by Maria Riva
As she quickly changed in order to help Hannah with Sunday supper, John, sitting on the bed watching, promised that someday, after the baby, he would take her, show her the inside of the great assembly plant. When she ran down to the kitchen, it felt like she had wings on her feet.
Hannah, stirring a huge pot with an equally huge wooden spoon, looked at Jane’s shining face and with an underlying smugness utterly deserved, greeted her with “Wonderful walk, Vifey?” And when she got a lilting “Oh, yes! Just wonderful!” she was more than satisfied.
Was it that winter morning that her husband began to love her? Jane never knew, only that he was never as casual after that. From then on, his touch held a tenderness, quite new, that awakened feelings within her that confused, as much as they pleased. No longer did she turn from him, slept cradled in his embrace, as though this had been their habit from the start. Sex remained unto itself, separate from this affection. Still a duty to be received, though not as coolly accepted as before. As her pregnancy progressed, the nightly demands lessened, finally stopping altogether. Both changes needed adjusting to. Of the two, the swelling of her body was the one she least appreciated. So foreign to her was curvaceous femininity that seeing it take possession of her lanky frame seemed an intrusion of her inner privacy. To love the seed, she would have needed to love the giver of it. Having so little experience with this emotion, Jane lacked the aptitude for recognizing its existence.
Hannah, who would have gloried in the visible proof of carrying a child, if been permitted such joyous reality, watched and worried. Wondered what it would take to push this so self-sheltered girl across the emotional threshold into passionate womanhood. That this could mean Jane’s eventual salvation—she was certain. How to accomplish such a feat puzzled, if not stymied even Hannah’s formidable talent for becoming actively involved in people’s lives. She wished she could talk to Fritz but knew he would only resort to his usual escape route of telling her not to meddle in what was not, should not, be her concern. For one so given to generous impulse, to retreat, stand back, was a difficult decision—but Hannah, loving Jane, made it, convinced that if she but bided her time, divine inspiration was bound to strike—show her what she could do.
The added benefits of being a Ford Man began to show themselves in bursts of unrelated pleasures. When Stan, wearing his company badge traveled to the city to look, see if he could afford a new suit, he was treated with fawning respect given instant credit by a most delighted establishment, returned home triumphant, wearing a vested suit of best-quality serge. Tradesmen were so courteous and obliging when spotting a Ford Company badge that men began wearing theirs outside the workplace. Where once this identity had proclaimed a man’s skill, it now stood for his ability to pay. Banks, which had considered immigrant laborers within the automotive industry bad risks, now courted those employed by Ford—offering mortgages as though they were now all Vanderbilts.
Johann began looking for a house, wrote his wife to start packing, that as soon as he had found a home, he would send the passage money for her and their children to join him in America.
As his shift ended at four, Zoltan took to jumping on the railway trolley that whisked him to the city, where he roamed secondhand bookstores, often returning clutching a precious find, to have Hannah bawl him out for being late for supper.
Rudy purchased a few sheets of expensive letter paper and, after a serious consultation with Hannah as to what women liked to hear and how, proposed marriage to his Frederika left waiting amidst the pastures of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Carl bought himself a new overcoat but refused the credit offered him. Still owing money on something he was already wearing seemed to him like having stolen it.
Shaking his head over all the excitement, Fritz bought himself a better brand of tobacco that smelled so much nicer than his old one, Hannah approved.
One afternoon, returning from work, John brought his wife a rose, murmured, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” kissed her cheek before removing his coat. Jane stood in the dimly lit hallway, holding the gift as though fearful of damaging its beauty. A red rose! In the middle of winter! It must have cost a fortune! On the front porch, the boarders, having stomped ice off their boots, now crowded inside, shouting, “HANNAH!” Running, she appeared, sure something was wrong. They must have rehearsed it for, as one, the six men fell to one knee, extending their surprise, a scarlet heart filled with fancy chocolates.
“Sweets to the sweet! Hannah, be our Valentine!” they chorused, grinning from ear to ear, while the object of their affection curtsied, blushing the vivid color of Jane’s rose.
In the parlor that evening, Hannah handed around her heart—sharing its chocolate contents as she did. Knowing Zoltan was partial to soft centers, Jimmy to toffee, Peter and Carl to nougat, Rudy and Johann to nut clusters, she kept those safe to one side, until she reached their chairs. Returning to Fritz, she handed him his favorite, the chocolate-covered cherry. The men munched and talked.
“How many men were needed for a third shift?” Jimmy asked.
“Around five thousand—maybe more,” Carl answered.
“ALL unskilled?”
“Most of ’em. With the new system running—who needs skill! The man who places the nut doesn’t turn it—the man who turns it doesn’t tighten it.”
“On the chassis assembly line a continuous line of men, each doing one single action—over and over for eight hours …”
Stan interrupted, “Long ago I told you—monkeys! Lines of monkeys as far as the eye can see.”
“You know the new conditions, John?” Johann thinking he had written his wife sooner than he should have, sounded worried.
John hastened to reassure him. “Nothing for us to be worried about. One of the conditions to qualify for profit sharing is that a man must have been employed by the company for a period of no less than six months, he must be married …” Stan cursed. John continued, “… the only earner in his family. Bachelors do not qualify, unless they can prove they are the sole breadwinners of their family.”
Stan leaned back in his chair. “My friend, it’s called profit sharing, so that if the company has no profit, what’s to share?!”
Hannah motioned to Fritz it was getting late. Jane put away her mending, picked up the soda pop bottle holding her lovely rose and, saying, “Good night,” followed John upstairs.
Jane tended the rose until all her efforts were in vain, then pressed it between pieces of John’s blotting paper and laid it to rest beside Teresa’s letter.
By the time Hannah commemorated the birth of George Washington with her special sour cherry pies, Detroit, with its beckoning Five-Dollar-Day, had taken on the characteristics of a boomtown. Saloons and brothels, pool parlors, cardsharps, con men and shantytowns; in this era of mass emigration, the beginnings of overcrowding soon to be slums, appeared. The Ford Motor Company, following its founder’s credo that better pay made a better man, now formed an organization whose overall purpose was to make certain that the company’s willing generosity to share its profits would go only to those worthy of it. The Sociological Department, one of Henry Ford’s pet projects, employed men given absolute autonomy to inspect, evaluate, report on the habits, living conditions, and morals of Ford employees. When the first rumors of this new department and its purpose filtered down the vine, Hannah was livid.
The mere idea that a total stranger would have the right to enter her house without needing her permission, then once inside investigate her cleanliness, both actual and moral, made her so furious, for once words failed her. Fritz and John kept insisting that the Sociological Department had been formed solely for the purpose of giving aid to those newly arrived, uneducated immigrants from such poverty-stricken regions as the Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and southern Italy, who could not be expected to fend for themselves, manage sensibly their new exorbitant wage. Therefore, the Geiger boardinghouse, with its oc
cupants all being respected long-standing Ford employees, English speaking, some even in possession of “First Papers” towards American citizenship, would be safe, exempt from any and all inspections.
“Hannahchen, I am tired of telling you—the Boss only wants to help. There are men with wife and many children, all of them living in one room, no running water, no heat, outhouse in the back alley, rats running everywhere. Ford wage, first big money they have ever seen, so suddenly he feels like a big shot in America, gets drunk, whores, gambles. So, when Ford money gone—what happens? Family starves.”
“Listen to him, Hannah,” John tried to help Fritz. “This new venture only proves what a great humanitarian Henry Ford is. A true guardian of the men.”
Hannah, ladling out potato soup from the big tureen, passed soup plates down the table without comment. Jane, dispensing beer from a big glass pitcher, knew Hannah was angry but didn’t exactly understand why.
After supper, the men and Jane settled in their usual places. Hannah remained in her kitchen, its door closed.
John lit his cheroot. “I was told the Boss is going to start a school program for all the non-English-speaking workers that have flooded in.”
“Now that’s a good idea! I haven’t heard anything I could understand in months!” Rudy was pleased.
“Somebody said we’ve got now more than twenty nationalities. Is that true?” Fritz looked at Carl.
“Double that. It’s like a Tower of Babel on the line.”
“Why start a school at all—monkeys don’t need to talk.” Stan opened his paper.
“At the moment, the count of non-English-speaking men is around three thousand,” offered Johann.
“Three thousand pupils! Quite a school!” Jimmy took out his pipe.
“I heard it’s going to be in some big hall—with words written on blackboards and teachers making them repeat after them,” Zoltan continued.
“You’re kidding!”
“Now, that’s really right for your monkeys, Stan.” Johann laughed.
“Those poor bastards are so frightened to lose their jobs, they’ll do anything the Boss orders.”
“Oh, come on, Stan. It’s not orders exactly. He’s offering these men advantages so they can better themselves.” Jimmy corrected.
“Uh-huh! Just see if anyone refuses.”
Zoltan put down his paper. “They want those of us educated who speak English to volunteer one evening a week to …”
“To do what? Spank the kiddies?” Stan laughed.
Zoltan ignoring him, continued, “It’s going to be done like this. First, you print a word on your blackboard, then—pointing to it with your ruler, pronounce it, then have them repeat it after you, until they get it right.”
“How many teachers per how many men?” Fritz wanted to know.
“Exactly I don’t know, but something like forty for each section of, say, fifty men.”
“That’s nearly two thousand men! Under one roof? All yelling out words—all at the same time?” Even John had to laugh.
“Did I say monkeys? I take it all back. No, my friends, we’ve got ourselves two thousand parrots!”
Jimmy lit his pipe. “Joke if you must Stan, but I hear those are the orders. One evening a week is going to be school night and some of us should volunteer. Diplomacy, my friends. Diplomacy!”
“You going to?” asked Rudy.
“Most probably. John, what about you?”
“I think it’s a good idea.”
“Mr. Ford’s or you volunteering?” Fritz asked.
“Both. All he wants is to give these men a chance to be good Americans. In order to do that, they must understand as well as speak the language.”
“I’m going with you, just so I can hear two thousand parrots repeat after me ‘Bless America and its almighty God, Henry Ford!’”
“That’s not funny, Stan. You have no cause to say something like that.” Fritz sounded shocked.
Carl rose. “It’s late. Tomorrow again I have new men to train.”
John motioned to Jane to pack up her sewing.
“Me too—and I tell you, if they understood just a little of what I was saying, it would be a lot easier.”
“You said it!” Zoltan sighed.
Fritz knocked out his pipe. “Okay! When the time comes, we volunteer! John, you can take on the Italians. Stan, the Rumanians, Johann the Hollanders, Carl and Peter the Poles. Rudy and me, we will take the Germans. We’ll get my friend Bruno for the Serbs and Hermann for the Slovaks! Well, good night, everybody!”
Jane, following her husband upstairs, couldn’t help wondering what an endless room would sound like, filled with thousands of men all shouting words at one time!
The Michigan winter dragged on. Jane, now well advanced into her pregnancy, became housebound. Once they showed, ladies did not parade their condition in public. Although she thought such exaggerated public delicacy overdone, Jane knew she had to obey Hannah’s instructions not to embarrass convention. Besides, she agreed that her now misshapen body was not a pleasant sight, even to herself. That John did not have her aversion to it puzzled her. Helping Hannah with the housework, finishing the new drapes for the parlor, kept Jane busy and out of sight, in her spare time becoming acquainted with Mr. Emerson’s idealistic philosophy for living. A little difficult to grasp, but much more stimulating than Mr. McGuffey’s stoic parables.
They hung the new drapes made up from a bolt of patterned velveteen they had found on special offer in one of the catalogs. Hannah stood back to admire Jane’s handiwork and the color she had chosen.
“Goes perfect mit de chairs—and look how good dey hang! No bubbles, no place! Better den store made—wonderful! Vifey, you so good wit needle and big help wit de wash and de pressing, I’ve been contemplating, I split money with you for dat! Only right.”
“Oh, no Hannah!” Jane protested.
“Yes! Fair is fair! Anyway, good for you have a little someting—no beg husband for to have. You work hard, you get paid! American way! Shush! When Hannah make up her mind—stop right dere!”
So Jane took to poring over Hannah’s catalogs, marveling at the wonders that Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck had to offer, counted her precious coins, hoping that by Christmas she would have enough saved to send away for a new razor strap for John.
Deep in sylvan woods with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jane heard Hannah’s excited voice calling her. “Vifey! Come! Come down quick—in de parlor! He is here our salesman who travels!”
On entering the parlor, Jane thought the wizened little man perched on the love seat, bowed legs barely touching the floor, an apparition from a child’s fairy tale whose name escaped her. But, when he jumped to his little feet, bowed gallantly before her, she knew! Mr. Ebberhardt Isador Fishbein, salesman in ladies’ unmentionables, that included an astonishing diverse selection of corsets was, for Jane, always Rumpelstiltskin. No other name suited him so well. Having been Hannah’s very first boarder, he was a cherished figure of the Geiger boardinghouse coming and going at will as he covered his territory laden down by his sample cases that seemed bigger than he. Whenever Rumpelstiltskin was in residence, everyone hung on the words of one who had seen big cities—been as far as Missouri and beyond.
Mr. Fishbein was not at all sensitive about his size. On the contrary, he considered his arrested appearance to be a most valuable asset. “Like a child I am, a small boy!” was his way of describing his diminutive stature and, because of it an innocence of all things lascivious was automatically assumed. Husband and lovers thought him harmless, ladies could inspect, evaluate the most intimate of undergarments without the slightest embarrassment at having a grown man present. Rumpelstiltskin’s sales book was like a fascinating travelogue. Moistening a fingertip, he would flip pages until he found an entry worthy of his listener’s attention, then launch himself into entertaining
them. “Poughkeepsie—sold one Madame Fry’s. #1.50 one dozen Barters Duplex corsets—sizes 18 to 30. $9.00. Have you ever been to Poughkeepsie? If you haven’t—count yourself lucky” was one of his favorite opening lines.
The morning when Jane first met Hannah’s traveling salesman and she asked him where he had been this time, Rumpelstiltskin put down his coffee cup, took a deep breath and replied, “San Francisco!” in the voice of a man in love. “Now there is a city! A true Phoenix, risen from the ashes. It inspires one to poetry! And the ladies, Oiy! You should see the ladies! Powdered and perfumed—they rustle when they walk. That’s because their petticoats are of the finest imported taffeta. Only the best will do for my ladies up on Knob Hill. That’s where the wealthy barons have built their mansions. Beautiful vistas. I never schlep my case of cottons up that hill—only the one containing silks and satins, maybe some French dimity, light as air, if it’s summer and, of course, no matter what time of the year, as they are always in great demand—my beribboned peignoirs for wealthy ladies that are so rich, they lounge.”
Jane, agog, asked, “What is that?”
With a tip of a tiny finger, Rumpelstiltskin flicked a cake crumb from his bottom lip. “Well, my dear. If you have never done it, it is rather difficult to describe.” Turning to Hannah, “Isn’t that so, Sweet Lady?” She, knowing how much he was enjoying himself, smiled. “You see, our dear Hannah agrees. Mrs. Jane, having just made your charming acquaintance, may I be so forward as to address you by your Christian name?” Jane, mesmerized, nodded. “Kind of you, much obliged. Now where were we? Oh yes! To lounge. The art of lounging, for it is an art, requires first and foremost a suitable piece of furniture to do it on. Preferably ornate, upholstered in either peach or baby blue damask—long enough to take the full length of a form supine. This reclined form must be languid. Preferably one alabaster arm tucked in back of the head, the other trailing, wrist limpid. The bias-cut skirt of my top-line peignoir cascading to the floor in casual perfection. A pale pink rose in one hand resting against a porcelain-like cheek would also do, but is not a pivotal necessity. What is essential is the mood of ennui, ennui, and more ennui!”