The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010) by David Mitchell

Author:David Mitchell
Format: epub
Published: 2010-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

XIX

The House of Sisters, Mount Shiranui Shrine

Sunrise on the Ninth Day of the Twelfth Month

Sweeping the Cloisters is a vexing chore this afternoon: no sooner is a pile of leaves and pine-needles gathered than the wind kicks it away again. Clouds unravel on Bare Peak and spill icy drizzle. Orito removes bird lime from the boards with a scrap of sacking. Today is the ninety-fifth day of her captivity: for thirteen days she has turned away from Suzaku and the Abbess and tipped her Solace into her sleeve. For four or five days she suffered from cramps and fever, but now her mind is her own again: the rats no longer speak and the House’s tricks have dwindled away. Her victory is limited, however: she has not won permission to explore the Precincts, and although she escaped another Engiftment Day, a Newest Sister’s chances of being so lucky a fourth time are meagre and a fifth escape would be unprecedented.

Umegae approaches in her lacquered sandals, click-clack, click-clack.

She shan’t be able to resist, Orito predicts, making a stupid joke.

‘So diligent, Newest Sister! Were you born with a broom in your hand?’

No reply is expected, none is given, and Umegae walks on to the Kitchen. Her jibe reminds Orito of her father praising Dejima’s cleanliness, in contrast to the Chinese factory where rubbish is left to rot and rats. She wonders if Marinus misses her. She wonders if a girl from the House of Wistaria is warming Jacob de Zoet’s bed and admiring his exotic eyes. She wonders if de Zoet even thinks of her now, except when he needs his lost dictionary.

She wonders the same thing about Ogawa Uzaemon.

De Zoet shall leave Japan never knowing she had chosen to accept him.

Self-pity, Orito reminds herself yet again, is a noose dangling from a rafter.

The gatekeeper shouts, ‘The gates are opening, Sisters!’

Two acolytes push in a cart loaded with logs and kindling.

Just as the gate closes, Orito notices a cat slip through. It is bright grey, like the moon on blurred evenings, and it swerves across the courtyard. A squirrel runs up the old pine, but the moon-grey cat knows that two-legged creatures offer better pickings than four, and it leaps on to the Cloisters to try its luck with Orito. ‘I never saw you here before,’ the woman tells the animal.

The cat looks at her and miaows, Feed me, for I am beautiful.

Orito proffers a dried pilchard between finger and thumb.

The moon-grey cat inspects the fish indifferently.

‘Someone carried this fish,’ scolds Orito, ‘all the way up this mountain.’

The cat takes the fish, jumps to the ground and goes beneath the walkway.

Orito lowers herself on to the Courtyard, but the cat has gone.

She sees a narrow rectangular hole in the foundations of the House…

…and a voice on the walkway asks, ‘Has the Newest Sister lost anything?’

Guiltily, Orito looks up to see the housekeeper carrying a pile of robes. ‘A cat pleaded for a scrap of food, then slunk away when he got what he wanted.

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