The Coffee Trader

34

With a belly full of slightly cured herring, served with turnips and leeks, Miguel leaned back to survey the Flyboat. The moment was his. All the men of the Portuguese Nation spoke of his wondrous though still largely incomprehensible manipulation of the coffee market, a market so insignificant that most men had never given it more than a passing glance. Lienzo had shown himself a man of substance, they said. Parido had set out to destroy him, but Lienzo had turned the villainy back on itself. Brilliant. Ingenious. This man who had once seemed no more than a foolish gambler now showed himself to be a great man of commerce.

A half dozen traders of the highest order sat at Miguel’s table, drinking their fill of the good wine for which he had paid. Eager fellows had crowded around him the moment he walked through the door, and Miguel had found it difficult to force his way through to his new friends. Older senhors who had once looked at Miguel with contempt now wished to do business. Would Senhor Lienzo be interested in considering a matter of ginger? Would Senhor Lienzo be interested in hearing of the opportunities arising on the London Exchange?

Senhor Lienzo had a great deal of interest in these matters, and he had an even greater interest in the fact that these men now sought his business. But, he thought, men of commerce were best treated like Dutch sluts. If they were put off a bit now, they would only be more anxious later. Let them wait. Miguel still had no firm ideas about what he wished to do with his newfound solvency. He was not as wealthy as he had hoped to be by now, but he had wealth enough, and he would soon have a wife and-sooner than expected-a child.

He could not help but laugh at the irony. The Ma’amad would expel from the community a righteous man who dared to cast a few coins to an unsanctioned beggar, but Miguel could steal his brother’s wife so long as he did so legally. She would have her divorce, and then she would be his. In the meantime, he had rented for her some rooms in a neat little house in the Vlooyenburg. She had hired a girl of her own choosing, she drank coffee, she entertained friends she never knew she had, women who flocked to her parlor now that she was the subject of so delicious and neatly resolved a scandal. And she had been to visit Miguel in his new house. Of course she had. There was no reason to wait for the legal sanction of marriage.

Miguel drank heavily with these new friends and retold the story of his triumph as though it had only just happened. The look of surprise on Parido’s face when Joachim began to sell. The delight when the Tudesco merchants sent the price falling. The surprising interest of those strangers from the Levant. Was that truly an East Indian who had bought fifty barrels of coffee from the Frenchman?

They might have continued this celebration for hours, or at least for as long as Miguel bought wine, but Solomon Parido entered and silenced their conversation. Miguel felt a strange mixture of fear and delight. He had expected Parido to be there. A man such as he, so invested in his power, could not hide from defeat. He would show his face publicly, demonstrate to the Nation that his little losses were nothing to him.

Parido leaned forward and spoke to some friends with particular warmth. Miguel expected the parnass to remain among these men, turn his back on his enemy, and make nothing of his presence, but such was not Parido’s plan. After speaking with his fellows, he came over to Miguel’s table. Those who had just moments ago been laughing at the stories of Parido’s failure now climbed over one another to show their respect for him, but the parnass had no interest in their display.

“A word,” he said to Miguel.

He smiled at his companions and followed Parido to a quiet corner. All eyes were upon them, and Miguel had the uncomfortable feeling that now he was the subject of merriment.

Parido stopped and leaned in toward him. “Because I am a kind man,” he said quietly, “I gave you these weeks to revel in your glory. I thought it cruel to crush you too soon.”

“Who among the children of Israel is as wise and good as you?”

“You may be flip, but you and I both know that I have never done anything but in the service of the Nation, and nothing I did deserved the schemes you hatched against me. And what of your poor brother? He protected you and lent you money when you were friendless, and you repay him by undoing his finances, cuckolding him, and stealing his wife.”

Miguel could not correct the world’s belief that he had cuckolded Daniel, not without betraying Hannah, so he let the world think what it liked. “You and my brother are of a piece. You plot against me and seek my ruin, but when your methods fail you blame me as though I had acted against you. This surely is a madness worthy of the Inquisition itself.”

“How can you look me in the face and say it was I who plotted against you? Did you not seek to ruin my whale-oil scheme for your own profit?”

“I sought to ruin nothing, merely to profit from your own manipulations. Nothing more than any man does on the Exchange each day.”

“You knew full well your interference would cost me money, even while I interceded on your behalf with your brandy futures.”

“An intercession,” Miguel pointed out, “that left me the poorer.”

“You don’t seem to understand that I did not act against you. I had bet on the price of brandy going down, and my machinations in that field threatened to turn your futures into debt, so I did what I could to rescue you. I was as surprised as anyone when the price of brandy rose at the last minute. Unlike you, who made a small profit, I lost by my efforts.”

“I am certain you had nothing but the best of intentions in plotting against my coffee trade as well.”

“How can you speak to me thus? It is you who trod upon my coffee trade-you and your heretic friend.”

Miguel let out a laugh. “You may call yourself the injured person if you like, but that will not change what is.”

“I have a great deal of power to effect changes, you forget, and when I bring this case before the council, we will see how smug you look then.”

“And for what reason am I to stand before the Ma’amad? For making you look a fool or for refusing to be ruined by your scheme?”

“For conducting unseemly business with a gentile,” he announced. “You deployed that man, Joachim Waagenaar, intentionally to create a drop in the price of coffee. I happen to know he is the very same Dutchman you ruined by brokering for him and forcing upon him your foolish sugar scheme. Clearly he found it hard to get enough of you, but I think you will find the Ma’amad feels somewhat differently. You have violated the law of Amsterdam and so put your people at risk.”

Miguel studied Parido’s face. He wanted to savor the moment as long as he could, because it might be, he knew, the most satisfying of his life. Then, knowing he could not wait too long, he spoke. “When I am called before the Ma’amad,” he began, “shall I mention that I only asked Joachim to work with me after he came to me and confessed that you had attempted to force him into discovering the nature of my business arrangements? You, in other words, deployed a gentile as a spy, not even for Ma’amad matters but in the hopes of ruining a fellow Jew against whom you harbor resentment. I wonder what the other parnassim will think of that information. Should I also mention that you conspired with Nunes, a merchant with whom I had placed an order, and that you used your position as a parnass to force him into betraying me so you might prevail over me? This should make for a very interesting session.”

Parido chewed upon his lower lip for a moment. “Very well,” he said.

But Miguel was not finished. “I might add that there is the matter of Geertruid Damhuis, a Dutchwoman you employed with the single purpose of ruining me. How long was she your creature, senhor? The better part of a year, I think.”

“Geertruid Damhuis,” Parido repeated, suddenly looking a bit more cheerful. “I heard something of this. She was your partner in your schemes, but then you betrayed her.”

“I merely did not allow her to ruin me. What I have never fully understood, however, is why you needed Joachim if you already had Geertruid. Was she not telling you all? Was she hoping to turn this treachery into a little profit for herself, and you could not live with the knowledge that you could not control your own creature?”

Parido let out a laugh. “You are correct about one thing. I cannot bring you before the Ma’amad. You have won on that score. I admit here between the two of us that I did ask that foul Dutchman to find out information about you. But you must know I had nothing to do with that whore you ruined. As near as I can tell, she was a perfectly honest slut who wanted nothing more than to aid you. And you destroyed her.”

“You are a liar,” Miguel said.

“I don’t think so. There is one thing I do admire about you, Lienzo. Some men are cold in matters of business. They harden their hearts against those they hurt. But you are a man with a conscience, and I know you will truly suffer for what you did to your honest partner.”

Miguel found Geertruid in the Three Dirty Dogs, where she was so drunk that no one would sit with her. One of the other patrons warned him to be careful. She had already bit the cheek, to the point of drawing blood, of a man who had attempted to feel her bosoms. But she had clearly drunk herself past the point of anger, because when she saw Miguel she made a sloppy effort to stand and then held out her arms as though ready to envelop her former partner.

“It’s Miguel Lienzo,” she slurred. “The man who ruined me. I had hoped to see you here, and now you are here. Where I hoped to see you. Will you sit with me?”

Miguel sat himself down very carefully, as though afraid the bench might break. He looked across the table at Geertruid. “Who were you working for? I must know. I promise you I’ll take no action on the information. I need to know for myself. Was it Parido?”

“Parido?” Geertruid repeated. “I never worked for Parido. I would never even have heard of Parido if it had not been for you.” She laughed and pointed at him. “I knew that’s what you thought. The moment you told me you had undone me, I knew you thought I was Parido’s agent. If I were Parido’s agent,” she explained, “I would have deserved to be crushed.”

Miguel swallowed hard. He had hoped to hear something very different. “You tricked me into trusting you. Why?”

“Because I wanted to be wealthy,” Geertruid said, slamming her hand upon the table. “And a respectable woman. That’s all. I was not working for anyone. I had no plan to destroy you. I only wanted to go into business with a man of influence who would help me make my fortune. And when you lost your money, I stuck by you because I liked you. I never meant to trick you. All I am is a thief, Miguel. I’m a thief, but I am no villain.”

“A thief?” he repeated. “Then you stole that money, the three thousand guilders?”

She shook her head, and doing so let it drop so low that Miguel feared she might bang it upon the table. “I borrowed that money. From a moneylender. A very nasty moneylender. So nasty even the Jews won’t have him.”

Miguel closed his eyes. “Alferonda,” he said.

“Yes. He was the only man I could find who was willing to lend me what I needed. He knew what I wanted it for, and he knew who I was.”

“Why did he not tell me so?” Miguel demanded aloud. “He played the two of us against each other. Why would he do such a thing?”

“He’s not a kind man,” she said sadly.

“Oh, Geertruid.” He took her hand. “Why did you not tell me the truth? How could you let me ruin you?”

She let out a little laugh. “You know, Miguel, sweet Miguel, I don’t blame you at all. What could you have done? Confronted me? Asked of my scheme? You knew already I was a deceiver, and you wished to make your money as best you could. I can’t blame you. But I could not have told you the truth either, for you would never have continued to trust me. You feared that council of yours over a matter of merely doing business with a Dutchwoman. Would you have convinced yourself that any good can come with doing business with a Dutch outlaw? Particularly one such as me.”

“One such as you?”

“I must leave the city, Miguel. I must leave tonight. Alferonda has been searching for me, and he won’t go easy with me. There are tales of his wrath, you know.”

“Why should Alferonda care? Can you not simply give him the money I transferred to your account? I have repaid the three thousand I borrowed of you.”

“I owe him another eight hundred in interest.”

“Eight hundred,” Miguel blurted out. “Does he know no shame?”

“He is a usurer,” she said sadly.

“Let me speak with him. He is my friend, and I am certain we can come to an understanding. He needn’t charge you so much interest as that. We will reach a more reasonable fee, and I will help you pay him.”

She squeezed his hand. “Poor sweet Miguel. You are too good to me. I can’t let you do that, for you would be throwing away your money, and nothing would be gained but your ruin. Alferonda may be your friend, but he is not mine, and he won’t let his reputation suffer by a kindness. And how good a friend is he, deceiving you as he has done? Even if you could stay his hand, there is the money I owe the agents in Iberia. They have my name, not yours, and they will come looking for Geertruid Damhuis in Amsterdam. If I stay, it will be only a matter of time before I am undone. I must leave tonight, so I will give you no more than you deserve by telling you the truth at last.”

“There is more?”

“Oh, yes. There is more.” Through the fog of her drunkenness, she managed a smile such as never failed to fell him. “You asked what I meant when I said a thief such as me. I’ll now tell you.” She leaned in closer. “I am no ordinary thief, you must understand. I don’t pick pockets or cut purses or break into shops. You’ve wondered often about my journeys to the countryside and, poor foolish man, you have read all the tales, and you have read them because I introduced you to them, imp that I am.”

Miguel reminded himself to continue breathing. “What are you saying? That you and Hendrick…?” He could not quite finish.

“Yes,” Geertruid said quietly. “We are Charming Pieter and his Goodwife Mary. As to which of us is which, I cannot say.” She let out a laugh. “Poor Hendrick is more the fool than you, I’m afraid, but he always did as he was told, and he let the world believe that he was behind Pieter’s heroic robberies. It hardly mattered. I had come to believe that, in this age of stories and adventures, if we could make people believe in Charming Pieter as a hero, no one would turn him in, and the legend would only confound the efforts to catch him. Little did we know how well the plan would work. I expected to hear stories of our adventures, but I never expected to see these tales in print. Half the stories you read are false and the other half wild exaggerations, but they have served us well.”

“Where is Hendrick now?”

“Fled.” She sighed. “He is a silly man, but not so silly as not to know what it means to be unable to pay a cruel usurer. I have not seen him since the loss upon the Exchange. He was never at peace with my dealings with Alferonda and my plans to make our fortune through trade. He could not understand how it all worked, and he thought it doomed. I fear that any way this ended, Charming Pieter’s adventures were destined to reach their conclusion.”

“How could I have done this to you?” Miguel said. He put his face in his hands.

“It is my doing. I put you at risk. And that poor girl, your brother’s wife-please tell her I am sorry to have had to frighten her.”

“She is to be my wife soon,” Miguel said, feeling somehow the need to be honest.

“Is she now? Well, I can’t say I understand the ways of the Israelites, but they are not mine to understand.”

“What is it that Hannah saw? She did not even know.”

Geertruid laughed. “She did not even know. How very amusing. She saw me speaking with Alferonda, and I was afraid that if you were to learn of it you would grow suspicious. But,” she said, pushing herself to her feet, “enough chatter, senhor. I must be on my way.”

“You are too drunk, madam, to leave town tonight. Let me take you home.”

She laughed, holding on to his arm for support. “Oh, Miguel, still trying to find your way to my bed.”

“I only want to see you safely-”

“Shh.” She pressed a finger to his lips. “There’s no need to tell stories. Not anymore. I must go, and it must be tonight, and my being drunk shall only make things easier, not harder.” Yet she did not move. “Do you remember, senhor, the night you tried to kiss me?”

He thought about lying, to pretend it had been no matter to him and he had not bothered to remember. But he did not lie. “Yes, I remember.”

“I longed to kiss you back,” she said, “and more, too. I never let you, not because I did not want to but because I knew you would be more pliable if I never gave you more than enough to whet your appetite. A woman such as I am must know how to use her quim, even if it means not using it.”

“Let me take you home,” Miguel said again.

“No,” she said, pushing herself off with unexpected sobriety. “I said I must go, and so I must. Let us part quickly, or we’ll never part at all.” And so she left, out the door and into the night. Without a lantern. If ever a woman lived who could outwit the thieves and the Night Watch, it was Geertruid Damhuis.

He remained still for a long time. He simply stared into the distance until a pretty girl came over and asked him if he required anything. “Wine,” he whispered. “A great deal of wine.” When he drank it, when he had so much wine in him that he could no longer tell what was right and what was wrong-that was when he would go in search of Alferonda.

from

The Factual and Revealing Memoirs of Alonzo Alferonda

I had hardly thought that after Miguel Lienzo’s victory on the Exchange all would be done with. I had won, Parido had lost, and the victory tasted sweet, but there was still Miguel. I had trod upon him, and he would not take it kindly. I had thought to fool him when he came to see me, to dazzle his eyes with tricks and illusions until he doubted that there even was such a man as Alonzo Alferonda, let alone one who had used him ill. But I had always liked Miguel, and I owed him a debt. I had begun with no intention of hurting him or his friends but rather using him as an instrument that would facilitate what I wanted and at the same time allowing him to make a guilder or two.

There would have been no harm done, surely. If some lies were told, if some coins were palmed and made to magically appear, what wrong can there be in that? All men love trickery and tricksters. That is why half-starving peasants surrender their hard-got wages when mountebanks and Gypsies come through their towns. All the world loves to be deceived-but only when it consents to the deception.

I sat in my rooms one night reading the Holy Torah-I speak the truth, for the cherem had not diminished my love of learning one jot-when there was a loud banging on the door below. In a few moments my serving man, old Roland (for, despite the Dutch fashions, I like a manservant and will not allow a nation of cheese eaters to tell me whom to employ), tapped upon the door to my closet and told me there was “a very drunk Hebrew of the Portuguese kind” come calling and, when asked his business, stated that it was to kill the man who lived here.

I carefully marked my place in the volume and closed it reverently. “By all means,” I said, “show the fellow in.”

Soon enough a besotted Miguel Lienzo stood before me, teetering this way and that. I asked Roland to bring us some wine. I doubted Miguel wanted any more than he had already enjoyed, but I could still hope this encounter might end with his falling asleep. With the servant gone, I offered my visitor a chair and told him I awaited his words.

He awkwardly lowered himself into the hard seat, for in this room I only received visitors whom I did not wish to stay long.

“Why did you not tell me you lent money to Geertruid Damhuis?” he asked, his words a thick mumble.

“I lend to so many people,” I said, “I cannot be expected to keep track of every one.”

This bit of obfuscation was not meant to trick him. In fact, I’m not sure what it was meant to accomplish. I can say what it did do: it angered him greatly.

“Damn you,” he shouted, half rising from his chair. “If you play games, I will kill you.”

I began to believe him, though he had no weapon in sight, and I did not anticipate any great difficulty in eluding his drunken pursuit, should things so degenerate. Nevertheless, I held up my hand in a staying gesture and waited for him to settle back into his chair. “You are right. I did not tell you because it suited me for you to think she was in league with Parido. You must know by now that I could not be more delighted that your scheme has burnt Parido, but the truth of it is I had more of a hand in this than you could have imagined.”

Miguel nodded as though recollecting something. “Parido was invested in coffee before I decided to begin my venture, wasn’t he? He was not the man who sought to undo my scheme. I was the man who sought to undo his. Is that right?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Parido entered the coffee trade a few months before you. It was a bit of a trick keeping it from you, but I had my man at the coffee tavern refuse to admit you if Parido was there. A simple precaution. Parido, you understand, had nothing so elaborate as your monopoly scheme in mind. He only wanted to play in calls and puts, and when you started buying up coffee as you did, you threatened his investments, the way you had done in whale oil.”

Miguel shook his head. “So you had Geertruid lure me into the coffee trade for the single purpose of damaging Parido, and you then turned around and betrayed her?”

“I am flattered you think me so ingenious, but my involvement was something less than that. Your Madam Damhuis discovered coffee on her own and enticed you into the trade because she thought you would make a good partner. When I learned of your interest, I admit I encouraged it because I knew it would be bad for Parido, and I fed you a hint here and there about how Parido plotted against you. But I did no more than that.”

“How is it that Geertruid came to you for her loan?”

“I don’t know if you are familiar with that woman’s story, but you must know she is a thief, and I am the man thieves come to when they need large sums. I doubt she could have borrowed three thousand guilders from anyone else.”

“You’ll not see that money. She has fled the city.”

I shrugged, having expected something of that sort. “We’ll see. I have agents in such places as she might go. I have not given up hope on those guilders, but if they are gone it is a price I am will-ing to pay for harming Parido. He has not only lost a great deal of money, he looks like a fool before the community. He’ll never again be elected to the Ma’amad, and his days of power are over. Is that not worth inconveniencing a thief like Geertruid Damhuis?”

“She is my friend,” he said sadly. “You could have told me what you knew. You need only have told me all and I could have avoided all of this.”

“And what else would you have avoided? Had you known that Parido’s overtures of friendship were genuine, that he had come to coffee first and that you threatened his investments, would you have gone ahead? Would you still have sought to best him in that contest, or would you have backed down? I think we both know the truth, Miguel. You are a schemer, but not so much of a schemer as to do what needed to be done.”

“It did not need to be done,” he said softly.

“It did!” I slammed my hand on the desk. “That wretch Parido had me cast out of the community because he did not like me. He used flimsy excuses to justify himself, but he was no more than a petty despot who relished what little power he had to make himself feel great. So what if he reached out to you, the brother of a partner, to make amends? Does that excuse the evil he has already done and the evil he would continue to perpetuate? I’ve done our people a great service, Miguel, by knocking him down.”

“And it hardly matters that Geertruid, who was my friend, gets destroyed?”

“Oh, she’s not destroyed, Miguel. She’s a thief and a trickstress. I know the kind. I am the kind, and I can tell you she will always do well for herself. She is a wily woman with yet an ample share of beauty. This time next year she’ll be the wife of a burgher in Antwerp or the mistress of an Italian prince. You needn’t worry about her. I’m the one who has lost three thousand guilders, after all. She might have repaid me some portion of it.”

Miguel merely shook his head.

“You’re angry about something else, I suppose. You’ve made some money. You’ve extricated yourself from debt, you have a tidy profit besides, and you are the most popular merchant in the Vlooyenburg-at least for the moment. But you are angry that you are not on your way to opulence, as you had hoped.”

He stared. Perhaps he was ashamed to admit that he was indeed angry not to have earned so much as he believed he might.

“The two of you might have captured the coffee market in Europe,” I said, “but I don’t think so. This plan of yours was too ambitious; the East India Company would never have allowed it. I had every intention of rescuing you before you overreached yourself. Had I not done so, you would have been destroyed again in a half year’s time. Instead, you have done quite well. You think because your scheme with Geertruid Damhuis failed that you can have nothing more to do with coffee? Nonsense. You have made that commodity famous, Miguel, and now the city looks to you. There is still a great fortune to be made. You wanted a trade that would put all your scheming to an end, but instead you have one that presents only a beginning. Use it wisely, and you’ll have your opulence in due time.”

“You had no right to trick me as you did.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps not, but you are the better for it. You have your money, and, I now hear, you are to be married soon as well. Many congratulations to you and the beautiful bride. You have said you wanted a wife and family, and now you shall have those things because of me. I may not have been your most honest friend, but I have always been your best one.”

Miguel rose from his chair. “A man must make his own fortune, not be played like a chess piece. I’ll never forgive you,” he said.

Given that he came to my home with the intention of killing me, I considered never being forgiven a considerable victory.

“Someday you’ll forgive me,” I said, “and even thank me.” But he was already gone-down the stairs at a hurried pace that came just short of a tumble and off to find his own way to the door. Drunk as he was, it took him a few minutes. I heard some bottles break and a piece of furniture topple, but that meant little to me. Once he was gone I had Roland tell the girl, Annetje, that she could come out of hiding. She was much more beautiful, now that she had me to take care of her. I knew it was for the best that Miguel not see her in my home, for her radiant face gave unmistakable testimony that I was a superior lover, and that was information from which his fragile feelings were best protected at this tender time.