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.”
Board by board, their house arose. Brick by brick, it strengthened. Ignazio hammered, measured, mortared, hauled; Pajarita sewed and watched him. She watched for when he needed something from her basket—hot
mate
, a spinach
buñuelo
, an empanada she’d stuffed with ham and cheese the night before, a handkerchief to wipe his forehead, extra caresses, extra nails. He worked on it for months. Each nail pierced a dart of hope through wood. Each strange electric vein ran prayers through the walls. Each corner came to being through their wanting, through their sweat. No prior lives had seeped into these spaces: they could leave the past outside and begin their own story, a sprawling narrative encased in four fresh walls, with unknown chapters and generations and twisting turns whose very notion made her long to crane her neck into the unlit reaches of the future.
“This is our palace,
mi reina,”
he called down from the roof. “I can see everything!”
Pajarita, standing on the earth below, called back, “Careful, don’t fall.”
“These men,” a voice behind her said. “They’re always climbing a bit too far for their own good.”
Pajarita turned. A woman stood a few meters away, holding a large basket. Bloodstains
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.”
Board by board, their house arose. Brick by brick, it strengthened. Ignazio hammered, measured, mortared, hauled; Pajarita sewed and watched him. She watched for when he needed something from her basket—hot
mate
, a spinach
buñuelo
, an empanada she’d stuffed with ham and cheese the night before, a handkerchief to wipe his forehead, extra caresses, extra nails. He worked on it for months. Each nail pierced a dart of hope through wood. Each strange electric vein ran prayers through the walls. Each corner came to being through their wanting, through their sweat. No prior lives had seeped into these spaces: they could leave the past outside and begin their own story, a sprawling narrative encased in four fresh walls, with unknown chapters and generations and twisting turns whose very notion made her long to crane her neck into the unlit reaches of the future.
“This is our palace,
mi reina,”
he called down from the roof. “I can see everything!”
Pajarita, standing on the earth below, called back, “Careful, don’t fall.”
“These men,” a voice behind her said. “They’re always climbing a bit too far for their own good.”
Pajarita turned. A woman stood a few meters away, holding a large basket. Bloodstains
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