The Coffee Trader by David Liss

Author:David Liss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781588362414
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2003-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

For what reason do I mention this? my reader may wonder. Well, it is to help explain some of the animosity between these two men, which went back many years and was, as near as I could tell, utterly senseless.

But such was the way with these brothers. Thus the reader may not be entirely surprised to learn that it was Daniel Lienzo himself who owed Miguel more than two thousand guilders in whale-oil debt. Far from being in debt to his brother, Miguel was his creditor and never once suspected it.

18

The letters had been coming in at the rate of two or three a week, and Miguel stayed up late, straining his eyes against the thin light of a single oil lamp, to answer them. Animated by coffee and the thrill of impending wealth, he worked with jubilant determination, making sure his agents understood precisely what he required of them.

Miguel had not seen Geertruid since his return from Rotterdam, which made it easy to avoid dwelling on having lost most of her capital. He knew of men who had lost their partners’ money, and they invariably broke down in confession immediately, as though the burden of living in falseness was too much to endure. Miguel felt he could live with the falseness as long as the world let him get away with it.

Nevertheless, he wanted to see Geertruid and tell her of his progress, and he had other things to say too, but Geertruid was nowhere to be found. It was a cursed time for her to hide herself. Miguel sent messages to all the most likely taverns and paid visits to those places at even the most unlikely hours, but he found no sign of her.

Once, by coincidence, he ran into Hendrick, who stood idly near the Damrak. He leaned against a wall and busied himself with his pipe, watching as men and women paraded past him.

“Ho, Jew Man,” he called out. He puffed smoke cordially in Miguel’s direction.

Miguel hesitated a moment, wondering if he could pretend to have neither seen nor heard Hendrick, but it was no good. “What news of Madam Damhuis?” he asked.

“What?” Hendrick asked. “You don’t ask after my health? You injure me.”

“I am sorry for the injury,” Miguel said. He had, over time, learned to defuse Hendrick’s bombast by pretending to take it seriously.

“As long as you’re sorry, that’s the important thing. But it’s Madam Damhuis you want, and I can’t hope to serve as Madam Damhuis serves. I haven’t her charms.”

Was he jealous? “Do you know where I might find her?”

“I haven’t seen her.” Hendrick turned his head and blew a long cloud of smoke.

“Perhaps at her home,” Miguel began hopefully.

“Oh, no. Not at her home.”

“Still, I should not mind looking for myself,” Miguel pressed, wishing he could be more clever and subtle. “Where might I find her home?”

“It’s not for me to say,” Hendrick explained. “You foreigners are perhaps not so clear about our customs. If Madam Damhuis has not told you, it would not be my place to do so.

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