The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, Page 37

  “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 necessary 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.”

  Enomoto unfolds a sheet of European paper and holds it up:

  Retain this, Uzaemon tells his memory. Show me her, at the end.

  “De Zoet draws a fair likeness.” Enomoto folds it up. “Fair enough to worry Aibagawa Seian’s widow that a Dutchman had designs on the family’s best asset. The dictionary your servant smuggled to Orito settled the matter. My bailiff persuaded the widow to ignore funerary protocol and settle her stepdaughter’s future without further delay.”

  “Did you tell that wretched woman about your demented practices?”

  “What an earthworm knows of Copernicus, you know of the creeds.”

  “You keep a harem of deformities for your monks’ pleasure—”

  “Can you hear how like a child trying to postpone his bedtime you sound?”

  “Why not present a paper to the academy,” Uzaemon asks, “about—”

  “Why do you mortal gnats suppose that your incredulity matters?”

  “—about murdering your ‘harvested gifts’ to ‘distill their souls’?”

  “This is your last opportunity to save the Ogawa house from—”

  “And then bottling them, like perfume, and ‘imbibing’ them, like medicine, and cheating death? Why not share your magical revelation with the world?” Uzaemon scowls at the shifting figures. “Here’s my guess: because there’s one small part of you that’s still sane, an inner Jiritsu who says, ‘This is evil.’”

  “Oh, evil. Evil, evil, evil. You always wield that word as if it were a sword and not a vapid conceit. When you suck the yolk from an egg, is this ‘evil’? Survival is Nature’s law, and my order holds—or, better, is—the secret of surviving mortality. Newborn infants are a messy requisite—after the first two weeks of life, the enmeshed soul can’t be extracted—and a fifty-strong order needs a constant supply for its own use, and to purchase the favors of an elite few. Your Adam Smith would understand. Without the order, moreover, the gifts wouldn’t exist in the first place. They are an ingredient we manufacture. Where is your ‘evil’?”

  “Eloquent lunacy, Lord Abbot Enomoto, is still lunacy.”

  “I am over six hundred years old. You shall die, in minutes …”

  He believes his creeds, Uzaemon sees. He believes every single word.

  “… so which is stronger? Your reason? Or my eloquent lunacy?”

  “Free me,” Uzaemon says, “free Miss Aibagawa, and I’ll tell you where the scr—”

  “No, no, there can be no bargaining. Nobody outside the order may know the creeds and live. You must die, just as Jiritsu did, and that busy old herbalist …”

  Uzaemon groans with grief. “She was harmless.”

  “She wanted to harm my order. We defend ourselves. But I want you to look at this—an artifact that Fate, in the guise of Vorstenbosch the Dutchman, sold me.” Enomoto exhibits a foreign-made pistol, inches from Uzaemon’s face. “A pearl-inlaid handle, and craftsmanship exquisite enough to confound the Confucianists’ claim that Europeans lack souls. Since Shuzai told me of your heroic plans, it has been waiting. See—see, Ogawa, this concerns you—how one raises this ‘hammer’ to ‘half cock,’ loads the gun down the ‘muzzle’ thus: first, the gunpowder, and then with a lead ball wrapped in paper. One pushes it down with this ‘ramrod’ stored on the underside of the barrel …”

  It’s now. Uzaemon’s heart knocks like a bloodied fist. It’s now.

  “… then one supplies the ‘flashpan,’ here, with a little powder, shuts its lid, and now our pistol is ‘primed and ready.’ Done, in half a Hollander’s minute. Yes, a master archer can string another arrow in the blink of an eye, but guns are manufactured more quickly than master archers. Any son of a shit carrier could wield one of these and bring down a mounted samurai. The day is coming—you shan’t see it, but I shall—when such firearms transform even our secretive world. When one squeezes the trigger, a flint strikes this ‘frizzen’ as the flashpan lid opens. The spark ignites the priming powder, sending a flame through this ‘touchhole’ into the combustion chamber. The main powder ignites, like a miniature cannon, and the lead ball bores through your—”

  Enomoto presses the pistol’s muzzle against Uzaemon’s heart.

  Uzaemon is aware of urine warming his thighs but is too scared for shame.

  It’s now, it’s now, it’s now, it’s now, it’s now, it’s now, it’s now …

  “—or maybe …” The pistol’s mouth plants a kiss on Uzaemon’s temple.

  It’s now it’s now it’s now it’s now it’s now it’s now it’s now

  “Animal terror,” a murmur enters Uzaemon’s ear, “has half dissolved your mind, so I shall provide you with a thought. Music, as it were, to die to. The acolytes of the Order of Mount Shiranui are initiated into the twelve creeds, but they stay ignorant of the thirteenth until they become masters—one of whom you met this morning, the landlord at the Harubayashi Inn. The thirteenth creed pertains to an untidy loose end. Were our sisters—and housekeepers, in fact—to descend to the world below and discover that not one of their gifts, their children, is alive or known, questions might be asked. To avoid such unpleasantness, Suzaku administers a gentle drug at their rite of departure. This drug ensures a dreamless death, long before their palanquin reaches the foot of Mekura Gorge. They are then buried in that very bamboo grove into which you blundered this morning. So here is your final thought: your childlike failure to rescue Aibagawa Orito sentences her not only to twenty years of servitude—your ineptitude has, literally, killed her.”

  The pistol rests on Ogawa Uzaemon’s forehead …

  He expends his last moment on a prayer. Avenge me.

  A click, a spring, a strangled whimper nothing now but

  Now Now Now Now now now now now nownownow—

  Thunder splits the rift where the sun floods in.

  Part Three

  THE MASTER OF GO

  The seventh month of the thirteenth year of the Era of Kansei

  August 1800

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  DEJIMA

  August 1800

  LAST TRADING SEASON, IGNATIUS WHITTLED A SPOON FROM A BONE. A fine spoon, in the shape of a fish. Master Grote saw the fine spoon, and he told Ignatius, “Slaves eat with fingers. Slaves cannot own spoons.” Then, Master Grote took the fine spoon. Later, I passed Master Grote and a Japanese gentlema
n. Master Grote was saying, “This spoon was made by the very hands of the famous Robinson Crusoe.” Later, Sjako heard Master Baert tell Master Oost how the Japanese gentleman had paid five lacquer bowls for Robinson Crusoe’s spoon. D’Orsaiy told Ignatius to hide his spoon better next time and trade with the coolies or carpenters. But Ignatius said, “Why? When Master Grote or Master Gerritszoon hunt through my straw next time, they find my earnings and take them. They say, ‘Slaves do not own. Slaves are owned.’”

  Sjako said that masters do not allow slaves to own goods or money, because a slave with money could run away more easily. Philander said that such talk was bad talk. Cupido said to Ignatius that if he carves more spoons and gives them to Master Grote, Master Grote will value him more and surely treat him better. I said, those words are true if the master is a good master, but for a bad master, it is never true.

  Cupido and Philander are favorites of the Dutch officers, because they play music at the dinner parties. They call themselves “servants” and use fancy Dutch words like “wigs” and “laces.” They talk about “my flute” and “my stockings.” But Philander’s flute and Cupido’s fat violin and their elegant costumes belong to their masters. They wear no shoes. When the Vorstenbosch left last year, he sold them to the Van Cleef. They say they were “passed on” from the old chief to the new chief, but they were sold for five guineas each.

  No, a slave cannot even say, “These are my fingers,” or “This is my skin.” We do not own our bodies. We do not own our families. Once, Sjako would talk about “my children back in Batavia.” He fathered his children, yes. But to his masters they are not “his.” To his masters, Sjako is like a horse, who fathered a foal on a mare. Here is the proof: when Sjako complained too bitterly that he had not seen his family for many years, Master Fischer and Master Gerritszoon beat him severely. Sjako walks with a limp now. He talks less.

  Once, I thought this question: Do I own my name? I do not mean my slave names. My slave names change at the whims of my masters. The Acehnese slavers who stole me named me “Straight Teeth.” The Dutchman who bought me at Batavia slave market named me “Washington.” He was a bad master. Master Yang named me Yang Fen. He taught me tailoring and fed me the same food as his sons. My third owner was Master van Cleef. He named me “Weh” because of a mistake. When he asked Master Yang—using fancy Dutch words—for my name, the Chinaman thought the question was “From where does he hail?” and replied, “An island called Weh,” and my next slave name was fixed. But it is a happy mistake for me. On Weh, I was not a slave. On Weh, I was with my people.

  My true name I tell nobody, so nobody can steal my name.

  The answer, I think, is yes—my true name is a thing I own.

  Sometimes another thought comes to me: Do I own my memories?

  The memory of my brother diving from the turtle rock, sleek and brave …

  The memory of the typhoon bending the trees like grass, the sea roaring …

  The memory of my tired, glad mother rocking the new baby to sleep, singing …

  Yes—like my true name, my memories are things I own.

  Once, I thought this thought: Do I own this thought?

  The answer was hidden in mist, so I asked Dr. Marinus’s servant, Eelattu.

  Eelattu answered, yes, my thoughts are born in my mind, so they are mine. Eelattu said that I can own my mind, if I choose. I said, “Even a slave?” Eelattu said, yes, if the mind is a strong place. So I created a mind like an island, like Weh, protected by deep blue sea. On my mind island, there are no bad-smelling Dutchmen, or sneering Malay servants, or Japanese men.

  Master Fischer owns my body, then, but he does not own my mind. This I know, because of a test. When I shave Master Fischer, I imagine slitting open his throat. If he owned my mind, he would see this evil thought. But instead of punishing me, he just sits there with his eyes shut.

  But I discovered there are problems with owning your mind. When I am on my mind island, I am as free as any Dutchman. There, I eat capons and mango and sugared plums. There, I lie with Master van Cleef’s wife in the warm sand. There, I build boats and weave sails with my brother and my people. If I forget their names, they remind me. We speak in the tongue of Weh and drink kava and pray to our ancestors. There, I do not stitch or scrub or fetch or carry for masters.

  Then I hear, “Are you listening to me, idle dog?”

  Then I hear, “If you won’t move for me, here’s my whip!”

  Each time I return from my mind island, I am recaptured by slavers.

  When I return to Dejima, the scars from my capture ache, a little.

  When I return to Dejima, I feel a coal of anger glowing inside.

  The word “my” brings pleasure. The word “my” brings pain. These are true words for masters as well as slaves. When they are drunk, we become invisible to them. Their talk turns to owning, or to profit, or loss, or buying, or selling, or stealing, or hiring, or renting, or swindling. For white men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free. Only Dr. Marinus is free from these complaints. His skin is a white man’s, but through his eyes you can see his soul is not a white man’s soul. His soul is much older. On Weh, we would call him a kwaio. A kwaio is an ancestor who does not stay on the island of ancestors. A kwaio returns and returns and returns, each time in a new child. A good kwaio may become a shaman, but nothing in this world is worse than a bad kwaio.

  The doctor persuaded Master Fischer that I should be taught to write Dutch.

  Master Fischer did not like the idea. He said that a slave who can read might ruin himself with “revolutionary notions.” He said he saw this in Surinam. But Dr. Marinus urged Master Fischer to consider how useful I will be in the clerks’ office and how much higher a price I will fetch when he wants to sell me. These words changed Master Fischer’s mind. He looked down the dining table to Master de Zoet. He said, “Clerk de Zoet, I have the perfect job for a man like you.”

  WHEN MASTER FISCHER finishes his meal in the kitchen, I walk behind him to the deputy’s house. When we cross Long Street, I must carry his parasol so his head stays in the shade. This is not an easy task. If a tassel touches his head, or if the sun dazzles his eyes, he will hit me for carelessness. Today my master is in a bad mood because he lost so much money at Master Grote’s card game. He stops here, in the middle of Long Street. “In Surinam,” he yells, “they know how to train stinking Negroid dogs like you!” Then he slaps my face, as hard as he can, and I drop the parasol. He shouts at me, “Pick that up!” When I bend down, he kicks my face. This is a favorite trick of Master Fischer’s, so my face is turned away from his foot, but I pretend to be in great pain. Otherwise he will feel cheated and kick me again. He says, “That’ll teach you to throw my possessions in the dust!” I say, “Yes, Master Fischer,” and open the door of his house for him.

  We climb the stairs to his bedroom. He lies on his bed and says, “It’s too bloody damned hot in this bloody damned prison.”

  There is much talk about “prison” this summer, because the ship from Batavia has not arrived. The white masters are afraid that it will not come, so there will be no trading season and no news or luxuries from Java. The white masters who are due to return will not be able to. Nor will their servants or slaves.

  Master Fischer throws his handkerchief on the floor and says, “Shit!”

  This Dutch word can be a curse, or a bad name, but this time Master Fischer is ordering me to put his chamber pot in his favorite corner. There is a privy at the foot of the stairs, but he is too lazy to go down the steps. Master Fischer stands, unfastens his breeches, squats over the pot, and grunts. I hear a slithery thud. The smell snakes its way around the room. Then Master Fischer
is buttoning up his breeches. “Don’t just stand there, then, you idle Gomorrah …” His voice is drowsy because of his lunchtime whiskey. I put the wooden lid on the chamber pot—and go outside to the soil barrel. Master Fischer says he cannot tolerate dirt in his house, so I cannot empty his chamber pot into the privy like other slaves do.

  I walk down Long Street to the crossroads, turn into Bony Alley, turn left at Seawall Lane, pass the headman’s house, and empty the chamber pot into the soil urn, near the back of the hospital. The cloud of flies is thick and droning. I narrow my eyes like a yellow man’s and wrinkle shut my nose to stop any flies laying their eggs there. Then I wash the chamber pot from the barrel of seawater. On the bottom of Master Fischer’s chamber pot is a strange building called a windmill, from the white man’s world. Philander says that they make bread, but when I asked how, he called me a very ignorant fellow. This means he does not know.

  I take the long way back to the deputy’s house. The white masters complain about the heat all summer long, but I love to let the sun warm my bones so I can survive the winters. The sun reminds me of Weh, my home. When I pass the pigpens, d’Orsaiy sees me and asks why Master Fischer hit me on Long Street. With my face, I say, Does a master need a reason? and d’Orsaiy nods. I like d’Orsaiy. D’Orsaiy comes from a place called the Cape, halfway to the white man’s world. His skin is the blackest I ever saw. Dr. Marinus says he is a Hottentot, but the master hands call him “Knave o’ Spades.” He asks me if I am going to study reading and writing at Master de Zoet’s this afternoon. I say, “Yes, unless Master Fischer gives me more work.” D’Orsaiy says that writing is a magic that I should learn. D’Orsaiy tells me that Master Ouwehand and Master Twomey are playing billiards in Summer House. This is a warning to walk briskly so that Master Ouwehand does not report me to Master Fischer for idling.

  Back at the deputy’s house, I hear snoring. I creep up the stairways, knowing which steps creak and which do not. Master Fischer is asleep. This is a problem, because if I go to Master de Zoet’s house for my writing lesson without Master Fischer’s permission, he will punish me for being willful. If I do not go to Master de Zoet’s house, Master Fischer will punish me for laziness. But if I wake up Master Fischer to ask his permission, he will punish me for spoiling his siesta. In the end, I slide the chamber pot under Master Fischer’s bed and go. Perhaps I will be back before he wakes.