Eager to fight for his kaiser, Heinz-Hermann left Chicago, secretly crossed the border into Canada, bribed his way aboard a Norwegian merchant ship, eventually made his way back to Prussia, to take up arms for the glory of the Fatherland.
September winds stripped the trees, early frost was in the morning air, the time had come for Hannah and Jane to get out the snakes, see who needed mending. Hercules had lost one of his button eyes, Goliath, who stopped the draft coming up from beneath the cellar door, needed his belly resewn, others, having given dedicated service the winter before, were leaking their stuffing. In the cozy kitchen, John sleeping in his basket under the table, Michael busy on the floor drawing serious squiggles on leftover paper his father had brought him from work, the two women sewed. The baby woke, began to fuss, Jane spiraled her mended snake into their basket, bent, picked up her son, put him to her breast. An automatic action of accepted duty without a trace of tenderness, that struck Hannah to the heart. An act so breathtakingly beautiful in its human simplicity had become mundane, even bovine. What demons did she hold so dear, that kept this young mother from being one? For Hannah, who either loved or hated, knew no middle-road emotion, the so hidden core of Jane eluded her; at times it felt as if she had bestowed her love on one who, though she needed it, accepted it, used it well, did not, in fact, exist. Like the fairy tales of her German childhood that doted on little children wandering lost, abandoned in dark forests, Hannah sensed Jane was too, wished she could find her, lead her home. Teresa had believed Jane’s emptiness could be filled by recognizing God, Hannah by recognizing love—perhaps both were right—it was the same thing.
The morning Hannah’s talking telephone actually rang, it startled her so, she dropped a big pot of boiling water, flooding the kitchen floor, screamed, “Gott im Himmel!” Not meaning the water—and ran! Out of breath, hand shaking clutching the earpiece, she yelled, “Hello? Hello? Somebody dere? I’m here!”
Through the crackle, she heard a faint giggle, followed by her Ebbely’s voice, shouting, “Dear Lady—am I the first?”
“What?” she yelled back.
“The first! The first one to communicate through to your marvelous Christmas present?”
“Yes! I got such a scare, I dropped de pot mit boiling water!”
“Oh, dear! Hurt yourself?”
“No, just de kitchen has a hot flood!”
“I am relieved!”
“What?”
“Never mind. The reason I am telephoning …”
“Yes?”
“The reason I am telephoning …”
“You say dat already, dis costs money!”
“Precisely! I wanted to tell you that I shall not be coming back as promised.”
“Oh, Ebbely—why?”
“Because, I am in love!”
“Where! Where you in love?”
“In New Orleans.”
“You go crazy dere wit one of dose Frenchie floosies?”
“No, no, my dear. Nothing like that!”
“Den what? Who is she?”
“She’s not a she—she’s an IT.”
“WHAT?”
“MY EARDRUM, Hannah—PLEASE! I’m trying to tell you …”
“So tell, already!”
“I have fallen head over little heels in love with a new thing that here they call Jazz. Utterly sublime! Gets into your blood, makes you tingle all over!”
“You in love with a girlie called Jazz who tingles you?”
“I should be home by Thanksgiving, I’ll explain it all to you then. I’m taking lessons! …”
“You’re taking lessons? For WHAT?”
“Tell Fritz and the others hello. Good-bye!” and the line went dead. Stunned, Hannah stood holding the silent earpiece, staring at it as though expecting it to come back to life, when it didn’t, shaking her head, hung it back on its hook and, mumbling something about men and their consistent lunacy where no-good-Hootchie-Kootchie-harlot-hussy floozies were concerned, went to mop her kitchen floor.
This year, Michael wanted to go trick-or-treating dressed as a Ford but, after his mother convinced him even her skill with the needle didn’t extend to fashioning motorcars, he consented and allowed himself, once again, to be draped beneath his ghostly sheet.
On the first of November, All Saints’ Day, a strange choice for a wedding, in the splendid mansion of J. L. Hudson young Mr. Edsel married his love, disappointing the Ford wives who had looked forward to a big church ceremony that would have at least afforded them a peek, standing outside on the sidewalk.
Fritz, uncorking the Schnapps to toast the happy couple, couldn’t get over that the Boss’s boy was suddenly old enough to marry, have sons of his own.
“How time flies … seems only yesterday he was just a schoolboy, labeling his Papa’s machines. Every summer he worked hard, always had a cheery ‘Hello,’ never was a snooty Boss’s son. Now he will have a fine son of his own to carry on the business—make Mr. Ford a proud grandpapa. Here!” Fritz handed Hannah her glass. “To Mr. Edsel and his new Missus—the Good Lord give them joy!”
Everyone now talked of the frantic construction going on to enlarge the already giant Highland Park plant to enable the production of the next season’s estimate for the manufacture of 540,000 Model Ts. Fritz kept shaking his head, remembering when they had made all of six in just one day and how proud they had all been to achieve such rapidity. One of Henry Ford’s pet projects—a Model T as a one-ton truck—was about to roll off its own assembly line and his latest passion, the transformation of his endless marshland holdings along the Rouge River into the greatest industrial empire yet envisioned where (as he had with the common man) Ford intended to free the small farmer from the backbreaking drudgery of tilling his land by manufacturing an affordable machine that would do the work for him—the Fordson Tractor. John, who had been so enthusiastic when first discussing the advantages of such a manufacturing complex along the river near Dearborn, now when congratulated on his clairvoyance—smiled, accepted his friends’ accolades, yet told no one that he was now involved in its conceptual design.
Woodrow Wilson was reelected by such a small margin, it seemed that the country might be growing tired of its isolationism and, to avoid a verbal confrontation, Rumpelstiltskin sent Hannah an especially pretty picture postcard depicting bluebirds weaving a garland of forget-me-nots above a dainty damsel being gallantly kissed in a gazebo, telling her in writing that alas he would not be able to return by Thanksgiving after all, promising on his most sacred honor she could definitely count on him to be back in time to waltz her on the pond on New Year’s Day. Putting an arm around his wife’s sagging shoulders, Fritz tried to comfort her.
“Ach, Fritzchen, I’m not so sad because I’m missing our Ebbely,” she reassured him. “Only I am so vorried—vhy is he staying dere in dat naughty place so long? Maybe one of dose Juicy-Lucies has him all crazy mit all dat lounging and reclining dat he likes so much—and what den?”