Already dressed for school, John, now a self-assured eleven-year-old, entered the room.
“Because, stupid! The leader of the ruling Fascist Party has ordered it.”
“Okay if you’re so smart—what’s a Fascist?” Billy challenged.
Eager, John rose to the test. “A Fascist is the best, the strongest, the bravest soldier ‘for our glorious cause.’”
Adjusting Billy’s schoolbag on his back, Jane remained noncommittal.
“I’m not a soldier! Mama said so!” retorted Billy.
“Yes you are—every boy is—Il Duce says so …”
“John—you know what?”
“What?”
“You’re stupid!” And knowing his brother would hit him, Billy ran out of the room.
The very next day Billy had another problem.
“Mama?”
“Yes?” In a mood of frustration against the coastal winds, Jane was tying up the rampant roses for what seemed to be the hundredth time.
“Mama, is John going to feed me castor oil if I don’t do what he says?”
“Feed you? What are you talking about?”
“Put a big hose into my mouth so he can pour castor oil down my throat!” Billy sounded exasperated with his mother’s innocence.
“I have never heard of such nonsense! Of course he isn’t! I know your brother often teases you—but he is not cruel.”
“Well, he says that’s how they do it to everybody. If you don’t do what the Fascists say, then you get a liter of castor oil pumped into you. So? If I don’t do what he says will he do it to me?”
“He better not try! He won’t be able to sit for a week! No—a month!”
Satisfied he had gained protection—Billy left for school.
Overseeing the construction of Ford’s Trieste plant, John was seldom home to aid Jane in regulating these disputes between his sons, defuse the rising animosity developing between them. Not a weak mother or an ineffectual one, though Jane was strict—she lacked the intuitiveness necessary to understand what lay beneath a child’s exterior behavior and so she punished what she perceived as punishable without involving her intellect for understanding its deeper cause.
While Billy continually challenged and John resented and smoldered, the brothers’ lifelong misunderstanding of each other took root and grew—later, when matured, it would separate them.
Her allowance more than ample, the boys now relegated to a strict uniform, her personal wardrobe replete, no ready clientele requiring her seamstress skills, Jane sat in her little garden at a loss for what to do. Of course there was housework, the children’s homework, marketing, cooking and other such necessary tasks required and expected of a wife and mother—but these being rote had never been enough to exhaust a woman like Jane. As much as John craved challenge she needed reasons to justify indulging her creativity.
Hannah’s letters always in German that she maintained was done on purpose so that Jane wouldn’t forget, were always full of news. When in 1928 Herbert Hoover was elected president, she lamented that her first-time vote had done little to save America from a Republican who maybe could make up nice sayings like those he did in wartime about carp and eating apples down to the core—but such a talent was that enough to run a country? They should have made that nice-looking young man who flew that aeroplane all alone across the ocean—him they should have elected. But then with a name like Lindbergh maybe they thought he was Jewish? She wished Jane could hear her favorite new song. Everybody was singing it—even Ebbely when he ring-a-linged had said he was learning to play “I Found A Million Dollar Baby in a Five-and-TenCent Store” on the piano and did Ninnie remember the first time they had traveled into the big city and she, Hannah, had pointed out a five-and-tencent store? Did she remember that day? There were always sections of Hannah’s letters that made Jane stop reading to blow her nose.
She was so lonely for Hannah that sometimes the days seemed endless—filled with nothing but memories best left alone, avoided before they could cause further harm. After a while even the writing of letters back became inhibiting—for her news was repetitive, her longings already too well known.
It was a sad day when the news arrived that the great assembly lines were stopped—Highland Park shut down for retooling for the future production of a new king of the road—the Ford Model A. Oh, they had known the day would have to come, that this would become necessary. Their Tin Lizzie had reigned so long—she could no longer compete in the mighty automotive market that she had spawned, that had developed because of her unique excellence, her loyalty, her indomitable courage, the enduring symbol of a nation of common men forging their dream of personal freedom.
Fritz wrote of a lady in New Jersey who was so upset at the Model T’s demise that she had bought seven new Lizzies as reserve for her future existence. Although Ford of England would be producing the T for a little while longer, still John felt his youth so entwined with the T’s fate and mourned a little for the both of them.
In her pretty garden—writing endless letters to Teresa that were never answered or returned, Jane floundering, began to feel sorry for herself when in the spring of 1929 John came home and announced that as his work was done, they would be moving to Turkey.
“We are getting the hell out of Italy! Thank God for the British—they know what’s coming …”
Having recovered sufficiently to speak, Jane asked, “What? What is coming?”
“Another war Goddamnit! Or another revolution—whichever comes first.”
“John—you can’t be serious.”
“Oh, it will come—it may take a few years, but it will come—another bloodbath and for what? Look what’s happening here—I told them as soon as I’m done I want my family out of Italy! Even Turks are better than strutting Fascists!”
“The boys—their school …”
“That’s the best part—now they will be able to go to an English school—get a real British education—the best in the world!”
“But I’m not so sure of John—he sort of hero worships his Il Duce.”
“So I’ve noticed and that’s one of the reasons …” John let the rest of that thought evaporate. “No more black shirts. From now on my sons wear blazers.”
Jane laughed.
“Oh—if for no other reason Billy will love Turkey! Where are we going to live?”
“Constantinople.”
Jane nodded and started for the kitchen.
“Ninnie …”
“Yes?”
He came up to her, holding her shoulders turned her towards him. “You are one in a million.”
“I am?”
“Any other woman would have thrown a fit.”
“Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“Another house, another move, another country, another language, another life. But you—you take it all in your stride, without a single complaint.”
“Oh, that.” The warmth of his touch through her summer blouse made her breathless. “Where you go—I go. That was our bargain.”
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