Song of the Mockingbird: My Journey with Josefina

I hope that someday I do get to meet Tía Magdalena, but right now I’d love to join the fandango preparation. Tía Dolores waves us toward Señora Sanchez’s and heads for another house nearby. The house buzzes with voices and activity: girls hang ristras of dried peppers, women peel onions and squash, and others pat out tortillas on a flat iron griddle over coals. I follow Josefina around the room as she greets each woman, who smile at us and pat our cheeks. It feels like a family reunion.

A comfortable-looking older woman bustles over, her apron dusted with flour. Josefina introduces me to Señora Sanchez, who takes my hand warmly and says she’s glad I’ve returned. She asks Josefina and me to watch the young children while the older ones work with her.

I love babysitting. Back home in Chicago, I watched our upstairs neighbors’ kids before we moved. Josefina and I settle a little boy and girl, Luisa and Felipe, into the corner, while a baby named Mateo sways nearby in a cradle of sheepskins hung from the ceiling by ropes. Felipe clutches a wooden horse and Luisa a rag doll with a lovely little dress and tiny braids, and the two run circles around our legs, tugging our skirts. I lift Mateo close to my chest and hum him my mockingbird tune.

Josefina claps a game with the children on the floor, going faster and faster until they shriek with laughter. I watch, jiggling the baby as he slurps at my fingers.

When they’re done, Josefina offers to tell them a story. The children lay their heads on her lap, and I sit down and hold the baby in mine so he can listen, too. Josefina tells them one called La Jornada del Muerto, about trading caravans that travel for months across mountains and desert to bring wonderful things from Mexico City. The desert is hot and dry, and men die out there. The children go perfectly still, their eyes shining. Even the baby seems to listen.

Josefina explains that one stretch of the desert has no water at all, so terrible that people call the trail through it the Route of the Dead Man. Her eyes widen. She says the first Spanish settlers to cross it rationed the water they carried, but grew so thirsty they drank more and more, until by the second day they had only enough left to moisten their tongues. They thought they would die. But they had a little pup with them, one that ranged ahead each day and returned to camp by sundown. On the second day, he came back with mud on his paws, and the settlers realized: if there’s mud, there’s water.

With the last of their strength, they followed the pup to a hidden spring deep in the desert. They drank, saved their lives, and continued their journey. From then on, people called that spring Los Charcos del Perillo, the Pools of the Little Dog, so they’d always remember him. What a good name, I think.

After the story, Josefina tells the children to play quietly with their toys. I tell her how much I loved the story and how good she is with children. She smiles and holds out her arms for Mateo, saying she learned it from her mamá, that she only has to close her eyes to hear her mother telling it. I pass her the baby and let my eyes wander the room, where the women talk together as they work, their laughs low and familiar, like people who have known each other their whole lives.

Josefina sits peacefully, rocking the baby and humming, content and surrounded by people who love her. I swallow and pretend to fold Luisa’s handkerchief, picturing myself walking the crowded halls at school, alone even with people all around me. I wish I could bottle some of what Josefina has here and bring it back to my own time.