Thus went the final conversation between Miguel Lienzo and his brother’s former servant. It is sad how badly these matters can end. He and the girl knew a fond intimacy for many months, but there was never any real tenderness there. He wanted only her flesh, and she his coin. A poor foundation for any congress between man and woman.
And how does Alferonda know all of this? How can he write of the private words spoken in an obscure boardinghouse in the Jordaan? Alferonda knows because he heard it all-he was in the next room, lying on the girl’s rough mattress.
Not so long ago I had been enjoying some of the dainties she had offered to Miguel. She had told her visitor exactly what I had instructed her to say, in case he came calling. Madam Damhuis, of course, had never paid the girl a stuiver, nor had she ever promised to do so. She had never spoken a word to the girl but once, when she had stopped the senhora on the Hoogstraat.
Annetje had been in my employ at the time, and it had been my design that Senhora Lienzo should not speak of the widow to Miguel. That she had done so, in the end, would prove immaterial.
30
Miguel had been ignoring notes from Isaiah Nunes for weeks, and had been doing so self-righteously since he learned that Nunes was in league with Parido. But then Nunes’s notes began to talk of the Ma’amad, and Miguel wondered if he ought not take these threats more seriously. In all likelihood, Nunes only meant to add verisimilitude to his ruse, but it was also possible that Parido might want to see Miguel brought before the board. It would be difficult to prove the trickery Miguel suspected, and he could not begin to do so without revealing his connection to Geertruid.
Miguel had come to believe there was only one way to obtain the money he needed. He therefore dashed off a quick note and three hours later found himself in the coffee tavern meeting with Alonzo Alferonda.
“I’ll be direct with you,” Miguel said. “I would like to borrow some money.”
His companion’s eyes narrowed. “Borrowing from Alferonda is a dangerous business.”
“I’m prepared to take the risk.”
Alferonda laughed. “Very bold of you. How much did you have in mind?”
Miguel swallowed a gulp of Turkish coffee. “Fifteen hundred guilders.”
“I am a kind man with a generous heart, but you must think me a fool. With all the difficulties you face, why would I give you such a sum?”
“Because,” Miguel said, “by doing so you will help me ruin Solomon Parido’s plans.”
Alferonda ran a hand across his beard. “I don’t know that there could have been another answer quite so effective.”
Miguel smiled. “Then you’ll do it?”
“Tell me what you have in mind.”
Miguel, who had not bothered to formulate a plan fully, began to talk, but what came out was greatly to Alferonda’s liking.
Miguel sat in the Three Dirty Dogs awaiting Geertruid. Like all the Dutch, she thrived on punctuality, but not this time. Perhaps she had found out that Miguel knew of her deception. Miguel tried to think of the ways that might possibly happen. It seemed unlikely that Joachim and Geertruid would have any contact, and he felt fairly certain that Alferonda could not have betrayed him. Had Hendrick seen Miguel observing him in the tavern that night? What if he had, and then he had held off telling Geertruid for some reason of his own? Or perhaps Geertruid had waited to see how Miguel would respond to that knowledge.
When she showed up she appeared disordered and out of breath. He had never seen her so shaken. Lowering herself down, she explained what had happened. A man had fallen and broken his leg in front of her on the Rozengracht, she said, and she and a gentleman who happened to be there had helped to take him to a surgeon. It was shocking stuff, she said. The man had screamed with agony the whole time. She called at once for a beer.
“It makes you think about the preciousness of life,” she said, while awaiting her drink. “A man is going about his business, and the next thing he falls and has a broken leg. Will he survive its repair but walk for the rest of his life with a cane? Will he have to have it off? Will it heal and be as it once was? No one can say what God has in store.”
“That much is certain,” Miguel agreed, without much enthusiasm. “Life is full of unexpected turns.”
“By Jesus, I am glad we’re doing this thing.” She squeezed his hand. The serving girl put the beer down, and Geertruid drank down half the contents at once. “I’m glad. We’ll make our fortunes and live in luxury. Perhaps we’ll die next day or next year, no one knows. But I’ll have my fortune first, and we’ll laugh while my husband looks on from hell.”
“Then we must go ahead,” Miguel began humorlessly. “We must send the letters at once. We can’t delay any longer. The time must be set. Eleven in the morning, three weeks from today.”
“Three weeks from today? The ship has not yet made port.”
“It must be three weeks from this day,” he insisted, looking away. She had betrayed him. He knew it was true, but his own act of betrayal tasted bitter in his mouth.
“Senhor, have you decided to get forceful with me?” She reached out and began to run a finger lightly along Miguel’s hand. “If you’re going to thrust something upon me, I should like to know what I shall be receiving.”
“You shall be receiving a great deal of money,” he told her, “if you do what I say.”
“I should always like to do what you say,” she told him. “But I must know why.”
“I have been assured the shipment will be here by that time. I have reason to believe there are others who take an interest in coffee, and if we wait too long, they may make it more difficult for us to manipulate the prices as we planned.”
Geertruid considered this for a moment. “Who are these people?”
“Men of the Exchange. What does it matter who they are?”
“I only wonder why, at this time, they take an interest in something that hardly anyone has taken an interest in before.”
“Why did you take an interest in it?” Miguel asked. “Things happen all at once. I’ve seen it countless times. Men from all over the city, from all over Europe, will suddenly decide this is the time to buy timber or cotton or tobacco. Maybe it’s the stars. All I know is that this may be coffee’s moment, and we may be but one party to have recognized it. If we are to do what we planned, then we had better act decisively.”
Geertruid remained quiet for a moment. “You say you’ve been given assurances about the shipment, but those assurances cannot predict pirates or storms or any of a thousand things that can make a ship late. What if the shipment is not yet in port when our agents begin?”
Miguel shook his head. “It won’t matter. I have been on the Exchange too long to let it matter. I know it as though it were my own body, and I can make it do what I want, just as I move my arms and legs.”
Geertruid smiled. “You speak with such confidence.”
“I only speak the truth. Our only enemy now is timidity.”
“I love to hear you talk so”-she leaned forward and touched his beard-“but you can’t risk putting yourself in a position in which you must sell what you do not have.”
“You needn’t worry about that. I’ll not be caught unprepared.”
“What do you plan?”
Miguel smiled and leaned back. “It’s very simple. If need be, I’ll cover my own losses as the price drops and therefore simultaneously acquire the very goods I will promise to sell, only I’ll buy when the price dips below the price at which I have promised to sell, so I might profit on the sales while lowering the value. It is something I would not have known how to do before, but now I believe I can order it effectively.”
This plan was nonsense. Miguel would never have attempted anything so foolish, but he doubted Geertruid had sufficient business sense to know it.