David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

The alligator’s umbilical cord is attached to its shell for all eternity.

‘… who has not abused his advantage over Anna’s affections.

It was a posting to Halmahera from which Vorstenbosch rescued Jacob.

‘In the debit column, you are a clerk: not a merchant, not a shipper…

A tortoise from the Island of Diego Garcia appears to be weeping,

‘… or even a warehouse-master, but a clerk. I don’t doubt your affection.

Jacob touches the jar of a Barbados lamprey with his broken nose.

‘But affection is merely the plum in the pudding: the pudding itself is wealth.

The lamprey’s O-shaped mouth is a grinding mill of razor-sharp Vs and Ws.

‘I am, however, willing to give you a chance to earn your pudding, de Zoet – out of respect for Anna’s judge of character. A director at East India House comes to my club. If you wish to become my son-in-law as strongly as you say, he can arrange a five-year clerical post for you in Java. The official salary is meagre but a young man of enterprise may make something of himself. You must give your answer today, however: the Fadrelandet is sailing from Copenhagen in a fortnight…’

‘New friends?’ Deputy van Cleef watches him from the State Room door.

Jacob pulls his gaze from the lamprey’s. ‘I don’t have the luxury to pick and choose, Deputy.’

Van Cleef hums at his candour. ‘Mr Vorstenbosch shall see you now.’

‘Won’t you be joining our meeting, sir?’

‘Pig-iron won’t carry and weigh itself, de Zoet, more’s the pity.’

Unico Vorstenbosch squints at the thermometer hung by the painting of William the Silent. He is pink with heat and shiny with sweat. ‘I shall have Twomey fashion me one of those ingenious cloth fans the English brought from India… oh, the word evades me…’

‘Might you be thinking of a punkah, sir?’

‘Just so. A punkah, with a punkah-wallah to tug its cord…’

Cupido enters, carrying a familiar jade-and-silver teapot on a tray.

‘Interpreter Kobayashi is due at ten,’ says Vorstenbosch, ‘with a gaggle of officials to brief me on court etiquette during our long-delayed audience with the Magistrate. Antique China-ware shall signal that this chief resident is a man of refinement: the Orient is all about signals, de Zoet. Remind me what blue-blood the tea-service was crafted for, according to that Jew in Macao?’

‘He claimed it was from the trousseau of the last Ming Emperor’s wife, sir.’

‘The last Ming Emperor: just so. Oh, and I am desirous that you join us later.’

‘For the meeting with Interpreter Kobayashi and the officials, sir?’

‘For our interview with the Magistrate Shirai… Shilo… Aid me.’

‘Magistrate Shiroyama, sir – sir, I am to visit Nagasaki?’

‘Unless you’d prefer to stay here and record catties of pig-iron?’

‘To set foot on Japan proper would…’ cause Peter Fischer, thinks Jacob, to expire with envy ‘… would be a great adventure. Thank you.’

‘A chief needs a private secretary. Now, let us continue the morning’s business in the privacy of my bureau…’

Sunlight falls across the escritoire in the small adjacent room. ‘So,’ Vorstenbosch settles himself, ‘after three days ashore, how are you finding life on the Company’s furthest-flung outpost?’

‘More salubrious’ – Jacob’s chair creaks – ‘than a posting on Halmahera, sir.’

‘Damnation by dim praise indeed! What irks you most of all: the spies, confinement, lack of liberties… or the ignorance of our countrymen?’

Jacob considers telling Vorstenbosch about the scene at breakfast, but sees nothing to be gained. Respect, he thinks, cannot be commanded from on high.

‘The hands view me with some… suspicion, sir.’

‘Naturally. To decree, “Private Trade is Henceforth Banned” would merely make their schemes more ingenious; a deliberate vagueness is, for the time being, the best prophylactic. The hands resent this, of course, but daren’t vent their anger on me. You bear the brunt.’

‘I’d not wish to appear ungrateful for your patronage, sir.’

‘There’s no gainsaying that Dejima is a dull posting. The days when a man could retire on the profit from two trading seasons here are long, long gone. Swamp-fever and crocodiles shan’t kill you in Japan, but monotony might. But take heart, de Zoet: after one year we return to Batavia where you shall learn how I reward loyalty and diligence. And speaking of diligence, how proceeds your restoration of the ledgers?’

‘The books are an unholy mess, but Mr Ogawa is proving most helpful, and ’ninety-four and ’ninety-five are in large part reconstructed.’

‘A shoddy pass that we have to rely on Japanese archives. But come, we must address yet more pressing matters.’ Vorstenbosch unlocks his desk and takes out a bar of Japanese copper. ‘The world’s reddest, its richest in gold and, for a hundred years, the bride for whom we Dutch have danced in Nagasaki.’ He tosses the flat ingot at Jacob, who catches it neatly. ‘This bride, however, grows skinnier and sulkier by the year. According to your own figures…’ Vorstenbosch consults a slip of paper on his desk-top ‘… in 1790 we exported eight thousand piculs. In ’ninety-four, six thousand. Gijsbert Hemmij, who displayed good judgement only in dying before being charged for incompetence, suffered the quota to drop under four thousand, and during Snitker’s year of misgovernance, a paltry three thousand two hundred, every last bar of which was lost with the Octavia, wherever her wreck may lie.’

The Almelo Clock divides time with bejewelled tweezers.

‘You recall, de Zoet, my visit to the Old Fort prior to our sailing?’

‘I do, sir, yes. The Governor-General spoke with you for two hours.’

‘It was a weighty discussion about nothing less than the future of Dutch Java. Which you hold in your hands.’ Vorstenbosch nods at the copper bar. ‘That’s it.’

Jacob’s melted reflection is captured in the metal. ‘I don’t understand, sir.’

‘The bleak picture of the Company’s dilemma painted by Daniel Snitker was not, alas, hyperbole. What he did not add, because none outside the Council of the Indies knows, is that Batavia’s Treasury is starved away to nothing.’

Carpenters hammer across the street. Jacob’s bent nose aches.

‘Without Japanese copper, Batavia cannot mint coins.’ Vorstenbosch’s fingers twirl an ivory paper-knife. ‘Without coins, the native battalions shall melt back into the jungle. There is no sugar-coating this truth, de Zoet: the High Government can maintain our garrisons on half-pay until next July. Come August, the first deserters leave; come October, the native chiefs smoke our weakness out; and by Christmas, Batavia succumbs to anarchy, rapine, slaughter and John Bull.’

Unbidden, Jacob’s mind pictures these same catastrophes unfolding.

‘Every chief resident in Dejima’s history,’ Vorstenbosch continues, ‘tried to squeeze more precious metals out of Japan. All they ever received were hand-wringing and unkept promises. The wheels of commerce trundled on regardless, but should we fail, de Zoet, the Netherlands loses the Orient.’

Jacob places the copper on the desk. ‘How can we succeed where…’

‘Where so many others failed? Audacity, pugnacity, and by an historic letter.’ Vorstenbosch slides a writing set across the desk. ‘Pray take down a rough copy.’

Jacob readies his board, uncorks the inkwell and dips a quill.

‘ “I, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, P.G. van Overstraten,” ’ Jacob looks at his patron, but there is no mistake, ‘ “on this, the -” Was it the sixteenth of May we left Batavia’s roadstead?’