Chapter 31

Sébastien and I found Dr. Nakamura in his office at the university. I wasn’t sure I’d call it an office, though. It was a cubby hole no larger than a closet, even smaller than Lane’s old graduate school office.

The office was more sparse than mine—which made sense since it was so tiny—but he had a few photographs on display, including one of himself with an older Japanese woman who looked very much like him. I smiled at the fact that he had a photo of his mom in his office. A single bookshelf lined the longest wall. It was filled with neatly-ordered rows of books in many languages in addition to Japanese.

He motioned for Sébastien to take his own desk chair. The office was only large enough to fit two chairs, one behind the desk for the professor and one next to the door for a student. Although the space was tiny, the office furniture was much more pleasant than the cheap squeaking chairs my university provided, which is why I’d added a bean bag to my own office for the squeak-averse.

“I don’t mind standing,” I said, giving the guest chair to Sébastien. “We’re here on an urgent matter. Not what you and I were working on before. I’d like to learn about what you found at the library about our ship, but that will have to come later.”

I remembered belatedly that it was customary to begin conversations in Japan with pleasantries before getting down to business, even with people you already knew. I hoped he wouldn’t think me too rude and revise his opinion of me.

Instead, he smiled with what looked like relief, and a lock of hair fell across his forehead. “I’m glad to have the opportunity to return the favor so readily. And I’m sorry to tell you I haven’t found out any more about the New Batavia. It’s going to be a more involved research project, I’m afraid.”

“That’s okay. Right now, I’m hoping you can help me look up a man from the Netherlands who lived in Japan in the late 1700s. His name was Casper Van Asch. There’s nothing about him online in English. But I thought here in Japan, where he lived…”

“I don’t remember coming across the name in my research on the Dutch in Japan. Do you have additional information about him?”

“He would have lived in Dejima.”

Professor Nakamura gave me a patient smile. “Of course. Where all the Dutch were granted permission to live. Any more details?”

I bit my lip. “Not really.”

“Let me see what I can find.”

He looked up the name Casper Van Asch in a library database on his computer but couldn’t find any references to such a man living in Japan. He shook his head as he dug through the indexes of books that lined a shelf in his office.

“Nothing,” he said. “At least not anything I can find with only a name. Why do you think this man was here in Japan?”

“Because of the Indian Rope Trick magic show,” I said.

“Such a tragedy. That poor man…”

“He may have been killed over the diary they’re using in the show—it’s real. It belonged to Casper Van Asch.”

Dr. Nakamura drew a deep breath. “A historical document in plain sight?”

The professor cringed as I explained how Yoko and Akira used real historical documents in their act to add to the magical aura of their shows. The feeling was mutual. Akira had carried a two-hundred-year-old diary in his pocket.

“What’s this research you two were up to already?” Sébastien asked.

“Dr. Nakamura was looking at ship logs for intra-Asia travel, for trading ships that came through Dejima. He found one that had been lost for centuries.”

“No, sensei. It was you who found the ship. I knew you would. I contacted you because you’re a world-renowned expert on the British East India Company and its trade routes. I simply asked a question.”

I knew it was his cultural norm of being overly polite, not that he was trying to flatter me in particular, but I admit it was a nice feeling. As an assistant professor, the lowest rung on the ladder in a competitive field, I appreciated hearing praise from a fellow historian.

“What ship?” Sébastien asked. “You located a lost ship? Don’t tell me it’s a sunken tr—”

“We didn’t locate a ship,” I explained. “We found the existence of one that people previously thought was another.”

“I’m only sorry,” Professor Nakamura said, “that I couldn’t be more help with your quest to find Casper Van Asch.”