David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

‘Won’t our hired men also be making fugitives of themselves?’

‘Masterless samurai are used to looking after themselves. Make no mistake: the man with most to lose is Ogawa Uzaemon. You are exchanging a career, a stipend, a bright future…’ the older man casts around for a tactful phrase.

‘… for a woman – in all likelihood a broken, pregnant woman.’

Shuzai’s expression replies, yes.

‘Or thanking my adoptive father by disappearing without a word?’

My suffering wife, at least, Uzaemon foresees, can go back to her family.

‘Confucianists would scream “heresy!” ’ Shuzai’s gaze settles on the urn housing his master’s thumb-bone, ‘but there are times when the less loyal son is the better man.’

‘My “commission”,’ Uzaemon struggles to articulate himself, ‘feels less a matter of righting a wrong and more a matter of – of role, of “This is what I am for.” ’

‘Now it is you who sounds like the believer in Fate.’

‘Please make the arrangements for the raid. Whatever the costs, I will pay.’

Shuzai says ‘Yes,’ as if there is no other conclusion.

‘Raise your elbow that high,’ a sharp-voiced senior disciple in the dojo hall tells a junior, ‘and one well-aimed uekiri stroke will pound it to rice powder…’

‘Where,’ Shuzai changes the subject, ‘is Jiritsu’s scroll now?’

Uzaemon resists an urge to touch the scroll-tube in an inner pocket. ‘It is hidden…’ if we are captured, he thinks, better not to know the truth ‘… under the floor of my father’s library.’

‘Good. Keep it there for now,’ Shuzai rolls up his own drawing of the Shiranui Shrine, ‘but bring it when we leave for Kyôga. If all goes well, you and Miss Aibagawa will vanish like two drops of rain, but if Enomoto ever tracks you down, that manuscript could be your sole means of defence. I said earlier that the monks pose little danger; I cannot say the same for the Lord Abbot’s vengeance.’

‘Thank you,’ Uzaemon rises, ‘for your clear-headed advice.’

Jacob de Zoet empties the hot water into a cup and stirs in a spoonful of honey. ‘I had the same cold last week. Sore throat, headache, and I’m still croaking like a frog. During July and August, my body forgot what cold weather felt like – quite a feat for a Zeelander. But now it’s that blistering summer heat I can’t remember.’

Uzaemon missed some words. ‘Memory is tricks and strangeness.’

‘That’s the truth,’ de Zoet adds a dash of pale juice, ‘and this is lime.’

‘Your room,’ observes the visitor, ‘is change.’ Additions include the low table and cushions, a New Year’s kadomatsu pine wreath, a competent picture of a monkey drawn in pen and ink, and a folding screen to hide de Zoet’s bed. Which Orito might have shared, Uzaemon suffers a complicated ache, and better that she had. The head clerk has no slave or servant, but the apartment is tidy and swept. ‘Room is comfort and pleasant…’

‘Dejima,’ de Zoet stirs the drink, ‘is to be my home for some years.’

‘You do not wish to take a wife for more comfort life?’

‘I don’t view such transactions as lightly as do my compatriots.’

Uzaemon is encouraged. ‘Picture of monkey is very beauty.’

‘That? Thank you, but I’m an incurable beginner.’

Uzaemon’s surprise is genuine. ‘You draw monkey, Mr de Zoet?’

De Zoet replies with an embarrassed smile and serves the lime and honey drink. He then flouts the laws of small-talk. ‘How may I be of service, Ogawa-san?’

Uzaemon looks at the steam rising from the bowl. ‘I am disturb your office at important period, I fear.’

‘Deputy Fischer exaggerates. There isn’t much to be done.’

‘Then…’ the interpreter touches the hot porcelain with his fingertips ‘… I wish Mr de Zoet keep – to hide – a… a very important thing, safe.’

‘If you wish to use one of our warehouses, perhaps Chief van Cleef should-’

‘No no. This is small thing.’ Uzaemon produces the dogwood scroll-tube.

De Zoet frowns at the item. ‘I shall oblige, of course, and gladly.’

‘I know Mr de Zoet is able to hide items with greatest care.’

‘I shall hide it with my Book of Psalms, until you want it back.’

‘Thank you. I – I hoped you say these words.’ Uzaemon addresses de Zoet’s unasked questions with a foreigner’s directness. ‘First, to answer, “What is the words in this scroll?” You remember Enomoto, I think’ – the name causes de Zoet’s face to cloud over – ‘is Lord Abbot of Shrine in Kyôga Domain, where… where Miss Aibagawa must live.’ The Dutchman nods. ‘This scroll is – how to say? – rules believings laws of Order, of Shrine. These laws are -’ this would be hard in Japanese, the interpreter thinks, sighing, but in Dutch it is like breaking rocks ‘- these rules are… are bad, worse, worst than worst wrong, for woman. It is great suffering… it is not endurable.’

‘What rules? What must she endure, Ogawa, for God’s sake?’

Uzaemon shuts his eyes. He keeps them shut and shakes his head.

‘At least,’ de Zoet’s voice is cracked, ‘tell me if the scroll could be a weapon to attack Enomoto, or shame him into releasing her? Or, via the Magistracy, could the scroll win Miss Aibagawa justice?’

‘I am Interpreter of Third Rank. Enomoto is Lord Abbot. He has more power than Magistrate Shirayama. Justice in Japan is justice of power.’

‘So Miss Aibagawa must suffer – suffer the “unendurable” for the rest of her life?’

Uzaemon hesitates. ‘A friend, in Nagasaki, wish to help… with directness.’

De Zoet is no fool. ‘You plan a rescue? Can you hope to succeed?’

Uzaemon hesitates again. ‘Not he and I alone. I… purchase assistance.’

‘Mercenaries are risky allies, as we Dutch know well.’ De Zoet’s mind works an abacus of implications. ‘But how could you return to Dejima, afterwards? And she would just be recaptured. You’d have to go into hiding – permanently – and – so why – why sacrifice so much – everything? Unless… oh.’

Momentarily, the two men are unable to look each other in the eye.

So now you know, the interpreter thinks, I love her too.

‘I am a fool.’ The Dutchman rubs his green eyes. ‘A myopic, holy fool…’

Two of the Malay slaves hurry down Long Street speaking their language.

‘… but why did you help my – my advances towards her, if you, too…’

‘Better she lives here with you than become locked forever in bad marriage, or be sent away from Nagasaki.’

‘Yet still you entrust me with this’ – he touches the tube – ‘unusable evidence?’

‘You wish her freedom, too. You will not sell me to Enomoto.’

‘Never. But what am I to do with the scroll? I am a prisoner here.’

‘Do nothing. If rescue succeed, I not need it. If rescue…’ the conspirator drinks his honey and lime ‘… if rescue does not succeed, if Enomoto learns of scroll’s existence, he will hunt in my father’s house, in friends’ houses. Rules of Order is very, very secret. Enomoto kill to possess it. But on Dejima, Enomoto has no power. Here he will not search, I believe.’

‘How will I know whether your mission succeeds or not?’

‘If succeeds, I send message when I can, when is safe.’

De Zoet is shaken by this interview, but his voice is steady. ‘You shall be in my prayers, always. When you meet Miss Aibagawa, tell her… tell her… just tell her that. You shall both be in my prayers.’

Minutes before sunrise on the Eighteenth Day of the First Month