You Were There Before My Eyes
Page 31
Not heeding anyone’s advice, refusing all help, even her husband’s, Frederika rose, washed, bound her breasts against the milk, dressed in black, packed away the ready baby clothes, then went about her daily tasks as though a child had never been born. Henrietta and the others, denied admittance to her grief, could only watch and worry. While Rudy allowed friendship to help him, Frederika shunned all attempts at it.
Fritz built the small coffin, Hannah lined it with a remnant of blue satin. Jane made a little pillow for his head. Standing apart from the circle of friends, Frederika watched the internment of her child, as though a distant relative attending out of politeness. Rudy, ashen-faced, seeking comfort from Johann and Henrietta by his side, didn’t notice. Afterwards, coffee and reassuring food awaited everyone at the Geiger house, where friends murmured the timeworn words that are never actually listened to, nor truly helpful, yet still seem necessary to be spoken by those helpless to do more.
Jane, keeping busy in the kitchen washing dishes, was singled out by Serafina offering to dry. It was such an unusual gesture from this nondomestic woman, Jane looked at her surprised.
“You didn’t go to the burial, Jane. Why?”
“Why do you ask?”
“It interests me. When I saw it, you were absent, yet you belonged.”
“What are you talking about?”
Sometimes Serafina’s habit of saying things that no one could follow irritated Jane.
“The other night, I had a vision. I saw the burial. It was quite distinct. Though not in color in shades of gray that fluctuated, the faces were sharp, quite startling! Yours wasn’t there, but I FELT you!”
“Oh, really. These many visions of yours, they must take up so much of your time. How do you manage?”
Serafina rarely reacted to sarcasm, either because she considered it beneath her dignity to acknowledge it or, as Hannah thought, because that anyone would not take her seriously was simply inconceivable to her.
“Why did I feel your presence if you weren’t there?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Serafina dried the last plate, handing it on to Rosie to put away.
“Jane, tell me. Have you ever been to a burial?”
Jane dried her hands, rolled down the sleeves of her dark dress, buttoning the cuffs.
“Once. My mother died. I was forced to go.”
“That could be it! How long ago was that?” Jane wished Serafina would stop.
“Nearly twenty years.”
“Much too long for a presence to remain so strong! So—it is still to come. Beware,” and Serafina strode out of the kitchen in search of her husband to take her home. Left alone at the sink Jane trembled; despite her resolve never to allow Serafina’s strangeness to affect her, it had.
Except for a heightened remoteness, Frederika seemed unaltered. Rudy aged but she remained the cool, superior creature she had always been, observing the world from her private parapet. Perhaps it was this very sameness that would eventually lead to her destruction, her so accustomed aloofness that had never allowed anyone to get too close to her, that now fooled everyone into believing she was alright, just being her usually composed self, so there was nothing special to worry about. Those isolated moments when the mask slipped, sometimes into irrational action, those were quickly explained away as just nerves, only natural after such bereavement; all she needed was time, for that healed all wounds. Innocent of what was happening to her, Frederika, suddenly unable to endure a husband’s touch, revolted by the very odor of his maleness, withdrew to avoid him. Slowly, their marriage became one of harbored silence, its outward face benign, its reality hopeless.
Attracted by Henry Ford’s fame, his monetary power, his repetitive ability to capture headlines and support for his pacifist views, Madame Rosika Schwimmer, an avid campaigner for peace, decided to make herself and her crusade known to the American hero who might be persuaded to offer much. Henry Ford, always putty in the hands of a strong, determined woman, quickly succumbed to Rosika’s firebrand oratory, her conviction so equal to his, that peace must be achieved, could be achieved through positive action taken by powerful, respected leaders—men like himself, willing to dedicate themselves and their fortunes to ending the war raging in Europe.
The Boss’s enthusiasm, bordering on infatuation with Madame Schwimmer and her peace crusade became the overriding topic in the Geiger parlor.
“Fritz, what do you think of this madness?”
“Now hold on, Carl!” John interrupted. “I wouldn’t call it madness to want peace.”
“Yes,” Peter nodded. “What was it the Boss said to the reporters in New York?”
“I got it right here.” Fritz read from the front page of his evening paper, “‘Men sitting around a table, not men dying in the trenches, will finally settle the difficulties.’”
“Well, that sure sounds good to me.”
“Okay—so they are all sincere, but you can’t tell me that gypsy is just in this for bringing peace to the world!” Stan scoffed.
“Well Stan, it takes one to know one.” Zoltan smiled, taking the sting out of the remark.
“You’re damn right it does! That Hungarian Jewess is out for all she can get and it ain’t just Holy Peace! Ford is being hoodwinked, good and proper!”
“Take it easy, you two,” Johann intervened. “You can’t deny that ever since the war started, Henry Ford has been talking out for peace. Now maybe he’ll get a chance to really do something about it! It’s time something was done … it’s becoming a slaughterhouse over there!”
“What happens if the president won’t do what the Boss says?” Peter looked to Fritz for an answer.
“The president won’t turn down Henry Ford!” Zoltan lit a cheroot.
“Not a bad question though. What if he does—what then?”
“What do you think—then the Boss will do it on his own! You know him—once he makes up his mind …”
Stan interrupted, before John could go into one of his frequent speeches. “I agree! And with that Schwimmer woman, he’ll have no choice but to. She’ll make sure of that.”
“They say the Austrians killed thousands of Poles advancing through Galicia. Carl, can that be true?”
“Peter, who knows? Every day I hear numbers no one can believe.”
“Carl, you heard from your family in Lublin?”
“No. You?”
“No. Nothing.” Peter sighed.
“Your parents, didn’t they move in with your sister-in-law?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, don’t worry that far north they’ll be safe.”
“Carl, you think anywhere’s safe anymore? It looks like it’s becoming a world war … the Turks are in it, the—” Fritz was interrupted by Johann.
“On whose side? There’s so many I forget whose side they’re all on.”
“The Turks?”
“Yes.”
“On the side of the Germans, of course.”
Johann shook his head. “I should have known, they’ve always been a bloodthirsty lot.”
“I heard the czar is taking personal command of his Imperial armies. What do your Russians say to that, Fritz?”
“They’re proud, Zoltan. Very proud.”
“That Romanov tyrant will sit on his steed, decked out in jeweled orders to lead his starving serfs into battle to die for dear old Mother Russia.” Stan lit a cigarette.
“Well, at least they are on our side. Is that sinister monk still wielding power?” Zoltan looked at Fritz.
“How would I know?”
“Well, as you are our Russian authority …”
“Lay off! Tell me, do any of you ever feel strange? What I mean, embarrassed that we are living here—while …”
“While back home they are drowning in their own blood?�
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“That’s a bit macabre, Carl.” Zoltan blew his nose.
“No, it’s not. If what we hear is true, it’s worse!”
“Well?” Fritz looked at his friends. “No one going to answer me?”
“I do. All the time,” Johann admitted. “But it’s tougher on you, Fritz, because you’re German. If Rudy were here, he’d probably tell you, as an Austrian, he too feels like the enemy.”
“Fritz doesn’t mean taking sides. He means all of us from over there, living over here, safe and sound, no one’s life in danger, he sometimes feels ashamed.”
“That’s right, John. That’s what I meant!”
“Sure, I do.”
“Me too.”
“Of course. But I try not to think of it. You can’t allow yourself to—or your output suffers.”
“Yeah, the morale of the men on the line is bad enough without their superintendents having a conscience.”
Carl lit his pipe. “John, have you received any news from home?”
“Not a word. Everybody blames the U-boats why nothing gets through.”
“Anybody know if it’s true that the British used poison gas at Loos?” Johann looked about the room.
“I heard that, too—and that the Germans are now using a new one, even more lethal than their first.”
“My God! Where is all this going to end?” Slumped in his chair, Fritz shook his head.
“We’re going to be dragged into it! You mark my words—I said it before—it’s got to come to that. We have no choice.” Stan crushed out his cigarette.
“Not if we get peace before it’s too late!”
“That’s exactly what the Boss is trying to do!”
“More power to him!”
“Amen!” Zoltan crossed himself. “Stan, are you driving me home?”
“Sure. Anyone else want a ride?”
“You sure Serafina won’t mind?” Peter asked, hoping Stan would be willing to go as far as Hamtramck.
“She’s a good sport about me chauffeuring. Don’t take this the wrong way, my friends, but don’t you think it’s time you got yourselves a motor?”
“Next year, maybe. I have my eye on our Coupelet.”
“Swanky, Zoltan. Real swanky. Going courting?”
“Maybe, Johann. Just maybe.”
“Fritz, what about you? Hannah would love it!”
“Ja, but first I spend my money to get her a talking machine—but don’t tell her. Ever since Mr. Bell invented that, she has been dreaming of someday we have one.”
“Serafina’s father of course has had one for sometime. Now he complains to me daily that because I haven’t installed one yet, he can’t ring over to check on Serafina’s delicate condition. Hey, John, I hear your Missus is again in the family way. Congratulations!” The others joined in. “Know when?”
“Jane thinks early April … but one never knows.”
“I’m not convinced they are as necessary as everyone claims they are,” Fritz mused.
“What?” Heads snapped in his direction.
“Just a lot of unnecessary disturbance!”
“Fritz—what are you talking about?”
“Talking telephones. Fine maybe for business but inside a home, why?”
“Well, if you get one just so your father-in-law can ring through, I’m sure Stan will agree with you!” John laughed.
“I’ve told you once, John—and I’ll tell you again—thank your lucky stars yours isn’t on your neck!”
“What about all those look-alike brothers of his that play in that band, they give you trouble too, Stan?”
“I’m so busy keeping my nose clean with the father, I let those uncles fiddle all they want! Okay … Zoltan? You ready? … Anyone else who’s coming with me … go get your wife.”
Later, walking home, Jane asked, as though just making conversation, if anything especially interesting had been discussed in the parlor.
“Nothing much. Mostly the Boss’s scheme for peace.”
“Henry Ford is going to bring peace?” Amazement colored Jane’s tone.
John shifted the sleeping Michael to his other shoulder. “And why not? Great men can achieve great things to better mankind.”
Swallowing a retort, Jane decided to leave the subject of Henry Ford as Moses be. In satisfied silence, her husband led them home.
After a private meeting with a noncommittal Woodrow Wilson, Henry Ford left the White House, announced to the waiting press that to accomplish his personal “World Wide campaign for universal peace, supported by a one-million-dollar Ford endowment,” he had chartered a ship, the Oskar II, henceforth to be known as the “Peace Ship,” that would carry the most influential peace advocates in the country across the sea, first to Norway then on to Sweden—there to negotiate an end to war. “We are going to get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas!”
As it was already November 22, a most ambitious proclamation.
Waving Fritz’s newspaper, Hannah ran over to Jane’s with the news.
“Ninnie! No more war! De Boss is going to fix it! All de important peoples are going wit him and his Missus. His friend, de great Mr. Thomas Edison and his odder one, dat important bird-watcher. Even Mr. Wanamaker Department Store—dey all are going! What a wonderful ting!”
“You think it can really be done, just by talking?” Jane poured them both a cup of coffee.
“Well—shooting each udder hasn’t done nutting.” Hannah spooned sugar into her cup. “Fritz tells me dis Schwimmer woman she even convince de Missus dis is de ting to do. If Missus Clara she says okay de boss can go and she comes too, you can bet your bottom dollar, it’s an okay ting! But …”
“But, what?”
“Just dis Hungarian ting. If dis Rosika Schwimmer lady, she was maybe even Rumanian, I wouldn’t worry … but Hungarian? Dat’s maybe a problem.”
Jane laughed, “You and your Hungarians!”
“Hey—not so funny! If she’s a real one of dose, den she is only making herself a big shot, not for de peace, only for de big importance … and de Boss’s money.”
“Didn’t the papers say she’s a Jewess?”
“Ja, and dat’s anudder ting; so, if my hunch comes true and dis woman no good, all her Hungarian will be forgotten … and dey will say, of course, her badness is because she is Jewish! … I have to go—Missus Nussbaum—her Zellie is home because he got leg burned with de melted brass, so she can’t do de watching. So Missus Horowitz, she has to find someone—maybe dat new Missus Tashner, the one whose husband works de emery wheels … you going to your Italians, see if anyting wrong?”
“I have to take Michael to Rosie first. Then I’ll go.”
“All dat way to Rosie?”
“I don’t want to burden Henrietta. She’s always so tired now.”
“Ja, well—she’s already twenty-eight, dat’s old for having anudder baby.”
“And I can’t ask Frederika.”
“Poor girl. Ninnie … you tink she is right in de head?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someting strange wit dat child.”
“Frederika has always been a little strange. Remember you said so yourself when Rudy first brought her to the house that day.”
“Yes—but cold stuck up is not like frozen dead.”
“Hannah, you sound like Serafina!”
“Well, I tink Rudy’s very unhappy and she too … and not only because de baby’s gone.”
“All they need is a little more time.”
“I wonder.” Hannah got into her heavy winter coat, put on her hat, wound a long scarf around her neck, pulled on her knitted gloves. “You coming on Saturday for de baking like usual?”
“Yes. Will you teach me to make your special rye bread?”
“We did it! Ninnie
! Where are you?” John stormed into the house. “We did it!” Hearing his father’s voice, Michael ran into the hall, flung his arms around John’s leg, sat on his shoe, holding on like a monkey in a tree.
Jane, following, asked, “What?”
“There you are! Today, the first day of December in the year 1915, a Model T bearing the number ‘one million’ rolled off the line! With fifteen assembly plants working full out, we nearly missed it!”
“Every Lizzie has a number?”
“Of course. And today, we reached one million!”
Sensing his wife was not sufficiently impressed, he took her by the shoulders. “Don’t you understand what that means, woman? Every one is spoken for, every dealership is screaming for more. There are a million—A MILLION satisfied customers! Our car has not only changed the daily lives, the very habits of a nation, it has captured its heart! Maybe—even its soul.” Looking down at his son still clinging to his leg, he smiled, “You want a ride up the stairs?” Tightening his hold, the little boy nodded, ready. “Okay, here we go!” and stiffening his leg, John hoisted his monkey son up the stairs.
Four days later, amidst cheers, flag waving, bands playing “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be a Soldier,” well-wishers, some in the grip of patriotic hysteria flinging themselves into the icy waters to swim alongside, Ford’s Peace Ship left the Hoboken pier. Neither Mrs. Ford nor Thomas Edison, nor most of the invited and announced important peace advocates were aboard; besides the real danger of being torpedoed, most had second thoughts on the advisability of the entire venture. The press, first so beguiled by Ford’s sincerity, now viewed his peace mission as doomed to fail, resorted to ridicule in their coverage of it. When a dissenter sent a cage of live squirrels to the ship with a note that read “To go with the nuts” and another a large bag of raisins bearing the same sentiment, the press was quick to print the story; some papers, rechristening the Peace Ship “Good Ship Nutty,” accompanying their editorials with biting cartoons to play up the absurdity of a bunch of Boy Scouts believing they could stop war as easily as leading an old woman across the street.
Waiting for the daily communiqués from the Peace Ship, the Ford men were described by their respective wives as being simply impossible to live with. Serafina even going so far as to inform her father that to preserve her nerves, she might have to return to the sanctity to be found under his roof until such time as Ford’s peace had been achieved. Adding, that if his ship wasn’t torpedoed, Henry Ford deserved to be for disrupting everyone’s life with his crazy crusade; one of the few times Jane could understand her, even thinking she might agree with her.