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?
Applause 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