The Invisible Mountain (6 page)
No. She longed to throw a blanket over the relentless moon. This was home. She knew things here, and she was known. Life was familiar, like the shape of her teeth against her tongue. She needed teeth. She needed home. She did not want to leave. That was a lie: there was something ravenous inside her that pushed constantly to stare at the horizon and wonder what would happen if she galloped to the edge of her small world and kept going without ever turning back, riding and riding, past fields and hills and rivers that drenched her skirts, tasting the dark intensity of nights that blazed with stars, the way Artigas had done, that bastard, how she missed him. He had always been a force that kept her on the ground. His company formed a sphere, a raw keen humming place, that encompassed them and all their hidden thoughts, so that she had known before he said it that he planned to leave. He loved his music and was restless and the countryside was changing,
estancias
spreading, with their rich owners and long land wrapped in barbed wire. It was harder each day to stay a gaucho. The future here held work under a
patrón
on hemmed-in land, a hemmed-in life, a nightmare for her brother. And they both knew, though neither would say it, that he would be even more constricted by their father’s gloom. She couldn’t blame him. She
accepted it, the loss of him, the way she accepted dry wells in times of drought.
“I know where you’re headed,” she’d said, handing him wood behind the house.
Artigas swung his ax and cracked a log.
“Brazil.”
“Por Dios,”
he said. “No secret is safe from you.”
Pajarita’s braids hung like ropes of lead down her chest. “I suppose I can’t come with you.”
“Ha! It’s dangerous on the roads. Outlaws, jaguars, jungles.”
“That’s exactly why you need me to protect you.”
“I think the bandits”—he raised his ax—“need protection”—he swung—“from you.”
“Will you send letters?”
“Of course.”
“Artí, promise, or I’m coming to the jungle to find you.”
He picked a splinter from his hand. Behind him, the land stretched its green and gentle way to the horizon. “Pajarita,” he said, and there it was, their sphere, the hum of close exposure, in which they glimpsed the depths of their own minds. “I promise letters will come.”
They never did. Two years had passed. He couldn’t be dead. Any moment now, a letter would come, strangely stamped, bearing good news. Or Artí himself would arrive at the door, dusty, glowing, telling tales, inviting her to cities full of music. Or he would not and she would lie here, night after night, completely alone, awake on the old family hides. Unless she left—for where? Montevideo? The stranger’s home? Montevideo had rock-solid roads and ships at dock from everywhere. A city beyond the Río Negro, which she had never crossed; there were stories of travelers who’d drowned, horse and all, trying to ford its waters. Even now, with a bridge in place, very few
tacuaremboenses
had ventured over it. But this man, this stranger, this fumbling magician, had.
He had looked at her as if she carried sunshine in her body. As if he’d wanted to get under her skin to taste it.
Tía Tita’s breath came steady, steady, deep in sleep. Pajarita reached
her hand beneath her nightgown. She let her fingers feather along her belly, her thighs, the silky hairs between them. The heat beneath.
The moon poured milk into the room, lush, familiar, and she thought of all the rooms and lands and bodies being washed by the same light.
Ignazio strode, urgent, through the grass. Its fronds brushed sultry heads around his knees. It was his second visit, and tomorrow he had to leave Tacuarembó. My last chance, he thought, and rolled up his sleeves, then remembered propriety and rolled them down again. He arrived at the
ranchito
, knocked, and crossed the leather curtain. Tía Tita and Pajarita squatted at the cooking fire. He removed his hat.
“Pajarita,” Tía Tita said, “we need more firewood. Show our guest the woodpile.”
He followed her along a foot-worn path, through air still fecund from the heat. She stopped at a pile of cut wood that reached her waist. Don’t think about her waist, he thought, stop shaking. He held out his arms. She gave him a log. She gave him branches. More branches. Twigs. It was a gamble. It was always a gamble.
“Pajarita.”
She looked up at him. Her face filled with dusky light.
“¿Qué?”
“Will you, you know, will you marry me?” He wished he could kneel, but his arms were full and he feared that he’d send kindling flying everywhere. “You are so beautiful and perfect and I’m tired of being, well, I want you with me, in Montevideo. Come with me. Be my wife.”
He could not read her eyes; they didn’t waver. All around them rose the musk of summer grass.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you love someone else?”
“No.”
“Do you love me?”
“I don’t know you.”
“I love you, Pajarita. Do you believe me?”
She paused so long he thought she might never answer. “Yes.”
“Yes—to what?”
“Oh.” He faltered. “We leave tomorrow. I could save some money, visit in the fall. Maybe then you’d have an answer?”
“Maybe.”
He strained for something else to say—something gallant, captivating—but she was already walking back down the path. He followed her, spilling twigs. Dinner sped by, and much too soon it was time to go.
Ignazio slept fitfully that night, and woke up queasy. He could not ingest a thing, not even
mate
.
“Ay.”
Cacho passed the gourd to Bajo, the midget. “No
mate
. I see it’s serious.”
They took apart the tents, booths, and stages. It was a rapid process; they were flimsy, makeshift edifices, after all.
The Spaniard slapped his back. “Don’t worry, Gondola. There’s plenty of other women.”
Ignazio said nothing.
“Look,” Consuelo called from her wagon, pointing to the western hills.
Ignazio turned and saw two horses on a green crest, one carrying Tía Tita, and one carrying Pajarita, poised amid bags of belongings, looking like a savage angel. They rode up to Ignazio. Pajarita looked down from her saddle. Her eyes were dark waters he could drown in. “The priest is at the church,” she said. “If we go now, he can have us married in an hour.”
Ignazio glanced at the Spaniard, who nodded his permission. He mounted her horse, his thighs against her hips. They rode together into town, with Tía Tita, Cacho, Consuelo, and Bajo on horseback in their wake. By the time they arrived in the plaza, three dozen
tacuaremboenses
had joined their caravan. In the church, the pews crackled with attention as Ignazio and Pajarita exchanged vows. For better or for worse, the priest intoned, almost melodically. In sickness and in health. Yes, they said. Yes, again. A sigh rippled through the pews. Cacho wiped his tears with leather rope. An infant next to Cacho howled in satisfaction (she had made terrific tooth marks on a Bible). The priest pronounced it done: man and wife.
“Señora Firielli,” the Spaniard pronounced and, carried away by the moment, bowed. “Welcome to Carnaval Calaquita. We’ll escort you to your new life.” He reached for her bags. “We’ve made room for your things.”
She moved his hand. “This one stays with me.”
“Of course,” he said uncertainly, and took the remaining bags.
Ignazio beamed at Tía Tita over his bride’s head. “Doña Tita, don’t worry. I will treat your niece like a queen.”
“You will. You must.” Tita reached across the divide between their horses, and pressed Pajarita’s palm. She touched the sack her niece had guarded. Ignazio felt his new wife’s breathing deepen, and tightened his arms around her. Tía Tita seemed to drink Pajarita with her eyes. Then she pulled her reins and rode up the path and out of sight.
The company rode for many hours that day, all the way to the tranquil shore of the Río Negro. That night, before crossing into the southern half of Uruguay, Carnaval Calaquita camped at the edge of the river. Consuelo, the magician’s wife, Mistress of Disguises, found a secluded grove and made a nuptial bed of cowhide, wildflowers, and the blue velveteen that had curtained the stage the night the couple had met.
Ignazio lay down with Pajarita under the round light of the moon. He kissed her shoulders. He untied her braids and shook her hair loose and it poured into his hands, dark, rich, as smooth and dangerous as water. She reached for him. He meant to touch her with slow reverence but urge propelled him into her and she was ready, wide, sighing. Afterward they slept an opulent sleep.
He woke. She was in his arms. It was still night. He listened to the low, wet murmur of the river, and breathed the scents around him: sex, grass, eucalyptus, leather, and, above all, her. His mind roamed to the sack she’d kept with her. It lay a few paces from their bed, plump with whoknowswhat inside it. He crawled out of the hides and carefully opened the bag. Out spilled armfuls of ceibo leaves, ombú fronds, eucalyptus, plants he did not recognize. Rough barks. Black roots. Sharp little kernels. Their acrid smells deluged his nose and imagination. He felt
a surge of horror—he had married a stranger; his life was entwined with a stranger’s life. The thought struck him like a slap, both harsh and thrilling, like the moment he’d first left Italian land. When he finally fell asleep, Ignazio dreamed of gondolas full of ceibo leaves, gliding down the Río Negro, perturbing the dark waters in their wake.
——————
STRANGE WIRES
AND STOLEN SACRAMENTS
M
ontevideo was unspun wool, full of rough billows, gray mazes, raw promise.
Monte. Vide. Eu. I see a mountain, one of the first Europeans to sight this land had said. Pajarita had never seen a mountain, but even she could tell there were none here. This city had no slopes. No, that was not true: its ground lay flat, but buildings pushed up everywhere, gathering their height into the sky. If only she could be a bird in more than name: she’d soar above the city and then—what would she see? A mesh of cobbled streets and walls, riddled with people, crushed up against the sea. No, not the sea: it was a river, that long smooth water, fringed with rocks. Argentina lay somewhere on the other side. Perhaps, in her high glide, she would glimpse it winking into view.
Here, in this city, one could think of flying. Here it was easy to forget about the ground. Like, for example, in their new Ciudad Vieja apartment, where everything seemed vertiginously high: the flights of stairs to the door, the brass bed frame that suspended their mattress over air, chairs twice as tall as bull skulls with upright wooden backs, the stove made for cooking standing up instead of squatting. And the window at which she perched to absorb Calle Sarandí, with its stony breath; its men in clean black hats and women with their baskets; the clap of horseshoes and the subtly sighing trees; the sweet press of a far accordion and the hawking voice of the grocer who had told her that the world was at war.
In that first autumn of 1915, Pajarita spent long hours watching the
street from her window while Ignazio worked at the docks. At night, every night, she discovered him anew, like terrain whose growth and wind patterns keep changing. Ignazio. Unslakable. He liked everything she fed him. He succumbed on a nightly basis to his appetites. He arrived home after dark, sea-salted, tired, just in time to eat, make love, and sleep. These happened in the same order every time. A rhythm formed between them: the fall of dark, Ignazio’s steps home, Pajarita in the kitchen,
milanesas
frying noisily in the pan, their home suffused with the oily scents of living. They came together around a small square table. Dinner sang its crisp and clinking sounds. Ignazio, revived by beef and wine, filled with his other hunger. He turned down the oil lamp and stared at her; she let herself be seen; he reached across the table to touch her. She heard her fork fall to the floor. He carried her, half naked, to the bed, and there she writhed and shook and wept as if the world had broken open, as if knives of intense light punctured the world.
Then, before dawn, she slid from his arms and cleared the table for breakfast. He was gone to work before full morning’s light. How strange, thought Pajarita, to live so close to a man and rarely see him in the sun. Daylight was shared only on Sundays, when, after mass—or instead of it—they often strolled along the edge of the river, husband and wife, hand in hand, shoes sinking into sand. Here, the thick feel of Montevideo untied slightly, easing out over gentle waves. Rounded stones and sudden seashells lined the ground. Fishing boats caught long arms of sun. Here it was the easiest to envision flight: a lift of salty breeze and there she was, above the shore in the expansive sky, soaring toward the blue crown of the world.
Part in flight, and part beside him, she listened to Ignazio. He spoke of work. Of dreams. Of Venezia, though not about his family: Ignazio never said a word about his mother or his father or any other relative. The whole territory of Venetian memory seemed devoid of human presence. From his telling, it appeared that Venezia held only gondolas, elegant, unpeopled. These swarmed through the city, cool, carved creatures, water-beings made of wood. He spoke of them with the timbre of obsession.
“I won’t always work at the docks,
mi amor.”
He picked up a flat, pale
pebble. “Gondolas will make us rich. I can feel it. I’ll build them, and we’ll sail them, right here on the Río de la Plata.”
He scanned the river’s surface as if measuring it with his eyes. He threw the pebble; it skipped along the water and then sank. “A peso per ride. People will love that, don’t you think?” He clasped Pajarita’s hand. “I can just see it now, our little fleet gliding across the water. Our fleet. Our water.”
Pajarita felt his eager squeeze around her fingers and squeezed back. She felt the scar on the finger whose tip had been cut off, somewhere, sometime, in a story she did not know. A fishing boat with red peeled paint glided near the shore. A fisherman stood inside it, hauling a net onto deck. It looked almost empty: nothing but a flapping trout or two. Other days, she’d seen nets rise and glisten with a mass of silver bodies. No one knew the rhythms of the deep. On an angry day one hundred red boats could stay empty.
Ignazio put his arm around her shoulder. She felt his calloused palm against her neck.
“Before all that,” he said, “I’ll build you a house.”
And so he did. He borrowed money from his friend Pietro, who now owned a shoe store on a dense little street near the Plaza de Zabala. With this loan, Ignazio bought supplies—planks, bricks, saw, nails, hammers, doorknobs, sheets of glass, mysterious new things called electrical wires, the right to a little patch of land on the outskirts of town, in a rustic area called Punta Carretas that reminded Pajarita of Tacuarembó, with its open air, flat earth, low grass, and small
ranchitos
. Only here, of course, a saline shore breeze swept through her hair as she walked dirt paths. A nearby lighthouse beamed a slow, slow swirl across the night.
“With that
farol
there,” Ignazio said, “we’ll never get lost in the dark.”
