David Liss - The Coffee Trader

“You’d be wise to keep clear of that one.”

“What do you know of her?”

“Only that she’s a thief and a trickster, she and her companion both.”

“That much I already know. What does Parido have to do with her?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Nothing that I am aware. Two such jackals could never run in the same pack. I’ve only heard him say he knows you have some business with her.”

Miguel returned to his seat. If Geertruid did not work for Parido, what was her plan and why had it been necessary for her to deceive him into a friendship? Perhaps Joachim did not know all of Parido’s secrets. He might have hired her and then realized she had been deceiving him as well as Miguel. He could make no sense of it, but it seemed likely that Parido had only a murky idea at best of his plans with Geertruid. “What about my brother?” Miguel asked at last, blurting out the words before he had fully realized his intentions.

“Your brother?”

“Yes. What do you know of his relationship with Parido? Have you heard him speak the name of Daniel Lienzo?”

Joachim shook his head. “What a sad affair when a man cannot even trust his own brother. I suppose it has ever been thus among your people. Only look at Cain and Abel.”

“Cain and Abel were not Jews,” Miguel said testily, “they were merely the sons of Adam and, as such, your ancestors as much as mine.”

“I’ll be careful not to quote you scripture again. But as for your brother, I can tell you nothing. I know he spends a great deal of time with Parido, but you know that yourself. You want to know if he acts against your interests, but I can’t tell you.”

“And the pig’s head? Parido’s doing or yours?”

Joachim’s lips parted just a little. “Both,” he said.

Miguel paused for a moment to feel justified. Daniel had thought Miguel the villain for bringing down such horrors on his house, but the parnass was the villain all along. “How is it that Parido was so foolish as to speak of all of this in front of you? He may well have sent you to me with this information.”

“He may have,” Joachim said. “I’d wonder the same thing if I were you. But I don’t see what he would have to gain by giving you this information. Once the Sea Lily docks it will be easy enough to pay a sailor to crack open a barrel and tell you what is inside.”

“You haven’t answered my first question. Why would he reveal all this to you?”

“He wouldn’t,” Joachim said. “At least he wouldn’t intend to. After all, who would suspect a half-mad Dutchman of understanding the language of Portuguese Jews?”

Miguel laughed in spite of himself. “In a city like Amsterdam,” he said, repeating what Joachim once told him, “one must never assume that a man does not understand the language you speak.”

“It’s still good advice,” Joachim agreed.

“I’ll have to think very carefully about what you have told me.” It could all be a lie, he told himself. Another of Parido’s tricks. But what trick? What trick would be worth revealing to Miguel this web of deception? He could bring Nunes before the courts now if he chose; no one would blame Miguel for not trusting this matter to the Ma’amad. Would Parido have knowingly given Joachim such powerful information?

Miguel looked at Joachim, who now appeared for all the world his old self-twitchy and uneasy, but no madman. It must be true, he told himself. A sane man could fake madness, but a madman could never trick the world into thinking him sensible. Money had brought Joachim back to his senses.

“You think, then,” Joachim said. “But I ask you to give me your word. If you choose to act on what I’ve told you, and these acts turn to profit, will you give me ten percent of what you make?”

“If I find you have told me the truth and acted with honor, I’ll do so gladly.”

“Then I am content.” He stood. He looked at Miguel for a moment.

Miguel opened his purse and handed him a few guilders. “Don’t spend it all at the taverns,” he said.

“What I do with it is my concern,” Joachim said defiantly. He stopped halfway up the stairs. “And you may take it out of the ten percent if you like.”

Having concluded his business, Joachim bade Miguel a good afternoon, but Miguel followed him up the stairs for no reason other than that he did not like the idea of Joachim wandering around the house unescorted. At the top of the stairs, Miguel heard the swish of skirts before he saw Hannah as she hurried away. The panic that burst in his chest dissipated almost immediately. Hannah spoke not a word of Dutch; she might listen all she liked, but it would hardly tell her anything.

After Miguel had seen Joachim out, however, Hannah awaited his return in the hallway. “That man,” she said softly. “He was the one who attacked us on the street.”

“He didn’t attack you,” Miguel said wearily, half staring at the swell of her belly, “but yes, it’s the same man.”

“What business can you have with such a devil?” she asked.

“Sadly,” he told her, “a devilish business.”

“I don’t understand.” She spoke softly, but she held herself with a new confidence. “Do you think because you know my secret you may intrude upon my good sense?”

Miguel took a step forward, just enough to suggest an intimacy. “Oh, no, senhora. I would never behave thus to you. I know it appears unusual, but the world”-he let out a sigh-“the world is a more complicated place than you realize.”

“Don’t talk to me so,” she said, her voice growing a bit louder. “I’m not a child who must be told tales. I know what the world is.”

How this woman had changed. His coffee had turned her Dutch. “I don’t mean to belittle you. The world is more complicated than even I realized until recent events. My enemies have become my allies, my allies untrustworthy. This strange and bitter man has oddly put himself in a position where he can aid me, and he chooses to do so. I must let him.”

“You must promise me never to let him in my home again.”

“I promise you, senhora. I did not ask him to come, nor plan that things should end as they have. And I’ll do everything in my power to protect you,” he said, with a force that he had not intended, “even at the cost of my own life.” The boast of a hidalgo came easily to him, but he saw at once that he had said too much, for it was the boast a man makes to his lover, not to his brother’s wife.

Miguel could not take it back. In an instant he had committed himself to becoming her lover, so that was what he would be. “Senhora, I have a gift for you.”

“A gift?” His sudden change in tone broke the spell.

“Yes. I’ll return with it in a moment.” Miguel hurried down to the cellar and found the book he had bought for her: the Portuguese listing of the commandments. It would do her little good without instruction, but he hoped she might like it all the same.

He hurried into the parlor, where she stood looking fretful, as though Miguel might present her with a great diamond necklace she could neither refuse nor wear. The gift he did hold out was almost as precious and almost as dangerous.

“A book?” She took the octavo in her hand, running her fingers along the rough leather binding. It occurred to Miguel that she might not even know to cut the pages. “Do you mock me, senhor? You know I can’t read.”

Miguel smiled. “Maybe I shall tutor you. I have no doubt you will make a fine student.”

He saw it then in her eyes; she was his for the asking. He could lead her down to the cellar and there, in the cramped cupboard bed, he could take his brother’s wife. No, it was a defilement to think of her as Daniel’s wife. She was her own woman, and he would think of her as such. What held him back, propriety? Did not Daniel deserve to be betrayed after the way he had taken Miguel’s money?