The Shoemaker's Wife(128)

The Serbian women wore full silk skirts in jewel tones and white blouses trimmed in lace, topped with fitted velvet vests secured with gold silk buttons. The men wore traditional high-waisted wool pants and hand-embroidered shirts with billowing sleeves. The clothing they wore served the same purpose as theatrical costumes: they served a theme, were colorful, and moved to accommodate the dance.

Long tables filled with Serbian delicacies were placed under the tent and inside the house, as a loyal band of women kept the platters filled to overflowing, while their daughters bused dishes and washed and dried them for the next shift of revelers.

The Serbian dishes were prepared with fragrant spices, including sage, cinnamon, and turmeric. The festival bread kolach was hearty and delicious, with its thick buttery crust and soft doughy center. They ate it with sarma, a fragrant meat mixture of bacon, onions, rice, and fresh eggs wrapped in kupus, tangy cabbage leaves that had been pickled in a crock. Burek, a meat strudel with a tender buttery crust, was cut into squares and served with roasted potatoes. The dessert table was a wonderland of pastries filled with fruit, dusted in sugar, and glazed with butter. Small ginger cookies and bar cookies made with candied dates were dipped in strong coffee and savored. Kronfe, round doughnuts dusted with cinnamon sugar, were passed in baskets piping hot from the fryer. Povitica, layers of thin pastry dough filled with walnuts, brown sugar, butter, and raisins, rolled carefully, layer over layer, baked, and sliced thin, was served on a platter in neat slices resembling pinwheels.

Emilio and Ida Uncini joined Ciro and Enza by the dessert table. Ida, a petite brunette in her forties, wore a full turquoise skirt and a gold velvet jacket. For an Italian, she was throwing herself into the Serbian festa like one of their own. In the short time Enza had been in Chisholm, Ida had been steadfast, showing up at the new building to help her wash floors, paint walls, and arrange the furniture. Ida had been through a big move herself years ago, so she understood how important it was to make a home comfortable as soon as possible.

“I’m going to ask Ana to teach Enza how to make povitica,” Ciro said, taking a bite.

“She has enough to do,” Ida chided him. “She has curtains to make, and a sewing machine to assemble. And I know, because I promised to help her.”

“And I need your help,” Enza said.

“This is some party,” Ciro said. “Is everyone in Chisholm here?”

“Just about. But let me warn you. This is nothing. Wait until you go to Serbian Days in July. Every Serb from here to Dbrovnik shows up to sing,” Emilio promised them.

“My husband loves that celebration the most because the girls have a dance competition. Baltic beauties, each more stunning than the one before, line up to tap, kick, and sashay,” Ida assured them.

“I like the dancing for the art of it, Ida.” Emilio winked.

“Now he’s a patron of the fine arts.” Ida shrugged.

“How long have you and Emilio been in Chisholm?” Enza asked.

“Since 1904,” said Ida.

“We were here for the Burt-Sellers mining disaster in Hibbing,” Emilio said. “It was quite a welcome to life on the Iron Range. Hundreds of men died underground. Such a tragedy.”

Enza looked at Ciro, who looked away. An expression of hollow grief crossed his face. He forced a smile. “Emilio, want to join me for a smoke?”

Emilio followed Ciro to the outside of the tent. “Did Emilio say something wrong?” Ida asked.

“Ciro’s father died in a mining accident in 1904 in Hibbing.”

“How awful. I’m sure Emilio didn’t know.”

“He wouldn’t. Ciro never talks about it. It’s such a terrible part of his past, and his mother, poor thing, didn’t handle it very well. She ran out of money, had no family to turn to, and finally had to put her sons in a convent.”

“Iron ore makes steel and widows,” Ida remarked.

Ida showed Enza the wine barrels, set up at the far side of the tent, with easy access from either side. Enza helped herself to a glass and sipped the sweet wine, feeling her mood plummet at the thought of Ciro’s unhappiness. She didn’t know what to say or do; any mention of his father produced either a depressive silence or a quiet rage, never directed at her, but taken out on equipment, tough leather, and himself. She wished there was some way to heal his broken heart. Maybe moving to the place where his father died hadn’t been the best idea.

Ida excused herself to join a group of ladies, leaving Enza to circulate through the tent alone. Suddenly the band began to play and men and women paired off, practically skipping onto the dance floor, planks of wood set into the ground for just that purpose. Enza looked around for Ciro, going up on her toes to look over the crowd. She saw him enter the tent alone and waved to him. He looked around but did not catch his wife’s eye.

A comely young woman of twenty with a long, silky blond braid cascading down her back grabbed Ciro by the arm and pulled him on to the crowded dance floor.

“You better watch your husband,” Ida said to Enza as she passed her on the way to join the cakewalk in the field.

Enza didn’t need any reminders from Ida to look out for Ciro. Plus, Enza could find Ciro in any crowd easily because of his height. She tried to move onto the dance floor to join him, but the surrounding bystanders were too thick, and she couldn’t push through.

She watched as Ciro put his arm around the waist of the Baltic beauty, who was eager to show him the steps of the dance. He laughed as she took his hands, and Enza flashed to Mulberry Street, when he’d entered the shop carrying two bottles of champagne in the delightful company of Felicitá so many years ago. Ciro had the same look on his face that he had then—not a care in the world, just a sense of unfettered joy. The girl was not that much younger than Enza, but suddenly Enza felt a hundred years older. The beauty leaned in and whispered something in Ciro’s ear, and he whispered in hers. Enza felt a flash of pain in her chest, sudden and piercing.