Hannah having bundled her up as though she was embarking on a Polar expedition, Jane arrived, red of nose but warm inside, at the corner of Woodward Avenue and Manchester Street and time stopped! Her breath caught in her throat—for a suspended moment she had the feeling she might fall—then recovered sufficiently to realize what her eyes were seeing.
Oh, John had been right! Nothing, nothing could prepare one for a sight such as this! This was not a factory—this was a world of its own! Giant, endless, overpowering, magnificent! Buildings that seemed to have no end stretching towards their own horizon, walkways, chutes, inner streets, loading docks, railway yards, boxcars, trains, and locomotives, power house—its mighty funnels soaring towards the sky, water towers, each emblazoned with the distinctive emblem of one man’s signature! All this vast grandeur for just one chunky little motorcar named Lizzie!
John hadn’t taken his eyes off his wife since their arrival. Her enthralled amazement delighted him—women so often lacked the imagination necessary to appreciate wonders such as this. Grinning, he poked her shoulder to waken her. Incredulous eyes shifted to his face. “You? And Fritz? And Carl and Zoltan and the others? You come here?”
Laughing, John pointed to the mile-high letters on top of the mammoth main building.
“Ninnie, what does that say?
“THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY,” breathed Jane.
“So? Do I work here?”
“Oh, Giovanni! Now I understand why you can’t wait to get here. Why you rush so in the mornings! If I could build something marvelous here, I would rush too!”
And John took her in his arms and kissed her and when they walked back home, he held her hand tucked inside the pocket of his overcoat.
As she quickly changed in order to help Hannah with Sunday supper, John, sitting on the bed watching, promised that someday, after the baby, he would take her, show her the inside of the great assembly plant. When she ran down to the kitchen, it felt like she had wings on her feet.
Hannah, stirring a huge pot with an equally huge wooden spoon, looked at Jane’s shining face and with an underlying smugness utterly deserved, greeted her with “Wonderful walk, Vifey?” And when she got a lilting “Oh, yes! Just wonderful!” she was more than satisfied.
Was it that winter morning that her husband began to love her? Jane never knew, only that he was never as casual after that. From then on, his touch held a tenderness, quite new, that awakened feelings within her that confused, as much as they pleased. No longer did she turn from him, slept cradled in his embrace, as though this had been their habit from the start. Sex remained unto itself, separate from this affection. Still a duty to be received, though not as coolly accepted as before. As her pregnancy progressed, the nightly demands lessened, finally stopping altogether. Both changes needed adjusting to. Of the two, the swelling of her body was the one she least appreciated. So foreign to her was curvaceous femininity that seeing it take possession of her lanky frame seemed an intrusion of her inner privacy. To love the seed, she would have needed to love the giver of it. Having so little experience with this emotion, Jane lacked the aptitude for recognizing its existence.
Hannah, who would have gloried in the visible proof of carrying a child, if been permitted such joyous reality, watched and worried. Wondered what it would take to push this so self-sheltered girl across the emotional threshold into passionate womanhood. That this could mean Jane’s eventual salvation—she was certain. How to accomplish such a feat puzzled, if not stymied even Hannah’s formidable talent for becoming actively involved in people’s lives. She wished she could talk to Fritz but knew he would only resort to his usual escape route of telling her not to meddle in what was not, should not, be her concern. For one so given to generous impulse, to retreat, stand back, was a difficult decision—but Hannah, loving Jane, made it, convinced that if she but bided her time, divine inspiration was bound to strike—show her what she could do.
The added benefits of being a Ford Man began to show themselves in bursts of unrelated pleasures. When Stan, wearing his company badge traveled to the city to look, see if he could afford a new suit, he was treated with fawning respect given instant credit by a most delighted establishment, returned home triumphant, wearing a vested suit of best-quality serge. Tradesmen were so courteous and obliging when spotting a Ford Company badge that men began wearing theirs outside the workplace. Where once this identity had proclaimed a man’s skill, it now stood for his ability to pay. Banks, which had considered immigrant laborers within the automotive industry bad risks, now courted those employed by Ford—offering mortgages as though they were now all Vanderbilts.
Johann began looking for a house, wrote his wife to start packing, that as soon as he had found a home, he would send the passage money for her and their children to join him in America.
As his shift ended at four, Zoltan took to jumping on the railway trolley that whisked him to the city, where he roamed secondhand bookstores, often returning clutching a precious find, to have Hannah bawl him out for being late for supper.
Rudy purchased a few sheets of expensive letter paper and, after a serious consultation with Hannah as to what women liked to hear and how, proposed marriage to his Frederika left waiting amidst the pastures of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Carl bought himself a new overcoat but refused the credit offered him. Still owing money on something he was already wearing seemed to him like having stolen it.
Shaking his head over all the excitement, Fritz bought himself a better brand of tobacco that smelled so much nicer than his old one, Hannah approved.
One afternoon, returning from work, John brought his wife a rose, murmured, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” kissed her cheek before removing his coat. Jane stood in the dimly lit hallway, holding the gift as though fearful of damaging its beauty. A red rose! In the middle of winter! It must have cost a fortune! On the front porch, the boarders, having stomped ice off their boots, now crowded inside, shouting, “HANNAH!” Running, she appeared, sure something was wrong. They must have rehearsed it for, as one, the six men fell to one knee, extending their surprise, a scarlet heart filled with fancy chocolates.
“Sweets to the sweet! Hannah, be our Valentine!” they chorused, grinning from ear to ear, while the object of their affection curtsied, blushing the vivid color of Jane’s rose.
In the parlor that evening, Hannah handed around her heart—sharing its chocolate contents as she did. Knowing Zoltan was partial to soft centers, Jimmy to toffee, Peter and Carl to nougat, Rudy and Johann to nut clusters, she kept those safe to one side, until she reached their chairs. Returning to Fritz, she handed him his favorite, the chocolate-covered cherry. The men munched and talked.
“How many men were needed for a third shift?” Jimmy asked.
“Around five thousand—maybe more,” Carl answered.
“ALL unskilled?”