Younger than she are happy mothers made.
—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Everyone knows what it means when the school principal gathers a family’s children. He always goes to the eldest first. He always says, “You must be strong. Set a good example for the little ones.”
There are large windows on the outside walls of the school building, and windows line the corridors as well. The building is designed to bring as much pale winter light as possible into the classrooms. Today the early summer sunshine is brilliant and the roof vents are open to let heat escape from the interior. Sitting at long tables in the sewing room, the older girls like Eva Savicki quit pedaling their Singers, the better to watch the drama. Their teacher slams a wooden ruler down on her desk and calls for attention, but it’s no use. When there’s an accident, everything stops.
In the machine shop across the hallway, separated from the girls by two panes of glass and twenty feet of corridor, the boys go motionless as well. They hardly breathe as the principal approaches, and slump a little when he passes.
When he arrives at Jack Kivisto’s lathe station, Eva’s fingers go to her mouth and she watches Jack bow his head. His hair swings forward, straight as straw, so blond it looks white in the sunlight. His face is hard. She knows he will not cry, but her heart breaks for him.
She has been in love before. First, it was Father Horvat. Then it was John Barrymore, who visited Calumet once. Eva only saw the actor walk from the hotel to the theater, but he was so handsome, she almost fainted.
Of course, those were just stupid crushes. This is the real thing.
Jack Kivisto is in her brother Kazimir’s class. Jack has never spoken to Eva, although once he punched another boy who was rude to Eva and her friends. Eva is a year younger than Kaz—still, she’ll turn fourteen in a week, and lots of Calumet girls get married at that age. Annie Clements’s sister was fourteen at her wedding. Maritza already has three children and her own household with dishes and chairs and curtains and everything!
The principal stops talking. Jack jerks his head high, flinging his beautiful hair out of his eyes. He looks at the boys in his class, glaring at those who stare. They turn away, ashamed to have shown pity.
Eva’s brother says something to Jack, and Jack lunges at him. The principal shouts and grabs both boys by their necks, shaking them. He speaks to Jack then, putting an arm over his shoulder. Jack shrugs it off and moves toward the classroom door. He has to collect the other Kivisto kids and go home.
As he leaves the classroom, he notices Eva across the corridor and meets her eyes for the first time ever. Her heart thumps, but he is still angry about whatever her stupid brother said, so she adjusts her face to match his own resolve, ready to endure tragedy with silence. We are both strong, she tells him in her thoughts. I will be a good wife for you.
At lunchtime, she finds her brother and socks Kaz in the arm as hard as she can, pushing one knuckle out so she’ll leave a mark.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“What did you say to Jack Kivisto?”
“Nothing!”
She stares.
Rubbing his arm, he says, “Just that he’ll be next down the hole.”
She waits, and Kazimir’s eyes go cold when he says, “Maybe now there’ll be a Kivisto in the union.”
* * *
While the principal is telling the children that their father has been hurt, women are watching a figure make his way along Third Street: the angel of death in a bowler hat and a nice brown suit. In window after window, hands hold curtains aside as he approaches. Faces pinched with fear peer at him from behind the glass. Eyes close in relief when he moves on. Irish girls cross themselves and shudder. Poles murmur an Ave Maria. Finns step out onto their stoops and look down the street to see who is getting the news. When the company man arrives at the Kivisto house and walks up to the front door, more than one union man’s wife gives a little snort.
“Serves you right,” they mutter, before going back to their housework.
Matilda Kivisto is not surprised by the knock on her door. Sol isn’t a drinker. He never goes out with the other men after work and comes straight home every morning. So she has known for almost two hours that a man in a suit would visit her. Oh, she let herself hope for a little while—accidents are not always fatal. Sometimes it’s a broken bone or a massive bruise that discolors half of a man’s back. That means lost salary or even the end of a job in the mine, but not a funeral.
When the clock chimed eight with no sign of her husband, she stirred the stew, put a lid on it, and moved it off the heat. Calm, silent, she set herself to the task of making her tidy house even cleaner than usual, for the company man will be the first of many visitors today. Her brother, Artur, will be next. His wife, their kids. People from church, too, though half of them will come out of austere Christian duty. The Kivistos have been all but shunned since Sol broke the boycott of the one-man drill. Sol got a little raise for the extra risk. His partner lost his job.
Sol didn’t care what most people thought; still, Artur Luoma was his wife’s brother, so Sol tried to reason with him. Copper was being produced by surface mines out west. C&H had to cut costs to stay competitive. Eliminate fifty percent of the workers or shut down the whole mine. That was the company’s choice. “What you expect, eh? Drill’s coming. Half us gonna lose jobs. I’m keeping mine. Gotta look after your own.”
Artur Luoma still didn’t like it, though it meant his sister and her kids were better off. Artur was a union man and the union said, “Don’t work a one-man drill. Stand by your brothers.” When Sol went his own way, Artur warned Matilda that there’d be a lot of bad feeling in town, and he wasn’t wrong. There were catcalls and ugly remarks in stores and on the street. More than once, Jaaki has come home from school bloody.
When Matilda opens the door to the company man, he takes off his hat and asks if she is Mrs. Solomon Kivisto. She nods, and he asks if he can come in. She steps aside and waits for him to enter.
“I am very sorry to bring you this news,” he says. “Your husband has been gravely injured. He is at the hospital now.”
She says nothing. Her face doesn’t change. Sisu, she is thinking.
“Mrs. Kivisto, do you speak English?” the company man asks.
She is looking down at her youngest. Pria is standing right behind her, fists gripping the fabric of her mother’s skirt, peeking at the stranger.
The company man tries again: “Mrs. Kivisto, did you understand . . . ?”
“Yeah. Sure. Thanks. My boys, they know?”
These Finns! Cold as ice, the man thinks, but he says, “The principal has been informed, and he will tell them. I expect they’ll be home from school soon.”
She nods. He waits to see if she has anything else to say. When she looks at the door, he murmurs something polite and leaves.
Pria asks, “Äiti? Who him wit’ a hat?”
“Company man,” Matilda tells her. “Boys be home soon. They gonna stay wit’ you while I go out.”
“Where you goin’, Äiti ? Can I come?”
Pria is almost three. The boys were hardly talking at that age, but Pria jabbers every waking minute. On good days, Matilda lets the endless chatter slide. Today she snaps, “Pria! Shut up!”
“Why, Äiti ?” Pria asks.
“Do what you’re told!” Matilda cries. “Why you always gotta argue?”
Tears well in the little girl’s eyes, but that’s just too bad. Matilda can’t stand the noise right now. She sits down to wait for the boys. Jaaki is old enough to work, she thinks. But Matti and Waino will just be open mouths for a long time. What I gonna do? she asks herself over and over. What I gonna do?
Pria tugs on her dress and almost gets a slap for it. Roused, Matilda hears the knocking, pulls the child into her arms, and goes to the door, muttering, “What now? He dead already?”
The last person she expects to see is Annie Clements.
Everyone in Calumet knows Big Annie by sight, but she and Matilda have never spoken. Annie is a Catholic, a Slovene, a socialist. She’s not just union, she’s the president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners, Local 15, and a wash of fury breaks over Matilda. Is this giant woman here to tell her that the Kivistos got what they deserved? That Sol has been punished for taking a job away from a union man?
“Mrs. Kivisto,” Annie says quietly, “may I come in?”
Wary, Matilda nods. Steps aside. Shuts the door.
Annie has a wicker basket over one arm and takes it to the kitchen, unpacking it quickly. Bread. Butter. Kolache for the children. Sausages and preserves that whisper, Something for the future. No pasties. Pasties are for the mines. When there’s an accident, widows don’t like to think about the mine. Matilda Kivisto isn’t a widow yet, but it won’t be long.
Matilda stares at the bounty on her kitchen table. Annie must have emptied her own larder to bring all this.
“Go to him,” Annie says, holding out her arms for little Pria. “I’ll look after the kids.”