The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel (8 page)

'He claimed it was from the trousseau of the last Ming Emperor's wife, sir.'

'The last Ming Emperor: just so. Oh, and I am desirous that you join us later.'

'For the meeting with Interpreter Kobayashi and the officials, sir?'

'For our interview with the Magistrate Shirai . . . Shilo . . . Aid me.'

'Magistrate Shiroyama, sir - sir, I am to visit Nagasaki?'

'Unless you'd prefer to stay here and record catties of pig-iron?'

'To set foot on Japan proper would . . .'
cause Peter Fischer
, thinks Jacob,
to expire with envy
'. . . would be a great adventure. Thank you.'

'A chief needs a private secretary. Now, let us continue the morning's business in the privacy of my bureau . . .'

Sunlight falls across the escritoire in the small adjacent room. 'So,' Vorstenbosch settles himself, 'after three days ashore, how
are
you finding life on the Company's furthest-flung outpost?'

'More salubrious' - Jacob's chair creaks - 'than a posting on Halmahera, sir.'

'Damnation by dim praise indeed! What irks you most of all: the spies, confinement, lack of liberties . . . or the ignorance of our countrymen?'

Jacob considers telling Vorstenbosch about the scene at breakfast, but sees nothing to be gained.
Respect
, he thinks,
cannot be commanded from on high
.

'The hands view me with some . . . suspicion, sir.'

'Naturally. To decree, "Private Trade is Henceforth Banned" would merely make their schemes more ingenious; a deliberate vagueness is, for the time being, the best prophylactic. The hands resent this, of course, but daren't vent their anger on me. You bear the brunt.'

'I'd not wish to appear ungrateful for your patronage, sir.'

'There's no gainsaying that Dejima is a dull posting. The days when a man could retire on the profit from two trading seasons here are long, long gone. Swamp-fever and crocodiles shan't kill you in Japan, but monotony might. But take heart, de Zoet: after one year we return to Batavia where you shall learn how I reward loyalty and diligence. And speaking of diligence, how proceeds your restoration of the ledgers?'

'The books
are
an unholy mess, but Mr Ogawa is proving most helpful, and 'ninety-four and 'ninety-five are in large part reconstructed.'

'A shoddy pass that we have to rely on Japanese archives. But come, we must address yet more pressing matters.' Vorstenbosch unlocks his desk and takes out a bar of Japanese copper. 'The world's reddest, its richest in gold and, for a hundred years, the bride for whom we Dutch have danced in Nagasaki.' He tosses the flat ingot at Jacob, who catches it neatly. 'This bride, however, grows skinnier and sulkier by the year. According to your own figures . . .' Vorstenbosch consults a slip of paper on his desk-top '. . . in 1790 we exported eight thousand piculs. In 'ninety-four, six thousand. Gijsbert Hemmij, who displayed good judgement only in dying before being charged for incompetence, suffered the quota to drop under
four
thousand, and during Snitker's year of misgovernance, a paltry three thousand two hundred, every last bar of which was lost with the
Octavia
, wherever her wreck may lie.'

The Almelo Clock divides time with bejewelled tweezers.

'You recall, de Zoet, my visit to the Old Fort prior to our sailing?'

'I do, sir, yes. The Governor-General spoke with you for two hours.'

'It was a weighty discussion about nothing less than the future of Dutch Java. Which you hold in your hands.' Vorstenbosch nods at the copper bar. 'That's it.'

Jacob's melted reflection is captured in the metal. 'I don't understand, sir.'

'The bleak picture of the Company's dilemma painted by Daniel Snitker was not, alas, hyperbole. What he did
not
add, because none outside the Council of the Indies knows, is that Batavia's Treasury is starved away to nothing.'

Carpenters hammer across the street. Jacob's bent nose aches.

'Without Japanese copper, Batavia cannot mint coins.' Vorstenbosch's fingers twirl an ivory paper-knife. 'Without coins, the native battalions shall melt back into the jungle. There is no sugar-coating this truth, de Zoet: the High Government can maintain our garrisons on half-pay until next July. Come August, the first deserters leave; come October, the native chiefs smoke our weakness out; and by Christmas, Batavia succumbs to anarchy, rapine, slaughter and John Bull.'

Unbidden, Jacob's mind pictures these same catastrophes unfolding.

'Every chief resident in Dejima's history,' Vorstenbosch continues, 'tried to squeeze more precious metals out of Japan. All they ever received were hand-wringing and unkept promises. The wheels of commerce trundled on regardless, but should
we
fail, de Zoet, the Netherlands loses the Orient.'

Jacob places the copper on the desk. 'How can we succeed where . . .'

'Where so many others failed? Audacity, pugnacity, and by an historic letter.' Vorstenbosch slides a writing set across the desk. 'Pray take down a rough copy.'

Jacob readies his board, uncorks the inkwell and dips a quill.

' "I, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, P.G. van Overstraten," ' Jacob looks at his patron, but there is no mistake, ' "on this, the -" Was it the
six
teenth of May we left Batavia's roadstead?'

The pastor's son swallows. 'The fourteenth, sir.'

' "- on this, the . . . Ninth day of May, seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, send cordial salutations to their August Excellencies the Council of Elders, as one true friend may communicate his innermost thoughts to another with neither flattery nor fear of disfavour, concerning the venerable amity between the Empire of Japan and the Batavian Republic", stop.'

'The Japanese have not been informed of the revolution, sir.'

'Then let us be "the United Provinces of the Netherlands" for now. "Many times have the Shogun's servants in Nagasaki amended the terms of trade to the Company's impoverishment . . ." No, use "disadvantage". Then, "The so-called 'Flower-Money' tax is at a usurious level; the rix-dollar's value has been devalued three times in ten years, whilst the copper quota has decreased to a trickle" . . . stop.'

Jacob's hard-pressed nib crumples: he takes up another.

' "Yet the Company's petitions are met with endless excuses. The dangers of the voyage from Batavia to your distant Empire were demonstrated by the
Octavia
's foundering, in which two hundred Dutchmen lost their lives. Without fair compensation, the Nagasaki trade is tenable no longer." New paragraph. "The Company's directors in Amsterdam have issued a final memorandum concerning Dejima. Its substance may be summarised thus . . .' Jacob's quill skips over an ink-blot. ' "Without the copper quota is increased to twenty thousand piculs" - italicise the words, de Zoet, and add it in numerals - "the seventeen directors of the Dutch East Indies Company must conclude that its Japanese partners no longer wish to maintain foreign trade. We shall evacuate Dejima, removing our goods, our livestock and such materials from our warehouses as may be salvaged with immediate effect." There. That should set loose the fox in the chicken coop, should it not?'

'A half-dozen large ones, sir. But did the Governor-General make this threat?'

'Asiatic minds respect
force majeure
; best they are prodded into compliancy.'

The answer, then
, sees Jacob,
is No
. 'Suppose the Japanese call this bluff?'

'One calls a bluff only if one scents a bluff. Thus you are party to this stratagem, as are van Cleef, Captain Lacy and myself, and nobody else. Now conclude: "For a copper quota of twenty thousand piculs I shall send another ship next year. Should the Shogun's Council offer" - italicise - "
one picul less
than twenty thousand, they shall, in effect, be taking an axe to the tree of commerce, consign Japan's single major port to rot, and brick over your Empire's sole window to the world" - yes?'

'Bricks are not in wide usage here, sir. "Board up"?'

'Make good. "This loss shall blind the Shogun to new European progress, to the delight of the Russians and other foes who survey your empire with acquisitive eyes. Your own descendants yet unborn beg you to make the correct choice at this hour, as does," new line, "Your sincere ally, et cetera, et cetera, P.G. van Overstraten, Governor-General of the East Indies; Chevalier of the Order of the Orange Lion", and any other titular lilies that occur to you, de Zoet. Two fair copies by noon, in time for Kobayashi; end both with van Overstraten's signature - as life-like as you may - one to be sealed with this.' Vorstenbosch passes him the signet ring embossed with the 'VOC' of the Dutch Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie.

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 strategem 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 prevent 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. Their own 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 realises 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.'