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Nathan at the Speed of Light
- Abstract
It is March 15, 1933, and Nathan Lipinsky, age 20, is summoned to the office of his boss, Max Kessler, a stockbroker notable for prospering during this time of exceptional -economic privation. Kessler does not summon him directly, though Lipinsky’s desk is within easy earshot. Rather, as is his practice, he calls for his office manager and bookkeeper, Miss Bertha Gold, to fetch the young Nathan.
“Bertha! Have Nathan come into my office.”
“Right away, sir,” she replies.
Bertha is a woman of 43, unremarkable in her appearance, neither pretty nor homely. She is consummately businesslike and unruffable, and carries her large frame skillfully, the way an experienced waiter handles an oversize tray laden with dishes. Her carriage and demeanor in Kessler’s presence are a study in the fine art of manipulative obsequiousness. She has worked for Kessler since graduating from Seward Park High School in 1908 and will continue in his employ until Kessler’s sudden death, by heart attack, on December 7, 1941, a few hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. From time to time, without explanation or fanfare, Kessler will advise her to invest some of her money in this or that security. Bertha will follow Kessler’s advice assiduously. As frugal with sentiment as with money, she will never marry and will amass considerable wealth, her life an exemplar of the power of compound interest. In years to come, when Nathan is the managing agent for a small real-estate company in Brooklyn, he will rent a pleasant apartment to the elderly Bertha Gold at less than market rent. He will be attentive to her over the years, partly out of gratitude to her for persuading Kessler to give him a job at a time when jobs were hard to come by, and partly in the unacknowledged hope that, upon her death, she will leave some of her wealth to him. He will see to it that her faucet is promptly repaired when it leaks and that her apartment is painted every second year, rather than every third, as required by New York City law. From time to time, he will speculate to his wife, Lilly, concerning the extent of Bertha’s fortune, always referring to her as “Miss Gold.” Lilly will respond cynically to all such speculations: “Is she going to leave any of it to you?” or “Who gives a shit? She’s not leaving any of it to you” or words to that effect. Lilly’s cynicism, though reflexive and uninformed by any direct acquaintance with Miss Gold, will nonetheless be in accord with the outcome: Bertha Gold will not leave anything to Nathan. When she dies in 1985, at the age of 95, she will bequeath her entire estate of some $6 million to charity. Lilly will regard this, not without good cause, as yet another confirmation (not that any will by then be needed) of her husband’s singular lack of realism about people’s intentions, motivations, and desires.
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