The Coffee Trader

He was about to ask a man pushing a cart of root vegetables if he knew of Joachim Waagenaar when he saw a woman with a tray of pies round the corner, calling out her goods. Though she was dressed in stained and loose clothes and somewhat dirty in the face, Miguel was sure he knew this woman. And then at once he understood where he had seen her before: she was Joachim’s wife, Clara. No longer quite the beauty he remembered, she remained pretty enough for the sailors to shout out to her with their cheerful obscenities. One approached her, staggering and lecherous, and Miguel thought to step forward, but Clara spoke a couple of pleasant words to the man, who then doffed his cap and wandered off.

Miguel then stepped forward. “Have you pies with no meat?” he asked. He thought it unlikely that she would recollect his face, so he said nothing to her to give himself away.

Her neck linen was torn and stained yellow, but the cap that covered the crown of her head appeared new. Where could she have acquired such a thing? Miguel recalled Joachim’s fears that his wife would turn whore.

“I have an onion and radish pie, sir,” she told him, watching him with evident caution.

Her caution was well founded, Miguel thought. What business had a Jew looking for his evening meal in this part of the city? “I’ll be glad of it.”

He ought not to eat such a thing. He had no knowledge of its preparation, and it had certainly sat upon her tray in close proximity to pork and other unclean meats. But there was no Ma’amad here. If this pie allowed him to obtain wealth and thereby become a better Jew, its preparation hardly mattered. He bit into it and discovered that he was ravenous. He liked his crust flakier, his vegetables less cooked-the Dutch did not consider vegetables done until they were almost turned to liquid.

“Did you bake these yourself?” he asked.

She eyed him while pretending to look upon the dirt. “Yes, sir.”

Miguel smiled. “What is your name, my dear?”

“My name,” she said, holding her hand forward that he might see her little pewter ring, “is Another Man’s Wife.”

“It’s not so pretty a name,” Miguel told her, “but you misunderstand me. If I wished for that sort of companionship, I might easily find it without buying a pie for my troubles.”

“Some men like the sport.” She smiled at him, and her eyes widened slightly. “Yet I take your point. My name is Clara, and I’d be curious to know what your business is, sir. You appear to buy your pie as a means and not an end.”

Miguel felt an unexpected tingle of interest. Were he on a different kind of business it might be no difficult thing to convince her to continue this conversation in the private room of a tavern. But what kind of a man would that make him? Regardless of Joachim’s current treachery, he had-however unintentionally-wronged the poor fellow, and he was hesitant to make matters worse by cuckolding a madman.

“Perhaps I hardly know my business myself,” he told her. “It is only that-well, if I may be so bold-you have not the look, nor the sound either, of a woman I might expect to find selling pies near the Oude Kerk.”

“And you have not the look of the sort of man I might expect to buy one.”

Miguel bowed. “I speak to you in earnest. You’re a beautiful woman who I think is used to better things. How does your husband permit you to ply such a trade?”

Some of the humor drained from Clara’s face. “My husband has fallen on hard times,” she said at last. “We once had a fine place to live and fine clothes, but he lost his money, alas, to the trickery of one of your race. Now he has nothing but debts, senhor.”

Miguel smiled. “You know something of our forms of address. I like that. How long has it been since your husband lost his money?”

“Several months, senhor.” This time the honorific was missing its touch of irony. She began to see something of value in this conversation.

“And you still have debts?”

“Yes, senhor.”

“How much do you owe?”

“Three hundred guilders, senhor. Not so very much money as what we used to have, but now it is enough.”

“I hope you will at least accept my charity.” Miguel took out his nose cloth, heavy with coin. “Here are five guilders.”

She smiled when he pressed the handkerchief into her hands. Without taking her eyes off her benefactor, she slid the little package into her own purse. “I ca

“Tell me,” he said brightly, “where I can find this husband of yours.”

“Find him?” Her eyes narrowed and her brow folded upon itself.

“You say he was done wrong by one of my race; perhaps I can do right by him. I might be able to find him some employment or introduce him to someone who could.”

“You’re very kind, but I don’t know that he would want to speak with you, and I know not in what way you might help. He is beyond such simple charity.”

“Beyond? What say you?”

Clara turned away. “He has been taken, senhor, for refusing to work and for lying in a drunken state in the street. He is now at the Rasphuis.”

Miguel felt a vague elation, the thrill of revenge, when he thought of the Rasphuis, that place of cruel discipline from which few emerged and none emerged unbroken. But he was not here for revenge, and Joachim’s suffering brought him nothing of value.

“I must find him there,” Miguel said more loudly than he should have, his hands begi

“See him at once,” Clara repeated back. “What care you if you see him never?”

“That’s no matter,” he answered. Miguel began to hurry off, but Clara grabbed him by the wrist. He could feel her jagged nails scrape along his flesh.

“You’ve not told me the truth, senhor. I think I know you after all. You are the man who ruined my husband.”

Miguel shook his head. “No, not ruined, but shared in his ruin. His affairs and my own suffered together.”

She cast an eye upon his clothes, perhaps a bit soiled but finely wrought. “And what do you want with him now?” Her tone seemed to Miguel not one of protective feeling, or even concern-more of curiosity, and an eager curiosity too. She moved closer to Miguel and let him take in her sweaty and feminine scent.

“I have business of the most urgent sort-it ca

“I think you will find that the Rasphuis does not offer such liberal hours as our musicos,” she told him, with a little laugh.

“And I think,” Miguel said, with a bravado he did not himself believe, “you will find that any building is open at any time if a man has but the right key.”

Clara turned her head just so and her eyes widened just enough to let Miguel know that she took some pleasure in his firm resolve. She liked a strong man; he could tell that at once. Joachim, if he had ever been such a one, had long since relinquished his strength, allowing his losses to undo his manhood. More the pity for a woman so fine as she.

“I must go,” Miguel said, gently prying loose his hand. “I hope I’ll see you more,” he said, if only for the pleasure of flirtation.

“Who can say what the future holds?” Clara lowered her eyes. Miguel walked away with the confident stride of a man who could have taken a woman but chose not to. Still, if Joachim persisted in incurring Miguel’s ire, if he continued in his absurd program of abuse and revenge, Miguel thought he might have no choice but to seek out Clara again. Were he to plant a cuckoo in Joachim’s unhappy nest, one would then see who had revenge and who looked the fool.

Located in the narrow Heiligeweg, an alley just north of the Singel in the old center of the city, the Rasphuis stood as a monument to the reverence with which the Dutch viewed labor. From the old cobbled streets outside, it appeared no different from any other great house, a heavy wooden door, above which stood a gable stone depicting a blind effigy of justice presiding over two bound prisoners. Miguel studied the image for a moment in the fading light. It would be dark soon, and he had no desire to be caught on the street without a lantern, nor did he wish to be alone in an ancient ghost-ridden street like the Heiligeweg.