The Coffee Trader

13

After a disappointing afternoon, nothing would have been so welcome as the cool isolation of his brother’s cellar. Sad home though it was, it offered some retreat from the world.

It had been more than two weeks, and still no word from any of his prospective agents. True, it was still early, but after two weeks it was now within the realm of the possible that he might have word. That was what he had told himself. Don’t look for answers before two weeks had passed, though he had secretly hoped to receive word sooner.

Now all that might comfort him would be a few struck candles, a glass of wine-or perhaps even some coffee. Miguel had stopped by the bookseller that afternoon and found a new tale of Charming Pieter and his Goodwife Mary. It was only eighteen pages long, so he took no more than a glance at it in the shop, not wanting to spoil the pleasure of the discovery.

Miguel had received yet another note from his Muscovy agent that day. The fellow had too many debts and too many creditors pressing for them. He needed to call in his own loans, and if Miguel could not comply there would certainly be consequences.

There were always consequences, he told himself, and he’d ignored his share of similar communications, but not with Dutchmen who might well drag him before the courts-something he could little afford now that he was beginning to order his affairs. So he spent the day in search of Ricardo, but no luck. Instead he ended up at the Flyboat, drinking with Isaiah Nunes.

“What do you know about Ricardo?” Miguel asked his friend.

“Nothing more than you know. He’s just a broker of middling skills.”

“You have no idea who his clients are?”

“That is one thing Ricardo does well: he keeps quiet. He’s very popular among men who don’t want to pay a moment before they choose to pay. I don’t think Ricardo would risk tricking you outright, but it could be another month or even more before he pays. I heard he once sheltered a client for more than a year.”

Miguel had no intention of waiting a year. “I would blacken his eye if I thought he wouldn’t go running to the Ma’amad. Trouble from the council is the last thing I need while I work out this business with coffee.”

“Are you still committed to that project?” Nunes let his eyes wander around the room.

Miguel felt the hair on the back of his neck tingle. “Of course.”

“Maybe now is not the best time,” Nunes suggested, half swallowing his words.

Miguel leaned forward. “What are you telling me-that you can’t get what you promised? By Christ, if you can’t, you had better tell me who can.”

“Of course I can get what I promise,” he answered hastily. “I’ll not promise what I can’t do. Even the East India Company would not cross me.” An idle boast, of course.

“I am utterly certain that the East India Company would not hesitate to cross me,” Miguel said, “but I hope you would.”

Nunes let out a nervous sigh. “I only wondered if perhaps, now that you have made a little money in whale oil and are feeling confident, it might be a poor time to invest in something so full of risk. Why not make yourself safe?”

“My brother tried to warn me off coffee too,” Miguel said.

“I’m not trying to warn you off,” Nunes assured him. “If you suggest your brother put me up to this, you are wrong. You know how little I value him. If Parido did not befriend him, he’d be without two stuivers to buy bread. I just don’t want to see you lose in a risky venture.”

“Just do what I pay you to do,” Miguel said, loud enough to make his friend cringe.

On the walk home, he’d begun to regret his words to Nunes. Miguel had lost a great deal of money, and the loss had hit him hard. His friends were right to worry about him, and he had not exactly told Nunes the truth about his coffee venture. He would find Nunes tomorrow, apologize by buying him a few tankards, and the matter would be forgotten.

On entering his brother’s house, Miguel found his plans for a quiet retreat quickly dashed. Daniel sat smoking a pipe in the front room with Hannah, who appeared lost in thought, oblivious to her husband.

“A word, please,” Daniel said, with a little more urgency than his brother liked. “I must speak to you for a moment. Leave the room, wife.”

Hannah picked up her glass of mulled wine and retreated to the kitchen, stealing a glance at Miguel. Their eyes locked for an instant, but she turned away first. She always did.

Daniel rose to meet his brother. He held up a few pieces of paper, which looked very much like letters. “You received these today.”

Miguel took them. The letters appeared on the surface nothing special, but Miguel already recognized the hand on one of them: Joachim.

“That’s the one,” Daniel said, noticing Miguel’s frown. “I can see, just from the handwriting, that the letter is written by a Dutchman. I wonder at your receiving such communications, and receiving them in my house as well. Is this some man for whom you broker? You know that these transactions with gentiles are illegal.”

Miguel checked to make certain that the letter was unopened, but the seal was of simple wax. It could easily have been broken and sealed again.

“I see nothing wrong with receiving any letter at my place of lodging.” He would soon control all the coffee in Europe; even having this conversation was beneath him. “Do you suggest that you never have need to communicate with Dutchmen? All your affairs, from your banking to the acquisition of wall paintings, are transacted only with Jews?”

“Of course not. Please don’t bombard me with absurdities. But I don’t think this letter is of such a nature, and I wish to know what it contains.”

“So do I, but I have not read it.” He leaned forward. “I wonder if you can say the same. I might remind you that we’re no longer in Lisbon,” Miguel said after a moment. “Here a man need not keep so suspicious an eye on his brother.”

“That’s not the point. I charge you to open that letter in my presence, so its contents may be revealed before the community.”

Revealed before the community? Had Daniel grown mad and come to believe that Parido had steered him to a seat on the Ma’amad?

“Shall I translate it for you as well?” Miguel asked. “Would Portuguese or Spanish be more to your liking?”

“Am I to be upbraided for not speaking the language of gentiles?”

“Of course not. Let us continue our conversation in Hebrew. I’m sure your mastery of the tongue is superior to mine.”

Daniel began to turn red. “I think you forget yourself. Now open the letter, if you please, unless you have something to hide.”

“I’ve nothing more to hide than any man of business,” Miguel returned, unable to choke back the words he knew he could not afford to utter. “My letters are my own concern.”

“My wife is with child. I won’t have strange Dutch letters plaguing her quiet.”

“Of course.” Miguel looked downward to hide his mirth. His wife’s quiet surely existed independent of any Dutch letters that came to the house. “If you like,” he proposed, knowing he was now being provoking, “I’ll have all my letters directed to a tavern, where it will be the barkeep’s task to protect his own wife’s quiet.”

“No,” Daniel answered, too quickly. “No, perhaps I shouldn’t interfere with your business. A man has a right to order his own affairs.”

“You are very kind.” Miguel had not meant for his words to sound quite so bitter.

“I only inquire into your business out of curiosity. Brotherly curiosity, you know. For example, I should love to learn more of this coffee trade you mentioned.”

Miguel felt the tingle of panic. “I told you, I have no such trade.”

“Let’s be open with each other. I’m certain it must be a safe topic within these walls.”

“I have no plans,” Miguel said as he walked away, “but if you think the coffee trade so promising, I’ll be certain to look into it.”

Miguel passed through the kitchen, where Hannah and Annetje busied themselves with moving carrots and leeks from this place to that in an effort to appear as though they had been tending to the meal and not listening at the door.

Once in his cellar, he struck a few candles and then ground some beans with the mortar and pestle he had not yet returned to the kitchen, and which had not yet been missed, and heated some wine. Only once he had poured the mixture into a bowl and allowed it to settle did he break open the letter from Joachim.

Senhor Lienzo,

When we spoke earlier, I may have grown unnecessarily heated. Nevertheless, I think you will agree that my anger is well justified and that you indeed owe me more than you have been willing to admit. Therefore, please accept my regrets. I wish you to know I am glad that we may enter into a matter of business that will serve our mutual interests. I remain your servant,

Joachim Waagenaar

He took a sip of his drink, though he might have been drinking beer for all he noticed the bitterness. Surely this man was far madder than Miguel had imagined. Had Joachim understood nothing of their conversation, even his own part?

After folding the letter and placing it upon the fire, Miguel went through the rest of his correspondence, which included more troubling lines from the Muscovy trader, who, it seemed, had taken to writing twice a day now. Miguel had not the heart to reply to these meddlesome words and, instead, took out his new pamphlet, but the tricks of Charming Pieter held no allure for him.

He set down the little volume when he heard footsteps upon the stairs. He thought he might have to face Annetje, whose silliness would only irritate him, but instead he saw that Hannah had descended halfway down to the cellar. She held a smoky candle in her hand, and she peered with seeming difficulty into the dimly lit room.

“Are you there, senhor?” she called softly.

Miguel could not think how to reply. Hannah had never before come into the cellar, and that she did so without knocking seemed to him unthinkable. He might have been undressed. He recalled that he had not closed the door, so perhaps Hannah believed that to be a sign of his willingness to receive guests. Such a mistake, he determined, must never again be permitted.

“I’m here, senhora.” He set down his bowl of coffee and moved toward the foot of the stairwell. “Do you require me?”

“I smelled something strange,” she told him, taking a few more steps down. “I wanted to make certain all was well.”

No odor, other than fire or vomit, ought to provoke such a response. The coffee was certainly the culprit. Since he had received the beans of Geertruid, Miguel had grown accustomed to the aroma but recognized that it might smell alien to someone unfamiliar with it.

“Oh, the floor is all wet,” Hannah observed. “Have you spilled something?”

“It is the canal, senhora. It floods at night.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “I worry that you’ll grow ill.”

“I do well enough, senhora. And it is better to sleep in the damp than in a heated room with no windows. I inquired of a physician.”

“I wanted to see about the odor.” She sounded confused, as though she had taken too much wine. Now that he thought about it, her voice did have a loose, unformed quality. She seemed to be making an effort to say something more, as though she could not bring herself to her topic. He knew she took undue pleasure in his company, that she loved to look upon him and make idle chatter with him, but to descend to the cellar-had she discovered some new boldness?

“There is no need to so trouble yourself, senhora. The smell is nothing but a new kind of tea. I am sorry it disturbed you.”

“A new kind of tea!” she nearly shouted, as though this had been what she had longed to hear. Miguel, however, did not quite believe it. It was more, he thought, as though she had latched onto some opportunity. Hannah now ventured another step, until she hovered only a few inches above the wet. “Daniel thinks tea a waste of money, but I love it.”

Miguel noticed that Hannah’s scarf had come askew and he could see a thick lock of her black hair dangling across her forehead. As a woman who had returned to Jewish ways only recently, she perhaps did not feel to the depth of her soul the force of the Law that prohibited a married woman from showing her hair to any man but her husband. Miguel had found the injunction strange when he had first arrived in Amsterdam, but he had absorbed its urgency to such a degree that he would hardly have been more shocked had she exposed to him her bare breasts-which were large and of significant interest to him.

As it was, he found this lock of hair strangely exciting. “Perhaps you might taste it someday,” Miguel said, in rapid words that betrayed his discomfort. His face grew hot, and his pulse quickened. His eyes fixed upon this lock of hair. In an instant, he knew what it must feel like to the touch-smooth and brittle at once-and he could smell its musty aroma. Did she know she so exposed herself? Miguel could hardly think so. He wanted to say something so she might undo the error before Daniel discovered it, but if he were to tell her that she had so disrobed herself, mortification might overwhelm her.

“I’ll be happy to share the tea with you some other time,” he told her. “I hope you will close the door to the room when you depart.”

Hannah could not mistake his meaning. “I am sorry to have bothered you, senhor.” She retreated up the stairs.

He thought to call out, to say she had not bothered him. He could not let her walk away feeling foolish. But he knew that was precisely what he ought to do. Let her feel foolish. Let her come down here no more. No good could come of it.

Miguel returned to his writing table and finished his drink. He would not allow himself to think about her, having trouble enough without letting thoughts of his brother’s wife confuse him. Better he should think of how to extract Joachim Waagenaar from his affairs.

Miguel stumbled upon no solutions though the problem kept him awake. Many hours after the household had fallen into quiet, he slipped up to the attic to awaken Annetje, and only after he had spent himself with her did he find any rest.

from

The Factual and Revealing Memoirs of Alonzo Alferonda

Since Miguel Lienzo developed an interest in the wondrous fruit, I had been meeting him in a little coffee tavern in the Plantage run by a Turk I called Mustafa. This may have been his true name or it may not; I have no way of knowing. It was the name of the Turk in a play I had seen once, and this fellow reminded me of that fictional Mohammedan. If he objected to my calling him by that name, he never told me so.

One afternoon when I met Lienzo I had been fortunate enough to be served a most unusual delicacy by Mustafa. I was sitting and enjoying the drink when Lienzo showed himself most eagerly. He had enlisted my aid in a matter of whale oil, and it had turned out rather well for him.

“I hear you’ve done well,” I said, as I signaled Mustafa to bring a cup of the strange mixture he’d been brewing. “How lucky you are to have Alferonda as a friend.”

“I may have done well, but I haven’t yet got that money,” Miguel said. “The broker who bought it, that fellow Ricardo, is refusing to pay me.”

I knew Ricardo, probably better than Miguel did, and I could not have been less surprised. “What? He’s paid you nothing?”

“Nothing. He’s promised in a month or so, and meanwhile my Muscovy agent is demanding I pay in full what I borrowed of him.”

“I, for one, advise that a man should always pay his debts, but I have a proprietary interest in these matters.”

Mustafa now set the drink before Miguel. It was served in a little white bowl, not much bigger than a hollowed-out eggshell. The drink inside had a yellow, almost metallic-gold color, and there was not much of it, for it was very expensive and very rare. Of course, I would not say as much to Miguel. I would pay for his drink.

“What is this?” he asked me.

“You think there is only one kind of coffee? Coffee is like wine: a hundred varieties and flavors. A hundred nations around the world drink it, each with its own preferences, and each has pleasures for the discriminating drinker. My Turkish friend managed to get a small quantity of this treasure from the East Indies, and I convinced him to share it with us.”

Miguel sniffed as cautiously as a cat and, after saying a blessing, raised the little bowl to his lips. His forehead wrinkled at once. “Curious,” he said. “It is muskier than the other coffees I’ve had, but at the same time thinner. What is it?”

“It’s called monkey coffee,” I said. “There is a particular kind of beast in those tropical forests that eats the coffee fruit. Indeed, it eats only the most perfect berries, and so the locals have learned that a flavorful drink can be made from this creature’s droppings.”

Miguel set down the bowl. “This is made from monkey turds?”

“I would not have put it so boldly, but yes.”

“Alonzo, how can you have fed me this abomination? Besides being disgusting, surely it violates the dietary laws.”

“How so?”

“It comes from a monkey, and monkey flesh may not be eaten.”

“But can monkey turds be eaten? I have never heard of them being forbidden.”

“If we may not eat its flesh, how can we eat its turds?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “However, I do know that a chicken is flesh, but its eggs are neither flesh nor dairy. Thus we can conclude that the Sages believed that what comes out of a creature’s guts may not be of the same quality as the creature itself.”

Miguel pushed the bowl away from him. “You make a convincing case, but I don’t think I’ll drink any more shit brew.”

I smiled and sipped at my own bowl. “I hear that Parido’s help is not so valuable as one might hope.”

“Yes,” he said, “the brandy. There’s no way of knowing if he intended for me to lose out or if the change in price caught him by surprise.”

“Of course he intended it. Parido has been your enemy these two years, and when he suddenly declares himself your friend and acts on your behalf, it costs you money. I don’t believe in mere happenstance, Miguel. He’s shown his colors.”

“I took at least as much from his pocket when I traded on whale oil.”

“That may be,” I observed, “but if you took that money from his pocket, it has not shown up in yours.”

“Are you saying that Ricardo’s client is Parido, that it’s he who refuses to pay me?”

“It needn’t be that direct. Parido could simply be using his influence to keep that money from you. I suggest you press Ricardo a little more forcefully. You can’t bring him before the Ma’amad, but you may be able to find other ways to make him yield.”

“Have you any suggestions?”

I shrugged. “If I think of something, I will be certain to inform you.”

“That’s not very helpful. I feel like everything is getting away from me. I earned money in whale oil, but I cannot get it. I begin a trade in coffee, but the world warns me off it.”

“Who has warned you?”

“Isaiah Nunes. And my brother.”

“Nunes trembles at the sound of his shit falling in his chamber pot. You oughtn’t let his cowardice affect you. And as for your brother, he is Parido’s creature before he is your kin.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Parido may know of your trade in coffee and want you to stay away from something that will make you successful. You must remain fast and cling to your purpose.”

“I have no intention of doing otherwise,” he said.

That was precisely what I wanted to hear.