David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

‘Oh, at flamin’ last,’ mutters Arie Grote. ‘Mr de Z.: this is our cue.’

Jacob looks uncertainly at Grote; at the Abbot; and back at the cook.

‘Raise,’ sighs Grote, ‘the subject o’ trade.’ He mouths the word, ‘mercury’.

Jacob, belatedly, understands. ‘Pardon my directness, Your Grace,’ he addresses Enomoto whilst glancing at Yonekizu, ‘but may we render any service today?’

Yonekizu translates; with a glance, Enomoto sends the query back to Grote.

‘Fact, Mr de Z., is this: Abbot Enomoto wishes to purchase, eh, all eight chests of our mercury powder for the sum of one hundred an’ six koban per crate.’

Jacob’s first thought is, ‘our’ mercury? His second is, ‘One hundred and six’?

His third thought is a number: eight hundred and forty-eight koban.

‘Twice as much again,’ Grote reminds him, ‘as the Osaka druggist.’

Eight hundred and forty-eight koban is a half-fortune, at least.

Wait, wait, wait, Jacob thinks. Why is he willing to pay so high a price?

‘Mr de Zoet’s so gladsome,’ Grote assures Enomoto, ‘he can’t speak.’

The snake trick dazzled my senses, Jacob thinks, but keep a calm head now…

‘A more deservin’ cove,’ Grote claps his shoulder, ‘I never knew…’

… a monopoly, Jacob hypothesises. He wants to create temporary monopoly.

‘I’ll sell six crates,’ the young clerk announces. ‘Not eight.’

Enomoto understands: he scratches an ear and looks at Grote.

Grote’s smile says, Nothing to worry about. ‘A moment, Your Grace.’

The cook steers Jacob into a corner, near Weh’s hiding-place.

‘Listen: I know that Zwaardecroone set the sell-peg at eighteen per chest.’

How can you know, Jacob wonders, astonished, about my backer in Batavia?

‘ ’Tain’t no import how I know but I do. We’re up to six times that yet here you are harpin’ for more? No better price’ll come knockin’, an’ six chests ain’t on the table. It’s eight, see, or nothin’ at all.’

‘In that case,’ Jacob tells Grote, ‘I choose nothing at all.’

‘ ’Tis plain we ain’t makin’ ourselfs clear! Our client is an exalted personage, eh? Irons in every fire: at the Magistracy; in Edo; a money-lender’s money-lender; a druggist’s druggist. Word has it, he’s even’ – Jacob smells chicken livers on Grote’s breath – ‘lendin’ to the Magistrate to pay graft till next year’s ship from Batavia comes in! So when I promised him the entire supply o’ mercury, that’s exactly-’

‘It appears you shall have to unpromise him the entire supply.’

‘No no no,’ Grote almost whinnies. ‘You ain’t understandin’ what-’

‘It was you who hatched a deal on my private goods; I refuse to dance to your piper; so now you stand to lose your brokerage fee. What am I not understanding?’

Enomoto is saying something to Yonekizu; the Dutchmen break off their argument.

‘Abbot say,’ Yonekizu clears his throat, ‘ “Six crates only is sale today. So, he buy just six crates today.” ’ Enomoto continues. Yonekizu nods, clarifies a couple of points, and translates. ‘Mr de Zoet: Abbot Enomoto credits your private account in Exchequer with six hundred thirty-six kobans. Magistracy scribe bring proof of payment in Company Ledger. Then, when you satisfied, his men remove six crates of mercury from Warehouse Eik.’

Such speed is unprecedented. ‘Doesn’t Your Grace wish to see it first?’

‘Ah,’ says Grote, ‘Mr de Z. bein’ such a busy cove, I took the little liberty o’ borrowin’ the key from Deputy v. C. an’ showin’ our guest a sample…’

‘Yes, that was a liberty you took,’ Jacob tells him. ‘A big one.’

‘Hundred an’ six a box,’ Grote sighs, ‘deserves a little ’nitiative, eh?’

The Abbot is waiting. ‘Do we do deal of mercury today, Mr Dazûto?’

‘Deal he does, Your Grace,’ Grote smiles like a shark, ‘he surely does.’

‘But the paperwork,’ asks Jacob, ‘the bribes, documents of sale…?’

Enomoto swats away these difficulties and expels a pfff of air.

‘Like I say,’ Grote smiles like a saint, ‘ “a most exalted personage”.’

‘Then,’ Jacob has no more objections, ‘yes, Your Grace. The deal is agreed.’

A sigh of punctured anguish escapes the much-relieved Arie Grote.

Wearing a calm expression, the Abbot gives Yonekizu a sentence to translate.

‘ “What you not sell today”,’ Yonekizu says, ‘ “you sell soon.” ’

‘Then the Lord Abbot,’ Jacob remains defiant, ‘knows my mind better than I.’

Abbot Enomoto has the last word: the word is, ‘ “Affinity.” ’ Then he nods at Kosugi and Yonekizu and his retinue leaves the warehouse without further ado.

‘You can come out now, Weh.’ Jacob is obscurely troubled, despite the likelihood of his going to bed tonight a much richer man than when the earthquake threw him from it this morning. Provided, he concedes, Lord Abbot Enomoto is as good as his word.

Lord Abbot Enomoto was as good as his word. At half past two Jacob walks down the steps from the Chief’s Residence in possession of a Certificate of Lodgement. Witnessed by Vorstenbosch and van Cleef, the document can be redeemed in Batavia or even at the Company’s Zeeland offices in Vlissingen on Walcheren. The sum represents five or six years’ salary from his former job as a shipping clerk. He must repay the friend of his uncle in Batavia who lent him the capital to buy the medicinal mercury – the luckiest gamble of my life, Jacob thinks, how nearly I bought the bêche-de-mer instead – and no doubt Arie Grote has not done badly from the deal but, by any measure, the transaction made with the enigmatic Abbot is an exceptionally lucrative one. And the remaining crates, Jacob anticipates, shall fetch an even higher price, once other traders see the profit that Enomoto earns. By Christmas of next year he should be back in Batavia with Unico Vorstenbosch, whose star should, by then, be even brighter as a consequence of purging Dejima of its notorious corruption. He could consult with Zwaardecroone or Vorstenbosch’s colleagues and invest his mercury money in a yet bigger venture – coffee, perhaps, or teak – to generate an income that might impress even Anna’s father.

Back on Long Street, Hanzaburo reappears from the Interpreters’ Guild. Jacob returns to Tall House to deposit his precious certificate in his sea-chest. He hesitates before taking out a paulownia-handled fan and putting it in his jacket pocket. Then he hurries to the Weighing Yard where, today, lead ingots are being weighed and checked for adulterants before being returned to their boxes and sealed. Even under the supervisors’ awning the heat is sleepy and torrid, but a vigilant eye must be kept on the scales, the coolies and the numbers of boxes.

‘How kind of you,’ says Peter Fischer, ‘to report for duty.’

News of the new clerk’s profit on his mercury is common knowledge.

Jacob cannot think of a reply so he takes over the tally sheet.

Interpreter Yonekizu watches the adjacent awning. It is slow work.

Jacob thinks about Anna, trying to remember her as she is, and not merely as in his sketches of her.

Sun-coppered coolies prise off the nailed-on lids from the crates…

Wealth brings our future together closer, he thinks, but five years is still a long, long time.

Sun-coppered coolies hammer the lids back on to the crates.

Four o’clock, according to Jacob’s pocket watch, comes and goes.

At a certain point, Hanzaburo wanders away without explanation.

At a quarter to five, Peter Fischer says, ‘That is the two-hundredth box.’

At a minute past five, a senior merchant faints in the heat.