David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

‘Indeed, sir. Perhaps she heard about the house’s ailments, and wanted to peddle some miracle cure. She deserves a beating, really, but her age…’

The new maid enters with a bucket of coals. Because of the cold afternoon, perhaps, she has put on a white headscarf. A detail from Orito’s ninth or tenth letter comes back to Uzaemon. ‘The Herbalist of Kurozane,’ it read, ‘lives at the foot of Mount Shiranui, in an ancient mountain hut, with goats, chickens and a dog…’

The floor tilts. ‘Fetch her back.’ Uzaemon hardly knows his voice.

Kiyoshichi and the maid look at their master in surprise, then one another.

‘Run after the herbalist of Kurozane – that mountain woman. Fetch her back.’

The astonished servant is unsure whether to trust his ears.

First I faint on Dejima, Uzaemon realises how oddly he is behaving, and now this fickleness over a beggar. ‘When I prayed for Father at the temple, a priest suggested that the sickness may be due to a – to a want of charity in the Ogawa household, and that the gods would send a – an opportunity to make amends.’

Kiyoshichi doubts that the gods employ such malodorous messengers.

Uzaemon claps. ‘Don’t make me ask you again, Kiyoshichi!’

‘You are Otane,’ begins Uzaemon, wondering whether to give her an honorific title, ‘Otane-san, the herbalist of Kurozane. Earlier, outside, I did not understand…’

The old woman sits like a curled-up wren. Her eyes are sharp and clear.

Uzaemon dismisses the servants. ‘I apologise for not listening to you.’

Otane accepts her due deference but says nothing, yet.

‘It is two days’ journey from Kyôga Domain. Did you sleep at an inn?’

‘The journey had to be made, and now I am here.’

‘Miss Aibagawa always spoke of Otane-san with great respect.’

‘On her second visit to Kurozane,’ her Kyôga dialect carries an earthy dignity, ‘Miss Aibagawa spoke about Interpreter Ogawa in a similar fashion.’

Her feet may be sore, thinks Uzaemon, but she knows how to kick. ‘The groom who marries according to his heart is a rare man. I had to marry according to the dictates of my family. It is the way of the world.’

‘Miss Aibagawa’s visits are three treasures of my life. Despite our great difference in rank, she was, and remains, a precious daughter to me.’

‘I understand Kurozane is at the foot of the trail that leads up Mount Shiranui. Is it possible,’ Uzaemon can endure hope no longer, ‘you have met her, since she entered the Shrine?’

Otane’s face is a bitter negative. ‘All contact is forbidden. Twice yearly I take medicines to the Shrine’s doctor, Master Suzaku, at the Gatehouse. But no lay person is permitted further, unless invited by Master Genmu or Lord Abbot Enomoto. Least of all-’

The door slides open, and tea is brought in by Uzaemon’s mother’s maid.

Mother wasted no time, Uzaemon registers, in sending her spy along.

Otane bows as she receives the tea on a walnut-wood tray.

The maid departs for a thorough interrogation.

‘Least of all,’ continues Otane, ‘an old herb-gatherer.’ She wraps her bowl of tea with her medicine-stained bony fingers. ‘No, it is not a message from Miss Aibagawa I bring but… Well, I will come to this shortly. Some weeks ago, on the night of first snow, a visitor sought shelter in my cottage. He was a young acolyte from Mount Shiranui Shrine. He had run away.’

Yohei’s blurred outline crosses behind the snow-lit paper window.

‘What did he say?’ Uzaemon’s mouth is dry. ‘Is she… is Miss Aibagawa well?’

‘She is alive, but he spoke about cruelties committed by the Order against the Sisters. He said that if these cruelties were widely known, not even the Lord Abbot’s connections in Edo could defend the Shrine. That was the acolyte’s plan – to go to Nagasaki and denounce the Order of Mount Shiranui to the Magistrate and to his court.’

Someone sweeps snow in the Courtyard with a stiff-bristled broom.

Uzaemon is cold, despite the fire. ‘Where is this defector?’

‘I buried him the next day between two cherry trees in my garden.’

Something scurries at the corners of Uzaemon’s vision. ‘How did he die?’

‘There exists a family of poisons that, once ingested, remain in the body, harmlessly, so long as an antidote is taken daily. But without that antidote, the poison will kill its host. This would be my best guess…’

‘So the acolyte was doomed from the moment he left?’

Down the corridor, Uzaemon’s mother is scolding her maid.

‘Did the acolyte speak about his Order’s practices before he died?’

‘No,’ Otane tilts her old head closer, ‘but he wrote its creeds on a scroll.’

‘These creeds are the same “cruelties” endured by the Sisters?’

‘I am an old woman of peasant stock, Interpreter. I cannot read.’

‘This scroll.’ His voice, too, is a whisper. ‘Is it… is it in Nagasaki?’

Otane stares at him like Time itself, made human. From her sleeve, she withdraws a dogwood scroll-tube.

‘Are the Sisters,’ Uzaemon makes himself ask, ‘obliged to lie with the men? Is this the – the cruelty that the acolyte spoke of?’

His mother’s sure footsteps approach along the creaking corridor.

‘I have grounds to fear,’ Otane hands the scroll-tube to Uzaemon, ‘that the truth is worse.’

Uzaemon hides the dogwood tube in his sleeve just as the door opens.

‘But excuse me!’ His mother appears in the doorway. ‘I had no inkling you had company. Shall your…’ she pauses ‘… your guest be staying for dinner?’

Otane bows very low. ‘Such generosity far exceeds what an old grandmother deserves. Thank you, madam, but I must not impose upon your household’s charity a minute longer…’

Sunrise on the Ninth Day of the Twelfth Month

Sweeping the Cloisters is a vexing chore this afternoon: no sooner is a pile of leaves and pine-needles gathered than the wind kicks it away again. Clouds unravel on Bare Peak and spill icy drizzle. Orito removes bird lime from the boards with a scrap of sacking. Today is the ninety-fifth day of her captivity: for thirteen days she has turned away from Suzaku and the Abbess and tipped her Solace into her sleeve. For four or five days she suffered from cramps and fever, but now her mind is her own again: the rats no longer speak and the House’s tricks have dwindled away. Her victory is limited, however: she has not won permission to explore the Precincts, and although she escaped another Engiftment Day, a Newest Sister’s chances of being so lucky a fourth time are meagre and a fifth escape would be unprecedented.

Umegae approaches in her lacquered sandals, click-clack, click-clack.

She shan’t be able to resist, Orito predicts, making a stupid joke.

‘So diligent, Newest Sister! Were you born with a broom in your hand?’

No reply is expected, none is given, and Umegae walks on to the Kitchen. Her jibe reminds Orito of her father praising Dejima’s cleanliness, in contrast to the Chinese factory where rubbish is left to rot and rats. She wonders if Marinus misses her. She wonders if a girl from the House of Wistaria is warming Jacob de Zoet’s bed and admiring his exotic eyes. She wonders if de Zoet even thinks of her now, except when he needs his lost dictionary.

She wonders the same thing about Ogawa Uzaemon.

De Zoet shall leave Japan never knowing she had chosen to accept him.

Self-pity, Orito reminds herself yet again, is a noose dangling from a rafter.

The gatekeeper shouts, ‘The gates are opening, Sisters!’