“This may one be the first novels to talk about this issue from the women’s point of view, and in a very effective way. . . . Blood of the Dawn is an original addition to the abundant literature on this difficult and polemic episode of our recent history.” —JAVIER AGREDA, LA REPUBLIC
“I have to control the pain at 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.”
“An original novel…Lyrical and cinematographic. If there are certain things that can’t be (shouldn’t be) told with words, we cannot silence them either.”
— SOPHIE CANAL
Deep Vellum Publishing
3000 Commerce St., Dallas, Texas 75226
Deep Vellum Publishing is a 501c3
nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013.
Copyright © Claudia Salazar Jiménez, 2013
By Agreement with Pontas Literary & Film Agency
Originally published in Spanish in 2013 as
La sangre de la aurora by Animal de Invierno in Lima, Peru.
English translation copyright © 2016 by Elizabeth Bryer
First edition, 2016
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-941920-43-5 (ebook)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2016948061
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Cover design & typesetting by Anna Zylicz · annazylicz.com
Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.
Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.
For Ana Ribeiro
Never, human men, was there so much pain in the chest, in the lapel, in the wallet, in the glass, in the butcher’s shop, in arithmetic!
Never so much painful affection, never did the distance charge so close
CÉSAR VALLEJO
Contents
Blood of the Dawn
The Author would like to Thank
Translator’s Note
A Note on Quotations
“Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment.”
MARX
blackout total darkness Where was it? all over Where did it come from? high tension towers fell to their knees bombs explode all raze blast burst Were you with the group? cooking at home while I waited for my husband blackout typing up the meeting’s minutes blackout developing some photos blackout get candles I don’t have enough six pages two towers the outskirts of the capital What did you say? you can’t sign comrade darkness excluded from history submit or blow up bomb Did you find out what they did? wow you cleaned your whole plate smile no candles eat three towers they say now more time more towers When will there be light again? candles turn on the radio I can’t find the matches three candles no matches make a spark with flint just kidding bomb we have a generator go to the epicenter where what we can’t see is happening bomb report what’s happening on the other side of the towers see Where were each of the three of them? blackout
They brought me to this jail in the capital not long before our leadership fell. They almost always bring me to this room so Major Romero can interrogate me. Everything is white, whiter than a hospital. The three chairs. The table with the white melamine top. White walls, too. It’s already almost two weeks since I found out they’d caught them. I wonder what they’ve done to Comrade Leader. Fucking dogs. If they touch him, they’re all going to die; one by one we’ll take them down.
The only sound is the clock. Romero hasn’t shown up yet. It’s a bit chilly in this white room. Such a difference from that sandy place where I started my social work. I especially remember one day when the sun tested us. Unbearable, hellish. That’s what the heat felt like on that long stretch of sand settled by so many people. I was there with the engineer who coordinated the construction projects and with Fernanda, the social worker. I’d also taken along my four-year-old daughter. I thought it would be good for her to play with children who had little or nothing.
The sandy ground stretched on and on, a boiling yellow cloak. The heat was stifling. I felt the sweat of my girl’s tiny hand in mine. One of the people in charge of the housing committee handed me a glass of water to relieve her thirst. Water was sold at the price of gold, offloaded from trucks that came barely once a week. The glass that my daughter had just finished meant less water for one of these children.
She was more settled now so I left her with the other little ones and joined the community members to discuss the upcoming projects. They needed a network of potable water, drainage and public lighting to cover at least ten streets. They had also asked the municipality for a health post with basic services and for a school to be built. Education is fundamental to breaking free from the structural inequalities that social organization is founded on; without it, the potential for change Mami!!! is practically non-existent. My years of experience as an educator give me the authority to confirm Mamiiiiiiiiii!!!! that without the appropriate level of Señora Marcela, your daughter!
I ran to where the children were playing. My daughter was stock-still in the middle of the sandy area, her little legs trembling in fright, almost not breathing, hiccupping, her face soaked in tears. She had fallen over in a spot where sand had mixed with compacted earth and it was hard to stay upright. When she saw me, she stretched out her little arms and let fly a loud, distressed wail: Mami, there’s no ground here, carry me!
I picked her up and pressed her to my chest. She held on to me tight. Her little heart beat fast as a frightened bird’s. I wiped the sweat and tears from her face. I stroked her head and picked out the grains of sand that had nestled among strands of her hair. Calm down, I’m here now, nothing bad is going to happen, I said. I stroked her temples in a way that always relaxed her and she calmed down bit by bit. The children clustered around us on that lost stretch of desert: no shoes, threadbare clothes, barefooted on the hot sand, hardly any water and not a single complaint. For them there really was no ground beneath their feet. We couldn’t waste time on trivialities when there was so much to do. Alright, now, stop crying, we’re brave girls.