Katerina's Wish

by Jeannie Mobley

  Holena tried to tell him, but Aneshka shushed her.

  “It’s supposed to be a surprise,” she insisted.

  Papa smiled at them both. “She doesn’t have to tell me a thing, Aneshka,” Papa said. “I know plum dumplings when I smell them. But how? Did your wish come true after all?”

  “So it would seem,” Momma said from the doorway behind me. “Now come inside. Supper’s all ready.”

  Supper that night felt like a grand affair, although the food was much the same as always—gristly meat, boiled potatoes, and bread spread with salted lard. But the tablecloth, the flowers, and the plates of plum dumplings made it festive. I recounted for Papa all that had happened at the store. When I told him of Mr. Torentino’s selling from his wagon while Mr. Johnson glared at him from the porch, he laughed.

  “Serves the swindler right,” Papa said.

  Momma looked stricken. “Hush, Tomas! Don’t say such things!”

  “They can’t hear us here, Ivana. Besides, this is America, isn’t it? A man can say what he thinks here.”

  “They’ll fire you for saying such things,” she said.

  “Not tonight,” Papa said, unbothered by her warning. “Tonight we have plum dumplings and all the luck in the world, right, Aneshka?”

  Momma frowned at Papa before rising from the table to fetch more of the dumplings still steaming on the stove. They were the best things I had tasted since we had left Bohemia. Aneshka ate so many we all thought she would be sick, and Momma made her stop.

  We were still at the table when we heard the familiar clop of Old Jan’s crutches on the porch steps. Papa went out to greet him while Momma dished up a bowl of plum dumplings and took it out to him. That left my sisters and me to tidy the kitchen.

  For once Aneshka was cooperative and cheerful, and the job went quickly. I was soon stacking away the last plates on the shelf while Aneshka and Holena folded Momma’s lovely tablecloth. Holena carried it into the bedroom to put away while Aneshka and I took coffee to the adults.

  I had just settled myself comfortably on the porch steps when Holena appeared in the doorway. Rather than skipping out like usual, she seemed frozen, staring at us as if we were strangers. In her hand she held two long, sky-blue ribbons. Her eyes met mine.

  “They were in the trunk,” she said. “I found them.”

  Momma turned to look. “Why, so they were! I had forgotten I had such things; it’s been so long!” she said.

  “You wore them at our wedding, Ivana, remember?” Papa said.

  Holena’s face fell a little, but Momma smiled.

  “So I did, but I have no use for such things now. And they are just the right color for your hair, Holena. Would you like to have them?”

  Holena’s little hand clenched the ribbons and she threw herself into Momma’s arms with a dozen thank-yous.

  Everyone was smiling. Everyone but me—I was still staring in disbelief. The second wish! My ears seemed to be buzzing with the shock of it.

  What would you wish for, Wise Katerina?

  I felt someone looking at me and glanced up into Old Jan’s face. He, too, was smiling, but he was watching me. “You see, Trina, dreams can come true,” he said.

  I didn’t know about dreams or about wishes—didn’t know if they could come true or if they were even real. But maybe it was time I found out.

  Chapter 3

  I LAY AWAKE THAT NIGHT, feeling my sisters breathing in the bed beside me, as I tried to sort out what was real. In the months we had been in America, very little in our lives had been good. Momma and Papa worked to exhaustion every day. My sisters and I had gone to school, but we had so many chores to do to help Momma that we had little time for fun. We hadn’t had money or time for anything new or nice until today. Today, there had been plums for dumplings, and hair ribbons—exactly what my sisters had wished for!

  We had had so few truly happy days here in America, and none that I would have called lucky. It seemed lucky to have so much good happen in one day, but not impossible. It seemed impossible, though, that those things appeared the day after Aneshka and Holena had made wishes. How could an order have been mistakenly placed for plums and I just happened to be the one to discover it, and it just happened to be the day after my sister had made a wish for plum dumplings? Things didn’t just happen like that. But if it wasn’t just chance, that would mean I had discovered a magic fish in the creek by the coal camp and it had granted me three wishes. And it had spoken to me in a dream. It seemed that I was faced with choosing between a wish that had come true or an impossible coincidence. It was not a question of which was possible so much as which was less impossible.

  Aneshka stirred and sighed, her breath still smelling of plums. A little smile curled at the corners of her mouth and I knew she was dreaming. I closed my eyes too, hoping to fall into a dream, but I could not. The day’s events were too fresh in my mind, and I kept hearing that voice, prompting me for my wish.

  My wish, of course, was to return to Bohemia, to the small village where my grandfather and uncle were still the clockmakers, and winter evenings were filled with family and laughter and the stories that had taught us to dream. I wanted to go back to how it had been before my papa’s dreams had become too big for that village. Of course, I would not say that out loud again, not in front of my father. I didn’t know why he would wish us back to America, but I knew that it was not a subject for discussion. Besides, we didn’t have the money for the fare back to Europe. A wish was the only way we could return, and I’d have to make the wish in secret.

  I caught myself. It was all nonsense. Fish did not grant wishes except in stories, and even in stories the wishes didn’t fix people’s lives, they only proved them foolish. I shifted in bed, trying to get comfortable enough to forget the day and go to sleep, but I only disturbed Aneshka, who muttered a complaint without waking. Eventually I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, Aneshka was poking me to wake me up. It was still dark out, but I could hear Momma in the kitchen frying the last chop for Papa’s lunch bucket, and I could smell the coffee.

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and sat up. Holena was still asleep, and I slipped out carefully so as not to wake her. In the kitchen, Papa was at the table, scooping oat porridge into his mouth as quickly as he could. In Bohemia he had taken his time over his breakfast, reading the papers and discussing politics with my grandfather, but here there was no time for that. If he was not in line to ride the hoist down into the mine when the shift whistle blew, he could miss a whole day’s work—and a whole day’s wages. So, I had learned to stay quiet and out of his way in the morning.

  When he had eaten, he took the lunch bucket from Momma, kissed her cheek, and set off for the mine. Once he was gone, Momma filled a bowl of porridge for each of us and we sat down to our own breakfasts.

  “I told Old Jan we would come give his floors a good scrub today,” Momma said. “He can’t do it himself with his leg as it is.” She paused and looked at me, and I knew what she was waiting for.

  “I’ll do it, Momma,” I said.

  Her eyebrows raised a little. “There’s a good girl.” She was surprised. Though we had both known it was my duty to volunteer, she had not expected me to do so as quickly or cheerfully as I had. In truth, I was a little surprised myself—I had never liked cleaning for Old Jan and his sons. Marek and Karel worked the night shift at the mine, so they slept all morning. That meant I couldn’t start cleaning until the afternoon, when the work was hotter and I was already tired. Today, though, I had been quick to volunteer because I wanted to talk to Old Jan. I was curious to know what he thought about dreams coming true.

  The whistle blew at the mine, and a moment later Holena appeared in the doorway between our two rooms, still in her nightgown. Her hair was still messy from sleep, but she had tied the ribbons to the ends of her braids.

  Momma smiled at her. “Perhaps we should save those for special days.”

  “Today is a special day,” Holena sai
d, her large eyes sparkling.

  “Is it? What day is it, then?” Momma asked.

  “Today we get our third wish,” Holena said.

  “What third wish?” Momma said.

  “From the fish Trina saw in the washwater.”

  Aneshka giggled. I looked at her.

  “Have you been filling her head with nonsense?” I asked accusingly.

  “No.” Aneshka’s tone was defensive, but I could see the mischief in her eyes. “Wishes always come in threes. Everyone knows that. It’s not nonsense.”

  “Of course it is,” I said.

  “It is,” Momma said in a matter-of-fact tone that put the issue to rest. “And it is time we got dressed and started our chores. Trina, you get Holena her breakfast.” She ushered Aneshka into the other room while I filled a bowl of oat porridge for Holena. I set the bowl on the table in front of her, but she didn’t begin eating. Instead she looked up at me, her expression troubled.

  “But you did see a magic fish, Trina. You must have.”

  “There’s no such thing, Holena. Not really.”

  “But Aneshka and I both got our wishes,” she insisted.

  “That was just luck,” I said. I could see she wasn’t convinced, so I offered proof. “After all, I haven’t gotten my wish, have I?”

  “You didn’t make your wish,” Holena said.

  I looked at her, confused. Had she had the same dream I had? We had all said our wishes after Old Jan’s story. “Yes I did,” I said.

  She shook her head, her little brow still wrinkled. “You said it was a stupid game and that you didn’t believe. You said what you wanted, but you didn’t make it a wish. You have to say ‘I wish.’”

  I thought about it. I couldn’t exactly remember what I had said. I shrugged. “You should eat your porridge.”

  “You have to believe and make your wish. Then we can go back to Bohemia, just like you wanted.”

  Back to Bohemia! She said it with such conviction that it sounded almost possible. And it was the third wish, so Papa couldn’t wish us back! I thought of our village, nestled among the dense forests I had loved, of the rolling hills, and of my grandmother’s kitchen.

  “Trina, go get dressed. Holena, get that porridge eaten; we have chores to do.”

  My mother’s voice from the doorway jarred me out of my daydream, back to the bleak reality of our new life. I went into the bedroom, where Aneshka was braiding her hair, and I dressed quickly, still thinking of home and feeling a trickle of hope. That hope carried me through the morning chores. After lunch I gathered our buckets and rags and set out up the hill to do as I had promised and clean for Old Jan.

  Old Jan was sitting out on his front porch, whittling a piece of wood with his pen knife. He paused and smiled up at me in greeting. “I’m afraid my boys are still sleeping,” he said. “Would you sit here a bit with me while we wait for them?”

  I sat down on the porch steps, happy enough to take a break from work. I wanted to ask him about the night before, but I didn’t know how. Every question I shaped in my mind felt foolish. So instead I asked him what he was making. He turned the block of wood over in his hands and considered it.

  “I think it is going to be a horse,” he said. “The horse is a noble creature. When I was a boy on my father’s farm, we boasted the strongest team in all Bohemia. Those horses could pull a thousand pounds if they could pull one! And at the spring festival, we would tie ribbons and garlands on one of them. My mother would ride into the village, all dressed up, looking like a queen.”

  I nodded. “I miss the spring festival. There is nothing like that here, though. There’s nothing but work here.”

  Old Jan looked up at me from the carving and smiled. “I’ve heard of a girl whose life was all work and never anything pretty. She was pretty, though, and her stepmother and stepsister were jealous, so they made her work very hard. But she was still pretty. So they tried to get rid of her.”

  I leaned back against the porch rail. I had heard the story before, but I was content to listen.

  “‘Marushka,’ they said to her, for that was her name, ‘Marushka, go up the mountain and pick us some violets.’ It was the dead of winter and Marushka knew there would be no violets on the mountain, but they pushed her out of the house and forbid her to return without them. Crying bitterly, the poor girl set off up the mountain in search of the flowers.

  “On the mountaintop she met the seasons of the year, sitting around a fire, and when she spoke kindly to them, they took pity on her. Spring rose up, waved his wand, and the violets sprung into bloom.

  “Well, you can imagine the stepmother’s surprise when she saw the violets. She wove them into her daughter’s hair and thought, ‘With Marushka’s help, my daughter might become beautiful enough to marry a prince!’ So she ordered Marushka back up the mountain for fresh strawberries to give the girl’s complexion a rosy glow.

  “Marushka went, more distraught than before, for where would she get strawberries in January? But once again, she met the seasons, and once again they took pity on her because she was good and gentle and wanted nothing for herself. So Summer rose up and waved his wand, and fields of strawberries glistened before her, plump and red and waiting to be picked.

  “Marushka gathered all the strawberries she could carry and took them down the mountain. Well, of course, the stepmother was surprised and delighted. She and her daughter gobbled up every last strawberry, and the stepmother thought to herself, ‘Now all my daughter needs are apples to polish her teeth, and she will be the most beautiful maid in the kingdom. So she ordered Marushka back up the mountain for apples.

  “Marushka went, knowing there would be no apples but hoping against hope that there might be a way. Once again, the seasons saw how good and gentle she was, and when she told them she was looking for apples, Autumn rose up, waved his wand, and ripe, sweet apples burst forth on the trees.

  “‘Shake the tree once and take what it gives you,’ Autumn told her. Two apples fell from the tree, and Marushka hurried home with them. Well, of course, the stepmother was amazed, but she was angry, too, because they were the best apples she had ever eaten, and she wanted more. She ordered Marushka back up the mountain, but her greedy daughter said, ‘Marushka ate them all; that’s why she only brought two. She’s cheating us. This time we will go, Mother, and we will get everything we deserve!’ And what do you think happened?”

  “They got just what they deserved?” I guessed with a smile.

  Old Jan nodded. “When they met the seasons, they were rude and selfish. So angry old Winter rose up and waved his wand, and a great blizzard blew over the mountain, and they were never seen again.”

  “And what became of Marushka?” I asked.

  “The farm became hers from that day forward. The seasons blessed her with fine crops, and she made the house and everything around her beautiful. So you see, Trina, things can get better for a good, hard-working girl.”

  “It’s a nice story,” I said, “but I don’t think anyone is going to rise up, wave a wand, and make the coal mine go away.”

  Old Jan laughed a wheezing, coughing laugh. “No, I suppose not. But if you are a good girl who works hard to help your mother, just maybe things will get better.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but it is harder for those of us without magic wands.”

  Old Jan smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Aneshka says she got her dumplings because you saw a magic carp. That is just as good as a wand.”

  I frowned. Aneshka must have told everyone her idea last night after dinner. At this rate she would have told everyone in the camp in no time. Everyone would be laughing at me. “I don’t believe in such nonsense.”

  “Ah, but believing is never nonsense,” Old Jan said. “You have to believe something can happen before it will, you know.”

  “Marushka didn’t believe she would find her violets or strawberries or apples, though.”

  “So she didn’t, but she tried to find them anyway, trusti
ng for something to happen, even when she didn’t know what it might be.”

  “My father’s like that. That’s how we ended up here. Momma says only a fool believes such things.”

  “Some would say Marushka was wise, and others that she was foolish, I suppose. You have to decide for yourself which you think she was.”

  Though I had heard the story before, I had never thought of it that way. I was still pondering Old Jan’s story when Marek stepped out onto the porch, pulling his suspenders up over his shoulders as he came. When he saw me, he quickly combed down his rumpled hair with his fingers. He smiled at me. I smiled back and then quickly looked elsewhere to hide the discomfort I always felt in his presence.

  “Good morning, Papa. Good morning, Trina.”

  “Good morning, Mark,” I said, careful to pronounce his name the American way, which he had used since going to work in the mine. He said foreigners didn’t have as good a chance as Americans at getting good jobs, so he no longer wanted a foreign-sounding name. Since his father’s injury, getting and keeping a job had been his biggest concern.

  “Good afternoon, you mean,” Old Jan said.

  “To you it’s afternoon. To me it’s morning,” Mark said. He sat down beside me to put on his boots. I watched his hands as he laced and tied each one. When I had first arrived here and started attending school, I had shared a desk with him, and those same hands had guided me through lessons. They were entirely different hands now. He had lied about his age to work in the mine, since he hadn’t been quite fifteen, and I had marveled that the coal company had believed he was sixteen. Now, looking at his hands, it seemed believable. When they had helped me at school, they had been like everyone else’s in the schoolhouse. But now the fingernails and the creases at the knuckles bore the permanent stain of coal, and red scars and nicks showed where the chips of rock had cut them as he hammered and drilled underground.

  Everything else about him seemed older too, and that’s what made me so uncomfortable. He no longer joked and smiled like he had back then, no longer teased me or pulled on my braids for a lark. When his family spent time with mine, his concerns were all those of my father—wages, rumors of unions, paying off debts. It was like he had grown up and I hadn’t, and I didn’t know what to say around him that he would want to hear.