The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (26 page)

The Almelo clock is loud against the drizzle’s hush and the lamp’s hiss.

“And,” Jacob keeps his voice flat and steady, “your plans for me, sir?”

“You are my eyes and ears in Nagasaki, until next trading season.”

Without protection
, Jacob considers,
I shall be eaten alive in a week
 …

“I shall, therefore, appoint Peter Fischer as the new head clerk.”

The clatter of consequences tramples over the Almelo clock.

Without status
, Jacob thinks,
I shall
in
deed
be a lapdog, thrown into a bear pit
.

“The sole candidate for chief,” Vorstenbosch is saying, “is Mr. van Cleef …”

Dejima is a long, long way
, Jacob is afraid,
from Batavia
.

“… but what say you to the sound of
Deputy
Chief Resident Jacob de Zoet?”

“L
ITTLE MIRACLE, IT IS.” PIET BAERT LOOKS AT THE SKY. “THE
rain’s drained away ….”

“Forty days an’ forty nights,” says Ivo Oost, “we was in for, I thought.”

“Bodies was washed down the river,” Wybo Gerritszoon remarks. “I saw the boats haulin’ ’em in with big hooks on poles.”

“Mr. Kobayashi?” Melchior van Cleef calls louder. “Mr. Kobayashi?”

Kobayashi turns around and looks in Van Cleef’s direction.

“We have a lot of work before the
Shenandoah
is loaded: why this delay?”

“Flood broke convenient bridges in city. There is much lateness today.”

“Then why,” asks Peter Fischer, “did the party not leave the prison earlier?”

But Interpreter Kobayashi has turned back and watches Flag Square. Converted to an execution ground, it holds the biggest assembly Jacob has seen in Japan. The Dutchmen, their backs to the flagpole, stand in a half-moon. An oblong is drawn in the dirt where the teapot thieves are to be decapitated. Opposite ascend three steps under an awning: on the topmost row sit Chamberlain Tomine and a dozen senior officials from the magistracy; the middle row is filled with other dignitaries of Nagasaki;
on the lowest step sit all sixteen ranked interpreters, barring Kobayashi, who is on duty at Vorstenbosch’s side. Ogawa Uzaemon, whom Jacob has not met since the bathhouse, looks tired. Three Shintô priests in white robes and ornate headpieces conduct a purification ritual involving chants and the throwing of salt. To the left and right stand servants; eighty or ninety unranked interpreters; coolies and day laborers, happy to be enjoying the sport at the company’s expense; and assorted guards, friskers, oarsmen, and carpenters. Four men in ragged clothing wait by a handcart. The executioner is a hawkeyed samurai, whose assistant holds a drum. Dr. Marinus stands to one side with his four male seminarians.

Orito was a fever
, Jacob reminds himself.
Now the fever is lifted
.

“Hangin’s’re more of a holiday ’n this in Antwerp,” notes Baert.

Captain Lacy looks at the flag, thinking of winds and tides.

Vorstenbosch asks, “Shall we be needing tugboats later, Captain?”

Lacy shakes his head. “We’ll have puff enough if this breeze holds.”

Van Cleef warns, “The tugs’ skippers’ll try to attach the ropes regardless.”

“Then the pirates’ll have a lot of sliced ropes to replace, ’specially if—”

Toward the land gate, the crowd stirs, hums louder, and parts.

The prisoners are conveyed in large rope nets suspended on poles, carried by four men each. They are paraded past the grandstand and dumped on the oblong, where the nets are opened. The younger of the two is only sixteen or seventeen; he was probably handsome until his arrest. His older accomplice is broken and shivering. They wear only long cloths wrapped around their loins and a carapace of dried blood, welts, and gashes. Several fingers and toes are scabby maroon lumps. Constable Kosugi, the stern master of today’s grisly ceremony, opens a scroll. The crowd falls silent. Kosugi proceeds to read a Japanese text.

“It is statement of accuse,” Kobayashi tells the Dutch, “and confessment.”

When Constable Kosugi finishes, he proceeds to the awning, where he bows as Chamberlain Tomine delivers a statement. Constable Kosugi then walks to Unico Vorstenbosch to relay the chamberlain’s message. Kobayashi translates with marked brevity: “Do Dutch chief grant pardon?”

Four or five hundred eyes fix themselves on Unico Vorstenbosch.

Show mercy
, Deputy-elect de Zoet prays in the rotating moment.
Mercy
.

“Ask the thieves,” Vorstenbosch instructs Kobayashi, “whether they knew the likely punishment for their crime.”

Kobayashi addresses the question to the kneeling pair.

The older thief cannot speak. The defiant younger one declares,
“Hai.”

“Then why should I interfere in Japanese justice? The answer is no.”

Kobayashi delivers the verdict to Constable Kosugi, who marches back to Chamberlain Tomine. When it is delivered, the crowd mutters its disapproval. The young thief says something to Vorstenbosch, and Kobayashi asks, “Do you wish for me to translate?”

“Tell me what he says,” says the chief resident.

“The criminal say, ‘Remember my face when you drink tea.’”

Vorstenbosch folds his arms. “Assure him that twenty minutes from now I shall forget his face forever. In twenty days, few of his friends shall recall his features with clarity. In twenty months, even his mother shall wonder how her son looked.”

Kobayashi translates the sentence with stern relish.

Nearby spectators overhear and watch the Dutchmen ever more balefully.

“I translate,” Kobayashi assures Vorstenbosch, “very faithful.”

Constable Kosugi asks the executioner to ready himself for duty, while Vorstenbosch addresses the Dutchmen. “There are those among our hosts, gentlemen, who hope to see us choke on this dish of rightful vengeance; I pray you deprive them of the pleasure.”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, sir,” says Baert, “I ain’t graspin’ yer meanin’.”

“Don’t puke an’ swoon,” says Arie Grote, “afore the yellow host.”

“Precisely, Grote,” says Vorstenbosch. “We are ambassadors for our race.”

The older thief is first. His head is in a cloth bag. He is knelt down.

The drummer drums a dry rhythm: the executioner unsheathes his sword.

Urine darkens the ground beneath the quivering victim.

Ivo Oost, next to Jacob, draws a cross in the dirt with his shoe.

Two or more dogs across Edo Square let loose a frenzy of barking.

Gerritszoon mutters, “Well, here it comes, my pretty …”

The executioner’s raised sword is bright with polishing but dark with oil.

Jacob hears a chord, always present but rarely audible.

The drummer strikes his drum for the fourth or fifth time.

There is the noise of a spade cutting through soil …

… and the thief’s head thuds onto the sand, still in its bag.

Blood ejaculates from the shorn stump with a thin, whistling sound.

The gaping stump slumps forward and settles on the thief’s knees, vomiting blood.

Gerritszoon mutters, “Bra
vo
, my pretty!”

I am poured out like water
, recites Jacob, shutting his eyes,
my tongue cleaveth to my jaws and thou hast brought me into the dust of death
.

“Seminarians,” directs Marinus, “observe the aorta; the jugular and spinal cord; and how the venous blood is, in tone, a rich plum color, while the arterial blood is the scarlet of ripe hibiscus. They differ in taste, moreover: the arterial blood has a metallic tang, whilst venous blood is fruitier.”

“For the love of God, Doctor,” complains Van Cleef. “Must you?”

“Better that
someone
benefit from this futile act of barbarity.”

Jacob watches Unico Vorstenbosch remain aloof.

Peter Fischer sniffs. “The safeguarding of company property is a ‘futile act of barbarity’? What if the stolen item were your treasured harpsichord, Doctor?”

“Better bid it farewell.” The headless body is slung onto the cart. “Spilled blood would clog up its levers, and its tone would never recover.”

Ponke Ouwehand asks, “What happens to the bodies, Doctor?”

“The bile is harvested for druggists, and then the remains are pawed apart for the gratification of a paying audience. Such are the difficulties the native scholars face in establishing surgery and anatomy.”

The younger thief appears to be refusing his hood.

He is brought to the dark stains where his friend was beheaded.

The drummer strikes his drum a first time …

“It’s a rare art,” Gerritszoon tells nobody in particular, “is choppin’: executioners’ll mind the client’s weight an’ the season, ’cause come summer there’s more fat on the neck than at winter’s end, an’ if the skin be wet in the rain or no …”

The drummer strikes his drum a second time …

“A philosopher of Paris,” the doctor tells his students, “was sentenced to the guillotine during the recent Terror …”

The drummer strikes his drum the third time …

“… and he conducted an intriguing experiment: he arranged with an assistant that he would begin blinking as the blade fell …”

The drummer strikes his drum a fourth time.

“… and continue blinking thereafter for as long as he might. By counting the blinks, the assistant could measure the brief life of a severed head.”

Cupido intones words in Malay, perhaps to ward off the evil eye.

Gerritszoon turns and says, “Stop that darkie jabberin’, boy.”

Deputy-elect Jacob de Zoet cannot bring himself to watch again.

He inspects his shoes and finds a splash of blood on one toe.

The wind passes through Flag Square, soft as a robe’s hem.

“WHICH BRINGS US,”
says Vorstenbosch, “almost to the end of things …”

It is eleven o’clock by the Almelo clock in the departing chief’s bureau.

Vorstenbosch slides the last sheaf of paperwork aside, produces the papers of commission, dips his pen in its well, and signs the first document. “May fortune smile on your tenure, Chief Resident Melchior van Cleef of the Dejima Factory …”

Van Cleef’s beard shrugs as its owner smiles. “Thank you, sir.”

“… and last but not least,” Vorstenbosch signs the second document, “Deputy Chief Resident Jacob de Zoet.” He replaces the pen. “To think, De Zoet, back in April, you were a lesser clerk bound for a swampy pit in Halmahera.”

“An open grave.” Van Cleef puffs out air. “Escape the crocs, swamp fever shall do for you. Escape the swamp fever, a poison blow dart ends your days. You owe Mr. Vorstenbosch not only a bright future but your very life.”

You, you embezzler
, Jacob thinks,
owe him your freedom from Snitker’s fate
. “My gratitude to Mr. Vorstenbosch is as profound as it is sincere.”

“We have time for a brief toast. Philander!”

Philander comes in, balancing three glasses of wine on a silver tray.

Each man takes one of the long-stemmed glasses; they clink rims.

His glass drained, Vorstenbosch presents Melchior van Cleef with the keys to Warehouses Eik and Doorn and to the safe box that houses the trading pass issued fifteen decades ago by the great shogun. “May Dejima flourish under your custodianship, Chief van Cleef. I bequeathed you an able and promising deputy. Next year I desire you both surpass my achievement and wring twenty thousand piculs of copper out of our miserly slit-eyed hosts.”

“If it is humanly possible,” promises Van Cleef, “we shall.”

“I shall pray for your safe voyage, sir,” says Jacob.

“Thank you. And now the matter of succession is settled …”

Vorstenbosch takes an envelope from his coat and unfolds a document. “Dejima’s three senior officers may sign the summation of exported goods, as Governor van Overstraten now insists we must.” He writes his own name in the first space beneath the three-page index of company commodities stowed in the
Shenandoah
’s hold, divided into “Copper,” “Camphor,” and “Other,” and subdivided into lot numbers, quantities, and qualities.

Van Cleef signs the record he compiled, without a second glance.

Jacob takes the proffered pen and, by dint of professional habit, studies the figures: this is the morning’s single document not prepared by his own hand.

“Deputy,” chides Van Cleef, “surely you shan’t oblige Mr. Vorstenbosch to
wait?”

“The company desires me, sir, to be thorough in all things.”

This remark, Jacob notices, is greeted by a frosty silence.

“The sun,” says Van Cleef, “is winning the battle for the day, Mr. Vorstenbosch.”

“So it is.” Vorstenbosch finishes his wine. “Were it Kobayashi’s intention to conjure a Jonah with the executions this morning, his plan is another failure.”

Jacob finds a surprising error.
Total Copper Export: 2,600 piculs
.

Van Cleef clears his throat. “Is aught amiss, Deputy?”

“Sir … here, in the total column. The ‘nine’ looks like a ‘two.’”

Vorstenbosch states: “The summation is quite in order, De Zoet.”

“But, sir, we are exporting
nine
thousand six hundred piculs.”

Van Cleef’s levity is infused with threat. “Just sign the paper, De Zoet.”

Jacob looks at Van Cleef, who stares at Jacob, who turns to Vorstenbosch. “Sir: one unfamiliar with your reputation for integrity
might
see this summation and”—he struggles for a diplomatic phrase—“might be forgiven for supposing that seven thousand piculs of copper have been omitted from the tally deliberately.”

Vorstenbosch’s face is that of a man resolved to let his son beat him at chess no longer.

“Do you,” Jacob’s voice has a slight shake, “intend to
steal
this copper?”

“‘Steal’ is for Snitker, boy: I claim my rightful perquisites.”

“But ‘rightful perquisites,’” Jacob blurts, “might be a phrase which Daniel Snitker minted!”

“For your career’s sake, don’t compare me to
that
wharf rat.”