The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (7 page)

Jacob is startled by the last two commands.
“I
am to sign and seal the letters, sir?”

“Here is”—Vorstenbosch finds a sample—“Van Overstraten’s signature.”

“To forge the governor-general’s signature would be …” Jacob suspects the true answer would be “a capital crime.”

“Don’t look so privy-faced, De Zoet! I’d sign it myself, but our stratagem requires Van Overstraten’s masterly flourish and not my crabby left-handed smudge. Consider the governor-general’s gratitude when we return to Batavia with a threefold increase in copper exports: my claim to a seat on the council shall be irrefutable. Why would
I
then forsake my loyal secretary? Of course, if … qualms or a loss of nerve prevents you from doing as I ask, I could just as easily summon Mr. Fischer.”

Do it now
, thinks Jacob,
worry later
. “I shall sign, sir.”

“There is no time to waste, then: Kobayashi shall be here in”—the chief resident consults the clock—“forty minutes. We’ll want the sealing wax on the finished letter cool by then, won’t we?”

THE FRISKER AT THE
land gate finishes his task; Jacob climbs into his two-bearer palanquin. Peter Fischer squints in the merciless afternoon sunlight. “Dejima is yours for an hour or two, Mr. Fischer,” Vorstenbosch tells him from the chief’s palanquin. “Return her to me in her current condition.”

“Of course.” The Prussian achieves a flatulent grimace. “Of course.”

Fischer’s grimace turns to a glower as Jacob’s palanquin passes.

The retinue leaves the land gate and passes over Holland Bridge.

The tide is out: Jacob sees a dead dog in the silt and now …

… he is hovering three feet over the forbidden ground of Japan.

There is a wide square of sand and grit, deserted but for a few soldiers. This plaza is named, Van Cleef told him, Edo Square, to remind the independent-minded Nagasaki populace where the true power lies. On one side is the shogunal keep: ramped stones, high walls and steps. Through another set of gates, the retinue is submersed in a shaded thoroughfare. Hawkers cry, beggars implore, tinkers clang pans, ten thousand wooden clogs knock against flagstones. The Dutchmen’s guards yell, ordering the townspeople aside. Jacob tries to capture every fleeting
impression for letters to Anna, and to his sister, Geertje, and his uncle. Through the palanquin’s grille, he smells steamed rice, sewage, incense, lemons, sawdust, yeast, and rotting seaweed. He glimpses gnarled old women, pocked monks, unmarried girls with blackened teeth.
Would that I had a sketchbook
, the foreigner thinks,
and three days ashore to fill it
. Children on a mud wall make owl eyes with their forefingers and thumbs, chanting
“Oranda-me, Oranda-me, Oranda-me”:
Jacob realizes they are impersonating “round” European eyes and remembers a string of urchins following a Chinaman in London. The urchins pulled their eyes into narrow slants and sang, “Chinese, Siamese, if you please, Japanese.”

People pray cheek by jowl before a cramped shrine whose gate is shaped like a π.

There is a row of stone idols; twists of paper tied to a plum tree.

Nearby, street acrobats perform a snonky song to drum up business.

The palanquins pass over an embanked river; the water stinks.

Jacob’s armpits, groin, and knees are itchy with sweat; he fans himself with his clerk’s portfolio.

There is a girl in an upper window; there are red lanterns hanging from the eaves, and she is idly tickling the hollow of her throat with a goose feather. Her body cannot be ten years old, but her eyes belong to a much older woman.

Wistaria in bloom foams over a crumbling wall.

A hairy beggar kneeling by a puddle of vomit turns out to be a dog.

A minute later, the retinue stops before a gate of iron and oak.

The doors open and guards salute the palanquins passing into a courtyard.

Twenty pikemen are being drilled in the ferocious sun.

In the shade of a deep overhang, Jacob’s palanquin is lowered onto its stand.

Ogawa Uzaemon opens its door. “Welcome to magistracy, Mr. de Zoet.”

THE LONG GALLERY
ends at a shady vestibule. “Here, we wait,” Interpreter Kobayashi tells them, and motions for them to sit on floor cushions brought by servants. The right branch of the vestibule ends in a row of sliding doors emblazoned with striped bulldogs boasting luxuriant
eyelashes. “Tigers, supposedly,” says Van Cleef. “Behind it is our destination: the Hall of Sixty Mats.” The left branch leads to a more modest door decorated with a chrysanthemum. Jacob hears a baby crying a few rooms away. Ahead is a view over the magistracy walls and hot roofs, down to the bay, where the
Shenandoah
is anchored in the bleached haze. The smell of summer mingles with beeswax and fresh paper. The Dutchmen’s party removed their shoes at the entrance, and Jacob is thankful for Van Cleef’s earlier warning about holes in stockings.
If Anna’s father could see me now
, he thinks,
paying court to the shogun’s highest official in Nagasaki
. The officials and interpreters maintain a stern silence. “The floorboards,” Van Cleef comments, “are sprung to squeak, to foil assassins.”

“Are assassins,” asks Vorstenbosch, “a serious nuisance in these parts?”

“Probably not, nowadays, but old habits die hard.”

“Remind me,” says the chief, “why one magistracy has
two
magistrates.”

“When Magistrate Shiroyama is on duty in Nagasaki, Magistrate Ômatsu resides in Edo, and vice versa. They rotate annually. Should either commit any indiscretion, his counterpart would eagerly denounce him. Every seat of power in the empire is divided, and thereby neutered, in this way.”

“Niccolò Machiavelli could teach the shogun very little, I fancy.”

“Indeed not, sir. The Florentine would be the novice,
I
credit.”

Interpreter Kobayashi shows disapproval at the bandying about of august names.

“Might I direct your attention,” Van Cleef changes the subject, “to that antique crow-scarer hanging in the alcove over there?”

“Good God,” Vorstenbosch peers closer, “it’s a Portuguese harquebus.”

“Muskets were manufactured on an island in Satsuma after the Portuguese arrived there. Later, when it was realized that ten muskets wielded by ten steady-handed peasants could slay ten samurai, the shogun curtailed their manufacture. One can imagine the fate of a European monarch who sought to impose such a decree—”

A tiger-emblazoned screen slides open, and a high official with a crushed nose emerges and walks to Interpreter Kobayashi. The interpreters bow low and Kobayashi introduces the official to Chief Vorstenbosch
as Chamberlain Tomine. Tomine speaks in a tone as wintry as his demeanor. “‘Gentlemen,’” Kobayashi translates. “‘In Hall of Sixty Mats is magistrate and many advisers. You must show same obeisance to magistrate as to shogun.’”

“Magistrate Shiroyama shall receive,” Vorstenbosch assures the interpreter, “exactly the respect he deserves.”

Kobayashi does not look reassured.

THE HALL OF SIXTY MATS
is airy and shaded. Fifty or sixty sweating, fanning officials—all important-looking samurai—enclose a precise rectangle. Magistrate Shiroyama is identified by his central position and raised dais. His fifty-year-old face looks weathered by high office. Light enters the hall from a sunlit courtyard of white pebbles, contorted pine trees, and moss-coated rocks to the south. Hangings sway over openings to the west and east. A meaty-necked guard announces,
“Oranda Kapitan!”
and ushers the Dutchmen into the rectangle of courtiers, to three crimson cushions. Chamberlain Tomine speaks and Kobayashi translates: “‘Let the Dutchmen now pay respect.’”

Jacob kneels on his cushion, places his clerk’s portfolio at his side, and bows. To his right, he is aware of Van Cleef doing the same, but, straightening up, he realizes that Vorstenbosch is still standing.

“Where,” the chief resident turns to Kobayashi, “is my chair?”

This triggers the muted commotion Vorstenbosch intended.

The chamberlain fires a curt question at Interpreter Kobayashi.

“In Japan,” Kobayashi tells Vorstenbosch, reddening, “there is no dishonor to seat on floor.”

“How laudable. But I am more
comfortable
on a chair.”

Kobayashi and Ogawa must pacify an angry chamberlain and placate a stubborn chief.

“Please, Mr. Vorstenbosch,” says Ogawa, “in Japan, we have no chairs.”

“May one not be improvised for a visiting dignitary? You!”

The pointed-at official gasps and touches the tip of his own nose.

“Yes: bring
ten
cushions.
Ten
. You understand ‘ten’?”

In consternation, the official looks from Kobayashi to Ogawa and back.

“Look
, man!” Vorstenbosch dangles the cushion for a moment,
drops it, and holds up ten fingers. “Bring ten cushions! Kobayashi, tell the tadpole what I want.”

Chamberlain Tomine is demanding answers. Kobayashi explains why the chief refuses to kneel, while Vorstenbosch wears a smile of tolerant condescension.

The Hall of Sixty Mats falls silent, ahead of the magistrate’s reaction.

Shiroyama and Vorstenbosch hold each other’s gaze for a magnified moment.

Then the magistrate produces a victor’s easy smile and nods. The chamberlain claps: two servants fetch cushions and pile them up until Vorstenbosch glows with satisfaction. “Observe,” the Dutch chief tells his compatriots, “the rewards of the resolute. Chief Hemmij and Daniel Snitker undermined our dignity by their kowtowing, and it falls to me,” he thumps the unwieldy pile, “to win it back.”

Magistrate Shiroyama speaks to Kobayashi.

“Magistrate asks,” translates the interpreter, “‘You are comfort now?’”

“Thank His Honor. Now we sit face-to-face, like equals.”

Jacob assumes that Kobayashi omits Vorstenbosch’s last two words.

Magistrate Shiroyama nods and musters a long sentence. “He says,” begins Kobayashi, “‘Congratulate’ to new chief resident and ‘Welcome to Nagasaki’; and ‘Welcome again to magistracy,’ to deputy chief.” Jacob, a mere clerk, passes unacknowledged. “Magistrate hope voyage not too … ‘strenuous’ and hope sun not too strong for weak Dutch skin.”

“Thank our host for his concern,” replies Vorstenbosch, “but assure him that, compared to July in Batavia, his Nagasaki summer is child’s play.”

Shiroyama nods at the translated rendering, as though a long-held suspicion is at last confirmed.

“Ask,” Vorstenbosch orders, “how His Honor enjoyed the coffee I presented.”

The question, Jacob notices, provokes arch glances between the courtiers. The magistrate considers his reply. “Magistrate says,” translates Ogawa, “‘Coffee tastes of no other.’”

“Tell him our plantations in Java can supply enough to satisfy even Japan’s bottomless stomach. Tell him future generations shall bless the
name Shiroyama as the man who discovered this magical beverage for their homeland.”

Ogawa delivers a suitable translation and is met by a gentle rebuttal.

“The magistrate says,” explains Kobayashi, “‘Japan is no appetite for coffee.’”

“Stuff! Once, coffee was unknown in Europe, too, but now every street in our great capitals has its own coffeehouse—or ten! Vast fortunes are made.”

Shiroyama changes the subject before Ogawa can translate.

“The magistrate gives sympathy,” says Kobayashi, “for wreck of
Octavia
on voyage home last winter.”

“It’s curious, tell him,” says Vorstenbosch, “how our discussion turns to the travails suffered by the honorable company in its struggle to bring prosperity to Nagasaki …”

Ogawa, who senses trouble he cannot avoid, must nevertheless translate.

Magistrate Shiroyama’s face expresses a knowing
Oh?

“I bear an urgent communiqué from the governor-general on this same topic.”

Ogawa turns to Jacob for help: “What is ‘communiqué’?”

“A letter,” replies Jacob in a low voice. “A diplomat’s message.”

Ogawa translates the sentence; Shiroyama’s hands signal
Give
.

From his tower of cushions, Vorstenbosch nods to his secretary.

Jacob unties his portfolio, removes the freshly forged letter from His Excellency P. G. van Overstraten, and proffers it with both hands to the chamberlain.

Chamberlain Tomine places the envelope before his master.

The Hall of Sixty Mats looks on with undisguised curiosity.

“It is meet, Mr. Kobayashi,” says Vorstenbosch, “to warn these good gentlemen—and even the magistrate—that our governor-general sends an ultimatum.”

Kobayashi glares at Ogawa, who begins to ask, “What is ‘ultim—’?”

“‘Ultimatum,’” says Van Cleef. “A threat; a demand; a strong warning.”

“Very bad time,” Kobayashi shakes his head, “for strong warning.”

“But surely Magistrate Shiroyama must know as soon as possible,” Chief Vorstenbosch’s concern is soft with malice, “that Dejima is to be
abandoned after the current trading season unless Edo gives us twenty thousand piculs?”

“‘Abandoned,’” repeats Van Cleef, “stopped; ended; finished.”

Blood drains from the two interpreters’ faces.

Inwardly, Jacob squirms with sympathy for Ogawa.

“Please, sir,” Ogawa swallows, “not such news, here, now …”

Running out of patience, the chamberlain demands a translation.

“Best not keep His Honor waiting,” Vorstenbosch tells Kobayashi.

Word by faltering word, Kobayashi delivers the appalling news.

Questions are fired from all quarters, but Kobayashi’s and Ogawa’s replies would be drowned out even if they tried to answer. During this mayhem, Jacob notices a man seated three places to the left of Magistrate Shiroyama. His face disturbs the clerk, though he could not say why; neither can Jacob guess his age. His shaven head and water-blue robes suggest a monk or even a confessor. The lips are tight, the cheekbones high, the nose hooked, and the eyes ferocious with intelligence. Jacob finds himself as little able to evade the man’s gaze as a book can, of its own volition, evade the scrutiny of a reader. The silent observer twists his head, like a hunting dog listening to the sound of its prey.