David Liss - The Coffee Trader

from

The Factual and Revealing Memoirs of Alonzo Alferonda

I had hardly thought that after Miguel Lienzo’s victory on the Exchange all would be done with. I had won, Parido had lost, and the victory tasted sweet, but there was still Miguel. I had trod upon him, and he would not take it kindly. I had thought to fool him when he came to see me, to dazzle his eyes with tricks and illusions until he doubted that there even was such a man as Alonzo Alferonda, let alone one who had used him ill. But I had always liked Miguel, and I owed him a debt. I had begun with no intention of hurting him or his friends but rather using him as an instrument that would facilitate what I wanted and at the same time allowing him to make a guilder or two.

There would have been no harm done, surely. If some lies were told, if some coins were palmed and made to magically appear, what wrong can there be in that? All men love trickery and tricksters. That is why half-starving peasants surrender their hard-got wages when mountebanks and Gypsies come through their towns. All the world loves to be deceived-but only when it consents to the deception.

I sat in my rooms one night reading the Holy Torah-I speak the truth, for the cherem had not diminished my love of learning one jot-when there was a loud banging on the door below. In a few moments my serving man, old Roland (for, despite the Dutch fashions, I like a manservant and will not allow a nation of cheese eaters to tell me whom to employ), tapped upon the door to my closet and told me there was “a very drunk Hebrew of the Portuguese kind” come calling and, when asked his business, stated that it was to kill the man who lived here.

I carefully marked my place in the volume and closed it reverently. “By all means,” I said, “show the fellow in.”

Soon enough a besotted Miguel Lienzo stood before me, teetering this way and that. I asked Roland to bring us some wine. I doubted Miguel wanted any more than he had already enjoyed, but I could still hope this encounter might end with his falling asleep. With the servant gone, I offered my visitor a chair and told him I awaited his words.

He awkwardly lowered himself into the hard seat, for in this room I only received visitors whom I did not wish to stay long.

“Why did you not tell me you lent money to Geertruid Damhuis?” he asked, his words a thick mumble.

“I lend to so many people,” I said, “I cannot be expected to keep track of every one.”

This bit of obfuscation was not meant to trick him. In fact, I’m not sure what it was meant to accomplish. I can say what it did do: it angered him greatly.

“Damn you,” he shouted, half rising from his chair. “If you play games, I will kill you.”

I began to believe him, though he had no weapon in sight, and I did not anticipate any great difficulty in eluding his drunken pursuit, should things so degenerate. Nevertheless, I held up my hand in a staying gesture and waited for him to settle back into his chair. “You are right. I did not tell you because it suited me for you to think she was in league with Parido. You must know by now that I could not be more delighted that your scheme has burnt Parido, but the truth of it is I had more of a hand in this than you could have imagined.”

Miguel nodded as though recollecting something. “Parido was invested in coffee before I decided to begin my venture, wasn’t he? He was not the man who sought to undo my scheme. I was the man who sought to undo his. Is that right?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Parido entered the coffee trade a few months before you. It was a bit of a trick keeping it from you, but I had my man at the coffee tavern refuse to admit you if Parido was there. A simple precaution. Parido, you understand, had nothing so elaborate as your monopoly scheme in mind. He only wanted to play in calls and puts, and when you started buying up coffee as you did, you threatened his investments, the way you had done in whale oil.”

Miguel shook his head. “So you had Geertruid lure me into the coffee trade for the single purpose of damaging Parido, and you then turned around and betrayed her?”

“I am flattered you think me so ingenious, but my involvement was something less than that. Your Madam Damhuis discovered coffee on her own and enticed you into the trade because she thought you would make a good partner. When I learned of your interest, I admit I encouraged it because I knew it would be bad for Parido, and I fed you a hint here and there about how Parido plotted against you. But I did no more than that.”

“How is it that Geertruid came to you for her loan?”

“I don’t know if you are familiar with that woman’s story, but you must know she is a thief, and I am the man thieves come to when they need large sums. I doubt she could have borrowed three thousand guilders from anyone else.”

“You’ll not see that money. She has fled the city.”

I shrugged, having expected something of that sort. “We’ll see. I have agents in such places as she might go. I have not given up hope on those guilders, but if they are gone it is a price I am will-ing to pay for harming Parido. He has not only lost a great deal of money, he looks like a fool before the community. He’ll never again be elected to the Ma’amad, and his days of power are over. Is that not worth inconveniencing a thief like Geertruid Damhuis?”

“She is my friend,” he said sadly. “You could have told me what you knew. You need only have told me all and I could have avoided all of this.”

“And what else would you have avoided? Had you known that Parido’s overtures of friendship were genuine, that he had come to coffee first and that you threatened his investments, would you have gone ahead? Would you still have sought to best him in that contest, or would you have backed down? I think we both know the truth, Miguel. You are a schemer, but not so much of a schemer as to do what needed to be done.”

“It did not need to be done,” he said softly.

“It did!” I slammed my hand on the desk. “That wretch Parido had me cast out of the community because he did not like me. He used flimsy excuses to justify himself, but he was no more than a petty despot who relished what little power he had to make himself feel great. So what if he reached out to you, the brother of a partner, to make amends? Does that excuse the evil he has already done and the evil he would continue to perpetuate? I’ve done our people a great service, Miguel, by knocking him down.”

“And it hardly matters that Geertruid, who was my friend, gets destroyed?”

“Oh, she’s not destroyed, Miguel. She’s a thief and a trickstress. I know the kind. I am the kind, and I can tell you she will always do well for herself. She is a wily woman with yet an ample share of beauty. This time next year she’ll be the wife of a burgher in Antwerp or the mistress of an Italian prince. You needn’t worry about her. I’m the one who has lost three thousand guilders, after all. She might have repaid me some portion of it.”

Miguel merely shook his head.

“You’re angry about something else, I suppose. You’ve made some money. You’ve extricated yourself from debt, you have a tidy profit besides, and you are the most popular merchant in the Vlooyenburg-at least for the moment. But you are angry that you are not on your way to opulence, as you had hoped.”

He stared. Perhaps he was ashamed to admit that he was indeed angry not to have earned so much as he believed he might.

“The two of you might have captured the coffee market in Europe,” I said, “but I don’t think so. This plan of yours was too ambitious; the East India Company would never have allowed it. I had every intention of rescuing you before you overreached yourself. Had I not done so, you would have been destroyed again in a half year’s time. Instead, you have done quite well. You think because your scheme with Geertruid Damhuis failed that you can have nothing more to do with coffee? Nonsense. You have made that commodity famous, Miguel, and now the city looks to you. There is still a great fortune to be made. You wanted a trade that would put all your scheming to an end, but instead you have one that presents only a beginning. Use it wisely, and you’ll have your opulence in due time.”