The Coffee Trader (18 page)

Daniel Lienzo was a child who knew his assets and shortcomings from an early age. He had not nearly the physical strength of the other boys we played with, but he was much faster. Understanding how to manage his gifts, he would have nothing to do with games of wrestling but insisted we race all day. He only wanted to play at sport in which he could win.

Though he was known to be his father’s favorite, he complained bitterly about his older brother, unable to accept the unfairness that Miguel should be older, larger, and farther along in the world. “My brother wastes his time studying Jewish books,” he would tell us in conspiratorial whispers, as if the rest of us were not secreted away by our fathers and taught forbidden things by candlelight. “My brother thinks himself a man already,” Daniel complained. “He is always after the serving girls.”

Daniel would have studied Torah if only to prove himself his brother’s master. He would have chased girls though he knew not what to do with them, if only to prove he could catch where his brother could not. The idea was absurd. Miguel had a quicker mind than Daniel, and his appearance was far more pleasing to the ladies. Still, Daniel could never forgive the slight of being born second.

I can recall that when I was but twelve years of age, only a few months before we fled Lisbon, Daniel came to us and said he had a trick he wanted to play. His older brother had spirited a kitchen girl away into a quiet closet in their house, and he thought it would be amusing to expose them.

Of course it was a foolish thing to do, but we were children and doing foolish things had a great deal of appeal. We followed Daniel into his father’s house and then up three flights of stairs until we stopped outside an old door that sat crooked on its hinges. Daniel signaled for us to be quiet and then threw open the door.

There we saw Miguel sitting on a cushion with a serving girl no more than his own age. Her dress was in a state of disrepair, and it was clear she had been behaving as no good girl ought. The two of them reacted to our presence with utter confusion, and in truth we reacted in utter confusion too. The girl attempted to lower her skirts and close her bodice in a single gesture and, frustrated at her efforts, broke into tears. She called upon the Virgin’s mercy. She was undone.

Miguel reddened, not from embarrassment but indignation. “Leave us!” he hissed. “You may tease a man, but only a coward teases a young woman.” Before, we had been only eager and curious and full of childish giggles over we knew not what. Now we were shamed, by our curiosity and his hard glare. We’d committed a crime we were too young to understand, and our lack of understanding made it all the more terrible.

We all backed up and raced down the stairs, but I paused because I saw that Daniel did not move. He stood in the doorway, preventing Miguel from closing it. I could not see his eyes, but I somehow knew he stared hard. At Miguel? The girl? I don’t know, but he was utterly unmoved by Miguel’s majestic wrath or the girl’s tears.

“Go!” Miguel told him. “Can’t you see the girl is distressed?”

But Daniel stood there staring, listening to the girl’s muted sobbing. He never moved for as long as I dared to remain.

For what reason do I mention this? my reader may wonder. Well, it is to help explain some of the animosity between these two men, which went back many years and was, as near as I could tell, utterly senseless.

But such was the way with these brothers. Thus the reader may not be entirely surprised to learn that it was Daniel Lienzo himself who owed Miguel more than two thousand guilders in whale-oil debt. Far from being in debt to his brother, Miguel was his creditor and never once suspected it.

18

The letters had been coming in at the rate of two or three a week, and Miguel stayed up late, straining his eyes against the thin light of a single oil lamp, to answer them. Animated by coffee and the thrill of impending wealth, he worked with jubilant determination, making sure his agents understood precisely what he required of them.

Miguel had not seen Geertruid since his return from Rotterdam, which made it easy to avoid dwelling on having lost most of her capital. He knew of men who had lost their partners’ money, and they invariably broke down in confession immediately, as though the burden of living in falseness was too much to endure. Miguel felt he could live with the falseness as long as the world let him get away with it.

Nevertheless, he wanted to see Geertruid and tell her of his progress, and he had other things to say too, but Geertruid was nowhere to be found. It was a cursed time for her to hide herself. Miguel sent messages to all the most likely taverns and paid visits to those places at even the most unlikely hours, but he found no sign of her.

Once, by coincidence, he ran into Hendrick, who stood idly near the Damrak. He leaned against a wall and busied himself with his pipe, watching as men and women paraded past him.

“Ho, Jew Man,” he called out. He puffed smoke cordially in Miguel’s direction.

Miguel hesitated a moment, wondering if he could pretend to have neither seen nor heard Hendrick, but it was no good. “What news of Madam Damhuis?” he asked.

“What?” Hendrick asked. “You don’t ask after my health? You injure me.”

“I am sorry for the injury,” Miguel said. He had, over time, learned to defuse Hendrick’s bombast by pretending to take it seriously.

“As long as you’re sorry, that’s the important thing. But it’s Madam Damhuis you want, and I can’t hope to serve as Madam Damhuis serves. I haven’t her charms.”

Was he jealous? “Do you know where I might find her?”

“I haven’t seen her.” Hendrick turned his head and blew a long cloud of smoke.

“Perhaps at her home,” Miguel began hopefully.

“Oh, no. Not at her home.”

“Still, I should not mind looking for myself,” Miguel pressed, wishing he could be more clever and subtle. “Where might I find her home?”

“It’s not for me to say,” Hendrick explained. “You foreigners are perhaps not so clear about our customs. If Madam Damhuis has not told you, it would not be my place to do so.”

“Thank you, then,” Miguel said as he hurried off, eager to waste no more time.

“If I see her,” Hendrick called after him, “I’ll be sure to give her your regards.”

Such was his luck that day. He decided, on a whim, to visit the coffee tavern in the Plantage, but when the Turk Mustafa opened the door—only a crack—he stared suspiciously at Miguel.

“I’m Senhor Lienzo,” he said. “I’ve been here before.”

“This is not the time for you,” the Turk said.

“I don’t understand. I thought this was a public tavern.”

“Go away,” the Turk said, and closed the door hard.

Hannah sat in the dining room, eating her breakfast of white-flour bread with good butter and some yellow apples that an old woman had been peddling door-to-door the previous evening. Her wine was more heavily spiced and not nearly so watered down as usual. Annetje knew how to be parsimonious with the wine and generous with the water—more wine for herself that way—so Hannah understood what the strength of her drink meant. The maid wanted to talk with her and so tried to loosen her tongue.

Miguel had given her coffee, and now Annetje gave her wine. The world plied her with drink in order to make her do its bidding. This thought saddened her, but even so, Hannah could not quite forget the thrill of having consumed Miguel’s coffee. She loved learning the true nature of that fruit; she loved the way it made her feel animated and alive. It was not as though she discovered a new self; rather, coffee reordered the self she already had. Things at the top sank to the bottom, and the parts of herself she had chained down rose buoyantly. She had forgotten to be demure and modest, and she loved casting off those constraints.

She now recognized, perhaps for the first time, how Miguel had always seen her: quiet, foolish, stupid. Those Iberian virtues of femininity held no allure for him. He enjoyed connivers like Annetje and his wicked widow. Well, she could be wicked too. The thought almost made her laugh aloud. Of course she could not
be
wicked, but she could
want
to be wicked.

Annetje came up from the kitchen and stood in the doorway, eyeing, as Hannah had suspected she would, the now-empty goblet. Daniel and Miguel had both left to attend to their business, so the girl took a seat at the table, which she loved to do when they were alone together, poured herself some wine from the decanter, and drank it down quickly, apparently unconcerned with how loose her own tongue became.

“Did you and the senhor have a pleasant talk yesterday?” she began.

Hannah smiled. “You didn’t listen at the door?”

Something violent flickered across Annetje’s face. “You spoke too rapidly in your language. I could hardly understand a word of it.”

“He asked me not to talk of what had happened. I am sure he told you the same thing.”

“He did, but he did not give me any special potions to make me obey. Perhaps he has more faith in my silence.”

“Perhaps he does,” Hannah agreed. “And perhaps you’ve no faith in mine. That’s what you want to know about, yes? If I spoke to him about the widow.”

“Well, I would know if you spoke about the widow. You may count on that. Just as I know from your face now that you haven’t, but that you’ve done something else.”

Hannah said nothing. She cast her eyes downward, feeling the familiar rush of shame that gripped her when she spoke out of turn or made eye contact with a guest of her husband’s.

Annetje arose and took a seat next to her. She took Hannah’s right hand in both of hers. “Are you ashamed of talking so intimately with the senhor?” she asked sweetly, her pretty green eyes locking onto Hannah’s. “I don’t think it so wrong that you should enjoy a little innocent congress. The women of my nation do so every day, and no harm comes to them.” She squeezed Hannah’s hand between hers. Here was the Annetje who had first shown herself, who had lured Hannah into revealing her secrets.

Hannah would have no more of it. “I don’t see anything evil in speaking with him. I may say what I like to whom I like.”

“Of course, you are right,” Annetje cooed. “Let’s forget this incident altogether. Shall we go this afternoon?”

“Go?”

“Has it been so long that you do not recall?” Both had understood from the beginning that the name of the place must never be spoken aloud, not in the house, not in the Vlooyenburg, not anywhere Jews or Ma’amad spies might lurk.

Hannah swallowed. She had known this conversation must come, and she had done all she could to brace herself. Even so, she felt unprepared and perhaps even surprised. “I cannot go.”

“You cannot go?” Annetje asked. “Are you afraid because of that silly widow?”

“It’s not that,” Hannah told her. “I won’t risk it. My child.”

“The child again,” she snapped. “You act like no one has ever been with child before.”

“I won’t take any more chances. God has shown me, He has warned me of the dangers. I was almost caught once, and I would be a fool to ignore His mercy.”

“God did not save you,” Annetje told her, “I did. I am the one who saved you from being discovered. God will damn you to hell if you do not go today, and your child too.”

Hannah shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”

“You know it’s true,” the maid said petulantly. “We’ll see how many nights you can endure, lying awake, knowing that if you are to die in your sleep, you are destined for hell’s torments. Then you will change your mind.”

“Perhaps,” Hannah said ambivalently.

“In any case,” Annetje announced more cheerfully, “you must remember to say nothing to Senhor Miguel. You must keep silence. Will you promise me to do so?”

“I promise.” As she said the words, she knew she lied and felt a strange new pleasure in how easily the lie came. She knew she would tell Miguel, though she could not say when or why or what would be the consequence of an act that could well mean her ruin.

A week after his conversation with Hendrick, Miguel sat with Geertruid in the Singing Carp. She had sent him a note announcing that she wished to see him, and Miguel had hurried over. He found Hendrick in the midst of telling a story when Miguel arrived, and though Geertruid stretched her pretty neck to kiss Miguel, she made no effort to interrupt.

Hendrick spoke in a rapid rural Dutch, and Miguel had a hard time following the circuitous narrative, which had something to do with a childhood friend and a stolen barrel of pickled beef. When he finished, he laughed in appreciation of himself. “That’s some story, eh, Jew Man?”

“I like it very much,” answered Miguel.

“He likes it very much,” Hendrick said to Geertruid. “He is kind to say so.”

Why did Geertruid not send away this clown? But Miguel could tell that she had been drinking a little too much. Hendrick had been drinking too. “Now it is your turn,” he said to Miguel. He grinned broadly, but his eyes had a kind of cruelty in them. “You tell a story.”

This was a test of some sort, but Miguel had no idea how to proceed. “I have no story to tell,” he answered, “or none that can compete with your pickled beef tale.” In truth, Miguel could not make himself calm. He had only a third of Geertruid’s money remaining, and when the time came, he would have no way of paying Nunes. He’d been able to put the lost money out of his mind, but here with Geertruid he could not bring himself to forget it.

“I have no story to tell,” Hendrick repeated, imitating Miguel’s accent. “Come now, Jew Man. Show yourself to be game for once. You enjoy my generous entertainment, and I would so like you to give something in return. Would you not like to hear a story, madam?”

“I’d love to hear a story,” Geertruid agreed. “The senhor is so witty.”

“I see I’m outnumbered,” he said, making a show of good nature. “What sort of story should I tell?”

“That’s for you to say. Something that tells of your mighty adventures. You can tell us a story of your amorous victories or the strangeness of your race or some incomprehensible plan to conquer the Exchange.”

Miguel had no time to respond, for a man had come behind Hendrick with a tankard in his hand and swung hard, aiming to hit Hendrick in the head. It was his good fortune that Hendrick had leaned in a few inches to make some comment to Geertruid, so the pewter tankard came down hard, but it struck the Dutchman in the shoulder and then flew from the assailant’s hand, spraying beer into Miguel’s face before it clattered upon the wooden floor.

“God’s fucking whore,” Hendrick said, with surprising calm. He leapt from his seat in an instant and turned to face his attacker, a man at least a head shorter than Hendrick and thin—almost shockingly so—but for an enormous belly. His face had turned red with the exertion of his blow and the failure to bring it home.

“You rotten bastard!” the man shouted. “I know who you are, and I’ll kill you!”

“Christ,” Hendrick said petulantly, as though he had been asked to perform an unpleasant chore. He let out a puff of breath and struck the man hard in the face. The blow came fast, and his assailant went down on the floor to the cheers of the patrons.

In an instant the barkeep came out and, with the help of a servant, dragged the attacker toward the kitchens. Miguel guessed he would be thrown into the alley out back.

Hendrick smiled sheepishly. “I’d wager that fellow doesn’t much like me.”

Miguel nodded as he wiped the beer from his face.

“I don’t think there will be any trouble,” Geertruid said, “but you may wish to get gone.”

Hendrick nodded. “I take your meaning. Good day to you, Jew Man.”

The pair sat in silence for a few minutes once Hendrick had left, and Miguel pondered the unanswerable question of how Geertruid understood what had passed.

“Tell me once more why you associate with him,” Miguel said, after a moment.

“Anyone can make enemies,” Geertruid said unconvincingly. “He is a rough man with rough friends, and they sometimes settle their differences uncouthly.”

It was true enough. Miguel found himself secretly hoping that Joachim might someday confront him with Hendrick nearby.

“In any case,” Geertruid said, still sounding a little drunk, “I am sorry you had to witness such trouble.”

He shook his head. “Where have you been these past days?”

“I never stay in one place for long,” she told him. She set a hand on top of his. “I like to visit my relatives in the countryside. It is a sad bird who never leaves her nest.”

“I wish you would inform me of when you plan to go away and when you plan to return. If we are to do business together, I must be able to find you.”

She patted his hand and looked directly into his eyes. “Of course. I’ll be good to you.”

Miguel took his hand away. He was in no mood for her nonsense. “It is not a matter of being good to me, but of being good to our business. This is not some silly woman’s game.”

“And I am not some silly woman,” she answered, her voice now hard as steel. “I may be soft, but I am not a fool to be lectured.”

Miguel felt himself go pale. He could not recall her ever having spoken to him thus. Like a Dutch husband, he wanted nothing so much as to placate her. “Madam, I of all men would never call you a fool. I only wished to say that I must be able to speak with you.”

She turned to him, her head at an angle, her thin lips spread in a warm smile, her eyes wide and inviting. “Of course, senhor. I have been at fault.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Miguel muttered. “And we have more important business to discuss. I have received several letters from our agents, and I’m optimistic that we’ll receive more good news within the next few weeks.”

She took a drink from her tankard. “Have we all the agents we require?”

“Not quite. We still lack Madrid, Lisbon, and Oporto.” He made every effort to sound unconcerned, but the truth was that there could be no control of the market without Iberia. “It is a problem,” Miguel added.