Mania's Wish

Christmas was nearing and eight-year-old Mania had a wish. She wanted a Polish Christmas in Siberia. Soon she was obsessed with the unrealistic dream and she even made a plan to help it come true. The plan covered ways of getting extra food and splitting logs, and a tree with decorations. How was she to get these precious things while living in a poverty of the lowest kind?
 

 Until now she had paid very little attention to the old trunk with belongings standing underneath the only window in the one-room shelter. But suddenly she not only looked into it but also kept dreaming of things inside of it. Things brought from Poland.
 

 One morning she watched Mama eating her breakfast across the old table. Mama ate her piece of bread very slowly, washing it down with a black “coffee.” It was hot water darkened by burned bread pounded into a powder. As soon as Stas was done with his meager portion of bread, Mama pushed her unfinished slice toward him. Stas was Mania’s little brother. He snatched and wolfed down the bread. Normally Mania would be mad at the selfishness of the boy who should have known that Mama needed to eat too. But today she was preoccupied with her own special thoughts to care.
 

 “Mama, can we talk?” she asked in a slightly trembling voice.
 

 “What about?” Mama was in hurry to be done with the meal, Mania knew. Mama had to walk Stas to his sitter and then go to work in the forest where she and Tata cut trees all day for Russians.
 

 “Some of our people exchange things for food with Russian women,” Mania said, and Mama nodded. 

“Christmas is coming, but we have nothing to celebrate it with. So, please, Mama, exchange something nice you have in the trunk for food.”
 

 “I wish we had things to spare, but – but we need all of our eiderdown beddings and clothes to keep us from freezing at nights.”
 

 “How about the lacy white shawl? You can’t wear it to work.”
 

 “Your grandma gave it to me just before the war, and that’s the only thing I have to remember her by.”
But Mania wouldn’t be discouraged. “Please, Mama.”

Mama shook her head but there were two lines between her eyes, getting deeper. Mania smiled at the bottom of her emptied cup. Mama was thinking about the exchanging something, and that was as good as if she said yes. Mania then began to think of how to persuade Tata to keep her plan going.
 

 In the evening, she set her mind and eyes on him, starting the fire in the small badly chipped built-in brick stove. “This kind of wood isn’t good for heating,” she said, squatting on the earthen floor by him. He, sitting down on the stool made by him, blew into the stove that smoked and spitted angry sparks. Mania got up and jumped up and down for warmth. “It’s always soooo cooold in here.”
 

 Tata blew some more. “If only we had something better to burn than branches we pick off the ground on the way from work. If only Russians let us cut trees to heat our shelters, but they don’t. And we don’t want to do anything that would send us to jail.”
 

 “The branches and sticks burn too fast to keep us warm,” said Mania, watching Tata blowing harder yet into the stove. This time he managed to make flames lick the wood. “Split logs would burn just fine.” She stopped her jumping and came closer to the fire so that she could see Tata’s reaction to her last words. But he sighed and kept on blowing some more until the wood fully caught on fire and she waited.
 

 “You know that logs cost money which we don’t have,” he finally said, grinning at the fire burning and giving off warmth. And then he stood up. “We work for meager food alone as you know, Mania. For once-a day soup and some bread.”
 

 “I know how you could earn some rubles,” she mumbled, getting closer to Tata and putting her arms about his waist.
 

 “How?” he patted the top of her blond head.
 

 “You are very good with hands,” Mama says. “You know, Marek’s uncle does house repairs for Russian women and they give him rubles. You can fix thing for them in evenings.

Mania raised her eyes up to Tata’s face. “Please, Tata, please make some money to buy logs for Christmas Eve.”
 

 “This is a huge order,” he said, pushing her gently away.
 

 Mania let go of him and walked away into the depth of the room, grinning secretly, for somehow she knew that she would be crossing SPLIT LOGS off of her list.
T

he following morning, she walked to Russian school in a good mood and full of hope. It was so easy to daydream of the traditional Christmas Eve dinner she and her family had in Poland just a year ago. There was barszcz (sour soup} with mushrooms and onions, pierogies with potato, cabbage or cheese stuffing, baked fish, and marinated fish (sledzie), baskets of rolls and croissants and more all placed on the table covered with linen. The food gave out the dominating aroma of fried pieces of salted pork and onions. Mania was almost drooling when reaching the building.
 

 “If your dream won’t …” something whispered inside of her. She shrugged the thoughts away and walked in and sat down at her desk. And then she remembered that she needed a tree. She would ask her good friend Bocian to cut her a small pine from the woods by the Irish River. She did the asking that day on the way home from school and he said yes. All that was left of her plans then were the decorations.
 

 Mania approached her teacher one noon. “Miss Tolskowa, I want to ask you something.” The teacher nodded, biting into her sandwich, which looked heavenly delicious. It reminded Mania how hungry she always was. But she swallowed hard and continued, “You know that my cursive writing isn’t good—”

It is not bad.” 

“I want to make it perfect.” Mania’s heart pounded in her ears now. “I could practice more at home. But – but I don’t have enough paper.”
 

 Miss Tolskowa finished her lunch and smiled, crumbling up the brown paper which had covered her sandwich. Mania wondered if there were any crumbs left inside of it that she would love to lick.
“I appreciate students who want to improve.” The woman threw the wrapper into the basket, pulled out her desk drawer and took out a huge handful of loose sheets. They were brand new and white like snow. She handed them to Mania from across the desk.
 

 “Thank you,” Mania managed to say. She wasn’t proud of having to lie, yet couldn’t help but be happy to have the material for her decorations.
 

 The same day and right after school, she began her special project .She started to make a paper chain, draw and color angels and clowns and cut them out, using her school colored pencils and Mama’s scissors. For two weeks she worked secretly, for she had decided to surprise her family with a tree. Her parents would provide meal and warmth. She hadn’t seen any preparations done by them so far, but she didn’t worry, believing that they worked on it on the sly like she did. But did they?
 

 Christmas Eve came cold and snowy, but Mania was smiling while walking to school.
 

She was in a great mood, expecting nothing but good coming to her today.
 

 “Our tree will look like the one we had back home,” she said into her breath steaming into freezing air. “I made so many things to put on it. It would be great if I had candles to put on its branches. But then she thought of her box with the hand-made -decorations and smiled full smile, for she already saw how her family would celebrate Polish Christmas Eve. “Tonight, we’ll be happy,” she said to the school building now before opening its big red door. The door was the only thing she liked about her Russian school. She was grinning while sitting down at her desk too. But soon she found out that Bocian was sick, didn’t come to school, and that meant that she had no tree. Her heart sunk to the floor, but it didn’t stay down for long. She still could look forward to the good meal and the burning logs.
 

Later, on the way home, Mania imagined seeing her shelter full of good surprises such as a pile of split logs by the fireplace and already made pierogie dough lying on the table, waiting for Mama to fill it.
But when she walked in, she stopped breathing for while because there was nothing, not a sign of her parents’ preparation for the traditional meal. Bunks were unmade as usual and the floor begged to be swept. There was not even a stick of wood to be burned in the fireplace full of cold gray ashes. Mania swallowed a hard lump coming up her throat, dropping her books to the floor. Silent tears fogged up her eyes. “I’m foolish and I hate myself for thinking that I can have a Polish Christmas in Siberia,” she whispered into the silence of the room, shaking her shoulders and sobbing.
 

 She walked to her bunk and pulled out the box with the decorations from under it. Squatting by it she hissed, “I will start the fire with one of my school books and burn you in it. I will, I will,” she repeated, but did not move from the spot. Without even knowing it, she slid the box back under the bunk.
 

 Still in her outdoor wraps she climbed onto it and lay there crying even harder until finally she fell asleep. When her parents and Stas returned home, they awoke her. She got up but said not a word to anyone until Mama had made soup that was much thicker and tastier than usual.
 

 Tata started the fire in the oven, which warmed up the room, making it possible to remove her coat and hat. She noticed that there was extra firewood piled up now on the floor and knew that it would last at least an hour longer than usual. The soup and the fire crackling warmed up Mania’s heart and turned her thoughts to Stas. He was now licking his stupid empty bowl. In the light of kerosene lamp she saw how thin and pale he was. Something painful stirred in her chest. Did her little brother remember Poland? Did he think of the past happy Christmases? She now felt guilty and ashamed for sulking. What could she do to make it up to her parents and Stas? She could kneel down on the floor and pray for a miracle, so that God returned her and them home even if it was just for Christmas. But she realized that her prayers would be said for nothing. Thus, she just sat there thinking, thinking, thinking.
 

 Suddenly she knew! She bounded for the box of decorations, pulled it out for the second time today. Smiling, she placed it on the table in front of Stas. With widened eyes he stared at it without moving, and she knew why. For weeks she had kept the box away from him, threatening to hit him if he as much as touched her decorations or told their parents about it. But tonight she pushed the box toward him and sang out, “Play, play, play.”
 

 He turned the box upside down and spilled the decorations all over the table. He made angels fly above his head. “Wee, weee, weeee. Swooooosh.” Then he ordered clowns to jump up and down. “He, hee, heeee. Ha, ha, ha.” After he wrapped his head with the chain, Mania picked up an angel and made it fly. Mama and Tata chose clowns and made them laugh.

Soon everyone was giggling and laughing. When Mama started to hum a Christmas carol, the whole family began to sing. The caroling brought out vivid scenes from the happy past and filled the dreary room with joy. The joy of remembering. It flooded Mania’s heart with warmth and good feeling which comes from giving, receiving and sharing.
 

 And it was almost as if Mania’s dream of having a polish Christmas Eve, in Siberia, came true.