The Coffee Trader

“We have all heard about your success in the whale-oil trade-which came, I might add, at the expense of other men. In any case, now that you have some guilders in your account, I thought you might repay me at least a portion of what you owe. I should very much like to see a thousand guilders transferred into my account tomorrow.”

Miguel swallowed hard. “Daniel, you were very good to lend me that money, and of course I will repay it when I can, but I have not yet received the funds due to me from that trade. You know that broker, Ricardo? He won’t pay me or disclose his client.”

“I know Ricardo. I’ve always found him a reasonable man.”

“Then perhaps you might reason with him. If he pays me what he owes, I will be happy to lighten my debt to you.”

“I have heard,” Daniel said, now staring at the floor, “that you have more than two thousand guilders in your Exchange account right now. I must conclude that the rumors you have been spreading about Ricardo are an abuse of a good man’s name meant to help you avoid paying your debts.”

Geertruid’s money. How had he learned of it? “That is not money from Ricardo; it is money from a partner for a business transaction. And accounts at the Exchange Bank are supposed to be private.”

“Little can remain private in Amsterdam, Miguel. You should know that by now.”

Nothing was so infuriating as Daniel playing the great merchant with him. “I ca

“Whose is it?”

“That’s a private matter, though I’m sure no such private matters are beyond your reach.”

“Why private? Are you brokering for gentiles again? Do you dare to risk the wrath of the Ma’amad after you have so angered Senhor Parido?”

“I never said I was brokering for gentiles.”

“But you don’t deny it either. I suppose all this is related to your coffee dealings. I told you to stay away from coffee, that it would ruin you, but you would not listen.”

“No one has been ruined. Why do you jump to these absurd conclusions?”

“I’ll have at least part of that money before you lose it,” Daniel assured him. “I must insist that you transfer a thousand guilders to me. If you are unwilling to pay a portion of your debt to me when you have money,” he said, “you insult the charity I have offered you, and your continuing to live here will no longer be acceptable.”

For a fleeting instant, Miguel seriously considered murdering his brother. He imagined himself ru

“I might consider an alternative, however,” Daniel said after a moment.

“What alternative?”

“I might withhold my demand for the money you have long owed me in exchange for information about your coffee dealings and perhaps the opportunity to invest in your project.”

“Why will you not believe that I have no dealings in coffee?” Miguel demanded.

Daniel stared at him for a moment and then looked away. “I’ve given you your options, Miguel. You may do as you like.”

Daniel had given him no choice: surrender a thousand guilders now or lose everything in a matter of days.

“I’ll transfer the funds to you,” Miguel said, “but you must know that I resent your demands, which harm my business and make it all the more difficult for me to extricate myself from my debts. But I promise you this: I will not allow your pettiness to undermine my affairs. I’ll be out of debt in a matter of months, and it is you who will come begging to me for scraps.”

Daniel smiled thinly. “We’ll see,” he said.

The next morning Miguel swallowed the bitter medicine of transferring the funds to his brother. He nearly choked as he gave the order to the clerk at the Exchange Bank, but it had to be done.

As he went about his business that day, he tried hard not to recollect that of the three thousand guilders Geertruid had entrusted to him, little more than a thousand remained.

from

The Factual and Revealing Memoirs of Alonzo Alferonda

I believe I may have mentioned that Miguel Lienzo was some years my senior and I did not know him well when I was a boy. I knew his brother, however, and if I had not heard from my father that Miguel was a superior and wily boy, I would have had no interest in knowing more of the family.

Daniel Lienzo was a child who knew his assets and shortcomings from an early age. He had not nearly the physical strength of the other boys we played with, but he was much faster. Understanding how to manage his gifts, he would have nothing to do with games of wrestling but insisted we race all day. He only wanted to play at sport in which he could win.

Though he was known to be his father’s favorite, he complained bitterly about his older brother, unable to accept the unfairness that Miguel should be older, larger, and farther along in the world. “My brother wastes his time studying Jewish books,” he would tell us in conspiratorial whispers, as if the rest of us were not secreted away by our fathers and taught forbidden things by candlelight. “My brother thinks himself a man already,” Daniel complained. “He is always after the serving girls.”

Daniel would have studied Torah if only to prove himself his brother’s master. He would have chased girls though he knew not what to do with them, if only to prove he could catch where his brother could not. The idea was absurd. Miguel had a quicker mind than Daniel, and his appearance was far more pleasing to the ladies. Still, Daniel could never forgive the slight of being born second.

I can recall that when I was but twelve years of age, only a few months before we fled Lisbon, Daniel came to us and said he had a trick he wanted to play. His older brother had spirited a kitchen girl away into a quiet closet in their house, and he thought it would be amusing to expose them.

Of course it was a foolish thing to do, but we were children and doing foolish things had a great deal of appeal. We followed Daniel into his father’s house and then up three flights of stairs until we stopped outside an old door that sat crooked on its hinges. Daniel signaled for us to be quiet and then threw open the door.

There we saw Miguel sitting on a cushion with a serving girl no more than his own age. Her dress was in a state of disrepair, and it was clear she had been behaving as no good girl ought. The two of them reacted to our presence with utter confusion, and in truth we reacted in utter confusion too. The girl attempted to lower her skirts and close her bodice in a single gesture and, frustrated at her efforts, broke into tears. She called upon the Virgin’s mercy. She was undone.

Miguel reddened, not from embarrassment but indignation. “Leave us!” he hissed. “You may tease a man, but only a coward teases a young woman.” Before, we had been only eager and curious and full of childish giggles over we knew not what. Now we were shamed, by our curiosity and his hard glare. We’d committed a crime we were too young to understand, and our lack of understanding made it all the more terrible.

We all backed up and raced down the stairs, but I paused because I saw that Daniel did not move. He stood in the doorway, preventing Miguel from closing it. I could not see his eyes, but I somehow knew he stared hard. At Miguel? The girl? I don’t know, but he was utterly unmoved by Miguel’s majestic wrath or the girl’s tears.

“Go!” Miguel told him. “Can’t you see the girl is distressed?”