His dignity would not permit him to swat at the smoke, but I could see him struggling not to gag. “I have questions for you to answer,” he said.
“I suppose then we’ll see if I feel like answering, but I can promise you nothing. You see, Parido, I can’t think of any reason why I should want to help you or provide you with answers about anything. You treated me as no Jew should treat another. This is not the Ma’amad chamber of the Talmud Torah, this is the belly of Amsterdam, and if I decide you are never vomited out, no one will hear from you more.”
“Don’t threaten me,” he said evenly.
I admired his courage and laughed at his stupidity-perhaps I had not secured my villainous reputation as carefully as I ought. He had every reason to be frightened yet did not seem to know or care. I only shrugged in return. “I suppose we’ll see what’s a threat and what isn’t. In the meantime, I am nothing short of astonished at your pluck, showing up as you have, as though I might be happy to forgive your wrongs.”
“I won’t defend my actions. I have only come to ask you if you encouraged Miguel Lienzo to pursue a trade in whale oil, knowing that his trade would harm me while keeping that possibility hidden from Lienzo himself. In other words, did you use him as your pawn?”
Quite the contrary: I had gone so far as to warn Miguel Lienzo about just this sort of thing, but I was not about to tell Parido that much. “Why should you ask me that?”
“Because that is what Lienzo says.”
Ah, Lienzo, I thought. Using my name to his advantage. Well, why should he not? Surely Parido cornered him, and, rather than risking himself, he blamed the souring of Parido’s finances on Alferonda the way peasants blame the souring of milk on imps. The parnass could do me no more harm than he already had. I was in no danger. I therefore did not feel any anger toward Miguel, who had only been behaving prudently.
I shook my head. “I would have done so if I could have, but I will not commit the sin of lying to protect any man. I had nothing to do with any whale-oil futures of yours. I suspect Lienzo is protecting himself or protecting another man by suggesting that it was me.”
But, you may wonder, if I did not resent Miguel for taking liberties with my name, why did I not protect him? Why did I expose him to Parido’s anger when I might so easily have absorbed that anger myself?
I did so because I could not risk a rapprochement between the two. Far better that Miguel should face Parido’s wrath.
22
During his brief period of exile, Miguel thought it best to avoid other Jews of the neighborhood. Their stares and whispers would only sour his victory. Men who had suffered temporary bans always hid themselves away in their homes until they were again free to go about their business. They lurked about like thieves, they closed their shutters, they ate their food cold.
Miguel had too much to do and hadn’t the luxury of hiding in his cellar for the day. He sent a note to Geertruid, telling her he wished to meet the next afternoon. He suggested the Golden Calf. That disgusting little place where they had first discussed coffee might not suit his taste, but at least he knew Geertruid’s cousin did not serve other Jews, and on the day of his cherem he wished for secrecy. Geertruid wrote back and suggested instead another tavern, one near the warehouses. As it promised to be equally obscure, Miguel sent his agreement.
After sending out letters to his agents, Miguel prepared a bowl of coffee and took a moment to think about his most pressing needs: how to raise five hundred guilders to complete the amount Isaiah Nunes required. Instead of obtaining the missing money, he might transfer to Nunes the thousand that remained to him at the very end of the week. Nunes would not notice, or he would not be able to speak of it until the beginning of next week. Being too cowardly to face Miguel directly when it came to such awkward things as debt, he would send a letter requesting the remaining amount, and then-since Miguel planned to ignore the request-he would send another note a few days later. Miguel would return a vague reply that would give Nunes some hope that the money was forthcoming at any moment. So long as he avoided running into his friend, he could extend the payment date for weeks before Nunes grew angry enough to threaten him with courts or the Ma’amad. Clearly this matter of five hundred guilders was not nearly so dire as he had led himself to believe.
In a much brighter mood, he indulged himself with a Charming Pieter pamphlet he had read only twice before. He had not even set the water for his second bowl of coffee to boiling before Annetje appeared from around the winding staircase, her head cocked at an impish angle Miguel mistook for lust. He had not been feeling amorous, but with a free morning before him, there was no reason why he could not summon some enthusiasm. Annetje, however, only wished to tell him that the senhora awaited him in the drawing room.
Why should she not summon Miguel to speak with her? She had never done so before, but Hannah could not see that there was anything improper in having friendly relations with her husband’s brother. Daniel would be at the Exchange, and he needn’t know anything of it, even if it were improper, which it was not. And of course she could count on Annetje’s silence. The maid, if she had betrayal on her mind, had far deeper wells from which to draw.
Miguel entered, dressed in his austere Dutch attire, and bowed slightly. His eyes were sunken and the skin below them dark, as though he hadn’t slept in days.
“Yes, senhora?” he said, in a voice that managed to be both weary and charming. “You honored me with a summons?”
Annetje stood behind him and grinned like a bawd.
“Girl,” Hannah said to her, “fetch me my yellow cap. The one with the blue stones.”
“Senhora, you have not worn that cap in a year’s time. I cannot say where it is.”
“Then you had better start looking,” she answered. She would hear about that later. Annetje would lecture her, tell her mistress it was wrong to speak to her so, threaten and tease her. But Hannah would face those problems when they arose. For now, Annetje would not dare disobey in front of Miguel.
“Yes, senhora,” she replied, in a convincingly subservient tone.
“It is best to give her a task so she does not spend her time at keyholes,” Hannah said.
Miguel took a seat. “She is a well enough girl,” he answered absently.
“I’m sure you know best.” Hannah felt herself redden. “I must thank you for taking the time to sit with me, senhor.”
“It is I who should thank you. Conversation with a charming lady will pass the time far more amiably than will books and papers.”
“I had forgotten that you have those things available to you. I had thought you must be sitting alone and in silence, but your learning frees you from dullness.”
“I’ve thought it must be terrible not to read,” he said. “Is it a loss you feel?”
Hannah nodded. She liked the softness in his voice. “My father thought learning improper for me and my sisters, and I know Daniel thinks the same, should we have a girl child, even though I have heard the rabbi, Senhor Mortera, say that a daughter may engage in learning for which the wife has no time.” She lifted her hand, to place it upon her abdomen, but then changed her mind. She had become conscious of growing big, of the swelling pressing against her gown, and while it was a sensation that usually comforted her, she did not want Miguel to think of her as nothing more than a woman growing big with child.