David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

The Ogawas pass a queue of newly-wed couples waiting to breathe in incense smoke curling from the bronze Ryûgaji dragon’s mouth. Local legend promises them a healthy baby son. Uzaemon senses that his wife would like to join them, but is too ashamed of her two miscarriages. The temple’s cavernous entrance is strung with twists of white paper to celebrate the forthcoming Year of the Sheep. Their servants help them out of their shoes, which they store on shelves marked with their names. An initiate greets them with a nervous bow, ready to guide them to the Gallery of Paulownia to perform the fumi-e ritual away from the prying eyes of the lower orders. ‘The Head Priest guides the Ogawas,’ Uzaemon’s father remarks.

‘The Head Priest,’ the initiate apologises, ‘is busy with te-te-te -’

Ogawa Mimasaku sighs and stares off to one side.

‘- temple duties,’ the stutterer is mortified into fluency, ‘at present.’

‘Whatever a man is busy with, that is what, or whom, he values.’

The initiate leads them to a line of thirty- or forty-strong. ‘The wait should,’ he takes a deep breath, ‘n-n-n-nnn-n-n-not be long.’

‘How, in Buddha’s name,’ asks Uzaemon’s father, ‘do you say your sutras?’

The blushing initiate grimaces, bows, and returns the way he came.

Ogawa Mimasaku is half smiling for the first time in many days.

Uzaemon’s mother, meanwhile, greets the family ahead. ‘Nabeshima-san!’

A portly matriarch turns around. ‘Ogawa-san!’

‘Another year gone,’ croons Uzaemon’s mother, ‘in the blink of an eye!’

Ogawa the Elder and the opposing patriarch, a rice-tax collector for the Magistracy, exchange manly bows; Uzaemon greets the three Nabeshima sons, all close to him in age and employed in their father’s office.

‘The blink of an eye,’ sighs the matriarch, ‘with two new grandsons…’

Uzaemon glances at his wife, who is withering away with shame.

‘Please accept,’ says his mother, ‘our heartfelt congratulations.’

‘I tell my daughters-in-law,’ huffs Mrs Nabeshima, ‘ “Slow down: it isn’t a race!” But young people nowadays won’t listen, don’t you find? Now the middle one thinks she has another on the way. Between ourselves,’ she leans close to Uzaemon’s mother, ‘I was too lenient when they arrived. Now they run amok. You three! Where are your manners? For shame!’ Her forefinger plucks her daughters-in-law one step forward, each dressed in a seasonal kimono and tasteful sash. ‘Had I worn my mother-in-law down like these three tormentors, I would have been sent back to my parents’ house in disgrace.’ The three young wives stare at the ground, whilst Uzaemon’s attention is drawn to their babies, in the arms of wet-nurses over to one side. He is assailed, as he has been countless times since the day of the herbalist of Kurozane’s visit, by nightmarish images of Orito being ‘Engifted’; and, nine months later, of the masters ‘consuming’ the Goddess’s Gifts. The questions begin circling. How do they actually kill the newborn? How is it kept secret from the mothers, from the world? How can men believe that this depravity lets them cheat death? How can their consciences be amputated?

‘I see your wife – Okinu-san, isn’t it?’ Mrs Nabeshima regards Uzaemon with a saint’s smile and a lizard’s eyes ‘- is a better-bred girl altogether than my three. “We” are as yet’ – she pats her stomach – ‘unblessed, are we?’

Okinu’s face-paint hides her blush, but her cheeks quiver slightly.

‘My son does his part,’ Uzaemon’s mother declares, ‘but she is so careless.’

‘And how,’ Mrs Nabeshima tuts, ‘have “we” settled into Nagasaki?’

‘She still pines for Shimonoseki,’ says Uzaemon’s mother. ‘Such a crybaby!’

‘Homesickness may be’ – the matriarch pats her belly again – ‘the cause…’

Uzaemon wants to defend his wife, but how to combat a painted mudslide?

‘Could your husband,’ Mrs Nabeshima is asking Uzaemon’s mother, ‘spare you and Okinu-san this afternoon, I wonder? We’re having a little party at home, and your daughter-in-law may benefit from the advice of mothers her own age. But – oh!’ She regards Ogawa the Elder with a dismayed frown. ‘What must you think of such an imposition at so short a notice, given your husband’s health-’

‘Her husband’s health,’ the old man interrupts, ‘is excellent. You two,’ he sneers at his wife and daughter-in-law, ‘do whatever you wish. I’m going to have sutras recited for Hisanobu.’

‘Such a devout father,’ Mrs Nabeshima shakes her head, ‘is a model for the youth of today. All’s settled, then, yes, Mrs Ogawa? After the fumi-e, come back to our-’ She breaks off her sentence to address a wet-nurse. ‘Silence that mewling piglet! Have you forgotten where we are? For shame!’

The wet-nurse turns away, bares her breast and feeds the baby.

Uzaemon peers at the queue into the gallery, trying to gauge its speed.

The Buddhist deity Fudô Myôô glares from his candlelit shrine: his fury, Uzaemon was taught, frightens the impious; his sword slices their ignorance; his rope binds demons; his third eye scrutinises human hearts; and the rock on which he stands signifies immovability. Seated before him are six officials from the Inspectorate of Spiritual Purity, dressed in ceremonial attire.

The first official asks Uzaemon’s father, ‘Please state your name and position.’

‘Ogawa Mimasaku, Interpreter of the First Rank of Dejima Interpreters, head of the Ogawa household of the Higashizaka Ward.’

The first inspector tells a second, ‘Ogawa Mimasaku is present.’

The second finds the name on a register. ‘Ogawa Mimasaku’s name is listed.’

The third writes the name. ‘Ogawa Mimasaku, hereby registered as present.’

A fourth declaims, ‘Ogawa Mimasaku will now perform the act of fumi-e.’

Ogawa Mimasaku steps on to the well-worn bronze plaque of Jesus Christ, and grinds his heel on the image for good measure.

A fifth official calls out, ‘Ogawa Mimasaku has performed fumi-e.’

The Interpreter of the First Rank steps off the idolatrous plaque, and is helped by Kiyoshichi to a low bench. Uzaemon suspects he is suffering more pain than he is willing to show.

A sixth official marks his register. ‘Ogawa Mimasaku is registered as having performed the act of fumi-e.’

Uzaemon thinks about the foreigner de Zoet’s Psalms of David and the narrowness of his own escape when Kobayashi had the Dutchman’s apartment burgled. He wishes he had asked de Zoet about his mysterious religion last summer.

Festive noise washes in from the commoners’ ritual in a neighbouring hall.

The first official is now addressing him: ‘Please state your name and profession…’

Once the formalities are completed, Uzaemon steps up to the fumi-e.

He glances down and meets the pained eyes of the foreign god. Uzaemon presses his foot down on the bronze, and thinks of the long line of Ogawas of Nagasaki who have stood on this same fumi-e. On previous New Year’s Days, Uzaemon felt proud to be the latest in this line: some ancestors would, like him, have been adoptive sons. But today he feels like an impostor, and he knows why.

My loyalty to Orito, he phrases it, is stronger than my loyalty to the Ogawas.

He feels the face of Jesus Christ against the sole of his foot.

Whatever the cost, Uzaemon vows, I shall free her. But I need help.

The walls of Shuzai’s dojo hall echo with the two swordsmen’s shrieks and the crack of bamboo poles. They attack, parry, counter, rout; attack, parry, counter, rout. The sprung wooden floor creaks under their bare feet. Drips of rainwater are caught by buckets, which, when full, are changed by Shuzai’s last remaining apprentice. The practice bout comes to an abrupt end when the shorter of the two combatants deals his partner a blow on his right elbow, causing Uzaemon to drop his pole. The concerned victor slides up his face-mask, revealing a flat-nosed, well-weathered and watchful man well into his forties. ‘Is it broken?’