Poor sacrifices of our enmity
—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
In threes and fours, the required number of children’s caskets are delivered by train from Chicago and Milwaukee, or by hearse from Houghton and Marquette. In Lake View Cemetery, steam shovels have dug six long trenches for the caskets to lie in, side by side. When at last the earth is ready to receive them, the adult coffins and those of larger children are loaded into the hearses. The smallest caskets, those of the littlest children, are carried in the arms of fathers, uncles, brothers. Members of the union and of the Women’s Auxiliary line the streets. When the cortège has passed, they fall in behind the bereaved. No union songs echo in the streets today. The only sound is the steady beat of drums and the muffled tramp of winter boots as thousands march toward Lake View.
They are led by Frank Aaltonen, who has lost his wife, Sanna, and their two daughters, Silvia and Wilma. Behind Frank are the parents of the three little Heikkinen boys: Eino, who was ten; Elis, who was nine; and Edwin, just seven. Maria Lanto’s husband walks behind her coffin, carrying the box with their five-year-old daughter, Hilja, inside.
Rank upon rank of mourners follow. Most are Finns; sisu rules the day. There is silence even as they pass MacNaughton’s mansion, where the curtains are drawn against the sight of those hard-faced, silent mourners.
Aware of the irony, Michael Sweeney climbs a fire escape staircase onto a rooftop with a good view of the funeral route. Below him is a river of dark woolen coats and hats that will be dramatically grim against the white of fresh snow. He knows that letters to the editors of many newspapers have protested the printing of his picture of the dead girls—at Christmastime, no less. He doesn’t care. That photograph did exactly what he meant it to do: it shoved the nation’s face into this tragedy. It made comfortable people uncomfortable. It provoked pity, but also shame and guilt.
The response, however temporary, has been well meant. Donations have poured into Calumet. Cash from the adults. Rewrapped Christmas toys sent by children. Candy and coins. Little notes in labored handwriting.
This is my second favrite doll.
Please dont be sad.
I’m sorry for you.
I hope you feel better.
So he does his job. He changes vantage points, and focus, and framing. He seeks out the most informative and memorable image of the funeral march. And when the end of the procession is visible in the distance, the photographer packs up the camera and climbs down from his rooftop vantage. He has to get to the cemetery. He has to show the world those long rows of coffins in the trenches.
It’s only then that he realizes that he has not seen Annie Clements.
* * *
“It’s not your fault,” Eva has told her. “It’s not our fault. We gave a party. It’s MacNaughton’s fault, or the Citizens’ Alliance. Not ours! Not yours!”
“You don’t gotta do this,” Carla said, and her sister Lucia added, “It’s too far. You don’t wanna take a chance so early—unless . . . that’s what you want?”
Eva noticed that, but it was so unthinkable, she didn’t realize until later what the midwife was talking about. And anyway, Annie insisted that she had to be there with the mourners. Marching at the very end of the mile-long procession, carrying no flag, wanting no attention. Just . . . walking, head down, with Eva and Carla and Lucia and all the Caretto cousins around her.
We got out alive. That’s what Eva has reminded herself over and over: We got out alive.
Carla has been quiet all week, hating to leave the house, at a loss for what to say when she meets those who’ve lost children in the disaster. She’s been having nightmares so bad, she dreads sleep. Eva hears her at night, pacing, pacing, pacing. Carla won’t admit how upset she is. With so much raw grief around her, how can she speak of simple nightmares?
Gracie is almost mute and Rosie wakes up screaming—still, at least Carla’s children are alive. What must it be like for the families . . . ? Worse. So much worse.
Eva herself has hardly spoken. In the bed with Rosie and Grace, she pretends to be asleep as she listens to Carla’s footsteps. Trying not to wake the girls, she concentrates on her own body, struggling to calm the great storms of wordless emotion that shake her for five minutes at a time and then mysteriously drain away.
Even in daylight, she has had waking visions of her own few moments of horror. She hears Carla, clutching Gracie, screaming, “Eva! Stop her! Get Rosie!” She feels her own heart go off like a dynamite charge in her chest. Feels herself chase after the little girl. Feels herself reaching out, gripping the child’s collar, leaning away from the momentum of Rosie’s terrified flight from the hall. A week has passed, and even now there are moments when she reels, feeling herself teetering at the top of the staircase . . .
She has not forgotten what Jack told her just before the party began, but she has kept that secret. There’s been a lot of bitter, angry talk since Christmas Eve. She fears that someone will take Jack’s treachery out on Mrs. Kivisto and the kids. She doesn’t want any more children to suffer. Anyway, Jack’s leaving town soon, and good riddance to him. So she holds her tongue.
Sisu, sisu, sisu, she tells herself over and over, until the word loses all meaning and simply takes on the cadence of the funeral drums.
* * *
The cemetery is two miles from the center of town. In numbing cold, mourners listen to prayers in several languages. There are no hymns. No one can sing. Only when the caskets are being lowered into the ground, one by one, does all that silent suffering become wailing heartbreak, shouted pain, and the low, growling moan of despair.
Afterward, the crowd disperses to homes and taverns. There will be no funeral dinner.
That night, in bed, there are quiet questions, some whispered, some only thought. How can we go on living here? Where else can we go? The copper mines in Arizona? The automobile factories in Detroit? What next? What next? What next? Let’s just go. MacNaughton is giving train fare to anyone who wants to go. Let’s just get out of here.
And so, families pack up. They leave town with no good-byes, for how can survivors face the bereaved? How can the bereaved face the sadness of farewells? They just go. They just get out of Calumet.
They are determined to put it all behind them.
* * *
Years will pass, but they will never escape the Italian Hall. No matter how far they travel. No matter how often they hide themselves and weep alone. No matter how much they drink. No matter how hard they beat the children who did not die on Christmas Eve. No matter how many times they ask themselves, Why didn’t I catch him? How could I let her hand go? No matter how often they curse God and ask, Why her? Why not me?
They will never be able to explain their dark moods and sudden furies as each Christmas approaches. Decades will pass, and yet every holiday, every wedding, every baby born, every milestone will stand in a shadow. When a daughter walks down the aisle of a church, they will see her brother, who did not live to carry on the family name. When they see a grandchild’s face, sweet in sleep, they will remember the still and perfect face of a sister who never grew up, never married, never had babies like this one. Each joy will be a reminder of someone who is not there to share it.
Someday, when they are very old, someone in the family—a daughter, a grandson—might put it all together and ask, “Were you there that day? At the Italian Hall? Did you see what happened?”
“It was a long time ago,” they’ll answer. “Let’s talk about something else.”