Blood of the Dawn Read online

Someone has started to dance to the beat of David Bowie to placate Ana María; it’s not in anyone’s interest to fall out with her. The atmosphere is a little tense. Not even Bowie manages to relax it. No more politics or favors for tonight. Let’s dance a little. Talk, drink. I’d rather be at Kraken. It’s still early. I stir my vodka lime with the cherry. The liquid swirls. Why massacre those you’re supposedly trying to recruit? Something doesn’t fit. Why did Ana María get so annoyed? Linking campesinos and violence has been a broken record since colonial times. What must be happening up there, really? Without warning Ana María moves toward me. Her perfume is unmistakable.

  “You’re mighty pensive tonight, is something up?”

  “Do you really believe that all the trouble in the mountains is a matter of violent campesinos?”

  “Come on, enough about that already. Look, I’ll tell you something I know will make you ridiculously happy. You know who’s here in the city?”

  “A lot of people, I’d think. You and I, for example.”

  “Oh Mel, don’t be such a pain. You’ll see, I’ll tell you and you’ll drop the comedy act.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’m not telling you now,” she plays the part of a sulky child, but one of my best smiles wins her over.

  “Alright then, if you smile at me like that, I’ll tell you: Daniela’s here.”

  “…”

  “She wants to see you.”

  Five in the afternoon in the city of drizzle. The warmth of the café protects us from the humidity, from the fishbowl we live in. The voices, the wine glasses, and the silverware come together in a kind of café-wide choreography. Why did I agree to see her? Why right now? Daniela gets here at last. Radiant, as if the sun dwelled in her movements and shone through her skin. For a few seconds, the murmur of conversation drops off and in that sudden silence all eyes converge on our table. I tell her she looks beautiful. Straight up, no metaphors. She smiles. The murmuring starts up again and builds, as if everyone has shaken themselves awake. The voices, the wine glasses, the cups, and the spoons reprise their dance. Let’s see if now you’ll tell me why you stopped talking to me. Why did I stop talking to you? You disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed you whole. Honestly, Dani, I’m not sure. I don’t remember. It was so long ago. Some things make less sense with time. It’s not worth raking over. Instead, tell me about your latest exhibition. Daniela Miller, the first female Peruvian painter to have her own show in Paris. It was incredible, tons of people came. A huge success, from what I saw in the papers. Ana María sent her finest correspondent to cover the opening and they broadcast it on El Noticiero. Everybody was there. The only person missing was President Mitterrand. She says it as a joke but I think deep down she wanted him there. She smiles. She keeps telling me about it, that no doubt other Peruvian painters are being eaten up with envy, that now the French will value Peruvian art for sure, that next up is London, Paris, New York, she’s ready to take on the world. Plans, projects, life.

  Why did I stop talking to you? I remember your breath sharing the rhythm of my kisses, my breath guided by the graze of your lips. Surrendering to the desire in your eyes. Delicate and soft creases. My fingers, lost, shipwrecked in your warm hollow. Turbulent waist, towed by the tide of my hands. The tense strings of our bodies dissolving in harp chords. Undulating serpents that thawed their defenses to coil together. Your marble neck chiseled by kisses, a sculpture of love. Eyes that lapped the river, the sea, waterfalls. Wine overflowing the glasses. Thirst. Punch-drunk lover. Skin glossy with dew. Your voice, body, name. Daniela. Daniela Miller.

  The sun has come out, despite the drizzle. I’m heading back tomorrow. If you come to Paris, let me know, got it? I don’t want you disappearing on me again.

  “Teacher, tell me about your relationship with Fernanda Rivas, who at one stage was Comrade Two. Living together so long, I imagine you became very close—intimate friends, even.” Major Romero lights a cigarette. I make sure not to let on how the smoke irritates me. I can’t show even the slightest hint of weakness.

  “In the revolution we have comrades, not friends,” I cut him off short.

  “A matter of putting different names to things,” Romero counters with a small smile that can’t conceal his satisfaction at having annoyed me. He lets out a lungful of smoke that blears the room.

  You’re not going to find out a thing. If you know as much as you say you do, Major, then why ask? You don’t need to know that Fernanda and I met a few months before the debacle in that sand-swept place. We had gotten bad news. We didn’t get the funding for the community projects after all. The engineer shook his head slowly, eyes on the floor and not saying a word, thoroughly downcast; the blueprints he’d drawn up without charging a cent lay on the table, ruffled by a dry breeze that blew into the room. One of the blueprints rolled up and fell to the floor. No one picked it up.

  I bit my fist out of sheer rage. I was sick to death of false promises. Marcela, it’s just one project, if no one funds it now we’ll find other ways to do it, Fernanda said, mystifyingly serene. I could only work my jaw in fury. So much red tape, so many plans and promises. The sandy patch would go on being a no-man’s-land. Words count for nothing, I said to Fernanda, my voice almost breaking. Another frustrated project with no funding or government support. One more, one of so many. I had lost count. Who cared, anyway? Who cared about us? You’re mistaken. Words have more power than you can imagine. How could Fernanda believe in the power of words? How was that possible?

  You’ll also never know, little Romero, that I saw Fernanda almost every day. We worked together in the poorest parts on the outskirts of the capital, organizing projects for communities. At the Teachers’ Union rallies we were always together. So many times the police’s water-cannon trucks flung us to the ground with their blasts of water, but we kept pushing forward and resisting. And you’ll never know, Major, that while Fernanda was very hard on herself and said little, her generosity was boundless. She was a workhorse, tireless when it came to organizing. Politics and revolution: that was all she talked about. Focused. Her mind centered on it. The perfect militant, ready to give her all for others. I watched her rise to the highest ranks of the armed struggle, to the peak of the Guiding Thought. The revolution made flesh.

  I know what I’m talking about. Hold fast to your rage and hate. Keep them burning within. Hate will pave the way to great things. Come with me to the Federation’s auditorium next Friday and you’ll find out what I’m talking about, Marcela. You’ll see what words can do. That’s where it all started. Words are just hot air, but since you ask, I’ll come. You know nothing, Romero, and will never understand the heroism of Comrade Two.

  The auditorium was teeming with workers, teachers, and students. Seated at the center of the table was a man with thick tortoiseshell glasses that offset a calm, neutral expression. He had a teacherly air about him that made me imagine it would be a long afternoon. So much to do and here I was at a talk. I got comfortable beside Fernanda. Her expression had changed, had transformed, perhaps. I’d never seen her look that way at anyone. What was it? Her body stayed straight in her seat while her expectant pupils filled with light. What was happening to her?

  When the professor with the thick glasses stood, his fluent delivery made me forget everything else. The things he said and the vigorous way he said them didn’t fit with his academic bearing, and the brilliant way he weaved together ideas and connected them to reality was unsurpassable. A man who knew what he was talking about. The tapestry kept growing in a dance of ideas: class struggle, revolution, starting in the countryside, Mao, Lenin, Marx, Communist Party, no stopping until power is gained. His voice echoed in my head. The fundamental objective is power. Lenin said it, comrades: “Everything is illusory except power.” Power. No stopping until it’s ours. Believing in projects financed by others, in unions, in rallies, was illusory. Nothing but illusory. Power was what was real. Was that what shone in Fernanda’s eyes?

  A
pplause announced the end and I dared to ask a question.

  “Leaders of the group Red Nation say that we women will be in charge of feeding the troops.” A few laughs ricocheted around the hall. “What I want to know, professor, is this: What role in the revolution does your party offer us women?”

  He raised an eyebrow and adjusted his glasses, fixed his gaze on me and cleared his throat. The incorporation of women into the production process, coupled with the deepening of the class struggle in this country, necessarily poses the central problem of the politicization of women as an integral part of the people’s war. The State, increasingly reactionary, denies women the future. The only possible path for professional women is taking up the role that history demands of them as intellectuals: participating in the revolution. I saw it all, as if a beaming light coming out of his throat had pierced the center of my chest and radiated within me to dispel any speck of darkness. His was the only path possible. His words could change the world, could write history. Women fully included in the revolution. Now I understood the sparkle in Fernanda’s eyes.

  “I have to meet him.”

  “No problem, Marcela. What about the three of us have dinner together?” Fernanda continued in a conspiratorial tone, “We’ve got plans we want to share with you.”

  “You know him?”

  “I never said because it wouldn’t have been wise then. He’s my husband.”

  Another yunza and then a few more. Gaitán came closer. You ran, Modesta, making your escape among the balloons, the dancers, the chicha drinkers, and the streamers. Another yunza and your cousin left your thoughts. Gaitán practiced swinging the ax. Some trees fell, others stood strong. Gaitán came with streamers in hand and wound them around you. You adjusted them; their colors were bright. You wanted to leave your parents’ house, Modesta, you were impatient for a house of your own. Months later, the community comes together again to dance around the tree. Gaitán decides to take up the ax once more. Look, look, don’t stop looking, your mother says, jubilant. The community dances at that never-ending yunza. The presents thump to the ground and the tree topples after just one ax blow. The circle dissolves as everyone rushes to gather up something, except you. You stay right where you are, beaming at Gaitán.

  You breathe deep the strong scent of Gaitán above you. His neck smells of mountain deer. His chest, of dry earth. Ay, Gaitán, my sweet Gaitán. You put your hand on his back to pull him to you. Closer. Inside, Gaitán moves. It hurts a bit. Ay, you say and pull him toward you again. Ay, and he keeps on moving. His neck, his ears, and his shoulders sweat. A rod of hot iron down there inside you. Gaitán breathes hard. Ay, right there, keep going, it ignites and makes you open your legs wider, Modesta, he keeps on and you shift below him to feel him more. So good, that, there. Keep going, Gaitán. A vigorous puma running the length of the valley. Inside you, so good, parting you in two. Keep going, Gaitán. Your legs trap him. He thrusts, desperate. Your breasts press against his chest. Split in two, four, a thousand. You tremble, sweat; a moan escapes you. Gaitán navigates your river, which forms a torrent when it surges with his own. Your skin bristles. You tremble in the light of the moon and your body stretches toward the snowcap of the Apu, melting it. Modesta and Gaitán.

  Today, they haven’t called me up so Romero can ask me his questions. Lying in bed, I look at the ceiling of my cell and remember the day I got married. My husband. Our honeymoon, and his entering me. Right when he entered me, I saw it all. A complete scene. There would come children. A house. A kitchen. Work, too, but add onto it everything else. It jolted me. He jolted in me and thrust inside diapers, plates, kitchen, dress, makeup, over and over and on for evermore. Everything within. It cascaded over me like a landslide. A perfectly staged scene, laid out for me since birth. A path with no exit, the same one that’s laid for every woman for having been born thus. My time wrung dry, sand spent from the hourglass, a horse with its eyes blinkered. Keep on going, ask no questions. The only path available to you. I saw it all. Suffocated. I adapted, mounted him. I rode him but there were no reins. The countryside stretched on, could keep stretching on further. But he was still inside me, thrusting. I didn’t have the reins. I had to do something.

  I shut down, disconnected from that memory. Then I thought about Fernanda, her husband, and the revolution. We had to turn the world upside down, to put it in reverse. The professor explained that the revolution was absolutely necessary, that nothing would change unless forceful measures were carried out with resolve. It had to happen as soon as possible, no wasting a single minute. I wanted to march, too. I did what I could to reconcile domestic life with revolutionary struggle but there wasn’t the time. The twenty-four hours of the day weren’t enough. Revolution always requires exclusive dedication, an utter and absolute consecration. Having a husband and daughter was holding me back. Impossible to find the right balance. Being a wife was too time consuming. The professor, Fernanda, and I would do great things. He, shining, would be the voice; Fernanda, decisive and strong, would be the arms; and I, focused and visionary, would be the legs. I would go wherever they sent me. When we achieved our main objective and I got to see my daughter again, I would show her the world we’d built. No more hunger, no injustice, no barefoot little children on a patch of sand with no water or schools. Bread on everyone’s table. Everyone everyone everyone. We wanted to transform it all.

  I sensed the time had come. That night, my husband stretched out in bed. I felt his lips closing in on my neck, initiating the nightly ritual that would drain me of the energy I needed for the revolution. He rolled on top of me, eager, and pushed apart my legs. When I felt his hands moving toward my underwear, I opened my eyes and glared.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  Frozen by my voice and my gaze, he left me alone. He avoided my eyes, as if something was scaring him. I took advantage of his hesitation to make my position clear.

  “I’ve got everything ready.”

  “I didn’t think you’d dare,” he said, turning his back to me.

  “That’s exactly your problem, thinking you know me so well.”

  “And your daughter means nothing to you?”

  “She’s why I’m leaving. I don’t want her growing up in this country the way it is. She’ll understand some day.”

  “Marcela, you’re a coward.” His voice shrunk as he said that and even seemed to be trembling. Was it fear?

  “You’re the coward, staying here, nice and comfy on the couch with your newspaper and your television and your little bourgeois life.”

  “My daughter needs me.”

  “The revolution needs me.”

  The next morning, I packed my whole life into a suitcase. After my husband left for work, I took my daughter to my mother’s. Everything decided, weighed up, analyzed. There wasn’t enough time for me to be a wife. The time had come for me to surrender myself completely.

  I erased all marks of weakness. A piece of dampened cotton to wipe the makeup from my face. It had to be clean and pure for this rebirth. Thorough and unconditional subjection. No accessories, earrings, nothing. Hair cut off. Fernanda helped me with that. She made it match her own; even there, difference would be erased. Equality would begin with us. A simple blouse and blue pants completed my outfit. This was how I would dress to serve the revolution and the party. Utter dedication. Everything for the Guiding Thought. I would be Comrade Marta from that point forward. I joined the party as one joins a religion. My husband left me, expelled from my body. After, to the mountains, to the epicenter. Arm the mind. Train to destroy, get ready to build.

  “Mel, you haven’t heard the latest! What happened the other day at the club—God, it was so embarrassing.”

  “What did you do?”

  Jimena laughs in her seat beside me while we speed through the city of drizzle on the way to Kraken. Madonna is playing on the radio. I open the window of my SUV and the drizzle wets my face, refreshing me. I light a Marlboro. I tell Jimena to spit it out, we’re almost there.
Her voice vacillating between uncomfortable and shy, she begins.

  “You know how my university is really…well, diverse.”

  “Diverse?”

  “All kinds of people, you know? Not just like you and me.”

  “Ah…”

  “So last week I went clubbing with a girl I study with. I have my democratic side, you know that.”

  The adjective sounds ridiculous but I bite my tongue to keep from saying so. What are she and I like? Maybe I also give my democratic side a workout taking Jimena to the club because she would never be invited to Ana María’s parties.

  Jimena goes on to say that when they got there, the sullen bouncer looked her friend over. He made a grimace of annoyance. A bad sign. Jimena quickly grasped what was coming, and understood that the battle was long lost. She turned a half circle, looking at the night sky. There’s a private function tonight, the bouncer said. Jimena’s friend started waving her arms about and raising her voice in protest. What’s wrong with you? We want to go in! The guy blocked the door with his body, his muscles almost like rocks, a real gym junkie. Jimena started sweating and pleaded, Please, let’s just go. Her friend stood fast. I’m telling you, my friend and I want to go in. The man furrowed his eyebrows and repeated the formula. There’s a private function tonight.

  “I wanted to die, Mel. Wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole. I was so embarrassed…”

  Muscles pulled a disgusted face and stretched his arms toward them in a way her friend didn’t like. What the hell is wrong with you? Get your hands off me! Jimena, with the most angelic expression of her repertoire and all the strength she was capable of, took her friend by the arm and steered her away from Kraken. Her friend told her off but knew the battle wasn’t hers, either.