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.
Dos
——————
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
Dos
——————
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
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