"The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mitchell David)

III On a Sampan Moored alongside the Shenandoah, NagasakiHarbour

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.’

‘ “Protect it with your life”,’ Jacob mutters under his breath…

… which is, he thinks, the crux of my dilemma.

Ten days ago, the Shenandoah anchored off Papenburg Rock – named for martyrs of the True Faith thrown from its heights – and Captain Lacy ordered all Christian artefacts placed in a barrel to be nailed shut, surrendered to the Japanese and returned only when the brig departed from Japan. Not even Chief-Elect Vorstenbosch and his protégé clerk were exempt. The Shenandoah’s sailors grumbled that they’d sooner surrender their testicles than their crucifixes, but their crosses and St Christophers did vanish into hidden nooks when the Japanese inspectors and well-armed guards carried out their search of the decks. The barrel was filled with an assortment of rosary beads and prayer books brought by Captain Lacy for this purpose: the de Zoet Psalter was not amongst them.

How could I betray my uncle, he frets, my Church and my God?

It is buried amidst his other books in the sea-chest on which he sits.

The risks, he assures himself, cannot be so very great… There is no marking or illustration by which the Psalter could be identified as a Christian text, and the interpreters’ Dutch is too poor, surely, to recognise antique Biblical language. I am an officer of the Dutch East Indies Company, Jacob reasons. What is the worst punishment the Japanese could inflict on me?

Jacob doesn’t know, and the truth is that Jacob is afraid.

A quarter-hour passes; of Chief Vorstenbosch or his two Malays there is no sign.

Jacob’s pale and freckled skin is frying like bacon.

A flying fish scissors and skims itself over the water.

‘Tobiuo!’ one oarsman says to the other, pointing. ‘Tobiuo!’

Jacob repeats the word and both oarsmen laugh until the boat rocks.

Their passenger doesn’t mind. He watches the guard-boats, circling the Shenandoah; the fishing skips; a coast-hugging Japanese cargo ship, stocky as a Portuguese carrack but fatter-bellied; an aristocratic pleasure-craft, accompanied by several attendant vessels, draped with the ducal black-on-sky-blue colours; and a beak-prowed junk, similar to those of the Chinese merchants of Batavia…

Nagasaki itself, wood-grey and mud-brown, looks oozed from between the verdant mountains’ splayed toes. The smells of seaweed, effluence and smoke from countless flues are carried over the water. The mountains are terraced by rice paddies nearly up to their serrated summits.

A madman, Jacob supposes, might imagine himself in a half-cracked jade bowl.

Dominating the shorefront is his home for the next year: Dejima, a high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island, some two hundred paces along its outer curve, Jacob estimates, by eighty paces deep, and erected, like much of Amsterdam, on sunken piles. Sketching the trading factory from the Shenandoah’s foremast during the week gone, he counted some twenty-five roofs: the numbered warehouses of Japanese merchants; the Chief’s and the Captain’s Residences; the Deputy’s House, on whose roof perches the Watchtower; the Guild of Interpreters; a small hospital. Of the four Dutch warehouses, the Roos, the Lelie, the Doorn and the Eik, only the last two survived what Vorstenbosch is calling ‘Snitker’s Fire’. Warehouse Lelie is being rebuilt, but the incinerated Roos must wait until the factory’s debts are in better order. The Land-Gate connects Dejima to the shore by a single-span stone bridge over a moat of tidal mud; the Sea-Gate, at the top of a short ramp where the Company sampans are loaded and unloaded, is opened only during the trading season. Attached is a Customs House, where all Dutchmen except the Chief Resident and the Captain are searched for prohibited items.

A list at whose head, Jacob thinks, is ‘Christian Artefacts’…

He turns to his sketch and sets about shading the sea with charcoal.

Curious, the oarsmen lean over; Jacob shows them the page:

The older oarsman makes a face to say, Not bad.

A shout from a guard-boat startles the pair: they return to their posts.

The sampan rocks under Vorstenbosch’s weight: he is a lean man, but today his silk surtout bulges with sections of ‘unicorn’ or narwhal horn, valued in Japan as a powdered cure-all. ‘It is this buffoonery’ – the incoming Chief raps his knuckles on his garment’s sewn-in bumps – ‘that I intend to eradicate. “Why,” I demanded of that serpent Kobayashi, “not simply have the cargo placed in a box, legitimately; rowed across, legitimately; and sold at private auction, legitimately?” His reply? “There is no precedent.” I put it to him, “Then why not create a precedent?” He stared at me as if I’d claimed paternity of his children.’

‘Sir?’ the First Mate calls. ‘Shall your slaves accompany you ashore?’

‘Send them with the cow. Snitker’s Black shall serve me meanwhile.’

‘Very good, sir; and Interpreter Sekita begs a ride ashore.’

‘Let the mooncalf down, then, Mr Wiskerke…’

Sekita’s ample rear juts over the bulwark. His scabbard catches in the ladder: his attendant earns a sharp slap for this mishap. Once the master and servant are safely seated, Vorstenbosch doffs his smart tricorn hat. ‘A divine morning, Mr Sekita, is it not?’

‘Ah.’ Sekita nods without understanding. ‘We Japanese, an island race…’

‘Indeed, sir. Sea in all directions; deep blue expanses of it.’

Sekita recites another rote-learnt sentence: ‘Tall pines are deep roots.’

‘For why must we waste our scant monies on your obese salary?’

Sekita purses his lips as if in thought. ‘How do you do, sir?’

If he inspects my books, thinks Jacob, all my worries are for nothing.

Vorstenbosch orders the oarsmen ‘Go!’ and points to Dejima.

Unnecessarily and unasked, Sekita translates the order.

The oarsmen propel the sampan by ‘sweeping’ their oars in the manner of a water-snake, in time to a breathy shanty.

‘Might they be singing,’ wonders Vorstenbosch, ‘ “Give Us Your Gold, O Stinking Dutchman”?’

‘One trusts not, sir, in the presence of an interpreter.’

‘That’s a charitable description of the man. Yet better him than Kobayashi: this may be our last chance to have a private discussion for a little while. Once ashore, my priority must be to ensure as profitable a trading season as our shoddy cargo can afford. Yours, de Zoet, is quite different: piece together the factory accounts, both for Company trade and private trade since the year ’ninety-four. Without knowing what the officers have bought, sold and exported and for how much, we cannot know the full extent of the corruption we must deal with.’

‘I’ll do my very best, sir.’

‘Snitker’s incarceration is my statement of intent, but should we mete out the same treatment to every smuggler on Dejima, there would be nobody left but the two of us. Rather, we must show how honest labour is rewarded with advancement, and theft punished with disgrace and gaol. Thus, only thus, may we clean out this Augean stable. Ah, and here is van Cleef, come to greet us.’

The acting deputy walks down the ramp from the Sea-Gate.

‘ “Every Arrival,” ’ quotes Vorstenbosch, ‘ “is a Particular Death.” ’

Deputy Melchior van Cleef, born in Utrecht forty years ago, doffs his hat. His swarthy face is bearded and piratical; a friend might describe his narrow eyes as ‘observant’, an enemy as ‘Mephistophelian’. ‘Good morning, Mr Vorstenbosch; and welcome to Dejima, Mr de Zoet.’ His handshake could crush stones. ‘To wish you a “pleasant” stay is overly hopeful…’ He notices the fresh kink in Jacob’s nose.

‘I am obliged, Deputy van Cleef.’ Solid ground sways under Jacob’s sea-legs. Coolies are already unloading his sea-chest and carrying it to the Sea-Gate. ‘Sir, I should prefer to keep my luggage in sight…’

‘So you should. Until recently we corrected the stevedores with blows, but the Magistrate ruled that a beaten coolie is an affront to all Japan and forbade us. Now their knavery knows no bounds.’

Interpreter Sekita mistimes his jump from the sampan’s prow on to the ramp, and dunks his leg up to the knee. Once on dry land, he smacks his servant’s nose with his fan and hurries ahead of the three Dutchmen, telling them, ‘Go! Go! Go!’

Deputy van Cleef explains, ‘He means “Come”.’

Once through the Sea-Gate, they are ushered into the Customs Room. Here, Sekita asks the foreigners’ names, and shouts them at an elderly registrar, who repeats them to a younger assistant, who writes them in his ledger. ‘Vorstenbosch’ is transliterated Bôrusu Tenbôshu, ‘van Cleef’ becomes Bankureifu and ‘de Zoet’ is rechristened Dazûto. Rounds of cheese and barrels of butter unloaded from the Shenandoah are being poked with skewers by a team of inspectors. ‘Those damned blackguards,’ van Cleef complains, ‘are known to break open preserved eggs lest the chicken sneaked in a ducat or two.’ A burly guard approaches. ‘Meet the frisker,’ says the Deputy. ‘The Chief is exempt, but not clerks, alas.’

A number of young men gather: they have the same shaven foreheads and top-knots as the inspectors and interpreters who visited the Shenandoah this week, but their robes are less impressive. ‘Unranked interpreters,’ explains van Cleef. ‘They hope to earn Sekita’s favour by doing his job for him.’

The frisker speaks to Jacob and they chorus, ‘Arms rise! Open pockets!’

Sekita silences them and orders Jacob, ‘Arms rise. Open pockets.’

Jacob obeys; the frisker pats his armpits and explores his pockets.

He finds Jacob’s sketchbook, examines it briefly and issues another order.

‘Show shoes to guard, sir!’ say the quickest house interpreters.

Sekita sniffs. ‘Show shoes now.’

Jacob notices that even the stevedores stop their work to watch.

Some are pointing at the clerk, unabashed and declaring, ‘Kômô, kômô.’

‘They’re talking about your hair,’ explains van Cleef. ‘ “Kômô” is how Europeans are often dubbed: kô signifying “red”; and “mô”, hair. Few of us, in truth, do boast hair of your tint; a genuine “red-haired barbarian” is worth a good gawp.’

‘You study the Japanese tongue, Mr van Cleef?’

‘There are rules against it, but I pick up a little from my wives.’

‘Should you teach me what you know, sir, I would be greatly obliged.’

‘I’d not be much of a teacher,’ van Cleef confesses. ‘Dr Marinus chats with the Malays as if he was born black, but the Japanese language is hard won, he says. Any interpreter caught teaching us could, feasibly, be charged with treason.’

The frisker returns Jacob’s shoes and issues a fresh command.

‘Off clotheses, sir!’ say the interpreters. ‘Clotheses off!’

‘Clotheses stay on!’ retorts van Cleef. ‘Clerks don’t strip, Mr de Zoet; the nasty-turdy wants us robbed of another dignity. Obey him today, and every clerk entering Japan until Doomsday would perforce follow suit.’

The frisker remonstrates; the chorus rises, ‘Clotheses off!’

Interpreter Sekita recognises trouble and creeps away.

Vorstenbosch hits the floor with his cane until quietness reigns. ‘No!’

The displeased frisker decides to concede the point.

A Customs guard taps Jacob’s sea-chest with his spear and speaks.

‘Open please,’ says an unranked interpreter. ‘Open big box!’

The box, taunts Jacob’s inner whisperer, containing your Psalter.

‘Before we all grow old, de Zoet,’ says Vorstenbosch.

Sick to his core, Jacob unlocks the chest as ordered.

One of the guards speaks; the chorus translates, ‘Go back, sir! Step behind!’

More than twenty curious necks crane as the frisker lifts the lid and unfolds Jacob’s five linen shirts; his woollen blanket; stockings; a drawstring bag of buttons and buckles; a tatty wig; a set of quills; yellowing undergarments; his boyhood compass; half a bar of Windsor soap; the two dozen letters from Anna tied with her hair ribbon; a razor blade; a Delft pipe; a cracked glass; a folio of sheet music; a moth-eaten bottle-green velvet waistcoat; a pewter plate, knife and spoon; and, stacked at the bottom, some fifty assorted books. A frisker speaks to an underling, who runs out of the Customs Room.

‘Fetch duty interpreter, sir,’ says an interpreter. ‘Bring to see books.’

‘Is not,’ Jacob’s ribs squeeze him, ‘Mr Sekita to conduct the dissection?’

A brown-toothed grin appears in van Cleef’s beard. ‘Dissection?’

‘Inspection, I meant, sir: the inspection of my books.’

‘Sekita’s father purchased his son’s place in the Guild, but the prohibition against’ – van Cleef mouths ‘Christianity’ – ‘is too important for blockheads. Books are checked by an abler man: Iwase Banri, perhaps, or one of the Ogawas.’

‘Who are the -’ Jacob chokes on his own saliva ‘- Ogawas?’

‘Ogawa Mimasaku is one of the four Interpreters of the First Rank. His son, Ogawa Uzaemon, is of the Third Rank, and -’ a young man enters ‘- ah! Speak of the Devil and listen for his feet! A warm morning, Mr Ogawa.’

Ogawa Uzaemon, in his mid-twenties, has an open, intelligent face. The unranked interpreters all bow low. He bows to Vorstenbosch, van Cleef and lastly the new arrival. ‘Welcome ashore, Mr de Zoet.’ His pronunciation is excellent. He extends his hand for a European handshake just as Jacob delivers an Asian bow: Ogawa Uzaemon reciprocates with an Asian bow as Jacob offers his hand. The vignette amuses the room. ‘I am told,’ says the interpreter, ‘Mr de Zoet brings many book… and here they are…’ he points to the chest ‘… many many book. A “plethora” of book, you say?’

‘A few books,’ says Jacob, nervous enough to vomit. ‘Or quite a few: yes.’

‘May I remove books to see?’ Ogawa does so, eagerly, without waiting for an answer. For Jacob, the world is narrowed to a thin tunnel between him and his Psalter, visible between his two-volume copy of Sara Burgerhart. Ogawa frowns. ‘Many, many books here. A little time, please. When finish, I send message. It is agreeable?’ He misreads Jacob’s hesitancy. ‘Books all safe. I too’ – Ogawa places his palm over his heart – ‘am bibliophile. This is correct word? Bibliophile?’

Out in the Weighing Yard the sun feels as hot as a branding-iron.

Any minute now, thinks the reluctant smuggler, my Psalter will be found.

A small party of Japanese officials is waiting for Vorstenbosch.

A Malay slave bows, waiting for the Chief with a bamboo parasol.

‘Captain Lacy and I,’ says the Chief, ‘have a gamut of engagements in the State Room until luncheon. You look sickly, de Zoet: have Dr Marinus drain half a pint after Mr van Cleef has shown you around.’ He nods a parting at his deputy and walks to his residence.

The Weighing Yard is dominated by one of the Company’s tripod-scales, as high as two men. ‘We’re weighing the sugar today,’ says van Cleef, ‘for what that junk is worth. Batavia sent the very dregs of their warehouses.’

The small square bustles with more than a hundred merchants, interpreters, inspectors, servants, spies, lackeys, palanquin bearers, porters. So these, thinks Jacob, are the Japanese. Their hair colour – black to grey – and skin tones are more uniform than those of a Dutch crowd, and their modes of dress, footwear and hairstyles appear rigidly prescribed according to rank. Fifteen or twenty near-naked carpenters are perched on the frame of a new warehouse. ‘Idler than a gang of gin-soused Finns…’ mumbles van Cleef. Watching from the roof of a Customs House is a pink-faced, soot-on-snow-coloured monkey, dressed in a sailcloth jerkin. ‘I see you’ve spotted William Pitt.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘King George’s First Minister, yes. He answers to no other name. A sailor bought him some six or seven seasons ago, but on the day his owner sailed, the ape vanished, only to reappear the next day, a freedman of Dejima. Speaking of brute apes, over there…’ van Cleef indicates a lantern-jawed and pig-tailed labourer engaged in opening boxes of sugar ‘… is Wybo Gerritszoon, one of our hands.’ Gerritszoon places the precious nails in his jerkin pocket. The bags of sugar are carried past a Japanese inspector and a striking foreign youth of seventeen or eighteen: his hair is gold and cherubic, his lips have a Javanese thickness and eyes an Oriental slant. ‘Ivo Oost: somebody’s natural son, with a generous glug of mestizo blood.’

The bags of sugar arrive at a trestle-table by the Company tripod.

The weighing is viewed by another trio of Japanese officials: an interpreter; and two Europeans in their twenties. ‘On the left,’ van Cleef points, ‘is Peter Fischer, a Prussian out of Brunswick…’ Fischer is nut-coloured, brown-haired but balding ‘… and an articled clerk – although Mr Vorstenbosch tells me you are also qualified, giving us an embarrassment of riches. Fischer’s companion is Con Twomey, an Irishman of Cork.’ Twomey has a half-moon face and a sharkish smile; his hair is cropped close and he is roughly tailored in sailcloth. ‘Don’t fret you forget these names: once the Shenandoah departs, we’ll have a tedious eternity in which to learn all about each other.’

‘Don’t the Japanese suspect some of our men aren’t Dutch?’

‘We account for Twomey’s bastard accent by saying he hails from Groningen. When were there ever enough pure-blooded Dutch to man the Company? Especially now’ – the stressed word alludes to the sensitive matter of Daniel Snitker’s incarceration – ‘we must catch-as-catch-can. Twomey’s our carpenter, but doubles as inspector on Weighing Days, for the infernal coolies’ll spirit away a bag of sugar in a blink without they’re watched like hawks. As will the guards – and the merchants are the slyest bastards of all: yesterday one of the whoresons slipped a stone into a bag which he then “discovered” and tried to use as “evidence” to lower the average tare.’

‘Shall I begin my duties now, Mr van Cleef?’

‘ Have Dr Marinus breathe a vein first, and join the fray once you’re settled. Marinus you shall find in his surgery at the end of Long Street – this street – by the bay tree. You shan’t get lost. No man ever lost his way on Dejima, without he had a bladder-full of grog in him.’

‘Fine thing I happened along,’ says a wheezing voice, ten paces later. ‘A cove’ll lose his way on Dejima faster’n shit through a goose. Arie Grote’s my name an’ you’ll be’ – he thumps Jacob’s shoulder – ‘Jacob de Zoet of Zeeland the Brave an’, my oh my, Snitker did put your nose out of joint, didn’t he?’

Arie Grote has a grin full of holes and a hat made of shark-hide.

‘Like my hat, do you? Boa Constrictor, this was, in the jungles of Ternate, what slunk one night into my hut what I shared with my three native maids. My first thought was, well, one of my bed-mates was wakin’ me gentle to toast my beans, eh? But no no no, there’s this tightenin’ an’ my lungs’re squeezed tight an’ three of my ribs go pop! snap! crack! an’ by the light o’ the Southern Cross, eh, I see him gazin’ into my bulgin’ eyes – an’ that, Mr de Z., was the squeezy bugger’s downfall. My arms was locked behind me but my jaws was free an’ oh I bit the beggar’s head that ’ard… A screamin’ snake ain’t a sound you’ll forget in an hurry! Squeezy Bugger squeezed me tighter – he weren’t done yet – so I went for the worm’s jugular an’ bit it clean through. The grateful villagers made me a robe of its skin and coronated me, eh, Lord of Ternate – that snake’d been the terror of their jungle – but…’ Grote sighs ‘… a sailor’s heart’s the sea’s plaything, eh? Back in Batavia a milliner turned my robe to hats what fetched ten rix-dollars a throw… but nothing’d splice me from this last one ’cept, mayhap, a favour to welcome a young cove whose need be sharper’n mine, eh? This beauty’s yours not for ten rix-dollars, no no no, not eight but five stuivers. As good a price as none.’

‘The milliner switched your Boa skin for poorly cured shark-hide, alas.’

‘I’ll wager you rise from the card table,’ Arie Grote looks pleased, ‘with a well-fed purse. Most of us hands gather of an evenin’ in my humble billet, eh, for a little hazard ’n’ companionship, an’ as you plainly ain’t no Stuffed-Shirt Hoity-Toity, why not join us?’

‘A pastor’s son like me would bore you, I fear: I drink little and gamble less.’

‘Who ain’t a gambler in the Glorious Orient, with his very life? Of every ten coves who sail out, six’ll survive to make what hay they may, eh, but four’ll sink into some swampy grave an’ forty-sixty is damn poor odds. By-the-by, for every jewel or ducatoon sewn into coat lining, eleven get seized at the Sea-Gate, and only a one slips through. They’re best poked up yer fig-hole an’ by-the-by should your cavity, eh, be so primed, Mr de Z., I can get you the best price of all…’

At the Crossroads, Jacob stops: ahead, Long Street continues its curve.

‘That’s Bony Alley,’ Grote points to their right, ‘goin’ to Sea Wall Lane: an’ thataways,’ Grote points left, ‘is Short Street; and the Land-Gate…’

… and beyond the Land-Gate, thinks Jacob, is the Cloistered Empire.

‘Them gates’ll not budge for us, Mr de Z., no no no. The Chief, Deputy an’ Dr M. pass through from time to time, aye, but not us. “The Shogun’s hostages” is what the natives dub us an’ that’s the size of it, eh? But listen,’ Grote propels Jacob forwards, ‘it ain’t just gems and coins I deal in, let me tell yer. Just yesterday,’ he whispers, ‘I earned a select client aboard the Shenandoah a box of purest camphor crystals for some ratty bagpipes what you’d not fish from a canal back home.’

He’s dangling bait, Jacob thinks, and replies, ‘I do not smuggle, Mr Grote.’

‘Strike me dead afore I’d accuse yer’f malpractice, Mr de Z.! Just informin’ you, eh, as how my commission is one quarter o’ the selling price, regular-like: but a smart young cove like you’ll keep seven slices per pie o’ ten for I’m partial to feisty Zeelanders, eh? ’Twill be a pleasure to handle your pox-powder, too’ – Grote has the casual tone of a man masking something crucial – ‘what with certain merchants who call me “Brother” beatin’ up the price faster an’ fatter’n a stallion’s stiffy as we speak, Mr de Z., aye, as we speak, an’ why?’

Jacob stops. ‘How can you possibly know about my mercury?’

‘Hearken to my Joyous Tidin’s, eh? One o’ the Shogun’s numerous sons,’ Grote lowers his voice, ‘undertook the mercury cure, this spring. The treatment’s been known here twenty years but weren’t never trusted but this princeling’s gherkin was so rotted it glowed green; one course o’ Dutch pox-powder an’ Praise the Lord, he’s cured! The story spreads like wildfire; ev’ry apothecary in the land’s howlin’ f’the miraculous elixir, eh; an’ here comes you with eight crates! Let me negotiate an’ yer’ll make enough to buy a thousand hats; do it yerself an’ they’ll skin yer an’ make you into the hat, my friend.’

‘How,’ Jacob finds himself walking again, ‘do you know about my mercury?’

‘Rats,’ Arie Grote whispers. ‘Aye, rats. I feed the rats tidbits now an’ then; an’ the rats tell me what’s what an’ that’s that. Voilà, eh? Here’s the Hospital; a journey shared’s a journey halved, eh? So, we’re agreed: I’ll act as yer agent forthwith, eh? No need for contracts or such stuff: a gentleman’ll not break his word. Until later…’

Arie Grote is walking back down Long Street to the Crossroads.

Jacob calls after him, ‘But I never gave you my word!’

The Hospital door opens into a narrow hall. Ahead, a ladder ascends to a trapdoor, propped open; to the right, a doorway gives into the Surgery, a large room ruled over by an age-mottled skeleton crucified on a T-frame. Jacob tries not to think of Ogawa finding his Psalter. An operating table is equipped with cords and apertures, and plastered with blood-stains. There are racks for the surgeon’s saws, knives, scissors and chisels; mortars and pestles; a giant cabinet to house, Jacob assumes, materia medica; bleeding bowls; and several benches and tables. The smell of fresh sawdust mingles with wax, herbs and a clayey whiff of liver. Through a doorway is the Sick Room, with three vacant beds. Jacob is tempted by an earthenware jar of water: he drinks with the ladle – it is cool and sweet.

Why is nobody here, he wonders, to protect the place from thieves?

A young servant or slave appears, swishing a broom: he is barefoot, handsome, and attired in a fine surplice and loose Indian trousers.

Jacob feels a need to justify his presence. ‘Dr Marinus’s slave?’

‘The doctor employs me,’ the youth’s Dutch is good, ‘as an assistant, sir.’

‘Is that so? I’m the new clerk, de Zoet: and your name is?’

The man’s bow is courteous, not servile. ‘My name is Eelattu, sir.’

‘What part of the world do you hail from, Eelattu?’

‘I was born in Colombo on the island of Ceylon, sir.’

Jacob is unsettled by his suavity. ‘Where is your master now?’

‘At study, upstairs: do you desire that I fetch him?’

‘There’s no need – I shall go up and introduce myself.’

‘Yes, sir: but the doctor prefers not to receive visitors-’

‘Oh, he’ll not object when he learns what I bring him…’

Through the trapdoor, Jacob peers into a long, well-furnished attic. Halfway down is Marinus’s harpsichord, referred to weeks ago in Batavia by Jacob’s friend Mr Zwaardecroone; it is allegedly the only harpsichord ever to travel to Japan. At the far end is a ruddy and ursine European of about fifty years, with tied-back, stony hair. He is sitting on the floor at a low table in a well of light, drawing a flame-orange orchid. Jacob knocks on the trapdoor. ‘Good afternoon, Dr Marinus.’

The doctor, his shirt unbuttoned, does not respond.

‘Dr Marinus? I am delighted to make your acquaintance, at last…’

Still, the doctor gives no indication of having heard.

The clerk raises his voice: ‘Dr Marinus? I apologise for disturb-’

‘From what mouse-hole,’ Marinus glares, ‘did you spring?’

‘I just arrived a quarter hour ago, from the Shenandoah? My name’s-’

‘Did I ask for your name? No: I asked for your fons et origo.’

‘Domburg, sir: a coastal town on Walcheren Island, in Zeeland.’

‘ Walcheren, is it? I visited Middelburg once.’

‘In point of fact, Doctor, I was educated in Middelburg.’

Marinus barks a laugh. ‘Nobody is “educated” in that nest of slavers.’

‘Perhaps I may raise your estimate of Zeelanders in the months ahead. I am to live in Tall House, so we are nearly neighbours.’

‘So propinquity propagates neighbourliness, does it?’

‘I-’ Jacob wonders at Marinus’s deliberate aggression. ‘I – well-’

‘This Cymbidium koran was found in the goats’ fodder: as you dither, it wilts.’

‘Mr Vorstenbosch suggested you might drain some blood…’

‘Medieval quackery! Phlebotomy – and the Humoral Theory on which it rests – was exploded by Hunter twenty years ago.’

But draining blood, thinks Jacob, is every surgeon’s bread. ‘But…’

‘But but but? But but? But? But but but but but?’

‘The world is composed of people who are convinced of it.’

‘Proving the world is composed of dunderheads. Your nose looks swollen.’

Jacob strokes the kink. ‘Former Chief Snitker threw a punch and-’

‘You don’t have the build for brawling.’ Marinus rises, and limps towards the trapdoor with the aid of a stout stick. ‘Bathe your nose in cool water, twice daily; and pick a fight with Gerritszoon presenting the convex side, so he may hammer it flat. Good day to you, Domburger.’ With a well-aimed whack of his stick, Dr Marinus knocks away the prop holding up the trapdoor.

Back in the sun-blinding street, the indignant clerk finds himself surrounded by Interpreter Ogawa, his servant, a pair of inspectors: all four look sweaty and grim. ‘Mr de Zoet,’ says Ogawa, ‘I wish to speak about a book you bring. It is important matter…’

Jacob loses the next clause to a rush of nausea and dread.

Vorstenbosch shan’t be able to save me, he thinks: and why would he?

‘… and so to find such a book astonishes me greatly… Mr de Zoet?’

My career is destroyed, thinks Jacob, my liberty is gone and Anna is lost…

‘Where,’ the prisoner manages to croak, ‘am I to be incarcerated?’

Long Street is tilting up and down. The clerk shuts his eyes.

‘ “In cancer-ated”?’ Ogawa mocks him. ‘My poor Dutch is failing me.’

The clerk’s heart pounds like a broken pump. ‘Is it human to toy with me?’

‘Toy?’ Ogawa’s perplexity grows. ‘This is proverb, Mr de Zoet? In Mr de Zoet’s chest I found book of Mr… Adamu Sumissu.’

Jacob opens his eyes: Long Street is no longer tilting. ‘Adam Smith?’

‘ “Adam Smith” – please excuse. The Wealth of Nations… You know?’

I know it, yes, thinks Jacob, but I don’t yet dare hope. ‘The original English is a little difficult, so I bought the Dutch edition in Batavia.’

Ogawa looks surprised. ‘So Adam Smith is not Dutchman but Englishman?’

‘He’d not thank you, Mr Ogawa! Smith’s a Scot, living in Edinburgh. But can it be The Wealth of Nations about which you speak?’

‘What other? I am rangakusha – scholar of Dutch Science. Four years ago, I borrow Wealth of Nations from Chief Hemmij. I began translation to bring,’ Ogawa’s lips ready themselves, ‘ “Theory of Political Economy” to Japan. But Lord of Satsuma offered Chief Hemmij much money so I returned it. Book was sold before I finish.’

The incandescent sun is caged by a glowing bay tree.

God called unto him, thinks Jacob, out of the midst of the bush…

Hooked gulls and scraggy kites criss-cross the blue-glazed sky.

… and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

‘I try to obtain another, but’ – Ogawa flinches – ‘but difficulties is much.’

Jacob resists an impulse to laugh like a child. ‘I understand.’

‘Then, this morning, in your book-chest, Adam Smith I find. Very much surprise, and to speak with sincerity, Mr de Zoet, I wish to buy or rent…’

Across the street in the garden, cicadas shriek in ratcheted rounds.

‘Adam Smith is neither for sale nor rent,’ says the Dutchman, ‘but you are welcome, Mr Ogawa – very welcome indeed – to borrow him for as long as ever you wish.’