You Were There Before My Eyes

by Maria Riva

  “Come on, Carl—she is expecting again so she’s bound to be a little nervy,” Ebbely soothed.

  “Nothing to do with it! She threw a shoe at me on our wedding night!”

  His friends laughed.

  “What did you do to her?” asked John.

  “None of your damn business!”

  “I’ll tell my Jane to ask her. She and your Rosie are thick as thieves.”

  “No you don’t—then she’ll know I said something—and really give me hell!” Carl laughed.

  “Hannah never exaggerates,” observed Fritz.

  To a man heads turned toward him in disbelief.

  “WHAT? Hannah doesn’t exaggerate?”

  “Well, I mean about really important things—I know for a long time she doesn’t—like with this inspector thing …”

  “That’s true,” Johann acknowledged. “So ask her. John, I hear we’re getting a government order for two thousand ambulances—with special storm curtains.”

  “Yes, and there’s a rumor going around that we may be building warships.”

  “Ships? Where for God’s sake?”

  “The new plant in Dearborn,” John said, lighting another cheroot.

  “That monster? It’s not even finished—the war will be over before that’s up and running!”

  “But the mouth of the river is there, Carl, and the draft should be sufficient for shipbuilding. If the war lasts another year, we’ll be producing.”

  Zoltan looked about the room. “Anyone see in the papers that not enough men have volunteered for service so the government may have to institute conscription?”

  “Yes,” Fritz answered him, “and then they still have to be trained …”

  “Well, it’s perfectly clear the country isn’t ready for war.”

  “Right you are, Zoltan, but we will be and faster than anyone expects.”

  “Oh, John!” Ebbely smiled, “You never disappoint. I think it’s that unqualified optimism of yours that I like about you the most.”

  “Hey,” Peter’s voice held an agitated edge, “if we get conscription what will happen at the plant?”

  “Well, some think women may take men’s places in many shops—not just ours.”

  “Next thing they’ll get the vote!” grumbled Fritz. “It’s all those crazy women over in England that started all this. Troublemakers, all of them.”

  “Well, if you ask me, women and politics just don’t belong together.” Johann knocked out his pipe.

  Peter agreed, “Yeah, to vote you have to know who to vote for and why you want to. When I get my citizen papers and I can vote, you bet your bottom dollar—I’ll know.”

  “Well,” Carl relit his pipe, “these women think all they have to do is push a piece of paper into a box and presto—they’ll be equal. It takes more than that. But don’t tell Rosie I said so.”

  “Evangeline thinks …” The mention of that cute bundle of bright-eyed feminine pulchritude instantly solicited comments from John’s friends.

  “Aha! So the fair Evangeline is still your private source, John?”

  “Does your wife know?”

  “You better watch out, she’s the apple of the Boss’s eye!” added Stan.

  “Now don’t get any ideas, my friends. She just got married!” John announced.

  Zoltan sneezed. “All kidding aside, John, you still should watch out—from what I hear, that so convenient marriage has nothing to do with her still being the apple of the Boss’s devoted eye.”

  Thinking that the subject of John as possible lothario competition to Henry Ford might be headed towards dangerous conclusions, Ebbely drew the men’s attention away by asking had they heard that the territory of Alaska had just given women the vote, which made Fritz exclaim, “What? Eskimos vote? I tell you the whole world is going topsy-turvy crazy!”

  Johann turned to John. “What were you about to say?”

  “Well, Evangeline thinks that one day women will be on the assembly line.”

  “See! What did I just say?” Fritz felt vindicated.

  “Can you just imagine a woman on the assembly line?” John laughed.

  “Why is that idea so hilarious?” Ebbely asked.

  “Oh, come on, she’d get so rattled—she’d have the vapors—be dead in an hour!”

  “I agree,” Stan got up, “I’ve got to go. By now Serafina has had a vision of me crushed beneath my Lizzie and will be out looking for my car and corpse just to make sure she was right. Say good-bye to your wife for me, John.”

  “Me, too,” Zoltan sneezed. “Can you drop me, Stan?”

  “Sure. Anyone else? Carl? Peter? You want a ride? Okay—let’s go then. Good-bye, John.”

  Those who lived in Highland Park left to walk home. The front door closed behind them just as Jane came downstairs after putting the children to bed.

  “Everybody just left, Ninnie—they said to tell you good-bye.” John picked up his newspaper.

  “It was nice having them come here after work.”

  “Yes—I think from now on we’ll do it more often.”

  “I’m sorry I missed them. Did you talk about something special?”

  “Oh, nothing of interest for you—just men talk. Supper nearly ready?”

  Jane left to plunge the spaghetti into boiling water.

  As more and more talk revolved around the influx of migrant blacks seeking work up north, Jane became interested in why that should cause such a stir. Never having seen people whose skin was different from hers before coming to America, she was intrigued by their very difference.

  That they were human was obvious. That for some reason they were not regarded as such was also obvious. In her work as Watcher that now extended into the deplorable sections of Detroit—where Italian immigrants vied for living space with those from out of the deep South—Jane was familiar with the plight of those frightened by the stigma of the African savage who their old country cultures believed had a taste for the delicacy of white man’s flesh. That color had such a potent influence on reactionary behavior bothered her. When she mentioned her confusion to Hannah it surprised her that this compassionate, generous woman who had taught her so much, with this, became so noncommittal, it bordered on evasion. Never one to allow sleeping dogs to lie longer than absolutely necessary, Jane went in search of her other mentor.

  Rumpelstiltskin looked up from his book as she entered the parlor.

  “Back so soon? No villainous Ford inspectors to thwart today?”

  Jane shook her head. “Today I was translating—trying to explain …” Ebbely, sensing a need to talk, motioned her to take Fritz’s chair. “May I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why is color so important?”

  “Whatever are you talking about, child?”

  “I know whenever you call me ‘child’ in that way you think I am really being stupid.”

  Ebbely reached over, patted her hands clasped in her lap. “No, not stupid, my dear—perhaps surprising might be more appropriate. What do you mean by ‘color’ exactly?”

  “There are so many black men now and many of the people who had the beds before them are angry and afraid—today one of the immigrant women hid her children and wouldn’t tell me where because she was certain the savages would eat them.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  “Yes.” Hesitating, Jane smoothed the broad pleat of her skirt. “Ebbely—is black always frightening?”

  “What an intriguing thought. Possibly. But then we mortals are such slaves to color in general.”

  “How?”

  “We identify the sexes—by pretty pink and very dependable blue. For morality, white always signifies good; black—evil. We mourn in black, yet shrouds are white. Because they have no pigment, albinos are frightening; Negroes perhaps
because they have too much? If one’s skin turns yellow, one’s blood is tainted.”

  Captured by his own train of thought, Ebbely took fire. “Lavender is for sweet-scented sachets, but deep purple is for evil witches and sorcerers. To entice, sweetest sugar is white—coffee a bitter brown—perhaps just enough a degree away from black for us to accept it. Even red has its subtle connotations. Blood, bright crimson when alive, when congealed—becoming dark. The heart is pure red on Valentine’s Day but the darkest shade of scarlet is given to women who have strayed.”

  Suddenly embarrassed, Ebbely avoided further questioning by asking Jane why she hadn’t discussed such weighty concerns with her husband instead of him.

  “I couldn’t wait until he got home. Anyway—when you explain things I can understand the real meaning not just the words. Like that spiritual you showed me—I didn’t just hear it—I felt it.”

  After the first wave of patriotic frenzy and while the nation waited for an adequate expeditionary force to be assembled, supplied and trained—most of the population resumed their daily lives with but minor adjustment to being at war. Wives saved extra pennies in pickle jars marked liberty bonds, made do with voluntary meatless days, even wheatless ones. As the latter concerned only the conservation of bleached flour, Hannah reigned supreme, offering to teach some of her more Americanized chaperone-Watchers how they too could make her famous rye bread and best yet, her blackest pumpernickel.

  Morgana’s sightless precision rolling bandages for the Red Cross encouraged both Rosie and Henrietta to volunteer. Not to be outdone and rather envious of their white uniforms and nunlike head scarves emblazoned with bright red crosses her sister Serafina sacrificed two mornings a week to join them, announcing that if she gave any more time to the victory effort her father’s import liquor business would fail as she and she alone knew how to keep his books. When Peter wouldn’t allow Dora to replace a man by becoming a trolley girl, she bested him by taking the vacated place of a young butcher’s apprentice called to the draft. Soon her specialty of highly spiced pork sausages had a fame all their own in Polishtown.

  Feeling it was time to do his patriotic duty, Ebbely gave up the road, went into partnership with the manufacturer of the ugly bloomers, secured a government contract to supply the US Army with its long winter underwear. His financial future assured, he decided to dedicate himself to lifting the spirits of the troops “to be,” as he put it. Though music was supposed to calm the savage beast—henceforth he would use it to rally young men to fight for love and glory for this, his Promised Land.

  Early one morning, his Lizzie impatient to be off and running, he kissed Hannah a fleeting good-bye, vowed to ring-a-ling, and with a bundle of sheet music and his new banjo by his side sped off to rouse the youth of America at Camp Funston—in the far-off land of Kansas.

  As every woman now wanted at least a hint of visual soldiering, the uniform look became so fashionable. Jane was kept busy sewing military-looking edging on lapels and cuffs on travel costumes and day wear, shortening skirts to the new wartime length of one-eighth of an inch above a lady’s anklebone. As the momentum of preparation for war increased—so did Jane’s dressmaking business flourish.

  Michael too caught the war bug. With an upside-down colander strapped to his head—a broken broom handle as firepower—he fought the good fight shooting Huns in the back yard. While his brother silently watched, Michael shouted waging war with his best friend Gregory from across the street.

  “Bang, bang, you’re dead!”

  “No, I’m not!” Gregory shouted back.

  “Yes, you are!”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “You’re a Hun. Bang! Now you’re dead!”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “But I kill-ed you!”

  That evening when she told John—at first he laughed then frowned saying he did not approve of his son playing at war.

  “But, John—everywhere—everyone is talking of nothing else. All the boys in the neighborhood are playing soldier and all the girls are Red Cross nurses.”

  “What the others do is not my concern—war is not a game and I will not have a son of mine thinking it is. Is he still awake?”

  “Yes.”

  Having learned that even when not absolutely real any and all killing was wrong even when necessarily right, this last part of his father’s lesson he found very confusing; still as his hero had said it—Michael knew it must be right and accepted with glee his father’s consolation gift of new drawing paper, a whole box of watercolors with even a brush—and from then on busied himself painting colorful explosions.

  As they had been doing since 1916, more and more university students left to join the British and French forces, becoming the first fighter pilots in the first war that reached its killing potential up into the sky.

  Jane forever fascinated by what was beyond her immediate horizon wondered what it must be like to become a bird, see the earth below from its perspective. What an amazing concept—what a breathtaking invention it was that lifted men from their earth allowing them such borderless freedom. When she asked John what he thought of the new fascination of flight—his enthusiasm was as informative as it had been for the Paris sewers.

  “It’s reconnaissance, Ninnie, the first time in a war when photographs taken from above can be used for identifying the terrain. As the horseless carriage …” John smiled remembering her first use of the expression. “… has done away with horses, so will the flying machine do away with carrier pigeons.”

  “Pigeons—in a war?”

  “Yes, Ninnie—everything will change after this—not just war itself but everyday life. The Boss and young Edsel are thinking of building these aeroplanes. They’re even talking of a Ford airport. Well, with the mighty Rouge, now Mr. Ford will have the resources to build whatever he wants.”

  At the Highland Park plant, speed was now the master and mass production its perfected tool. The euphoria of entering the war in order to stop it carried the men to achieve their tasks, but the thought that nothing would ever be the same again—that from now on volume would be forever considered more important than quality—nagged. John particularly felt the disenchantment and the guilt for recognizing it as such. At work he remained his disciplined self. At home he allowed his moods full rein—confusing Jane and the children by the change in him. But as these were the days when wives knew their place, Jane did not question her husband’s behavior, simply adjusted to it as best she could knowing she was not the only Ford wife who needed to cope.

  By the end of spring, anti-German fever was running high—many of the German-language papers, so numerous before 1917, had dwindled down to but a few. The famous Harmonie Club—its music steeped in German tradition—was closed down. Everywhere those of German birth were suspect spies—their first-generation German-American offspring, if not voluntary soldiers, branded traitors. Even food came under suspicion. The innocent frankfurter was cleansed of any Hun association by being given the more acceptable name of hot dog, sauerkraut became coleslaw, and hamburger, Salisbury steak; all of which made Hannah exclaim, “Vhat dey got against cabbage? And tell me, why call sauerkraut dat is pickled, coleslaw dat is not? Even wit de meat dey go crazy. A hamburger dat is ground is a Salisbury steak, dat isn’t? And a dog dat is hot—to eat? Vhere vill dis all end up?”

  Hannah visiting Jane for morning coffee, put more sugar into hers. “Even our first papers no good no more for being good Americans! Mrs. Nussbaum, who has already de real citizenship because her husband already is, she tells me her Zellie is all worried because if dey have to change dere name, simply to translate dey can’t because it’s funny. Who do you know dat’s called Mr. Nuttree? But even if, on dere okayed papers it says Nussbaum so, who can change a name on real already given citizen papers, will you tell me dat?”

  From then on Jane noticed that Hannah rarely used German when speaking to
Fritz—quickly catching herself whenever she did.

  As Sunday was neither a decreed meatless nor a wheatless day, Hannah found solace still in cooking for her boys. The dinner table was never as full—still some came to talk and bask in the ever present devotion of the one who had sheltered them when life was still a young adventure.

  “Did anyone hear the British have put in an order for six thousand … Fordsons?” Carl asked, helping himself to the coleslaw that was not sauerkraut but the real thing. “Because of the German blockade, England is so short of food their farmers are desperate for our light tractor to put more land under cultivation.”

  Fritz whistled, “My God, six thousand? Will the Rouge plant be ready for such an order, John?”

  “Well, the new Ford and Son Company has been formed for the production of the Fordson 4-cylinder tractor and if nothing goes wrong, I think we’ll be ready to ship certainly by early winter.”

  Now it was Carl’s turn to whistle. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! That fast? Now all they have to worry about is not getting torpedoed on the way over to England.”

  “I hear Ford is planning to buy his own newspaper.” Zoltan helped himself to gravy. “Isn’t our Ford Times good enough anymore? John, you are always up on these things, what does he need a real newspaper for?”

  “To reach a broader readership perhaps. Evangeline—and if any of you say one word, I’ll crown you—”

  “Go on, mum’s the word!” Carl laughed.

  “Well, she said she thought it might be for political reasons.”

  “Don’t tell me the Boss believes this talk going around about him running for office.”

  “Well,” Fritz put down his napkin, “I heard someone say the other day if Henry Ford ran for president he could win.”

  “Every common man who owns a Model T would vote for him for sure,” Peter agreed, “and don’t forget the farmers.”

  “When do you think we’ll be ready to send our boys over?” asked Carl.

  “I don’t think they can be armed and ready until late summer,” answered John.

  “Will young Mr. Edsel have to go?” asked a concerned Peter.