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‘A helper,’ the fat fly settles on Jacob’s blotter, ‘not a hinderer, Mr Ouwehand.’
Dr Marinus’s students arrive at three o’clock precisely.
The Sick Room door is ajar, but Jacob ca
Four male voices chorus, ‘Good afternoon, Dr Marinus.’
‘Today, Seminarians,’ says Marinus, ‘we have a practical experiment. Whilst Eelattu and I prepare this, each of you shall study a different Dutch text, and translate it into Japanese. My friend Dr Maeno has agreed to inspect your handiwork later this week. The paragraphs are relevant to your interests: to Mr Muramoto, our bonesetter-in-chief, I proffer Albinus’s Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani; Mr Kajiwaki, a passage on cancer from Jean-Louis Petit, who lends his name to the trigonum Petiti which is what and where?’
‘Muscle hole in back, Doctor.’
‘Mr Yano, you have Dr Olof Acrel, my old master at Uppsala; his essay on cataracts I translated from the Swedish. For Mr Ikematsu, a page of Lorenz Heister’s Chirurgie on disorders of the skin… and Miss Aibagawa shall peruse the admirable Dr Smellie. This passage, however, is problematical. In the Sick Room awaits the volunteer for today’s demonstration, who may assist you on matters of Dutch vocabulary…’ Marinus’s lumpish head appears around the door-frame. ‘Domburger! I present Miss Aibagawa, and urge you, Orate ne intretis in tentationem.’
Miss Aibagawa recognises the red-haired green-eyed foreigner.
‘Good afternoon,’ his throat is dry, ‘Miss Aibagawa.’
‘Good afternoon,’ her voice is clear, ‘Mr… “Dom-bugger”?’
‘ “Domburger” is… is the doctor’s little joke. My name is de Zoet.’
She lowers her writing desk: a tray with legs. ‘ “Dom-bugger” is fu
‘Dr Marinus thinks so: my home-town is called “Domburg”.’
She makes an unconvinced rising mmm noise. ‘Mr de Zoet is sick?’
‘Oh – that is to say – a little, yes. I have a pain in…’ He pats his abdomen.
‘Stools like water?’ The midwife assumes control. ‘Bad smell?’
‘No.’ Jacob is thrown by her directness. ‘The pain is in my – in my liver.’
‘Your’ – she enunciates the l with great care – ‘liver?’
‘Just so: my liver pains me. I trust that Miss Aibagawa is well?’
‘Yes, I am quite well. I trust that your friend monkey is well?’
‘My – oh, William Pitt? My monkey friend is – well, he is no more.’
‘I am sorry not to understand. Monkey is… no more what?’
‘No more alive. I -’ Jacob mimes breaking a chicken’s neck ‘- killed the rascal, you see; ta
Her mouth and eyes open in horror.
If Jacob had a pistol, he would shoot himself. ‘I joke, miss! The monkey is happy and alive and well, shooling, somewhere – thieving, that is…’
‘Correct, Mr Muramoto.’ Marinus’s voice travels from the surgery. ‘First one boils away the subcutaneous fat, and after, injects the veins with coloured wax…’
‘Shall we…’ Jacob curses his misfired joke ‘… open your text?’
She is wondering how this can be done at a safe distance.
‘Miss Aibagawa could seat herself there.’ He points to the end of the bed. ‘Read your text aloud, and when you meet a difficult word we shall discuss it.’
She nods that the arrangement is satisfactory, sits and begins reading.
Van Cleef’s courtesan speaks at a shrill pitch, apparently considered to be feminine, but Miss Aibagawa’s reading voice is lower, quieter and calming. Jacob blesses this excuse to study her part-burnt face and her careful lips… ‘ “Soon after this occ-u-rrence”…’ She looks up. ‘What is, please?’
‘An occurrence would be a – a happening, or an event.’
‘Thank you. ”… this occurrence, in consulting Ruysch about every thing he had writ concerning women… I found him exclaiming against the premature extraction of the placenta and his authority confirmed the opinion I had already adopted… and induced me a more natural way of proceeding. When I have separated the Funis… and given away the child… I introduce my finger into the vagina… ” ’
In all his life, Jacob has never heard this word spoken aloud.
She senses his shock and looks up, half alarmed. ‘I mistake?’
Dr Lucas Marinus, Jacob thinks, you sadistic monster. ‘No,’ he says.
Frowning, she finds her place again: ‘ ”… to feel if the placenta is at the os uteri… and if this is the case… I am sure it will come down of itself in any rate… I wait for some time, and commonly in ten, fifteen or twenty minutes… the woman begins to be seized with some after-pains… which gradually separate and force it along… but pulling gently at the funis, it descends into the -” ’ she glances up at Jacob ‘ “- vagina. Then, taking hold of it, I bring it through the… the os externum.” There.’ She looks up. ‘I finish sentences. Liver is making much pain?’
‘Dr Smellie’s language,’ Jacob swallows, ‘is rather… direct.’
She frowns. ‘Dutch is foreign language. Words do not have same… power, smell, blood. Midwife is my…’ she frowns ‘… “vacation” or “vocation” – which?’
‘ “Vocation”, I hazard, Miss Aibagawa.’
‘Midwife is my vocation. Midwife who fear blood is not helpful.’
‘Distal phalanx,’ comes Marinus’s voice, ‘middle and proximal phalanxes…’
‘Twenty years ago,’ Jacob decides to tell her, ‘when my sister was born, the midwife couldn’t stop my mother bleeding. My job was to heat water in the kitchen.’ He is afraid he is boring her, but Miss Aibagawa watches him with calm attention. ‘If only I can heat enough water, I thought, my mother will live. I was wrong, I’m sorry to say.’ Now Jacob frowns, uncertain why he raised this personal matter.
A large wasp settles on the broad foot of the bed.
Miss Aibagawa produces a square of paper from her kimono’s sleeve. Jacob, aware of Oriental beliefs in the ascent of the soul from bedbug to saint, waits for her to guide the wasp out through the high window. Instead, she crushes it in the paper, scrunches it into a little ball and, with perfect aim, tosses it through the window. ‘Your sister, too, have red hair and green eyes?’
‘Her hair is redder than mine, to our uncle’s embarrassment.’
This is another new word for her. ‘ “Am-bass-a-ment”?’
Remember to ask Ogawa for the Japanese word later, he thinks. ‘ “Embarrassment”, or shame.’
‘Why uncle feel shame because sister has red hair?’
‘According to common people’s belief – or superstition – you understand?’
‘Meishin in Japanese. Doctor call it, “Enemy of Reason”.’
‘According to superstition, then, Jezebels – that is, women of loose virtue – that is, prostitutes – are thought to have, and are depicted as having, red hair.’
‘ “Loose virtue”? “Prostitutes”? Like “courtesan” and “whore’s helper”?’
‘Forgive me for that.’ Jacob’s ears roar. ‘Now the embarrassment is mine.’
Her smile is both nettle and dock leaf. ‘Mr de Zoet’s sister is honourable girl?’
‘Geertje is a… very dear sister; she is kind, patient and clever.’
‘Metacarpals,’ the doctor is demonstrating, ‘and here, the cu
‘Miss Aibagawa,’ Jacob dares to ask, ‘belongs to a large family?’
‘Family was large, is small now. Father, father’s new wife, father’s new wife’s son.’ She hesitates. ‘Mother, brothers and sisters died, of cholera. Much years ago. Much die that time. Not just my family. Much, much suffer.’
‘Yet your vocation – midwifery, I mean – is… an art of life.’
A wisp of black hair is escaped from her headscarf: Jacob wants it.
‘At old days,’ says Miss Aibagawa, ‘long ago, before great bridges built over wide rivers, travellers often drowned. People said, “Die because river god angry.” People not said, “Die because big bridges not yet invented.” People not say, “People die because we have ignoration too much.” But one day, clever ancestors observe spiders’ webs, weave bridges of vines. Or see trees, fallen over fast rivers, and make stones islands in wide rivers, and lay from islands to islands. They build such bridges. People no longer drown in same dangerous river, or many less people. So far, my poor Dutch is understand?’