by Allan Retzky
As the bus pulls away, he catches a flicker of pink and white against green foliage as she heads in the direction of the village shops. In a moment the bus escapes the area and he awaits the five-minute drive into Amagansett. The woman diverts his attention from his legal issues for a few minutes, but as soon as she leaves, his angst resurfaces with even greater intensity. He concentrates on a relaxation exercise where he breathes in and out slowly. It always seems to help.
A few minutes later, the bus slows and the gasp from the air brakes shakes him back to reality. He is the last passenger. He begins the short walk to the parking lot behind the library.
He finds the car, a new blue Lexus, hiding where he’d left it two days ago. Sara bought the car for cash from her own account the previous October. Since he lost his job and his severance has nearly disappeared, she now pays for everything. The Lexus was her choice although he would have preferred a more modest car, a hybrid, but he had no input.
“She’s the one who’s ringing the cash register now,” her colleague Howard had said at the reception he attended a few months before that celebrated her law firm’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Howard had been more than a little drunk when he spoke, but everything he said was true, however impolitic.
He sits motionless in the front seat, staring at the empty stretch of field beyond the parking lot. Tiny green shoots dot the earth. Regeneration, he thinks, but not for him. He is essentially unemployable within the international trading community, although there has been no publicized accounting of his activities. There is, however, a unique form of radar that links all elements in the relatively small commercial sector that deals in commodities. For millennia, the stock in trade for those whose survival depended on sound trading was clear and accurate information. Adverse weather, strikes, revolutions, mechanical failures all shaped supply and demand. Posner himself had once singularly procured information about the unanticipated early arrival of a large cargo of aluminum metal into Rotterdam at a time of great shortage. The cargo would replenish depleted stocks and prices would decline, but not before Posner sold considerable quantities short. He had acquired the correct information at the cost of a modest bribe to the ship owner’s agent for daily updates on its arrival expectations.
But now he is little more than damaged goods. The same intelligence network that affords traders the opportunity to grasp early options now exposes the potential dangers in employing someone who might lead authorities to their door.
He has considered other employment options, but Wall Street is no longer one of them, the rejections were too long to list. He had always wanted to be an architect, ever since his parents took him to an Art Deco museum show. In high school he would endlessly design buildings, based on the ideas in that show. He wanted to build houses with new, spacious interiors. He wanted to renovate every aging brownstone in New York into airy, sun-filled homes. He wanted to do all this and his father, Stephen Posner, grandson of immigrant refugees from the Kishinev pogrom, agreed with enthusiasm.
“He will help build a better America,” his father said a few months before his first year of Cornell’s five-year architecture program. “We will find the money.”
And somehow the money was there, at least for his first two years. Then there was his father’s heart attack. He sat in a class that discussed how to measure stresses on structures when an aide brought a message to the teacher who interrupted the lecture to call him forward. His father was ill and his family wanted him to go home as soon as possible. His father had already died, but he wouldn’t know that for seven hours. That’s how long it took to take the bus from Ithaca to New York City, and then the subway ride and bus trip to the Bayside, Queens, house that was the only home he’d ever known. He never returned to Cornell. There was no money, and they needed money. His mother’s brother had a Wall Street job and arranged for an interview with a firm that needed a trainee for their commodities group. He got the job and never left the industry. The only remnant of his architectural interest was a framed preliminary sketch he made years before of the house he now lives in.
He inserts the key into the ignition. The car still smells of new leather. Even if this is the car Sara wanted, he has the satisfaction of driving it to the home he chose and paid for out of his own earnings nearly twenty years ago, even before he and Sara had ever met. He takes considerable pleasure in this recollection.
The house is modern and sits on nearly half an acre of high dune only a block from the beach. A gray crushed-stone driveway climbs from the street amidst thick sand pines. A red quarry tiled entrance floor leads to four bedrooms and two baths, and a steep flight of wooden stairs just beyond the front door provides access to the main living quarters, a master bedroom suite, kitchen, and open living and dining areas. The exterior upstairs walls are interspersed with large floor-to-ceiling windows. There are wraparound decks and dramatic views of the ocean.
There is also a desk and chair from which he enjoys these views, a place where he now writes a history of his indiscretions. He often wonders if that is the correct word, but the meaning is clear, if only to him. He writes about his days in Iran, Venezuela, Chile, and Japan, and the bribes he’s paid to obtain contracts. He remembers the envelopes he’s passed over cocktails, the nods and winks that preceded every transaction, each the understated language of modern business, the lingua franca of twentieth-century corruption, although the practice has been entrenched for thousands of years.
“What will it take to make this business work?” he asked the ultimate buyer or seller, in words that have been repeated for centuries. Nothing has changed, except that penalties for such activities now exist. So he writes about what he has done. He does not think of this manuscript as a form of memoir. It is more or less a confessional of sorts. The process of writing eases his guilt, although the painful risk of discovery remains. His prose justifies his innocence. He only obeyed his senior managers. He didn’t realize such activities were illegal. His justifications rise to absurd heights. His efforts helped an underdeveloped country obtain needed foreign currency, or have, in the national interest, profited American companies at the expense of overseas competitors.
He was fired shortly after the first Justice Department query letter arrived two years ago. With little else to do, he began writing. Writing the truth was all he has left. The company CEO remains. Yearly Christmas cards arrive, a smiling family portrait fronting a fireplace. He wonders why the CEO seems so secure while he is tormented. But he was the fall guy. The CEO’s smile says: “Tough shit, Posner.”
A car horn returns Posner to the present. He moves out of the lot past the library until a delivery truck blocks the exit. He wants to get home and return to his writing, but he realizes he should pick up a few food items for Sara. If she comes as promised, she’ll arrive too late for anything more than something light to eat. The delay lasts a few minutes and his mind wanders. When the traffic finally moves, he swings his car to the right toward East Hampton.
He stops at the Suffolk County National Bank’s drive-by ATM. The last CD from his working days has just matured. It’s money he’s earned and saved before he lost his job. He withdraws five hundred dollars. Now he won’t need to touch the joint account for some time and a renewed feeling of even temporary financial independence quickens his pulse.
He pushes the Lexus to maximum legal speed until he enters a slow lane of traffic. He finally nears the corner of Newtown Lane and Main Street, the village’s only major commercial intersection, and is surprised to see two empty spots in front of Citarella’s, the newest upscale food emporium. He executes a U-turn at the Chase Bank and effortlessly swings the Lexus eastbound. At that moment he almost wants to thank Sara for the car’s mobility. He approaches the corner where the Citarella store sits, but in less than a minute the spots are already taken, so he pulls into the rear lot.
He collects a pound of cooked shrimp, a few ripe tomatoes, a wedge of Gruyère, and a sourdough baguette. All these are Sara’s favorites
and should please her, although at this point he feels unsure whether it’s likely to warm the atmosphere. It’s just as possible she’ll say a late lunch has diminished her appetite. He’s about to head to the checkout when he decides to pick up lunch. At the take-out section, he selects the first sandwich he sees in the bin. He is not a picky eater. He chooses chicken and avocado. He could have done worse, he thinks, as he plucks a Diet Sprite and moves to the cashier.
He sits at one of the outside stone tables despite the chill. He is suddenly very hungry. His last meal was a chef’s salad the previous night at a local Manhattan bistro.
“Oh, so it’s you.”
The words draw his eyes upward. The woman in pink and white stands above him, a burst of white teeth against tanned skin. He has never gotten used to people who smile so openly.
“May I join you?” she asks, resting a hand on the back of the other seat even before he can answer. Such tables are meant for sharing, yet she wants to be invited, and so he waves his hand while his wiry five-foot eleven body swivels to the side to let her pass.
This is the first opportunity to see her face without turning his neck. Her skin is remarkably smooth, as if she is newborn, her natural pink lips full to bursting. There is eye makeup and her brows are neat and dark, but he sees no other artificiality. He hesitates for words. He has rarely engaged a woman like this, but it is all frivolous and Sara is, frankly, not here to think otherwise. He suddenly enjoys the opportunity to relax.
“I thought you got off at a later stop,” she says.
“I did, but I needed to shop,” he answers and pulls the shopping bag upward.
She ignores his bag, saying, “Can you show me the beach?” She is almost so direct that he nearly winces.
All he can think to say is, “If you want to see the beach, you can take a taxi, or I guess I can drop you there.”
“That’s good,” she says without hesitation, yet even before the last words leave his mouth he realizes that a line has been crossed. He has left an opening, and a part of him, that piece of brain housing genetic material that determines conscience, hopes she declines. He has never been unfaithful to his wife, nor even considered it, despite Sara’s recent illusions. Yet this woman whom he now admits to himself looks exotically attractive does nothing to dispel this thought as she accepts the invitation.
“That sounds great.” She reiterates her approval. “Thank you.”
She replaces the top on her soup container and carefully lowers it together with the plastic spoon, wedge of bread, and napkin into a bag that matches his. He stands and directs her to the rear lot and into his car.
“It’s chilly here,” she says from the bench at the very back of the beach, only steps from where he parked. He has taken her to Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett. There are no other cars, the unseasonable cool keeps everyone away save a couple dressed in yellow rain slickers standing near the water, tossing shells into the breakers.
She holds her cup of soup, which she says is too spicy, but nevertheless she eats greedily. In the short drive from where they met, introductions are exchanged. Her name is Heidi Kashani.
“I know Heidi is not a common American name,” she says, “but it is very normal in Austria.”
He agrees and tells her that he likes the name and that it makes him think of green meadows and snow-covered mountains and The Sound of Music. Her English is very formal, almost precise. He asks her how long she’s been in New York.
“It will be two years next October. I have one more year of residency left. Then I will probably move to California, perhaps to Los Angeles. I am tired of cold winters.”
He concurs with her weather analysis, but avoids noting his own disdain for Los Angeles. Some people love it there, yet her speech is so formal and L.A. so laid back that he finds it hard to picture her in such a place.
She begins to shiver and they agree to head back to the car. She’s right, he thinks. If a fifty-degree day drives her indoors, it’s time to live somewhere else.
“Would you take my picture before we go?” she asks as they stand, but it is more a statement of fact, a command as if she is the one who lives here, and he the visitor. She pulls a camera phone from her bag and shows him where to press for the digital photo. She stands several feet away, the water some hundred feet behind her, a turbulent boil with white froth in the far background. He snaps a photo and she checks it. He has caught a broad, white smile, enhanced by an overhead midday sun.
“Now you,” she says. “If you give me your e-mail address, I’ll send it to you.”
He reluctantly moves from the bench and hands her the camera phone. He has never liked posing, but agrees. He stands with his feet spread and his arms akimbo. He tries to smile and feels relief when the shot is taken. She shows him the image, an olive-complexioned, dark-haired middle-aged man in a white button-down long-sleeved shirt and dark pants. The likeness is actually flattering. His age barely shows.
“Are you Jewish?” she asks after they have settled in the car’s front seat.
He doesn’t hear such a question often. Certainly not in New York. It is, however, not a new sensation. He is a Jew and Jews are integrated into the fabric of American life, yet there is an uneasiness that sits there. His family has been here for more than a hundred years, but nothing is settled. The Nazis had no qualms about killing Jews who had lived in Germany for centuries.
The woman’s words are innocent enough. He answers, “Yes,” and she goes on, oblivious to what flicks through his mind.
“My family is Muslim,” she says, “But I practice nothing. If religion is about morality and ethics, you can certainly have that without any ritual. Do you agree?”
He nods. His slight unease withdraws into a corner and all but disappears. Yet he is reluctant to let the matter rest.
“Why did you ask if I was Jewish?”
“Oh, there are so many Jewish doctors at the hospital, and you are somehow like them—friendly, certainly intelligent, but also a bit reserved and cautious. They often talk about Jewish guilt. Is that something all Jewish men feel?” She smiles at her own words, almost daring him to explain.
Perhaps she is now the psychiatrist playing games, he thinks. He shrugs, yet feels the onset of guilt as she speaks. The woman is flirting with him, but he knows that no matter how appealing, he could never sleep with her, even kiss her, without torment. She is right—he has become cautious.
“How often do the buses go back to New York?” she asks. The segue releases him for a moment from thoughts about guilt. The question doesn’t surprise him. They have only been together a bit more than thirty minutes. He is likely boring her. It’s time for him to get home. A part of him feels relief. He checks his watch.
“There’ll be one in about forty minutes. They have them all the time.”
“I like that,” she says. “Do you have the time to give me a short tour of the area?”
He feels trapped. “I guess I could do that,” he answers with a tug of regret, as if he should have feigned some imaginary appointment, a technique years of business deception had ingrained.
“Oh, that would be very nice,” she says in her clipped, very correct English.
“So I guess you speak Farsi and German as well as English?” he asks.
“What do you know about Farsi?” She raises one brown eyebrow.
“I’ve done business in Iran. I’ve been to Tehran, I think at least three times. And once to Khoramshahr to check on a cargo of steel pipes we sold. Business with NIOC, the National Iranian Oil Company.”
“While the shah was still there?” she asks.
He nods.
“All the senior people there were tied to the shah’s family. Everyone had a chance to make money.”
“Except the traders who sold to them,” he answers, but it is a throwaway line. Everyone made money then. Still, he has an urge to verbalize one of his memories of those days. “Every time we had a contract they would keep coming back and ask us to adju
st our terms so there would be more graft to share. I remember one time when they said our sales price was actually too low. Can you imagine a state company telling a supplier to raise its price?”
She doesn’t answer. He wants to ask her what her father did in Iran, but he says nothing. Obviously her family has some money. Vienna is an expensive city and she’s gone to medical school. Perhaps her family was even one of the many he assisted in illegally transferring assets out of the country. There were strict rules against cash transfers, but Posner and his associates devised a scheme that enabled rich Iranians to buy commodities for export—copper, aluminum or steel scrap, it didn’t matter. As soon as the export left an Iranian port, the title documents were negotiable and the traders in Rotterdam were more than happy to pay slightly below market price, which Posner passed on to the Iranian family’s European bank account, less a reasonable commission. Maybe she’s even somehow related to the shah’s family. So many of the prosperous Iranians he worked with claimed such a connection.
“Look to your right,” he says as they pass a large house that straddles more than a hundred feet of beachfront. He pulls to a stop and they absorb the tall twin cedar turrets that flank the extensive floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
“It’s magnificent,” she says. “Do you live near here?”
The question should not have been a surprise, but it is.
“Around the corner,” he answers. His pulse quickens. She is pushing too far, but her flattery disarms him.
“Can I see it?” she asks.
She is over the line now. He has only to answer, “No,” and everything will be formal and polite, but he quickly says, “Oh, sure.”
He moves the car less than a hundred feet and turns the corner. He wonders, almost absurdly, whether she hears the sudden rush of blood that moves through his body, sees the nervous minispasms in his fingers as they clutch the wheel, or the fine line of moisture that settles above his upper lip, but all she says is, “Oh, what a pretty street.”