You Were There Before My Eyes

by Maria Riva

  Write me. We are permitted to receive letters once they have been approved, deemed acceptable by the Mother Superior as nondisruptive to our state of mind and discipline. So write me, please!

  The candle splutters and my eyes are strained. It would be more sensible to pray—for then they could rest. Seeing into one’s soul requires a different sight. So, this sinner shall be sensible—but not until she has wished you well, with a heart filled with affection for the time of our youth that has passed—yet never lost.

  May the Lord watch over you and yours. You are always in my prayers. Having chosen Marie-Luke, she signs it here for the first time …

  A tidal wave of sudden longing surged through Jane that startled her by its ferocity. Until that moment, she had been convinced there was nothing of her past worthy of such remembrance. Carefully, she folded Teresa’s letter, returned it to its envelope, then tucked it down inside her sewing box. Turning off the lamp, she noticed her hand was shaking—and wondered why. When John returned, she told him of the letter and its news but not how it had affected her.

  When it was time to get the tree, Hannah reminded Fritz that the one he and Peter dragged home all the way from Polishtown the year before had not only been not worth the trip, but had cost too much for what it wasn’t. For days, heated discussions filled the house, until it was decided that this year, Fritz would go across town to see what the Irish were offering in pine.

  “De Catholics—only de Catholics have de good trees—so go to de Irish … who else do you know who is mit de praying and de bead telling all de time, have a Virgin who can have a baby? So, go already, take Stan to help—bring me back a nice tree, mit de pins all on! But don’t spend more dan twenty-five cents at most!”

  The tree when first seen did not elicit Hannah’s full approval. Although she did approve of its needles that did not drop when she shook it, she complained that it was much too small, but when Rudy had nailed its wooden stand and placed it next to the parlor table by the window and its height suited that of the menorah next to it perfectly, Hannah beamed, declaring it, after all, just right, blandly ignoring the overly exaggerated sighs of dramatic relief of the men teasing her.

  Now, in the evenings, Hannah popped corn, spread it out on the kitchen table for Jane, her darning needle ready to thread it into garlands. Then it was the gingerboys’ turn to be joined so that they too could adorn the small tree as though they were dancing amongst its fluffy corn. Hoarded tin foil from a Hershey chocolate bar was cut into the shape of a six-pronged star, backed with brown paper and paste to stiffen it, then attached with wire to the pinnacle of the tree. When Johann, on seeing it, slightly confused commented on its rather unconventional shape, Hannah was heard to retort, “A star is a star, Mr. Smarty. You know maybe de exact shape dey all are up in de sky?”

  As the menorah gained its daily light, the Christmas tree beside it took on its festive finery. Rudy and Stan built an enclosure from dried twigs and glue, decorated it with bits of straw they had found and, with Zoltan standing back to get proper perspective giving directions, set up the Nativity figures beneath the tree, while the others, with Fritz as foreman, clipped the small candle holders onto its branches.

  On Christmas Eve, when the little candles were lit, they all agreed that this was the very best tree they had ever had. Everyone had a gift to give. Jimmy sang an old English carol. His voice light, like a bird, warmly gentle in a man usually so cool. Carl played “O Tannenbaum” on his harmonica as though he was performing it in a concert hall, Peter did a fine rendition of “Jingle Bells” on a paper-wrapped comb, with Rudy accompanying him, playing spoons. Zoltan, who had worked in secret on a conjuring act, with John as his able assistant, did clever tricks with copper pennies, playing cards and bits of colored silk. Johann and Stan had rehearsed a tandem version of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas,” but Stan had to go on alone when Johann, missing his children, choked up during the naming of all the reindeer. Hannah beamed, applauded, proud of her gifted boys, served steaming cider pungent with a special cinnamon stick and clove from Mr. Hirt’s Emporium, accompanied by her gingerbread with its sugar glaze. Fritz, having waited for just the right moment, when it came, sang softly “Brahms’s Lullaby” as he brought the cradle he had fashioned to the young expectant mother in their midst. Jane, kissing his cheek, thanking him, felt the first joy of carrying a child. The candlelit room became still. Men, lonely for home and family, let their thoughts drift back across the sea, yet were content and that was Hannah’s Christmas gift to those in her care.

  Rudy broke the trancelike quiet. “Midnight Mass! If we go now we can make it. Who’s coming?”

  John looked at his wife to see if she wanted to go. She shook her head. Carl, Stan, and Peter joined Rudy already in the hall hurrying, putting on his galoshes, calling, “Don’t wait up for us. Merry Christmas!”

  The front door banged and they were gone. Jane began collecting the cider cups, Fritz rose to blow out the light of the tree—the mood of celebration was at an end.

  Christmas day everyone went skating on the big pond next to the Ford plant. Zoltan insisted on lending Jane his skates so the men could teach her how to glide upon the ice Hannah giving them strict orders to make certain she did not fall. Although it was the most exhilarating activity Jane had ever experienced, by the time she had skidded, stumbled and nearly fallen more times than she wanted to count, she returned to where Zoltan was sitting, all forlorn, handed back his skates with heartfelt thanks, assuring him that the time had come for him to enjoy himself while she did the watching. So beautifully did Hannah and Fritz waltz upon the ice, they looked as though they were dancing in a grand ballroom, that other skaters stood aside making room for them. Everyone had a marvelous time. Even the sun came out to join in the fun.

  Production at the Ford plant having been closed down for its usual layoff period that began on the eve of Christmas, and now that festivities were over, the boarders became restless, chafing under the imposed idleness. Their seniority being in trusted positions, their jobs were not in jeopardy, as were so many others’ during these forced, unprotected layoffs without pay, still having no work to go to bothered them. Irritable, house-bound, constantly underfoot, like bored children, they kept getting in Hannah’s way—until finally she’d had enough and, like the mother she was, took her boys to task, telling them in no uncertain terms, to find something constructive to do with their time or else … neither her doughnuts not even her strudel would ever exit her kitchen again!

  This shocking threat had immediate results. Zoltan scurried to his room to read Crime and Punishment from the small collection of books he had brought with him from Bulgaria. Jimmy bundled up in rough tweed, took long walks, wishing he had a gundog at his side. Johann wrote letters home, then gave in to the call of his Hollander blood and went skating, coaxing Rudy and Stan to accompany him by reminding them of the many young ladies always to be found on the great pond in need of a man’s steadying arm to cling to. John, always in a foul mood when separated from his passion, stopped brooding, jumped on his bicycle, and rode to the plant to observe the installation of two more automated assembly lines. Fritz, Carl, and Peter tinkered, repaired whatever Hannah pointed to, generally made themselves useful.

  The old year was at an end,1914 was ready, impatient to set its benchmark on the history of the world. Nothing would ever be quite the same again.

  “Fritz!” Shaking snow off himself like a dog returned home, John called again. Hearing an answer from below, he descended the stairs leading down to the cellar. Concerned by the note of urgency in John’s voice, Fritz looked up from what he was doing.

  “Fritz, remember when you said something was going to happen? You had one of your feelings?”

  “So?”

  “Well, you were right! Something is going on! I don’t know what, but whatever it is, it’s important!”

  As though disinterested, Fritz put down his sandp
aper, fitted the rung into the back of the kitchen chair he was repairing, checked if it was ready for gluing in place.

  “Well Fritz? Aren’t you interested?”

  “Sure,” Fritz applied dabs of glue, “but you say you don’t know. So?”

  “Fritz, it’s got to be important. An executive meeting held in secret and on New Year’s Day? You think that was only so they could all wish each other Happy New Year?”

  “Maybe.” Fritz began to sandpaper another rung.

  “There’s a rumor …”

  “Rumors … all the time rumors!”

  “Just listen! It seems that someone …”

  “Ach! Again a someone!” Fritz shook his head.

  “Will you listen … !”

  “Calm down, my boy. Why so excited?”

  “You drive me crazy when you do this!”

  “This what?” Fritz’s voice held a tone of exaggerated innocence.

  “You know exactly what I mean … you do this every time one of your feelings pays off!”

  “Ach! How our baby boy knows me!”

  “You … you son of a gun! You know! You already know there was a secret meeting! … How?”

  “Hermann. His missus is friendly with one of the nighttime cleaning women, said in the Boss’s office his blackboard was full of scribbles, no chalk left, pencil shavings all over—but the wastepaper baskets? All empty! Not a thing in them! … Interesting?”

  “So, it’s not just a rumor! … What else did he tell you?”

  “No more.” Fritz fit in the last rung.

  “I wish we knew who was there with Ford …”

  “Who knows? Had to be Couzens for sure. Willis and Hawkins maybe.”

  “I don’t suppose the woman could read what was left on the blackboard?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Hermann said she is a simple peasant, just come over from Slovenia.”

  “Damn!”

  Fritz lifted the repaired chair down from the worktable.

  “Only thing she knows real good is the signs for American money.”

  “Yeah, first thing we all learned when we got here.” John started up the stairs.

  Fritz pulled the string extinguishing the overhead light, followed him.

  “Well, she said that the blackboard was covered all over with dollar signs.”

  “What? So she did see something!! What do you think? With the new system in place—the assembly plant nearly fully automated … could be just projections for this year’s production?”

  Fritz shook his head.

  “Don’t think so. On New Year’s Day and in secret? Not like the Boss. Whatever was said in that room was important. More important than usual things.” Putting an arm around John’s shoulders, Fritz walked him down the hall. “Come, supper nearly ready—we go wash up. With other thing, we wait and see. When Henry Ford is ready, he’ll tell us what’s on his mind, like always. I have a feeling …”

  Zoltan, at the top of the stairs about to start down, heard, stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Feelings?! You got one of your feelings again? What, Fritz? What?”

  Fritz held up a hand. “Don’t get excited! It’s only the old one.”

  “Oh, that one.” Zoltan, relieved he had nothing new to worry about, hurried past them down the stairs.

  They didn’t have long to wait. Just three days later, at noon on the fifth of January, following his own advice printed in his company’s Ford Times—“Early to bed and early to rise, work like hell and advertise”—representatives of Detroit’s press were summoned to Highland Park to be read what would become a historic announcement.

  The Ford Motor Company, the greatest and most successful automobile manufacturing company in the world will, on January 12, inaugurate the greatest revolution in the matter of rewards to its workers ever known to the industrial world … at one stroke it will reduce the hours of labor from nine to eight and add to every man’s pay a share of the profits of the house. The smallest amount to be received by a man 22 years old and upwards will be $5.00 per day …

  There followed the stipulations, the eligibility required to share in the ten million dollars that the company vowed to distribute over and above the regular wages of its men.

  By afternoon, Detroit’s newspapers carried banner headlines, telegrams flashed across the nation, cablegrams proclaimed it to the world. By the sixth of January, Henry Ford was a national hero—by the seventh, an international celebrity.

  For men whose wage scale stood at $2.34 or less for a grueling nine-hour day, the effect of the Ford Motor Company’s sweeping announcement was cataclysmic. In one fell stroke because of one man’s generosity, laborers saw themselves as future equals to the rich. Henry Ford had proven the truth of the American Dream—that all things were possible.

  The Geiger boardinghouse celebrated. Never in the history of all their lives had anything quite as marvelous, as unexpected, happened. Every one of them was going to be a millionaire!

  Fritz, his Santa Claus face flushed by excitement and a little too much Schnapps, danced a jig, singing.

  Hooray! Hooray!

  Five dollars a day,

  So Henry Ford say …

  And so it’s even more

  Now just eight …

  Then home we can go …

  Through the big Ford gate!

  Grabbing Hannah, he danced her around the kitchen, through the dining room, across the parlor, down the hall and back into the kitchen, the boarders and Jane following in joyous procession. Hannah, hugging him, kept repeating, “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! Five whole dollars a day! A fortune!”

  That evening, the men read their papers out loud, each one trying to top each other’s news. Zoltan was so excited, he sneezed incessantly—but that didn’t stop him. “Listen—here they say, ‘God bless Henry Ford of the Ford Motor Company …’”

  “My paper calls him one of ‘God’s noblemen,’” Carl announced.

  Rudy chuckled, “Notice how the company news has knocked the marriage of President Wilson’s daughter off the front pages?”

  “Hey—even the latest on Ty Cobb,” Johann added.

  Zoltan, knowing that he was about to be rich, had afforded himself the luxury of out-of-town newspapers, cleared his throat. “Here’s a good one out of Cleveland: the company’s announcement ‘shot like a blinding rocket through the dark clouds of the present industrial depression.’ How’s that for lyrical prose!”

  Fritz looked up.

  “I got a lulu!! Listen to this one—‘When you see his modest little car running by, take your hat off!’ If this goes on, we better pump up production fast!”

  “Anybody got comments from other manufacturers?” Stan asked.

  “I have,” Jimmy called out. “Pittsburgh Plate Glass is quoted as saying that if other employers follow Ford’s lead, it will mean the ruin of all business in this country. That Ford himself will find he cannot afford to pay five dollars a day.”

  “Just jealous. Never the Boss promises what he can’t deliver.”

  “True.” For once, Stan had to agree with Peter. John, his paper still folded on his lap, hands behind his head, legs stretched out before him, his often overzealous adulation of Henry Ford now fully vindicated, was trying his best not to gloat. Catching his eye, Jane acknowledged his right to do so, received an answering smile as reward for her perceptiveness. All in all, it was an evening long remembered for the pride they felt in being part of the Ford Motor Company and its magnanimous founder.

  Far into the night, they talked—exchanging each other’s papers, reading the praises heaped upon their Boss until Hannah had to remind them it was time for bed. Sighing their reluctance to put an end to this special day, they knocked out their pipes, folded their newspapers, leaving them on their chairs to be reread in the
morning and, saying goodnight, began to leave the parlor. Zoltan topped off the evening when, on his way out, he turned, walked back to Fritz and, in a voice filled with respect tinged with awe, exclaimed, “Fritz! This feeling—this one was a real humdinger!”

  John was still laughing as he closed the door to their room.

  “That Zoltan—I’m going to miss him.” He began to undress.

  “Why? Is he leaving?” Jane unpinned her hair.

  “Not that I know of, but we will be.” He hung up his pants, letting the suspenders dangle.

  “We? Are we leaving?”

  Hearing the tremor in her voice, John turned to look at her.

  “Not right away. The profit sharing will take time to get set in place but then, it will be time. I never intended to remain here. A boardinghouse is not a place to raise a family.” Getting into bed, he turned on his side, murmured, “Buonanotte, Ninnie,” and fell asleep.

  Jane, wide-eyed, imagined a time without Hannah and felt quite lost.

  By the introduction of the moving assembly line into the industrial workplace, now capped by the sweeping wage structure of his company, its further announcement that a third shift would be necessary in order to turn out his only product to satisfy demand, Henry Ford’s personal fame began to surpass even that of his acclaimed automobile. Within days, Detroit and its Ford Motor Company became the Mecca of hungry men—the Highland Park plant their goal. Statistically, no company, no matter how vast or willing, could accommodate these hordes of men looking for work in this Five-Dollar-Day Utopia. But hunger never fostered reason—and so they came. From New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, within Michigan, Wisconsin, the border states, out of the deep South, many paying the fare with their last dollar, most riding the rails. An invasion of desperate men was underway.

  “Fritz?! Carl?!” Slamming the front door behind him, John hurried into the kitchen. “Hannah! Where the hell is Fritz?”

  “In de basement, fixing. What’s wrong? Why you home? What’s …”