David Liss: The Coffee Trader

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?”