Katerina's Wish

by Jeannie Mobley

  A new burst of sobs kept me from answering. She stood silently beside me for a long moment before she said, “Hush now, Trina. We have work to do.”

  I wanted to stop crying, but I couldn’t. It was all too much.

  “Hush now,” Momma said again. “How can you carry on like this for a few chickens? Men died in that mine and all you can think about are your silly chickens?”

  “No, Momma! Don’t you see, the chickens were to be our way out! So Papa would never have to go back into that mine.”

  “It was a dream, Trina. You’re crying for the loss of something you never had to start with.”

  “And you don’t believe in dreams,” I said bitterly. “You don’t believe in anything but staying stuck here.”

  Momma sighed heavily and sat down on the stoop beside me. “Trina, dreams aren’t real. You can’t eat them; you can’t keep your papa safe with them. And believe me, you’ll never feed your children with them. We only have what life has given us, and dreams . . .” She paused, fumbling for the words. “Dreams get you hurt, just like this one’s hurt you. Just like your papa’s dream put him in that horrible mine.”

  “So you’d have us never try to make our lives better,” I said. “To have something more.”

  “Believing I could have something more made me what I am today,” she said. “I could have been a tailor’s wife, living in a comfortable cottage in Bohemia, but instead I married the man who filled my head with dreams. And look where it got me!”

  I looked at her in surprise. For the briefest moment, I saw her not as the resilient mother I had always known, but as a young, vulnerable dreamer herself. Her usual hard expression quickly returned when she saw me looking.

  “But—you love Papa, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Of course. I love all of you. But these dreams! Dreams only crush the things you love!”

  She turned her face away from me, and for the first time I understood. I ached from the loss of a few chickens and a garden. What pain must she feel from the weight of years of disappointments? No wonder she had warned me against this dream. I put my hand on her shoulder. She straightened, strong again.

  “We have other things to keep us busy now, Trina. Put this behind you and look to all you still have. Papa still has a job, we still have our family and friends, and you have a handsome young man who wants to court you. That should be enough for anyone. To want more than what you need is a vanity.”

  I wiped my eyes and nodded.

  “Now, see if there is anything you can salvage in your garden.”

  I took a basket to the vegetable patch and began searching through the trampled and wilted leaves. A few squash clung to the torn vines, and I picked those. The corn was all ruined, without a single ear having ever formed, and only about onefourth of the bean plants could be saved. The cucumbers at the very edge of the garden were the only crop that had been spared. The few surviving beanstalks might produce enough for a meal now and then, but my hopes of selling anything more were gone.

  The disappointment was a steady ache in my chest that wouldn’t go away, though I tried not to think of it. And I could see now that a few eggs and vegetables would never have earned us enough money to get out of here. The dream had clouded my judgment. I had wanted far more than I could ever have. I told myself it was best that it should come apart now while it was still only a small thing. I thought again of Martina and others who had lost someone in the mine, and I felt ashamed.

  I was putting the trellis back in place along the few bean plants when I noticed a bootprint in the soil. I had seen the tracks of the dogs everywhere, but this surprised me. Had someone been in my garden while we were at the mine? I couldn’t imagine that anyone had taken any vegetables. Maybe someone had seen the dogs and tried to chase them off. Surely no one would steal anything at such a time—everyone in town was connected to the disaster; no one would be thinking of robbing a garden.

  I looked again at the bootprint. A pawprint partially obscured it—it was from before the dogs had done their mischief. It must have been Old Jan’s, I decided, from before the accident. I put the question out of my head and finished collecting vegetables.

  When I finished, I had more than enough for a meal. I set aside a few, but most of them wouldn’t keep. They were bruised and had been withering on the ground for too long. I looked again at the two chicken carcasses. They hadn’t been chewed by the dogs, and were still fresh enough to use, and that gave me an idea. I wanted to make up for my foolishness, so with Momma’s help, I plucked and cleaned the chickens and put them into a big kettle of soup with the trampled vegetables from the garden. When it was done, I put some into two pans and set out.

  I went first to Martina’s house. Charlie was laid out in the bedroom and a small group was gathered around him, sobbing or fidgeting uncomfortably with the hats they had removed upon entering. Martina sat at the kitchen table, staring into a cup of tea, her face like marble.

  I knocked at the open door and held up the soup pot. “For you,” I said.

  She raised her eyes to mine. They glinted with a look of panic. I entered and set the pan of soup on the table beside her.

  “What am I going to do?” she whispered. “The mine says I can only stay through the end of the month now that there’s no worker living here. Where am I going to go?”

  Rage rose in me again at the mine owners, but I bit it back. “What about your papa?” I said. Her family had been at the mine before she’d married.

  She shook her head. “They’ve moved to the mine at Cokedale. They don’t know about any of this yet. But there are seven kids in that house. I couldn’t burden them by going back.”

  “You’ll think of something,” I said.

  A loud sob rose from the other room and Martina choked back one of her own. Her face was so white I thought she might faint. “They’ve been here all day,” she whispered. I looked past her to the woman keening at the bedside and the silent men that surrounded her like a queen’s attendants.

  “Who are they?”

  “Charlie’s mother and brothers. They arrived from Pueblo on the train this morning. She hates me. She didn’t want Charlie to marry a foreigner. She won’t let me near him.”

  Martina clung to my hand now, as if I were the only solid thing in her world. I had only intended to pay my respects and be gone, but I couldn’t leave her like this.

  “Walk with me,” I said. “You need some fresh air.”

  “And leave Charlie?” She glanced guiltily toward the back room.

  Leave his mother, I thought, but instead I only said, “You have to think of your own health, too.” I coaxed her to the front door and through it. She stepped out into the sunlight and blinked, like a dazed creature pulled from its burrow.

  We walked slowly up the road, past my house and toward Old Jan’s, where I intended to leave my second pot of soup. The fresh air did bring a little color to her pale face. When we reached Old Jan’s, I paused.

  “I have another errand here, Martina. Do you mind?”

  She shook her head, so we walked to the front door. The door was open in the hot afternoon, but Old Jan was not sitting on the porch. I called in a greeting and he called back from the bedroom, inviting us in. I stepped inside, but Martina only hovered in the kitchen.

  Mark was propped up in bed, though he was leaning far back to ease his chest. His face wore an expression of pain.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked him, scrutinizing his face for any sign of fever. I was relieved to see none, but frightened by how pale he looked.

  “Sore,” he admitted with a twitch of a grin. His voice was weak, but at least he had tried to smile.

  “He’s resting easy. That’s the best thing for him now, ‘ Old Jan said.

  “I brought you some soup,” I said. “I thought it might help.”

  As they thanked me, Karel came in through the back door, carrying two buckets of water. I supposed that, like Papa, he was expected to return to work for hi
s regular shift. He started to say something, then he caught sight of Martina, standing uncertainly near the kitchen door. A look of tender sadness came over his face and he set down his buckets.

  “I am sorry about Charlie,” he said to her. “He was a good man and a hard worker. He was near us there, waiting to get on the lift, to get home to you.” He shook his head regretfully.

  I looked at Martina. Tears were welling from her eyes. Karel took a handkerchief from his pocket and carried it to her. They were speaking in hushed tones when I turned back to Mark.

  “They are evicting her,” I said, trying to control the outrage in my voice. “And they’re docking your pay for the time you were trapped in the mine. How could they!”

  “They can do as they please,” Mark said.

  “But it’s wrong!”

  Mark sighed, and I immediately regretted my anger. He didn’t have the strength for it. I laid my hand softly on his.

  “You should sleep,” I told him. “It will help you get your strength back.”

  “I’d rather have a bowl of your soup,” he said, this time managing a small smile at me.

  I filled a bowl and, sitting beside him, spooned soup carefully into his mouth.

  “It is delicious,” he said. “Are the vegetables from your garden?”

  I nodded. “It is all there will be, though.” I told him what had happened to my chickens and the garden, struggling to hold back my grief. It was silly to cry over such a small thing, and I could not explain that my tears were for something so much larger.

  “There, there,” Old Jan said, patting my hand. “It’s a blow to be sure, but we survived without it, and we will again. You can plant again next summer.”

  He was right, of course, and so was my mother. Survival was the most we could expect in this world. I looked at Mark and knew that survival itself was a blessing.

  Karel reappeared in the kitchen to collect the dinner bucket his father had prepared for him. “I’m off to work. Enjoy lying about while I’m laboring away,” he said to Mark with a grin.

  “I should get back to Martina,” I said when Karel had gone. “And you should rest.”

  “Thank you, Trina,” Mark said. He clasped my hand in thanks, but he did not let go when I tried to leave, so I turned back to him. “Trina, I’ll be laid up here for a short while, but I’ll heal fast. I’ll be back on my feet before the next dance.” He squeezed my hand and looked into my eyes. “Will you go with me?”

  Before, when I had refused him, I had thought I’d had a future—that I’d be leaving the coal camp soon. Now, I saw otherwise. I saw the foolishness in believing in anything other than what was real right now. And in the four days the men had been trapped in the mine, I had also learned how fragile my real world could be. I hadn’t appreciated what I had, and I had almost lost it. I’d almost lost Mark.

  I looked into his pale, sick face, waiting eagerly for my answer. I could not know what the future held for either of us. All I could do was make the most of each moment that I had, whatever or wherever it was. And where it was—where it would always be—was here. But at least it could be with Mark.

  “I would be honored,” I said.

  Chapter 13

  THE NEXT WEEK did not start with dancing. It started with funerals. In all, twenty-seven men had died and countless more were injured in the disaster at the mine, and no family in our community was untouched. The mine closed on Tuesday, and everyone in town crowded into one service or another. There were so many services held in so many different languages that they took place wherever space could be made. Afterward, the wagons full of coffins converged in the hilltop cemetery to the south of the mine. The whole community watched as one after another was lowered into the long row of open graves. Final prayers were said before the first shovelfuls of dirt were thrown onto the pine boxes. Then we united, no matter what our religion or language, in grief for our shared loss.

  Mark insisted on going to the funerals, though we all begged him to stay home in bed. He could not walk on his injured foot, and the stitches across his chest made leaning on crutches unbearable. Papa and Karel carried him much of the way, though they were still pale and wrung out by the ordeal. It took all their strength to get Mark to the hilltop cemetery, and all Mark’s strength to stand through the prayers and scriptures read there.

  It was past noon when the mourners dispersed from the hill. The mine officials shooed us all away from the graves, telling us to go home and mourn in private. Rumors had spread that union organizers would be at the funerals, so wakes and public gatherings had been forbidden.

  Papa and Karel started back down the hill with Mark, struggling to keep their footing on the loose, gravely slope. Fortunately, other men came to their aid, healthy men who had not been trapped underground. Two bachelors took over and carried Mark down the hill and all the way back to his house. Old Jan was beside himself with gratitude for the men and, since they had no families to spend the afternoon with them, he invited them to stay for dinner.

  Amid the commotion, it took several minutes for us to realize that Karel had stayed behind to assist Martina from the cemetery. Still snubbed by her mother- and brothers-in-law, she had stood alone at the funeral. She had collapsed, wailing with grief as the first shovelful of dirt was thrown on Charlie’s coffin, and Karel had gone to her aid. Now, as they approached down the road, she moved like a sleepwalker, relying on Karel’s strong but gentle arm to guide her. As they arrived at the house, Old Jan took one look at her and declared that she would not go home alone either.

  Momma looked around at everyone—Mark, propped in a chair, his face tight with pain; the lonely bachelors; the desolate Martina. She squared her shoulders.

  “Yes, Jan, you are right. We must all have a meal together. We must keep up our strength and support each other through these times.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Martina protested weakly.

  “Come now. The living must live,” Momma said.

  Old Jan nodded and gently guided Martina to a chair. “Life goes on, my dear. Even at times like these.”

  “Trina, go to the store and get us enough meat for a decent stew. We’ve got potatoes and a few vegetables left from the garden,” Momma said.

  “The superintendent forbade gatherings,” Karel reminded us.

  Momma made an impatient, dismissive gesture. “This is no gathering. It is family, and a few people who need family. They can’t deny us that. Besides, we’ve no interest in the union. Trina, run along. We must get started.”

  I did as she said. Old Jan came along too, insisting that the bachelors had helped his son, so he intended to pay. Mr. Johnson’s store was open, but he had no customers, so Mr. Johnson was sitting outside on the porch. I stopped and stared when I saw him. He was leaning back in his chair, a bottle of soda pop in one hand while his other hand scratched a big yellow dog behind the ear. A second dog, equally large, lay at his feet, its tongue lolling out of its mouth in the summer heat. I stood staring until he looked up and saw me. His eyes tracked my gaze to his dogs before returning to my face. Then his lips curled into a slow smile.

  “Do you like dogs?” he asked with mock innocence. “These are a special breed. They’re bird dogs.” His smile widened even more as anger flooded my face with color. “I believe you have pets too, don’t you? Tell me, how are your chickens these days?”

  I couldn’t answer. I was seeing in my mind all that had really happened. It made sense now. Stray dogs couldn’t have broken through the gate or done so much damage by themselves, and hungry mongrels wouldn’t have left carcasses uneaten. And there had been that bootprint in the garden. I clamped my mouth shut, unwilling to respond to his taunt. I smiled back, though my insides were boiling, and walked into his store as if nothing was wrong, refusing to let him get the better of me. Mr. Johnson followed. I could feel him still smirking behind me.

  Inside the store, Old Jan got busy selecting meat and a few other items. I wasn’t sure just what. My head was po
unding with anger, and I could barely see.

  “Looks like you’re having a little party,” Johnson observed as Old Jan counted out his money.

  “Only a family supper,” Old Jan said.

  Mr. Johnson shot me a suspicious look. “Didn’t know she was part of your family.”

  I said nothing. I hoped Mr. Johnson would soon forget this encounter. I did not want his hatred of me to harm Old Jan and his sons, especially now that I knew what Mr. Johnson was capable of.

  At home I helped my mother prepare a hearty meal and tried to forget the encounter myself. When dinner was ready, we carried it to Old Jan’s house, where we ate on the porch, as it was too hot inside. The men had dragged a mattress outside for Mark, and I sat beside him and helped him eat. He had little appetite, but could at least eat some of the gravy from the stew, and a few bites of the chewy meat.

  As the afternoon wore on, his color grew worse. His sweaty face looked like a wax doll, with a high flush of pink in his cheeks. I left his side again only when I had to wash the dishes. When I returned, I was more alarmed than ever. He was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed and his lips slightly parted. Flies were crawling on his face and shirt. For a moment I thought he was dead, and I gasped. My gasp awakened him, as well as drawing the attention of the others. He stirred and brushed at the flies on his face, grimacing with pain as he did so.

  “I think it’s time you were back in bed, Marek,” Old Jan said.

  “And time we went home and gave you some peace and quiet,” Momma added.

  Taking her meaning, the two bachelors thanked my mother and Old Jan and set out for their own home. Karel offered his arm to Martina, who stood to leave as well.

  “Perhaps Trina might stay long enough to help me get Marek settled,” Old Jan suggested.

  Mark protested, insisting that he didn’t need help. By the time we got his mattress back on his bed and moved him, however, his jaw was clenched with pain. He leaned heavily on me and hopped the short distance to his bed. Once there, he collapsed, spent. I tucked a pillow under his head.