David Liss - The Coffee Trader

“That much is certain,” Miguel agreed, without much enthusiasm. “Life is full of unexpected turns.”

“By Jesus, I am glad we’re doing this thing.” She squeezed his hand. The serving girl put the beer down, and Geertruid drank down half the contents at once. “I’m glad. We’ll make our fortunes and live in luxury. Perhaps we’ll die next day or next year, no one knows. But I’ll have my fortune first, and we’ll laugh while my husband looks on from hell.”

“Then we must go ahead,” Miguel began humorlessly. “We must send the letters at once. We can’t delay any longer. The time must be set. Eleven in the morning, three weeks from today.”

“Three weeks from today? The ship has not yet made port.”

“It must be three weeks from this day,” he insisted, looking away. She had betrayed him. He knew it was true, but his own act of betrayal tasted bitter in his mouth.

“Senhor, have you decided to get forceful with me?” She reached out and began to run a finger lightly along Miguel’s hand. “If you’re going to thrust something upon me, I should like to know what I shall be receiving.”

“You shall be receiving a great deal of money,” he told her, “if you do what I say.”

“I should always like to do what you say,” she told him. “But I must know why.”

“I have been assured the shipment will be here by that time. I have reason to believe there are others who take an interest in coffee, and if we wait too long, they may make it more difficult for us to manipulate the prices as we planned.”

Geertruid considered this for a moment. “Who are these people?”

“Men of the Exchange. What does it matter who they are?”

“I only wonder why, at this time, they take an interest in something that hardly anyone has taken an interest in before.”

“Why did you take an interest in it?” Miguel asked. “Things happen all at once. I’ve seen it countless times. Men from all over the city, from all over Europe, will suddenly decide this is the time to buy timber or cotton or tobacco. Maybe it’s the stars. All I know is that this may be coffee’s moment, and we may be but one party to have recognized it. If we are to do what we planned, then we had better act decisively.”

Geertruid remained quiet for a moment. “You say you’ve been given assurances about the shipment, but those assurances cannot predict pirates or storms or any of a thousand things that can make a ship late. What if the shipment is not yet in port when our agents begin?”

Miguel shook his head. “It won’t matter. I have been on the Exchange too long to let it matter. I know it as though it were my own body, and I can make it do what I want, just as I move my arms and legs.”

Geertruid smiled. “You speak with such confidence.”

“I only speak the truth. Our only enemy now is timidity.”

“I love to hear you talk so”-she leaned forward and touched his beard-“but you can’t risk putting yourself in a position in which you must sell what you do not have.”

“You needn’t worry about that. I’ll not be caught unprepared.”

“What do you plan?”

Miguel smiled and leaned back. “It’s very simple. If need be, I’ll cover my own losses as the price drops and therefore simultaneously acquire the very goods I will promise to sell, only I’ll buy when the price dips below the price at which I have promised to sell, so I might profit on the sales while lowering the value. It is something I would not have known how to do before, but now I believe I can order it effectively.”

This plan was nonsense. Miguel would never have attempted anything so foolish, but he doubted Geertruid had sufficient business sense to know it.

She didn’t say anything, so Miguel pushed harder. “You asked me to join you because you needed someone who understood the madness of the Exchange, someone who could navigate its peculiarities. I am doing the very thing you sought me out to do.”

She let out a sigh. “I don’t like taking this risk, but you’re right: I did ask you to order these things, and I’ll have to trust you. But,” she added with a grin, “when we are rich, I’ll expect you to obey me in all things and treat me as your mistress.”

“It will be my pleasure to do so,” Miguel assured her.

“I understand you must be cautious, but there is no need for you to be so grim. Have you no laughter to spare until you are rich?”

“Very little,” Miguel said. “From now until all this is settled, you will find me to be a man of business and very little else. You’ve done your part; now it is time for me to do mine.”

“Very well,” Geertruid said, after a moment. “I admire and appreciate your dedication. In the meantime, I’ll have to seek out Hendrick, who has nothing to lose by being jolly. We’ll make merry on your behalf.”

“Please do,” he said sadly. He had once thought Geertruid the jolliest woman in the world, but he had just made her complicit in his plans to destroy her.

Perhaps they should have gone to the coffee tavern in the Plantage. It would have been more appropriate, and it would surely have made it easier for Joachim to concentrate. But they’d let him pick the tavern, and here they were, all three-two of them marked by their beards as Jews-in a tiny room full of drunken Dutchmen who stared and pointed. One even came over and examined Miguel’s head by gingerly lifting his hat and then, when he was done, politely replacing it.

Joachim’s months of hardship now compelled him to drink all the beer that someone else was willing to buy, so only an hour after the meeting began, he was already slurring his words and having some difficulty remaining on his splintered bench.

What surprised Miguel was how much Joachim did not irritate him. Now that he, as Joachim had phrased it, was no longer mad, he had demonstrated an endearing warmth Miguel had never seen in him before. He laughed at Alferonda’s jokes and nodded approvingly at Miguel’s suggestions. He raised his tankard to toast the two of them, “and Jews everywhere,” and did so without irony in his voice. He treated Miguel and Alferonda like men who had pulled him aboard their vessels when he had believed himself left to drown.

Now they sat together in planning, all of them having had too much to drink. It would not be long now, only a few weeks, and they were equal to the task. It would tax them and torment them, but it could be done.

“I understand,” Joachim said, “how it is we are to buy and sell what it is that no one wants to buy and sell. What I do not understand is how we are to sell what we do not have. If this Nunes has sold your fruit to Parido, how can we affect the price through sales?”

Miguel had wanted to avoid speaking of this, for it was the hardest thing. He would have to do something he had vowed he would never do on the Exchange-a practice that, no matter how desperate he became, would always be the height of madness.

“By a windhandel, ” Alferonda explained, using the Dutch word.

“I was told they were dangerous,” Joachim said. “That only a fool would attempt such a thing.”

“True on both counts,” Miguel said. “That is why we will succeed.”

Windhandel: the wind trade. A colorful term for something dangerous and illegal, it was when a man sold what he did not have. The burgomasters had outlawed the practice, since it added chaos to the Exchange. It was said that any man who engaged in a windhandel might just as readily throw his money into the Amstel, for these sales could easily be voided if the buyer provided proof. The seller would then have worse than nothing for his pains. But in their coffee trade, they would have an advantage-the buyer would be guilty of too many tricks of his own, and he would not dare to contest the sale.