral bottoms like this' - he curls his lip at Captain Lacy - 'Yankee, Batavia would
starve
. In such times, Vorstenbosch, a man's sole insurance is
saleable goods in the warehouse
. Why else, for God's sake, are
you
here?'

The old whale-oil lantern sways and hisses.

'That,' Vorstenbosch asks, 'was your closing statement?'

Snitker folds his arms. 'I
spit
on your drum-head trial.'

Captain Lacy issues a gargantuan belch. ' 'Twas the garlic, gentlemen.'

Vorstenbosch addresses his clerk: 'We may record our verdict . . .'

Jacob de Zoet nods and dips his quill: '. . . drum-head trial.'

'On this day, the twentieth of July, seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, I, Unico Vorstenbosch, Chief-Elect of the trading factory of Dejima in Nagasaki, acting by the powers vested in me by His Excellency P.G. van Overstraten, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, witnessed by Captain Anselm Lacy of the
Shenandoah
, find Daniel Snitker, Acting-Chief of the above-mentioned factory guilty of the following: Gross Dereliction of Duty--'

'I fulfilled,' insists Snitker, '
every duty
of my post!'

' "Duty"?' Vorstenbosch signals to Jacob to pause. 'Our warehouses were burning to cinders whilst
you
, sir, romped with strumpets in a brothel! - a fact omitted from that farrago of lies you are pleased to call your Day Register, and had it not been for the chance remark of a Japanese interpreter--'

'Shit-house rats who blacken my name 'cause I'm wise to their tricks!'

'Is it a "blackening of your name" that the fire-engine was missing from Dejima on the night of the fire?'

'Perhaps the defendant took the engine to the House of Wistaria,' remarks Captain Lacy, 'to impress the ladies with the thickness of his hose.'

'The engine,' objects Snitker, 'was van Cleef's responsibility.'

'I'll tell your deputy how faithfully you defended him: to the next item, Mr de Zoet: "Failure to have the factory's three senior officers sign the
Octavia
's Bills of Lading".'

'Oh, for God's sake. A mere administrative
oversight
!'

'An "oversight" that permits crooked chiefs to cheat the Company in a hundred ways, which is why Batavia in
sists
on triple authorisation. Next item: "Theft of Company funds to pay for Private Cargoes".'

'Now
that
,' Snitker spits with anger, '
that
, is a
flat lie
!'

From a carpet bag at his feet, Vorstenbosch produces two porcelain figurines in the Oriental mode. One is an executioner, axe poised to behead the second, a kneeling prisoner, hands bound and eyes on the next world.

'Why show me those' - Snitker is shameless - 'gew-gaws?'

'Two gross were found in your private cargo - "twenty-four dozen Arita figurines", let the record state. My late wife nurtured a fondness for Japanese curiosities, so I have a little knowledge. Indulge me, Captain Lacy: estimate their value in, let us say, a Viennese auction house.'

Captain Lacy considers: 'Twenty guilders a head?'

'For these slighter ones alone, thirty-five guilders; for the gold-leafed courtesans, archers and lords, fifty. What price the two gross? Let us aim low - Europe
is
at war, and markets unsettled - and call it thirty-five per head . . . multiplied by two gross. De Zoet?'

Jacob's abacus is to hand. 'Ten thousand and eighty guilders, sir.'

Lacy issues an impressed '
Hee
-haw!'

'Tidy profit,' states Vorstenbosch, 'for merchandise purchased at the Company's expense yet recorded in the Bills of Lading - unwitnessed, of course - as "Acting-Chief's Private Porcelain" in
your
hand, Snitker.'

'The former Chief, God rest his soul,' Snitker changes his story, 'willed them to me, before the Court Embassy.'

'So Mr Hemmij
foresaw
his demise on his way back from Edo?'

'Gijsbert Hemmij was an uncommon cautious man.'

'Then you will show us his uncommon cautious will.'

'The document,' Snitker wipes his mouth, 'perished in the fire.'

'Who were the witnesses? Mr van Cleef? Fischer? The monkey?'

Snitker heaves a disgusted sigh. 'This is a childish waste of time. Carve off your tithe, then - but not a sixteenth more, else by God I'll dump the blasted things in the harbour.'

The sound of carousing washes over from Nagasaki.

Captain Lacy empties his bullish nose into a cabbage leaf.

Jacob's nearly worn-out quill catches up; his hand aches.

'What, I wonder . . .' Vorstenbosch looks confused '. . . is this talk of a "tithe"? Mr de Zoet, might you shed a little light?'

'Mr Snitker is attempting to bribe you, sir.'

The lamp has begun to sway; it smokes, splutters and recovers.

A seaman in the lower deck tunes his fiddle.

'You suppose,' Vorstenbosch blinks at Snitker, 'that my integrity is for sale? Like some pox-maggoty harbourmaster on the Scheldt extorting illegal fees from the butter barges?'

'One ninth, then,' growls Snitker. 'But I swear that's my last offer.'

'Conclude the Charge List' - Vorstenbosch snaps his fingers at his secretary - 'with "Attempted Bribery of a Fiscal-Comptroller" and proceed to sentencing. Roll your eyeballs
this
way, Snitker: this affects you. "Item the First: Daniel Snitker is stripped of office herewith and all" - yes, all - "pay backdated to 1797. Second: upon arrival in Batavia, Daniel Snitker is to be imprisoned at the Old Fort to account for his actions. Third: his private cargo is to be auctioned. Proceeds shall recompense the Company." I see I have your attention.'

'You're making' - Snitker's defiance is crushed - 'a pauper of me.'

'This trial makes an example of you to every parasitic chief fattening himself on the Company's dugs: "Justice found Daniel Snitker," this verdict warns them, "and justice shall find you." Captain Lacy, thank you for your participation in this squalid affair: Mr Wiskerke, pray find Mr Snitker a hammock in the fo'c'sle. He shall work his passage back to Java as a landsman and be subject to common discipline. Moreover--'

Snitker up-ends the table and lunges at Vorstenbosch. Jacob glimpses Snitker's fist over his patron's head and attempts to intercept; flaming peacocks whirl across his vision; the cabin walls rotate through ninety degrees; the floor slams his ribs; and the taste of gunmetal in his mouth is surely blood. Grunts and gasps and groans are exchanged at a higher level. Jacob peers up in time to see the First Mate land a pulverising blow on Snitker's solar plexus, causing the floored clerk to wince with involuntary sympathy. Two more marines burst in, just as Snitker totters and hits the floor.

Below-decks, the fiddler plays, 'My Dark-eyed Damsel of Twente'.

Captain Lacy pours himself a glass of blackcurrant whisky.

Vorstenbosch whacks Snitker's face with his silver-knobbed cane until he is too tired to continue. 'Put this cock-chafer in irons in your berth-deck's foulest corner.' The First Mate and the two marines drag the groaning body away. Vorstenbosch kneels by Jacob and claps his shoulder. 'Thank you for taking that blow for me, my boy. Your noggin, I fear, is
une belle marmelade
. . .'

The pain in Jacob's nose suggests a breakage, but the stickiness on his hands and knees is not blood. Ink, the clerk realises, hauling himself upright.

Ink, from his cracked ink-pot, indigo rivulets and dribbling deltas . . .

Ink, drunk by thirsty wood, dripping between cracks . . .

Ink
, thinks Jacob,
you most fecund of liquids
. . .

III

On a Sampan Moored alongside the
Shenandoah
, Nagasaki Harbour

Morning of the 26th July, 1799

Hatless and broiling in his blue dress-coat, Jacob de Zoet's thoughts are ten months in the past when a vengeful North Sea charged the dikes at Domburg, and spindrift tumbled along Church Street, past the parsonage where his uncle presented him with an oiled canvas bag. It contained a scarred Psalter bound in deerskin, and Jacob can, more or less, reconstruct his uncle's speech from memory. 'Heaven knows, nephew, you have heard this book's history often enough. Your great-great-grandfather was in Venice when the plague arrived. His body erupted in buboes the size of frogs, but he prayed from this Psalter and God cured him. Fifty years ago, your grandfather Tys was soldiering in the Palatine when ambushers surprised his regiment. This Psalter stopped this musket ball' - he fingers the leaden bullet, still in its crater - 'from shredding his heart. It is a literal truth that I, your father, and you and Geertje owe this book our very existences. We are not Papists: we do not ascribe magical powers to bent nails or old rags; but you understand how this Sacred Book is, by our faith, bound to our bloodline. It is a gift from your ancestors and a loan from your descendants. Whatever befalls you in the years ahead, never forget: this Psalter' - he touched the canvas bag - 'this is your passport home. David's Psalms are a Bible within the Bible. Pray from it, heed its teachings and you shall not stray. Protect it with your life that it may nourish your soul. Go now, Jacob, and God go with you.'