by Maria Riva
I better stop. Heinz will be home soon and I think he doesn’t like me to write letters. Last week I think he tried to steam open a letter Fritz wrote to Zoltan—but I am not sure. But now because he snoops I pretend I go for a walk down the hill and then I send this from the post office in the little grocery store in the village.
Oh, quick—we found a little house not too far from here—with a small garden to grow vegetables and maybe even flowers. It has a tree for shade and real plumbing inside. Anna’s husband says maybe they won’t let Fritz buy it because he has a Jew for a wife, me, but Fritz said that is just ridiculous—good American dollars are still the best money in the whole world—so, maybe by Thanksgiving we will be in our own home again. This year I will have to make just a chicken or maybe a fine goose to celebrate and use preiselberren (like little red currents in case you do not know what those are) for our cranberries—but—the thankfulness will be as it always was for our special Thanksgivings back home in the good old days.
I send as always and forever to the boys many hugs and kisses, and warm loving thoughts to you, dear Vifey and your John. Soon—maybe soon we will be together again and then we can talk a blue streak.
Your friend,
Hannah
P.S. I have not heard from Ebbely, have you?
On one rare occasion when John was back Jane seized the opportunity to voice a growing concern. “I am worried—it’s been months now since Hannah’s last letter. It’s not like her—and you haven’t heard from Fritz either.”
“I know.” Reluctant to pursue the subject, John turned the page of his British newspaper. Jane put down her darning.
“John? What is it? Do you know something?” After years of marriage she knew whenever he evaded something.
“Leave it, Ninnie.” He spoke Italian, which made his order even more commanding.
“No. I won’t ‘leave it, Ninnie!’ These are our friends—people we love—if you know something you are going to tell me!”
“The Germany of today is not the same homeland that Fritz and Hannah left. I always thought they should have never left America and I told Fritz so. Ebbely did too. He of course was prompted after Ford’s International Jew was translated into German and sold more copies there than anywhere else in the world—he said then it was madness for any Jew to return. But you know them—Hannah was a little homesick and scared by the wartime Hun thing and Fritz was worried by the layoffs—wanted the pride of returning having prospered.”
Darning forgotten, Jane watched her husband’s face.
“You have never spoken like this before.”
“I have never had to work within the structures of Fascist regimes—it is only my American citizenship that protects me.”
“Ford doesn’t?”
“Ah, yes—the great Henry Ford and his ever mighty industrial power—which is now being offered to whom and for what!”
Never had Jane heard such a note of cynicism when mentioning the man and his company that had been the core of John’s existence for so long. Though her husband’s awakening from what she perceived as an overly idealistic hero worship pleased her, still Jane had the strange feeling that if ever a complete disenchantment should occur, it might eradicate the boy, the dedicated dreamer—leaving a desolate, hopeless man in its place. “Listen, cara, I have been told to inspect a proposed sight for a new Ford factory outside of Hamburg—you know Ford’s credo …‘No water, no factory’… well, Hamburg sure has water. So I’ll be back in Germany …”
“When?”
“Next week, maybe.”
“For how long?”
“Haven’t the faintest idea.”
“I’ll go with you …”
“Oh, no you won’t!” The vehemence of his denial startled her.
“Why not? Billy is …”
“It has nothing to do with Billy.”
“Then why not?” The sudden suspicion of another woman as beguiling traveling companion entered the atmosphere and John felt it.
“Giovanna!” When he called her that—Jane always knew she had overstepped her mark of obedient wife.
“Yes John!” she challenged back, getting nowhere.
“Carissima, give it time—it’s nearly Christmas—we will certainly hear something by then.”
It was long after Christmas when Jane received the present she had been hoping for, a letter arrived from Hannah, this one written in English bearing no return address.
Dearest American Friends,
Here everything is fine. Everyone is just like our old Boss back in Michigan. I wish I could take a little trip—a short visit to visit old friends. But as you know my rheumatism is very bad and with my Fritz’s poor eyesight—well all that is not so good for making a journey. Maybe next year. Please understand.
Fritz and me, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy 1935. When this reaches you.
Your forever friends,
Fritz and Hannah
(the boys—kiss the boys)
Jane stormed into their bedroom, where John was putting on his shirt.
“John?” Body tensed, eyes blazing, she stood before him shaking the single sheet of paper. “Did you read this? It arrived already open.”
“Yes—it was addressed to both of us.” Knowing what was coming John stalled for time.
“Well? Rheumatism?! Hannah has rheumatism? Since when?!”
“Perhaps it was the mountain air?” Putting an arm around her—he sat on the edge of their bed, pulling her down next to him.
“Don’t make jokes,” she admonished.
“I’m not, carissima—I’m not.”
“You know something.” It was a statement not a question.
“No, not really …”
“Oh, yes you do—tell me!”
“It’s the letter, Ninnie. I think Hannah is trying to tell us something in the letter.”
“Tell us? Tell us what? I don’t think she even wrote it—it’s not the way she writes—it doesn’t sound like her—and in English! She never writes me in English.”
“I know …” John tried to sound comforting. “… read the first sentence.”
“Which one? The one about Ford?”
“Yes.”
Silently Jane read it again.
“You think … Oh no!”
“Yes, Ninnie I think they both may be in some trouble.”
“But, John—they are American citizens! And Fritz, he isn’t Jewish!”
“With the new Nuremberg Laws just being married to a Jew is trouble enough—it makes him a Mischlinge and therefore tainted. As for their papers and passports—they could have been confiscated by now.”
“They can do that?”
“Just like Mussolini, this Hitler is now the proclaimed Führer of his Nazi Party and can do whatever he wants. It may be that Prussian brother-in-law butcher—or that opportunist nephew—but something, something must have happened for Hannah to write in this veiled way making up lies so we would understand.”
“But why Fritz’s eyesight?”
“Perhaps she means that Fritz doesn’t see or want to see?”
“What can we do?”
“Nothing. No—let me finish—next month I am expected back in England. Maybe I could arrange a detour to look in on the Cologne plant. Once in Germany, maybe I can … in the letter doesn’t she put what town they are near?”
“Not on this one but on the others she had Großnöbach near Dachau.”
“Dachau—that’s just outside of Munich—that’ll be easy—all trains stop there.”
“But what real trouble can there be?”
“No one seems to know exactly—at the Ford Werke …”
“Why do you always say it like that?
“Werke?” Jane nodded. “Because Ninnie, by new directives ev
erything must now be exclusively German. Plants may be built by Ford—produce Fords—but by order of the National Socialist Party it must be a German enterprise—run by Germans certified to be of pure-blooded Aryan stock. Anyone even suspected of being any different is let go—very often they just seem to disappear.”
“Oh, John—why did they ever leave America!”
“Yes—I always thought it was a foolish thing to do. I wonder why Ebbely allowed it.”
“Shall I write him?”
“No—now it’s too late anyway—let’s wait—maybe I can find out more …”
Though John inquired—even using the importance of the Ford name to make people talk who wouldn’t to a mere individual, it seemed that the Geigers had somehow vanished. The little house they had chosen was no longer available—had been sold to an Aryan couple with an impeccable pedigree. The brother-in-law butcher, a very recent widower, although the cause of his wife’s sudden demise seemed clouded, insisted the Geigers had simply decided to live somewhere else, possibly in Austria, and though the grocery store postmistress confirmed this, there was no forwarding address.
Weeks, then months passed without a word, then one day its stamp of origin completely obliterated, a smudged, dog-eared postal card arrived, on which Hannah had written in English that they were happy, well and sent regards, signed, “Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fritz Geiger.” Throughout the months that followed such cards kept arriving periodically bearing the identical message written in pencil in Hannah’s recognizable hand. Somehow Jane clung to these cheap cardboard tokens as though they were true. John who in his searching had been in Dachau, that rather quaint Bavarian town full of smiling inhabitants, suspected much but had no proof—allowed Jane her fantasy hoping it would sustain her.
Thumbing its nose at the Treaty of Versailles that forbade its rearmament, by 1937 Germany had reinstated compulsive military service, enforced the racial laws created in Nuremberg that would affect all aspects of Jewish life, and formed its Axis bond with Fascist Italy. Having raped Ethiopia, Mussolini was helping Franco accomplish his of Spain and Billy, eighteen, graduated with honors.
His work in Rumania and Turkey done—now considered a valuable tool for possibly enhancing mass production, John was ordered back to Italy. Still believing that the power of the Ford Company as well as his American citizenship would protect him, he moved his wife and son back to his father’s home in Torino—then faced a situation that no one could have predicted just a few years before.
He was about to learn a disturbing truth that within the psyche of all naturalized immigrants a pervasive uncertainty exists—that being once so accepted does not irrevocably guarantee one’s belonging to the country of one’s choice. This is not as much of a paranoia as it might appear for there are many countries and many governments who are totally convinced that once born within their realm both blood and birth will conform—making them eternally theirs. Regardless of personal choice, once a German, always a German—once an Italian, always an Italian was as prevalent a belief in the twentieth century as it was in those past. That tenacious sense of insecurity in all naturalized Americans is not as completely imaginary as it might seem. In Italy his American nationality ignored, John had resented the assumption that he was a willing Fascist simply on the basis of having been born an Italian. Now while he secretly struggled with a situation he was ill equipped to handle, Jane, confident that his integrity was intact, expected that any day John would probably announce that they would be leaving again to somewhere exotic where he was again needed.
Teresa wrote, once again, in perfect French.
Giovanna Ma Chere,
Have you found what you were searching for?
Jane could imagine her voice, feathered into a smile.
Have you lost your inner fire, Giovanna? Dearest friend, you cannot go through life blaming God for everything. Blame is a coward’s tool for self-evasion. You really think you have the right to judge? To stand in judgment of God is to question faith—to question faith is to lose the very foundation of human hope. Be very careful, Giovanna—to deny God is to deny man. To deny man is to deny life. To deny life—is Death without recourse for salvation as the ultimate peace. The acceptance of unconditional, all-encompassing love.
Remember when we were children and Sister Bertine spoke to us of the Divinity of souls? Remember no harm can come to a soul given to God. You have always had it in your very rejection of what you crave. You believe you have lost first a mother, then your child. Yet they live within you—they are a part of you. Every breath you take they take—every joy you feel, they feel. Every sorrow, they weep with you. To love is to become one with one’s beloved.
Peace, child, I shall pray for you—I always do. We may not ever see each other again … I do not want you to mourn—remember I shall be where I want to be—have hoped to be since we were children—so no mourning—for the tears you will shed will be for yourself if you do—not me.
Remember all I have said. It was not the Church—it was my heart that writes and speaks to you. May the Lord watch over you and yours. You are always in my prayers.
Jane placed Teresa’s letter into her special shoebox next to the others. Through all the many stages of her life there had been one certainty, one purity to hold on to, worth believing in—Teresa, as dependable in her faith as her friendship—she and she alone by simply existing had left the door ajar to Jane’s faith, a chink in her armor against the God she no longer trusted. Oh, Giovanna, what will happen to you now? Jane shook her well-coifed head as though to stop her self-involvement. You really should be thinking of Teresa and her suffering—not what will become of you when she no longer exists for you to lean on.
That summer the Ford Motor Company terminated John’s employment thereby releasing their American-trained Italian-speaking specialist to be available for service to the industrial needs of Fascist Italy. That John should have been informed, even asked, was considered quite unnecessary. He had always been such an exemplary employee, it was assumed he would certainly welcome any and all decisions made by the company he had been loyal to since his youth.
His vehement antifascism not yet fully comprehended by those he now considered his probable enemies—realizing that when they did, his political stance might endanger not only himself but Jane and his son, John began to make furtive plans to ensure their safety. Under an assumed name he booked passage to America for two on the SS Saturnia due to sail from Genova within the month.
“Ninnie!” The urgency in his voice giving his name for her a strange cadence, John closed the door of their bedroom. Expecting the anticipated announcement of yet another move, Jane stood waiting wondering what country they were being sent to this time. “Listen and listen carefully. You and the boy must leave and you must leave now. I have booked passage—you sail on the fifteenth out of Genova. Go home, Ninnie! I beg you—take the boy and go! I’ll follow when they let me.”
“I won’t leave you!”
“Yes—you will!”
“No!”
“Don’t, please. I want you and Billy away from here. Do you understand what I am trying to say? You must leave and now! My passport has been commandeered—but yours …”
“Why? They can’t do that!”
“This is a dictatorship, Ninnie—how many times must I tell you they can do anything they want … anything! There is no one who dares to question Mussolini’s actions.”
“But …” Now she was frightened. “… why? You work for Henry Ford, everybody—”
“No—I don’t, not anymore.” Jane just stood there and stared. “I have been relieved of my position—no pay and there’s no guarantee that my back salary—which has been frozen—will be released, unless …” Not wanting to worry her further John stopped himself from voicing what he suspected—that once he agreed to Fascist demands—only then would his bank account once more be made available to him. �
��Ninnie, please do what I say.” He held her against him wishing he could spare her.
“Will you follow? Will they let you?” For just a second he hesitated then assured her of course—after all he was an American citizen—if Ford no longer protected him the American embassy certainly would. His main worry now was getting her and Billy out of Italy and as quickly as possible.
“Ninnie, please listen—if you stay they might try to force me, use my family and then I would be helpless. Please understand!”
That note of pleading disturbed Jane more than the words.
“Where will we live? Our house is …”
“All is arranged … I …”
“It is?”
“Yes, when Mr. Cooper warned me …”
“He did?”
“Yes, before we left Constantinople, he found out that the Boss might be letting me go. So when it happened I immediately wrote Zoltan that we would be coming home and to find us a house … he immediately wrote back, said because of the hard times there were a lot for sale and Agnes had seen one over on Pilgrim that she said was exactly like our old one so I told him—buy it.”
“That’s crazy! You just can’t buy a house like … like buying a new hat! Why?”
“I HAD TO! Hannah wouldn’t be there, Fritz wouldn’t—I didn’t want you to have to live with strangers. I want you to have a home of your own to come back home to.”
Never having seen her husband’s pride laid bare, this silenced Jane into acceptance.
“It’s on Pilgrim?” Her voice reed thin held a hint of tears.
“Yes. Zoltan and Agnes are ready to help all they can. They say the house will need a little fixing but Rudy says …”
“You even contacted Rudy?!”
“No, Zoltan did. The moment he got my letter he telephoned everybody. Rudy said that Sundays he and the others can give the house a fresh coat of paint inside and out and it will look like new. When Ebbely heard he deposited a sum of money to see us through the first few months until …”
“Ebbely lent us money?”
“He insisted. And I have to accept. I have no choice—of course I will pay him back the moment I find employment.” Ashamed, John sounded like an earnest boy explaining his intention to be good.