David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

The small human whirlwind stands, rubs his knee, and totters to his father.

‘Today is an important day,’ says the Magistrate of Nagasaki.

Naozumi half sings, half asks, ‘ “Ducky in the duck pond, ichi-ni-san?” ’ With a look, Shiroyama tells his concubine not to fret.

Better for him now, he thinks, to be too young to understand.

‘Come here,’ says Kawasemi, kneeling, ‘come here, Nao-kun…’

The boy sits on his mother’s lap and loses his hand in her hair.

Shiroyama sits a pace away and circles his hands in a conjuror’s flourish…

… and in his palm is an ivory castle sitting on an ivory mountain.

The man turns it around slowly, inches from the boy’s captured eyes.

Tiny steps; cloud motifs; pine trees; masonry grown from rock…

‘Your great-grandfather carved this,’ says Shiroyama, ‘from a unicorn horn.’

… an arched gate; windows; arrow-slits; and at the top, a pagoda.

‘You can’t see him,’ says the Magistrate, ‘but a prince lives in this castle.’

You will forget this story, he knows, but your mother will remember.

‘The prince’s name is the same as ours: Shiro for the castle, yama for the mountain. Prince Shiroyama is very special. You and I must one day go to our ancestors, but the prince in this tower never dies: not for so long as a Shiroyama outside – me, you, your son – is alive, and holds his castle, and looks inside.’

Naozumi takes the ivory carving and holds it against his eye.

Shiroyama does not gather his son into his arms and breathe in his sweet smell.

‘Thank you, Father.’ Kawasemi angles the boy’s head to imitate a bow.

Naozumi leaps away with his prize, jumping from mat to mat to door.

At the door he turns to look at his father, and Shiroyama thinks, Now.

Then the boy’s footfalls carry him away for ever.

Lust tricks babies from their parents, thinks Shiroyama, mishap, duty…

Marigolds in the vase are the precise shade of summer, remembered.

… but perhaps the luckiest are those born from an unthought thought: that the intolerable gulf between lovers can be bridged only by the bones and cartilage of a new being.

The bell of Ryûgaji Temple intones the Hour of the Horse.

Now, he thinks, I have a murder to commit.

‘It is best that you leave,’ Shiroyama tells his concubine.

Kawasemi looks at the ground, determined not to cry.

‘If the boy shows promise at Go, engage a master of the Honinbo School.’

The vestibule outside the Hall of Sixty Mats and the long gallery leading to the Front Courtyard is crammed with kneeling advisers, counsellors, inspectors, headmen, guards, servants, exchequer officials and the staff of his household. Shiroyama stops.

Crows smear rumours across the matted, sticky sky.

‘All of you: raise your faces. I want to see your faces.’

Two or three hundred heads look up: eyes, eyes, eyes…

… dining on a ghost, Shiroyama thinks, not yet dead.

‘Magistrate-sama!’ Elder Wada has appointed himself spokesman.

Shiroyama looks at the irritating, loyal man. ‘Wada-sama.’

‘Serving the Magistrate has been the deepest honour of my life…’

Wada’s face is taut with emotion; his eyes are shining.

‘Each one of us learns from the Magistrate’s wisdom and example…’

All you learnt from me, thinks Shiroyama, is to ensure that one thousand men man the coastal defences at all times.

‘Our memories of you shall dwell in our hearts and minds for ever.’

As my body and my head, thinks Shiroyama, moulder in the ground together.

‘Nagasaki shall never,’ tears stream down his face, ‘ever recover!’

Oh, supposes Shiroyama, by next week things will be back to normal.

‘On behalf of all who were – are – privileged to serve under you…’

Even the untouchable, thinks the Magistrate, who empties the shit-pot?

‘… I, Wada, offer our undying gratitude for your gracious patronage!’

Under the eaves, pigeons coo like grandmothers greeting newborn babies.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Serve my successor as you served me.’

So the stupidest speech I ever heard, he thinks, was the very last.

Chamberlain Tomine opens the door for his final appointment.

The door rumbles shut on the Hall of Sixty Mats. Nobody may enter now until Chamberlain Tomine emerges to announce Magistrate Shiroyama’s honourable death. The near-silent crowd in the gallery is returning to the bright realm of Life. Out of respect for the Magistrate, the entire wing shall remain vacant until nightfall but for the occasional guard.

One high screen is half open, but the Hall is dim and cavernous today.

Lord Abbot Enomoto is studying the state of play on the Go board.

The Abbot turns and bows. His acolyte bows low.

The Magistrate begins the journey to the centre of the room. His body pushes aside drapes of hushed air. His feet swish on the floor. Chamberlain Tomine follows in his master’s wake.

The Hall of Sixty Mats might be six hundred wide or six thousand long.

Shiroyama sits across the Go table from his enemy. ‘It is unpardonably selfish to lay these last two impositions on such a busy man.’

‘Your Honour’s requests,’ replies Enomoto, ‘pay me a singular compliment.’

‘I had heard of Enomoto-sama’s accomplishments as a swordsman, mentioned, in low, awed tones, long before I met you in person.’

‘People exaggerate such stories, but it is true that, down the years, five men have asked me to be a kaishaku second at their deaths. I discharged those duties competently.’

‘Your name came to mind, Lord Abbot. Yours and no other.’ Shiroyama glances down at Enomoto’s sash for his scabbard.

‘My acolyte,’ the Abbot nods at the youth, ‘has brought it.’

The sword, wrapped in black, lies on a square of red velvet.

On a side table are a white tray, four black cups and a red gourd.

A white linen sheet, large enough to enfold a corpse, lies at a tactful distance.

‘Your wish is still,’ Enomoto indicates the game, ‘to end what we began?’

‘One must do something before one dies.’ The Magistrate drapes his haori jacket over his knees and turns his attention to the game. ‘Have you decided your next move?’

Enomoto places a White stone to threaten Black’s eastern outpost.

The cautious click of the stone sounds like a blind man’s cane.

Shiroyama makes a safe play that is both a bridge to and a bridge-head against White’s north.

‘To win,’ his father taught him, ‘one must purify oneself of the desire to win.’

Enomoto secures his northern army by opening an eye in its ranks.

The blind man moves faster now: click goes his cane; click, a stone is placed.

A few moves later, Shiroyama’s Black takes a group of six White prisoners.

‘They were living on borrowed time,’ Enomoto remarks, ‘at crippling interest.’ He plants a spy deep behind Black’s western frontier.

Shiroyama ignores it, and starts a road between his western and central armies.

Enomoto places another strange stone in the south-west of nowhere.

Two moves later, Shiroyama’s bold Black bridge is only three stones from completion. Surely, thinks the Magistrate, he can’t allow me to go unchallenged?

Enomoto places a stone within hailing distance of his western spy…

… and Shiroyama sees the way-stations of a Black cordon, curving in a crescent from south-west to north-east.

If White prevents Black’s main armies conjoining at this late stage…

… my dominant empire, Shiroyama sees, is split into three paltry fiefdoms.

The bridge is just two intersections away: Shiroyama claims one…