Blood of the Dawn

by Claudia Salazar Jiménez

  Close to midday, the market is at its liveliest. People from all over come with news from the nearby villages. Some say the new president is going to build a road to connect all of you to the provincial capital and open a few health posts, but it still hasn’t been decided which hamlets will be the lucky ones. Around here, the crying baby gets the milk, papacitos. Others say that the terrorists are moving further and further into the province and setting up schools to teach their ideas. They’re welcome if they’re giving away cows. They say they steal them. Best they go to another village, then. They’re nothing but cattle rustlers. The human surge flows over the plaza through the smell of vegetables and animals. The dogs lie in wait by the bird stalls to see if luck will have it that a bit of innards is thrown their way. Manuela told me that if you don’t give them your animals, they treat you real bad. I’ve heard they kill. The southern communities are going to ask the army to install bases to protect them. People walk among the corncobs, the potatoes, the substantial sweet potatoes, stalls bursting with hens and their eggs. A knot of shouting butchers almost deafens that side of the market. The police are no use against them. Over in the other hamlet the police escaped, fleeing like deer, when they saw the terrorists coming down the hill. The soldiers, on the other hand, can take them on. They’re better prepared.

  “Have a listen, they’re talking to you,” Gaitán says to Carlos when he sells another wheeking guinea pig. He has only two left.

  “Go choke on your coca leaf, Gaitán. That’s all you know how to do, whine when they give you too much work with the Huarotos, you lazy shit. No wonder Modesta’s had enough of you already,” Carlos spits on the ground, not looking at him.

  “Says he who doesn’t even have a dog to keep him company! I’m almost done selling my guinea pigs, and you’ve still got a whole box full, you lousy git.”

  An elderly blind man rattles his tin to see if they remember that he needs to eat, too. Let’s form a group of representatives to go ask for a health post. Let’s get some cows together in case the rustlers show up in the village. Two chicha sellers sing, animated, accompanying their patrons, whose cheeks flush from the drink. I’m not giving my precious cows to anyone. The soldiers should come, we should propose that to the governor. Gaitán has just sold his last two guinea pigs and picks up the coarse cotton cloth he had spread out on the ground. Over in the hamlets further up they say the Sinchi soldiers laid waste to the terrorists. They give it to them hard. I’m with you, let them come take care of the insurgents. Carlos Quechán continues to eat his lunch unhurriedly, looking, bored, at the buyers who pass by his stall.

  “Bye, you lousy git,” Gaitán says.

  Carlos doesn’t look at him. He gulps down the piece of potato he has in his throat and curses Gaitán from the depths of his soul. May the air stick in your lungs and the Pishtaco suck you dry. If it weren’t for the fact that his father would demand an explanation, he would grab a guinea pig and twist its foot, holding its head down so it couldn’t bite. Disgusting animals.

  “They just don’t know their place, these journalists,” says someone in a certain office, snorting, shaking his head disapprovingly.

  “What does the article say?”

  “Listen to this: ‘Unidentified elements have attacked the settlement of V***. They stole food from community members and threatened them with rifles. No one resisted. Once they had gathered up the food, they took animals. They left a red flag, which was kept by the inhabitants.’ Afterwards, all the usual, it even seems as if they’ve copied the other article.”

  “Pass that over here. Watch and learn.” He takes his pen and strikes out the phrase “unidentified elements” and replaces it with “Shining Path elements.” He looks over the subsequent lines and crosses out “red flag” to write instead “red rag.”

  “There we go. Now it can be handed over to the newsreader.”

  I get a call from a reporter who has just got back from the central conflict zone. Usually he has a calming, unwavering air, but today he is annoyed, irritable. His voice is almost enough to make the receiver tremble. I sense he’s being careful not to shout but can’t help raising his voice. They’ve never edited a story of mine in such an outrageous way. Not ever, Mel. It looks like orders from higher up… They smudge the blood on the paper so it won’t spatter the city of drizzle. It has already spattered, even if they don’t want to see it. National security, they argue.

  I light a Marlboro and, while the nicotine activates my nerve centers, the enraged journalist tells me what he saw on his last visit and everything he had included in the story he filed. It’s hell up there. They’re overdoing it. We have to free ourselves from words on paper. It will have to be images that show the situation as it really is. From its position on the table, my camera observes me. I grasp it in my left hand with an ease that comes from so many shots and framings. It’s clear to me that our next trip will be to Ayacucho. But it’s so dangerous, Melanie, anything could happen to you. You’re too young to put your life at risk. I have to shoot at reality to trap it in my lens, to turn it into images. My twenty-five years are no obstacle: on the contrary, they’re sheer energy. It’s hard to get there, there are almost no means of transport. We can’t let the facts get lost; they have to be recorded. It’s really dangerous, even more so if you’re a woman. Certainly there are few of us in the minefield that is our profession. I know thousands of anecdotes that don’t bear repeating. I’d prefer to end the conversation here.

  The night wears on with a placidness I’m keen to shake off. To dance—curfew or no curfew. To dance before heading to the mountains. Let music explode in my body before any bomb.

  The music thuds all throughout the house. Tonight, few women are dancing at Ana María’s. Instead, they hang on each other’s words. The news is almost the same, some know a few more details. Someone looks for me, apprehensive. Is it true you’re going there? When did these women find out? I can’t confirm it but I don’t want to deny it, either. To the mountains? Right now? Have you forgotten what they did to those reporters in Uchuraccay? It’s years since that happened. Those campesinos get the wrong idea, you know. Be careful, Mel. I hate being here. We have to break the circuit of censorship and the monopoly over information. No doubt some understanding has been reached with the government. They’re controlling everything. One of the women suddenly becomes interested in the conversation. Campesinos? They’re the worst. My father was stripped of his land because of that absurd Agrarian Reform. And what happened? Go ask them. Go see how they’ve let everything go to waste. Now’s not the time to put things into historical perspective or talk about inequality. If I bring back images, might these women be able to see something different? Might they truly see? Those insurgents are doing us a favor. I hope they keep getting rid of them. They’d do well to wipe them all out. The woman who says this has become tangled in an attack of laughter; clearly she’s had too much to drink. And if they killed your siblings? I want a vodka. I prefer to distance myself from them a bit. I’m fed up with the things they say, but I need them. I’ll do what I can, Mel, I’ll speak to my father, I’m sure he will lend you a hand. A friend opens doors in such circumstances. They’ll give you the safe-conduct in no time and maybe even an escort. The path cleared to the mountains. But I don’t want an escort. I want more music, want to dance. I play with the cherry and ice in my vodka lime. I make myself comfortable on the sofa. It’s been a few weeks since Daniela went back to Paris and who knows when she’ll be back. Assuming she does come back. And if she doesn’t, the world will keep on turning, as always. Perhaps it was a mistake to speak to her again. Are you insane, Mel? Traveling there at this point means going into the mouth of hell. Pure metaphors…

  thud thud thud you dance I dance alone together she leads me to the corner can’t resist your perfume she says your perfume your smile your eyes your hands she says my mouth my lips my tongue a frenzied animal thud thud thud lights laser lights beat beat bandit lover friend she hangs from my neck stay there
I’m getting wet lights down down down now yes torment love the tide yes heart captive lover yes I don’t want to see your face without mystery down bury yourself there down sink your face bandit bandit you say something no follow the electricity again my giddy center my back an arch hurricane hurricane held breath your damp face who are you I will get lost in a moment with you thud my number? thud forever clean your face thud what planet do you live on

  I remember the night in detail because the next morning I was to return to the field. I had to take reinforcements to our combatants in the mountains. The time had come; I crept toward Comrade Leader and Fernanda’s bedroom. The half-shut door beckoned. I remember everything as if I’m seeing it right now. My pupils dilating, tensing like my muscles down below, beating, desiring, eyes watering, dampening, fixed on their skin. On the Leader’s skin. On Fernanda’s skin. My pupils opening and closing, my longing sex opening and closing. My panting taking on a slow, deliberate rhythm, beads of pleasure in each breath. Not much variation. Militant in their rhythm. Mostly he on top of her. He thrusts and exhales deep. The hierarchy maintained at this time of night. I don’t need to touch them to be part of them. I graze their bodies with my eyes. I know they feel it. I know they feel my gaze on their backs, my eyes on their skin.

  I have to control the pain in my center, absorb it until it disappears and dissipates in a vapor without weight or consequence. Dominate my flesh, my eyes, their skin. The body itself does not exist. What exists is a forceful act. A retaliation from the State. A gestating woman. Pieces of an informer. Bits of a traitor. There are also (they always say) massacres. Devastation. Quotas. Papers, letters, one atop the other, mounting with excessive order. Discipline exists. The word exists but doesn’t hurt. It cuts, but doesn’t hurt. Kills, but doesn’t hurt. Genocidal explosion. Hammer and sickle. The red sun. The dawn.

  “There’s something we’re still not entirely clear about, teacher,” Major Romero pushes back a curl that falls across his forehead. His ever-present cigarette starts to fill the small room with smoke.

  “Since you’ve had us locked up, nothing is clear to me either, Major.”

  “That’s why we’re here, to clear things up. It looks as though you really enjoyed filming yourselves, is that right?”

  “Our historic actions need to be preserved for future generations.”

  “If you say so, teacher. One video in particular caught my attention, Comrade Two’s funeral. What did she die of?”

  He always comes back to the same thing. The night of the funeral, we all sang a song to her memory. Comrade Leader led the tribute. A shining example of giving one’s life for the party and the revolution. A beautiful torrent of your blood has irrigated our revolution. Her blood was needed if we were to keep advancing along the shining revolutionary path.

  A few weeks before, dissent had arisen. Comrade Leader wanted to move the armed struggle to the city, where the entire leadership was now located. Fernanda wanted to keep it in the countryside. She quoted Engels: “Movement is itself a contradiction.” Dialectics that left the party tangled up. I witnessed the dialectic struggle. Comrade Two was perhaps forgetting our pact of subjection to Comrade Leader. “Absolute subjection to the leadership, my total, full, thorough, unconditional support for the most illustrious son of the class. My subjection to him who runs the People’s War in Peru, the shining beacon of world revolution. My full subjection to the party, my full subjection to our general political line, my full subjection to our unconquered understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Guiding Thought.” Comrade Three was smart enough to keep silent. Fernanda forgot she was Comrade Two, subject to the party and the Leader. How could she forget that? Where was her head? Comrade Leader wanted to act as soon as possible in the capital, the seat of the State, whose ravenous politics had to be annihilated. He looked at her and repeated Mao’s phrase: “Unless you enter the tiger’s den, how can you catch the cubs?” I found out that, from then on, his meetings with Comrade Three became more frequent, until I got the message to return to the capital for Fernanda’s funeral.

  “Comrade Two suffered a heart attack.”

  “A heart attack?” Romero scratches his head, shaking it incredulously. “And now, teacher, who would you have me believe?”

  “Me, of course, Major, who else?”

  “I’m confused. You tell me she suffered a heart attack. Your Leader has told us she died in combat. And two other commissars give me different versions: suicide and falling down the stairs. I have a few options to choose from.”

  We can’t contradict ourselves. Does raking these things over achieve anything? I won’t say any more about Fernanda. She had to abide by party rules, she knew that was how it had to be. If Romero has spoken to our Leader it means they’ve kept him alive. That’s what’s important.

  Our contact has shown up at last; he’s going to guide us in the conflict zone. He seems like a savvy, astute individual: good qualities for this profession. There are rumors going around, señorita. You have to keep your eyes and ears well open, like this. He widens his eyes as if he’s about to devour us. Very serious. He is small, compact and solid, and moves with agility when he follows us to the car. They have assigned us an escort of two soldiers. Protection or control? One of them carries a walkie-talkie so that we have permanent contact with the military base. In this city, all activities seem to be carrying on as usual. Some walls, marked in red, shout Shining Path rallying cries. Going to the villages would be of greater interest. An hour’s car ride from here, there’s a hamlet where they say strange elements made an incursion. The compact man smiles wryly when he says “strange elements.” He has won my confidence. We keep on, my colleague Álvaro grasping his video camera more tightly than usual, the greenish veins in his hands visible. His eyes are on the road ahead as if he wants to impose a veil of silence.

  The small main square welcomes us with its simplicity. Poverty is visible in the paint chips that flake off the house walls. We get out of the military jeep. The other soldier accompanying us is dressed as a civilian; he says it’s to avoid suspicion. I wonder from who and toward who. We are journalists: why would anyone be suspicious? Our guide has a good rapport with the people. You have to be patient. Little by little, gain their confidence. Talk to them, invite them to eat, accept what they offer because, if not, they’ll be offended and you’ll lose any ground already gained. We’ve arrived here after lunch. While it’s quite cold, the air is calm. A muddy ball checkered with patches tumbles into sight, almost mowing down a pair of hens that are pecking mechanically at the skeleton of a corncob. Three children hurry toward us. A woman I assume is the mother of one of them, or maybe all of them, rounds the hens up and tries to herd them toward a coop a few meters away. Plaits, a felt hat, and—there it is—a smile. I’ve got her. In that smiling instant, I’ve captured her. I’d like to keep photographing her but my shot has robbed her of that smile and she has run off to shut herself in the house, forgetting the hens.

  Our guide takes coca leaves and pisco to where one of his contacts lives. A middle-aged couple opens the door. I see they are apprehensive. At first they don’t want to talk. We chew the coca and all start to relax a little. Álvaro turns on the video camera. The subversives are like devils, that’s what the priest tells us, mamacha. The husband takes a long swallow of pisco. He narrows his eyes and the alcohol makes him shudder, but he quickly takes another, longer swig. The reason they don’t get hungry is because they feast on human flesh, the liver, the lungs; they drink blood, that’s what we’ve heard. Both their bodies stiffen when he utters that description. The man keeps talking, hardly pausing long enough to gulp down another mouthful. Those wretches barely reach the village before they start robbing everything in sight. If you don’t give it to me I’ll kill you—saying things like that. They kill the children or spirit them off to the mountain. They killed a friend of mine because he wouldn’t let others take their sheep to pasture on his fields. It was his land, it was his right to refuse, wasn’t it? T
he terrorists asked who the miserable miser was, the one who didn’t share his property, and went to find him. They opened his neck up with a knife. He stops and looks at the floor. I’m finding it a bit difficult to move my tongue because the coca has numbed it. His wife puts a hand on his knee. I freeze them when a tear starts forming, making her eyes shine. Only she reacts, averting her gaze. He keeps drinking and talking. They’re robbing us of everything: cows, hens, two mules we had. He starts to cry. If they take my children I don’t know what we’ll do and if they keep stealing from us, how on earth am I going to feed them?

  Why didn’t you report them to the police? They always come back, señorita. If you want to survive, you have no choice but to cooperate with them. A friend of mine heard that if the terrorists find out you’ve spoken to the police, they kill you on the spot. They always know. They find out everything. One thousand, that’s how many eyes they say those devils have. His voice is heavy with impotence. Tears still moisten his face. That’s why the priest says they’re demons, mamacha, the wife interjects. I notice she has something strange hanging from her neck. Its form is familiar, but at the same time hard to define. Is that a fingernail at its base? We have to pray because those devils can come back any one of these nights to kill us. That’s why we pray every day, and we fast, too, so God will save us. Nights here are dangerous. Best hurry back to wherever you came from.

  They won’t say anything further. We thank them for having us in their home and leave. Álvaro has said nothing all afternoon.

  It is colder now. Our guide, who every time I look at him seems even more like a bad copy of a spectacled bear, takes us to another house. They use them as amulets, one of the soldiers says to me, they dry them and hang them around their neck to ward off betrayal. That’s what they say the fingers are for. I had already heard something about such amulets. The journalist who was censured mentioned he’d seen a few dead bodies missing index fingers. He’d said it was becoming fairly common.