You Were There Before My Eyes

by Maria Riva

  “And what he writes down in his report to the Boss that can decide a man’s pay,” added Rudy.

  “I bet you they’ll be offered bribes and some will take them,” said Johann.

  “And I’ll bet they’ll take more than money if the wife is pretty!”

  “Stan, that’s enough. There is a lady present,” Fritz reprimanded.

  Stan, unrepentant, replied, “Well, then she better have her eyes opened to what is about to happen in the latest of Henry Ford’s crusades to own his workers.”

  “Why is it, Stan, that you always insist on seeing the wrong side of such a giant of a man?” asked John.

  “Why? Because ever since the success of the Highland Park scheme—his revolutionary assembly, his Five-Dollar-Day—to the people, Henry Ford has become a sort of God and I think he is beginning to believe it himself. This may not scare you, my friend, but it sure scares the hell out of me!”

  “Well, I don’t know about this God stuff,” Carl packed his pipe. “But yes, the place has gotten too big. Everything! Jesus! Three shifts working full out and still they want to increase the speed of the lines! And they will—and if that doesn’t kill the men, the constant pressure will!”

  John stretched out in his chair.

  “Tell me, Stan. Are you a union man?”

  The question so often speculated on but never voiced had finally been asked. The room fell silent. Everyone wondered what Stan’s answer would be but it was Rudy who spoke. “Why don’t you ask me, John?”

  Zoltan, knowing where this type of talk could lead, opened his paper to hide behind.

  “We don’t need any unions to protect us. We are Ford men. Our Boss takes care of us,” proclaimed Peter as though no further discussions on this subject were permissible.

  Zoltan giggled behind his paper. “Anyone see this latest cartoon about us? It’s hilarious!”

  “Is it the one where the man in a fur coat, silk top hat, spats and cane, wearing his Ford badge says to his liveried chauffeur, ‘James, be so good my man and pick up my wages’?” said Jimmy, laughing.

  “Yes,” answered Zoltan, disappointed. He had anticipated telling the joke himself and certainly in a far more humorous way.

  Frowning, Rudy looked over at Johann. “Maybe I shouldn’t get married?”

  “To be eligible for the new benefits, you have to be.”

  “Or get your parents to come,” John advised.

  “You mean that works, too?” Zoltan asked intrigued.

  “Yes, as long as you can prove you are the sole breadwinner of your family—you are eligible.”

  “So, to make Henry Ford happy we all now have to lumber ourselves with mouths to feed!” Stan grumbled.

  “I’m not going to get into another argument with you over that.” John flicked the ashes off his cheroot.

  “Well, Frederika has accepted me, so it’s too late now anyway. Besides, my mother would never leave Austria.”

  “Listen, Rudy.” Johann put away his paper. “I heard of a house that may be for sale. After work tomorrow, come with me. We’ll have a look. If it turns out to be too small for what I need, it might be just right for you and your bride.”

  The evening that had started on such a happy note ended when it was finally recaptured.

  One morning, its chill unhampered by sunshine still too weak, Jane found an errant crocus hiding by the backyard fence. Soon it would be her time. She wondered if it would be a boy. Begetting sons was so important to men, whereas daughters were relegated to being a comfort to their mothers. Jane, not quite certain how she could handle that, hoped she was carrying a boy. Finally as Hannah had promised, Spring appeared, with it, Passover, and Jane’s introduction to the solemn beauty of its ritual, its spiritual meaning—then Easter, its celebration so familiar, her nonacceptance of it hidden beneath the mood of celebration that Hannah infused into everything.

  The Ford Motor Company, having become the pot of gold at the end of an immigrant’s rainbow, and Highland Park, once a country village far outside Detroit, was now a teeming suburb of more than ten thousand new inhabitants. To accommodate the flood of new workers and their dependents pouring into the area, single-family houses were going up like weeds, existing ones were being split down the middle, making them into two-family homes that shared the roof and porch but had their own front door. Johann, having found one that suited him whose adjacent side was also for sale, persuaded Rudy to join him and together they bought the house, financing their purchase through the newly established Ford Company Housing plan.

  By the beginning of May, still experimenting, installing ever new revolutionary concepts that would, one day, carry the term mass production, Ford’s Highland Park plant was turning out twelve hundred automobiles a day—an unheard-of volume in 1914. All Model Ts, the Runabout, the Touring and the Town, all black, their parts interchangeable. The motor assembly had been broken down into eighty-four different operations for five hundred men stationed at several continuously moving lines. Chassis assembly now consisted of forty-five different operations, chain drives wove their endless way overhead like metered roller coasters, the designing and redesigning of innovative machinery and tools was constant. Construction of new buildings and annexes had begun to acquire ever more floor space to augment production. Henry Ford was considering establishing a comprehensive hospital for his workers as his English school program got underway. Some grumbled, some resented the loss of their free time but, in the end, everyone who had volunteered reported to their assigned groups of yelling parrots.

  When everything was ready, their new homes awaiting only the imminent arrival of their ladies, Johann and Rudy decided it was time to move. They left one evening when everyone was there to say good-bye, wish them well. Hannah handed each a small packet. “Here, dis is for de new home. A little salt, a piece of bread—means ‘good luck so never hunger can come your house ever.’”

  Johann kissed her cheek.

  “I won’t be far away. It’s just four houses down from Missus Schneider …”

  “Ja, eight blocks away.”

  “We’ll visit. Wait till you meet the children and you’ll like Henrietta. You can take her under your wing, just like you did John’s Jane.” Giving her a hug, he whispered, “Thank you, Hannah,” and was gone.

  Rudy doffed his cap, kissed Hannah’s hand as though she were a queen. “We’ll be back, I won’t say good-bye,” and followed Johann.

  Fritz closed and locked the front door. The boarders murmured good night, and went upstairs to their rooms. Taking a handkerchief out of her apron pocket, Hannah blew her nose, then marched into the sanctuary of her kitchen to set out breakfast for the next day. Jane, following, saw her reach for the usual count of coffee cups, hesitate for a moment, then return two back inside the china cupboard.

  With her flaxen hair and china blue eyes, Johann’s Henrietta deserved Hannah’s enthusiastic description when she first saw her. “A porcelain doll! Johann, you lucky fella! A doll you marry and wit two baby dolls exactly like! Why you never tell us all so pretty!”

  Two wide-eyed little girls, one five, the other six, clung to their mother’s skirts. Their father had become a distant stranger and this lady beaming down at them was so huge! Whipped cream floating on hot cocoa, bread and jam, apple pie and currant cakes, soon they were munching, their fears forgotten while their mother was being introduced to her husband’s friends, finally putting faces to the names Henrietta knew so well, had read of so often in Johann’s letters.

  “Hi, everybody! And here is mine!” Rudy stood in the doorway of the dining room, proudly holding the slender, gloved hand of his Frederika. Skin of pearl, hair black as a raven’s wing, agate eyes fringed by midnight, their gaze fixed like that of a fishing heron, poised enchantment.

  “Anudder beauty! Rudy, come. Come, child, sit, eat, have a little something. You so tiny, all bones
!” Hannah couldn’t get over that such a bird of a girl had braved the arduous sea journey all by herself and survived. She clucked and fussed over her as though Frederika were indeed a fledgling fallen from its nest before its time. Removing her kid gloves, the delicate creature smiled and, in a voice both musical and cool, instructed Rudy to present those present to her.

  When the children’s eyes began to close and the youngest wanted to crawl onto her mother’s lap to sleep, Johann took Henrietta and his family home.

  Excusing herself, Frederika accompanied Rudy into the hall, permitted him a chaste kiss on one cheek, then pushed him out the door. Retracing her steps, she stopped in the entrance of the dining room, interrupted the lively conversation with an imperious “Frau Geiger, as I am to remain here until such time as I am properly wed, please be so good as to show me to my room,” said in such perfect convent-bred German that Hannah jumped as though a servent’s bell had rung, then caught herself, recapturing her self-assurance, ushered the young Austrian upstairs.

  The tea things had been cleared, the table re-laid for Sunday supper. Jane peeled potatoes, while Hannah chopped onions with her favorite knife, a cleaver the size of an executioner’s axe. Eyes streaming, intermittently wiping her nose, Hannah took stock.

  “Johann and Rudy, my two happy-go-lucky boys. Now dey have to be good behaved husbands. Okay mit Johann, he already a papa and knows. But Rudy? Once de sugar is off de gingerbread? Tink maybe, trouble. What you tink?”

  “Why would Rudy want such a wife?”

  “Oh, dat is easy. He likes de wildness dat’s dere.”

  “Wildness?” Startled, Jane almost cut her finger.

  Hannah carried the chopping board over to the stove, scraped the mound of onions into her big iron pot.

  “Inside, my Ninnie—inside dat dark beauty, dere is someting. Someting like waiting to pounce.” She looked over her shoulder. “Next, I chop de cabbages for de coleslaw—you got dem dere?” Jane nodded. “Johann’s Henrietta, she’s nice and, right avay you can see, a good mama.” Hannah attacked the cabbage. “A turtle dove on one side and a fox in de udder. Dat will be a house to watch!”

  “A ‘fox’? Why, Hannah? My first impression of Frederika was birdlike.”

  “Me too—but dat was first moment. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s a feeling … someting dere for certain is not Kosher!”

  “What’s Kosher?”

  “Oh, dat, means lots of tings—like pure, clean, correct sometimes, sometimes even Holy. Vifey, now you speak de Italian, de English, even de German so good, next I teach you Yiddish! How about dat? When you know dat—you can talk to half de world!”

  In high starched collar, a brand-new expensive fifteen-dollar suit, courtesy of Gold’s Emporium, Rudy made a most fashionable bridegroom. His Frederika, in pale green summer lace, shocked a few for not being attired in virginal white, but when they saw she was carrying a small ivory-bound Bible from which dangled a silver rosary, she was forgiven for her shade of green.

  Fritz checked the clock. “It’s been a long day, tomorrow work, so, everybody now to bed. Hannah, tonight you leave the dishes—in the morning we all get up a little early and help.”

  “Vifey, you feeling okay?” Hannah asked as they slowly climbed the stairs together.

  “Yes, I think so … I’m just tired, although I slept all afternoon.”

  “Uh-huh. Feel down below new heaviness maybe?”

  “Is that a sign that it’s time?”

  “We will see. But, I tink maybe soon now, your baby get fed up living in de dark—want to come out, see de light of day.”

  Thunder in the early summer air, her back strained against a persistent dull ache, she made her awkward way downstairs wishing it wasn’t Monday washday. From the big washtub, steam already fogged the kitchen window, Hannah turned to greet her, saw Jane’s face, looked quickly at the clock on the wall, told her to sit, handed her instead of the usual milky coffee, a cup of hot lemon water instead.

  “Have an ache in de back by de hips, child?” Jane nodded. “Aha! By tonight I tink we have a baby!”

  Clapping her hands with glee, Hannah bustled about her kitchen, canceling all preparations for washday in anticipation of birthing day, while Jane sipped water, wished it were the usual coffee and it was, after all, the dreaded washday and nothing out of the ordinary was about to happen.

  Her kitchen ready, battened down, coal stove banked down until it would be needed, Hannah took charge. Taking Jane by the hand, she propelled her into the hall, took her shawl and everyday hat from the cloak stand and marched them out the front door onto the street.

  “But Hannah! I can’t!” gasped Jane, adding plaintively, “I don’t have my hat on!”

  “Now it is de time to walk! Up de block, down de block and so forth. No time for hat—come! We walk! Good for you and baby coming!”

  Jane always remembered that endless up then down, then up again as the morning dragged on, Hannah trying to distract her, talking incessantly, telling her stories as though reading out loud from a book of fairy tales. By the time Hansel and Gretel had given way to the poor Match Girl shivering on a wintry corner, Jane’s labor had begun and, when a frog was about to be kissed by a real princess, Hannah satisfied, said they had now walked enough, it was time to go back inside—Jane upstairs to her room, while she prepared for what would be needed.

  “How long?” Jane asked, feeling awful.

  “Long time still. Dis your first, so don’t go fast. First time babies got big job to do, making de way so de next know where to go, get out. You go take de clothes off, put on clean nightdress, get nice and comfortable in de bed, I come up keep you company. Go, child, go!”

  Hannah filled her big pots, put them on the back of the stove so the water would take its time to boil, tore the flannel she had saved into swaddling lengths, positioned the drying screen by the stove on which to hang them to warm, then with her arms full of towels and sheets, giving the clock an anxious look, Hannah went upstairs to keep Jane company.

  Looking white and more than a little scared, Jane greeted Hannah’s reappearance with undisguised relief. “Hannah, be grateful you never had to go through this!”

  “Hush! Dat’s de fear making you talk silly! Now we say nice prayer for de baby. Pass time!”

  “No.”

  “No? You not friendly wit God?”

  “No.”

  “Why, child? You Italian. You have de Saints for everyting. Popes even! And so many fancy churches—even better den de Irish, because dey don’t paint so beautiful like Italians—so dey just drink, sing and confess. So what’s wrong mit you?” A labor pain got in the way of an appropriate answer. “Dat was a nice one. You know, mit de Catholics and de udders, I never understand no nutting. Why everyone so different, hate de udders when dey all supposed to be believing in de same ting! In de old country we have dose troubles too. Dere we had also Lutherans—not bad people, just snooty!”

  “Snooty? What’s that?”

  “Nose in de air, like rich people.”

  “All rich people are snooty?”

  “Most. Even here, where a poor man can get important rich, become even president of de whole country—dey forget where dey come from first and look down on poor people. All over, people are people—no matter what. Dat’s why God so sorry He make them, tries to fix it all de time. Like de big flood he made and so forth. But he’s not willy-nilly. He knows de good ones from de bad ones, like wit de Passover times … like even smart animals always know who.”

  “Hannah?”

  “Yes, child?”

  “How did you meet Fritz?”

  “In school. When I was little my mama she braided my hair so I look proper for school going. Fritz, he dunked de tail into de inkwell and I punched his nose.”

  Jane laughed, “How old were you?”

  “Oh, I tink six. I d
idn’t like him until I was ten—no dat’s wrong—eleven, when some boys trow stones at me and Fritz beat dem up for it!”

  Jane waited for a pain to pass before asking, “Why were boys throwing stones at you?”

  “Because dey don’t like Jewish people.”

  “Why?”

  “Many hatings in de world ‘why’ can’t answer. Children learn what their papa and mama teach them. You remember dat—when you’re a mama, it is important get it right de first time. Come to tink of it, I never tell you of Fritz and me in de old country—I tell you a little while we wait for labor to begin, okay?”

  Jane gasped, “These pains aren’t it!?”

  “No, dese just announcing it’s coming—take more time before real ones start. Don’t worry. Very interesting dis having a baby—every woman say dat when it is at last all over, all de big pain right away is poof! All forgotten because of de great big joy!”

  Jane, not convinced, thought that women probably used such self-delusions in order to face the repeated birthing that was their lot which, if she survived this one, she had definitely decided she would never do again.

  “Vell, let’s see, me and Fritz. Ve come from a small village, not so high up like yours in mountains, we more rolling up and down mit fat cows all over pretty countryside mit churches—oy vey! Have we got churches! When de bells start ringing—a noise to get a headache from …” Jane laughed. “What? I make a funny?” Jane, panting, nodded. “Inside dose churches, you should see!! Everywhere gold and baby angels flying … and precious jewels. You tink everyone must be very rich up dere in dat special Heaven. Fritz’s papa, he is vood carver. Very fine. Downstairs, my dining room set? He made dat, for our vedding present. Dat’s why my Fritz so special wit his hands, de artistic is in him from his papa … untighten, Vifey … breathe, don’t be afraid, everyting going fine—normal. Now, where was I? … Oh, de papas. Mine, he is dead now. Vas shoemaker, very respected because he could read and write, so peoples came to him for letter writing and reading—not just for soles.”