The Coffee Trader

“I’ll make the trade,” Miguel said at last.

“That is the only thing to do.”

Perhaps it was. Miguel should have been euphoric. Perhaps he would be in a few hours, when the inexpressible relief of being rid of those poisonous shares finally seemed real. He said a prayer of thanks, but even as he recognized his luck he could not quite shake the bitter taste from his mouth. He had liberated himself from these difficulties only with the help of a man who, two weeks before, would have gladly sewn him in a sack and tossed him into the Amstel.

It might be as Parido said-he wished only to mend their rift-so Miguel turned to the parnass and bowed in thanks, but his face was dark. Parido could not mistake its meaning. If this turned out to be a trick, Miguel would have his revenge.

from

The Factual and Revealing Memoirs of Alonzo Alferonda

It will be hard to explain to my Christian readers precisely what the cherem, excommunication, can mean to a Portuguese Jew. To those of us who had lived under the thumb of the Inquisition, or in lands such as England where our religion was outlawed, or in places such as the cities of the Turks where it was barely tolerated, to dwell in Amsterdam seemed a small taste of the World to Come. We were free to congregate and observe our holidays and our rituals, to study our texts in the light of day. For us who belonged to a small nation, cursed with having no land to call our own, the simple freedom to live as we chose was a kind of bliss for which I never, not for a single day I lived with my brothers in Amsterdam, forgot to give my thanks to God.

Of course there were those cast forth from the community who cared not at all. Some were happy to leave what they saw as an overly scrupulous and demanding way of life. They would look at our Christian neighbors, who ate or drank what they liked, for whom the Sabbath, even their Sabbath, was but another day, and they would see those freedoms as a release. Yet most of us knew who we were. We were Jews, and the power of the Ma’amad to take away a man’s identity, his sense of self and belonging, was truly terrifying.

Solomon Parido did all he could to make me an outcast, but in truth I might have gone far away and changed my name. No one would have known I was Alonzo Alferonda of Amsterdam. I knew deception the way other men knew their names.

And such was my plan. I would do it, but not quite yet. I had plans for Parido, and I would not leave until I had seen them through.

8

Ha

She supposed she probably ought not to be rummaging around in Miguel’s things, but it wasn’t as though she would let her husband know what she found. In any case, Miguel never told her anything about his life, and how else would she learn if she didn’t pursue these things herself? Only through her own guile had she learned about his debts and his troubles with Parido and the strange threatening notes he’d been receiving. A

She opened the bag of coffee again and took out a handful of the berries, letting them run through her fingers. Maybe she should eat more of them, develop a taste for their bitterness. When Miguel someday suggested that she eat coffee, she could laugh and say, “Oh, coffee, how delightful!” and toss a handful in her mouth as though she had been eating bitter fruit all her life-which, after all, she had. She carefully picked out another berry and crushed it with her back teeth. It would take some time before she could find it delightful.

Still, there was something pleasant about it. By the time she’d eaten her third berry, she’d come to like the way the bits of coffee shards shattered in her mouth. The flavor seemed to her less bitter, even slightly satisfying.

Sneaking through Miguel’s things and eating his secret berries left her feeling guilty, which was probably why A

“It’s almost time to go, senhora,” she said.

Ha

There was a place in their own neighborhood but Ha

Covering herself had been one of the most odious adjustments to life in Amsterdam. In Lisbon her face and her hair had been no more private than her outer coat, but when they’d moved to this city, Daniel had told her no man but he could ever see her hair again, and she must cover her face when in public. She later learned that nothing in Jewish law demanded that women hide their faces. The custom had come from the Jews of North Africa, and it had been adopted here.

Ha

When they were near, A