Katerina's Wish

by Jeannie Mobley

  “There, there,” Old Jan said. “We know nothing for certain yet. We have to keep hoping. Keep believing.”

  I nodded and wiped my eyes, but not even I could stretch hope that far. This was a far cry from wishing for a few chickens.

  Old Jan gave a thankful smile and wrapped one of the blankets I had brought around my mother’s shoulders. She clasped it there with one hand, but she said nothing. We sat with her in silence for a long time. Finally, Old Jan patted my hand.

  “Go back and get some sleep, Trina. Your sisters may need you. Nothing more is going to happen here tonight.”

  “Then we should all go home,” I said.

  “I’m not leaving,” Momma said, her tone fierce.

  “I’ll stay here with her, Trina, until she is ready to go home.”

  I didn’t want to leave Momma there, but I finally returned alone to our dark house. It felt empty, even as I lay between my two sisters and listened to their steady breathing. The absence of my parents seemed to fill the house.

  I did not sleep much that night. I woke before dawn, at the time Papa usually set off for work. I lay half asleep and waited for the automatic whistle at the mine. It blew, jerking me awake to an empty house, no cooking smells coming from the kitchen. I remembered then, and fear overwhelmed me again, just like it had the first time. I turned to see my parents’ bed still empty and unused.

  I rose quietly and went to the kitchen. It felt strange to be doing normal chores—lighting the stove, making coffee, measuring out oats—in a world that was no longer normal. And yet, what else could I do?

  When my sisters were dressed and fed, I left them to do the morning chores and I took my pan of oatmeal and the coffee pot to Momma and Old Jan at the mine. All was quiet there. No one was working near the shaft or the hoist. The mine officials had declared that nothing more could be done until a new lift was installed, and the workers who were not trapped in the mine had all been sent home. The only people there now were the small clusters of women who had settled into camps on the margins of the scene. In the full daylight I could see just how many there were. The accident, happening as it did when the new shift was entering and the old had not all come out, had trapped more than a hundred men in the mine.

  “If nothing is happening here, why not come home?” I said when Old Jan had explained everything to me.

  “We will wait here for our husbands,” Momma said. “We will not go home and let them forget the urgency of the situation.”

  I looked around and saw the grim determination on the face of not only my mother, but of the other women scattered across the hillside. It was an expression all too common to miners’ wives. I could feel it settling onto my own features as well. “Then let me stay today, Momma. I want to help.”

  Momma smiled at me, one small flash, before her face turned hard again. “You are a big help, Trina, but I need you most to take care of your sisters.”

  I would rather have stayed, but this was not the time to argue with my mother. Once the meager breakfast had been eaten, I returned home.

  For two long days, the routine was the same. If Momma and Old Jan slept at all, they did so beside the mine. Holena and Aneshka wanted to help as well, so we started each day with our chores. The n we gathered all the food we could from our garden, our henhouse, and our kitchen. We baked and cooked meals enough to feed not just Momma and Old Jan, but other women, too, who were holding their vigil at the mine. They opened their larders to us so we could prepare pots of food and coffee for ten or fifteen of the women from the Bohemian part of town. Under other circumstances such gatherings would have felt festive, but nothing could dispel the oppressive quiet.

  The afternoon of the third day, my sisters and I were in the kitchen shaping dumplings when we heard the whistle of a train approaching camp. With the mine shut down, the train that transported the coal had been silent too. I paused and listened to be sure of what I had heard. It blew again and now I could also hear the chug of the engine. My heart pounded with urgent excitement. This would be the new lift! At last! I dropped the dough and, not even taking time to clean the flour from my hands, I ran to the mine. I was not the only one. Aneshka and Holena came with me, and the streets were once again filling with people—not just women, but men, too, pulling up suspenders or putting on work gloves as they went.

  At the mine, men and boys were assembled into a work crew before the train came to a stop. They got to work at once, unloading the new cables and gears for the hoist, and the parts for a new lift. A mine official came to the hillside where the women were camped and told them to go home, but they refused. In the end, the officials set up a rope barrier that we were required to stay behind.

  The grim silence of the past two days was now replaced by urgent action, as every able-bodied man in camp went to work getting the hoist operating and the mine open. Wives and daughters, including me, took turns carrying water and coffee to the work crews so the usual water boys could be put to other tasks. Lights were again set up, and work continued through the night. No one quit when their shift was over. Every man there knew that it could have been him trapped below—that it could be him next time.

  The new lift was in place by sunrise, and a cheer went up when the lever was pulled and the hoist gears jolted into action, pulling the cables tight. Still, the ordeal was far from over. The shaft had been damaged or blocked in places by the erratic course of the falling lift, so the descent of the new lift into the mine was gradual. At each level men got off the lift to clear a section of the shaft below before it could descend farther.

  It was past noon before they raised the twisted wreckage of the original lift to the surface, and with it, the first of the dead. Like the lift, those who had been on it were crushed beyond recognition. They were laid out by the train track, where ashenfaced women filed by, looking for a familiar patched boot or shirtsleeve to know for certain. The lucky ones came away having recognized nothing; the unlucky collapsed in despair.

  Momma ordered me to stay at the rope with my sisters while she and Old Jan joined the line. I was glad to be spared a closer view of the dead, but I could not help watching as Old Jan and Momma moved slowly past them. I did not breathe until I saw Old Jan shake his head and turn away. My hopes that Karel and Mark had not been on the lift rose, and I told myself again that they were all right. They had to be. They were with Papa now, cheering at the sight of the new lift arriving to bring them home!

  My anticipation was not to be satisfied so quickly, though. As the afternoon passed and the day grew hotter, we remained in the crowd, watching. Men had been working on three levels in the mine, and it was being cleared of both the living and the dead from the top down. As the day progressed, the line of bodies by the train track grew, and the crowd of waiting women dwindled. Some slipped under the rope and ran, screaming with joy to embrace a man as he emerged, blinking and squinting into the daylight. Others crouched, weeping, beside the tracks, their shawls or aprons over their heads. Those of us still behind the rope waited in tense silence.

  By dusk, only a handful of women remained behind the rope, but we were still among them. The lift rose to the surface once again, and the gates opened to pour out more men. One of them carried a body toward the train track. I saw Martina— who had baked a cake for her Charlie just a few short weeks ago—gasp and go white. She seemed to shrink as she watched. Then, with a soundless sob, she pulled her shawl over her head and walked slowly toward the tracks. The knot of fear tightened around my heart, squeezing out my breath. Charlie had been on Papa’s crew.

  I turned my eyes back to the lift, now descending smoothly into the shaft. The gears of the hoist stopped turning, indicating the lift had stopped somewhere far below. We waited in silence. A wagon clattered up the street and stopped by the train, driven by Mr. Johnson. Inside it were stacked coffins, their pine boards still fresh and smelling of sap. Mr. Johnson jumped down from his seat and approached the mourning wives and mothers, his sales ledger in his hand. His f
ace was composed in a respectful expression, but it looked too practiced to be sincere. I turned away feeling sick, unsure I could bear one thing more.

  Just then, the hoist clanked into action and the cables began to move. The handful of us still behind the rope drew in a collective breath and held it as the lift came into view and stopped, the cage filled with more grimy men. More women slipped under the rope as the men staggered out. The last to come out were Papa and Karel, carrying between them a limp and bloodied body.

  Mark.

  Chapter 12

  MOMMA, ANESHKA, and Holena were under the rope in an instant, but Old Jan stood frozen, staring at the still form of his youngest son. The same shock and fear rooted me beside him. I took his hand, and together we tried to go forward, but it was like trudging through deep water.

  Momma and my sisters were already with the men, Momma taking the tragic burden from Papa while my sisters clung to his legs. At once Papa collapsed to his knees, holding the little girls to him.

  Momma turned, and I knew she was looking for me.

  “Quickly, Trina, go to Jan’s and prepare hot water and bandages. Quickly!”

  The desperation in her voice broke me from my trance. Water and bandages? Surely it was too late for that. Then I saw Papa on his knees and all the fear came back—he must be hurt too! I let go of Old Jan’s hand. I turned and ran, as my Momma had told me to. I wanted to run forever—run from the pain and from my regret that I had never told Mark how I felt. But I had a job to do, and the living still needed me. Old Jan’s house was not far.

  Once inside, I lit the stove and began heating water. Then I found clean rags and tore them into strips. I had a mound of them ready when Momma and Karel came through the door with Mark between them, Papa and Old Jan hobbling behind. I saw now that Karel wore no shirt or suspenders. He had fastened his own shirt as a bandage across his brother’s chest and secured it there with his suspenders to stanch the bleeding. The makeshift bandage was now brown and stiff with dried blood.

  They laid Mark on his bed before collapsing themselves into chairs. I ventured a glance into Mark’s face, and to my amazement I saw him wince with pain as they settled him onto the mattress.

  “He’s alive!” I gasped.

  Momma gave me a surprised look. “Of course he’s alive—why did you think we needed bandages?”

  “I thought— Oh, Papa!” I cried, and like a child threw myself into his arms, sobbing with relief.

  Papa held me, patting my hair. “There’s my good girl,” he said. “Now get me a drink of water—I’m parched!”

  I dried my eyes and hurried to fill and refill cups of water for Karel and Papa as they drank deeply. Old Jan, meantime, was feeling his younger son’s forehead and cutting the suspender straps to remove the bandage.

  “We were the last group off the lift before the cable broke,” Karel explained. “We were still signing out tools with the foreman when the lift came crashing down. A piece of flying metal caught him across the chest. Something hit his leg, too. He’s lost a lot of blood, Papa.”

  I went to the bedroom doorway and watched while old Jan peeled back the bloody bandage. Mark groaned and clenched the sheets as the stiff bandage pulled the scab from the wound. New blood bubbled up through the ragged gash that ran for eight inches across his chest.

  Papa staggered to his feet. “I’ll fetch the doctor,” he said.

  “Nonsense, Tomas,” Old Jan said. “You’re hardly fit to be standing yourself, and the doctor has worse than this to attend to.” Old Jan turned back to his son and probed the edges of the gash with his fingers before speaking again. “You are lucky, Marek. If it had caught you two inches lower, it would have torn your stomach and we’d have lost you. This is only skin and muscle. Trina, bring me the water and those rags.”

  Together we bathed Mark’s wounds. Then I did what I could to soothe away the sweat from his brow while Old Jan stitched the edges of the gash shut with a length of thread and a sewing needle that he had heated in a candle flame. I might have emptied my stomach at the sight of the needle pulling through Mark’s skin had I eaten anything that day. As it was, I swallowed my nausea and tried to find comforting words for Mark until he passed out from the pain.

  When the wound was sewn up, we smeared it with a salve my mother provided and wrapped it with the clean rag bandages. Then Old Jan inspected Mark’s leg, which was swollen and blue at the ankle. Another deep gash cut to the bone across the front of his leg, just above his boot. Mark jerked back to consciousness as his father removed the boot, torn beyond repair by whatever had cut his leg.

  “Lucky again,” Old Jan said with a look of relief. “If it hadn’t been for your sturdy boot, you might have lost this foot. As it is, it’s just a deep cut, not even a broken bone.”

  I stayed beside Mark until he slept, then I went to the kitchen, where our families were eating supper. I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to finish my meal. My sisters, mother, and I cleared the dishes while my father staggered off to home. When the dishes were all washed, Momma, Aneshka, and Holena followed. I looked in on Mark once again. I thought a bit of color had returned to his face, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “He’ll be all right,” Old Jan said.

  I jumped in surprise. I hadn’t realized he was standing at my shoulder.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve seen men survive worse, and he’s as strong as a horse. The only danger now is infection, but we’ll take good care of him. Now go on home and get some rest yourself.”

  Reassured by his calm, I agreed. It was well past dark as I walked the short distance from Old Jan’s house to my own. With each step my weariness grew heavier until I was stumbling across the threshold. I stepped into the bedroom and breathed in the fullness of my family, all of them here and asleep. With a simple, silent prayer of thanks, I settled myself beside my sisters and slipped at once into a dreamless peace.

  I slept until the sun was high in the eastern sky and the air was becoming warm and stale. My sisters were still asleep, so I slipped quietly out of bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen. Momma was sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee and darning stockings.

  “Where is Papa?” I asked, after glancing around and seeing no sign of him.

  “He’s gone to work,” Momma said.

  “At the mine?”

  “Of course at the mine.”

  “But—” I stared, paralyzed with fear. How could he go back down that lift after all that had happened? “But he can’t!”

  “And what are we going to live on if he doesn’t?” Momma said, but the lines of worry were deeply furrowed on her forehead. She was afraid but, as usual, the practical needs were foremost in her mind. “He has already lost three days’ pay this week.”

  “But he was trapped! The mine surely owes him something for all he’s been through!”

  “We have much to be thankful for; we must remember that,” Momma said, not looking up from her work. “Many families were not as fortunate as us.”

  I remembered again Martina’s Charlie, and I knew she was right. Still, all I could think about was how we had to get out of here so that Papa would never go through such a thing again. I vowed to myself that I would work extra hard in my garden so that we could buy our farm.

  “Thank you, Trina,” Momma said.

  I looked at her in surprise. I had no idea what she was thanking me for.

  “You worked hard these past few days to look after everyone. I don’t know how I would have gotten through it without you. I am proud of you.”

  I hurried to dress after that, eager to work in my garden. I wanted to do the things that would earn the money to get us away from the mine.

  I swept the kitchen and the porch, and as I did I remembered for the first time in days that I had a brooding hen. I put away the broom and took up my basket with rising excitement, hoping to see a nest full of cheeping chicks in the henhouse. It wasn’t until I stepped out the back door and saw th
e gate swinging crookedly on torn hinges that I realized I hadn’t heard Kuratko crow that morning. I looked around, hopeful that the chickens were simply loose in the yard and garden, but they were not. There was no sign of life in the yard at all—but there were signs of death everywhere. Feathers littered the ground, and a smear of blood ran across the chicken coop wall near the door. I hurried through the open gate, searching the ground. The tracks of large dogs were everywhere in the yard among the chaos of feathers. The limp body of one of my hens lay in the corner of the yard, tossed against the fence and forgotten. Everyone in town had been at the mine; no one had been in the neighborhood to hear stray dogs in the chickens.

  I remembered the brooding hen and hurried to the henhouse, hoping against hope. It was no use. The brood had hatched, but without their mother’s care the bald hatchlings had all died in their nest.

  I backed out of the henhouse, anger and grief stinging my eyes. Then I saw my garden. The battle of dogs and chickens had ranged beyond the broken gate. Row after row of vegetables were trampled flat. The bean trellis had been torn down and had uprooted most of the stalks when it toppled. The remains of bold little Kuratko were tangled in its strands of twine.

  I looked for one long moment of de spair, then collapsed on the back step in tears. Every grief and fear of the past week tore from my throat in racking sobs. My mother found me there sometime later, still weeping uncontrollably.

  “Trina, what on earth . . . ?” Then she stopped and looked around at the carnage. “Oh, Trina. I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice mixing sympathy with resignation. I knew that tone too well. She had to be thinking she had told me so.

  “No, you’re not!” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “You never wanted me to succeed!”

  “What we want and what life gives us are seldom the same thing, Trina.”