The Coffee Trader

The usurer cocked his head. “I hate being second at anything. Who was the first?”

“My brother, if you can believe it.”

“Daniel? Reason enough to pursue it if he warns you off. What did he say?”

“Only that it was dangerous,” Miguel said. “He somehow knew I’d developed an interest. He told some story about me muttering drunkenly, but I’m not sure I believe him. More likely he’s been searching my things again.”

“I would pay his warning no mind. Your brother, if you will excuse me for saying so, has no more brains than the idiot son Parido keeps locked in his garret.”

“I thought it odd,” Miguel said. “I wonder if he’s somehow learned that I have been thinking of the coffee trade and wants to set me off out of spite. He doesn’t like that I carry on with his serving girl.”

“Oh, she’s a pretty one. Are you fond of her?”

Miguel shrugged. “I suppose. I’m fond of her looks,” he said absently. In truth, Miguel found her somewhat impertinent, but she was the one who had begun the dalliance, and Miguel had known from an early age that a man never turns away an eager serving girl.

“Not so pretty as the mistress though, eh?” Alferonda said.

“True enough. My brother doesn’t much like the way I speak to her.”

“Oh?” A wide grin spread across Alferonda’s face. “What way is that?”

Miguel had the feeling he’d fallen into a trap. “She’s a pleasant girl. A pretty thing, with a quick mind, but Daniel never has a kind word. I think she takes a great deal of pleasure from the occasional bit of congress with me.”

Alferonda was now moving his eyebrows up and down and flaring his nostrils. “I, for one, thought it was a fine thing when the rabbis revoked the commandment against adultery.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Miguel said, turning to hide his blush. “I only feel sorry for her.”

“I’ve known Miguel Lienzo to have dealings with pretty girls, and what he feels is generally not sorry.”

“I have no intention of bedding my brother’s wife,” he said. “In any case, she is far too virtuous a woman to allow it.”

“May the Holy One, blessed be He, help you,” Alferonda said. “When a man starts protesting about a woman’s virtue, it means he’s either had her already or would kill to do so. I will say that it is one way to get back at your brother for his foul temper.”

Miguel opened his mouth to protest but thought better of it. Justification was for the guilty, and surely he had done nothing wrong.

from

The Factual and Revealing Memoirs of Alonzo Alferonda

I had been plying my trade with a fair amount of success for some time when I was approached by a Tudesco merchant with a proposition that appeared to me both lucrative and rewarding. For some years now the Tudescos, the Jews of Eastern Europe, had been making their presence increasingly felt in Amsterdam, and this development was not at all to the Ma’amad’s liking. While we Jews of the Portuguese Nation have no shortage of beggars among our number, we also enjoy our share of wealthy merchants, and these can afford to be charitable. Our community had struck a deal with the Amsterdam burgomasters to remain a city apart, taking care of our own charitable cases and producing no burden on the metropolis itself. Thus we took care of our own, but the Tudescos had few men of significant wealth, and most were desperately poor.

Though with our beards and our bright colors we looked different from the Dutch, we thought ours a dignified difference. A Hebrew of Portugal could not go anywhere in the city, no matter how neatly trimmed his beard and no matter how dull his clothes, without being recognized for a member of his nation, but the Ma’amad believed the merchants among us were ambassadors. We might say, in the silence of our finery, Behold us. We are different, but we are worthy people with whom to share your land. More important, they might look on our poor and think, Ah, those Jews feed and dress their own mendicants, relieving us of the burden. They’re not so bad.

Thus the problem of the Tudescos. They had heard that Amsterdam was a paradise for Jews, so they fled to our city from Poland, Germany, Lithuania, and all ma

The parnassim surely sympathized with these refugees, but they had grown to depend on the comforts of Amsterdam and, like the fat and rich of all nations and beliefs, they were unwilling to sacrifice their ease for the well-being of others. Their concerns were not unfounded, and they dreaded a future in which the streets of Amsterdam were crawling with Jewish beggars and Jewish hucksters and Jewish whores. The Dutch would then surely rescind their former generosity. The Ma’amad concluded that the Tudesco community would be best handled if kept small.

There were several plans for accomplishing this goal, but they all centered around keeping these troubling people at a distance from Iberian wealth-a maneuver they believed would make Amsterdam less appealing than cities where their own kind thrived. Tudescos were therefore forbidden to enroll their children in schools run by Portuguese Jews. They could have no position of standing in Portuguese synagogues. Their meats were declared unclean and off limits to Portuguese households, so their butchers could not sell to our people. The Ma’amad even declared it a crime, punishable by excommunication, to give charity to any Tudesco except through one of the official charitable boards. These boards believed that the best charity would be passage on ships heading out of Amsterdam, so it could do no good to encourage them to stay by dropping a stuiver or two into their greedy little hands.

I knew all this, but I did not have it much in my thoughts when I was approached by a member of the Tudesco community. Many of the refugees, he told me, managed to escape from their oppressive lands with a precious stone or two hidden away on their persons. Would I be willing to broker these stones to Portuguese merchants? He suggested that I would ask for a bit more than the lowest price, explaining that the stones belonged to wretched wanderers who longed to begin anew, and take only a fraction of the usual brokering fee. I might make a few extra guilders and still do a good deed that would win me favor in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He.

For several months I went about this business during what time I could spare for it. A bottle of wine purchased, a smile, a word about the importance of charity, and I soon found most gem merchants willing to pay a few extra guilders for a stone if it would help a poor family enjoy a peaceful Shabbat. So it went until I one day came to my home and found a note for me, composed in florid Spanish, written in a fine hand. I had been summoned to the Ma’amad.

I still thought nothing of the matter. Sooner or later every man found himself standing before that council: a rumor of unclean food eaten or a Dutch slut got with child. The council itself was little better than a pack of old women, wanting only a soothing word to make them calm again. I knew that my old enemy, Solomon Parido, now held a place on the council, but I hardly thought he would use his power for nefarious ends.

Yet that is precisely what he did. He sat there, stiff in his laced suit, glaring at me. “Senhor Alferonda,” he said, “you are surely aware of the ruling of the council that no help shall be given to the Tudescos other than through the charitable boards of the synagogue.”

“Of course, senhor,” I said.

“Then why have you ensnared men of our nation, law-abiding men, into your wicked schemes of jewel peddling?”