Katerina's Wish

by Jeannie Mobley

  “What do you think? My hands are free now—no more crutches for me!”

  “It’s wonderful! Where did you get it?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine how they had come up with the money for it now, with all their other troubles.

  “My Marek made it for me,” he said, “from a post he found in the mine dump.”

  I looked again at the leg, and I could see now that it was homemade, but made well, shaped and smoothed with care. The cup at the top that cradled Old Jan’s leg stump was padded with rags, and the strap that secured the wooden leg to the real one was an old leather belt.

  “He’s always been clever at making things,” Old Jan said.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  Old Jan sighed heavily. “Down at the creek, I think. I suppose you’ve heard they wouldn’t take him back at the mine. Frankly, I don’t think he is ready either, but it’s certain now that we’ll have to rely on Karel until the fall. That means we can’t start catching up on the doctor bills or the rent, and that Karel and his bride will have to suffer the company of me and Marek for a while still. Marek blames himself, though I told him it couldn’t be helped. If you’d go find him, Trina, I’m sure you could cheer him up.”

  Momma gave me permission to go even before I asked, so I set off for the creek, taking with me the buckets for Papa’s washwater. I knew where Mark would be—exactly the place I would be if I were upset.

  As I expected, Mark was sitting under the tree by the pool. He was throwing pebbles into the water. I called his name and he glanced up, then returned to glumly tossing pebbles without so much as a greeting. Though he didn’t invite me to join him, I stepped under the tree and sat down on its raised root. He shifted, keeping his back to me.

  “Mark, what is the matter?” I asked.

  He shrugged and said nothing. I waited. I knew he would speak when he was ready.

  “I could have been something, you know. If things had been different. If Papa hadn’t gotten hurt, I could have gone to high school. If I hadn’t gotten hurt, I’d have a job.”

  “You’ll have a job again,” I said. “You just need time to heal.”

  “But it’s not good enough, is it? I’ll never walk right. I don’t blame you. I can see why you don’t want a lame husband.”

  “What are you talking about? I never said—”

  “When you found out I couldn’t work yesterday, you couldn’t wait to get away from me. You ran off into the store, and then when you’d finished with Mr. Johnson you left without even looking at me.”

  “No, Mark! I ran after the supply wagon to buy jars,” I said.

  “Jars?”

  Quickly I explained to him what had happened at the store. “He’s bringing them, and for much less than Mr. Johnson wanted to charge me.”

  “It’s still true, though, isn’t it. I’m not worth much to anyone anymore—a cripple who can’t get a job.”

  “You’re hardly a cripple!” I insisted. “You’ll get a job again, and in the meantime you can do other things. Look at the leg you made for your father. It’s beautiful! How can you say you’re of no use?”

  He shrugged, but I could see he was proud of the leg and pleased by the compliment, so I went on.

  “The mine isn’t the only job in the world. There must be other things you could do.”

  “If you’re trying to talk me into farming, forget it.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be farming. There are all kinds of jobs in town.”

  “Not for me. We owe the mine owners here, two months’ back rent on the house, and all that credit at the store. We’d have to pay it back if we left here, and we don’t have the money.”

  “But you’ll never have the money if you stay here,” I said. It was so unfair the way the mine trapped us all with debt. “Karel is still working in the mine. He could take care of things here and you could look for work in town. Surely you could find work there where your foot wouldn’t matter.”

  Mark looked at me, his eyes reflecting both hope and fear. “You want me to go? To leave here?”

  “I want to get out of here, don’t you? And if they don’t hire you back soon, the debt is only going to grow. There must be something you could do in town, but you won’t know if you never try.”

  His face had been brightening as we talked, the hope slowly overpowering the fear. “I wish you could come with me, Trina.”

  I nodded, wishing I could too, but we both knew that was impossible. Mark reached over and took my hand.

  “You will wait for me, won’t you? Promise me you will,” he said.

  “I promise,” I said, my heart swelling until I could barely speak. Suddenly I regretted encouraging him. Life would be so dreary here with him gone, and what if he never came back? What were the chances he would still even want me after he’d been away, meeting the pretty, sophisticated girls in town?

  “I promise to come back, Trina,” he said, as if he had read my fear. Perhaps he had. “The mines always need more men by September or October. That’s just two months away. And by then I’ll be stronger; surely they will hire me. When I’m back and our debts are paid, I promise we will get on with all our other plans, Trina.”

  “If you get out of here, Mark—” I began, but he suddenly clutched me in a tight hug and repeated his words.

  “I’ll come back, Trina. I promise. And I’ll think about you every minute that I’m gone.”

  I wrapped my arms around him and shut my eyes. I wanted my whole world to be him for a moment—his warmth, his smell, and the strong muscles of his chest against my cheek. I breathed in the mingled scents of shaving soap, sweat, and coal dust, with the faintest perfume of Old Jan’s pipe tobacco. For just a moment, I wanted to let the warmth and strength of his embrace push away any thoughts of the future. I didn’t want to think about the dreams or plans or problems before us. Dreams only hurt us, I reminded myself, and I held him tighter while I still could.

  Too soon Mark released me from the embrace and I opened my eyes. He was fishing around in his pocket. He drew out a piece of copper wire and began twisting it around itself into a single braid. Then he curled it into a ring, knotting the ends together to finish it. Smiling, he slipped the band onto my finger.

  “This is so you will remember my promise, okay?”

  I nodded, my heart thumping as I looked at the simple wire ring on my finger.

  I had nothing to offer in return, so I bent to the edge of the pool where pebbles glinted colorfully from under the water, and I picked a pretty red-and-yellow-speckled stone, smooth and wet and glistening.

  “So you will remember too,” I said, placing it in his hand and curling his fingers around it.

  He grinned, a little mischievously, then quickly leaned forward and stole a kiss, right on my lips. He pulled back and looked at me, and when I gave no objection he leaned in again. This time, I kissed him back—at least, until we were interrupted by the whistle from the mine.

  “Oh—Papa’s washwater!” I said, remembering the buckets I had abandoned just upstream.

  “I’ll help you,” he said.

  He stepped over the tree root awkwardly, holding the trunk for support as he swung his bad foot over. Despite his own difficulty, he turned and held his hand out to assist me once he was on the other side. I had stepped over the root many times without help, but it was a gentlemanly gesture, so I took his hand. But as I stepped over to his side, I saw his gaze was falling somewhere behind me.

  “Look,” he said, pointing toward the pool. Even before I turned, I knew what I would see. The fish was there, waving softly in the current in the center of the pool.

  “I’ve seen that fish before, but I can never catch it,” Mark said. “I guess it can see us, too.”

  And it had seen me accept Mark’s ring and give him my promise. “Holena says it’s a lucky fish,” I said. “Like in your papa’s stories.”

  “Maybe it is,” Mark said, encircling my waist with his arm and pulling me toward him. “Maybe we can m
ake a wish for our future, and it will all come true.”

  I shook my head and pulled him away from the pool. Wishes and dreams were for fools; that was what I had learned. That was the moral of all the stories, including my own. I felt the twist of copper wire around my finger. Whatever my future would be, I refused to make a magic fish a part of it again.

  Chapter 18

  ANESHKA WENT into a fit when she saw the copper band on my finger, then refused to talk to me for the rest of the evening. I didn’t care. Mark had decided to look for work in town, so it was my last evening with him for a while. I was just as glad to have Aneshka leaving us alone. Her silence didn’t last, however. In the morning, I woke to her glaring at me.

  “What about the pickles, Trina?” she said accusingly. “What about them?”

  “You’re planning to marry Mark, but you promised to finish the pickles with us.”

  “I’m promised to Mark is all. Momma and Old Jan have agreed on the match, so it’s none of your business.”

  “What about the wish?” she demanded.

  I groaned and flopped onto my back, shielding my eyes with my arm. “Why did you tell her, Holena? It was supposed to be a secret.”

  “She was sad,” Holena whispered from my other side. “I thought if she knew, she wouldn’t be so sad.”

  “Well, it was my wish, so it’s mine to do with as I please, isn’t it? Maybe Mark is going to get a job on a farm and take me there,” I said.

  “But the farm was supposed to be for all of us,” Aneshka said.

  I got out of bed, angry now. We were all disappointed; it didn’t help to have Aneshka always bringing it up and accusing me with it. “Well, it didn’t work out that way, did it? What am I supposed to do about it?”

  “You’re supposed to make it work out!” Aneshka screamed, throwing her pillow at me.

  “What is going on?” Momma said, looking in from the kitchen. “Aneshka, pick that up.”

  “It’s not fair!” Aneshka said, tears now welling from her eyes. “Trina’s going to leave us here and go somewhere nice with Mark, and she promised she wouldn’t. She promised—”

  “Hush, Aneshka!” Momma’s words were firm, but she sat down on the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms around the girl, who was fighting back angry sobs. “Trina’s growing up, that’s all. Things change when you grow up. Marek will probably get another job at the mine in no time, and we will all be here together, just like before.”

  Momma had meant her words as comfort, but they were not. I wished that I was still young enough to be able to pour out my disappointment as Aneshka did, in sobs and rages and thrown pillows. Instead, I said good-bye to Mark an hour later and, as the week progressed, I had only chores to distract me from my loneliness and my broken dreams.

  Aneshka was still sulking on Monday when Mr. Torentino was to return with my jars, so I asked Martina to help me retrieve them. I couldn’t carry them all myself, and I didn’t want to listen to any more of Aneshka’s scolding. We skirted around the store so we could meet Mr. Torentino where I did not think Mr. Johnson could see us, then we sat down to wait.

  “Why did you arrange this, rather than just buying the jars from Mr. Johnson?” Martina asked as we watched for the wagon.

  “You remember how Mr. Johnson doesn’t like me much,” I said, and told her the story.

  “You mean, you’re getting the jars for eighty-five cents a dozen? The same price he charges in town?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you think he’d sell me boots at his town rates, too?” Martina asked. “Karel’s boots have worn through, and we gave Charlie’s boots to Mark.”

  “You could ask,” I said.

  The wagon came into view, climbing the dirt road to the mine, kicking up a cloud of dust into the dry summer air. Our wait wasn’t over, however, because Mr. Torentino wanted to conduct his business at the store first. We watched from a short distance away as Mr. Torentino carried crates into the store, then carried some of the same crates back out. When he returned to us, he was angry.

  “That man,” he said, glancing over his shoulder toward the store, “is a robber baron!”

  I did not know what that meant, but I could tell Mr. Torentino shared my view of the storekeeper, so I agreed with a nod. “Did you bring the jars?”

  “I’ve got them right here.” He climbed over the seat and into the bed of the wagon. He handed the crates down to me one at a time, and I thanked him. Martina nudged me with her elbow.

  “Mr. Torentino, Martina is newly married and her husband needs new boots, but she can’t afford them at Mr. Johnson’s store. Could she buy them from you, like I did the jars?”

  Mr. Torentino’s eyebrows raised. “Well, I hadn’t thought to do this more than once, but I do sell boots.” He told Martina what he had, and she was soon paying him and thanking him.

  “Karel will be so pleased!” she said as we walked back toward home. “I am going to surprise him with the boots when they come!” Her face glowed with the idea, and I felt a pang of envy. I was missing Mark.

  Finally the next Saturday afternoon I saw him returning up the street toward our house. Though his shoulders still sagged, his gait was stronger and more even than it had been when he had left almost two weeks before. I rushed to him and threw my arms around him, right in the middle of the street. He hugged me back and told me he was happy to see me, but there was no enthusiasm in the greeting. I pulled back and looked him in the eye. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  He sighed heavily. “I couldn’t find work. Too many other coal miners are looking for jobs too. No one wants a cripple like me.”

  “You’re not a cripple, Mark! You’re walking much better than when you left.”

  “I should be, after all the useless miles I’ve walked looking for work. I’m sorry, Trina. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  “The mine will be hiring again come fall, and you’ll be better by then,” I said, trying to sound hopeful. Trying not to let my disappointment show.

  “But what about our plans? Our dreams?” He brushed his fingers tenderly along my cheek.

  His plans had never been my dreams, but I couldn’t tell him that. I shrugged. “My momma says dreams just make you unhappy, that to be happy, you have to appreciate the things you have. When I thought I had lost you, I saw she was right.”

  “She’s not right!” came an angry shout from behind me. It was Aneshka. I hadn’t known she had followed me out into the street to greet Mark. Now her hands were firmly planted on her hips and she was glaring at us both. “You can’t give up on the farm, Trina! It’s not fair!”

  I was fuming mad at her for eavesdropping, but Mark tousled her hair.

  “You’re right, Aneshka. We won’t give up,” Mark said. “We’ll get those chickens back, and the garden, too. Maybe even buy some goats. We have time yet.”

  “That’s not a farm, and Trina knows it!” Aneshka said.

  “Stop it, Aneshka,” I said. “Mark only just got home. Stop being so selfish.”

  Aneshka thrust out her bottom lip in a pout, but I ignored her and turned to Mark.

  “Go greet your papa and bring him back to our house. Karel and Martina, as well,” I said, squeezing Mark with the arm I still had wrapped around his waist. “We will have a welcomehome feast for you!”

  Momma and I prepared supper, and everyone was there, but we weren’t very cheerful. Our money was already stretched thin, and Mark still without work was bad news for us all.

  “I’ll keep asking every day at the mine,” Mark said. “Sooner or later they will have something for me.”

  Old Jan looked at his son and shook his head. “It’s no wonder you couldn’t find work in town. Look at those trousers—you’ve got patches on your patches, and your elbow’s coming through your shirt. You’re too poor to get a job.”

  I could see Old Jan’s point. How could Mark convince folks in town that he was a hard worker when he looked like a ragged beggar? That thou
ght stayed with me that night, along with the general sense of desperation that had run through the whole evening. There had to be something we could do.

  “Is it true that Mark didn’t get a job because of his trousers?” Holena asked from beside me in the bed.

  I hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe partly.”

  “That nice man could get him new trousers, I bet,” she said.

  Aneshka reached across me and gave her a little push. “We don’t want Mark to get a job, remember?” she hissed. “We want Trina to get us a farm like she’s supposed to.”

  “I wish I’d never told you about her wish,” Holena murmured. Silently I agreed.

  Momma hushed us from her bed across the room and our conversation ended, but I thought about what Holena had said. Mr. Torentino had been willing to bring jars and boots; why not new pants for Mark? Then again, Mark didn’t have the money for them, not even at Mr. Torentino’s prices. But what if Old Jan was right? What if Mark could get a job—a better job, in town, if he had new clothes and looked a little neater? I could patch the elbows of his shirt so the patches would barely show.

  By the next morning I had hit upon an idea. I walked to church with Mark and explained it to him. We could catch fish after church and sell them to our neighbors. I was sure there were plenty of folks around camp who would buy fresh fish from us. We could make enough money to buy him new trousers and he could try again to find work in town.

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t my pants, Trina. It was my limp, my lack of education, and my foreign accent.”

  “But you need money. We could still sell fish, even if you don’t want new trousers. Can we at least try?” I asked.

  Mark smiled. “Why not? We can take a picnic. And if we can’t sell the fish, we can always eat them.”

  The plan worked better than I had expected, though it angered Aneshka. She glared at me the whole time I was packing the picnic, and I could still feel her eyes boring into my back as I set out with Mark to go fishing. It was a pleasant afternoon, and the fish were biting. Soon we had two long strings of trout. It was late afternoon when we returned to the coal camp, and all through town, parents were relaxing on their porches while their children played in the streets.