Katerina's Wish
Authors: Jeannie Mobley
Contents
In memory of my father, whose dreams took us so many places,
And to my mother, whose belief in me helped make this wish come true.
MY PAPA'S DREAM
brought us to America. Momma said only a fool believed in dreams, but she knew Papa, so she packed our trunks. And whether she believed or not, that dream swept us out of Bohemia and across the ocean. We'd arrived, in the autumn of 1900 in “a new land for the new century," as Papa put it. By May of 1901, neither the dream nor the country felt new. They both felt old and worn out. As I stood behind our house, staring at a dozen bundles of filthy laundry, I couldn't help but think Momma had been right.
Papa had dreamed of a thriving farm where we would live well. He had imagined acres of green fields, not the dry, barren hills of southern Colorado. He had imagined fresh air and sunshine, the bounty of the fertile land filling our larder and our pockets. Instead, he spent long days underground, toiling in the unwholesome air of a coal mine. And even with all this laundry Momma took on, our pockets stayed empty and our larder was never full. Now that my sisters and I were out of school for the
summer, Momma had determined to take on as much washing as we could from the bachelors in town. But it still wasn't likely to mean much money.
“This is too much wash to do in the kitchen,” Momma observed from the back door.
“It's too much to do at all,” I grumbled.
“If you want to be going back to school in the fall, you'll be needing a new dress,” she said. “And the money's got to come from somewhere.”
The new term would not start until October, when the schoolmaster returned from one of the other coal camps in the area. But saving money wasn't easy. When we left Bohemia, Papa had thought a year in the coal mines would earn us enough for a farm. We had been here nine months already and had saved almost nothing.
“At least Trina will get a new dress,” Aneshka said. She was sitting on the back step, kicking at the dust. “I'll just get her old dress cut down to my size, and Holena will get mine that used to be hers.”
“I don't mind,” Holena said quietly from her seat beside Aneshka. She would be starting school for the first time in the fall.
“Mind or not, it can't be helped,” Momma said, her mouth setting into a thin, tight line. It was almost the only expression she had worn since coming to America. “And you do have to go to school.” School was important. Momma had had few chances to learn English. She relied on my sisters and me to translate for her.
Momma sighed, looking again at the big piles of coal-blackened laundry. “We'll take this load down by the creek. That way we don't have to haul water. Trina, you carry it there, and we'll all join you when chores here are done.”
I began hauling tubs and bundles of filthy clothes across camp and down the steep slope to the little creek to the west. It took me four trips back and forth across the shabby town, and each time I returned to the house it seemed Aneshka was working slower and slower at her easy jobs. Holena, who was too little to help carry anyway, was watching Momma knead the week's bread dough. I glared at Aneshka as I gathered the bundles, but she ignored me.
In the creek bottom, I found a wide, grassy spot and built a fire, then arranged stones to balance a tub over the flames. Then I filled the tub with water from the creek. By the time I was done, my sweat-soaked dress clung to my shoulders. My mother and sisters had still not arrived. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the corner of my apron. Was this all there was to my father's dreamsâsweat and coal dust and endless hours of work?
I stretched and looked around. If I was going to spend the day scrubbing filthy clothes, I wasn't going to stay here while I waited for the water to boil. I deserved these few minutes to myself. I wandered along the water's edge, listening to the birds chirp in the low bushes and trying to forget the drudgery of the day ahead.
A short distance downstream, the valley narrowed and turned. The slopes of the valley became steeper, blocking the view of anything around the bend. I had never gone there. For months, I had come only to the creek to draw water. My pace quickened as a flutter of adventure stirred in my heart. I glanced back toward the laundry. My mother and sisters still weren't there. I had time to see what lay beyond the shoulder of land.
Around the bend, I stopped in amazement. The creek spread out into a still pool. At its edge, an ancient cottonwood tree leaned out, its massive branches reaching across until they
shaded the creek bottom from slope to slope. For a moment I thought I might be dreaming. I had never seen this tree before.
As I approached the tree, the high slopes of the valley shut out all sounds from the mine. For the first time in months, I couldn't hear the clank and screech of the cables in the hoist. The only sounds were the gurgle of the stream as it entered the pool and the sighing breath of breezes in the leaves overhead. Unexpectedly, tears filled my eyes. How often I had taken those sounds for granted in Bohemia. How foolishly we had left that behind to come here.
I pressed my hand against the rough bark to assure myself the tree was real. The trunk was so thick, I could not have reached even halfway around it if I'd tried. Two massive roots, each as thick as a mule's haunch, ran from the trunk to the water's edge, enclosing a triangle of soft grass between water and tree. I stepped over the closer root and sat down, my back against the massive trunk. The roots encircled me like my father's arms had when I was a child, making me feel safe. In the stillness, the constant ache for our home in Bohemia welled up inside me.
I watched a small leaf spinning lazily across the surface of the water, feeling like I was in a secret place. The mine, the washing, the endless chores had disappeared. There was only me, and the soothing stillness of this place. But as the leaf drifted out over the deepest part of the pool, I realized that I was not alone. A movement beneath the surface created a ripple that caught the leaf and spun it faster. I sat up to see better. With a flash of silver, the thing disappeared under the bank. I crawled forward and leaned out over the pool. The water was clear, and I could see the pebbles on the bottom in the shifting green light beneath the tree. I lay still and watched. After a long moment, a fish emerged from beneath the bank. It was not a large fish, but
larger than I had expected in a creek that size. It watched me, just as I watched it.
A story stirred in my memory. Back in Bohemia, my grandmother had told stories as we helped her stuff sausages. One had been about a fishâbut I couldn't quite remember.
The fish began to rise toward me with slow sweeps of its tail. I leaned closer, until my face almost touche d the water. I could clearly see its flat, broad head and the whiskerlike feelers protruding from either side of its mouth and chin. It was a carp, a fish we had considered lucky back in Bohemia. Only a few inches and the surface of the water separated us as it watched me with one shiny black eye. I held my breath, waiting to see what it would do.
“Katerina!”
A shout from upstream shattered the moment. I jerked my head up and the fish darted away. Aneshka was standing at the bend, her hands cupped around her mouth, getting ready to yell again. I scrambled quickly to my feet and stepped out from the shade.
“Coming!” I called, and hurried toward her. I didn't want Aneshka here. This place felt specialâmagicalâin a way Aneshka couldn't understand. She was too much like our mother.
“Where have you been?” she said, her hands going to her hips.
“Nowhere,” I said, and brushed past her without another word. She was five years younger than me; I didn't have to answer to her. But as I approached the washtubs, I knew I would have to answer to Momma.
“Where have you been, Katerina! I sent you down here to start the washing.”
“The water was heating; it wasn't ready,” I protested. I hadn't been gone very long.
“But it isn't hot, because while you went off daydreaming, the fire went out.”
I looked at the washtub. Weak wisps of smoke and bits of half-burned wood were all that remained of the fire I had started. No steam rose off the water.
“I'm sorry.” I began stuffing fresh wood beneath the tub. Soon the fire was lit again, but Momma wasn't satisfied.
“Trina, the family needs your help, not your daydreams. You are thirteen, practically a woman, but you act like a child. Honestly, Holena is more help than you some days.”
“I am sorry, Momma,” I said again. What else could I say? I couldn't talk back to her. And there was no point in saying how I ached with homesickness, not just for what we had left behind, but for what we were supposed to have here in America. That was not the sort of thing I could say to my mother.
I wasn't sorry I had left the laundry and found that peaceful place beneath the tree, either. It had been worth a scolding to feel still and secure for those few moments.
We boiled and scrubbed laundry until dusk that day, stopping only briefly to eat a lunch of bread and pickles while a fresh tub of water heated. In the afternoon, Momma left us to finish while she returned to the house to form the week's bread into loaves and begin preparing our supper.
“You are in charge, Trina, so don't go wandering off again,” she said before she left, proving she hadn't forgotten my mistake. I hadn't forgotten either. I had worked extra hard to make it up to her, but I was still thinking about the fish and trying to remember the story.
