The Last Commission

By Eytan Halaban

Maury Green was once a proud man. Now middle-aged, unmarried, and stuck in a dead-end job as a small-time real estate agent, he has few social prospects and fewer friends. The local Jewish community wrote him off years ago, when he slunk home to New Haven from the Israeli War of Independence, his spirit brok

• Language: English
• Publisher: KolotBooks
• Release date: Jul 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087894485

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To Ruth. Always.

Acknowledgment

To My Editor:

The title My Editor is too narrow to describe the help and the contribution of my editor, Lauren Simpson. Lauren edited, cut, added, and corrected the manuscript in its many incarnations, and she did it with wit and humor and enormous patience. My deepest thanks.

Chapter 1

Facing the Firing Squad Again

Monday, June 20, 1977, 7AM

A

s usual, Maury walked slowly. He wouldn’t let them catch him walking fast. He was so used to hide his energy that he could no longer remember of ever having it. No one in the greater New Haven area, as far as anybody remembered, had seen Maury walk with a purpose. It was Monday morning, the twentieth of June, and Maury was on his way to the office. Everything about him was slow, with the exception of his hooded eyes, which darted from one passerby to another, attempting to steal recognition, if only for a blink. Those who knew him avoided him. The members of Or Shalom Congregation Men’s Club ignored him unless, of course, they wanted his check for this fundraiser or that. Maury usually was a sure thing.

Maury, you should see Dr. Schwartz, you don’t look so good, octogenarian Peter Schulman had opined last Sunday at the Men’s Club’s Breakfasts. I’ll tell you the truth, Maury, when a guy hits sixty-five—and you’re what, already sixty-seven—he goes to Dr. Schwartz.

The meddler old Mr. Peter Schulman, a connoisseur of medical professionals in the greater New Haven area, would have been shocked to learn that Maury had only just turned fifty. Then again, he was hardly the first to assume that Maury was closing in on retirement and discounted movie tickets. Maury had looked older than his years ever since he had unexpectedly returned from the young state of Israel a quarter of a century before.

The strongest sequence of memories Maury tried to ignore ever since he had returned from Israel was the morning he had faced three swarthy young Israeli soldiers standing in line for a firing squad: the rough blindfold covering his eyes, the clicks of two seven-millimeter Czech rifles and one British Sten submachine gun being cocked, a woman’s scream, and a sudden foul smell.

He walked slowly now, his shoulders slouched, his head bent forward, the way he had walked for years. A few ever saw him change pace: Rain or shine, hail or snow, Maury walked slowly, chewing on the last third of a thick cigar. There were even those who would swear that the cigar stub, like his baggy raincoat, hadn’t changed in years.

No one suspected that Maury had been singing to himself all the while, but then again, no one ever asked.

In his pocket he carried a folded invitation that had arrived in the mail on Friday, a most coveted and sought-after invitation in the local Jewish community: A private meeting with the illustrious Israeli war hero, a recently retired general who would, in all likelihood, be the next prime minister of Israel. The embossed invitation itself was not a surprise to Maury. Richard Cooper’s personal secretary herself had alerted him three times in the past two weeks that he was on the guest list and made sure that he had cleared Monday evening, June twentieth, to attend. Had it been known that Maury’s name was on the guest list, the Men’s Club would have been abuzz with wonder and speculations about how Maury, the nebbish Maury, of all people, got an invitation.

Maury himself had no idea why he was invited. He couldn’t care less. He wasn’t going. The price of attending was unspoken—a large donation to the general’s campaign—even though the invitation clearly stated "Not a fundraiser."

Oh, yeah, Maury thought, as if there’s any other purpose why I would be invited to meet the general.

At best, Maury suspected that it was a ploy by Cooper to trick him into joining a higher bracket of givers. He trusted nobody.

Maury? Oh, he had some sort of head injury. Go figure—that was the refrain. The source of this bit of information had been long forgotten, and no one ever bothered to check whether it was true. Even Maury himself was no longer sure of its verity or falsehood, but he had learned to ignore such comments. Instead, he perfected the air of always knowing something the rest of the world hadn’t yet figured out. His full, stylish gray hair and thick mustache gave him a senatorial dimension, yet everything about him seemed heavy—the eyelids, the sagging cheeks, the drooping arms. His pockets were always full and hanging. He wasn’t a big man; his frame was rather small and delicate, but he gave off the impression that he always bore a heavy load—the weight of years, perhaps, or merely the burden of experience. His favorite rhetorical intonation—Am I right, or am I right?—only added to the impression that Maury, for whatever reason, carried some Gnostic truth.

When he reached the corner, he shifted a brown paper bag from one hand to the other, pulled the cold stub out of his mouth, and spit a small sliver of tobacco from the edge of his lips. Tobacco sliver or not, Maury would always dry-spit, using only the tip of his tongue, then stick the stub back in its place and patiently wait for the Walk sign. "It’s always Don’t Walk when you’re in a hurry, Maury said, turning to a fellow pedestrian. Am I right, or am I right?" he added, just as the lights changed and people walked past him to whatever had taken them out of their homes in the morning in the first place.

It seemed that Maury always reached the corner on a Don’t Walk light; it never failed that he had the chance to shift the paper bag, clear his lips, and start a conversation.

This morning, he felt the need to talk big business more strongly than he had felt in months. The need stemmed not from the invitation, which he ignored, and certainly not from the heat—it was June and one of New Haven’s notoriously stuffy morning—but from the state of his stars. The last apartment he had managed to rent was three days ago, and he was four short of the monthly quota. There would be only five stars next to his name on the Greenboard at the office. Not a pleasant sight. The need to talk big business simmered the way it always did whenever the line of stars didn’t make it to the vertical quota-golden line on the board.

In the next block, more people gathered beside him on the curb, waiting for the green light. Some were familiar faces, people he had seen many mornings before, but most were new. Maury nodded to the people on his right and left and to those who were waiting on the other side, unsure of whose face was familiar and whose was a stranger’s. He wanted to engage someone in conversation, talk about real estate deals and properties, about Russia and China, Latin America or Africa and, of course, the situation of apartments rental in New Haven, but never the Middle East. When people brought up the question of Israel, Maury would cut off all communication; when circumstances allowed, he would turn his back and walk away. Not because he was indifferent to the Jewish state, he contributed lavishly and frequently to many a fundraising campaigns to support the Jewish State, but because he wanted to avoid the memory of the smell.

Only after the woman removed his blindfold and untied his hands did he realize that the stench came from him and that the warmth oozing down his legs wasn’t blood. Israel was young and a war of independence was raging; Maury was young, brave and a two-year veteran of WWII volunteering to continue the Jewish fight for a Jewish State. He was also extremely virile—the woman who screamed could attest to that. Maury could still hear the laughter of the mock firing line. But what stayed in his memory, which he hadn’t only failed to ignore but was still haunted by, were the eyes of the leader of the firing squad, the stench, and the feeling of being soiled. He would gladly speak about oil, the Saudis, Iran and Iraq. Never Israel. But every morning, as soon as he took the stub out of his mouth to speak, the light would change, and his audience would rush past him.

Hey, Maury, good that I bumped into you, Dr. Simmons stopped him in the middle of the intersection. You are coming to meet the general today. It sounded more a command than a question.

Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t. Who knows? he answered and was about to launch into a story of big business. Maury wanted to talk and was happy that somebody recognized him in the middle of the crowded intersection. Dr. Simmons passed him most mornings without acknowledging, not even a nod, but the invitation to meet the general elevated Maury to a full sentence and a follow up.

You better, said the doctor.

Maury removed the stub to talk big, but Dr. Simmons continued on his way to make money. He was an orthodontist and he had three appointments before the school day started.

Maury didn’t take it personally. Being unrecognized was part of his life he had learned to ignore. He pretended that those who bothered to wonder would conclude that he was more than the brown paper bag or the old raincoat revealed. He had planned to buy a new raincoat for some time now, but ever since Anna in the office told him that he looked like an old Columbo, he thought that others might see him as an old detective as well, though he didn’t have the slightest idea of what that entailed. But on mornings like this, he hoped that they would discover that the stub was the stub of a very expensive Cuban cigar, and that his shoes were handmade to order, and that his full mane and thick mustache were the result of good genes and not two expensive toupees crafted and maintained by top hair artisan in New York; no one in New Haven had ever suspected—or had long since forgotten—that Maury was completely bald.

On mornings like this, he wished that people would hear the opera arias he was singing to himself.

He felt uneasy with the paper bag. There was no excuse for it, and it lacked the romantic image he attached to the coat. He felt he should buy an executive briefcase like the one he had bought years ago at the flea market. The vendor, a Korean immigrant, had sworn on the lives of his ancestors that the briefcase was a replica of James Bond’s. The first time Maury packed his thermos in the briefcase, the bottom seams popped out, the thermos fell on the sidewalk, the glass liner shuttered, and when Maury tried to pick up the thermos, he burned his fingers and dropped the thermos on the open briefcase, smearing his morning paper with black coffee, no sugar. Never sugar. Maury had mild diabetes.

His father had serious diabetes—the kind that could kill a horse, Dr. Schwartz had assured Maury. But as far as he was concerned, there was no better assurance for longevity than serious diabetes, ulcers, and hardened arteries. His father had celebrated his eighty-eighth birthday in his Florida condominium two months ago. Maury got a snapshot of the party from his father, who in the picture was standing next to a new girlfriend—young enough to be Maury’s daughter and his father’s granddaughter.

Maury trusted genetics even less than he trusted Dr. Schwartz, but he wasn’t taking any chances. No sugar, Leo, he said, sidling up to the coffee shop counter as he did every morning on the way to the office—ever since the Korean briefcase incident, at least. No more thermoses.

How’s business, Maury? Leo asked, just as he did every morning while capping the plastic cup.

Usually Maury would answer, So far, so good, and Leo would retort, Yeah, well, it’s only 7:30. This morning, with the invitation to meet the general in his pocket, the heat and the state of his stars Maury wanted to talk big business. He picked up the sealed cup. He burned his hand on the coffee that spouted from the hole in the middle, but gave no indication that he had felt it. The burning sensation, like the exchange with Leo or the need to talk big business, was just another part of the morning routine. He pointed at the newspaper rack behind Leo. The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Businessweek, Leo, he called, hoping that these sophisticated publications would grant him some degree of importance. They never did. Maury nodded as Leo handed over his selections, ignoring the mocking glint in Leo’s eyes and the wink Leo shot his wife in the kitchen as he done every morning.

Maury collected his publications and scanned the front page of The Wall Street Journal, mumbling to himself or to Leo: So the market reacted. How stupid can these people be? I’m telling you. Was I right, or was I right? I say buy, they sell—until Leo’s wife walked out of the kitchen.

Here, this is for your Queen. It’s already on your bill, she said to Maury, giving him the House Early Bird Special in a bag to go. Two scrambled eggs. One English muffin. And a coffee—a dollar thirty-five. The same every morning.

Neither Leo nor Maury had made eye contact—they seldom did. But Maury managed a glance at the plastic crucifix Leo had hammered to the wall next to the Coca-Cola clock, and wondered, as he wondered every morning, why Leo never cleaned it. He remembered when it had been shining white and looked hopeful. Now it was opaque gray, even black in places, from years of accumulated layers of grease and dead insects. Maury often wondered why people were afraid to touch a crucifix, but eager to clean and shine a statue of the Madonna. Leo’s fat wife had such a statute in the kitchen that always looked pristine, even though it had been fixed on the wall above the sink at the same time the crucifix had been hung beside the Coke clock.

There were times when Maury wondered what he could hang above his desk in the office. The first image that came to his mind was the visage of his rabbi, complete with beard, black yarmulke, and bad breath. But often the rabbi’s portrait assumed the likeness of the young Israeli soldier who commanded the firing squad, clean-shaven, never encumbered by a hat, and always breathing out the foul odor of tobacco and breath spray combined.

He stood on the sidewalk for a minute in front of Leo’s coffee shop and looked up and down the street, as if trying to make up his mind which way to go. But there was never a doubt in his morning routine. The next stop was the woman in rags, who sat on her regular bench surrounded by her bulging bags and bundles. His Queen. He approached slowly, trying to gauge her condition this morning, and only then deposited Leo’s House Early Bird Special on the plate she had prepared for him. He talked to her like a person talks to his pet, not expecting an answer but believing the pet understands every word. The woman usually spoke continuous gibberish: banks, UFO, infra-rays, ultra-forces, government, CIA, FBI, the IRS. But there were mornings when she was lucid, her diction perfect, her Midwestern accent pleasantly flat. It was obvious to Maury that she had once been educated, and maybe beautiful. On mornings like that, she would look straight at him, and from her blue eyes shone a bright and even intelligent light.

She never thanked him. He didn’t expect recognition. Every morning, he would give her Leo’s Special and talk or listen for a moment. Once, on a rainy morning, Maury couldn’t remember how many years ago, he gave her his umbrella. She never used it, preferring garbage bags. Still, she kept the umbrella, and he could see it sticking out from one of her bags.

Maury didn’t know her name—nobody knew. Years earlier, he decided that her name was Queen Esther, but had little knowledge of who was Queen Esther and even less idea why this homeless woman was, for him, Queen Esther.

Tanya Liptzik, who owned the dry cleaning store on the corner, loved to tell the story of what had once happened to a young customer. The man had brought in two shirts, a pair of pants, and his raincoat, but just as Tanya was handing him his claim tag, the radio announced that it would rain that afternoon. She had suggested that he keep his raincoat and bring it in another day, but he told her not to worry. Instead, he crossed the street and tried to ‘borrow’ Queen Esther’s umbrella. She whacked him with a coat hanger, Tanya would say, shaking her head. He needed stitches, and hearing her screams, you’d think he tried to rape her. The young man never walked by her bench since, Tanya would add, and Queen Esther still won’t let anyone touch anything of hers. If Tanya were challenged with the fact that Maury collected trash or sometimes pried cans and bottles from the woman’s bags, she would answer, Maury? Maury’s something else. He had a head injury, you know, as if saying, What do you expect? He’s no different from her.

On mornings when the woman wasn’t on her bench, Maury wondered where she could be. With family, relatives, social workers? Who was she? How did she keep herself clean? Where did she go in the winter? Year after year, she would disappear when the weather turned cold and return to the same bench as soon as the snow melted. These questions had never been answered or asked aloud, and finally faded away and were another part of his life he learned to ignore. The stop at the woman’s bench, just before unlocking the door to the office and immediately after the stop in Leo’s coffee shop, like the need to speak big business, was part of his morning routine.

He had less than a dollar in change this morning, so Maury took some bills out of his wallet, put them on the plate, and made sure that the light morning breeze wouldn’t blow them away. The woman spoke about special emissaries from Mars who stared at her from across the street. Maury looked over his shoulder, where the Martians were supposedly gathered, and decided to add one stop before the office: Alphonso’s Barbershop, where he could use the public telephone in the back to place a call he would never dare place from the office or from Leo’s. Alphonso with all his demonstrative Corsican air let him conduct on the telephone whatever business he had without intrusion and, Maury had found out, without eavesdropping. I cut hair and minding my own business, was Alphonso’s motto.

To augment the importance the invitation to meet the Israeli general had kicked in him since it had arrived Maury felt that a trip to Miami was now due.

From time to time, Panos Alexandrekis Paramus, the head of Paramus Real Estate, would offer Maury a free trip to Miami to visit his father. Since Maury’s father had done a good deal of business with Panos in the past, it could be written off as a business expense. Panos always claimed that it was a kind of bonus for all the apartments that Maury rented. But there was more to it than that: Maury’s father always gave him a locked suitcase to bring to Panos. Old files and stuff, his father once explained vaguely, then dropped the explanation altogether and murmured one of his numerous Yiddish proverbs instead: If you don’t ask questions, Maury, you don’t have to come up with answers.

Shortly after Maury’s return with a suitcase, sometime a satchel, and a few times his father handed him a duffle bag, Paramus Real Estate would purchase an apartment building or commercial property in or around New Haven. The buyer, on whose behalf Paramus bought the property, was a corporation with a Miami address and a fancy name. As soon as the sale was completed, sometimes within days, the Miami Corporation with the fancy name would sell the property to the Investing and Brokerage Group of New Haven. Lee B. Curtis, the president and CEO of the Group, would write a check to the corporation in Miami. Paramus drew its commission on both sales, appointing itself the property management and Maury the listing agent.

Maury never questioned the content of the suitcases, though he vaguely connected the weight of the suitcases to the size of the properties bought. Only once had he dared to ask his father why he bothered. The shit industry is the industry of the future, Maury, his father replied, using one of his metaphors that Maury never understood. When two billion Chinese shit twice a day, it’s a serious business. It’s a problem for the cosmos, not just the universe. The shit of China alone reaches the moon. Ask Armstrong. He was there. He can tell you about Chinese shit. Now, his father continued, folding his arms, let’s talk about animals. They shit at will when they have nothing to do, and have you ever seen an animal doing anything but shit? They shit. Ask Armstrong, he’ll tell you. What are you asking me for? Was I on the moon?

Maury never questioned his father’s explanations, but he complained about the weight of the suitcases. Here, take this, for all your troubles, his father answered, giving Maury an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. Maury kept complaining, and his father kept giving him stuffed envelopes.

Still, Maury enjoyed the trips. He enjoyed spending Panos’s money, always making sure he traveled first class and rented the most expensive cars. He even enjoyed seeing his father most of the time. The trips gave Maury a token sense of importance, a feeling that he was part of larger transactions than just renting apartments—and the envelopes his father gave him grew in size regardless of the weight of the suitcases.

Maury would carry the suitcases directly to Lee Curtis’s office at the bank on the morning after his return from Miami. The office was on the second floor of the bank, and Lee always received Maury standing in the middle of the large office in his three-piece suit and shining shoes. Maury and Lee would exchange niceties about the weather or the difficulties of renting apartments in New Haven, and then Maury would resume his morning routine: To Leo’s coffee shop and Queen Esther. He would present Panos with the expense bills as soon as Panos entered the office. Panos never questioned his expense account, no matter how ludicrously lavish.

The same afternoon, Maury would leave the office early, drive to New York, and treat himself to an expensive dinner and an opera at the Metropolitan, and the melodies would sustain him until the next trip to Miami.

But Maury hadn’t gone to the opera in months. He hoped that by intimating to Panos that he was talking from a safe public telephone, Panos would hint about a pending trip to Miami—assuming, of course, that there was one pending.

He stepped into the barbershop, nodded a greeting to Alphonso, and headed for the pay phone in the rear. Dropping a dime into the slot, he cradled the receiver beneath his chin and rested his paper bag on the floor. When the connection was made, he clenched his fingers around the cord. Good morning, Marilyn, he said businesslike, Let me speak with Panos. Glad to hear it. You know how things are. Yes, I’ll wait for him. It’s important. A deal is a deal, is a deal, you know.

Marilyn was not on the telephone. Maury ran a one sided conversation for Alphonso’s and his customer’s benefit. As soon as Marilyn had recognized his voice, she called, Panos, it’s Maury! and dropped the receiver on the counter. She wouldn’t spend unnecessary time talking with the likes of him.

While he waited, Maury turned and faced the barbershop. He saw himself in the mirror, but ignored his reflection. The customer in the chair was a stranger, yet Maury tried to make an eye contact, but Alphonso, dancing around the chair obstructed the view. Instead, he put the magazines on the ledge next to the telephone, sat down, still supporting the receiver against his shoulder, and spread open The Wall Street Journal.

How’re your stocks doing, Maury? he heard Alphonso ask in mock interest.

So far, so good, he replied, ready to greet Alphonso and make conversation. But Alphonso swung the barber chair around and turned his back to him, as if to protect the customer and himself from what was coming. Maury saw the wink Alphonso gave the customer in the mirror, but shrugged and checked the position of the magazines on the ledge. Am I right, or am I right? he muttered into his paper.

He knew that Panos wouldn’t rush to pick up the phone. Panos was probably drying himself slowly, admiring his athletic body in the huge mirror in the bathroom and then in the wall mirror in the large bedroom and the mirrors above the California-King bed, while walking naked on the three-inch pinkish carpet that Marilyn had installed to the chrome and imitation-marble dresser at the other side of the room, doing a few deep knee bends on the way, or flexing his young, booth-tanned muscles while watching the effect in the parallel mirrors. Then,