David Liss - The Coffee Trader

The East India shares were traded based on the percentage of their original value. The shares had opened that morning at just over 400 percent. Miguel found a broker and laid out 500 guilders he did not have, buying when the price dropped to 378. He assured his agent that the money could be found in his Exchange Bank account, though he knew that he could afford to spend no more of that money on his own trade.

Once he had his shares in hand, Miguel moved toward the edge of the trading cluster to monitor the change in prices. He then noticed Solomon Parido, who also appeared to be buying Company stock. Upon seeing Miguel, he sauntered over.

“These combinations,” the parnass said loudly, to make himself heard above the noise. “Without them there would be no market. They keep commerce moving in and out like the tides.”

Miguel nodded, paying less attention to the parnass than to the sellers calling out their prices. The shares had dropped again and were now selling at 374.

Parido put a hand upon Miguel’s shoulder. “I hear rumors, Senhor Lienzo, that things are on a new footing with you-that you have something planned.”

“Sometimes a man may not desire to be the subject of rumors,” Miguel told him, with a smile he hoped looked genuine. “And now may not be such a good time to talk of this.” He gestured toward the crowd of East India stock dealers. He heard a cry of 376.

“Pay that no mind. East India stocks go up and down so fast it hardly matters what a man buys or sells this day or that. Surely you wouldn’t want to insult a parnass by refusing to speak with him because of this mayhem.”

Miguel heard a call to buy for 381, more than he had paid, but not enough to think about selling. “I must be able to conduct my affairs,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm.

“I find it odd that you don’t want to know the subject of these rumors. On the Ma’amad I’ve learned that when a man does not ask with what he is charged, he is invariably guilty.”

“That’s in the Ma’amad’s chamber, not on the Exchange, when that man is attempting to see to his business. And I’ve not been charged with anything.”

“Even so,” Parido said.

The price dipped once more to 379, and Miguel felt the tug of panic. Not to worry, he assured himself. He had seen these dips before in moments of frenzy, and they would last only a few minutes. He had a moment to spare for this nonsense with Parido, but just a moment. Yet he could not quite stay calm. “Then tell me what you have heard,” Miguel said.

“That you are upon some new venture. Something in the coffee-fruit trade.”

Miguel waved a hand dismissively. “This coffee rumor plagues me. Maybe I should involve myself lest I disappoint so many eager devourers of rumor.”

Miguel heard new calls to sell-378, 376.

“You’re not trading in coffee?”

“I wish I were, senhor. I long to undertake a trade of so much interest to men like you-and my brother.”

Parido frowned. “It is a terrible sin, punishable by the cherem, to lie to a parnass .”

Before he could check himself, the indignation, fed by coffee, became his master. “Do you threaten me, senhor?”

“We have a history filled with mistrust, have we not, Lienzo? I have spoken ill of you in the past, but remember that you have spoken ill of me as well. You must know that I have been more than willing to forgive your actions with my daughter and with the maid and her child.”

“The child wasn’t mine and you know it,” Miguel blurted out.

“Nor mine,” Parido said, with a thin smile. “Nor anyone else’s either. I know about your little trick with the whore. A few coins pressed in her hand, and she told me everything. I’ve known it for more than a year. And yet I have never brought forward that information. I’ve never used it to harm you, and now I never can, for how could I explain knowing something of such importance and keeping it secret all this time? Is that not proof enough that I am not the enemy you think I am?”

Miguel could think of nothing clever to say. “You have been very judicious, senhor,” he managed, in a croaking voice.

“I believe kind is more the word, but I would hate for my kindness to be misunderstood. It hasn’t been misunderstood, has it?”

What in the devil was he talking about? “No.”

“Good.” Parido patted Miguel on the back. “I see you’re upset, so we’ll continue this conversation another time. If you have no interest in coffee, that is the end of it. But if I learn that you have lied to me in this, that you have turned me away when I offer you friendship, you’ll discover you have angered the wrong man.”

Miguel spun around and heard a buyer call for shares at 402. What had happened since 378? Miguel had no choice other than to sell what he had rather than risk a sudden dip and lose everything.

Within two days the price rose to 423, but Miguel had done little more with his shares than break even.

Isaiah Nunes looked half drunk. More than half drunk, Miguel decided. He looked fully drunk and half asleep. They sat in the Flyboat drinking thin Provençal wine, and Miguel began to get the feeling that he was boring his friend.

“He comes to me and speaks of friendship, but he does all in his power to confuse me and prevent me from going about my trade.”

Nunes raised one eyebrow. “Perhaps you had best keep your distance from Parido.”

“That is sound advice,” Miguel said, “but I have hardly been chasing after him. Both he and my brother hound me about coffee, yet they seem to know nothing of my plans.”

“I told you to stay away from coffee.”

“I don’t need to stay away from coffee. I need to stay away from Parido and my brother. And I need a man or two in Iberia.”

“Well, they’re hard to come by these days, I hear.”

“You must have contacts,” Miguel suggested.

Nunes raised his head slightly. “What do you mean, precisely?”

“What I mean is that if you know someone who can act as my agent in Iberia, I would be grateful if you would write to this person and tell him to expect to hear from me.”

Nunes began to shake his head. “What are you doing, Miguel? You tell me that Parido is troubling you, looking to pry into your business, and you want to involve me? I won’t risk Parido’s anger, or even his notice. He hardly recognizes me when he sees me on the street, and I prefer it that way.”

“You already are involved,” Miguel reminded him. “You’re the one who is bringing my coffee into Amsterdam.”

“And I regret having agreed to do it,” he said. “Ask no more of me.”

“You won’t put me in touch with your man in Lisbon?”

“I have no man in Lisbon.” Nunes drained his glass.

Four days later, Miguel found himself in need of a piss on a horse-drawn barge headed to Rotterdam. Geertruid had not lied when she said that coffee would provoke urine. And here he was, his bladder full, and nowhere to piss but in the canal. There were women on this boat, and though a Dutchman would do his business without a second thought, Miguel could not bring himself to expose his alien member so freely. He did not need a group of strange Dutchwomen staring and pointing at his circumcised anatomy.

Just another hour to Rotterdam, he told himself. His old associate Fernando de la Monez would soon be leaving that city and heading back to London, where he lived, as he had in Lisbon, as a Secret Jew. No amount of money would ever serve as incentive for Miguel to once more take to worshiping in darkened rooms, groping in ignorance for some semblance of Jewish ritual, all the while knowing that the world outside would see you dead before permitting this hidden and undignified exercise of faith. In his letters Fernando had insisted that things were not quite so bad in London. There, he said, men of business knew him and his compatriots to be Jews, but they didn’t mind so long as they were discreet in their practice.