David Liss - The Coffee Trader

“You had no right to trick me as you did.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps not, but you are the better for it. You have your money, and, I now hear, you are to be married soon as well. Many congratulations to you and the beautiful bride. You have said you wanted a wife and family, and now you shall have those things because of me. I may not have been your most honest friend, but I have always been your best one.”

Miguel rose from his chair. “A man must make his own fortune, not be played like a chess piece. I’ll never forgive you,” he said.

Given that he came to my home with the intention of killing me, I considered never being forgiven a considerable victory.

“Someday you’ll forgive me,” I said, “and even thank me.” But he was already gone-down the stairs at a hurried pace that came just short of a tumble and off to find his own way to the door. Drunk as he was, it took him a few minutes. I heard some bottles break and a piece of furniture topple, but that meant little to me. Once he was gone I had Roland tell the girl, Annetje, that she could come out of hiding. She was much more beautiful, now that she had me to take care of her. I knew it was for the best that Miguel not see her in my home, for her radiant face gave unmistakable testimony that I was a superior lover, and that was information from which his fragile feelings were best protected at this tender time.

Miguel hardly knew the layout of his furniture, and there were trunks of clothes and boxes of newly bought goods scattered about the rooms. The knock came at his door early in the morning, before the sun had only just burned off the dew, and he sensed that his serving woman had already left for the morning milk and bread. His head ached and the nagging sense of something terrible, something he dare not recall, haunted the outer reaches of his thoughts.

Geertruid. He had destroyed Geertruid for nothing-for Alferonda’s petty revenge against a man who had truly wanted to make things right and be Miguel’s friend. Parido had been but a merchant looking to preserve his investments. Miguel had been the villain.

Better to go back to sleep and think of it no more, if only for a few hours.

The pounding at the door would not let him be. He rolled out of his bed-for the first time since he moved in not relishing the comfort of a full-sized bed instead of one of those cupboard monstrosities-and quickly wrapped himself in a dressing coat and found a pair of wooden slippers. The house was a maze of trunks and misplaced furniture, and he tripped twice before reaching the back door in the kitchen.

At last he had made his way to the kitchen, and opened the top portion of the door. The pleasant odors of the early morning-fish and beer and freshly baked bread-burst in upon him so strongly his stomach turned forcibly, and he had to close his eyes to keep from vomiting. When he looked again, there to greet him was the haggard face of Hendrick. He had lost his hat, and his hair hung filthily around his face. He had a cut just below his eye that had clotted nastily, and blood smeared his shirt. Miguel somehow knew at once that the blood was not Hendrick’s.

“I haven’t the luxury of time,” he said, “so I won’t make you ask me in.”

“What do you want?” He had begun his new life, and he did not want to be seen having a conversation with one such as this. And the distant memory of a conversation echoed on the fringes of his consciousness. Hadn’t Hendrick promised to kill Miguel if he betrayed Geertruid?

But it seemed Hendrick had not come for murder. “I’ve come for my fifty guilders,” he said, smoothing some dirt out of his mustache.

“I don’t understand you.”

“We had a contract, you and I. A deal. You offered me the money, and I took you up on it. Last night. I found the fellow, and I did the business.”

Joachim. He had beaten up Joachim. “But I never told you to carry on with that. I merely asked you about it.”

“Well, it’s too late for quibbling back and forth, arguing over this detail or that. The deed is done, and I need the money. There you have it.” He let out a throaty half laugh that turned into a cough. “The fellow is beaten, and I’d best leave town as quick as I can before the constable’s men catch up with me.”

“I won’t give you a thing,” Miguel said. “I never asked for this.”

The violence that always lurked in Hendrick now rose to the surface. His face reddened and his eyes grew wide. “Listen to me, Jew Man. You’ll give it to me, or there will be more trouble than you reckoned on. If they do catch up with me, I’ll not hesitate to say you were the one to set me upon the task, so you had better think about that, and think about it quickly. I know you don’t want me to be seen here, so let’s just have this over with.”

Miguel knew it was well worth fifty guilders to make him disappear, so he excused himself and found the money in metal, presuming Hendrick would not care for a banknote.

“How badly did you hurt him?” he asked, as he handed over the purse.

“That’s the thing,” Hendrick said. He patted at the cut on his face with his sleeve. “More than I intended. I don’t suppose he needed both eyes, though, did he? One will do quite nicely.”

Miguel swallowed. “You took out an eye?”

“I didn’t take it out,” Hendrick corrected him. “It came out on its own. These things happen from time to time, and there isn’t much point lamenting what can’t be undone.”

“Get out of here,” Miguel said quietly.

“He didn’t know what was going on, why I should just grab him and throw him down and kick him in his face. He kept asking me why, why, why -like a little girl being fucked for the first time. But I believe in honesty. I told him to ask the Jew Man. The Jew Man would tell him why, since the Jew Man paid for it.”

Miguel closed his eyes and looked away. After a moment-too long a silence, he thought-he turned back to the wretch. “Why would you do such a thing? Why did you tell him that?”

“Because Madame Damhuis made me promise not to hurt you, despite your treatment of her. So I decided it was well enough: I would not hurt you, but I would have my own way with something. And there it is.”

“Get out of here,” Miguel said again.

“Oh, that I’ll have no trouble doing, you can depend on it. Best to you, Jew Man. ” Hendrick pretended to tip the hat he had lost and then took off in a happy skip along the canal side. Miguel stood at the door and watched him go, and even after he had been long gone, he stood by the door watching the space where he had disappeared.

Later on he could not say how long he stood there in cheerless and nauseated silence. He finally looked behind him and saw his servant woman cooking in the kitchen, ignoring him out of fear and confusion, pretending that men always stood by the open door in their bedclothes, staring out into the morning. Later that day, he looked up and saw himself doing business on the Exchange and wondered how he had come to be there, what trades he had made already, and if in such a state he traded with more prudence than when his wits were about him. How could he think of business? His friend Geertruid, ruined and exiled forever. Joachim beaten and perhaps in danger of dying. His brother ruined and humiliated.

He waited for the Watch to come and question him about his role in the beating, but they never came. When he went in search of Joachim a few days later, to bring him gifts, to make certain he had the best surgeon, he found that he and his wife had left town, scurrying away with their share of the coffee scheme money before Miguel could, as he surely now suspected, find some way of taking it back. He had left believing, as always, that these gestures of friendship were but a prelude to treachery.