David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Two acolytes push in a cart loaded with logs and kindling.

Just as the gate closes, Orito notices a cat slip through. It is bright grey, like the moon on blurred evenings, and it swerves across the courtyard. A squirrel runs up the old pine, but the moon-grey cat knows that two-legged creatures offer better pickings than four, and it leaps on to the Cloisters to try its luck with Orito. ‘I never saw you here before,’ the woman tells the animal.

The cat looks at her and miaows, Feed me, for I am beautiful.

Orito proffers a dried pilchard between finger and thumb.

The moon-grey cat inspects the fish indifferently.

‘Someone carried this fish,’ scolds Orito, ‘all the way up this mountain.’

The cat takes the fish, jumps to the ground and goes beneath the walkway.

Orito lowers herself on to the Courtyard, but the cat has gone.

She sees a narrow rectangular hole in the foundations of the House…

… and a voice on the walkway asks, ‘Has the Newest Sister lost anything?’

Guiltily, Orito looks up to see the housekeeper carrying a pile of robes. ‘A cat pleaded for a scrap of food, then slunk away when he got what he wanted.’

‘Must be a tom.’ The housekeeper is doubled over by a sneeze.

Orito helps her pick up the laundry and carry it to the Linen Room. The Newest Sister feels some sympathy towards Housekeeper Satsuki. The Abbess’s rank is clear – below the masters, above the acolytes – but Housekeeper Satsuki shoulders more duties than she enjoys privileges. By the logic of the World Below, her lack of disfigurements and freedom from Engiftment make her position an enviable one, but the House of Sisters has its own logic, and Umegae and Hashihime contrive a dozen means a day to remind the housekeeper that her post exists for their convenience. She rises early, retires late and is excluded from many of the Sisters’ shared intimacies. Orito notices how red are the housekeeper’s eyes, and how poor her colour. ‘Pardon my asking,’ says the doctor’s daughter. ‘But are you unwell?’

‘My health, Sister? My health is… satisfactory, thank you.’

Orito is sure the housekeeper is concealing something.

‘Truly, Sister, I’m well enough: the mountain winters slow me, a little…’

‘How many years have you spent on Mount Shiranui, Housekeeper?’

‘This will be my fifth,’ she seems happy to talk, ‘in the Shrine’s service.’

‘Sister Yayoi told me you’re from a large island in Satsuma Domain.’

‘Oh, it’s a little-known place, a full day’s sail from Kagoshima Port, called Yakushima. Nobody’s heard of it. A few island men serve the Lord of Satsuma as foot-soldiers – they bring back stories they spend their lives embroidering, but otherwise very few islanders ever leave. The interior is mountainous and trackless. Only cautious woodsmen, foolish hunters or wayward pilgrims venture there. The island’s kami gods aren’t used to humans. There is just one notable shrine, halfway up Miura Mountain, two days’ journey from the port, with a small monastery, smaller than Shiranui Shrine.’

Minori passes the Linen Room’s doorway, blowing into her hands.

‘How did you come,’ Orito asks, ‘to be appointed housekeeper here?’

Yûgiri passes in the other direction, swinging a bucket.

The housekeeper unfolds a sheet to fold again. ‘Master Byakko visited Yakushima on a pilgrimage. My father, a fifth son of a lesser family of the Miyake clan, was a samurai in name only – he was a rice and millet merchant, and owned a fishing boat. As he supplied the Miura monastery with rice, he offered to guide Master Byakko up the mountain. I went to carry and cook; we Yakushima girls are bred sturdy.’ The housekeeper risks a rare, shy smile. ‘On the return journey, Master Byakko told my father that the small nunnery attached to Mount Shiranui required a housekeeper who wasn’t afraid of hard work. Father jumped at the chance: I was one of four daughters, and the master’s offer meant one less dowry to find.’

‘What were your thoughts about vanishing over the horizon?’

‘I was nervous, but excited, too, at the idea of seeing the mainland with my own eyes. Two days later, I was on a boat, watching my home island shrink until it was small enough to fit into a thimble… and then there was no going back.’

Sawarabi’s spiked laughter carries through from the Kitchen.

Housekeeper Satsuki is looking backwards through time: her breath is short.

You are more ill, Orito guesses, than you are admitting…

‘Well, what a gossip I am! Thank you for your help, Sister, but you mustn’t let me keep you from your chores. I can finish folding the robes on my own, thank you.’

Orito returns to the Cloisters and takes up her broom again.

The acolytes knock on the gate to be allowed back into the Precincts.

As it opens, the moon-grey cat darts between their legs. It swerves across the Courtyard; a squirrel darts up the old pine. The cat heads straight to Orito, slinks against her shins and looks up at her, meaningfully.

‘If you’ve come back for more fish, you rogue, there isn’t any.’

The cat tells Orito that she is a poor dumb creature.

‘In the domain of Bizen,’ First Sister Hatsune strokes her forever-shut eyelid as the night wind blows around the Shrine, ‘a ravine climbs northwards from the San’yôdo Highway to the castle town of Bitchu. At a narrow twist in this ravine, two footsore pedlars from Osaka were overtaken by night, and made camp at the foot of an abandoned shrine to Inari, the Fox God, underneath a venerable walnut-tree, draped in moss. Now the first pedlar, a cheerful fellow, sold ribbons, combs and suchlike. He’d charm the girls, cajole the young men, and business had been good. “Ribbons for kisses,” he’d sing, “from all the young misses!” The second pedlar was a knife-seller. He was a darker-spirited fellow who believed that the world owed him a living, and his handcart was full of unsold merchandise. On the night this tale begins, they warmed themselves at their fire and talked about what they would do on their return to Osaka. The ribbon pedlar was set on marrying his childhood sweetheart, but the knife-seller planned to open a pawnbroker’s shop to earn the most money with the least work.’

Sawarabi’s scissors snip snip snip through a band of cotton.

‘Before they slept, the knife-seller suggested that they pray to Inari-sama for his protection through the night in such a lonely spot. The ribbon pedlar agreed, but as he knelt before the abandoned altar, the knife-seller chopped off his head with a single stroke of his biggest unsold axe.’

Several of the Sisters gasp and Sadaie gives a little shriek. ‘No!’

‘Phut Sister,’ says Asagao, ‘you told us the two nen were phriends.’

‘So the poor ribbon-seller thought, Sister. But now the knife-seller stole his companion’s money, buried the body and fell sound asleep. Surely nightmares, or strange groans, plagued him? Not at all. The knife-seller woke up refreshed, enjoyed his victim’s food for breakfast and had an uneventful journey back to Osaka. Setting himself up in business with the murdered man’s money, he prospered as a pawnbroker, and soon he was lining his robes and eating the daintiest delicacies with silver chopsticks. Four springs came and four autumns went. Then, one afternoon, a spruce, bushy customer in a brown cloak walked into the pawnbroker’s shop and produced a box of walnut wood. From inside, he removed a polished human skull. The pawnbroker said, “The box may be worth a few copper mon, but why are you showing me this old lump of bone?” The stranger smiled at the pawnbroker with his fine white teeth and commanded the skull: “Sing!” And as I live and breathe, Sisters, sing it did, and here is the song that it sang: