The Coffee Trader (21 page)

“I must know what you have said to the Ma’amad. Have you sent a note? Is that how you communicated from these walls? I must know.”

Joachim’s lips curled just slightly. “How badly would you like to know?”

“I must have the answer. Tell me precisely what you revealed to them, every word. I have no time to play games.”

“No games. You’ll not have the answer of me in here. They have cast me in, and I may not even know the length of time I am to be a prisoner, nor even my crime, other than I did not wish to work as their slave. So I say that if you can get me from this prison, I’ll tell you all I know.”

“Get you out?” Miguel nearly shouted. “I am no magistrate to get you out. How do you propose I do such a thing?”

The noseless Dutchman coughed into his fist. “These things may be ordered, if one but knows how. Not for every man, but for those thrown here without a crime save only vagrancy.”

Miguel sighed. “Very well,” he said. “Speak plainly.”

“Oh, I think twenty guilders should do the business.”

Miguel could scarce believe that he was now prepared to bribe a guard twenty guilders to free from the Rasphuis an enemy he very recently would have paid a much larger sum to have cast in. But Joachim knew why the Ma’amad had summoned him, and he would consider such information acquired cheap at twenty guilders.

Miguel peered into his purse, embarrassed that the guard now discovered he had apportioned out his money into different piles. He had only a little more than what was required.

The guard counted out the coins. “What is this? Twenty guilders? I said forty. Do you think me a fool?”

“Surely one of us is a fool,” Miguel replied.

The guard shrugged. “I’ll just take this fellow away, then, and we’ll say no harm done.”

Miguel opened his purse once more. “I have only three and a half guilders remaining to me. You must take that or nothing.” He handed it to the guard, hoping that by so doing he would seal the bargain.

“Are you sure you have no more purses or pockets or piles about you?”

“This is all I have, I promise you.”

His words must have conveyed an element of truth, for the Dutchman nodded. “Get on with you,” he said. “I won’t have you loitering in front of the premises.”

They took a few steps in silence. “I can’t thank you enough,” Joachim then began, “for this kindness.”

“I should have been happy to see you rot there,” Miguel murmured, as they passed through the courtyard, “but I must know what you said to the Ma’amad.”

They stepped into the Heiligeweg, the guard closed the door behind them, and the series of locks and bolts echoed into the street. “I must first ask you a question,” Joachim said.

“Please, I have little patience. It had better be relevant to these matters.”

“Oh, it is. It could not be more relevant. My question is this.” He cleared his throat. “What the Christ is a Ma’amad?”

Miguel felt an ache in his skull gathering force, and his face grew hot. “Don’t play the fool with me. It is the council of Portuguese Jews.”

“And why should I have ever spoken to so august a body?”

“Did you not tell me before that you would tell me what you know?”

“I did promise, and I have kept my promise. I know nothing of your ruling council, though I believe I now know something of it. I know that you fear I should speak to it.”

“Damn you, you scurvy devil,” Miguel spat. He felt his fist clench and his arm tighten.

“It is all the more shame to you that you should need to be tricked to rescue an old associate from so horrible a fate as the Rasphuis. But you will find me not without gratitude. I’ll thank you now and be on my way.” Joachim bowed deeply and then ran into the night.

It took a moment before Miguel could begin to collect his thoughts. He could not even allow himself to consider how he had just humiliated himself before his mad enemy. It was of far more importance that the Ma’amad had called him forward and he did not yet know why. If it had not been Joachim who had reported him, this appearance must be the work of Parido. The spies he sent to Rotterdam had seen nothing they could use. Was it the matter of Joachim in the street with Hannah and Annetje? Perhaps, but they could hardly excommunicate him if he had a good explanation. He was certain he could think of one before morning.

21

Miguel was out of bed before first light. After urinating furiously from the coffee he’d taken before bed—to keep his thoughts active in his sleep—he washed and said his morning prayers with a kind of pleading enthusiasm. He dressed, ate a breakfast of bread and dried cheese, and hastily drank a large bowl of coffee.

Last night, he had been driven by desperate need to do something to further his cause, but in the silence of his room he could not escape the hard ball of fear that tightened in his belly. This was no ordinary summoning. There would be no indulgent lectures on the importance of the dietary laws or on resisting the charms of Dutch girls.

Could he really turn his back on everything as Alferonda had done? Instead of remaining in Amsterdam, a usurer and a known villain, Alonzo could easily have gone elsewhere, changed his name, settled into another community. There were other Jews in the world besides those in Amsterdam, and Miguel need not remain here. But the
cherem
would mean more than having to choose between being a Jew elsewhere and an outcast in Amsterdam. To leave the city would mean abandoning his plans in the coffee trade, abandoning the money Ricardo owed him. If he stayed, his creditors, no doubt including his sanctimonious brother, would descend upon him and pick his bones clean. Even if he did move to a city where no one knew him, how would he live there? A merchant without connections was no merchant at all. Was he to be a pushcart peddler?

Miguel made his way to the Talmud Torah unobserved by anyone from the community. At this hour the Vlooyenburg had just begun to stir, and though he heard the early morning cries of the milkmen and bakers, he crossed the bridge unheeded by all except a pair of beggars, who sat eating a loaf of stale and mud-splattered bread while eyeing Miguel suspiciously.

The Ma’amad held its meetings in the same building as the synagogue, but a separate entrance led to the chambers. At the top of a winding stairwell, Miguel stepped into the small familiar room where supplicants awaited their summonses. A few chairs had been set along the wall with semicircular windows behind them, allowing the early morning light to filter into a room smelling strongly of mildew and tobacco.

No one else awaited the call that morning but Miguel, and that was something of a relief. He hated making conversation with other penitents, whispering resentments and laughing off accusations. Better to wait alone. He paced back and forth and played out in his mind fantasy after fantasy: complete exoneration, excommunication, and all imaginable variations.

The worst would not happen, he told himself. He had always extricated himself from the council’s anger. And there was Parido—Parido, who was surely not Miguel’s friend but who wanted something from him. Parido, who had long known enough to have Miguel cast out and yet had not. There was no reason to believe he would let Miguel be cast out now.

He waited for nearly an hour before at last the door opened and he was ushered into the chamber. At a table at the far end of the room sat the seven men who would pass judgment. On the wall behind them was mounted the great marble symbol of the Talmud Torah: an immense pelican feeding its three young, the congregation having been formed of smaller synagogues some years before. The room reflected the wealth of the community’s elite with its lush India rug, handsome portraits of former
parnassim,
and an ivory cabinet in which records were stored. The men sat behind a massive dark table and looked both solemn and princely in their rich attire. To be a
parnass
a man must have the wealth to dress like a
parnass
.

“Senhor Lienzo, thank you for answering the summons.” Aaron Desinea, who led the council, spoke with a kind of arch seriousness. “Please.” He gestured to the narrow too-short chair that sat in the center of the room where Miguel would sit while in discussion with the council. One of the legs was shorter than the rest. It took far more concentration than Miguel could spare to keep from wobbling.

In the middle of his seventh decade, Desinea was the oldest of the
parnassim
and had begun to display signs of the ravages of age. His hair had gone from a stately gray to a sickly white and now had the coarse quality of dead leaves. His beard had grown spotty and molten, and it was generally known that his eyes were failing. Even now he stared beyond Miguel, as though looking for a friend in the distance. But Desinea had sat on the council many times, serving his three-year limit, standing down for the required three years, and then finding himself always reelected.

“You know everyone here, so I’ll dispense with introductions. I shall read the charges against you, and you will have an opportunity to answer them. Do you have any questions?”

“No, senhor.” Miguel felt himself longing for another bowl of coffee to sharpen his senses. Already he had become distracted, and he had to fight the childish urge to fidget.

“Of course.” Desinea allowed himself the vaguest hint of a smile. “By now you know the procedure well.” He held out a piece of paper, but his eyes made no contact with it. He must have memorized it earlier. “Senhor Miguel Lienzo—who is also known by and does business under the names Mikael Lienzo, Marcus Lentus, and Michael Weaver—you are charged with irresponsible conduct bringing shame before the Nation. You are accused of consorting with dangerous, disreputable, and inappropriate gentiles and bringing such gentiles into our own neighborhood, where they have behaved disruptively. Do you wish to respond to these charges?”

Miguel suppressed a smile, though he succumbed to the urge to breathe in the sweetness of the air. The meeting might be brought to its conclusion now, for the council would do him no harm. They did not know Joachim’s name or Miguel’s relationship with him. All the
parnassim
wanted was to hear an explanation and to issue a warning.

“Senhors, I should like to begin by offering my sincere apologies to this council and to the Nation. The man you mention is a Dutch unfortunate with whom, I admit, I have been friendly, but I can assure you that my intentions were always good.” He disliked lying in so holy a place, for it is written that a liar is no better than one who worships idols. But it is also written that the Holy One, blessed be He, hates a man who speaks one thing with his mouth and another with his heart. Therefore it seemed to Miguel that if he believed in his heart that his lie was justified, it was not so sinful after all.

“He is a sad man, ruined in a business misadventure,” he continued, “and seeing him begging upon the street, I gave him a few stuivers. Some days later, he engaged me in conversation, and not wishing to be rude, I made small chatter with him. The next time I saw him, he became aggressive and began to follow me, shouting things. Finally, he came into our own neighborhood and accosted members of my brother’s household. I then spoke to him harshly, warning him that if he continued to behave thus I would be forced to report him to the city authorities. I believe he won’t disturb our quiet again.”

“The giving of charity is one of our most important mitzvot,” said Joseph ben Yerushalieem. He was a wealthy merchant who had come to Amsterdam some months after Miguel and had been elected to the council after fulfilling (by a matter of weeks) the requirement that a
parnass
must have been living as a Jew for at least three years. Miguel knew he interpreted his duties as sourly as the Law would allow, showing no mercy to new arrivals who refused to embrace an equally strict adherence. “I commend you on your generosity, senhor, for charity exalts the Holy Name. This council is aware that you have suffered in business, but the rabbis say that a beggar must be treated kindly, for the Lord is with him.”

“Thank you, senhor
,”
said Miguel, who refused to believe that the Lord could possibly be with Joachim.

“However,” ben Yerushalieem continued, “this incident demonstrates something that this body has warned you of many times in the past. Your easy interactions with the Dutch, your fluency in their language, and your comfort with their companionship can lead only to difficulties between our two peoples. This community has thrived because it has kept its distance from our Dutch hosts. This incident with the beggar may seem small, and you have been guiltless of any ill intent, but it suggests that you are unwilling to follow this council’s advice that you keep a more formal distance from these people.”

“This problem has been brought to our attention before,” Desinea chimed in. “You are a man who habitually breaks the laws of this council because he believes he knows better than we do what is right for the Nation.”

“Precisely.” Ben Yerushalieem pressed on. “You have broken the rules of the Ma’amad because you thought yourself the best judge of right and wrong. It makes no difference, senhor, if you are seeking the affections of a pretty Dutch girl or giving alms to an inappropriate gentile. Both are forbidden, and forbidden for good reasons.”

Miguel found the pressure more intense than he had at first anticipated. “I thank you for taking the time to discuss these matters with me and allowing me the opportunity to improve my behavior. I shall redouble my efforts to be more vigilant in considering my actions in light of the larger good of this community.”

“I can only hope that you will,” Desinea told him sternly. “You are a grown man, Senhor Lienzo, not a boy whose transgressions can be overlooked.”

Desinea’s words stung furiously, but Miguel knew his pride would recover. The tide had begun to recede, after all. The Ma’amad had made its point. He had been warned.

“I wonder if that is enough.” Solomon Parido leaned forward as though scrutinizing something on Miguel’s face. Though animated by his expectation of triumph, he appeared, if anything, more morose than ever. Even the taste of victory brought him no joy. “Such warnings can be effective, I grant you, but I am not convinced they will suffice in this case. I am a friend of Senhor Lienzo’s family, so I speak with genuine concern when I say he has been issued many warnings in the past. Now we must ask, Have they led him to change his ways? Have they ever inspired in his heart a new love of the Law? Forgiveness is a blessing in the eyes of the Most High, but we must not forgive too easily or too often without damaging the community.”

Miguel swallowed hard. Perhaps, he thought, Parido only meant to appear harsh that he might better disguise his true intentions of protecting Miguel. Why would he have pretended friendship this past month only now to turn on him? If he sought to impose the
cherem,
why had he not made use of his knowledge that Miguel had bribed a servant girl into fingering Parido as the father of her child? None of it made sense.

“We cannot know how those warnings have shaped the senhor,” ben Yerushalieem commented. “Is it therefore not pure speculation to say that warnings have had no effect? We may have changed Senhor Lienzo’s behavior greatly and rescued him from his own worst self.”

“Senhors, I must commend your generosity, but I wonder if generosity may not do our community more harm than good.”

Miguel felt himself wobble in the chair. This was no mere pretense at harshness. Parido was after blood.

“Really, senhor,” ben Yerushalieem said, “this denunciation is unbecoming. You and Senhor Lienzo have had disagreements, but Holy Torah commands us not to hold a grudge.”

“This is no matter of grudges. All Amsterdam knows that I’ve set aside our former differences, but that does not mean that I must hold my tongue when I see evil. I have it on good authority,” Parido pressed on, “that this man is engaged in a matter of business that presents a direct threat to this community.”

So this is his move, Miguel thought, as he tried to keep his face from twitching. He could not yet see the whole of the plan, but he recognized the pieces. The gestures of friendship now allowed Parido to claim only the best motives.

“Is this true?” Desinea asked.

“By no means,” Miguel managed to answer, though his mouth had grown painfully dry. “Senhor Parido might wish to reexamine his source of information.”

“Can you tell us more, Senhor Parido?” ben Yerushalieem asked.

“I believe it is Lienzo who must tell us more.”

“
Senhor
Lienzo,” Miguel corrected.

“The members of this council need no lessons in etiquette,” Parido explained softly. “You are here to answer our questions.”

“Senhor Parido is right,” another
parnass,
Gideon Carvoeiro, announced. “True, these two men have had words, but that means nothing. The senhor has set forth a question. We cannot bring a man before us and allow him to choose which questions are to his liking.”

Parido made a halfhearted effort to hide a smile. “Precisely. You must tell us the nature of your new venture.”

And there it was. Parido had sought Miguel’s friendship to learn about his plans in the coffee trade. When that had not worked, he had deftly use his position on the Ma’amad not to arrange Miguel’s excommunication but to use their old animosity as an excuse to discover the nature of his business. Now Parido surely thought that Miguel had no choice but to divulge his secrets—otherwise he would almost certainly face the
cherem,
for defiance of the council was among the most serious of crimes in its eyes. Parido had set his trap brilliantly: Miguel must give up his secrets or be destroyed.

But Miguel would not be so easily ruined; a Jew from Salonika could not hope to scheme like a former Converso. Miguel believed he might still teach Parido a few things about deviousness.

“Senhors,” he began, after taking a moment to formulate his reply, “I hope you will consider that a man of business is not always at liberty to answer questions concerning his affairs. I have agreements with other merchants who depend on my silence. I need not explain to you the role of rumor on the Exchange and the importance of keeping some dealings quiet.”

“Quiet is not a luxury you possess right now,” Parido said. “The Ma’amad’s need to protect the Nation must take precedence over your inclination toward secrecy.”

Miguel swallowed hard. He might ruin himself if he spoke with too much arrogance, but the right tone would win the day. “Then I must respectfully refuse to answer, senhors.”