Joshua Cohen - Witz

Too many engagements to appointment his keeping; familiar keys amid the wide, soothing hallway fluorescence: he nods to the janitorial shadow darkening the door to his office, which nods in return as it’s sunned, as it’s setting.

I rest my case, my feet and their boils.

A diploma, hung from a reverent nail, slid verticalways, then fell from the wall last week; he’d propped it on a shelf since, against a wall of family photos, which are doubles of those hung in the house. A tarnished metal nameplate upon the obverse of his door. An artifact already, scrape it with a toothbrush for six million years. If any teeth might survive. His name’s embossed on its brass. Though it’s nearly unreadable by now, quartercentury into this work, his name’s still what it was, and is good.

ISRAEL ISRAELIEN. And then a, a comma. And then it says ESQ., as if you had any doubts.

A sign out front, over Reception:

Goldenberg, Goldenberg, & Israelien

Attorneys-At-Law

The Goldenbergs? Are they brothers? Were they husband and wife, or father and son, mother and daughter, or father and daughter or mother and son? Or else just irrelative? What? May I ask who’s calling, asking who wants to know? Israel doesn’t, he never did, he’s never met them, not even sure they exist, ever existed. He’s now the firm’s senior partner, seniormost, and whoever the Goldenbergs were, if they were, he’s sure they’re long dead, they should be. Forgotten. Goldenberg? I don’t know. Goldenberg? Never heard of him, her, or them. Sorry. Wish I could help you.

I don’t know them from Adam. But his name was Goldberg …

Though perhaps, Hanna wastes thought on later nights — she’d never ask Israel, how to admit to that ignorance after a generation of marriage, she thinks — perhaps they weren’t people at all, rather those two golden mountains, the Poconos, and the silver valley between, where her mother and she’d vacation when she was young and could still swim the lake. One rumor among the secretaries was that the name was originally GOLDENBERG, GOLDENBERG, & GOLDENBERG, ATTORNEYS-IN-LAW, as one of the Goldenbergs had been a woman who’d taken her husband’s — and partner’s — last name, and that the third Goldenberg, Goldenberg Sr., had been Goldenberg’s — Goldenberg Jr.’s, the husband’s — older brother, they’d gossip: meaning they were in-laws , Goldenberg and Goldenberg the wife of Goldenberg, Goldenberg’s brother, née Silbertal as it’s said, and so — with lawyerly respect for the precise, the fineprint — they were attorneys- in-law , as well. Who knows. Though it’s also been said that Israel had started his own practice from nothing, and that the first order of business was to think up two names, to put up front, on the sign, on the stationary, to keep himself humble, in clients.

Quiet. He’s working. Don’t disturb.

In front of that sign the length of the wall, an ergonomic chair keeps the form of a woman at sit: obese, spine troubles around L-4, L-5 and lets everyone know, circulation problems in the buttocks, venous leg ulcers, ingrown toenails, bad breath. A desk keeps the chair. High and wood.

Israel loses himself to his planner: liquids, inks and shavings, rushed meals, spilled coffees and creamers, grains of sugar and sweeteners, unlettered doodles, a scribble of numbers the sum of all times.

Just how late is he? Enumerate this: it’s either the fifth or the sixth day of a week in the third, ninth, or twelfth month depending, December/Kislev whichever way you look at it, he more like squints at his watch though it’d stopped three hours ago. And his eyes. Hymn. Or maybe he’s already dead.

He looks at the hands writ on the wall, he’s alive.

Later, he looks again: the hands are two roots, growing further apart until they’ve grown near, again intertwine. Now it’s nearly a handful of hours past that twinning, their mingle. Fingers, two hands of them, scratch at his beard. He glances up from his planner, prints thumbs into face. Thinking about the time in his secretary’s office. Her clock he bought with the rest of her furniture.

And so he gets up and goes to her office and checks her clock to make sure it’s the same and it is, give or take and he’s taking, a sweet from her snack-drawer, sucks it on his way back to his chair.

Through the window, the sun passes: his fountainpen as the gnomon of the sundial that is his desk, and with it he scribbles a shopping list, oneitemed on an empty matchbook atop his planner at an angle of shadow equal to the latitude of his office, floors high at the top, how he’s risen.

Why not dictation — he’s thinking about calling up Loreta at home, having her take this down: Challah, two loaves.

And then, remind me again, what’re the names of my daughters? Loveneedy, Liv wants hugs and kisses. Judith does the best she can better. Give Simone her space. Easy does it Isabella. Zip it Zeba get a grip. Like father like mother as Asa. Be good to Batya, make nice to praise her effort. Don’t be meaner, support Rubina. How to remember, he’s asking, how could I forget.

And then those two loaves. Period, Paragraph. Loreta, his wife’s called: read it back, he’d ask.

Where’s his coat? She would know. On a hanger hanging in the closet doublebreasted. On the coatrack hobbled in the corner. No. Draped over his chair right behind him. And his glasses? Lost atop his head.

His coat, which none of his kinder’ll ever fit into; the youngest of them could be cradled in one of its pockets, in which she’d find an empty matchbook on which’s been penned a reminder.

Buy challah , it says.

Rolled in a receipt from last week.

From the city, he thinks, because he didn’t take the train today, the drive out to the Developments, what with the delay — an hour, fortyfive if I’m lucky. Which you are, Hanna’d remind, and he’d be reminded, remember, if only he’d call. To stop, run an errand. Just a minute. And then to stop in at shul, too, there’s still that. He’ll park in the lot, walk home in ten. All is actionable, that’s what’s on the agenda. He sips at the fountain on his way out the door. Always the last to leave, despite any nature, no matter what darkness: he’s thinking, O to have an office high above the sun!

Having presented the Gatekeeper with all appropriate identifications, Friday’s permit obtained a moon in advance, and having successfully passed Security, all ten tests, seven days of them and more, the pair idling down the street in a luxury sedan of the latest model — driving, nu, so not everyone’s so occupied with the Law — slowgoing and quiet as they’re trying to find whatever particular arboreally named turnoff, which is particularly difficult, and so requires particular slowness and quiet, in a planned gridded neighborhood of approximately ninety equally leafy, differently treenamed streets, and not just Streets: in a Development of one Elm Avenue, one Elm Boulevard, one Elm Street, and one Elm Terrace — not to be confused with 1 Elm Terrace, home of the Ulms — in a Development named by a committee of hundreds One Thousand Cedars, and not just because the Name rang investmentworthy, which it surely still does. Right turn there then left here where everything’s just soooooooo spread like all the way out, she’s just noticing, he’s thinking morning’s smooth, schmeared like creamed cheese over warmed pumpernickel the last he had to eat as she’s reminded before work with its ten cups of diuretic coffee — out where it’s too far to walk anywhere, ever, no matter what kind of shapely health you’re in and so they drive, three minutes down the Parkway from their neighboring Development.

His window down, hers up, then his up and hers down now his down and hers up again, they’re debating over the passing airs — the unabashed excesses of the stereo, the soundtrack that came with the car.