The Coffee Trader (31 page)

“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?

He was ready to reach out for her, to take her hand and lead her to the cellar. But something happened first.

“What is this?” Annetje’s voice fell hard, startling them. She stood at the doorway to the drawing room, arms folded, a wicked smile on her lips. She glanced at Miguel and then looked at Hannah and rolled her eyes. “I think the senhora is bothering you.” Annetje walked forward and placed a hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “And what have you here?” She took the book from Hannah’s hands. “You know you are too foolish for books, dear senhora. No doubt she’s being tiresome, Senhor Lienzo. I’ll make certain it does not happen again.”

“Return that to your mistress,” he said. “You forget yourself, girl.”

Annetje shrugged and handed the volume back to Hannah, who slipped it in the pocket of her apron. “Senhor, I am sure you do not mean to raise your voice to me. After all”—she smiled slyly—“you are not the master here, and your brother may not like the tales he hears if someone should speak them. You might think upon these things while I remove the senhora to where she will trouble you no more.” She tugged roughly on Hannah’s arm.

“Let me go,” Hannah said in Portuguese, her voice loud, almost a shout. She pulled herself loose of the maid’s grip and then spun around to face her. “Don’t touch me!”

“Please, senhora. Let me just take you to your room before you shame yourself.”

“Who are you to speak of shame?” she answered.

Miguel could not begin to understand this display. Why did the maid think she could speak to Hannah with such cruelty? He hardly ever thought of her as speaking at all, just some pretty thing fit only for the occasional romp. Now he saw there were intrigues—plots and schemes he could not have imagined. He opened his mouth, prepared to speak once more, but Daniel appeared at the door.

“What goes on here?”

Daniel looked at the two women, too close for any casual business. Hannah’s face had turned red by now, and Annetje’s had hardened into a mask of rage. They flashed cold stares at each other, but upon hearing his voice, they turned and shrank into themselves like guilty children, caught at dangerous play.

“What goes on here, I say?” Daniel repeated, now to Miguel. “Is she touching my wife?”

Miguel tried to think of what lies might serve best Hannah, but nothing came to mind. If he accused the maid, she might betray her mistress, but if he said nothing, how could Hannah explain this abuse? “Servants don’t behave so,” he said haplessly.

“I know these Dutch have no sense of propriety,” Daniel shouted, “but I have seen too much. I have indulged my wife with this impudent strumpet long enough, and I’ll not listen to her pleas any longer. The girl must go.”

Miguel strained to find some words to cool everyone’s tempers, but Annetje spoke first. She took a step toward Daniel and sneered at him full in the face. “You think I don’t understand your Portuguese palaver?” she asked him in Dutch. “I’ll touch your wife when I please. Your wife,” she laughed. “You don’t even know your wife, who takes gifts of love from your brother and then hides them in her apron. And her lust is not the least of her crimes. Your wife, mighty senhor, is a Catholic, as Catholic as the pope, and she goes as regularly as she can to church. She gives confession, and she drinks the blood of Christ and eats his body. She does things that would horrify your devilish Jew soul. And I won’t stay in this house a moment longer. There’s more work to be had, and with Christian folk too, so I take my leave of you.”

Annetje spun and swished her skirts as she had seen actresses do upon the stage. She held her chin high as she walked, pausing a moment at the threshold. “I’ll send a boy for my wages,” she said, and paused, waiting to see Daniel’s response.

They stood there, still and silent. Hannah clenched her body, hardly daring to breathe, until her lungs became hot and desperate and she sucked in air like a woman who had been under water. Miguel bit his lip. Daniel remained as still as a figure in a painting.

Here was trepidation, hot, itching trepidation of the kind Miguel had known only a few times in his life: once in Lisbon when he had been warned that the Inquisition sought him for questioning; then again in Amsterdam when he knew his investments in sugar had ruined him.

He thought of all the steps that had led to this moment: the sly glances, the secret conversations, the drinks of coffee. He had held her hand, he had spoken to her as a lover, he had given her a present. If only he could have known what there was between the girl and Hannah. But he could not erase the past. There could be no duplicity now. A man can live his life through trickery, but there are moments, there must always be moments, when the trickery is exposed.

Annetje basked in the silence. Each awkward second excited her as she dared Daniel to speak, but he only stared at her in utter astonishment.

“You have nothing to say, cuckold?” she spat at him. “You are a fool, and I leave you to your own wickedness.” With that she forced her way past Daniel and out of the room.

Daniel stared at his wife, cocking his head slightly. He glanced at Miguel, who would not meet his gaze. He removed his hat and scratched his head thoughtfully. “Can anyone understand a word that slut speaks?” he asked, carefully replacing the hat. “Her Dutch is the most garbled thing I know, and it is as well for her, for the look on her face was of such impudence, I’m sure I should have struck her if I’d comprehended her rudeness.”

Miguel cast a look at Hannah, who stared at the floor, trying, he suspected, not to weep with the force of relief. “She said she is leaving your service,” he ventured cautiously, still not certain Hannah had escaped. “She tires of working for Jews; she might prefer a Dutch mistress—a widow.”

“Good riddance to her. I hope,” Daniel said to Hannah, “she has not upset you too greatly. There are other girls in the world, and better ones too, I’d venture. You’ll not miss her.”

“I’ll not miss her. Perhaps,” she suggested, “you will let me select the servant next time.”

Later that day Miguel received a message from Geertruid expressing concern that they had not spoken in some time and requesting a meeting as soon as possible. To find some reason for delay, Miguel wrote to his partner that he could not possibly think of meeting until after the Sabbath. His words were so jumbled as to hardly make sense, even to their author, and Miguel moved to tear up his note. Then he thought better of it, deciding he might gain something by being incoherent. Without rereading what he had written, he sent the note.

from

The Factual and Revealing Memoirs of Alonzo Alferonda

There are, of course, a hundred such homes in the Jordaan—hastily built things of three or four stories, cramped rooms, narrow windows, too little light, and too much smoke. This one is owned, as they all seem to be owned, by a pinch-faced widow who sees nothing and judges all. This particular pinch-faced widow had recently rented rooms to a young girl. There were two rooms—one more than the girl had ever paid for on her own, but then she was now being paid better than she had ever been in the past. She had new clothes and some treats too—apples and pears and dried dates.

She had been enjoying these dainties along with the scent of her civet perfume and her new linens and ribbons, when the pinch-faced widow informed her that there was a man—a merchant, it seemed—there to see her. The widow did not like that the girl said to send him up, for she did not enjoy being a woman who allowed young women to receive men in their rooms, but she could hardly prevent that sort of thing, and since some folks will be Christian and some will not, there was not much to be done for it. She sent the man up.

A knock on the door, and the girl answered, wearing a new blue gown, cut just so. Most enticing, I promise you, showing off her shape to full advantage. What man could resist this beauty in that dress? She smiled at her visitor. “Hello, senhor,” she said. “Have you missed me?”

I doubt he smiled back, and he had most likely not missed her. “I want a moment of your time, Annetje.”

He stepped in and closed the door behind him, but he kept his distance from her. Here was a man who knew the dangers of a blue dress.

“What?” she asked. “No kiss for your old friend?”

“I have something to inquire of you.”

“Of course. You may ask me anything you wish.”

“I wish to know if, while you were in my brother’s employ, you were paid by anyone to observe the doings of our household.”

The girl let out a loud titter. “You want to know if I was a spy?”

“If you like, yes.”

“Why should I tell you?” she asked saucily, as she swished her skirts around the room like a little girl at play. Perhaps she enjoyed teasing her visitor. Perhaps she wished him to see what she thought of as her finery: her furniture; her ribbons, scattered about the room as though she had a hundred such things; her ample fruit. She could eat an apple or a pear anytime she liked. She could eat another one. There seemed to be no end to the supply. She lived in these two rooms—two of them!—in the newest part of town, while some folks lived in wet basements on a soggy island in the midst of a foul canal.

“You should tell me,” he answered, his voice hardening, “because I asked it of you, and for no other reason. But if you like, I can pay you for your answers since they seem to require considerable effort.”

“If you pay me,” she observed, “then I might give any answer I think would please you so you will think your coin well spent. I do like to please those who give me money.” She certainly spoke the truth there.

“Then tell me what I ask because I have always been kind to you in the past.”

“Such kindness.” She laughed again. “Such kindness as that may be found in the breeches of any man in this city, but that’s all one, I suppose. You want to know if anyone paid me to spy on you. I will tell you that someone did. It is no betrayal for me to say so—at least I don’t think it is, for I have not been paid as I was promised, and if I am not to have my money then at least I will have my revenge.”

“Who was it that paid you?”

“Why, it was your widow friend,” she said, “the lovely Madam Damhuis. She promised me ten guilders if I but kept an eye on you and that willful bitch, the senhora. Have you been kind to her too?”

The visitor would not be baited. “What did she pay you to do?”

“Only to see how she was discussed in the house. I was to discourage the senhora from speaking of her encounters with madam. She said you were not to suspect anything, but that you would not—so long as I showed you my favors. Then, she said, you would be as stupid as a cow being led to its slaughter.”

“What are her ends?” he asked. “Why did she want you to do these things?”

Annetje shrugged with an exaggerated flair of the shoulders that opened the neck of her gown deliciously. “I could not say, senhor. She never told me. She only gave me a few guilders and promised me more, but those promises have all been lies. In my opinion, the woman is inclined to lies. You ought to be cautious.”

Annetje offered her visitor the bowl of dates. “Would you like to eat one of my dainties?”

The merchant declined. He only thanked the girl and took his leave.

Thus went the final conversation between Miguel Lienzo and his brother’s former servant. It is sad how badly these matters can end. He and the girl knew a fond intimacy for many months, but there was never any real tenderness there. He wanted only her flesh, and she his coin. A poor foundation for any congress between man and woman.

And how does Alferonda know all of this? How can he write of the private words spoken in an obscure boardinghouse in the Jordaan? Alferonda knows because he heard it all—he was in the next room, lying on the girl’s rough mattress.

Not so long ago I had been enjoying some of the dainties she had offered to Miguel. She had told her visitor exactly what I had instructed her to say, in case he came calling. Madam Damhuis, of course, had never paid the girl a stuiver, nor had she ever promised to do so. She had never spoken a word to the girl but once, when she had stopped the senhora on the Hoogstraat.