Surprisingly, the words “FOR MY GRANDDAUGHTER REBECCA” are printed in her grandmother’s familiar hand on this envelope. Through the train window Rebecca can see the businessman on the platform, flailing a little as he punches his arms into the sleeves of his jacket, first one, and then the other, his briefcase clamped between his feet. The train starts moving again. She tilts the envelope, and out slides a bundle of seven brittle savings passbooks from the Emigrant Savings Bank, tied with kitchen string, stacked in chronological order, several of them encased in brittle plastic sleeves. They are each in the name of Esther Auerbach Gottesfeld. All but the most recent one have been canceled, and the balance of each has apparently been carried forward into the next. The oldest four passbooks have handwritten entries; the first deposit is recorded in an almost incomprehensible spidery copper-plate, for $20,000, on January 3, 1912. The current passbook has a pale blue cover. The first entry, dated 1986, is for $183,637.17. It has been updated ten times, once a year. The last entry is in 1996. As with the other passbooks, there are no subsequent deposits shown after the starting balance. This money has simply been gathering interest from 1912 to now. The most recent balance, on October 28, 1996, is $201,567.34.

Ten

People of the State of New York v. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck Trial Testimony, Friday, December 22, 1911, Day 15

District Attorney Bostwick: Please state your name for the record.

Witness: My name is Esther Gottesfeld.

Defense Attorney Steuer: Objection. The witness is giving a false name.

Judge Crain: Witness will provide her legal name for the record.

Witness: My name is Esther Auerbach Gottesfeld. My fiancé was Sam Gottesfeld and I got his little baby and everyone knows he died—

Steuer: Objection! Witness is testifying outside the scope of the question.

Crain: Please limit your testimony to direct answers of the questions you are being asked, Miss Auerbach.

Witness: Everyone calls me Mrs. Gottesfeld. That’s how I go.

Steuer: Your Honor, under the circumstances, the defense has no objection to humoring the witness with regard to this matter of nomenclature.

Witness: Now you don’t mind so much?

Crain: Please wait for a question, Mrs. Gottesfeld.

Bostwick: Please state your place of birth, Mrs. Gottesfeld.

Witness: I am Belarusian, now is Russia, from Pinsk. With my sister.

Bostwick: Please tell the court when you came to America, limiting your testimony only to your own experience.

Witness: I am here since January 12, 1909. That’s the day we arrive on Ellis Island. We don’t get to set foot off Ellis Island until January 13, but Ellis Island is America already, so we don’t mind, that’s the day we celebrate to arrive in America. I learn English pretty good since then.

Bostwick: Your English is very good, but I will remind you that we have a Yiddish interpreter here if you feel that you cannot express your answers clearly in English.

Witness: Mr. Steuer, he also speaks good Yiddish. And Mr. Rubin. You, I don’t think so.