Allog by Edith Pearlman

"There were five mailboxes in the vestibule: little wooden doors in embarrassing proximity, like privies." "No one liked to be seen there... The widower got too few letters. The Moroccans got too many, all bills. The soprano go some, enough, too much, too little; what did quantity matter." "The noun 'allog' entered the accommodating vocabulary. The word became disconnected from the idea of chieftains; but it gained the connotation, at least in Jerusalem, of 'resident indispensable.' In heedless Tel Aviv it sometimes refers to the janitor."