commodity someone else wanted and for which they were willing to pay good money. The negotiations took a little time and were not to be concluded until many sausages and much sauerkraut had been consumed at a nearby waterfront inn; but the deal was struck at last, and the sale solemnized over jars of sweet Wiezenbier. The afternoon was far gone when Englebert loaded the last of twenty-three sacks onto his wagon, paid the grain merchant, and clambered up into the driver’s seat. Without waiting for anything to mar his good fortune, he started at once for Prague.
In Englebert’s absence, Wilhelmina kept herself busy scouring the backstreet shops for tables and chairs. Occasionally, the strangeness of the world in which she found herself overwhelmed her anew, and she had to pause to catch her breath. She resisted thinking about how she had come to be in this place and time. In truth, she could not think about her peculiar predicament save in bits and snatches; the bare notion was so very outrageous, she was easily overwhelmed and so preferred to take it in small doses. Nevertheless, as the days passed a solitary thought drifted into her consciousness that seemed to offer a modicum of comfort: however it was that she had ended up in this singular position-and that did not bear thinking about-it did in some way feel right to her; that is, she felt more herself than she had for a very long time. Despite the incipient oddity of life in an alien time and place, the overall strangeness she perceived wherever she cast an unguarded eye, she felt good: physically strong, mentally alert, emotionally steady, and uncannily content. In the deepest part of her heart, she felt a profound peacefulness she could not explain. That being the case, she determined not to dwell on the whys or wherefores, but rather to make the best of her situation in any way that presented itself to her.
Thus, she went about her business with extraordinary good cheer. She pestered the landlord Arnostovi into finding and securing a number of small cups of the kind used in public houses to serve mulled wine and hot ale in the winter, and an assortment of bowls and plates as well. Her persistence and no-nonsense demands impressed him, so he grudgingly obliged, delivering three crates of the requested items in person to find that the bakery had been transformed into something more in keeping with the main room of a public house-albeit a far brighter, cleaner, and cosier tavern than he had ever seen, with its great oven and wide counter and light-filled space.
“Was ist los?” he asked. “Where is the bakery?”
“Never fear,” Mina told him, and launched into a breathless recital of her new ambition to be the first coffeehouse in Prague.
“Kaffeehaus?” he wondered. “What is this Kaffeehaus?”
Rather than explain it to him, she chirped, “Come back in a week’s time and I will happily serve you one of the first samples of our new creation.”
Intrigued as well as impressed, he promised to do just that.
By the time Englebert returned with the precious beans, Wilhelmina had transformed the little backstreet Backerei into an intimate den of tables and chairs, lamps and candles, warm with the smell of baking pastry. “This is wonderful!” Etzel exclaimed. “What is it?”
“It is a Kaffeehaus,” she told him.
He gazed around approvingly. “This is what a Kaffeehaus looks like?”
“Well, I suppose this is what they look like in Prague.” She examined her handiwork with a critical frown. “Why? What do they look like in Vienna?”
“But, Wilhelmina, there are no such places in Wien,” he replied, and told her how he had searched the entire city to no avail and was on the point of giving up when he met the grain merchant with the unwanted beans. “Providence,” he pronounced solemnly, “is on our side. I believe this.”
“So do I,” agreed Mina. “We shall have the first coffeehouse in all Europe! The first in Prague, at least. We’ll make history either way.” She walked to the two big bags Etzel had hauled to the doorstep. “So, what have we here-black or green?”
“I have bought the green ones,” he replied, and went on to explain how blessed he felt to have met the right man with the right commodity. “Green is good, ja?”
“Green is very good-better even than black, now that I think of it. They must be roasted, of course-we can use the oven for that. All we need now is to find some way to grind them. Can we get a good sturdy hand mill, do you think? Maybe the kind you might use for hard grains?”
“Ja, I know the kind you mean,” he told her-which cheered her considerably since she wasn’t at all certain what she meant. “If we cannot find one, I will make it myself,” declared Etzel. “This is not difficult.”
“Then I leave that to you.” She reached for the nearest of the two bags and put her hand to the neck of the sack. “I will begin roasting them.” She made to lift the bag and strained against the dead weight.
“No, no! I will do this,” said Etzel, moving quickly to her side. He smiled, and it was good to see the light coming back into his eyes after so many days of gloom and despair. “It is not work for a woman.”
She thanked him and fell into step behind him as, with ease, he hefted the sack onto his shoulder and hauled it into the kitchen, untied it, and carefully folded down the neck of the bag. Mina gazed at the multitude of pale green beans. “Look at all the little darlings,” she murmured. “Now to turn them into black gold.”
CHAPTER 17
In Which Wilhelmina Joins the Merchant Navy
The interior of Etzel’s coffeehouse was filled with the almost intoxicating scent of coffee beans aroast in a wood-fired oven. This enticing aroma wafted out into the street, signalling the arrival of a new sensation in Old Prague. Very soon, the citizens of the city would be hearing about the latest fad that had suddenly arisen in their capital: the sociable drinking of a hot, black, slightly bitter brew served up in small pewter cups in a quaint little shop down a side street off the square.
The day before the shop opened, the two bold entrepreneurs had tested their equipment and sampled the product. Using the beans Mina had lovingly roasted to perfection, Englebert ground the shiny black specimens into fine, gritty powder with the machine he had constructed from parts of an old hand-operated barley mill. Mina then set a kettle to heat on the stove and warmed two cups. She had measured out the proper amount of grounds and put it into a small sieve lined with muslin, then slowly poured hot water through the sieve and into a warmed crockery pitcher. “We will have to find a better way to do this,” she remarked as she waited for the water to seep through the coffee grounds. “Otherwise we’ll be run off our feet trying to keep up with our customers’ demand.”
Etzel smiled.
She saw him beaming and said, “What?”
“I do not care about our feet.” He shrugged. “I am only glad you think there will be some customers.”
“Oh, there will be great demand, never fear,” she assured him. “Once the word is out and people have a chance to taste this, we won’t be able to keep the customers away.”
When the coffee was ready, she poured it into the pewter cups and handed one to Etzel. “To our glorious success!” she announced, offering her cup to be clinked.
“To our success!” cried Etzel gladly. “May it please God.”
“May it please God,” echoed Mina softly, almost to herself. And something in her stirred at the thought.
Together they sampled the freshly brewed coffee, and though Englebert wrinkled his nose and puckered his lips at his first taste of the steaming black, slightly oily liquid, Wilhelmina declared it a complete triumph. “I would happily pay a guldiner or two for this!” she proclaimed.
“It is very bitter,” observed Etzel doubtfully.
“Bitter is better,” Mina assured him. “Bitter wants sweet to complete it, and we will have sweet cakes and pastries to serve with the drink.”
“Ja,” agreed Etzel. “Something kostlich.”
“Exactly.” Charmed by the occasion, she leaned close and planted a ripe kiss on the rotund baker’s pink cheek. “For luck,” she said, laughing at his round-eyed surprise.
Next morning, they were both busy from before sunrise, preparing the equipment and utensils. When all was ready, Mina sent Etzel out to secure the services of an Ausrufer to alert everyone in the square that a new establishment had opened in their midst, bringing an exciting and exotic beverage to the city. She also applied her
