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‘No matter, miss. You have your leg. Well, not your leg…’
Shouted questions and answers fly up and down Bony Alley.
Jacob and his visitor take a couple of steps back from each other.
‘Forgive me, miss, but… are you a courtesan’s maid?’
‘Kôchi – zanzu – meido?’ This baffles her. ‘What is?’
‘A… a…’ Jacob grasps for a substitute word ‘… a whore’s… helper.’
She lays the limb on a square of cloth. ‘Why horse need helper?’
A guard appears in the doorway; he sees the Dutchman, the young woman and the lost foot. He grins and shouts into Bony Alley, and within moments more guards, inspectors and officials arrive; followed by Deputy van Cleef; then Dejima’s strutting Constable Kosugi; Marinus’s assistant, Eelattu, his apron as bloodied as the burnt woman’s; Arie Grote and a Japanese merchant with darting eyes; several scholars; and Con Twomey carrying his carpenter’s rule and asking Jacob in English, ‘What’s that feckin’ smell about ye, man?’
Jacob remembers his half-restored ledger on the table, wide open for all to see. Hastily he conceals it, just as four youths arrive, each with the shaven heads of medical disciples and aprons like the burnt woman’s, and commence to fire questions at her. The clerk guesses these are Dr Marinus’s ‘seminarians’, and soon the intruders let the woman recount her story. She indicates the tower of crates where William Pitt clambered up and now gestures towards Jacob, who blushes as twenty or thirty heads look his way. She speaks her language with quiet self-possession. The clerk awaits the hilarity that must greet his dousing in ape-piss, but she omits the episode, it seems, and her narrative ends in nods of approval. Twomey leaves with the Estonian’s limb to fashion a wooden substitute of the same length.
‘I saw you,’ van Cleef snatches a guard’s sleeve, ‘you damned thief!’
A shower of bright red nutmeg berries spills across the floor.
‘Baert! Fischer! Show these blasted robbers out of our warehouse!’ The deputy makes herding motions towards the door, shouting, ‘Out! Out! Grote, frisk whoever looks suspicious – aye, just as they frisk us. De Zoet, watch our merchandise or it’ll sprout legs and walk.’
Jacob stands on a crate, the better to survey the departing visitors.
He sees the burnt maid step into the sunlit alley, assisting a frail scholar.
Contrary to his expectations, she turns and waves her hand.
Jacob is delighted by this secret acknowledgement and waves back.
No, he sees, she is sheltering her eyes from the sun…
Yawning, Hanzaburo enters, carrying a pot of tea.
You didn’t even ask her name, Jacob realises. Jacob de Bonehead.
He notices that she left behind the closed fan on the crate of raw sugar.
Storm-faced van Cleef leaves last, pushing past Hanzaburo, who stands at the threshold holding the pot of tea. Hanzaburo asks, ‘Thing happen?’
By midnight, the Chief’s Dining Room is foggy with pipe-smoke. The servants Cupido and Philander play ‘Apples of Delft’ on viol da gamba and flute.
‘President Adams is our “Shogun”, yes, Mr Goto,’ Captain Lacy flicks crumbs of pie-crust from his moustache, ‘but he was chosen by the American people. This is the point of democracy.’
The five interpreters exchange a cautious look Jacob now recognises.
‘Great lords, et cetera,’ Ogawa Uzaemon clarifies, ‘choose President?’
‘Not lords, no.’ Lacy picks his teeth. ‘Citizens. Every one of us.’
‘Even…’ Interpreter Goto’s eyes settle on Con Twomey ‘… carpenters?’
‘Carpenters, bakers,’ Lacy belches, ‘and candlestick makers.’
‘Do Washington’s and Jefferson’s slaves,’ ask Marinus, ‘also vote?’
‘No, Doctor,’ smiles Lacy. ‘Nor do their horses, oxen, bees or women.’
But what junior geisha, wonders Jacob, would wrestle an ape for a leg?
‘What if,’ asks Goto, ‘people make bad choice and President is bad man?’
‘Come the next election – four years, at most – we vote him out of office.’
‘Old President,’ Interpreter Hori is maroon with rum, ‘is executed?’
‘ “Elected”, Mr Hori,’ says Twomey. ‘When the people choose their leader.’
‘A better system, surely,’ Lacy holds his glass for van Cleef’s slave Weh to fill, ‘than waiting for death to remove a corrupt, stupid or insane Shogun?’
The interpreters look uneasy: no informer is fluent enough in Dutch to understand Captain Lacy’s treasonous talk, but there is no guarantee that the Magistracy has not recruited one of the four to report on his colleagues’ reactions.
‘Democracy,’ says Goto, ‘is not a flower who bloom in Japan, I think.’
‘Soil in Asia,’ agrees Interpreter Hori, ‘is not correct for Europe and America flowers.’
‘Mr Washington, Mr Adams,’ Interpreter Iwase shifts the topic, ‘is royal bloodline?’
‘Our revolution,’ Captain Lacy clicks his fingers to order the slave Ignatius to bring the spittoon, ‘in which I played my part, when my paunch was flatter, sought to purge America of royal bloodlines.’ He spews out a dragon of phlegm. ‘A man might be a great leader – like General Washington – but why does it follow that his children inherit their pa’s qualities? Are not inbred royals more often dunderheads and wastrels – proper “King Georges” one might say – than those who climb the world using God-given talent?’ He mumbles an aside in English to Dejima’s secret subject of the British monarch. ‘No offence intended, Mr Twomey.’
‘Now I’d be the last fecker here,’ avows the Irishman, ‘to take offence.’
Cupido and Philander strike up ‘Seven White Roses For My One True Love’.
Baert’s drunken head droops and settles in a plate of sweet beans.
Does her burn, Jacob wonders, register touch as heat, cold or numbness?
Marinus takes up his stick. ‘The party shall excuse me: I have left Eelattu rendering the Estonian’s shinbone. Without an expert eye, tallow shall be dripping from the ceiling. Mr Vorstenbosch, my compliments…’ He bows to the interpreters and limps out of the room.
‘Does the law of Japan,’ Captain Lacy’s smile is soapy, ‘permit polygamy?’
‘What is po-ri-ga-mi, Deputy?’ Hori stuffs a pipe. ‘Why need permit?’
‘You explain, Mr de Zoet,’ van Cleef is saying. ‘Words are your forte.’
‘Polygamy is…’ Jacob considers ‘… one husband, many wives.’
‘Ah. Oh.’ Hori grins and the other interpreters nod. ‘Polygamy.’
‘Mohammedans sanction four wives.’ Captain Lacy tosses an almond into the air and captures it in his mouth. ‘Chinese may round up seven under one roof. How many may a Japanese man lock up in his personal collection, eh?’
‘In all countries, same,’ says Hori. ‘In Japan, Holland, China; all same. I say why. All mans marry first wife. He’ – leering, Hori makes an obscene gesture with a fist and finger – ‘until she’ – he mimes a pregnant belly – ‘yes? After this, all mans keep number wives his purse says he may. Captain Lacy plans to have Dejima wife for trading season, like Mr Snitker and Mr van Cleef?’
‘I’d rather,’ Lacy bites a thumbnail, ‘visit the famous Maruyama District.’
‘Mr Hemmij,’ recalls Interpreter Yonekizu, ‘ordered courtesans for his feasts.’
‘Chief Hemmij,’ says Vorstenbosch, darkly, ‘partook of many pleasures at the Company’s expense, as did Mr Snitker. Hence, the latter dines on hard-tack tonight, whilst we enjoy the rewards of honest employees.’
Jacob glances at Ivo Oost: Ivo Oost is scowling at him.
Baert lifts his bean-spattered face, exclaims, ‘But, sir, she ain’t really my aunt!’, giggles like a schoolgirl and falls off his chair.
‘I propose a toast,’ declares Deputy van Cleef, ‘to all our absent ladies.’
The drinkers and diners fill one another’s glasses. ‘To all our absent ladies!’
‘Especial,’ gasps Hori, as the gin burns his gullet, ‘to Mr Ogawa here. Mr Ogawa, he marry this year a beauty wife.’ Hori’s elbow is covered with rhubarb mousse. ‘Each night’ – he mimes riding a horse – ‘three, four, five gallopings!’