David Liss - The Coffee Trader

“Is this your nest?” Miguel asked. “I hardly think so.”

“I disagree.” Joachim sat without being asked. “I feel like this very room is where I was born-the me I have become. And what I have become-even I hardly know that now.”

“Is that what you came to say?”

“No. Only that I’ve been thinking, and in a strange way I’ve decided you may be the greatest friend I have right now. Strange, isn’t it? Once we were-well, not friends really, but friendly like. Then we were enemies. I’ll take most of the blame for that, though my anger was justified; I’m sure you know that. And now we are friends at last. True friends, I mean. The kind who must look after each other.”

“How do you come to such an unusual conclusion?”

“Very simple, senhor. I have information you want. I have information from which you can make a great deal of money. In fact, I have information that will save you from ruin. I cannot help but fear you may be too much of a fool to take it, but just the same I have it and I am willing to share it.”

“And for this information you want the five hundred guilders of which I’ve heard so much?”

The Dutchman laughed. “I want instead a piece of your profit. You see the joke, I hope. I want my success, my fortune, once again to be bound with yours.”

“I see.” Miguel took a deep breath. He hardly even recognized his own life anymore. Here he sat, in his cellar, negotiating with Joachim Waagenaar. Were he to be caught doing so, in all likelihood Solomon Parido would argue to the Ma’amad that the crime should be forgiven. The world had become an unknown wilderness.

Joachim shook his head. “You don’t see, Lienzo, but you will. Here is what I propose: I agree to give you information from which you will make wondrous profits. If I’m right, you give me ten percent of what you make because of that information-a broker’s fee, shall we call it? If I am wrong, you owe me nothing, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“Aren’t you overlooking an important detail?”

“What detail is that?”

Miguel swallowed. “That you are a madman, and nothing you say can be trusted.”

Joachim nodded, as though Miguel had made a sage point of law. “I’ll ask you to trust me now. I’m never been a madman, only a ruined man. Can you say what would become of you, senhor, if you lost everything-if you had no money, no home, no food? Can you say that you would not fall victim to the lunacy of desperation?”

Miguel said nothing.

“I’ve never wanted revenge,” Joachim continued, “only what’s mine, and I’ll not sit by and watch one man destroy another for the pleasure of it. I’ve no love for you. I suppose you know that, but I’ve learned what ruin is. I’ll not bring it on another.”

Joachim now had Miguel’s full attention. “I’m listening.”

“You’ll have to do more than listen. You’ll have to agree.”

“Suppose I listen to what you have to say and don’t believe you?”

“That’s well and good, but if you decide that you do believe me, and you act on that information, you’ll have to give me ten percent of what you make.”

“Or?”

“There’s no or, ” Joachim said. “There can be no more threats between us. I’ll not make you sign a contract; I know you risk ruin if you put something on paper with one of us. I will leave it to your own sense of what a gentleman should do.”

Miguel took a gulp of his wine. Joachim no longer spoke like a madman. Would Parido’s coin be enough to drive the evil vapors from his brain, or could only Joachim’s own clarity and determination do that? “I’ll listen.”

Joachim breathed in deeply. “You have any of that wine for me? Or maybe some beer?”

“I’m not your host, Joachim. Speak or get out.”

“There’s no need to be so unfriendly, senhor. You’ll be serving me drinks aplenty when you listen to what I have to say.” He paused again. “All right, then. You see, last time I came to you, I was not entirely honest about what I wanted. As it happens, I fell in with this man who sent me here to do his bidding.”

“Solomon Parido,” Miguel said. “You might as easily have brought him with you for all that I was fooled.”

“I suspected you knew, but I didn’t say a word to him. I was already thinking about what might come of our sad partnership, and I figured you told me what you did because you wanted him to believe it. I had already begun to hate him more than I hate you, so I held my tongue.”

“Let’s take this path more slowly. How did you find yourself in Parido’s employ?”

“He’s a tricky one. He came to me, said he knew I’d been following you through the town, and said he knew why. He said maybe we could do some business together. He was very kind to me. He even gave me ten guilders and told me he would come see me in a week’s time. A week goes by, and he wants me to start coming to talk to you. I tell him I won’t do such a thing, that things have taken a turn for the worse between us. I admit I only wanted to hear what he might offer me. But he offers me nothing. He tells me that if I feel that way, he would just as soon I repaid that loan and its interest, and that would be all between us. I told him I couldn’t repay the loan, and he began to threaten me with the Rasphuis. He knows men on the City Council, he says, who will lock me away without cause or regret, and perhaps raise some questions about how I had been released so quick after my previous detention. I had no desire to return to that dungeon, I can tell you.”

“Go on.”

“So I do what he tells me for a while, but all the time I’m thinking about what I might do for myself, which, as it turns out, has a lot to do with what I might do for you. I liked the little trick you tried to play, by the way, but he didn’t believe it. When I told him what you had said to me, he said that of all the Conversos he knew, you were the one best made to be a liar.”

Miguel said nothing.

Joachim rubbed his sleeve against his nose. “In any case, I managed to fit a few things together. You know someone named Nunes, a trader in goods from the East Indies?”

Miguel nodded, for the first time really believing that Joachim might have some information of importance.

“This Nunes works for Parido. There’s something to do with a shipment of coffee, a drink I had once, by the way, and very much despised for its pisslike taste.”

Nunes working for Parido? How could that be? Why would his friend betray him?

“What about the shipment?” Miguel spoke so quietly he could hardly hear himself.

“Nunes lied to you-told you a shipment is late, never obtained, or such nonsense that he concocted-but it’s all false. They changed the ship, so it’s on something called the Sea Lily , which near as I can tell is to come in next week. I don’t know much more than that, except that Parido doesn’t want you to learn this and he wants to do something with the prices.”

Miguel began to pace about the room, only vaguely aware that Joachim stared at him. Parido and Nunes together! He would not have thought Nunes such a traitor, but it explained a great deal. If Nunes was Parido’s creature, he would have reported Miguel’s sale. Parido would then have begun conspiring to find ways to ruin Miguel while simultaneously making money himself. But Parido knew only about the coffee itself and how Miguel had gambled on its price falling. Perhaps he did not know about the plan to establish a monopoly. The shape of the scheme eluded him, but Miguel knew he had to assume one thing: if Geertruid did work for Parido also, she had not told Parido all she knew.

“You mentioned Geertruid Damhuis to me before. Does she work for Parido?” Miguel asked, hoping he might resolve the question forever.