His worst enemies can’t imagine a more bitter fate than the things a man will do to himself for his own foolish reasons.
– Yiddish Proverb
Shortly after ten this morning, a short, plump, dowdy, dark woman well over 40 wearing a black hat, a deep brown blazer, extremely sensible shoes and a dark dress that hung around her ankles plunked down in my reception room and told Gretchen she wanted to see me “when it’s not too much trouble, please.”
Gretchen said, sure, Mr. Collins happens to be available starting at eleven-thirty, and then briefed her on my hourly rates and my ninety-minute minimum charge. The lady immediately began to haggle with Gretchen for a deal, insisting that it wouldn’t take and hour and a half, and could she pay by the minute? Gretchen told her no, that’s not how it works, and the lady said, okay, then how about I pay in ten minute intervals? They were going at it like that, hammer and tongs, when I happened to step out of my current client meeting for a breath of air – they were Uzbecks, and frankly, they’re, well, an earthy bunch. Even a discreet smear of camphor from the tin I keep in my desk for just such occasions, placed strategically under my nostrils, was failing, I must confess.
“Excuse me,” I interjected, extending my hand to our visitor. “Tom Collins, at your service. Why are you haggling with Gretchen? She’s only my private secretary, and she can’t possibly make a business commitment on my behalf.”
“So?” The tiny woman looked up at me pugnaciously. “It can’t hurt to try, what harm could it do, nu?”
“Mr. Collins,” Gretchen huffed, “if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a twenty minute break.”
“By all means,” I replied in my most conciliatory tone. Working for me, Gretchen has a pretty tough job, and I know it.
“Okay,” my guest relented, shoving a Bloomingdale’s Little Brown Bag full of coffee can money at me, a sorry salad of ones and fives with the occasional ten mixed in, “considering what you charge for ninety minutes, that’s enough for about forty. Take it or leave it.”
“Madame,” I proposed, “if you would be so kind as to wait here until my present clients’ appointment ends, and then another fifteen minutes while I air out my office with a three-foot box fan, you may have your initial consultation for free.”
“Free?” Her eyes went wide as saucers. A toddler, I believe, could have knocked her over with a feather. After a moment, though, her eyes narrowed with mercantile suspicion. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” I assured her.
“You’re not going to try and sign me up for a series of paid consultations when we’re done?”
“No,” I smiled, “of course not.”
“You aren’t,” she asked, suddenly cagy, “going to bill me later and then sue me or anything?”
“Not my style,” I chuckled.
“Or try to sell me a time-share condominium on the Western Shore or something afterward?”
“I leave selling real estate to the people who deserve to do it for a living,” I dryly informed her.
“Well,” she proclaimed, resuming her seat, “In that case, I’ll wait here as long as you like.”
And she did, too. When she finally settled into my furniture, she chose the far end of the couch – the seat with the best view of the White House down the street, through the picture window. Before we began, she spent a couple of minutes gazing at it. “Quite some place you’ve got here, Mr. Collins,” she volunteered.
“Thank you,” I responded in my best consultant’s tone. “What can I do for you today, Ms., ah…”
“Call me… ah, Golda,” she shot back, obviously improvising.
“Why certainly, Golda,” I continued, trying my best to pronounce her pseudonym with convincing conviction. “Please, feel free to share your problems with me.”
“I…” she began, then halted, uncertain, shaking slightly. “I have a… a relative. He’s gotten himself into… some big, big trouble. But he’s a brilliant man, such a mind he has, you wouldn’t believe it, all the honors, the certificates, the science fair projects… since he was a just a cute little petsl, always with the calculus and the neutrons and the protons and the electro-whatchamacallits, all that shmegege, always thinking, thinking, thinking…”
“And,” I surmized, “you’re related to Dr. Stewart David Nozette?”
Her jaw dropped about six inches. “It’s true what my cousin Avi said! You’re the smartest person inside the Beltway!”
“Which,” I readily admitted, “is a lot like being the tallest building in Baltimore.”
She stared back at me, utterly Gobsmacked. “How did you know I’m from Baltimore?”
“I didn’t.”
My words hung in the air for a moment while she regained her composure, such as it was. “Mr. Collins,” she pressed on, her voice trembling, “you have no idea what all this is doing to our family. We’re good people, Mr. Collins – dentists, lawyers, business owners, pediatricians! Not a farbrekher, anywhere on the family tree; not a gonif, not a dreykop, not a shyster… well, maybe the lawyers, but nothing like this!”
“Nothing,” I elaborated, “like what the FBI alleges in its affidavit, I’m sure. Because the FBI says that, on September third, 2009, Dr. Nozette made contact with someone who told him he was an Israeli intelligence officer. Nozette agreed to meet with that individual, and, according to the FBI, offered to sell out his country, the United States of America, for money.”
“Well,” my guest interrupted, with just a hint of self-righteousness, “Israel is America’s staunchest ally, isn’t it?”
“One, thing,” I observed, “every American should remember, with apologies to Gertrude Stein, is that a foreign power is a foreign power, is a foreign power.”
“Who’s Gertrude Stein?”
“Never mind,” I said. “According to the FBI, Nozette allegedly informed this person that he had previously held top secret clearances for access to US spy satellite information, and, although he didn’t currently have access to such data, he would be willing to sell everything he could remember about it to this person. Then Dr. Nozette allegedly said that he wanted to be paid in cash amounts under ten thousand dollars so he could more easily conceal receiving them, and worked out a scheme to rent a Post Office box and give this person a key. Then, a few days laster, undercover FBI agents left a letter in that Post Office box containing a list of questions concerning US spy satellites for Dr. Nozette to answer, plus two thousand dollars up front. So around the middle of September, a camera hidden by the FBI at that Post Office recorded Dr. Nozette opening that Post Office box, extracting an envelope full of cash, and leaving another one. And on the next day, FBI agents found the answers to their questions about satellite secrets and an encrypted USB drive full of secret data. And in that envelope, Dr. Nozette also left a note saying, basically, that there’s plenty more where that came from if you’re willing to pay for it – military spacecraft, major experimental weapons system, more spy satellite stuff, and, the cherry on top – information concerning nuclear weapons.”
“He was always such a good boy,” my guest protested. “Sure, he talked a lot of crap about working on secret projects. He bragged about having all these secret clearances and stuff, but that was just Stewart, we thought. Always dreaming about being the big hero, you know, just like that guy… you know, the little schlemiel who was always daydreaming…”
“Walter Mitty?” My eyebrows raised, just slightly.
“Yeah, right,” my guest affirmed, “him. Stewart was always like that – reading Tom Clancy novels,” she winced, “and then explaining all those jets and rockets and death rays and what’s blowing up who as if anybody else is even listening – during Purim, during Rosh Hashanah, during the Passover Seder with the rabbi, no less – would you believe it? As if anybody but him even cared! And spy novels, and spy movies and boy, did he ever fancy himself an authority on espionage! No, no, being a respected scientist with a big, powerful job in Washington, and a home in Chevy Chase, which, as I’m sure you know, Mr. Collins, is not exactly a poor neighborhood, that wasn’t enough for Stewart! Oy gevalt,” she sobbed, daintily taking a hanky from her generously sized handbag, “now I’m getting all verklempt, what with the emotion, the disappointment, the stress, the anxiety, the shame… the… the… the…”
“The guilt,” I offered.
“Yes, yes,” she nodded, dabbing tears from her eyes, “the guilt!”
“And,” I ventured, “you’ve come to me in order to obtain some sound advice on how to help Stewart out.”
“Stewart?” Momentarily, she regarded me as if I had two heads. “Are you kidding? Screw him!”
“I beg your pardon,” I volleyed back, “but if that’s not the reason, then…”
“Us!” she interjected vehemently. “The rest of the Nozettes! What about our reputations? There’s the fine name of Nozette, Nickelnase and Nussbaum, Class Action Attorneys, at stake here! And what about Nozette’s Kosher Bakery, Nozette and Son, Jewelers, Nozette’s Pawn and Loans, Nozette Honda and Subaru, Nozette’s Delicatessen, Nozette’s Discount Music, Nozette Asian Imports, Nozette Talmudic Accessories and Supplies, Nozette’s Downtown Check Cashing and Liquors, the Nozette Center for Cabalist Studies, Nozette’s Bedspread Emporium, and the Nozette Ladies’ Foundation and Undergarment Factory Outlet? Now that Stewart Nozette has gone and disgraced our family, what are the rest of us supposed to do? Damn it, Mr. Collins, look at Nozette Plumbing! That Nozette is a multimillionaire! A plumber! All new work, Mr. Collins – none of that fooling around with stopped-up toilets, no sir! Until the economy fell apart, of course, but even now, he still sits in an office, dispatching wetback beaners to take care of the broken toilets. He doesn’t get his hands dirty, no sir, and I bet if Stewart had the kind of money that plumber does, he wouldn’t be waiting to tell his life story to a federal judge, either! And what does a plumber have to know, I ask you? Which way water runs downhill, that’s what! And here’s Stewart, with his high and mighty physics Ph.D., Doctor Stewart David Nozette, who can’t make enough money stay out of a jail cell! What, I ask you, Mr. Collins, what are the rest of the Nozettes going to do now?”
“You could gut it out,” I suggested. “That’s what the Mudd family did.”
“Who were they?” She squinted at me skeptically.
“A Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was also from Maryland, by the way, set John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg shortly after Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln. The family was disgraced, of course, and ‘your name is Mudd, now,’ and ‘the man whose name is Mudd’ became popular figures of speech, as a matter of fact. But the family patiently waited for redemption. Eventually, his descendant, Roger Mudd, obtained a pardon from the United States.”
“And how long,” she queried, “did that take?”
“About one hundred and twenty years,” I responded.
“One hundred and twenty years?” She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, I don’t think so. What else?”
“Ah, in that case,” I averred, “you could change your name from Nozette to something else. Nesbitt, perhaps, or Norcutt, or Ness…”
“Ow!” She put her hands up to her ears. “Such goyishe noises! How could we stand to be named something like that?”
“Well, then,” I conceded, “how about you just change it to another Jewish name? Something like Nagel, or Naymark, or Neuman…”
“Have you ever met any of those people?” she demanded. “Because I have, and not one of them is anywhere near as good as a Nozette!”
“In that case then, how about Narrav?” I modestly proposed.
She pondered for a moment. “Sounds… classy. Sort of reminds me of the Promised Land.”
“There you go, then,” I smiled. “If any of you Nozettes are really, really embarrassed that your relative is a traitor, you can change your name to Narrav.”
“N-A-R…” she began, writing in a tiny black spiral notebook.
“…R-A-V,” I completed.
“Good,” she sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Collins.”
As I escorted her out, she murmured the name, over and over, savoring the sound. Gretchen, who had returned from her break, couldn’t help but notice.
“What the hell,” she asked after our guest had departed, “does ‘narrav’ mean?”
“It’s Danish,” I explained. “A slang term.”
Gretchen closed her left eye and cocked her head to the right. “Danish slang for what?”
“The closest English translation? Hmmm…” I thought deeply for a moment. “I guess that would be ‘imbecile.’”