David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Thoughts of death creep through the pine trees towards Uzaemon.

He wishes the human mind were a scroll that could be rolled up…

‘Junrei-san, we have the-’

Uzaemon is so startled by the speaking tree that he falls on his backside.

‘Did we startle you?’ A boulder’s shadow turns into the mercenary Tanuki.

‘Just a little, yes.’ Uzaemon steadies his breathing.

‘We have the woman,’ Kenka appears from the tree, ‘safe and sound.’

‘That’s good,’ says Uzaemon. ‘That’s very, very good.’

A calloused hand finds Uzaemon’s and lifts him to his feet. ‘Was anyone hurt?’ Uzaemon meant to ask, ‘In what state is Orito?’

‘Nobody whatsoever,’ says Tanuki. ‘Master Genmu’s a man of peace.’

‘Meaning,’ adds Kenka, ‘he shan’t have his Shrine polluted by bloodshed for the sake of one nun. But he’s also a wily old fox, and Deguchi-san wants you to come and check that the man of peace isn’t fobbing us off with a decoy before we leave and they barricade the gate.’

‘There are two nuns with burnt faces.’ Tanuki uncorks a small flask and drinks from it. ‘I went inside the House of Sisters. What a strange menagerie Enomoto’s assembled! Here, drink this: it’ll protect you from the cold and bolster your strength. Waiting is worse than doing.’

‘I’m warm enough,’ Uzaemon shivers. ‘There’s no need.’

‘You have three days to put a hundred miles between yourself and Kyôga Domain, preferably on Honshu. You won’t get that far with a chill in your lungs. Drink!’

Uzaemon accepts the mercenary’s gruff kindness. The spirit scalds his throat. ‘Thank you.’

The trio make their way back down to the tunnel of torî gates.

‘Assuming you saw the correct Aibagawa-san, in what state is she?’

The pause is long enough for Uzaemon to fear the worst.

‘Gaunt,’ answers Tanuki, ‘but well enough, I’d say. Calm.’

‘Her mind’s sharp,’ adds Kenka. ‘She’s not asking us who we are: she knows her captors might overhear. I can see why a man might go to all this time and expense for a woman like that.’

They arrive at the track and begin the final climb through the torî gates.

Uzaemon notices a strange elasticity in his legs. Nerves, he thinks, are natural.

But soon the path is undulating like the slow swell of waves.

The last two days have been taxing. He steadies his breathing. The worst is over.

Past the torî gates, the ground flattens. The Shrine of Mount Shiranui rears up.

Roofs hunker behind high walls. Weak light escapes a gap in the gates.

He hears Dr Marinus’s harpsichord. He thinks, Impossible.

His cheek presses the frosted leaf-mould, soft as a woman’s midriff.

Awareness begins in the membranes of his nose and spreads through his head, but his body cannot move. Questions and statements assert themselves like a throng of sickbed visitors: ‘You fainted again,’ says one. ‘You are indoors in Mount Shiranui Shrine,’ says another, and then they all speak at once: ‘Were you drugged?’; ‘You are sitting upright on a cold floor of beaten earth’; ‘Yes, you were drugged: Tanuki’s drink?’; ‘Your wrists are bound behind a pillar and your ankles are tied’; ‘Was Shuzai betrayed by some of his men?’

‘He can hear us now, Abbot,’ says an unknown voice.

The tip of a glass bottle brushes Uzaemon’s nostril.

‘Thank you, Suzaku,’ says a voice he knows, but cannot yet place.

The smell of rice, sake and pickled vegetables suggest a storehouse.

Orito’s letters. There is an emptiness at his midriff. They’re gone.

Wasps of pain crawl in and out through the stump of his brain.

‘Open your eyes, Ogawa the Younger,’ says Enomoto. ‘We aren’t children.’

He obeys, and the Lord of Kyôga’s face rises in the lantern-lit darkness.

‘You are an estimable scholar,’ says the face. ‘You are a risible thief.’

Three or four human shapes watch from the edges of the storeroom.

‘I didn’t come here,’ Uzaemon tells his captor, ‘to steal anything that is yours.’

‘Why oblige me to spell out what is obvious? Mount Shiranui Shrine is an organ in the body of the Domain of Kyôga. The Sisters belong to that Shrine.’

‘She was neither her stepmother’s to sell nor yours to buy.’

‘Sister Aibagawa is a glad servant of the Goddess. She has no wish to leave.’

‘Let her tell me so from her own lips.’

‘No. Some habits of mind from her old life had to be…’ Enomoto pretends to search for the right verb ‘… cauterised. Her scars are healed, but only a negligent Lord Abbot would allow a dithering one-time sweetheart to pick at them.’

The others, thinks Uzaemon. What about Shuzai and the others?

‘Shuzai is alive, well,’ says Enomoto, ‘and drinking soup in the kitchen with my other ten men. Your plot put them all to some trouble.’

Uzaemon refuses to believe. I’ve known Shuzai for ten years.

‘He is a loyal friend,’ Enomoto tries not to smile, ‘but not your loyal friend.’

A lie, Uzaemon insists, a lie. A key to pick the lock of my mind…

‘Why would I lie?’ Midnight-blue watered silk flows upwards as Enomoto reseats himself much closer. ‘No, the cautionary tale of Ogawa Uzaemon pertains to discontent. Adopted into a once-illustrious family, he climbed by talent to a high rank, enjoying the respect of the Shirandô Academy, a secure stipend, a pretty wife and enviable trading opportunities with the Dutch. Who could want more? Ogawa Uzaemon wanted more! He was infected with that sickness the world calls True Love. In the end, it killed him.’

The human forms around the edges bestir themselves.

I shan’t beg for my life, Uzaemon avows, but I shall learn why and how. ‘How much did you pay Shuzai to betray me?’

‘Come! The Lord of Kyôga’s favour is worth more than a hunter’s bounty.’

‘There was a young man, a guard, who died at the Halfway Gate…’

‘A spy in the pay of the Lord of Saga: your adventure gave us a pleasing way to kill him.’

‘Why bother bringing me all the way up Mount Shiranui?’

‘Assassinations in Nagasaki can lead to awkward questions, and the poetry of your dying so very near your Beloved – mere rooms away! – was irresistible.’

‘Let me see her,’ the wasps swarm in Uzaemon’s brain, ‘or I will kill you from the other side.’

‘How gratifying: a dying curse from a Shirandô scholar! Alas, I have empirical proof enough to satisfy a Descartes or even a Marinus that dying curses don’t work. Down the ages, many hundreds of men, women and even quite small children have all vowed to drag me down to Hell. Yet, as you see, I am still here, walking this beautiful Earth.’

He wants to taste my fear. ‘So you believe your Order’s demented Creeds?’

‘Ah, yes. We found some pleasant letters on your person, but not a certain dogwood scroll-tube. Now, I shan’t pretend you can save yourself: your death became pre-ordained from the hour the herbalist came knocking on your gate. But you can save the Ogawa Residence from the ruinous fire that shall incinerate it in the Sixth Month of this year. What do you say?’

‘Two letters,’ Uzaemon lies, ‘were delivered to Ogawa Mimasaku today. One removes me from the Ogawa family register. The other divorces my wife. Why destroy a house that has no connection to me?’

‘Pure spite. Give me the scroll, or die knowing they die too.’

‘Tell me why you abducted Dr Aibagawa’s daughter when you did.’

Enomoto decides to indulge him. ‘I feared I might lose her. A page from a Dutchman’s notebook came into my possession, thanks to your colleague Kobayashi’s good offices. Look. I brought it.’