1919

Morris Goldfarb stood on the steps of the Queens County courthouse. He still had 20 minutes or so before his appointed time in court. The summons he had received was in his suit pocket, creased and gritty from having been folded and unfolded many times as he and Beckie pored over, looking for meaning beyond the time and place he was to appear. They had briefly considered whether he should ignore the summons, try to put it out of his mind and wait for consequences that might never arrive.

“This isn’t Poland,” Beckie had said. “No one will come for you.”

Morris thought about this. Neither he nor anyone he knew had ever had a serious encounter with the law in the small town near Warsaw where he had grown up. They had only known the local policeman, who ignored them and would likely have done nothing at all even if someone had been in dire need of help.

“No. We can’t take that chance. We don’t know how things work here and what could happen,” he said finally.

“But people say . . .”

“I know people, too,” Morris cut Beckie off. “They say it’s best to go.”

He had asked his friends about the matter. Some of them had been in New York longer than he had. They spoke English better and had more experience. You had to be brave, they said. In America, it was better to face the problem, admit it existed, and take the consequences. Any consequences would be much more severe if they had to summon him again or, God forbid, come and get him.

So, Morris stood on the steps of the courthouse. The spring air was cool and pleasant and contained no hint of the sweltering summer that would be upon them in a few months. He had walked from the apartment in a matter of minutes without taking in much of his surroundings. On a normal day, Morris would have walked the streets with elation, absorbing every detail of the scene and the people. He paid special attention to their clothes. As a men’s tailor, he had an eye for line and style. When it came to fashion, he prided himself on being able to make anything he saw. So, he would study the clothing people were wearing on the street and that was displayed in the windows of the big stores. Without thinking, he would imagine how such garments were constructed and save that information for later use. It was detail that attracted customers and kept them coming back.

His skill, developed gradually over the long years of sewing and ripping seams when the garment wasn’t right, told him he looked fine for his day in court. He wore a dark suit, an imitation of the outfits you could see in Gimbel’s and Macy’s. It fit him perfectly and had been hand-finished like the bespoke suits at Brooks Brothers. It took time but it was no more expensive to make a good suit, when you knew how, than to produce a rag, Morris thought. It was shameful for a man like him, a man who made a living selling suits, to look less than perfect.

Although he did not make women’s clothing for sale, he made sure Beckie and the girls were always as well dressed as he was. In fact, he enjoyed working on their dresses in the evenings and made sure Beckie’s clothes always looked like more flattering versions of the things the society women wore. Her friends would see her clothes and send their husbands to him – business was business, after all – but, more important, he could be sure he was providing for her better than he had in Poland, when Estelle and Janie were babies. People rarely bought a new suit, and there had been little to eat but the eggs from their own chickens.

It was different now. Everyone was in business. They had money, options, plans, all of which required new clothes, tailored, in a surprisingly large number of cases, by him or others like him who had learned their trade somewhere in Europe. In fact, Morris was starting to feel successful enough to advertise through the clothing his wife, and especially his daughters, wore. How hard was it really to make little girls’ dresses? But they said everything to the adults who saw them. So, every so often, Morris would make the trip into the city, to the garment district where other young men like himself traded in wholesale cloth. You could buy the ends of the bolts for practically nothing. A yard of fabric went a long way in a young girl’s dress, and a patch pocket, a fancy collar, or bright buttons were enough to make them happy. Morris was satisfied his girls were as finely clothed as any child their age, and no one could say about him, ‘The shoemaker’s children go barefoot.’

The day was warming up, and Morris would have liked to sit on a bench in the park for a while watching people pass by. It was almost time for his hearing, though, and he knew he would have to go into courthouse and face what was to come. The massive pillared façade frightened him, and he wondered what he was going to say. Suddenly, he realized that it was not the offense he had committed that was worrying him. It was something entirely different and much more fundamental.

People in the neighborhood here in Queens knew him as Morris Goldfarb, tailor. He was obviously an immigrant, but half the city seemed to have come from someplace else. Morris Goldfarb was now an American citizen; the naturalization papers he carried in his inside pocket said so. However, he was not Morris Goldfarb. He was Moszjek Chibka. In his feelings, he had left that name and everything associated with it behind in Poland when he and Beckie, whose real name was Rywka, decided to emigrate, along with millions of others, and take little Gittl, who was now Janie, and Estera, who had become Estelle, to America. 

“We need a German last name,” Beckie, who was still Rywka at the time, had said. “It won’t be a lie because we speak the language. There are lots of Germans in America.”

“There are lots of Poles, too, Russians, everything,” he told her.

“You want to be a Pole, with a name no one can say?” 

When he didn’t respond right away, she added:

“People will think we’re peasants right off the farm.”

Secretly, Morris had felt Beckie was right. He would not have thought of any of this if she hadn’t brought it up but, once she pointed it out, he realized he agreed with her.

“So, what name do you want?” he had asked.

“What about Gold-something?” 

Morris immediately understood. Beckie’s maiden name had been Zloto, gold. His name was just a name; it couldn’t be translated.

“Gold what?” he asked smiling. He knew she had hit on a successful plan.

“Goldwasser, Goldberg, Goldmann . . . ?”

Eventually, they had chosen Goldfarb and began to work on first names. Beckie read all the newspapers and understood the way people thought. 

There had been no problem getting the necessary documents in the names they had chosen. Recordkeeping had been excellent in Russian-controlled Poland, but as long as you provided all the information requested, the registrar didn’t care who you said you were. So they had come to America as Morris and Rebecca Goldfarb. No one had questioned them or asked about their two little girls, Janie and Estelle. At the time, and for their first few years in New York, it had been a joke everyone they knew could share in, although no one knew what they had done.

Most immigrants from their part of the world changed their name. You could do it legally at the time you took citizenship. Morris knew people who had chosen the name of the street or neighborhood they had first lived in when they arrived in New York. Others had translated their name from German, Polish, or Russian to be more like the Americans. Still others had chosen a name they had heard and liked. People had all kinds of systems for doing this, but, as far as Morris knew, they all had entered America as themselves, in their real persona, and grew into their new identity as their Polish-accented Yiddish rolled into New York English. 

Now Morris wondered whether the authorities had somehow found out he was not who he said he was. Moszjek Chibka had committed no crimes, had nothing even to hide, but perhaps denying one’s essential self was an offense here and the infringement for which he was being summoned was a ruse to get him before a judge. If this was what had happened, he hoped they would tell him how they found out. A word from a nosy neighbor or disgruntled customer from the same part of the world might have been enough. He knew he had to go into the courthouse so he passed quickly through the deeply shaded portico and went through the thick glass doors.

The bailiff, a large man in a uniform like a policeman’s, gave him instructions and told Morris to sit and wait his turn. The courtroom was mostly empty, and Morris had barely seated himself when he heard his name being called. Cautiously, he approached the bench where the judge was sitting as he had been instructed. The judge looked ordinary, even tired, but Morris knew the most commonplace of appearances might go along with a terrible temper. A sign on the desk said the judge’s name was Roth.

Roth was German, Morris knew. The judge might be more understanding than he feared. There were many Germans in New York. Most had arrived long before Morris did and had lost their language. As a sign of respect, Morris had once or twice greeted someone introduced to him in the language that matched the name, only to receive a look of confusion that made him switch quickly to English. He thought the judge’s family must be very proud their son had become a learned man, a man of the law. Morris prepared himself for what might follow.

“We’re here in the matter of the City of New York versus Mr Morris Goldfarb of Ocean Avenue, Queens,” the judge began formally. “Mr Goldfarb you are charged with violating the Sunday trading laws in an incident observed by Officer Michael Shaunnessy on April 13 of this year.” The judge looked at Morris expectantly.

“Yes, Sir?” Morris was aware of people stirring in the room behind him as they waited for their turn before the bench.

“You call the judge ‘Your Honor’,” the bailiff, who was standing by the bench, said mildly.

“Yes, Your Honor?” Morris repeated obediently.

“The particulars of the incident are as follows,” Judge Roth went on. “On Sunday, April 13, at about 8 am, Officer Shaunessy observed you speaking to a man in the doorway of your tailor shop on Ocean Avenue. The man then left the premises carrying a paper wrapped parcel. The officer understood that you had sold the man something and approached your shop to issue a summons as commercial transactions are prohibited in this city on Sunday.”

Morris nodded.“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Do you know Officer Shaunessy?”

Morris glanced over his shoulder to where the policeman was sitting. He seemed bored as if he sat in this courtroom every day of the week, witness to innumerable offenses committed by people like Morris who struggled to understand the rules of the city. Morris had often seen him walking slowly up and down Ocean Avenue, checking the door of any store that happened to be closed and moving along any noisy children blocking the sidewalk.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Do you deny the charges against you?”

“No, Your Honor, but . . .”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Morris hesitated. The judge looked at him kindly. Morris wondered whether he really was going to be allowed to explain.

“Go on,” Judge Roth told him.

“I was in the apartment – we live above the shop – on the morning of April 13 . . .”

“How do you know it was April 13?” Judge Roth asked.

“It was my daughter’s birthday. My wife had been up since dawn baking for a little party for the girls.” Saying the words, Morris was struck by how often events coincided in ways that no one could foresee. “She heard the noise and told me someone was knocking on the door of the shop.”

“Yes?”

“So I went downstairs to see who it was. I thought it might have been an emergency.”

“Was it?” the judge probed.

“In a way. There was a man at the door. He said he needed to buy a suit . . .”

“Was he a customer of yours?”

“No, Your Honor, but I had seen him around the neighborhood.”

“Why did he need to buy a suit?”

“He told me his brother had died in the night. He needed a suit to bury him in.” Morris recalled the distress on the man’s face, his desperation. “He had tears in his eyes!”

“So you sold him the suit?”

“Yes, Your Honor. I make suits to order but I also sell off the rack. Not everyone has the time to wait for a tailor-made suit,” Morris explained. The judge remained impassive.

“Was yours the first shop he came to?” 

“No Your Honor,” Morris replied. “He said he had been to two others before mine, but nobody was there. A lot of tailors, they don’t live above their shop like I do.”

“I see. So you sold him the suit.”

“Yes, Your Honor. I didn’t have the heart not to. He was so upset.” Morris tried to explain. He felt he couldn’t convey the urgency, the pressure, immigrants like himself and his unfortunate customer felt to manage events for which they had no precedent, in a strange country where the ways they knew often failed them, and they had no language to explain.

“Did you know you were breaking the law?” asked Judge Roth.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Morris told him honestly. He knew it would be worse to pretend ignorance. The judge might deem him unfit and take away his license to trade. 

“Did you explain this to the man?”

“Yes, I did, Your Honor. I told him I could get in a lot of trouble for selling to him on a Sunday.”

“What did he say?” the judge asked. There was no anger or malice in his voice.

“He pleaded with me, Your Honor. Finally, I gave in, he was so upset.”

“So, it was a humanitarian gesture?” Judge Roth said. 

Morris thought he could see a hint of a smile on the judge’s face. He was not familiar with the word ‘humanitarian.’ Janie would have known, but he never would have brought her into court to translate for him like many of the immigrants did. How could he expect his girls to grow up and be Americans if he couldn’t show them you had to take responsibility for your own self? He thought hard. The word the judge had used had ‘human’ in it. It occurred to Morris that the judge was asking if he had acted on a human impulse, if he had tried to be a mensch, a man. Perhaps, the judge recognized something in Morris and was giving him a chance.

“Yes, Your Honor, it was a humanitarian thing.” Morris tried to imitate the judge’s pronunciation of the unfamiliar word.

“Very well, then,” said Judge Roth. “I accept that you did not set out to break the law but I am going to issue a warning This is a serious matter, and the law must be obeyed. There will be no fine. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Morris waited for a moment. No one said anything. The bailiff was busy with his papers for the next case. Morris turned and walked quickly out of the courtroom. 

Back on the street again, Morris breathed deeply and freely. The men and women he passed were starting to wear their spring clothes and, without thinking, he began to catalog the latest styles. He stopped at a delicatessen to buy some cold cuts for the girls. As he approached his shop and saw Beckie at the window, he suddenly realized that things were not how they had thought they were, and it was now a whole new world.