You Were There Before My Eyes

by Maria Riva

  While John was busy repairing their latest luxury, Jane, so excited she forgot to put on her hat, ran over to Hannah’s to tell her the news. Duly impressed, Hannah said she would inform Mr. Kennec that he had a new customer on Louise Street.

  Repaired, its four brass handles polished with rotten stone until they gleamed, its zinc interior scrubbed, its oak exterior polished to a golden hue, commanding Jane’s kitchen like a piece of imposing furniture; each time she saw her “izzbox,” Jane felt a surge of prideful ownership.

  The iceman and his polar bear–adorned wagon arrived the very next morning.

  “Whoa—Molly! This here is a new stop! Here lives that Italian Missus we met, used to live at our friend, the German Missus. Remember? So get it set in your head—don’t want to be having to pull you up each time!”

  Mr. Kennec always talked to his shaggy Molly. Being a solitary man, Molly was like his better half. He relied on her easy companionship, her warm trusting nature to serve without complaint. Shooing aside the string of children that always trailed an iceman’s wagon in summer hoping for watery chunks to suck, Mr. Kennec positioned a large block, raised his mighty pick and struck, showering them with the frozen bounty they had hoped for. Jubilant, the children scampered about, picking up pieces, licking them quickly before they melted away.

  Having heard the clip-clop of his horse, Jane was ready and prepared. Porch and kitchen floor covered with newspapers, a tall glass of lemonade waiting.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kennec. Nice to meet you again.”

  “Mornin’, Ma’am.” The iceman touched his cap with his free hand. “Much obliged. Missus Geiger, she says you’ll be wanting twenty-five pounds, correct?”

  “Yes, please. Are you going to give me a card—so I can put it in the window?”

  “Got one right here!” Mr. Kennec rummaged in his jacket pocket, fished it out, handed the card to her with a flourish. The block of ice on his shoulder was beginning to melt down his back.

  “Fine-looking box you got there. Mighty fine!” He stood back, surveying the icebox, taking its measure. Jane lifted Michael out of his pen onto her lap, telling him to watch the Big Man, both waited for the performance to begin. A breathless moment—suspended in time—then—a mighty CRACK! And silver fireworks spewed about the kitchen. Michael screamed with glee! The block fit like a glove.

  “MO! Mo!”

  “What’s that little tyke yelling, Ma’am?” Mr. Kennec sheathed his weapon, wiped his face with a red bandanna.

  “That’s his word for more.” Jane returned a very disappointed Michael to his pen. Being such an amiable child, he didn’t cry, just gave his mother a look that spoke volumes.

  “Please, I fixed for you lemonade. I hope it’s how you like it.” Jane opened her cookie tin and counted out the fifteen cents.

  Mr. Kennec drained his glass, scooped up the coins. “Fine lemonade, Ma’am. Much obliged! Mornin’, Ma’am.”

  “Mr. Kennec …” Surprised, he turned at the door. “Would your horse like a carrot?”

  “You bet she would, Ma’am!” Jane handed him a fat one. “Maybe your little tyke like to give it to her? She’s real gentle, my Molly. No cause to fear she’ll nip him.”

  So, Michael, with a little help from the iceman, fed his very first horse, touched her velvety nose and was in seventh heaven. From then on, next to his father and Ebbely, both of whom he adored, Mr. Kennec became the man he most waited to see.

  Jane had the best time with her icebox. Every day was another festive occasion. Just lifting out a bottle of milk, still pourable—not curdled to a gelatinous stinking muck—was cause for celebration, not to mention the taste of butter, not turned rancid. Now she could even keep meat for more than a few hours in summer and, after she had plucked and singed a chicken, keep it for cooking the next day! She found that just having food keep seemed to give her more time to do what before had to be neglected. Next to Hannah, Jane’s icebox became her very best friend.

  Not wanting to neglect her education, once she had finished reading Mr. Emerson, whom she secretly hoped never to have to read again, she borrowed a book from Zoltan by one of his favorite Russian writers. Now, each day, she finally had the time to read it. She liked the way it was written so much, she resolved to learn Russian one day so that she could read Anna Karenina in its original form and, perhaps then, understand more clearly why emotion, particularly the one of brooding passion, seemed so terribly important.

  Jane didn’t mention any of this to her husband, fearing he might discourage her choice of reading matter or, worse, replace it with another example of what he and the Boss considered suitable. She didn’t question that Henry Ford was a genius, but if that necessarily encompassed intellectual acumen, she was beginning to doubt. Jane had her eye on a book that Rumpelstiltskin owned. The rotogravure on its flyleaf, of a man standing up on a thrashing whale in a violent sea had caught her fancy. Surely that had to be an exciting story but, when she found the chance to ask if he would lend it to her, the little man shook his head, saying that Moby Dick could not be considered proper reading matter for a lady, so, very disappointed, she asked Zoltan if he would lend her one of his Russians instead.

  Mornings became crisp—the smell of fallen leaves was in the air when Jane finished her Russian romance, rather sorry she had been right about its central character. Killing oneself for love was not to Jane’s taste. Suicide, on the whole, she thought was a self-indulgent act. This had nothing to do with the Church’s condemnation of it. Jane’s judgment lay in her belief that supreme egotism was necessary to execute such an act of self-annihilation, without regard to its tragic influence on those left behind.

  Had someone told Jane that her intelligence did not always fit her simple origins or station, she would not have known what they were talking about, for she didn’t know that she was intelligent. Her inner need to learn that drove her, she recognized as only an appendage to her need for self-betterment which, in turn, represented to Jane the logical progression to longed-for freedom. If once achieved what form such liberation would take, what she would do with it and why this should be so all-important in the first place, she did not analyze, nor would she have been able to. In Jane’s day, one did not delve into one’s psyche. Such indulgent, mystical elitism was the private realm of poets and philosophers.

  Mostly Jane came to her conclusions through instinct, completely unaware that it was her intelligence that guided it. The nuns had taught her well, but as they so often seem to do, in reverse. By their very insistence that unassailable rote, not questioning, was education, they had taught Jane to always do so.

  She kept most of her arrived-at opinions to herself, devoured any book she could get her hands on and wished she, like the men, had interested friends to discuss things with. She missed those stimulating evenings spent eavesdropping in the Geiger parlor. The boarders, talking about their work, the exciting things she had listened to and learned. John rarely spoke to her of his work and, except for his precious Miss Evangeline, probably considered all women lacked the mental capacity necessary to understand things mechanical and so Jane never asked, thereby avoiding him telling her so. At most Sunday suppers, she now found herself relegated to the circle of wives busy in the kitchen whose topics of conversation centered mostly around food, children, and household costs. Sometimes there were snippets of Ford gossip but these too concerned home and family. How young Mr. Edsel, so handsome, now all grown, would soon have to marry, have sons to carry on the great name of Ford, speculations on who he would choose to be his lucky bride and how she would have to be a most refined young lady of whom the Boss and his Missus Clara could approve. The latest news of the great Ford mansion fast nearing completion, that they were always eager to discuss.

  Jane was far more interested in hearing about the great power house that Ford had built for himself to operate all electrical and mechanical systems for his vast estate. This
marvel was rumored to be so magnificent, its construction and design so advanced that it was said even Mr. Edison, when taken through it, had been duly impressed. Sometimes, when the talk veered towards fashion, Jane’s interest was caught but its range was limited to standard articles of clothing and what mail-order catalogs had to offer. Inquiring privately of the other Ford wives what their husbands might have told them of new and exciting things happening at the plant was useless. As Serafina was the only one who knew the art of driving, Jane had hoped she might be her best source for automotive news, but spells and potions were usually uppermost in Serafina’s mind and now that she too was expecting, her concentration was fully focused on producing a male heir worthy of his awesome Rumanian-Sicilian blood line and the name she had chosen for him, Guido Salvatore.

  Of all the Ford wives, Hannah would have been the best informed, but even she believed that machines and men belonged together, needing no female interference. Jane, left to her own devices, resolved to keep her eyes and ears open, find a way to keep up with what was happening at the Ford plant, all by herself. For Jane, a little house in Highland Park was not the world nor marriage a completed universe.

  The chestnuts had just sprung from their spiked armor, when Rumpelstiltskin, true to his word, reappeared, his arrival heralded by the startling sound of a resounding Klaxon. Being Friday, their noodle day, both Hannah and Jane ran out of the Geiger house to see who was making such a strange noise and there, proud as a courting peacock, sat Ebbely behind the wheel of a brand-new Model T Sedan.

  “Ah, both tall Ladies at once! Perfect! Step right up! Step right up! See the work of art presented here!” Imitating a sideshow barker, the little man waved a beckoning arm. “Behold, before your very eyes, this superb apparition—the Marvel of the Age, finally fully enclosed, therefore draftless—and it doesn’t stop there! Observe—not one but TWO central side doors, the two-piece windshield, the high steel radiator shell—and this, the most astounding of all inventions,” he paused for effect, “electrified headlamps! And now, cast your astounded peepers on this—the pièce de résistance! An OVAL-SHAPED WINDOW IN THE REAR! … Step right up Ladies, climb in—have no fear, experience the thrill! No need for scarves, hats or shawls, warm as toast inside … forget your troubles and take a spin!”

  Eager to obey, Jane suddenly remembered, “Oh! No! I forgot the boy!”

  “Well, go get him. The more the merrier!”

  “Is it safe for a child?”

  “Would I be sitting here if it wasn’t? Hurry! I can’t hold this beauty much longer—she’s rarin’ to go!”

  Jane sprinted, grabbed Michael, ran back out, clutching child and skirts climbed into the back of the elegant sedan.

  “Everyone in? Please note that cranking is no longer necessary! And we’re off! … Coming through Winona, I heard a new poem … !” Ebbely shouted over the noise of the motor. “It’s called ‘The Big Cars Lament,’ I’ll recite as we go!

  “I wish I waz a little Ford

  A-runnin’ right along;

  I wouldn’t need to wheeze and sigh,

  I’d sing a different song.”

  Beside him, holding on for dear life, Hannah yelled, “Ach! What excitement! Mein Gott! Never have I gone outside witout my hat on! What will de neighbors tink!”

  “They’ll be gnashing their teeth bile-green with envy!”

  “Ja, dat’s for certain! What a tragedy Missus-Schneider-eight-blocks-over not here no more—can’t see dis—knock her socks off!”

  “Knock off more than her socks!” Ebbely giggled, enjoying himself enormously.

  “Now don’t you get naughty just because you got yourself a new so swanky Lizzie!”

  “Ah! Just a little cuddle? See, I can steer with only one hand, so give me a little squeeze! … You two in the back, cover your eyes! Hannah and I are going to spoon!”

  “Well, now we know! All dat fancy-prancy mit dose Louisiana floozies has got you crazy in de head! You take me home dis minute! I get out de castor oil, give you a dose to clean you out good! Never heard of such a ting! Cuddling and spooning mit a proper married lady in a machine dat’s moving!”

  A little daunted, eyes lowered, Ebbely peeked at Hannah, saw she was desperately trying not to laugh and, swinging his Lizzie around on a dime, announced that before returning Hannah to her domicile, he was taking Jane and the little prince home, for what he had in mind, chaperones were better not present. Then, in a high falsetto, burst into the latest flivver song, urging his happy passengers to join him. “Henry Ford was a machinist,

  “He worked both night and day

  To give this world a flivver

  That has made her shivver

  And speeded her on her way.

  Now he is a millionaire,

  But his record is fair,

  He is humanity’s Friend.”

  Everyone came to see Rumpelstiltskin’s splendid sedan—the men asking their questions of how it performed, while the ladies admired the elegance of the oval window and opulent use of glass. Standing apart, Fritz glowered.

  Ebbely, knowing why, walked over to him. “I agree, my friend. Shocking—simply shocking!”

  “Ja! First it’s leatherette—that was bad enough—now we work cloth? … What’s next!”

  “But, Fritz, the cloth upholstery is only used in the closed-in model … or so I heard!”

  “Yes …”

  “So?”

  “Duesenberg doesn’t.”

  “Oh, come on … you can’t compare a mighty Duesenberg with a Ford!”

  “I know—but there was a time when …” Fritz let the thought hang.

  “The rich man’s automobile and … what does your boss call it? ‘The automobile for the common man’?”

  “Yes …”

  “Well, my friend, as in life, such are separated from each other by a social chasm far too wide to cross.”

  “Still …” Fritz looked longingly at the shining sedan, “build up the back trimming, if it was done in black cowhide, with a half-moon needle in French pleat … would look marvelous.”

  “Don’t make me wish for it! Cloth it is and even for seven hundred and forty dollars, cloth it will have to be. Don’t lose sight of the fact that, for every Duesenberg sold, Ford sells a thousand Ts. Just remember and be grateful that there are more common men in this world than millionaires.”

  “Ja, we make lots of money, give everybody ‘The Universal Car.’ But, I miss the old days when with our hands we worked, could make beautiful things.”

  “Never mind, Fritz.” Ebbely pulled his sleeve, called to the others. “Stop fawning over my new sweetheart! Hannah is waiting … let’s eat!”

  Carl helped himself to more pot roast.

  “You vant de gravy?”

  “No, thanks, Hannah. I still got plenty. Sorry about Rosie not coming, but with the twins, it’s not easy. I see Rudy and Frederika aren’t here and Henrietta either—anything wrong, Johann?”

  “No, no. Frederika wasn’t feeling well, so Henrietta thought she better stay—just in case.”

  “Isn’t she about due?”

  “Still another six weeks, Carl,” Jane answered him.

  Ebbely giggled. Carl turned to him. “What’s so funny?”

  “You—the new father! Suddenly so aware of a lady’s due date! I can remember a time when if something hadn’t anything to do with your precious magneto, it just didn’t exist! How the mighty have fallen! Ahh, the abyss of normalcy!”

  Carl laughed, “Right you are! Ah, the good old days!”

  Ebbely stopped eating. “You too? Fritz was just saying the same thing. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know, maybe it’s just like one of Fritz’s feelings.”

  “My God. I hope not!” Zoltan reached for the beer pitcher. “I can’t take any more trouble. My mother is driving m
e crazy. She refuses to learn a word of English, says she doesn’t have to because she’s going back to Bulgaria. I try to explain that she can’t because there is a war raging—but does that make an impression? No! She’s going and that’s that! Yesterday, I came home and found her sitting on her trunk by the front door, ready, waiting for me to take her to catch a ship. Couldn’t understand why I didn’t take her. The way the war is going, there may not even be a Bulgaria when it’s all over. You know, I am beginning to think I should have gotten married like all of you instead.” Zoltan sneezed into his napkin.

  Hannah came in, bearing a huge bowl of coleslaw. Ebbely clapped his hands, delighted.

  “John,” Johann helped himself to the slaw. “Have you heard anything from Jimmy?”

  “No, not since that first letter.”

  “I hear that the Red Cross organization is going to help with mail from the front.”

  “Anyone see that item in the Ford Times?”

  “No. What about, Fritz?” Peter wiped the last bit of gravy off his plate with a piece of bread.

  Jane, on her way to the kitchen, stopped to listen.

  “It seems some students at Harvard and Yale got together, raised enough money, sent seventeen Model Ts as ambulances over to France.”

  Johann leaned back in his chair.

  “Remember? Jimmy predicted our Lizzie would go to war.”

  “Yes, she’ll show them a thing or two!”

  “Hope he gets to see her in action!”

  “Mein Gott! Johann—you want our fine Jimmy to get hurt?”

  “Hannah, not as a passenger … I only meant—”

  “Wonder where he is,” Fritz interrupted, voicing what was on all their minds.

  Ebbely breached the ensuing silence by complimenting the cook, waxing euphoric over the sensitive seasoning in her onion gravy. The women cleared the table, the men, waiting for dessert, talked of war.

  Across the sea, tough Lizzie was taking a mere war in her stride. Built to withstand, maneuver the gumbo mud, mire, ruts, gullies, furrows, the appalling conditions of rural America’s roads, the scarred landscape of war in Europe didn’t faze the Model T. Shell holes, mortar craters, torrential rains that created rivers of impassable mud, nothing stopped it. Where Tin Lizzie had to go, was needed, she somehow always managed to get to. In the front trenches, soldiers began to look for her, cheering her on as she sped across the battlefield under fire, picking up their wounded.