by Maria Riva
“John …”
“Yes, Ninnie?”
“You will follow?” Her eyes searched his face.
“Of course.”
“When?”
“Carissima, I don’t know! I don’t know.” It was such a cry from the heart that Jane reached out, took her husband’s hand to comfort him. “Agnes says she has extra furniture, not to worry and you are so wonderfully frugal I know you will manage.”
“Just come home.”
“The house, Ninnie—I used all my savings—it’s all we have left—try to keep the house. I know it will be hard—but try.”
“I will, John—I promise.”
24
Milling crowds, the chaos of an imminent sailing, worried someone might jostle it, Jane adjusted her grip on the travel bag that held Michael’s ashes. The noise all around them was so deafening they had to shout.
“Billy …” His father sounded so strange. “… remember, take care of your mother. Promise me you will always take care of Mama.”
“I will, Papa. I promise.”
“Ninnie—I am sorry—about the cabin. I promised you a good life and now I can only afford to give you a third-class passage to go home. Forgive me.”
“Oh, John—” She flung herself into his arms. “I don’t care, it’s been a wonderful life—it has—really it has.”
“Here Ninnie, I bought this for you long ago. I wanted to give it to you when we returned home—as a reminder of our years away—but now … take it, Ninnie—they say amber brings luck.” He placed the necklace of purest living beauty around her neck. “I love you,” he said and for the very first time of their many years of marriage—she believed him completely, without question or hesitation. “Good-bye, boy, take care of your mother. You’re the man now, Billy—I’m counting on you.” Sensing his father’s despair, Billy moved towards him. “No, Billy—time to go—be a good boy, work hard at school—you’ll love America—you hardly know it, but you’ll love it. It’s the best country in the whole wide world. There is none better. It’s your country—remember that. It belongs to you and you to it.” A last kiss, a whispered “Carissima … ciao.” Then he pulled away allowed himself to get lost in the crowd.
Knowing for his sake she mustn’t run—call his name, she stood where he had left her and cried.
“Come, Mama—” Billy led his mother up the gangplank and onto the big ship that was to carry them home.
For the first time feeling like a true immigrant, she watched Italy become a leave-taking memory. Was John still there on the quay or had he refused the memory? She knew so well his need to negate all that might have the power to weaken him—drain off what he believed he had to be—he had to retain to survive—be the man he thought he was. He who had taken her with such assurance from Italy, now was forced to remain behind—and as the land of her birth receded in the morning fog she had the strangest sensation of loss quite unrelated to homeland or memories of it. Feeling strangely bereft as though deserted by what she couldn’t identify, she turned her back, walked along the overcrowded third-class deck in search of her son.
This journey to America was uneventful except for the reawakened memories. Bela guarding her precious salami for her Lotar, Megan, in her servant’s cap dreaming impossible dreams, Eugenie, her fantasy world adorned by paper roses—where were they now? What had become of these fellow immigrants to the promised land, its wonders when still unreached yet believed, depended upon? The remembrance of John teaching her to speak American, Jane did not dwell on—it increased her longing, weakened her determination to be what he expected of her.
On a stormy autumn evening Jane and Billy arrived in Highland Park to find it had acquired a forlorn look. Without the welcoming lights from the Geiger house and Hannah’s embrace everything seemed barren as though a new poverty of spirit had settled in. Soon good friends, forever kind, rallied, made every day at least bearable. A fresh coat of paint, some floorboards nailed down, a door or two rehung, everything scrubbed, polished and repaired, and daily life in the little house took on an optimistic shine of its own. Billy entered Wayne University on a scholarship—to help out, did odd jobs, shoveled snow, delivered papers, after school worked the soda fountain in Mr. Kline’s drugstore. Advertising her dressmaking skills Jane convinced the alterations department of Detroit’s most elegant department store to hire her. On her days off and for most special holidays remembering all that Hannah had taught her, Jane became a hired cook for a well-to-do family in Dearborn. Within structured discipline, life took on expediency; emotionally every day was a waiting for John, every extra dollar earned was for the house she had promised him to keep.
Not being able to afford the luxury of a telephone, a weekly ring-a-ling to Ebbely became an anticipated evening walk down to the corner drugstore.
Necessary nickels carefully counted—laid out before her, as always slightly nervous going through the required procedure of placing a long-distance call, Jane waited for that savored moment when he accepted her call with his usual assured “Yes? Yes, this is Mr. Fish …” and the subsequent joy of Ebbely’s “Hello? Is that you, dear child? Well, and how is life treating you today?” When she was sad, he refused to allow her the luxury of complaining, usually stating that sadness being the robber of one’s resilience which was bad enough, paying five cents for discussing its presence was just money thrown to the winds. When she told him of becoming a cook, Ebbely’s shock radiated all the way up north from Louisiana.
“A cook? You? Amazing!”
“Yes—and they pay me for it!”
“But … but, dear Lady, you hate—no, if I remember correctly, you abhor cooking!”
“Oh, I do! But it’s the only extra work I could find—and I have the copybook Hannah wrote out for me with her …”
“Jane—we will not speak of Hannah.”
“But, Ebbely, I was only going to …”
“Did you hear me, Jane?” Ebbely’s voice had lost its gentleness.
“I’m sorry—I know we agreed …”
“We did, didn’t we.”
Her nickels running low, Jane hurried to another subject.
“Eugenie wrote me. She sounds so happy—now that she is working for you.”
“She runs my humble establishment with a devotion at times bordering on embellished adulation.”
“I am so glad you found her.”
“Thanks to you, dear child, thanks to you … now … this telephone communication—is it for a constructive purpose or simple need?”
“Need.”
“Which is?”
“If I could answer that …”
“You wouldn’t have to telephone me in the first place!” Ebbely finished for her, laughing. “Repartee! Delicious! You are growing up, Vifey … you are growing up.” Catching his use of Hannah’s name for her, Ebbely bid Jane a hasty good-bye and hung up.
Most nights when the day was done and she was tired, then longings intruded that she could not allow during work. Where was Hannah? Where was John? When?
John waited for a sunny autumn morning when everyone would leave the villa to enjoy its unexpected warmth, then alone and undisturbed, cocked the pistol, and blew his brains against the bathroom wall.
By its very arrival the cablegram caused anticipatory anxiety even before being opened. Hands shaking, Jane unfolded it and learned she was a widow.
Profiting by financial inability as well as the length of time it would take a ship to reach Italy to bring his widow to attend—John was buried quickly. They could have waited, sent the necessary funds, but these were not forthcoming—neither was compassion. Jane had been deserted before—known its demand for an acquired emptiness of both spirit and feeling—she was well versed in helplessness. Having been a participant of life, not an instigator of it, Jane now found herself alone once more as spectator to her own void. Her life th
at lay behind her seemed fallow by things neglected—emotions perhaps disregarded, so undervalued that their extinction seemed guaranteed. What had she done to lose so much? As her grief increased so did her guilt that such intense grieving deserved a greater love as catalyst than what had been shown the living.
Had she loved him enough to bring him joy? Was she even capable of a loving that could enrich another’s very existence? Somehow she doubted it—the guilt, though unacceptable, was self-erasure. She felt she had deserted him by leaving—he had deserted her by dying. For John Jr. his father’s death seemed to hardly register. Billy confused by a sadness untried, thrust upon him by one he had believed loved him—still too young to know one could still love one who disappoints, felt anger mingled with his sorrow and resented his need to understand the why of another’s action.
Highland Park
December 4, 1938
Dearest Teresa,
I am a widow. On the seventeenth of October my husband took his own life—and I was notified of this by cablegram. For you this is a terrible sin—for him I believe it may have been a valiant act of freedom. For me a numbness that even after almost two months still envelops—sits in me like one of our thick mountain fogs. I should be weeping—but can’t. For the boys it must be the same—although I can’t be certain as John, the eldest rarely shows his feelings—lives in such a world of his own that sometimes I have the fear my mother sits in wait for him. Billy is brave, looks after me—cries when he thinks I do not see. Although I continue to write to my dear friend Hannah hoping that mail will be forwarded to wherever they may have moved to—I never get an answer so I worry every day a little more and now that I know John will never come home, I sometimes even worry about me …
By her selfishness not wanting to burden Teresa’s selflessness, Jane folded the unfinished letter, tucked it away in her precious shoebox that nestled against the urn where Michael slept.
It took Billy many months to earn enough to fulfill his need to see his father’s grave.
“Mama, I am going.” They spoke Italian when they were friends but this he said in English, for he expected his mother to disapprove. When she didn’t, they discussed his travel plans but in French because as Jane so rightly pointed out he might be in need of it and though he spoke it fluently, needed a little practice. German she never spoke—that language belonged to Hannah.
What Billy finally saw, what he thought, even what he might have discovered, learned from his sad pilgrimage was never voiced. Like those, years later, who knew Hell and could not speak of it, describe it to the uninitiated, could be a possible reason. In later life those who knew and loved him, needed to live with the terrible scars this journey left.
Still in Italy and out of money, when European war was declared in September, Billy sold his American shoes for train fare, escaped to Paris and barefoot sought sanctuary in the American embassy—and as a born citizen stranded in wartime Europe, was given passage home.
As war was once again dismembering the old world, the new hugged its treasured remoteness closer hoping it would not be called upon to again spill its blood for distant strangers. That this hope would be obliterated on a beautiful sunny morning just twenty-three months later—no one could know.
Escalating strikes and slowdowns, riots, and clandestine brutality began to turn Detroit into its own battleground. On the gates of the mighty Rouge, a giant swastika was erected, placards proclaimed unionism not fascism, fordism is fascism. The Ford Service Department comprised three thousand men, that the New York Times declared was the “largest privately run Secret Service force in the world.”
Billy continued his youth, John Jr. married and forsook his. Having lost their candy shop during the Depression, Celestina and her Josef now worked for the man who had bought it. Agnes presented Zoltan with a son they named Fritz. Rudy became a tester at Ford’s aircraft plant, remarried and closed his wounds. With his wife’s approval, Peter became a unionist, joined the UAW, Carl having found work with Chrysler moved his family back to Detroit. His generous loan repaid, in a moment of wild abandon Ebbely bought a small hotel off Bourbon Street where most evenings in its corner lounge he entertained his guests with such soulful renditions of the blues that soon all of New Orleans knew of him—some even going so far as to insist that if the great Mississippi bluesman, T-Model Ford, heard him—he too would agree that their Ebb Fish was grand. Before Holland was lost everyone received news from Johann and Henrietta telling them they had become joyous grandparents.
Early 1941 Billy volunteered for military service and by the spring of 1942 with America at war, was home on leave before being shipped overseas.
Jane, not knowing how to say good-bye, fussed.
“A disgrace to send fine American boys to win the war in such sloppy workmanship!” She settled the shoulders of his uniform, smoothed a buckling lapel, murmured, “I wish we had more time, I could take the whole thing apart and fix it right.”
“Yes, Mama, you and your magic needle that never rests.” Billy laughed.
“We kept this house like I promised Papa.”
“Yes, I know, Mama.” He had heard these exact words so often it had become a family saying.
“Billy …”
“Yes?”
“If they send you over to Europe …”
“Mama, you know I …”
“Oh, I know, but if—if—it’s that side will you try to look?”
“Mama, in the middle of a war?”
“I know—but … please, please try … Now, you have the sandwiches for the train? And the apple?”
“Yes, Mama—” Even in English, the way he gave it an Italian inflection always reminded her of John. He was so like him. Knowing she couldn’t keep him much longer, she rechecked the sergeant’s stripes she had sewn on his sleeve.
“You know how to put these on when you get promoted?”
“Mama, who taught me to sew?”
“Me!” Jane smiled, “I forgot. With all you know you will make a fine husband some …” Her voice caught at the possibility he might never be one. “Billy …”
“Yes?”
“You will be careful?”
“I promise.”
“No—don’t promise—I have a fear of promises—and no good-bye—I don’t like that either.”
“Well, will arrivederci do, or au revoir?”
“Yes—” Not knowing if he wanted to be kissed, she stood looking at him, uncertain. For a moment he held her—then walked out the door.
Most Dear Teresa,
Today my youngest left for war. Here—one hangs a red star in the front window to announce it to the neighbors. The color of the star changes to gold when they are killed.
I had a sudden urge to acquire a picture of St. Anthony, slip it into the pocket of his uniform, but then thought better of it. It seemed somehow blasphemous to ask protection out of sudden need when having shunned all forms of belief for so long.
I only tell you of this because I tell you everything—even those thoughts I am later ashamed of having thought you hear. If you were a priest—I think I might even be willing to go to Confession. How I ramble on—forgive me, I must be lonely—the house seems empty—so still—memories have room to invade. A lifetime of so much and yet so little to show that it was worth the living of it. Sometimes I see me—as I was in the shade of our tree—all youthful dissatisfaction, welcoming escape at any price and wonder was it worth it? And each time I am forced to admit even to myself—that yes—it really was after all, all of it. That lifts my spirits no matter how far they have fallen and allows me to start up my sewing machine with renewed determination.
It seems that all my life I have been searching for what exactly, I do not know … and so should it ever come my way how would I recognize it—not knowing. There is a persistent fear that it might actually have come, but then left because of m
y lack of trust in its existence. I who was so certain that freedom was one of place—now think that perhaps I have been wrong and it is simply one of self.
Even now I seek a comforting embrace in which to lose my reality. Perhaps someday if war does not destroy all future—I will bring Michael’s ashes to let them lie with John or perhaps someone else will mingle mine with his—leaving John his own peace. Still time has a way of nullifying energy—until even dreams can no longer survive.
Forgive me, I am tired and therefore foolish.
I wonder if this letter will ever reach your cloistered world—they may have moved you to a safer place. I wish I could be certain that you are safe and war will not touch—reach you—that is I mean only the physical part of you—your soul I know has always been in safe regard. Pray for Billy—you have the right that I forfeited.
Know that I love you and love does not become me as I wish it would. All you have taught me—I remember and I try. Will our chestnut tree survive this war as well? I wonder.
Jane put down the pen. The house so newly silent—beckoned rest. She sighed and smiled, caught herself slightly embarrassed. Billy has promised to return and for some inexplicable reason, she was now certain he would. Despite all odds he would survive—as she would, as she must—to welcome him home.
About the Author
Maria Riva was born in Berlin in 1924 and is the only child of Marlene Dietrich. Riva performed in Germany and Italy as part of a USO troupe during World War II and taught acting at Fordham University upon her return to the United States. She has performed on Broadway, radio, television, and film and has been nominated for an Emmy. Riva continues an active life in California and spends time visiting her sons and grandchildren.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.