The whole of Consaul Street was blocked off from Front to Paine and filled up with people. There were tents with paper lanterns strung between them and long tables covered in white paper, and a stage made of plywood on sawhorses in front of Saint Stephen's where a band in red vests played csárdás music on violins and a cimbalom, which Zoli said was like a piano you hit with spoons. There were old women in embroidered aprons selling chicken paprikás and stuffed cabbage and kolbász on rolls with peppers, and a booth where men turned huge pieces of bacon on sticks over an open fire and let the grease drip onto slices of rye bread with onions, which was called szalonnasütés and which Ossie ate four of and did not regret. There were little girls in dancing costumes with ribbons in their hair, and a beer tent with a polka band, and a booth from the VFW, and a dunk tank where Father Gyula sat in his collar and a pair of swim trunks and laughed every time he went under. It seemed like everyone who had ever lived in Birmingham had come back for the day, from Oregon and Sylvania and Michigan and Florida, and they walked up and down the street hugging each other and shouting names and saying, look at you, look at how big, I remember when you were this high.
Teri came out of the house for the first time all week. She had been quiet since Wednesday night, polite and quiet and on the phone a lot, and Ossie had not asked her what she'd decided, because he was afraid of the answer. But she put on a sundress and a little lipstick and walked with Aunt Yolie down the middle of Consaul Street, and Aunt Yolie, who had not wanted to go, who had said there would be too many people and Pista did not like crowds, began to smile as they walked, and then to nod at people, and then to stop and talk. People came up to her all afternoon. Old women in aprons kissed her on both cheeks. Old men took off their caps. Lacko came out from behind his booth wiping his hands on his apron and gave her a whole kolbász wrapped in wax paper and refused to let her pay. Mrs. Sipos sat her down at a table in the shade and brought her a lemonade, and two other old ladies sat down with her, and the three of them began to talk in Hungarian very fast, laughing, the way girls talk.
Teri stood a little way off and watched it, and Ossie stood beside her and watched her watch it.
"She's happy," Teri said, almost to herself. "Look at her. I haven't seen her like that since I was a kid."
"She knows them," Ossie said. "Maybe not their names. But she knows them."
His mother didn't answer. But she put her hand on his shoulder and left it there.
Zoli was working at his family's booth, the Ferkos', which sold lángos, a fried dough with garlic and sour cream that his mother made in a huge black kettle. Sandor Ferko was at the fryer with his sleeves rolled up and his face shining. The three little sisters ran back and forth in matching dresses carrying paper plates. When Ossie came up, Zoli handed him a lángos without asking and said, "Eat it before it gets soggy, don't be a Cleveland about it," and his father looked over from the fryer and met Ossie's eyes for a moment and nodded, once, a serious nod, the kind of nod men give each other at funerals.
Ossie didn't know what it meant. He nodded back.
At three-thirty, Mrs. Sipos came looking for Teri. Her face was very pale under the paper lanterns.
"I went to get her more lemonade," she said. "Five minutes. I turned around for five minutes. Teréz, I'm so sorry, she was right there."