Rodzina

  In the seat in front of me sat a man and a woman, who stared smiling into each other's faces. She had on a walking suit of gray trimmed with fur, and he had a homburg, rich black and freshly brushed and fuzzy. Maybe that could be me and my husband-to-be, on our way to our new home and new life. At our wedding we would share bread and salt and wine, and I would never be hungry or lonely again. We would have a house and an apple tree, and Lacey could visit. And Sammy, Joe, and Mickey Dooley. And Miss Doctor. Maybe they would come at Easter and we would eat pork sausage and horseradish and decorated eggs....I sighed as the man in the homburg kissed his lady's hand.

  The train began a winding, twisting track that led up and down, shut in the cold, dark heart of the snowy mountains. The clouds were thick and low. On the hillsides I could see the faint green of new grass, but also the scars of pits and tunnels and heaps of dirt, rocks, and refuse.

  As we raced along, I counted fenceposts. Mama had told me that girls in Poland foretold the appearance of their future husbands by the shape of the fourteenth fencepost they passed. No matter how many times I started counting anew, the fourteenth post only predicted a short, stubby husband, worn and splintery, advertising tobacco and hog feed.

  Then around another turn and we were in Virginia City. It was little for a city, even in the west. The town rose from the railroad tracks in a series of terraces hanging on the side of the mountain, each level crowded with houses and stores and saloons, churches and hotels, and some grand buildings with balconies and clock towers.

  The depot was crowded with red-blanketed Indians, cowboys in big Stetson hats, flannel-clad miners, and even a few ordinary folk. But not one of them was a woman. All those people, and every one of them a man. No wonder this Mrs. Stifflebean had sent for women. No man could find a bride in this city of men. I felt a little jolt of fear. Were all those men waiting for me?

  We were in Virginia City, but I did not get off the train right away. I watched the activity out the window for a bit. The lovey-dovey man and woman walked away together, her hand on his arm. I pressed my face against the glass so I could watch them as long as possible.

  When I stood up to leave, the conductor blocked my way. His face was not so jolly anymore. "Here, missy, I remember you from Reno." He grabbed my shoulder. "You had no ticket. What are you doing on this train?"

  I tried to twist out of his grasp. "Let me go!" I said. "You're hurting me. Let me go." I tried not to cry but could feel tears on my face and knew a blubber was coming on.

  He shook me hard. "Riding without a ticket is stealing from the railroad. We put thieves in jail here."

  Someone poked the conductor with her umbrella. "What are you doing to this child?" There next to us stood a tiny old lady, gray-haired and wrinkled but straight as a very short stick.

  "This here girl has no ticket."

  "And for that you threaten her with jail? Jail! Some men have no more sense than a chicken! Where are you from, child?"

  The blubbering had started, and all I could say between gulps was, "Chicago."

  "She got on in Reno. Said something about seeing her old granny," the conductor said.

  "Well, and so she has. I will be her old granny and pay the few pennies for her fare from Reno and back." She held out her hand. "This is for you. I expect you to see her safely where she belongs."

  The conductor took the money and tipped his hat. "Ma'am," he said.

  "And you, child," the old woman said, looking up at me, "go on home. Face up to whatever it is sent you running away. Why, someone must be worried sick, a little thing like you all alone out here." She poked the conductor again and said, "Jail! And her a child. Ridiculous! Make yourself useful and help me off this train."

  She was right—not about my being little, but I was a child. I knew that. I was not Miss Merlene or a lovely lady in a gray suit or a pink-cheeked woman in a sailor hat. There in the window was my reflection, a big, round twelve-year-old girl who looked like her papa, not pretty, with dirty hair and holes in her stockings. What was I thinking of? I couldn't find anyone to adopt me; who on earth would marry me?

  I started to blubber again.

  Quit acting like a child, I said to myself.

  I am a child, I said right back.

  I could not get off the train and marry a stranger. I had to grow up first.

  What was I to do now? I would have to get to San Francisco on my own, for certainly Miss Doctor had gone on without me. Perhaps the station agent at Reno could telegraph the Boys' and Girls' Training School for ticket money. And if not, maybe I could just walk out into the mountains and starve to death. No one wanted me, no one would miss me.

  "All aboard!" the conductor called, and the train began to fill up again for its return trip to Reno. I curled up in a seat and slept all the way.

  In Reno the conductor pulled me off the train, holding tight to my arm as he marched me into the station agent's office. And there waiting was Miss Doctor, beautiful, dependable Miss Doctor!

  "Rodzina!" she shouted, rushing at me and grabbing me. I had never noticed before how small she was, much shorter than I and not as big around as a walking stick, but I felt safe as I threw my arms around her and hung on.

  After a moment she held me at arm's length and looked at me. "What happened to you? Where were you? Are you all right? We were just summoning the sheriff."

  But I had started to cry again, and I could not answer. She led me to a bench where we just sat for a minute, me crying and her clucking.

  When I finally looked up, she wiped my face with her own handkerchief. "You couldn't find me a suitable family," I said, hiccupping, "so I thought I'd go to Virginia City and marry a miner and we would be a family. But I'm too young to get married." I snuffled a bit more. "So I came back. Why are you still here?"

  "I could not just leave without you."

  "Why not? You left without Joe and Sammy and Lacey and all the others."

  "That was different. They were placed with families. You were by yourself out in the wilds, lost or kidnapped or murdered by grizzly bears. How could I abandon a twelve-year-old orphan—even one as resourceful as you? I had to make sure you were all right. And it seems you were not."

  "No," I said, "I guess I was not." I pressed up close to her. Tiny as she was, she felt strong and solid.

  "You are but a child, Rodzina," she said in her cold, sharp voice, "and cannot just do whatever you take it in your mind to do." Laying her hand over mine, she added, "Promise me you will never do such a thing again."

  "I promise," I snuffled. "Take me to the training school and leave me there until I die of unhappiness and bad food. I will not run away again. I promise." And I meant it. I had had enough of running. I wanted to be somewhere and stay there.

  13. California

  WE WAITED IN RENO for hours until finally another Central Pacific pulled in, headed for California. The station agent brought out Miss Doctor's bags and my cardboard suitcase. I had not lost everything from my old life after all. I still had the Virgin wrapped in Mama's red-and-yellow shawl, the big blue marble with a heart of fire that had belonged to Jan or Toddy—I never knew which—and the handmade card from Hulda that said "Friends 4-ever." I looked at my reflection in the window of the train. And from my papa, I had my boots and my face.

  I settled down in my seat. With every whistle and chug we moved farther from Virginia City and closer to San Francisco and the Boys' and Girls' Training School.

  Somewhere west of Reno we entered California. We stopped there to add another engine to the front of the train. The conductor said we were going to climb sharply now, and one engine would not be sufficient to pull the entire train.

  The ascent was so steep, we were pinned back in our seats. No one stood or walked around. We all just sat. I prayed those two engines would be enough to get us up the mountains and we would not fail and fall back all the way to Omaha. Or be stranded in the mountains with nothing to eat but bear paws, elk nostrils, and snow.

  We wou
nd through forests of pine and fir, up, up, and up. Everywhere there were trees, green and vigorous, branches sprinkled with snow, some taller than the tallest Chicago buildings. There were more trees in California, I'd say, than poppy-seeds in Mama's Christmas cake.

  Every so often we passed through long, tall wooden tunnels, constructed, the conductor said, to keep the snow off the tracks so the trains could run. People lived and worked in these tunnels, which covered houses, stores, turntables, depots, sidings, everything. It was a fantastical underground world, one like fairies might live in or those prairie dogs I saw in Wyoming. Was that in this lifetime? It seemed so long ago.

  At Summit station Miss Doctor and some of the others got out, but I did not. Only 7042 feet—that didn't seem so high to me, who had stood at 8235 at Sherman.

  Then down we chugged to Sacramento, seven thousand feet in one hundred miles of twists and turns. The train rattled and swung on the sudden curves and narrow ledges of the mountain. The wheels on the cars ahead glowed red-hot like disks of flame.

  In the pale light from the gas lamps I could see only shadows in the car. It was easier to talk about some things when you knew you were only a shadow. "Thank you for waiting for me," I whispered to Miss Doctor. "I was happy to see you."

  "And I you."

  "Really? Happy to see me?"

  "Don't sound so surprised. I do have feelings. It's just that I keep them to myself. I tend to be private ... and, yes, sometimes, I suppose somewhat—what was that you called me a while back—cold and frosty." She laughed a tiny laugh, the first I ever heard from her. "You should meet my mother. She could grow icicles in Hell."

  So she wasn't an orphan. "Your mother is still alive?"

  "I assume so. I have not seen or heard from her since I announced my intention to study medicine." Miss Doctor leaned back, her eyes closed and head against the seat back. "I've often imagined going home with my doctor bag, and my mother waiting on the porch, calling, 'I am so proud of you, daughter. Let's celebrate with white cake and lemonade.' But that will never happen. My mother never changes her mind."

  How strange it seemed to me that the starchy Miss Doctor pretended just the way I did. "The notion that a woman should not practice medicine because she is a woman," she said softly, "is intolerable, absurd, and outdated. Yet it may defeat me."

  "But you worked so hard to be a doctor." "And doctoring is my only skill. What else could I do?"

  "You could be a prigger or a hoister or a dip." I smiled at the thought.

  She looked at me as if my head had fallen off. "What do you know of priggers and dips and such?"

  "After Mama died, I spent some nights on the streets. There were lots of kids sleeping out there. I was with them for a while before I was grabbed and sent to the orphanage. And that's what they were: priggers and hoisters and dips. Melvin was a hoister. You know, a buzzer. File. Whiz. Wire."

  She shook her head but said nothing.

  "It was Melvin who told me orphanages ship orphans on trains to the west and sell them to families that want slaves."

  "I never imagined you sleeping on the street or begging for food," she said. "I never knew. And you really expected to be sold?" She shook her head again. "How frightened you must have been."

  "I was, but I should have known Melvin wasn't someone to believe. You can't trust hoisters. And after a while I could see for myself that not all the people who wanted orphans were just in the market for cheap servants." There was silence. "I know you tried your best for me. It's not your fault nobody wants me."

  There was more silence then. I thought Miss Doctor had fallen asleep, but she said, "I had a telegram from Mr. Szprot. Herman has run away from his new home already." Hermy the Knife. He'd be back with the Plug Uglies in no time. There's no telling what is a family to some people.

  Miss Doctor slept then. I sat for a long time watching out the window, though I could see nothing but the reflection of my own face. We were getting closer and closer to San Francisco. I imagined myself walking up to the training school door, leaving Miss Doctor behind. I could see that door in my mind, plain as day, but I could not imagine what lay on the other side.

  We raced through the Sacramento Valley late in the afternoon. Mountain cliffs and towering trees disappeared as the valley opened up wide and green, with plowed fields and a wonderland of flowers and blossoming trees. Could this be the same season I'd left in Chicago? The same country? I felt like Sleeping Beauty or Rip Van Winkle—I had fallen asleep in the Chicago winter and woke to a bright California spring.

  The sun danced and sparkled on the windows of the train as we rode along. Mama would like it here, I thought. She wouldn't be cold anymore. "Sit in the sun, Rodzina," she would say. "It will put roses in your cheeks."

  And Papa? I could hear Papa saying, "This new land, so big. I think there could be a place here for a Polish poet."

  California was large and empty. Surely if there was a place here for a Polish poet, there would be a place for a lady doctor. Miss Doctor would find work here, I just knew it. And I would spend my days scrubbing someone's pots and ironing someone else's starched collars, and no one would ever want me. Miss Merlene had found a way out of the laundry room, but it appeared I could not.

  The train stopped for supper at Sacramento station. It was dark, but the air was soft and mild. The town smelled of flowers and the river.

  We ate at a restaurant for only twenty-five cents each. There was a blue mug of daffodils on each table. Our waiters were quick and polite, but strange, with narrow eyes, long shirts, and loose trousers. Miss Doctor said they were from China. China! That was even farther away than Chicago. Or Poland.

  A woman at another table called loudly, "Doctor!" Miss Doctor turned around, but the woman was waving to a portly gentleman in a straw hat. "How odd it is," I said to Miss Doctor, "to hear a man called doctor." She smiled at me.

  After dinner she collected a telegram that was waiting for her at the station office, read it quickly, and put it in the pocket of her dusty suit. Back on the train we settled down for the night.

  "Good night, Rodzina," said Miss Doctor, making that sound between a D and a G and a Z that I thought only Polish mouths could make. She looked at my stunned face and smiled again. "I have been practicing."

  We rattled and swayed our way toward San Francisco. My thoughts were tumbling around inside me, and I tried to catch some of them. For nearly an hour I considered and wondered and, finally, swallowed twice, mentally hitched up my stockings, and spoke. "Miss Doctor, I want to say something. I want to stay with you and not go to the training school."

  She opened her mouth to speak, but I kept talking. "Just listen, Miss Doctor. I have been thinking and thinking about this. It's a good idea. We are becoming used to each other, and—"

  "Rodzina, I cannot—"

  I was desperate enough to contradict her. "Don't say you cannot! You can. I do not want to go to the training school. I want to stay with you."

  Miss Doctor said nothing, and my heart and my hopes began to shrivel. "Miss Doctor?" I said after a moment. "What do you think?"

  She shook her head. "I would have to think very seriously about the responsibility of taking on a child, raising and supporting her by myself. And I would need to consult the placing-out agent in Chicago. It would take time."

  "We don't have time." My voice grew sharp and whiny as I began to fear I was failing to convince her. "Tomorrow we will be in San Francisco, and the training school will swallow me like a chicken swallows a bug."

  "I do not know if it would work. We have not always gotten along so well. And at times you have disliked me fiercely."

  "That's because you and me, Miss Doctor, we're so different. But that could be a good thing. And in lots of ways we're alike. Maybe you don't know, but I do." I rubbed the beginnings of tears from my eyes with my fists. "We could be a family, Miss Doctor, you and me." I waited for her to say something.

  Miss Doctor looked straight at me. "It's true I would mis
s you if you were not here. And I have been having serious doubts about leaving you in a training school." She was silent for a long while then, and I held my breath. "Perhaps we might make a success of it," she said, and my breath came out in a whoosh. "It will not be easy, Rodzina. We are both of us difficult and ornery."

  Difficult and ornery? Right then I felt as easy and obedient as chocolate pudding. Still, I knew what she meant. "But we can try?"

  "Yes, we can try, both of us, very hard."

  I smiled and she smiled back. Her gray eyes behind the spectacle lenses were as soft as kitten fur or the mist on the hilltops.

  "Miss Doctor?"

  "If we are to be a family, perhaps you should call me by my real name."

  I didn't know her name. I had never troubled to find out. Hanging my head a little, I said, "I don't know what it is."

  "Catriona Anabel Wellington. Not nearly as long or as elegant as yours."

  "It will do. May I call you Doctor Cat?"

  "You may."

  "Well, then, Doctor Cat, what will you do in California? What will we do? Perhaps I could work at—"

  She reached over and took my hand. I didn't know whether I was more surprised or happy. "The message waiting for me in Sacramento was a response to the hundreds of telegrams I have been sending throughout California. Finally. Professor Meyers at the new college in Berkeley tells me a small community is growing up around the school, and they are in need of a doctor. Even a lady doctor. We might make a home in Berkeley." She looked closely at me. "We may have to struggle some, but we will struggle together. And they have a high school there."