The extraordinary fact that Marinus is paying him a call scarcely dents Jacob's adamantine misery. What if her permission to study on Dejima is revoked? What if her permission to study on Dejima is revoked? A stout cane raps on the door. 'Domburger.' A stout cane raps on the door. 'Domburger.'

'I've had enough unwelcome visitors in one day, Doctor.'

'Open this door now, you Village Idiot.'

It is easiest for Jacob to obey. 'Come to gloat, have you?'

Marinus peers around the clerk's apartment, settles on the window-ledge, and takes in the view over Long Street and the garden through the glass-and-paper window. He unties and reties his lustrous grey hair. 'What did they take?'

'Nothing . . .' He remembers Vorstenbosch's lie. 'Nothing of value.'

'In cases of burglary,' Marinus coughs, 'I prescribe a course of billiards.'

'Billiards, Doctor,' Jacob vows, 'is the last last thing I shall be doing today.' thing I shall be doing today.'

Jacob's cue ball sails up the table, rebounds off the bottom cushion and glides to a halt two inches from the top edge, a hand's length closer than Marinus's. 'Take the first stroke, Doctor. To how many points shall we play?'

'Hemmij and I would set our finishing post at five hundred and one.'

Eelattu squeezes lemons into cloudy glasses; they scent the air, yellow.

A breeze blows through the Billiard Room in Garden House.

Marinus concentrates hard on his first strike of the game . . .

Why this sudden and peculiar kindness, Jacob cannot help but wonder.

. . . but the doctor's shot is misjudged, hitting the red but not Jacob's cue ball.

Easily, Jacob pockets both his and the red. 'Shall I tally the score?'

'You are the bookkeeper. Eelattu, the afternoon is your own.'

Eelattu thanks his master and leaves, and the clerk shoots a tight series of cannons, quickly taking his score to fifty. The billiard balls' muffled trundling smooths his ruffled nerves. The shock of the burglary The shock of the burglary, he half persuades himself, made me go off at half-cock: for Miss Aibagawa to be drawn by a foreigner cannot be a punishable offence, even here. It's not as if she posed for me clandestinely made me go off at half-cock: for Miss Aibagawa to be drawn by a foreigner cannot be a punishable offence, even here. It's not as if she posed for me clandestinely. After accruing sixty points, Jacob lets Marinus on to the table. Nor Nor, the clerk thinks, is a page of sketches is a page of sketches proof positive proof positive that I am infatuated with the woman that I am infatuated with the woman.

The doctor, Jacob is surprised to see, is a middling amateur at billiards.

Nor is 'infatuated', he corrects himself, an accurate description . . . an accurate description . . .

'Time must hang heavy here, Doctor, once the ship departs Batavia?'

'For most, yes. The men seek solace in grog, the pipe, intrigues, hatred of our hosts, and in sex. For my part . . .' he misses an easy shot '. . . I prefer the company of botany, my studies, my teaching and, of course, my harpsichord.'

'How,' Jacob chalks his cue, 'are the Scarlatti sonatas?'

Marinus sits on the upholstered bench. 'Fishing for gratitude, are we?'

'Never, Doctor. I gather you belong to a native Academy of Science.'

'The Shirando? It lacks government patronage. Edo is dominated by "patriots" who mistrust all things foreign so, officially, we are just another private school. Unofficially, we are a bourse for rangakusha rangakusha - scholars of European sciences and arts - to exchange ideas. Otsuki Monjuro, the Director, has influence enough at the Magistracy to ensure my monthly invitations.' - scholars of European sciences and arts - to exchange ideas. Otsuki Monjuro, the Director, has influence enough at the Magistracy to ensure my monthly invitations.'

'Is Dr Aibagawa' - Jacob pots the red, long-distance - 'also a member?'

Marinus is watching his younger opponent meaningfully.

'I ask out of mere curiosity, Doctor.'

'Dr Aibagawa is a keen astronomer and attends when his health permits. He was, in fact, the first Japanese to observe Herschel's new planet through a telescope ordered here at wild expense. He and I, indeed, discuss optics more than medicine.'

Jacob returns the red ball to the balkline, wondering how not to change the subject.

'After his wife and sons died,' continued the doctor, 'Doctor Aibagawa married a younger woman, a widow, whose son was to be inducted into Dutch medicine and carry on the Aibagawa practice. The young man turned out to be an idle disappointment.'

'And is Miss Aibagawa . . .' the younger man lines up an ambitious shot '. . . also permitted to attend the Shirando?'

'There are laws, you know, ranged against you: your suit is hopeless.'

'Laws.' Jacob's shot rattles in the pocket's jaws. 'Laws against a doctor's daughter becoming a foreigner's wife?'

'Not constitutional laws. I mean real laws: laws of the non si fa non si fa.'

'So you are saying that Miss Aibagawa doesn't attend the Shirando?'

'As a matter of fact, she is the Academy's registrar. But as I keep trying to tell you . . .' Marinus pockets the vulnerable red but his cue ball fails to spin backwards '. . . women of her class do not become Dejima wives. Even were she to share your tendresse tendresse, what hopes of a decent marriage after being pawed by a red-haired devil? If you do love her, express your devotion by avoiding her.'

He's right, thinks Jacob, and asks, 'May I accompany you to the Shirando?'

'Certainly not.' Marinus tries to pot both his cue ball and Jacob's, but misses.

There are limits, then, Jacob realises, to this unexpected detente to this unexpected detente.

'You are no scholar,' the doctor explains. 'Nor am I your pimp.'

'Is it fair to berate the less-privileged for womanising, smoking and drinking . . .' Jacob pots Marinus's cue ball '. . . whilst refusing to help their self-betterment?'

'I am not a Society for Public Improvement. What privileges I enjoy, I earned.'

Cupido or Philander is practising an air on a viol da gamba.

The goats and a dog engage in a battle of bleating and barking.

'You spoke of how you and Mr Hemmij -' Jacob miscues '- used to play for a wager?'

'You're never proposing,' the doctor mock-whispers, 'gambling on a Sabbath?'

'If I reach five hundred and one first, grant me one visit to the Shirando.'

Marinus lines up his shot, looking doubtful. 'What is my prize?'

He's not rejecting the idea, Jacob notices, out of hand out of hand. 'Name it.'

'Six hours' labour in my garden. Now, pass me the bridge.'

'For your question's intents and purposes . . .' Marinus considers his next shot from all angles '. . . sentience in this life began in the rain-sodden summer of 1757 in a Haarlem garret: I was a six-year-old boy who had been taken to death's door by a savage fever that had seen off my entire family of cloth merchants.'

You too, thinks Jacob. 'I'm most sorry, Doctor. I didn't guess.'

'The world is a vale of tears. I was passed like a bad penning penning down a chain of relatives, each expecting a slice of an inheritance that had, in fact, been swallowed by debts. My illness made me,' he pats his lame thigh, 'an unpromising investment. The last, a great-uncle of dubious vintage named Cornelis, told me I'd one evil eye and one queer one, and took me to Leiden where he deposited me on a canal-side doorstep. He told me my "aunt-in-a-manner-of-speaking" Lidewijde would take me in, and vanished like a rat down a drain. Having no other choice, I rang the bell. Nobody answered. There was no point trying to limp after Great-Uncle Cornelis so I just waited on the high doorstep . . .' down a chain of relatives, each expecting a slice of an inheritance that had, in fact, been swallowed by debts. My illness made me,' he pats his lame thigh, 'an unpromising investment. The last, a great-uncle of dubious vintage named Cornelis, told me I'd one evil eye and one queer one, and took me to Leiden where he deposited me on a canal-side doorstep. He told me my "aunt-in-a-manner-of-speaking" Lidewijde would take me in, and vanished like a rat down a drain. Having no other choice, I rang the bell. Nobody answered. There was no point trying to limp after Great-Uncle Cornelis so I just waited on the high doorstep . . .'

Marinus's next shot misses both the red and Jacob's cue ball.

'. . . until a friendly constable,' Marinus drains his lemon juice, 'threatened to thrash me for vagabondage. I was dressed in my cousins' cast-offs, so my denial fell on deaf ears. Up and down the Rapenburg I walked, just to stay warm . . .' Marinus looks over the water towards the Chinese factory '. . . a sunless, locked-up, tiring afternoon, and chestnut sellers were out, and canine street urchins watched me, scenting prey, and across the canal, maples shed leaves like women tearing up letters . . . and are you going to play your shot or not, Domburger?'

Jacob achieves a rare double-cannon: twelve points.

'Back at the house the lights were still off. I rang the bell, beseeching the aid of every god I knew, and an old maid's old maid flung the door open, swearing that were she she the mistress I'd be turned away with no further ado, for tardiness was a sin in her book, but as she wasn't, Klaas would see me in the back garden, though my entrance was the tradesman's, down the steps. She slammed the door. So I made my descent, knocked, and the same wrathful Cerberus in Petticoats appeared, noticed my stick and led me down a dingy basement corridor to a beautiful sunken garden. Play your shot, or we'll still be here at midnight.' the mistress I'd be turned away with no further ado, for tardiness was a sin in her book, but as she wasn't, Klaas would see me in the back garden, though my entrance was the tradesman's, down the steps. She slammed the door. So I made my descent, knocked, and the same wrathful Cerberus in Petticoats appeared, noticed my stick and led me down a dingy basement corridor to a beautiful sunken garden. Play your shot, or we'll still be here at midnight.'

Jacob pots both cue balls and lines up the red nicely.

'An old gardener emerged from a curtain of lilac and told me to show him my hands. Puzzled, he asked whether I'd done so much as one day's work as a gardener in my life. No, I said. "We'll let the garden decide," said Klaas the Gardener, and very little besides all the live-long day. We mixed hornbeam leaves with horse manure; laid sawdust around the feet of roses; raked leaves in the small apple orchard . . . these were my first pleasant hours for a long, long time. We lit a fire with swept-up leaves and roasted a potato. A robin sat on my spade - it was already my my spade - and sang.' Marinus imitates a robin's spade - and sang.' Marinus imitates a robin's chk-chk-chk chk-chk-chk. 'It was getting dark when a lady in a satrap's dressing-gown and short white hair strode over the lawn. "My name," she declared, "is Lidewijde Mostaart, but the mystery is you." She had just heard, you see, that the real gardener's boy, due that afternoon, had broken his leg. So I explained who I was and about Great-Uncle Cornelis . . .'

Passing a hundred and fifty points, Jacob misses a shot to let Marinus on the table.

In the garden, the slave Sjako is brushing aphids from the salad leaves.

Marinus leans out of the window and addresses him in fluent Malay. Sjako replies and Marinus returns to the game, amused. 'My mother, it transpired, was a second cousin of Lidewijde Mostaart, whom she had never met. Abigail, the old maid, huffed, puffed and complained that anyone would have taken me for the new gardener's boy, given the rags I wore. Klaas said I had the makings of a gardener and retired to the shed. I asked Mrs Mostaart to let me stay and be Klaas's assistant. She told me it was "Miss", not "Mrs", to most, but "Aunt" to me, and took me inside to meet Elisabeth. I ate fennel soup and answered their questions, and in the morning they told me I could live with them for as long as I wished. My old clothes were sacrificed to the deity in the fireplace.'

Cicadas hiss in the pines. They sound like fat frying in a shallow pan.

Marinus misses a side-pocket pot and pockets his own cue ball by mistake.

'Bad luck,' commiserates Jacob, adding the foul to his total.

'No such thing, in a game of skill. Well, bibliophiles are not uncommon in Leiden, but bibliophiles made wise by reading are as rare there as anywhere. Aunts Lidewijde and Elisabeth were two such readers, as sagacious as they were rapacious devourers of the word. Lidewijde had had "associations" with the stage in her day, in Vienna and Naples, and Elisabeth was what we'd now call a blauw-stocking blauw-stocking, and their house was a trove of books. To this printed garden, I was given the keys. Lidewijde, moreover, taught me the harpsichord; Elisabeth taught me both French and Swedish, her mother tongue; and Klaas the Gardener was my first, unlettered but vastly learned teacher of botany. Moreover, my aunts' circle of friends included some of Leiden's freest-thinking scholars, which is to say, "of the age". My own personal Enlightenment was breathed into being. I bless Great-Uncle Cornelis to this day for abandoning me there.'

Jacob pockets Marinus's cue ball and the red alternately three or four times.

A dandelion seed lands on the green baize of the table.

'Genus Taraxacum Taraxacum,' Marinus frees it and launches it from the window, 'of the family Asteraceae Asteraceae. But erudition alone fills neither belly nor pocket-book, and my aunts survived frugally on slender annuities, so as I reached maturity, it was settled that I should study medicine to support my scientific endeavours. I won a place at the medical school at Uppsala, in Sweden. The choice, of course, was no accident: cumulative weeks of my boyhood had been spent poring through Species Plantarum Species Plantarum and and Systema Naturae Systema Naturae, and, once ensconced at Uppsala, I became a disciple of the celebrated Professor Linnaeus.'

'My uncle says,' Jacob slaps a fly, 'he was one of the great men of our age.'

'Great men are greatly complex beings. It's true that Linnaean taxonomy underlies botany, but he taught also that swallows hibernate under lakes; that twelve-foot giants thump about Patagonia; and that Hottentots are monorchids, possessing but a single testicle. They have two. I looked. "Deus creavit," his motto ran, "Linnaeus disposuit", and dissenters were heretics whose careers must be crushed. Yet he influenced my fate directly by advising me to win a professorship by travelling the East as one of his "Apostles", mapping the flora of the Indies and trying to gain entry into Japan.'

'You are approaching your fiftieth birthday, are you not, Doctor?'

'Linnaeus's last lesson, of which he himself was unaware, was that professorships kill philosophers. Oh, I'm vain enough to want my burgeoning Flora Japonica Flora Japonica to be published one day - as a votive offering to Human Knowledge - but a seat at Uppsala, or Leiden, or Cambridge, holds no allure. My heart is the East's, in this lifetime. This is my third year in Nagasaki and I have work enough for another three, or six. During the Court Embassy I can see landscapes no European botanist to be published one day - as a votive offering to Human Knowledge - but a seat at Uppsala, or Leiden, or Cambridge, holds no allure. My heart is the East's, in this lifetime. This is my third year in Nagasaki and I have work enough for another three, or six. During the Court Embassy I can see landscapes no European botanist ever ever saw. My seminarians are keen young men - with one young woman - and visiting scholars bring me specimens from all over the Empire.' saw. My seminarians are keen young men - with one young woman - and visiting scholars bring me specimens from all over the Empire.'

'But aren't you afraid of dying here, so far away from . . . ?'

'One has to die somewhere, Domburger. What are the scores?'

'Your ninety-one points, Doctor, against my three hundred and six.'

'Shall we put our finishing post at a thousand points and double the prizes?'

'Are you promising you'll take me to the Shirando Academy twice?'

To be seen by Miss Aibagawa there, he thinks, is to be seen in a new light is to be seen in a new light.

'Provided you are willing to dig horse manure into the beetroot beds for twelve hours.'

'Very well, Doctor . . .' the clerk wonders whether van Cleef might loan him the nimble-fingered Weh to repair the ruff on his best lace shirt '. . . I accept your terms.'

X.

The Garden on Dejima

Late in the afternoon of the 16th September, 1799 Jacob digs the last of the day's horse manure into the beetroot beds, and fetches water for the late cucumbers from the tarred barrels. He started his clerical work one hour early this morning so he could finish at four o'clock and begin repaying the twelve hours' garden labour he owes the doctor. Marinus was a scoundrel Marinus was a scoundrel, Jacob thinks, to hide his virtuosity at billiards, but a wager is a wager to hide his virtuosity at billiards, but a wager is a wager. He removes the straw from around the cucumber plants' stems, empties both gourds, then replaces the mulch to keep the moisture in the thirsty soil. Now and then a curious head appears above the Long Street wall. The sight of a Dutch clerk pulling up weeds like a peasant is worth catching. Hanzaburo, when asked to help, laughed until he saw that Jacob was in earnest, then mimed a back-pain and walked away, pocketing a fistful of lavender heads by the garden gate. Arie Grote tried to sell Jacob his sharkhide hat so he could 'toil with elegance, like a gentleman farmer'; Piet Baert offered to sell him billiard lessons; and Ponke Ouwehand helpfully pointed out some weeds. Gardening is harder labour than Jacob is used to, and yet and yet, he admits to himself, I enjoy it I enjoy it. His tired eyes are rested by the living green; rosefinches pluck worms from the ramped-up earth; and a black-masked bunting, whose song sounds like clinking cutlery, watches from the empty cistern. Chief Vorstenbosch and Deputy van Cleef are at the Nagasaki Residence of the Lord of Satsuma, the Shogun's father-in-law, to press their case for more copper, so Dejima enjoys an unsupervised air. The seminarians are in the Hospital: as Jacob hoes the rows of beans, he hears Marinus's voice through the Surgery window. Miss Aibagawa is there. Jacob still hasn't seen her, much less spoken to her, since giving her the daringly illustrated fan. The glimmers of kindness the doctor is showing him shall not extend to arranging a rendezvous. Jacob has considered asking Ogawa Uzaemon to take her a letter from him, but if it was discovered, both the interpreter and Miss Aibagawa could be prosecuted for secret negotiations with a foreigner.

And anyway, Jacob thinks, what would I even write in such a letter? what would I even write in such a letter?

Picking slugs from the cabbages with a pair of chopsticks, Jacob notices a ladybird on his right hand. He makes a bridge for it with his left, which the insect obligingly crosses. Jacob repeats the exercise several times. The ladybird believes The ladybird believes, he thinks, she is on a momentous journey, but she is going nowhere she is on a momentous journey, but she is going nowhere. He pictures an endless sequence of bridges between skin-covered islands over voids, and wonders if an unseen force is playing the same trick on him . . .

. . . until a woman's voice dispels his reverie: 'Mr Dazuto?'

Jacob removes his bamboo hat and stands up.

Miss Aibagawa's face eclipses the sun. 'I beg pardon to disturb.'

Surprise, guilt, nervousness . . . Jacob feels many things.

She notices the ladybird on his thumb. 'Tento-mushi.'

In his eagerness to comprehend, he mishears: 'O-ben-to-mushi?'

'O-ben-to-mushi is "luncheon-box bug".' She smiles. 'This,' she indicates the ladybird, 'is is "luncheon-box bug".' She smiles. 'This,' she indicates the ladybird, 'is O O-ten-to-mushi.'

'Tento-mushi,' he says, and she nods with a schoolmistress's approval.

Her deep blue summer kimono and white headscarf lend her a nun's air.