You Were There Before My Eyes

by Maria Riva

  “Ebbely!”

  The little man halted, annoyed. “Now what?”

  “WE LOVE YOU!” his friends chorused, laughing.

  Bowing, Rumpelstiltskin acknowledged their affection, waved and went to bed.

  To avoid the buildup of August heat, he left at dawn.

  Hannah and Jane saw him off.

  “Farewell! Dear tall ladies, farewell! I shall return, possibly addicted to hogs’ feet and grits. Who knows? All things are possible!” and was off to Georgia, the last bastion, as he put it, of true womanhood still more than willing to embrace whalebone and all such inhibiting restrictions laced tight against the invasion of their so useful repetitive virginity. Honking the horn of his shining Lizzie, Ebberhardt Isador Fishbein, salesman extraordinaire, wobbled off in style.

  On a glorious late August morning, carrying their last-minute belongings, John and his wife walked to their new home, followed by Hannah carrying the baby, Fritz a jelly glass filled with sweet peas. Eager to get to work, John handed Jane the key, kissed her cheek, hugged Hannah and, calling to Fritz not to get held up, jumped on his bicycle and disappeared. Fritz shoved the jelly glass at Jane, kissed his wife and trotted after him.

  “Couldn’t even make a little fuss? Say something nice, like mazel tov? Carry you maybe across de threshold?”

  “Carry me? Where?” Jane asked, confused.

  “A man supposed to carry de bride into dere first home. Only right!”

  Jane laughed, “What a silly idea. Anyway, I don’t think John could!”

  “What you mean? Your John, he’s built like Gentleman Jim Prize Fighter—lick anybody!” Hannah shifted the baby to her other shoulder.

  “Oh, I just meant with my size, how silly that would look. Here, give him to me, you open the door.” Jane handed Hannah the key to her front door in exchange for her son.

  “Not right, not right me doing dis. You, Ninnie—you are de mistress of dis house!” Hannah opened the front door of Jane’s new home and they entered, closing it behind them.

  By the time John returned from work, his house was spotless, his son bathed, asleep, supper ready, his wife in fresh apron, tidy and welcoming, everything in apple pie order, Ford Motor Company Sociological Department perfect. If he was surprised, even pleased, he did not show it; after all, Giovanna had promised him such service long ago and now he had given her her own home to give it in. Their marriage was a stipulated contract, demanding acceptance of its conditions agreed upon, emotions only clouded issues best left aside. Fortunately, the new household functioned as though this was true, neither partner aware that there could or should be more; and so a pseudo happiness existed that, though it did not fulfill needs, served the interim of their gestation.

  Without Hannah’s bustling presence, Jane’s house was mired in silence. The baby, being one of those creatures that seemed not yet aware it was outside the womb and should therefore be complaining of being robbed of its encompassing delight, was docile. As she fed her son on a strict schedule, whether he was hungry or not, even a baby’s outraged hunger cries did not disturb the silence of her house. Neither did the rattle and banging of pots and pans. Frenetic kitchen activity was not Jane. Except for the baking of pies, Jane rather disliked cooking, did not consider it an enchantment as Hannah did. Food was necessary nourishment, to be routinely administered, not an adventure with theatrical overtones. Sewing was as close as Jane got to a passion. Without a longed-for sewing machine, an activity in silence. If it had been knitting she loved, at least the click of needles might have filled the void of sound. At times she felt like a child playing house by herself, tidying her tidy parlor for the arrival of imaginary guests.

  On Mondays, after the weekly wash was done and hung, the house swept, Jane would bundle up the baby and walk to Hannah’s house, where home, coffee and fresh doughnuts awaited her. His special clothes basket lined with thick flannel ready to receive him, Hannah cooed and fussed over her baby, while Jane poured over the catalogs, her heart set on a carriage like fine ladies had to wheel their babies in. But, as four dollars and eighty cents seemed too high a sum for such a luxury when their house still needed more essential things, she realized she couldn’t send off for one—so, just looked.

  When Hannah decided that the making of noodles in two houses every Friday was plain silly, Jane made hers in Hannah’s kitchen. Wednesday, being the day when Hannah beat her carpets, Jane went over to help with the task. Thursdays, Hannah visited Jane, kept her company while she did the ironing, wrote her special recipes into Jane’s new household book. Saturdays, they baked together—no use wasting precious coal to heat up two ovens when one giant one would do just fine. As Sundays John and Jane were always expected to take supper at the Geigers’, that left only Tuesdays for the two women to miss each other, which Hannah said was good because that made their Wednesdays extra special.

  It wasn’t all just routine, sometimes when Mr. Henry, in summer attire looking slightly undressed without his mittens, would deliver an illustrated postcard from Rumpelstiltskin, everything would stop, all work laid aside, forgotten, to appreciate it, tack it up on the inside of the larder door to join Hannah’s impressive collection of picture postcards and trade cards. Coffee cup in one hand, the back of a kitchen chair in the other, they would make their way into the larder, close its door, sit down before it and admire the colorful display.

  Receiving an illustrated postcard could put Hannah in a happy haze for days, preferably from her Ebbely, who often chose ones hand-tinted with delicate colors, of views from far-off cities, or more often depicting ladies of high station enjoying genteel pastimes. Due to his profession in sales, he was particularly partial to trade cards that advertised. Sipping their morning coffee, they would feast their eyes on the treasure.

  Jane learned a lot about America and its ways from Hannah’s illustrated cards. The Dutch were considered such prime examples of cleanliness that something called Old Dutch Cleanser chased dirt by a lady in wooden shoes, wielding a big stick. Buster Brown wore only the very best shoes. A gentleman by the name of H. J. Heinz was America’s Pickle King, and Lifebuoy soap was every sailor’s preference.

  “Ninnie, see dat one, de one where de pretty lady is conversing into a speaking machine? Dat’s one from de Bell Company. Can you imagine? Your John, he told me it vorks. You shout into one place, but you hear from a receiver piece—see, she is holding it on her ear? De words an electricity vire up on poles, carries dem. Dis one not invention from de great Mr. Edison, dis one discovered from another smart man called Mr. Bell. Funny, no? Vit a name like dat, he invents something dat goes ring-a-ling?”

  Of course, there was big excitement when Missus Adams, who ran just a rooming house, became the gloating owner of the first talking telephone in the neighborhood.

  “Across de blocks she can speak wit someone who also got de special wires—and dey? Dey can hear—CLEAR! Now, dat’s an invention! A marvel! Right inside de house it is, on de wall dey got it, like a picture. Over and over I tell Fritz I want, we should have one of dose where you speak into, to people not even wit you. Does he do it? No—he says first too expensive den no wires reach us yet and, second, not for simple people like us to need. For people like de Boss and his missus, de Vanderbilts and even de president, okay—but de Geigers? No! Now dat hoity-toity, Mrs. Adams nose-in-de-air woman, she got one and us, de best boardinghouse in Highland Park we still without, like nobodies!”

  By the time autumn winds whipped John’s shirts on the line, Jane was a well-schooled wife, mistress of her husband’s house, mother of his son, well spoken, versed in the language of her new country, efficient, frugal, obedient and aware that in some subtle way, she had but exchanged inhibiting mountain granite for solid clapboard and domesticity.

  In their parlor, still bare except for two armchairs, a side table in between, Jane sat sewing on the snake she was making to keep the draft out from under the
back porch door, John read his evening paper. The cream-colored walls reflected the light from a single standing lamp, as though there were several about the room. At first, Jane had thought she would have trouble accepting John’s unusual choice of color, but now that the days were shortening, the brightness within the house seemed to lessen the gray of approaching winter. I must tell him how his choice to paint—not paper—the walls in the burgundy I chose, is pleasing. I seldom thank him. I must learn to do that more often. I wonder if it would make a difference to him if I do or don’t? She hoped that soon the ordered material for parlor drapes would arrive, for she planned to have them finished in time for Thanksgiving but, without the aid of a wondrous sewing machine, she might not manage to get them done until just before Christmas.

  John put down his paper. “I’m off to bed. You coming, Ninnie?”

  “I want to finish this first.”

  “Buonanotte, Ninnie.”

  “Buonanotte, John.” In her pleasant beige parlor, Jane sewed on her snake in silence.

  With Thanksgiving not too far away and already running dangerously low on precious spices, Hannah announced the time had come, once again, to venture into the city of Detroit. Her winter bluebird visible, announcing her long before she arrived at Jane’s front door, Hannah was impatient to get going.

  “You ready, Ninnie? Cold today. Dolly get de baby?”

  “No, Rosie wanted to have him.” Jane pulled on her gloves, looped a scarf around her neck. “I think now she is expecting she wants the practice.”

  “Our Carl—soon a Papa! Never I believe such a ting could happen. He is a good man—but lover type? He never was until dat hot blood Irish Rosie come along. She still mooning she have to give up her good work whit de typing machine because she marry?”

  “Yes, a little, I think. I like her. She is not like Frederika.”

  “Nobody is like Frederika! Come, we go!”

  Jane, now a matron in her own right, strode into Mr. Hirt’s with confidence. Discussed the price of candied angelica for decorating her Christmas fruitcake, decided as almonds were much too expensive, she would do without—did not allow any of the many things she wanted to sway her from her resolve to remain beyond temptation; did purchase a small flask of rose water she planned to mix with equal parts of glycerin, so that no roughness of her hands would damage the surface of the velveteen cloth when fashioning the parlor drapes. Their purchases made, Jane treated Hannah to a Vernors float, a concoction of vanilla ice cream and Detroit’s very own supreme ginger ale that she thought even more delicious than Hannah’s strawberry soda—although she never told her, so as not to hurt her feelings. Afterwards, Hannah treated Jane to a just looking hour at Hudson’s, Detroit’s most elegant department store. No longer apprentice and teacher, the two tall women had become friends of equal stature.

  While Henrietta’s girls played with little Michael and the women helped with the dishes from Sunday supper, the men settled themselves in the parlor, enjoying the return to a male-dominated atmosphere enveloped in smoking tobacco.

  Stan rolled himself a cigarette, licked along the edge of the paper.

  “Well, my friends, the Dodge Brothers have done it, produced their own automobile without the mighty Henry Ford.”

  “The Boss isn’t going to like his stockholders setting up a rival business.”

  “There you’re right, Carl. After all these years, think he’s going to try to buy them out?”

  “Could be, Rudy. Could be. But, will they let him? With our profits so high, I don’t know. What do you think, John?”

  “I think he’ll try. After all, it’s his achievement. He should own it outright, when the time comes, let his son inherit …”

  Zoltan smiled, “The new father of a son speaks!”

  “But …” John continued, “if the Dodge Brothers would agree to sell, that’s anybody’s guess. By the way, anyone see the great Edison last week?”

  Peter finished packing his pipe. “I hear he came with his family.”

  “Wife and son Charles. The Boss showed him his first fully automated continuous motion assembly! Just like a proud kid showing off to his Papa!” Fritz chuckled.

  “And why not? You have to admit it must be quite an experience to have been a minor employee to a genius and then have him come to you to witness what has made you his equal.” Zoltan lit a cheroot.

  “Equal? I wouldn’t go that far,” murmured Stan.

  “Our power house must have impressed the great man.”

  Johann puffed on his new ivory pipe.

  “Considering it was he who oversaw its construction, no doubt.”

  Rudy leaned forward in his chair. “John, I know you—you saw him. Right? How did he look?”

  “You know, I have been thinking about that. Do truly great men look so special because they are? Or, do we think they look special because we know they are?” John looked around for one of them to answer.

  Zoltan cleared his throat. “John, when you get this way, you worry me. Does Thomas Edison look like a normal human man or not?”

  “As a matter of fact, no. He could be your father!”

  “Funny, funny,” Zoltan smiled.

  “Is the Boss still working on that farm tractor idea?” asked Peter.

  “He has never stopped working on it,” John answered.

  “Does anyone here know why now Ford needs two thousand more acres along the Rouge River? That much land can’t be just for his personal use.” Stan looked about the room.

  “I think he may be planning to build another plant,” Carl observed.

  “My God—what for? We just added two six-story buildings that will give us more than forty-five acres of floor space. We’ve got the new trolley lines hauling trucks from railroad platforms direct to factory floors. What more … ?” Fritz looked at John for an answer.

  “But think for a minute, Fritz. If the iron ore and coal could reach us direct, brought to us on Great Lakes steamers, with a correctly configured plant, Ford could process …”

  “Impossible!” Rudy shook his head.

  “So was once building an automobile in twelve hours!”

  “Ja, and now we can turn out a thousand in a day! But …” Fritz turned to John. “… if I understand you right, you’re talking of from raw materials to finished motorcar—all within one plant?”

  “Well, that would mean it would have to be an extraordinary operation, one of unheard proportion, revolutionary in design and concept, John.”

  “You’re damn right, it would, Zoltan! We have done it once—every day, we are still perfecting one revolution, why stop there? Henry Ford has always looked beyond, never has he been satisfied with what he has achieved—only with what can still be done.”

  Sensing that John was about to be challenged, his enthusiasm deflated by Stan, Rudy thought it better to change the subject. “Hey! I heard a rumor—we may be going to support the British with equipment. Any truth in that?”

  “Yeah, John, what’s your Saucy Evangeline have to say about that?” Stan teased, an edge to his tone. Rudy gave him a warning look.

  “Anyone have fresh news of the war?” asked Johann.

  “I tell you who know,” Fritz answered. “The Russians. One of my foremen gets a Russian-language paper printed in the East sent to him by his sister in New Jersey. Even days late, he gets more news than we do here.”

  “So? What did he tell you?”

  “Well, there’s supposed to have been a real battle in France, in a place called Ypres, with many casualties on both sides and there’s been what the paper quoted as a ‘dogfight’ between a German and a British aeroplane that carried a sort of gun attached.”

  “Fighting in the sky? In paper held together with paste? Amazing,” commented John.

  “What speed can those things do now?” asked Carl.

  �
��About sixty,” answered Rudy, who loved aeroplanes, yearned to fly one.

  “Whatever news I hear, it doesn’t sound good. I have a feeling this war may last longer than anyone thinks.” Fritz knocked out his pipe.

  Zoltan fidgeted. Heavy silence filled the room.

  “Hey, I got a letter from Jimmy.”

  Exclamations of “John, why didn’t you tell us?” “What’s he say?” “How is he?” “Well, you took your sweet time in telling us” bounced around the room.

  “Okay, okay! I’m sorry.”

  “Well—read it, John!”

  “Okay. It isn’t too long.”

  Dear John,

  After an uneventful voyage, the Atlantic was smooth as glass, I arrived safely, made my way by train from Southampton, arriving home in time for my brother’s wedding to the prettiest girl in all of Dorset. Spent a delightful week visiting with family, telling tall tales of my successful years in the ‘Colonie,’ being plied with innumerable pints of good old English ale in the local pub. Then left for Manchester, reported to Percival Perry, who is a combination of Sorenson and Couzens in his efficiency and administrative intelligence. He is both liked and respected for good reason, implemented the new wage structure and benefits quite some time ago—although the nine-hour day is still in force over here. The operation is highly efficient here, even if the scope is limited when compared to our Highland Park production. But then, ours can’t be matched anywhere in the world. I do find hearing only English spoken all around me, despite the many regional accents, still the King’s English—a bit unusual … takes getting used to …

  “I bet!” murmured Carl.

  “Don’t interrupt! Go on, John.”

  … Now that we are at war, with some ingenious redesigning, some of our Model Ts may be converted into ambulances. Let us hope they won’t be needed too often or for too long. But, can’t you just see our brave Lizzie, bouncing into battle, never getting mired in the abominable terrain of Flanders in winter, carrying our lads to safety across battlefields under fire, while the Huns, in their big heavy Mercedes are stuck in the mud, utterly helpless? Watch the newspapers for news of Lizzie’s exploits. I am convinced if she is ever used, she will prove herself once again, the best, the most dependable automobile that exists, be a real heroine, make Ford even prouder of her than he is already. Actually I am looking forward to seeing her in action, for I am off to teach the Hun a lesson he’ll never forget. My regiment is awaiting momentary orders. So, it may be some time before I can write again. Tell Hannah not to worry and that I look quite spiffy in my uniform. Remember me to our friends—there have been moments when I thought perhaps I should not have returned to England, but then, I would have missed this war and that would have been a pity. It is going to be a jolly great show. As you say, ‘Arriverderci!’