One morning, its chill unhampered by sunshine still too weak, Jane found an errant crocus hiding by the backyard fence. Soon it would be her time. She wondered if it would be a boy. Begetting sons was so important to men, whereas daughters were relegated to being a comfort to their mothers. Jane, not quite certain how she could handle that, hoped she was carrying a boy. Finally as Hannah had promised, Spring appeared, with it, Passover, and Jane’s introduction to the solemn beauty of its ritual, its spiritual meaning—then Easter, its celebration so familiar, her nonacceptance of it hidden beneath the mood of celebration that Hannah infused into everything.
The Ford Motor Company, having become the pot of gold at the end of an immigrant’s rainbow, and Highland Park, once a country village far outside Detroit, was now a teeming suburb of more than ten thousand new inhabitants. To accommodate the flood of new workers and their dependents pouring into the area, single-family houses were going up like weeds, existing ones were being split down the middle, making them into two-family homes that shared the roof and porch but had their own front door. Johann, having found one that suited him whose adjacent side was also for sale, persuaded Rudy to join him and together they bought the house, financing their purchase through the newly established Ford Company Housing plan.
By the beginning of May, still experimenting, installing ever new revolutionary concepts that would, one day, carry the term mass production, Ford’s Highland Park plant was turning out twelve hundred automobiles a day—an unheard-of volume in 1914. All Model Ts, the Runabout, the Touring and the Town, all black, their parts interchangeable. The motor assembly had been broken down into eighty-four different operations for five hundred men stationed at several continuously moving lines. Chassis assembly now consisted of forty-five different operations, chain drives wove their endless way overhead like metered roller coasters, the designing and redesigning of innovative machinery and tools was constant. Construction of new buildings and annexes had begun to acquire ever more floor space to augment production. Henry Ford was considering establishing a comprehensive hospital for his workers as his English school program got underway. Some grumbled, some resented the loss of their free time but, in the end, everyone who had volunteered reported to their assigned groups of yelling parrots.
When everything was ready, their new homes awaiting only the imminent arrival of their ladies, Johann and Rudy decided it was time to move. They left one evening when everyone was there to say good-bye, wish them well. Hannah handed each a small packet. “Here, dis is for de new home. A little salt, a piece of bread—means ‘good luck so never hunger can come your house ever.’”
Johann kissed her cheek.
“I won’t be far away. It’s just four houses down from Missus Schneider …”
“Ja, eight blocks away.”
“We’ll visit. Wait till you meet the children and you’ll like Henrietta. You can take her under your wing, just like you did John’s Jane.” Giving her a hug, he whispered, “Thank you, Hannah,” and was gone.
Rudy doffed his cap, kissed Hannah’s hand as though she were a queen. “We’ll be back, I won’t say good-bye,” and followed Johann.
Fritz closed and locked the front door. The boarders murmured good night, and went upstairs to their rooms. Taking a handkerchief out of her apron pocket, Hannah blew her nose, then marched into the sanctuary of her kitchen to set out breakfast for the next day. Jane, following, saw her reach for the usual count of coffee cups, hesitate for a moment, then return two back inside the china cupboard.
With her flaxen hair and china blue eyes, Johann’s Henrietta deserved Hannah’s enthusiastic description when she first saw her. “A porcelain doll! Johann, you lucky fella! A doll you marry and wit two baby dolls exactly like! Why you never tell us all so pretty!”
Two wide-eyed little girls, one five, the other six, clung to their mother’s skirts. Their father had become a distant stranger and this lady beaming down at them was so huge! Whipped cream floating on hot cocoa, bread and jam, apple pie and currant cakes, soon they were munching, their fears forgotten while their mother was being introduced to her husband’s friends, finally putting faces to the names Henrietta knew so well, had read of so often in Johann’s letters.
“Hi, everybody! And here is mine!” Rudy stood in the doorway of the dining room, proudly holding the slender, gloved hand of his Frederika. Skin of pearl, hair black as a raven’s wing, agate eyes fringed by midnight, their gaze fixed like that of a fishing heron, poised enchantment.
“Anudder beauty! Rudy, come. Come, child, sit, eat, have a little something. You so tiny, all bones!” Hannah couldn’t get over that such a bird of a girl had braved the arduous sea journey all by herself and survived. She clucked and fussed over her as though Frederika were indeed a fledgling fallen from its nest before its time. Removing her kid gloves, the delicate creature smiled and, in a voice both musical and cool, instructed Rudy to present those present to her.
When the children’s eyes began to close and the youngest wanted to crawl onto her mother’s lap to sleep, Johann took Henrietta and his family home.
Excusing herself, Frederika accompanied Rudy into the hall, permitted him a chaste kiss on one cheek, then pushed him out the door. Retracing her steps, she stopped in the entrance of the dining room, interrupted the lively conversation with an imperious “Frau Geiger, as I am to remain here until such time as I am properly wed, please be so good as to show me to my room,” said in such perfect convent-bred German that Hannah jumped as though a servent’s bell had rung, then caught herself, recapturing her self-assurance, ushered the young Austrian upstairs.
The tea things had been cleared, the table re-laid for Sunday supper. Jane peeled potatoes, while Hannah chopped onions with her favorite knife, a cleaver the size of an executioner’s axe. Eyes streaming, intermittently wiping her nose, Hannah took stock.
“Johann and Rudy, my two happy-go-lucky boys. Now dey have to be good behaved husbands. Okay mit Johann, he already a papa and knows. But Rudy? Once de sugar is off de gingerbread? Tink maybe, trouble. What you tink?”
“Why would Rudy want such a wife?”
“Oh, dat is easy. He likes de wildness dat’s dere.”
“Wildness?” Startled, Jane almost cut her finger.
Hannah carried the chopping board over to the stove, scraped the mound of onions into her big iron pot.
“Inside, my Ninnie—inside dat dark beauty, dere is someting. Someting like waiting to pounce.” She looked over her shoulder. “Next, I chop de cabbages for de coleslaw—you got dem dere?” Jane nodded. “Johann’s Henrietta, she’s nice and, right avay you can see, a good mama.” Hannah attacked the cabbage. “A turtle dove on one side and a fox in de udder. Dat will be a house to watch!”
“A ‘fox’? Why, Hannah? My first impression of Frederika was birdlike.”
“Me too—but dat was first moment. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s a feeling … someting dere for certain is not Kosher!”
“What’s Kosher?”