“What’s wrong, Etzel?” she asked, stepping lightly across the stone flagging in her bare feet. She knelt in front of him.
“What is the use?” he groaned without raising his eyes from the bleak contemplation of his empty hands. “No one comes. No one buys. It is finished…” He sighed. “We are finished.”
She bit her lip. She had never seen him so dejected, and it tore at her heart. “No,” she whispered, mostly to herself, “I will not allow it.”
She stood and let her gaze sweep across the tidy shop. It was a fine place, and a good place-too good to be driven down by the indifference of the locals. It only needed… something-some little refinement, a detail perhaps overlooked till now, or a new ingredient added. But what?
“Etzel,” she said slowly. “Did they have coffee in Rosenheim?”
“You mean Kaffee?”
“Yes, coffee, cafe, Kaffee, or whatever you call it-did you have it there? Were there shops that sold it?”
“This is a drink, ja?”
“That’s right-a hot drink.” Wilhelmina began pacing before him, her brow scrunched in concentration. “Did they have it there?”
“I do not think so,” he said slowly, raising his head at last. “In Munchen, maybe, though I cannot say for sure. I heard they had this Kaffee in Venice.” He shrugged. “I have never tried it myself.”
“How far is Vienna?” she asked, mishearing him because her mind was already racing down the road to a certain destination. At his blank look she corrected herself. “Wien, I mean-how far is it from here?”
Etzel tapped his teeth with a pudgy finger and squinched up his eyes as he tried to work out the sums in his head. “I think,” he said finally, “it must be two hundred miles at least-a little more, perhaps. I have never been there, but my father went to Wien once as a young man. It is a very great city.”
“So it is. But, if I remember correctly, it is also the place where the selling of coffee in Europe began.”
Englebert studied her carefully. “What are you thinking, Liebchen?”
“I am thinking that coffee will be the saving of us, Etzel.”
“But I know nothing of this Kaffee,” countered the baker mournfully.
“Don’t worry about that,” Mina reassured him. “I know all about it. All we have to do is get a supply of beans.”
“Beans?” he wondered.
“Coffee beans, Etzel-the grains used to make the drink.” She turned and stooped and, taking his hands in hers, raised him to his feet. “Now then, you go and put on your coat and hat; then we’ll go to the stable to get the mule cart ready.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m staying here to make the shop ready,” Mina said. “You’re going to Vienna-to Wien. Hurry along. We have wasted enough time as it is.”
A short time later, Wilhelmina stood watching as the mule cart clattered away down the empty streets of Old Prague. She sent her willing accomplice with a detailed description of the commodity-including a little drawing she had made-and instructions to purchase as many coffee beans from whatever source he could find. “Get the black roasted ones if you can,” she had instructed him as he climbed up into the wagon box. “If you can’t get those, then get the green raw ones, and we’ll roast them ourselves. It doesn’t matter. Just get them.”
The plan was simply to go around to one and another of the Viennese coffee emporiums and offer to buy beans in bulk. Thus when, after five days on the road, Englebert arrived in the imposing city and began his search, he was heartily disappointed to find not a single Kaffeehaus anywhere. He walked the streets for a day and a half asking shopkeepers and businessmen and even idle passersby where he might find a Kaffeehaus in Wien, but no one he met had ever heard of such a thing in the city. Weary from his travels, and woefully dispirited by the realisation he had made a long trip for nothing, he began to wander aimlessly, not caring anymore where he went. Eventually, he came to himself on the riverbanks of the wide, slow-moving Danube.
Looking around, he saw that he had inadvertently arrived at one of the many wharfs lining the busy river docklands. There were rows of warehouses and small shops serving the sailors, dockworkers, and day labourers. He strolled along the wharf and came upon a man pacing back and forth before a large heap of grain sacks. Two stevedores were loading the sacks onto a wagon. Dressed in expensive dark wool with a pristine white shirt and extravagant lace collar, the man was waving at passersby and calling out something Etzel could not quite make out. He also held a small sign in his hands with which he seemed to be trying to attract attention.
Closer, Etzel heard the word Bohnen. That single utterance brought him up short. He stopped to observe the man as he waved his sign and shouted, “Beans!”
Intrigued, Englebert stepped nearer and summoned up the last ounce of friendliness from his vast reserve. “Hello to you, sir,” he said. “I give you good greeting, friend.”
“Would that I could offer the same in return,” answered the man, “but I fear the hardship which I now endure would overcome you, too, even as it has overcome me.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” replied Etzel. “I, too, am brought low by difficulties. May I ask what is the nature of your particular hardship?”
“I am a grain merchant, ja?” replied the man. “I deal in barley, rice, and rye. From all over the world I buy, ja?”
“I pray your business thrives,” said Etzel.
“I make a good living,” conceded the merchant. “Until today, that is.” He flung a hand at the heap of bags on the dock. “What am I to do with all these beans?” He waved the sign at someone passing by just then. “Beans! Buy some beans!”
The fellow hurried by, and the merchant returned to his subject. “You see? No one wants them.”
“I do not understand, sir. What is wrong with them?”
“I have just this morning taken delivery of a long-awaited shipment -and now it is to be my ruin.” He turned to the nearest sack and opened it. “Here! You see?” He dipped his hand in and brought out a fistful of shrivelled green berries.
“What are they?” wondered Englebert.
“Ha! There it is, my friend. What are they? Who knows? I have no idea. Berries, seeds, grains-whatever they are, they are worthless to me. The merchants of Venice are pirates! I order rice and they send worthless seeds.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir,” ventured Etzel, a tiny flicker of hope reviving in his breast, “do these beans have a name?”
The merchant raised his head and called to one of the dockhands. “What did the captain call these?”
“Kava,” the man replied, hefting another grain sack to his companion in the wagon.
“Kava,” repeated the merchant disdainfully. “Have you ever heard of it? No! No one has! All I know is that I have been waiting for a shipment of rice and barley-three months I have been waiting! What do I get? A few bags of barley, two bags of wheat, and a whole load of worthless kava beans.”
Hardly daring to breathe, Englebert licked his lips and asked, “Might these kava seeds have another name, perhaps?” He gazed in earnest at the man, clasping his hands together as if in petition. “Kaffee, perhaps?”
“I suppose so,” replied the grain merchant with weary resignation. “Who knows? Who cares? Rice is what I need. What am I to do with these blasted seeds?”
Englebert regarded the heap of sacks-at least twenty in all. “Do you think it might be too much trouble to allow me to examine these seeds more closely?”
“Be my guest,” said the merchant.
Englebert stooped to the open bag and peered inside at the mass of pale green pellets. He pulled out the picture Mina had made for him and compared it with the grains in the sack. They looked more or less alike. With trembling hands, he lifted a few into the sunlight. There was no doubt: they were the same.
“My dear sir,” Etzel said, clearing his throat, “it may be that we can be of help to one another. I would be willing to purchase these beans from you.”
“You want to buy them?” wondered the merchant. “Truly?”
“As it happens, I am a baker and I have a use for such as these. I cannot offer much, mind you, but I will pay what I can.”
The deal was not finalized then and there. The merchant, for all his complaining, knew well when he had a
