Eva Galuska and the Christmas Carp: A Novella

By Kathleen Clauson

Eva Galuska and the Christmas Carp is a magical Christmas story told by Jozef Mieszko about his own life. He is a successful young man who has it alla beautiful golden-haired wife, two young sons who worship him, a rewarding career, and a home with great equitya fairytale, castle-like brownstone on Chicagos trendy Gold Coast. Jozefs parents, first generation Polish immigrants, achieved the American dream with sacrifice, tenacity, and hard work, and they own and operate an Old World-style Polish bakery and delicatessen. Their store is located in the heart of Bucktown, an old Polish neighborhood near St. Marys of the Angels Catholic Church, one of Chicagos actual historical landmarks, known for its spectacular golden dome, its glorious rooftop angels, and its mysterious blue light in the cupola that can be glimpsed from the Kennedy Expressway. Even though Jozef is proud of his family heritage and he enjoys helping his parents at their store, he realizes he is not a people person like his father, and he chooses a career as a computer programmer, rather than pursuing the family businessas his father puts it, Jozef prefers to lose his eyesight to blue-screened electronika.

A few days before Christmas, Jozef makes a routine stop at his parents store on his way home from work and he runs into Eva Galuska, a strikingly beautiful, seductive woman, who is a friend of his family. Eva is a talented seamstress who has always seemed breath-taking and mysterious, but after their brief, flirtatious encounter in his fathers store, Jozef finds himself unexpectedly attracted to her and cannot get her out of his mind. This unexpected lust leads Jozef to question many aspects of his life and these confusing thoughts about Eva lead him to one particular childhood memory that haunts him, revealing his own guilt and feelings that he could have somehow prevented it from happening in the first place.

For Jozefs family, the holidays represent the most profitable time of the year as well as the traditional Polish religious celebration of the birth of Christ. For Jozef, the glow of Christmas is a magical time, when anything is possiblethe twinkle of lights brighten the world at the darkest time of the year and at the same time, the celebration of Christs birth, is an impetus for spiritual rebirth.

Jozef sets out on a journey of self-discovery, sharing his memories, perceptions, personal thoughts, and problems with the reader. He questions the blend of old rituals and superstitions with religion, in an attempt to discover his own beliefs and to resolve old conflicts, still smoldering from the past. His meeting with Eva unlocks a forgotten door in his childhood memories, revealing his uneasiness with a family Christmas Eve tradition and unravels a tangled paradox of hidden secrets among the layers of complex personalities, family traditions, superstitions, and faith. And in spite of his conscious efforts to differ from his father, Jozef finds that he possibly shares a secret with his father, to which he has been oblivious, his entire life. As Christmas Eve approaches, Jozef recognizes the tiny window of opportunity to resolve his personal issues once and for all.

Eva Galuska and the Christmas Carp is a celebration of the rich cultural heritage and the languages, the culinary specialties, the folklore and superstitions of Chicagos ethnic communities, particularly focused on Chicagos Polonia. And the fictional story of Jozef Mieszko, intertwined with history and actual landmarks of Chicagos magnificent landscapes, reveals a contemporary, yet tangled plot, that could happen to any familyin America or elsewhere. This story at Christmastime is sheds light on Eastern European holiday traditions still practiced today, but also open the door for Jozefs spiritual awakening, and in a sense, his rebirth as he listens to the Black Madonna and follows St. Marys of the Angels mysteriou

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 19, 2007
• ISBN: 9781469117713

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Copyright © 2008 by Kathleen Clauson.

On the cover:

First Snow photograph by Julita Siegel ©2007

Monica Ignas, model

Cover design:

Steven Barbeau

Author’s Photograph:

Tom Martin

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

White Horse

Angel Wings

Golden Halo

Bakery Virgins

Christmas Carp

Fallen Angel

Black Madonna

Torn Wing

Pink Oplatki

Dedication

For my parents,

Joseph and Helen Myers,

Acknowledgments

T hree years ago, I was fortunate enough to meet Chicago author and poet, Stuart Dybek, at an event sponsored by the Fred Case and Lola Austin Case Writer-in-Residence program at Western Illinois University. We talked about old Polish customs, Chicago’s ethnic neighborhoods, and the storyline of my novella, which intertwines the rich cultural heritage, customs, superstitions, and languages of Eastern and Western Europe. After the program, in my copy of his book of poetry, Brass Knuckles , Dybek scrawled a drawing of a big floundering fish and a many-pronged spear, representing the fate of my Christmas Carp, traditionally served on Christmas Eve. I extend my deep gratitude to Mr. Dybek for his time and suggestions, and especially for his works, which most inspired me, his collections of short stories, The Coast of Chicago and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods . Ever since, it has been my dream to publish my story of Eva Galuska and the Christmas Carp.

Many thanks to those who made this book possible – to my husband Steve and my son Jonathan, my inspiring luminaries, who dreamed my dream right along with me and encouraged me every step of the way; to my parents who taught me the true meaning of Christmas and I carry this special magic with me every single day; special thanks to my friends, Kelly Burger, Katherine Dahl, and the late Victoria Michaels Wilcoxen for their encouragement. Great thanks as well to Jeremy Bradley, Colleen Kelly, Melissa Roberts, Jasmin Kennebrew, Jessica LaFollette, Lauren-Ashley Barnes, Ryan Sotelo, and Deidre Haye. Thanks also to Dr. Stephen Roth and his wife, Traudi for their help with German and Romanian and the cultures.

The cover is the artistry of two very gifted individuals, Julita Siegel and Steven Barbeau. Julita astounded me with her unique, elegant style of photography. Her photograph, First Snow, captures the spirit of Christmas and the rich Polish heritage, radiantly portrayed by Monica Ignas, who kindly agreed to model. Steven Barbeau, a talented graphic designer and friend, created the cover design. Thanks also to Julita for her interest in this project, her help and suggestions with Polish words and customs, and her haunting photographs of Olga Balcerowska, which I hope to use in future projects. My sincere thanks to Olga for modeling. And thanks to Tom Martin for my photograph on the back cover.

Thanks also to Victoria Granacki, author of Chicago’s Polish Downtown; to the Polish Museum of America in Chicago; to Gary Bilinovich, business manager of St. Mary’s of the Angels Catholic Church in Chicago, for clarifying details about St. Mary’s and its mysterious blue light; to Greg Lysek for sharing memories of his native Poland; to Sophie Hodorowicz Knab whose books on Polish traditions and folklore gave me more insight to some of the customs I mentioned in my story; special thanks to Mrs. Catherine Saunders, Geoff Tillotson, Tama Baldwin, and David Stevenson for inspiring me to write; to Jason Goddard for his friendship and the blue glass grapes on my writing desk; and to Vicki Rakowski for her critical insight and much appreciated Oplatki wafers.

White Horse

I t was a few days before Christmas Eve – light snow frosted the fading slants of sunlight, the sky neither white nor ashen, like a dapple-gray horse grazing across the cement sky. Snowflakes streamed toward the streetlights as if strung together by silvery silk thread. The snowfall was light but steady – the kind of snow that the sky sifts gently over the top of everything, not the heavy, wet snowman-building kind. Once naked winter trees, now iridescent with a glaze of ice, glistened with the promise of new life. The ground had been snow-covered since St. Martin’s Day, the eleventh of November. My parents believed it would be a snowy winter, with lots of sunshine, brightening the cold dark days – simple as pie, because the feast of St. Martin arrived on a white horse and the cake lady’s bones were white.

The cake lady was an irritable old woman who baked holiday cakes at our parents’ bakery. After school we’d sit in the kitchen, at one of the long wooden tables, amidst the shiny pots and pans, baking sheets, and cake molds, dipping our cookies in cups of milky tea. I must have been about ten, on a crisp autumn day in October, when my sister and I first saw her. We came in after school, like always, and took our book bags to the bakery kitchen. Our table was completely covered with cakes. Seated near the middle was an old woman, with pale icy eyes, a dried-apple face, her hair, shaped like a bleached blonde beehive piled neatly on her head. Her hair looked like a babka, a cake baked in a fancy baking tin usually shaped like a lady’s skirt. From that day forward we called her the cake lady.

The story of the horse and the bones recanted an old Polish folktale for forecasting the winter weather, just as reliable as the weather channel, or so my family believed. To Mama, the old charms and superstitions were part of everyday life, as easily accepted as Monday following Sunday or the sun coming up in the east. St. Martin’s Day arrived on a white horse if it snowed that day. White bones promised lots of snow and sunshine during the winter. Dark bones, rain – white bones, snow.

Like Mama, the cake lady was a devout practitioner of old folk remedies and charms, Old World customs a part of her religion, the Catholic Church, the other. Although we saw her almost every day and she told us all the old folk tales, we knew little about her – except her name was Sabine and she baked mouth-watering cakes. The cake lady spoke Polish and very little English, secretive about her life in any language. Now and then a word or two of German worked its way into her sentences, quite subconsciously. But if I asked her if she spoke German, she denied it unemotionally, looking into the distance at something only she could see. Sometimes she talked to herself and she muttered es mach’s nichts, which I later learned meant it doesn’t matter. When she spoke of a babka, she normally called it a Guglhupf. She asked for Zucker instead of sugar, Zimt instead of cinnamon, and even though she didn’t realize it, she counted in German most of the time.

She attended mass at St. Mary’s and observed all the Polish traditional feast days and customs. After mass, she vanished as quickly as the trails of incense used in the service. On St. Martin’s Day, she roasted the customary goose and the next day, she brought in a wide-mouthed jar of goose bones to the store. Year after year she used the same jar, St. Martin and his white horse, painted as a background for the goose bones. The custom of looking at the color of the bones was comparable to breaking the wishbone of a turkey at Thanksgiving or Christmas, except the goose bones were used to foretell the weather, instead of granting wishes.

My sister and I loved listening to the old lady’s stories and we were especially enthralled by the charms she made with plants and flowers, only too happy to indulge her, especially Roza, who was always looking for an excuse to postpone doing homework. These tales were a smooth blend of superstition and religion, discreetly persuasive, but enthusiastically welcomed in many homes. I was half-hearted in my skepticism, because more often than not, the stories had a church bell’s ring of truth to them.

Whether or not I wanted to believe in the cake lady’s goose bones, the snow kept coming. Snow was not only a part of winter – it was an important part of business and the holiday season, at least to my family’s business, a bakery and delicatessen on Cortland, catty-corner from St. Mary’s. My father had been grinning with delight this year, ever since St. Martin’s white horse stormed Chicago. Snow stirs up the Christmas spirit and opens the pocketbook, he said, his hands always moving as he spoke. Years of early snow have the most big profits. Many of the store keepers think pretty lights bring more people – not true – a little snow is the key. Snow awakened the shoppers, jetting them into the Christmas countdown, creating a sense of urgency, even the fear that nothing good would be left on the shelves if they waited.

I sipped my coffee, settled my mug back into the cup holder, and blindly drummed the tin foil, stretched over the top of a plate of sugar cookies, shaped like Christmas trees, frosted with green icing and sprinkled with sugar that looked just like snow. My secretary Cherie had baked them; she said it was Swedish Pearl Sugar. With one hand on the steering wheel, I peeled back the foil, and delved into them, eating trees as I drove.

In the twilight I could see the dome of St. Mary’s of the Angels, its blue light winking from the cupola. Everything a man could want was neatly nestled here in this neighborhood – St. Mary’s on one side, parochial school on the other; and little clusters of shops tucked in here and there with the brownstones and bungalows – a bank, a flower shop, a dressmaker, a drug store, a coffee shop, a jewelry store, a hair salon, a tavern.

The glow of Christmas was everywhere. St. Mary’s luminous blue light, guarded by magnificent roof-top angels, at the heart of my old neighborhood, was captured in a snow globe, a swirling blizzard of sparkling snow crystals, twinkling Christmas trees, candy canes, plastic Santa Clauses, jingling sleigh bells, shiny red shopping bags, streets lined with colored strands of electric light, and the aroma of freshly baked holiday cookies and cakes. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this year my snow globe had been turned upside down and shaken hard.

Parked cars, blanketed by snow, had become white and shapeless, like unused furniture covered with sheets. Under the watchful gaze of St. Mary’s white angels, I searched for a parking spot. For once I was in the right place at the right time. Just as I made my second lap, a lady in red gloves waved at me from the back of a Suburban. She was brushing off snow with a kitchen broom. I slowed down, and flipped on my blinkers, and the guy behind me blasted me with his horn. The lady tossed her broom into the backseat and pulled out, leaving me with a large parking place.

I eased my Civic into the practically snow-bare spot, sandwiched between a red Volvo station wagon and a green Land Rover. A long-needled Christmas tree was strapped to the roof of the Volvo, its shaggy branches spilling over the edge. On the flat nose of the Land Rover, a holiday wreath blinked, first red, then green. The homes here were familiar – brownstones, townhouses, and bungalows, with tiny postage-stamp gardens, outlined by icicle lights and swags of evergreens on wrought-iron gates. As I walked in the snow, my black wool coat looked like it had been dusted with powdered sugar.

Saffron light illuminated the homes up and down, the wise old trees reaching for the sky, all along North Hermitage, West Cortland, North Wood, and West Bloomingdale. The tall windows of an old brownstone, with a Romeo-and-Juliet balcony, were covered with paper snowflakes, big and small, simple and ornate, probably made by a child, from folded squares of white paper with round-tipped scissors – just like the ones we made years ago in elementary school. Icy snow spackled my face, taking me back in time to the days of making snow angels in the playground and sprinkling glitter on paper snowflakes in art, and asking Sister Kosima about the magical powers of angels on top of St. Mary’s.

Sister Kosima was the favorite teacher among third graders. She was gentle and soft spoken; young for a nun, I thought, perhaps just a girl herself. Her hair and lashes were like pale buttercups, her face rosy in a continuous blush. Her appearance, even in black, was cheerful. She held my glue-splotched snowflake in her fingertips while I spooned sugary white glitter over the top, as if it were a bowl of breakfast cereal. By the end of class, she sparkled like a snowflake.

Sister Kosima, can the angels use their magic power from God to protect pets with their wings? I remembered pointing up to the angels on the roof of the church.

Pets? Of course, she assured me. Angels wrap their protective wings around every one of God’s creatures. She had a honey-tea and toast voice, warm and soothing, her words, patient and kind. Without even seeing her face, we could hear the lovely smile in her voice.

Even fish? Can the angels protect a fish? I asked.

The whiteness of everything astounded me, as if I had been standing in a dark hallway, working my way blindly toward a slice of light from beneath a door. I imagined opening the door as I walked, the darkness split by the bluish white burst of light from a Sylvania flash bulb, like my parents used on their first camera. This flash of light was the snow, opening up forgotten rooms of white Christmas memories. A gust of icy air, rolling off the lake, pulled me out of my dust-covered nostalgia. I kept walking, and somewhere in the distance I heard Alvin and the Chipmunks singing O Holy Night.

I wished now I had remembered my boots. My sons called them the fish boots because they had seen a guy wearing them in one of my Field and Stream magazines. There was bright excitement in the streets, its pulse growing stronger as I got closer to the shops. Everyone on the streets was bundled up, moving briskly, their smiles protected from the cold. To or from somewhere, probably doing the same things they’d be doing tomorrow – the secret layers of their lives, wrapped up snuggly under heavy coats and scarves.

A young couple walked in front of me, arm in arm. The young man wore a long scarf, wrapped around his neck several times, his coat unbuttoned. The young lady on his arm shivered as she walked, her brown ponytail bouncing. She wore a red jacket with a hood trimmed in white, a short skirt, and sexy leather over-the-thigh boots with heels. I couldn’t imagine walking on the slippery sidewalk with those, but she skated along, tugging on her boyfriend’s arm, eager for him to look at jewelry in Stan Kosinski’s window.

Stan’s display was an eye-catching triumph this year – an array of diamonds in a starry, window-sized blue foil heaven. Gold star-shaped ornaments hung from thin blue ribbons in front of a background made from blue foil wrapping paper. Sparkling diamond rings were cushioned on blue velvet in the center of each star. I