Pajarita

Montevideo, Uruguay, 1924: Pajarita grew up in the country and first arrived in the city as a seventeen-year-old bride. Now, her husband has not been home for days, leaving her alone with three small children and a house that has run out of food. Her friend Coco, the butcher's wife, has come over to visit.

"First of all," Coco said, pushing a hefty package into Pajarita's hands, "you're taking this meat. I don't care what you say. I know your husband's gone--the desgraciado." She sat her ample body down at Pajarita's table. Pajarita stared at the gift.

"I have no way to thank you."

Coco continued as if she hadn't heard. "Secondly: your plants. They're strong. You should sell them."

"Sell?"

"To women in the barrio. You can start in the store, behind the counter with me. Look, once word spreads about your cures, better than a doctor and cheaper too, you'll be putting food in those boys' bellies." It had never occurred to her, but she couldn't think of a reason not to try. She took her children and a basket of leaves and roots and barks to the butcher shop. The boys resumed an epic pretend game of gauchos-in-the-campo, riding imaginary horses among the chunks of flesh that hung from the ceiling. In one corner of the room, between the chopping block and meat hooks, Pajarita arranged two small wooden stools and sat down on one. Ignazio, she thought, I want to kill you, to kiss you, to carve you like a flank; just wait and see how I'm going to live without
you by my side.

Coco served as a living advertisement. Women began to come. Some of them just needed to be heard; they told sprawling, unkempt tales of death in the family, brutal mothers-in-law, financial pressures, wayward husbands, violent husbands, boring husbands, loneliness, crises of faith, visions of Mary, visions of Satan, sexual frigidity, sexual temptation, recurring dreams, fantasies involving saddles or bullwhips or hot coals. She offered them teas for comfort, luck, or protection. Other customers came with physical conditions--pain in their bones, a stitch in their side, numbness in hips, ears that rang, forgetfulness, sore knees, sore backs, sore hearts, sore feet, cut fingers, quivering fingers, wandering fingers, burns, headaches, indigestion, excessive female bleeding, a pregnancy that wouldn't come, a pregnancy that had to end, cracked bones, cracked skin, rashes no doctor could diagnose, aches no doctor could cure. There were housewives, maids, sore-handed seamstresses, sweaty-handed adulteresses, great-grandmothers swaying with canes, young girls swooning with love. Pajarita listened to them all. She sat still as an owl as she listened. Then she handed them a small package and explained what to do with its contents. Word spread. Women came to see her from all corners of the city. She could barely keep up with harvesting from cracks in the sidewalk, nearby parks, and the pots in her own house. To Coco's delight, the seekers often picked up their daily beef along with their cures. Pajarita set no price. Some gave her pesos, others fruit, a basket of bread, a ball or two of handspun wool. Anonymous gifts appeared on the Firielli doorstep--baskets of apples, jars of yerba mate,handmade clothes for the children. They had enough.

She had developed a peculiar sort of fame. Her name was whispered through the kitchens and vegetable stands of Montevideo. Pajarita, she cured me, you should go see her too. And when I almost. You saw me then. If it hadn't been for her. Strange, she thought, that all of this should grow from something as familiar as plants, such...