“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “However, I do know that a chicken is flesh, but its eggs are neither flesh nor dairy. Thus we can conclude that the Sages believed that what comes out of a creature’s guts may not be of the same quality as the creature itself.”

Miguel pushed the bowl away from him. “You make a convincing case, but I don’t think I’ll drink any more shit brew.”

I smiled and sipped at my own bowl. “I hear that Parido’s help is not so valuable as one might hope.”

“Yes,” he said, “the brandy. There’s no way of knowing if he intended for me to lose out or if the change in price caught him by surprise.”

“Of course he intended it. Parido has been your enemy these two years, and when he suddenly declares himself your friend and acts on your behalf, it costs you money. I don’t believe in mere happenstance, Miguel. He’s shown his colors.”

“I took at least as much from his pocket when I traded on whale oil.”

“That may be,” I observed, “but if you took that money from his pocket, it has not shown up in yours.”

“Are you saying that Ricardo’s client is Parido, that it’s he who refuses to pay me?”

“It needn’t be that direct. Parido could simply be using his influence to keep that money from you. I suggest you press Ricardo a little more forcefully. You can’t bring him before the Ma’amad, but you may be able to find other ways to make him yield.”

“Have you any suggestions?”

I shrugged. “If I think of something, I will be certain to inform you.”

“That’s not very helpful. I feel like everything is getting away from me. I earned money in whale oil, but I cannot get it. I begin a trade in coffee, but the world warns me off it.”

“Who has warned you?”

“Isaiah Nunes. And my brother.”

“Nunes trembles at the sound of his shit falling in his chamber pot. You oughtn’t let his cowardice affect you. And as for your brother, he is Parido’s creature before he is your kin.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Parido may know of your trade in coffee and want you to stay away from something that will make you successful. You must remain fast and cling to your purpose.”

“I have no intention of doing otherwise,” he said.

That was precisely what I wanted to hear.

14

In the kitchen, Annetje chopped onions while Hannah cleaned the sour-smelling fish. She slid the knife into its soft grayish belly, fighting the fish’s fibrous resistance, and pushed up with more force than necessary. The fish slid apart easily, and she scraped its innards into a wooden bowl. Annetje would use the guts for a hutsepot she made out of ingredients permitted by Jews-Joodspot, she called it.

“I’ve been thinking about your encounter with that old widow,” Annetje said.

Hannah didn’t look up from the offal. She had a few coffee beans in her apron, but she did not want to touch them with her fishy fingers. Still, the fruit called out to her. She hadn’t eaten one for hours now. Hours. Her supply had been running low, and after her embarrassing visit to Miguel’s cellar the night before, she thought she had better make do with what little she had.

“You must not say anything to Senhor Lienzo-Senhor Miguel Lienzo, I mean. Of course you know you should not say anything to your husband.”

“I’ve been thinking of it as well,” Hannah confessed, “and I’m not certain I should remain quiet. That woman claims to be his friend. He ought to know she’s keeping secrets.”

“People must be permitted their secrets,” Annetje said, this time more generously. She sprinkled a pinch of cinnamon onto a bowl of onions. “You have your secrets, and you are better, your husband is better, and the world is better for your keeping them. Who is to say that the same is not true of the widow?”

There had been a time when these words would have silenced her, but now things were somehow different. “But we don’t know that it is true.” Her finger probed the meat under the fish’s skin. “What if she means him harm?”

“I am sure it is nothing we need concern ourselves with, and even if it were, there’s nothing to do about it. You don’t want her speaking of your secrets, after all.”

Hannah thought about it for a moment. “But Senhor Miguel is not my husband. He can be trusted to keep silent.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know the senhor like I do.”

She closed her eyes. “Perhaps not.”

Annetje bit into an onion as though it were an apple and chewed with her mouth wide open. Hannah had many times asked her not to eat onions. If Daniel learned that she helped herself so freely to their food, he would lose himself in wrath. “He’s found your behavior curious. He told me you came to him in the cellar last night with your scarf askew and your hair exposed.”

The girl would see a scarf askew if Hannah used it to strangle her. “I didn’t know it was loose until after I left him.”

“I think he found it exciting,” she said, her mouth full of onion.

“I smelled something in the cellar,” she said.

“And I smell something now, and it’s foul. You cannot tell him. He will betray you. He cares more about his devil’s religion than he does you, I can promise you that. He thinks you are only a fool girl, and if you speak to him he’ll discover how right he is.”

“Why would he think me a fool for trying to help him?”

“Help him nothing. He’ll betray you for the pleasure of it. I tell you that you must not trust him. If you do speak to him, I will consider myself betrayed. Do you understand me?”

“I understand you,” Hannah said quietly, thinking only of the coffee in her apron.

The letters started coming in all at once. Miguel had sat in the cellar, lighted two oil lamps, and opened the day’s correspondence, hardly daring to hope. But there it was: a letter from a cousin of a friend who now lived in Copenhagen. He didn’t understand why Miguel needed to buy at a particular moment on a particular day, but he was nonetheless willing to comply based on the commission proposed.

Miguel made a celebratory bowl of coffee and read the rest of his letters. Nothing from prospective agents, but the next day he heard from an old acquaintance in Marseilles and a distant cousin’s husband in Hamburg. By the middle of the next week he’d heard from three more. A week later produced another four, and surely more on the way. The thing was nearly done. There remained only one major problem to discuss with Geertruid.

She suggested they walk to the Plantage. Miguel thought a visit to the coffee tavern might be in order, but Geertruid had no interest. “There are things in life besides coffee,” she said. “You must not forget that I am a Dutchwoman and like to drink great quantities of beer. Staying up all night to look at ledgers and books-that’s for Jews.”

They walked along tree-lined paths where bright torches blazed to turn night into day. Handsomely attired couples passed by, wealthy burghers with their beautiful or plain wives, young couples out to gaze upon the fashionable life, cleverly disguised thieves. Back in Lisbon, these happy pleasure seekers would have been well born and of old families, but these were new men, merchants of the Exchange and their pretty wives, the daughters of merchants.

Miguel took Geertruid’s arm in his, and they strolled as though they were married. But even if he had a wife, could he take her to the verdant paths of the Plantage? No, she would remain at home with the children, and Geertruid would still be the woman upon his arm.

Geertruid raised her eyes and smiled at her friend; she seemed to like nothing more than to stroll with him on such nights. She had worn one of her most handsome gowns, all dark blues and reds. “Where do things stand?” she asked. “Tell me all the wonderful tidings. Delight me with tales of our impending wealth.”