Song of the Mockingbird: My Journey with Josefina

I tell Josefina that I would like to meet Tía Magdalena very much. Josefina smiles like she’s pleased, and Tía Dolores takes a bunch of dried leaves and stems from her basket. Josefina leads me across the flat, hard-packed plaza and passed the boys shouting over their stick ball game. Josefina says that she wishes she could have played shinny when she was younger, too. That must be what this game is. It looks like field hockey, even with the same curved sticks. But it’s a game for boys only.

Josefina takes me to the doorway of a small adobe house. Tía Magdalena greets us in the doorway. She’s gray-haired and wrinkled, with eyes that crinkle when she smiles. Josefina introduces me to Tía Magdalena. She gives me a sharp look that makes me drop my eyes. It’s as if she can see inside my head. But instead, she welcomes me into her home. A pungent dusty smell teases my nose. Through a partly open door leading to a back room, I see bunches of dried herbs hanging upside down from ceiling beams. Suddenly, I picture the shiny white aisles of the drugstore at home, packed with brightly colored bottles of every kind of medicine you could want. Tía Magdalena’s house must be like the village pharmacy, and these plants are medicines.

Josefina offers Tía Magdalena the herbs, but she shakes her head. She says she will show Josefina how to put them away herself. Tía Magdalena leads us into the back room where the walls are bright white. Jars of all shapes and sizes line wooden shelves along one wall. She tells me to take a jar down. I reach for a small, brown jar, and lift the lid and peer inside. It’s full of dark red-brown flakes. Tía Magdalena says it’s deer blood. My head jerks up, my eyes wide. Josefina grins at me. She says it’s good to help regain strength after an injury. You mix it with water to drink.

I quickly put the jar back on the shelf. Maybe next time. Tía Magdalena shows us how to prepare the herbs we’ve brought. We strip the dry leaves from the stems and crumple them into small bits in a bowl. I scrape them into an empty jar, and Josefina caps it with a round wooden plug.

Tía Magdalena offers us to stay for tea. We settle ourselves around the scrubbed wooden table in the front room, and the curandera brews a pot of mint tea. It smells delicious, and I hold my cup out toward the teapot. Tía Magdalena pours the tea and sets down the pot. She takes my hand and asks me what this cut is from. I’ve noticed it, but I haven’t thought much about it. I must have gotten it when I arrived here.

I tell her that it’s nothing. But the skin around it is turning red, and when Tía Magdalena touches it, it hurts. Tía Magdalena says I must care for it. She asks Josefina if she remembers how to make the vinegar soak. Josefina obediently answers that you mix water and vinegar and soak a cloth in the mixture, then bind the wound with the silk cloth. Tía Magdalena smiles and says that that is good. She turns to me and asks if I think Josefina will make a good curandera someday soon.

I nod and smile, but Tía Magdalena gives me an intent look again. She says I am sad. She makes it a statement, rather than a question. She tells me to tell her what’s troubling me.

I look into her wrinkled face, and then at Josefina’s round, rosy one beside it. All of a sudden all of the tears have kept back since we moved well up inside me. My throat swells and aches, and I feel tears gathering at the corners of my eyes threatening to spill. My face is going blotchy, the way it always does when I cry. I shake my head, not trusting my voice. Tía Magdalena reaches out and puts her hand over mine.

I start to weep. I tell her that I miss my home. I can’t stop crying. I cradle my head in my arms and sob. Josefina says I must have been a cautiva until quite recently. The healer strokes my hair and tells me to let the sadness flow out.

After a minute, my tears slow. I sit up, gulping. Josefina scoots over and passes me a clean, folded handkerchief. I mop my cheeks. The cloth smells of soap and lavender. Josefina puts her arm around me and I lean against her shoulder. I feel wrung out but peaceful, the way you do after a good cry.

Tía Magdalena dips Josefina’s handkerchief in a bowl of water and bathes my face. It reminds me of the way my mom used to wipe my face with a cold washcloth after I’ve been crying when I was younger. She says it’s a terrible thing to lose one’s home. It can break your heart apart. Josefina reflects that she can’t imagine having to leave the rancho and Papá and Tía Dolores and her sisters.

Tía Magdalena nods. She says Josefina, too, knows what it’s like to lose something very precious. She asks Josefina if she’s happy again, even though she will never forget her dear Mamá. Josefina looks surprised and hesitates, and then she says yes. She hadn’t thought about it that way. Tía Magdalena turns to me, and says that I will be happy again, too. The healing power of time can be greater than any medicine she has in her store. And the healing power of tears should not be forgotten either. Feelings kept inside fester like a wound.