The Coffee Trader

Miguel put his hands to his forehead. He could not entirely ignore the moral issue that presented itself: if he sold his shares to this fellow, he would be knowingly allowing an unknown person to buy something that was worthless. Did the sages not say that the man who robs his fellow of even the smallest coin is as sinful as a murderer? On the other hand, all investment was risk. Miguel did not know when he bought the shares that the ship would be taken by pirates, yet it had been; perhaps it had been destined to be so taken. Surely the Most High knew of the boat’s fate, but Miguel did not believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, had cheated him. What difference did it make if someone knew beforehand?

The trader read Miguel’s uncertainty. “You do what you like, Jew. I’ll be here for another hour or so. If you want to do business, it had best be done quickly.”

Before Miguel could respond, a new voice rose up. “Aye, quick enough that this man not learn the truth.” The woman sounded like a heroine from a stage play. There she stood, hands upon her hips, ample bosom thrust outward, her soft features pointed defiantly at these men.

In her yellows and blacks, she looked like a honeybee and a pretty one at that, if a bit older than Miguel liked his women. He couldn’t decide if she were more wench or virago.

“What truth is that?” he asked cautiously, not for the first time suspicious of these schemers. Against these grizzled fellows stood this handsome woman, both confident and defiant. Miguel decided in an instant that he trusted her far more than the sailor and his friends.

“That the ship they speak of remains unharmed,” she a

The men at the table exchanged glances. “Have I met you, mother?” the older fellow asked. “I think you ought to think carefully before you accuse a man in public, ruining his trade and such. Otherwise,” he added, with a glance to his companion, “he and those he’s friendly with might take some offense and offer your plump bottom a spanking.”

“Aye, you know me. My name is Geertruid Damhuis, and you were the kindly stranger who told me of the wreck of the Angel’s Mercy, a ship in which I owned shares. You were good enough to take those shares off of me for half price. Then the ship sailed into port a few weeks later, on schedule and bursting with cargo.”

“You’ve made a mistake,” the older man said, at the same moment that the trader said, “I ca

“Should we pursue,” Miguel asked, “or call the Night Watch?”

Geertruid Damhuis shook her pretty head. “I’ll not raise my skirts to go ru

Miguel laughed, feeling a sudden rush of friendship and gratitude. “I thought you valiant enough just this moment.”

She gri

While she drank, Geertruid explained that these men made it their business to learn the names of those who had invested in particular ships and then to track them down and tell stories so the investors might overhear. From there it took only a little trickery to convince even the most skeptical man to part with his shares.

“It is the urgency that undoes their victims,” Geertruid told him. “I had to make a decision at that moment or suffer the consequences, and I could not endure the thought that I might have avoided total disaster yet lacked the resolve to do so. As they say, the patient dog eats rabbit while the hasty dog goes hungry.”

Miguel was taken at once with Geertruid’s easy demeanor, somehow both ma

Since that night they had made a habit of smoking and drinking together, but there were many things Miguel did not understand about this widow. She kept much about herself quiet-Miguel hardly even knew the part of town she called home. She would ask him to broker for her but only small quantities, surely far less than she had at her disposal. She would disappear for weeks at a time, neither telling Miguel before she departed nor explaining her absence after her return. She would flirt with Miguel incessantly, leaning in close to speak with him, showing him her deep cleavage, intriguing him with talk both lascivious and vague.

One summer night, after they had both had too much beer and were wet from an unexpected rain shower, Geertruid had leaned in to whisper some silly thing in his ear, and he kissed her hard upon the mouth, knocking his teeth into hers as he attempted to slide a hand between her breasts. Geertruid extricated herself from his clumsy grip and made some little quip, but it was clear that Miguel had crossed a line she would not have him cross again. The next time she saw Miguel, she handed him a tiny volume as a present: ‘t Amsterdamsch Hoerdom, a guide to the whores and bawdy houses of the city. Miguel had thanked her with good cheer but in truth had felt a humiliation greater than that of his bankruptcy, and he vowed never again to fall victim to her amorous nonsense.

And then there was the matter of Hendrick, a man some fifteen years her junior. Geertruid kept him at her feet almost all the time. He would sit sometimes apart from her at taverns while she chatted with men of business, but he always kept one eye upon her, like a half-sleeping hound. Was he her lover, her servant, or something else Miguel could not quite fathom? She would never say, eluding his questions with graceful ease so that Miguel had long since ceased to ask them.

Often when they met, Hendrick would slink off, glowering at Miguel for a moment before he took himself to wherever such a man might go. Yet he never quite acted with resentment. He called Miguel Jew Man, as though to do so were the height of wit or a sign of their private friendship. He would clap Miguel on the back, always just hard enough to seem something other than amicable. But when the three of them sat together, if Miguel grew quiet or preoccupied with his troubles, it was always Hendrick who tried to draw him out, Hendrick who would burst into a bawdy song or tell some ribald tale, often at his own expense, such as the time he nearly drowned in a trough of horse dung. If such a thing had happened to Miguel, he was sure he’d never recount the tale, not even to bring cheer to the Messiah.

Miguel resented Geertruid’s refusal to talk about her companionship with Hendrick, but he understood her to be a woman well able to keep a secret, and that was a quality not to be underestimated. She knew their friendship could cause Miguel problems with the Ma’amad and so rarely showed herself at taverns where Jews congregated-or, if she did have business there, she pretended not to know Miguel. Certainly he had been seen speaking to her a little intimately once or twice, but that was the very beauty of her being a woman-she was invisible to the men of the Nation. If they saw her at all, they saw her as Miguel’s whore; he had even been teased once or twice for liking his Dutchwomen overripe.