‘So you should. Until recently we corrected the stevedores with blows, but the Magistrate ruled that a beaten coolie is an affront to all Japan and forbade us. Now their knavery knows no bounds.’
Interpreter Sekita mistimes his jump from the sampan’s prow on to the ramp, and dunks his leg up to the knee. Once on dry land, he smacks his servant’s nose with his fan and hurries ahead of the three Dutchmen, telling them, ‘Go! Go! Go!’
Deputy van Cleef explains, ‘He means “Come”.’
Once through the Sea-Gate, they are ushered into the Customs Room. Here, Sekita asks the foreigners’ names, and shouts them at an elderly registrar, who repeats them to a younger assistant, who writes them in his ledger. ‘Vorstenbosch’ is transliterated Bôrusu Tenbôshu, ‘van Cleef’ becomes Bankureifu and ‘de Zoet’ is rechristened Dazûto. Rounds of cheese and barrels of butter unloaded from the Shenandoah are being poked with skewers by a team of inspectors. ‘Those damned blackguards,’ van Cleef complains, ‘are known to break open preserved eggs lest the chicken sneaked in a ducat or two.’ A burly guard approaches. ‘Meet the frisker,’ says the Deputy. ‘The Chief is exempt, but not clerks, alas.’
A number of young men gather: they have the same shaven foreheads and top-knots as the inspectors and interpreters who visited the Shenandoah this week, but their robes are less impressive. ‘Unranked interpreters,’ explains van Cleef. ‘They hope to earn Sekita’s favour by doing his job for him.’
The frisker speaks to Jacob and they chorus, ‘Arms rise! Open pockets!’
Sekita silences them and orders Jacob, ‘Arms rise. Open pockets.’
Jacob obeys; the frisker pats his armpits and explores his pockets.
He finds Jacob’s sketchbook, examines it briefly and issues another order.
‘Show shoes to guard, sir!’ say the quickest house interpreters.
Sekita sniffs. ‘Show shoes now.’
Jacob notices that even the stevedores stop their work to watch.
Some are pointing at the clerk, unabashed and declaring, ‘Kômô, kômô.’
‘They’re talking about your hair,’ explains van Cleef. ‘ “Kômô” is how Europeans are often dubbed: kô signifying “red”; and “mô”, hair. Few of us, in truth, do boast hair of your tint; a genuine “red-haired barbarian” is worth a good gawp.’
‘You study the Japanese tongue, Mr van Cleef?’
‘There are rules against it, but I pick up a little from my wives.’
‘Should you teach me what you know, sir, I would be greatly obliged.’
‘I’d not be much of a teacher,’ van Cleef confesses. ‘Dr Marinus chats with the Malays as if he was born black, but the Japanese language is hard won, he says. Any interpreter caught teaching us could, feasibly, be charged with treason.’
The frisker returns Jacob’s shoes and issues a fresh command.
‘Off clotheses, sir!’ say the interpreters. ‘Clotheses off!’
‘Clotheses stay on!’ retorts van Cleef. ‘Clerks don’t strip, Mr de Zoet; the nasty-turdy wants us robbed of another dignity. Obey him today, and every clerk entering Japan until Doomsday would perforce follow suit.’
The frisker remonstrates; the chorus rises, ‘Clotheses off!’
Interpreter Sekita recognises trouble and creeps away.
Vorstenbosch hits the floor with his cane until quietness reigns. ‘No!’
The displeased frisker decides to concede the point.
A Customs guard taps Jacob’s sea-chest with his spear and speaks.
‘Open please,’ says an unranked interpreter. ‘Open big box!’
The box, taunts Jacob’s inner whisperer, containing your Psalter.
‘Before we all grow old, de Zoet,’ says Vorstenbosch.
Sick to his core, Jacob unlocks the chest as ordered.
One of the guards speaks; the chorus translates, ‘Go back, sir! Step behind!’
More than twenty curious necks crane as the frisker lifts the lid and unfolds Jacob’s five linen shirts; his woollen blanket; stockings; a drawstring bag of buttons and buckles; a tatty wig; a set of quills; yellowing undergarments; his boyhood compass; half a bar of Windsor soap; the two dozen letters from Anna tied with her hair ribbon; a razor blade; a Delft pipe; a cracked glass; a folio of sheet music; a moth-eaten bottle-green velvet waistcoat; a pewter plate, knife and spoon; and, stacked at the bottom, some fifty assorted books. A frisker speaks to an underling, who runs out of the Customs Room.
‘Fetch duty interpreter, sir,’ says an interpreter. ‘Bring to see books.’
‘Is not,’ Jacob’s ribs squeeze him, ‘Mr Sekita to conduct the dissection?’
A brown-toothed grin appears in van Cleef’s beard. ‘Dissection?’
‘Inspection, I meant, sir: the inspection of my books.’
‘Sekita’s father purchased his son’s place in the Guild, but the prohibition against’ – van Cleef mouths ‘Christianity’ – ‘is too important for blockheads. Books are checked by an abler man: Iwase Banri, perhaps, or one of the Ogawas.’
‘Who are the -’ Jacob chokes on his own saliva ‘- Ogawas?’
‘Ogawa Mimasaku is one of the four Interpreters of the First Rank. His son, Ogawa Uzaemon, is of the Third Rank, and -’ a young man enters ‘- ah! Speak of the Devil and listen for his feet! A warm morning, Mr Ogawa.’
Ogawa Uzaemon, in his mid-twenties, has an open, intelligent face. The unranked interpreters all bow low. He bows to Vorstenbosch, van Cleef and lastly the new arrival. ‘Welcome ashore, Mr de Zoet.’ His pronunciation is excellent. He extends his hand for a European handshake just as Jacob delivers an Asian bow: Ogawa Uzaemon reciprocates with an Asian bow as Jacob offers his hand. The vignette amuses the room. ‘I am told,’ says the interpreter, ‘Mr de Zoet brings many book… and here they are…’ he points to the chest ‘… many many book. A “plethora” of book, you say?’
‘A few books,’ says Jacob, nervous enough to vomit. ‘Or quite a few: yes.’
‘May I remove books to see?’ Ogawa does so, eagerly, without waiting for an answer. For Jacob, the world is narrowed to a thin tunnel between him and his Psalter, visible between his two-volume copy of Sara Burgerhart. Ogawa frowns. ‘Many, many books here. A little time, please. When finish, I send message. It is agreeable?’ He misreads Jacob’s hesitancy. ‘Books all safe. I too’ – Ogawa places his palm over his heart – ‘am bibliophile. This is correct word? Bibliophile?’
Out in the Weighing Yard the sun feels as hot as a branding-iron.
Any minute now, thinks the reluctant smuggler, my Psalter will be found.
A small party of Japanese officials is waiting for Vorstenbosch.
A Malay slave bows, waiting for the Chief with a bamboo parasol.
‘Captain Lacy and I,’ says the Chief, ‘have a gamut of engagements in the State Room until luncheon. You look sickly, de Zoet: have Dr Marinus drain half a pint after Mr van Cleef has shown you around.’ He nods a parting at his deputy and walks to his residence.
The Weighing Yard is dominated by one of the Company’s tripod-scales, as high as two men. ‘We’re weighing the sugar today,’ says van Cleef, ‘for what that junk is worth. Batavia sent the very dregs of their warehouses.’
The small square bustles with more than a hundred merchants, interpreters, inspectors, servants, spies, lackeys, palanquin bearers, porters. So these, thinks Jacob, are the Japanese. Their hair colour – black to grey – and skin tones are more uniform than those of a Dutch crowd, and their modes of dress, footwear and hairstyles appear rigidly prescribed according to rank. Fifteen or twenty near-naked carpenters are perched on the frame of a new warehouse. ‘Idler than a gang of gin-soused Finns…’ mumbles van Cleef. Watching from the roof of a Customs House is a pink-faced, soot-on-snow-coloured monkey, dressed in a sailcloth jerkin. ‘I see you’ve spotted William Pitt.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘King George’s First Minister, yes. He answers to no other name. A sailor bought him some six or seven seasons ago, but on the day his owner sailed, the ape vanished, only to reappear the next day, a freedman of Dejima. Speaking of brute apes, over there…’ van Cleef indicates a lantern-jawed and pig-tailed labourer engaged in opening boxes of sugar ‘… is Wybo Gerritszoon, one of our hands.’ Gerritszoon places the precious nails in his jerkin pocket. The bags of sugar are carried past a Japanese inspector and a striking foreign youth of seventeen or eighteen: his hair is gold and cherubic, his lips have a Javanese thickness and eyes an Oriental slant. ‘Ivo Oost: somebody’s natural son, with a generous glug of mestizo blood.’