You Were There Before My Eyes

by Maria Riva

  I feel so heavy today—why? If it’s born too early it will be blind … always in the dark. I wonder what that must be like. Teresa always said, “God’s light shines within, one has no need of sight.” Ha! Tell that to Morgana! Don’t be so stupid, Giovanna—all babies born too early die anyway.

  Reprimanding her thoughts, Jane rethreaded her needle.

  I suppose now that I’m showing I’ll have to lock myself away again—just so that my condition won’t shock the sensibilities of complete strangers—what stupidity! Unattractive? Well that, maybe so to some—but shocking? Why? I wish Mrs. Kowalsky had preferred grosgrain instead of this—I hate working with satin! Zoltan’s new wife is nice—I like Agnes. When I mentioned Margaret Sanger right away she knew who she was. Do this, do that, don’t do this, it’s not proper, behave—rules, rules, rules! What does it get you? I wonder if Agnes is one of those suffragettes who want to vote. It wouldn’t surprise me. If I was one, I’d chain myself to city hall, bulging belly and all!

  Feeling rebellious, Jane put down Mrs. Kowalsky’s widow’s weeds—to continue reading a saga by Mr. Walpole that Zoltan’s Agnes, the librarian, had lent her.

  Though Henrietta tried valiantly to come to terms with the loss of little Gloria, each day she failed. As though everything about her was fading, she turned pale, her corn silk hair now touched more by moonlight than summer sun, the deep blue of her eyes, bleached; nothing left over from the luminous China Dolly except the palest memory of what had been. Whenever Jane visited, she was reminded of her Valentine rose. At a loss himself, Johann watched his wife’s struggle and worried. As time passed Henrietta’s longing for the remembered shelter of her homeland increased. She needed her mother’s strength, yearned for her comforting presence, to help her to return to herself, to function once more as mother to her two remaining daughters, wife to the husband she loved. Finding no solution, Johann made his decision, negotiated employment at a Ford plant in Holland, sold his half of the house he and Rudy had bought so long ago, booked passage, and prepared to take his family back home.

  After an extra special Hannah supper, the Ford men gathered one last time. As they smoked, there was a hesitancy about the room—as though each was waiting for another to speak. For years they had held each other’s friendship, relying on it—building upon it—their shared immigrant quest binding them, forming their union within their world of Ford. The future they had once known, had been so certain of seemed suddenly in transit—its destination in question. Their memories lay upon the room like a child’s necessary blanket.

  Finished helping in the kitchen, Jane entered, went to sit in her corner. Fritz cleared his throat. “When are you leaving?”

  “The Rotterdam sails in two weeks,” Johann answered relieved that someone had begun.

  “Hah, lucky fella! No more U-boats to worry about!” Peter’s attempt at a little humor failed.

  “Who you sell your part of the house to?” Carl lit his pipe.

  “A Latvian, works in the paint shop. He’s a relative of the one who bought Rudy’s part.”

  Zoltan blew his nose. “Good deal?”

  “Fair.”

  Jane watching their faces wondered why they were so bland.

  “Tell me …” Johann leaned forward in his chair. “… now that the war is over will any of you go back?”

  “No.” Zoltan was adamant.

  Carl sighed, “I can’t go back. Everything is gone.”

  “For just a visit, maybe.” Peter sounded unconvincing even to himself.

  “Well,” John flicked ash from his cheroot, “I would like my parents to meet their grandsons.”

  Jane never having envisioned returning to the origin of her escape—John’s response startled her.

  Turning to the chair next to his, Johann asked, “What about you, Fritz? Could you go back? Not stay of course—just see it all again?”

  “Maybe.”

  Tinged with the hurt of having been so hated in the new homeland he loved, his “maybe” lingered in the air.

  Determined to alter the prevailing mood, Zoltan changed the subject. “Hey, anybody here find out yet what’s happened to Rudy?”

  “Well, he’s back,” volunteered Peter.

  “We know that!”

  “And, listen to this—shot down two Junkers, and got away without a scratch!”

  “That, Peter, we also know—but where is he? You know, John?”

  “I heard he was barnstorming.”

  “What in God’s name is that?”

  Jane was glad Carl asked for she was dying to know.

  “It’s something these young daredevils back from the war are doing all over the country. At county fairs—they perform aerial stunts … something called a barrel roll and loop the loop over the heads of dumbstruck locals.”

  “For money?” asked Peter.

  “Well, if you’re crazy enough to risk life and limb for entertainment … I should hope so!” countered Zoltan.

  “Do you know why it is called barnstorming?” whispered Jane in Carl’s direction who whispered back, “Beats me.”

  John answered them both.

  “Part of the many amazing tricks these men are able to put their flimsy crates through—is fly them so low to the ground that often they can’t pull up in time and then crash into farmer’s barns killing cows, pigs, chickens, even themselves.”

  “Apart from the killing, that I’ve got to see!”

  “My Hannah know about this crazy business?”

  John shook his head. “Not yet, Fritz—I didn’t want to worry her.”

  “Ja, better we keep it from her.”

  Johann knocked out his pipe. “I’ve got to go. I don’t like leaving Henrietta and the girls alone too long—especially after dark. Anyway, we’ll all see each other again before we leave. So … I’ll be on my way. I’ll say good night to Hannah on my way out.”

  The morning Henrietta went to say a last good-bye to Gloria—Jane accompanied her to the cemetery. Standing apart, not to intrude—Jane watched a mother trying to justify the desertion of her dead child, and wondered if she, in a similar situation could ever manage to do so.

  Troubled by her thoughts, Jane knelt by Henrietta’s side and tended the periwinkles nestled against the small white cross.

  The admonitions to write, to take care, to keep in touch, to not forget, all said, in the bright sunshine of a Great Lakes summer, Johann and Henrietta bid good-bye to dear friends, a country that had embraced them, one last time stood before the small plot of earth that covered their child—then returned from whence they had come. Through the years Hannah often remembered that first day when China Dolly had stepped into her house and brought such unbridled joy to their pining Johann, the Hollander.

  19

  Newly returned from yet another clandestine sojourn across the Canadian border, Serafina now was mistress of her very own Model T. She stayed long enough to voice her opinion on Johann’s exodus, claiming that now she saw nothing in his Dutch future that could be interesting to anyone. Then she dropped two additional items of news—one that Morgana, her twin, was not well—but that Guido Salvatore Antonio, her angel son Angelo was, and sped off.

  With life resuming its habitual rhythms, the time of war became an aftertaste. In sun-drenched France the splendidly mirrored hall of the opulent palace of Versailles was being turned into a shrine to legal peace. Great minds of great men were eradicating war for all time on signatured paper, believing in what was beyond belief—fostering callous innocence turned inward into evil born. Henceforth, without fail the world was expected to behave itself—abide by the sage words written and attested to, not by the more than ten million men who had shed their blood, but, as in all wars, by the few who had led them so they could.

  Hannah’s battlefield, forced on her by both birth and war, remained. She was still a German
and still a Jew. The war had brought the shame of one into focus while partnering the other. Somehow self-guilt had entered her equation as though she herself had fostered it. Whatever the reasons, once spat upon, such remembrance becomes permanent injury. Hannah did not know why she was troubled only that she was. Concerned, Fritz turned first to Zoltan then John for advice.

  “One of your feelings? You’re having one of your feelings?” Zoltan nearly choked on his own nervous excitement. “The plant? I knew it! Something is going to happen at the plant. God knows there’s enough going on at that behemoth anything can happen!”

  Fritz shook his head, “No, Zoltan. Nothing like that—get a hold of yourself, my friend. Marriage should have calmed you down—it’s supposed to.”

  With John the result was only slightly more encouraging.

  “For heaven’s sake, that wonderful woman of yours—after all the nursing she did, the terrible worry not only for my Ninnie—but Ebbely too, all of us. My God, that woman was never off her feet! Don’t worry—she’s just exhausted—the best thing you can do is take good care of her—see she gets a lot of rest. Giving her a nice kiss now and then wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”

  “I kiss her all the time!” bellowed Fritz in self-defense.

  “Well—then do it … better! I don’t know. Why are you asking me—she’s your wife! Anyway, soon we’ll all be citizens—then you’ll see how Hannah perks up!” And swinging one leg over his precious English Humber John bicycled off to work.

  Henry Ford and his Clara having traveled to far-off sunny California for no apparent reason other than to indulge in a well-earned vacation, no one knew what to make of the sudden rumors circulating that Ford was deserting the Model T, planning to form a new company that would manufacture an automobile he supposedly claimed would not only rival the T but undersell it by more than two hundred dollars.

  Fritz cornered John as he was coming home from work.

  “We’re stopping production on the T. Is that true?”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Who says?”

  “Evangeline hinted it may have to do with the Boss’s plan to buy out the Dodge Brothers.”

  “You’re sure, John? He’s not giving up on Lizzie? After all our great success to change, now start up all over again with another sounds crazy!”

  “I agree, it doesn’t make sense. There is absolutely no reason for the company to change now or to sell it. We can’t even fill all the orders for the T that are coming in.”

  “Then why all this talk of a new company to make a new model? Mr. Edsel say anything?”

  “Not to me. Let’s wait and see—Evangeline usually knows what’s really going on. If she believes it may be just a clever stunt—her word not mine—to scare the shareholders so they’ll sell, I’ll bet she’s right and the Boss is up to something.”

  “You’ll let me know?”

  “Of course. Don’t worry, Fritz—I’m sure our Lizzie will be rolling off the line for years to come in ‘any color you want as long as it’s black.’” That now famous Henry Ford statement got a laugh out of Fritz.

  By the beginning of July Henry Ford achieved what he was after; had maneuvered the buyout of his company’s stockholders, his original partners, and with a little help from those Jewish bankers that he never trusted until they were of use to him, now owned the Ford Motor Company outright, lock, stock, and proverbial barrel and the rumor of that new Model Ford vanished. With his railroad, forests, mines, newspaper, hospital, schools, motion picture department, ever-increasing dealerships and assembly plants, his ships and barges hauling their endless spectrum of raw materials to his vast empire on the Rouge River, the Flivver King of Detroit was truly the monarch of Michigan.

  Two days after Glory Day, Mr. Henry, the mailman, returned. No longer garbed as guardian of the United States Postal Service, he, in vested store-bought suit and silk cravat, stood in Hannah’s hallway smiling his devastating smile, as she screamed her delight at his being still among the living, then noticed his left sleeve and the large safety pin that anchored its emptiness to his side.

  Confused, not knowing what to say, hands covering her mouth afraid of what she might blurt out, Hannah looked at her friend imploring him to excuse her stare. One slender hand touched hers in a gesture of forgiveness and Hannah began to cry.

  “Now, now,” sounding like a concerned family retainer, Mr. Henry patted her shoulder. “Dear Lady, do not upset yourself—a small sacrifice for victory.” Lifting the corner of her apron he proceeded to dry her tears as though she were a child of three. “Besides, it’s only my left and you know I do my best courting with my right.” Mr. Henry had learned to joke. It made those concerned for him more comfortable in the presence of his affliction. Continuing his ministration, he asked if she wasn’t going to feed him as always.

  Soon coffee brewed, pie, cookies, pastries, anything she could find, spread before him, they sat and talked.

  “You know dat cutesy redhead de one you fancied? Well she got married …”

  “To that boozer?”

  “Yes. He got out of de war for something he did bad in it and now is someplace in jail.”

  “And the Nussbaums?” Mr. Henry asked questions answerable, avoiding those unanswerable.

  “Oh, dey had big trouble when de sickness came. De eldest girl, her you remember?”

  “Yes, a real mother hen, with all those sisters and brothers.”

  “Well, dat poor girl, she died. Her Mama and de udders dey all got sick—but now everybody okay again.”

  “The influenza hit you hard here?”

  “Yes—hit us hard—you too over dere?”

  “Yes—in November just before the Armistice, we didn’t know who was killing us faster—the Huns or the fever.”

  “Anudder cup?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Johann our Hollander? He and his China Dolly—dey lost dere little girl. So now dey gone back to dere old country and forget. Horowitzes? Dey now live in Massachusetts where dere Boris was in a camp. Den when he was killed over in Flanders his folks stayed.”

  “Everything has changed, eh?”

  “Yes. You got a job?”

  “Not yet, not much work for a one-armed paper hanger.”

  “A paper hanger you are now?”

  “No, it’s only an expression. A kind of joke.”

  “Not a funny.”

  “Better to joke than cry. Anyway, girls don’t cotton to a beau with too much war still inside him.”

  “You still a rascal?” This was asked with the faintest of sighs.

  “Yep. Gotta be.”

  No need for further explanation, Hannah understood his need to be what he had been, regardless of what he had become.

  “Your knitting sister, she okay and all de children?”

  “Yes, she found a man to marry her, moved to St. Paul.”

  “Where you live now, den? More coffee?”

  “Bunking in with a friend. Thanks.”

  “Lady friend?”

  Mr. Henry laughed, “No, ex-army buddy.” Pointing to the plate of crullers, “Can I have another?”

  “Eat! You want I should make you maybe a nice bologna sandwich to take?”

  Busy munching, Mr. Henry shook his head. A second’s hesitation, then Hannah spoke what had been forming in her mind since the moment Mr. Henry had appeared, seeming so alone, covering his need with attempted joviality.

  “I got plenty empty rooms, you want one? Come stay? For a while, until you find work? Fritz and me happy to have you … but, maybe … maybe you don’t want to because we are German—maybe?”

  All veneer gone, Mr. Henry brushed away a tear, smiled his devastating smile and that was that.

  The very next day the mailman moved his meager belongings into what once had been Stan’s room and in n
o time at all, it seemed as though the Geiger house took back some of its aura of bygone days. Michael very impressed being acquainted with a real, brave soldier became his ever-willing sidekick, ready to be of service whenever his new friend needed anything complicated like opening jars of Hannah’s special strawberry jam that Mr. Henry seemed particularly partial to.

  Conferring in private with Jane about her new boarder—Hannah allowed her concern for him to show.

  “Dat poor man. What girl will look at him now? And him always used to dem all crazy lovey-dovey over him. What he do now wit no two arms to hold dem? Many girlies will tink dats ugly, you know, not know any better, not see what a good man he is.” Hannah ladled sugar into her coffee—forgetting she had already done so before. “Fritz, he says, ‘Give him time.’ Well dat’s okay for de oldies but for de young? I don’t tink. Not so good. What you tink?”

  “Hannah, exactly what’s an oldie?”

  “Well, like me. Thirty-two nearly already.”

  “That’s really not so old.”

  “Well, if I was not married to Fritz—and I was an old maid—den I would be!”

  Laughing, Jane refilled Hannah’s cup.

  “Don’t worry. If someone really loves your Mr. Henry, she won’t mind about his arm.”

  “Ha! You de innocent! De so in love already safe lucky Vifey—you tink doze floozy ladies he always find will be so good like dat? I got to hurry. For tonight I’m making fluffy potatoes wit real butter now allowed also a nice cabbage mit de Kummel and gravy mit real cream. If I got time, maybe even a little someting for just on de side to nosh. Before I came over I make already de shortcake to go mit de nice strawberries for after.” Hannah pinned on her hat. “You come too, Ninnie? A little strong walking good for you now, bring de children! WE EAT … AS USUAL!”

  And in a whirlwind of joyous anticipation Hannah was gone.

  Back in her element once again caring for multiple people, Hannah blossomed, Fritz seeing her happy—was too. Now all that was needed to complete this rosy picture—was the birth of a healthy baby and Ebbely’s safe return.