Llakis: First Dance December 31, 1979
Sliding my fingers across the silk, soft against my thighs, I could hardly believe it was me in the gown. I’d never used to believe dresses like this were real, though I’d seen pictures in foreign magazines. But here I stood, bathed in blue plunging from neckline to floor, a new skin transforming me from poor campesina to… to someone… beautiful. Imagine!
Still hate it when strangers stare. What are they thinking? I look as good as them… don’t I?
Already, several men had asked me to dance, then stomped away when I refused. I’d never been to a fancy ball before. How would I know what to say to them? It was strange enough, standing on the open pavilion with its lights dancing gold on the ocean waves. Strange to see ocean, wilder than our mountain lakes. And there was such a crowd of musicians playing together, playing instruments I’d never seen before, playing music so different than I’d ever heard.
Where is Diego? Mierda, the shoes he’d bought to match my dress didn’t bend at all. Who knew suede could feel so stiff? The women on the dance floor looked graceful. How did they manage those complicated tango steps in shoes like these? Then I noticed them stumbling, ankles turning. Yet they danced on, acting like nothing was wrong. I’d never seen dancing like this. I didn’t belong there.
Someone grabbed my elbow.
“Le’ go.” I swung round, fist raised—
“Do you not recognize me, my sky goddess?”
“Diego! Where’s your beard?”
He stroked one smooth cheek.
"Confess, you can find a lost Inca site that professional archeologists have missed, but cannot recognize me without the beard.”
I stared at his clean, chiselled jaw. Then I saw that he was wearing a shirt identical to my dress, blue and lustrous beneath the black tuxedo. I’d never seen him in anything but shabby professor clothes.
“You look like all the other men now. Three already wanted to dance with me.” I looked out at the ocean. “What if I sent you away too?”
“That is the magic, Rosa. When I look like all the others, I am your invisible lover.”
“You are invisible because always late.”
“Come, dance.” He took me in his arms and led me to the dance floor. I stumbled. “Relax. Follow my steps.”
I stumbled again. “Mierda shoes! I will break a leg.” I pulled away from him, grabbed the railing and kicked the wretched things off, far into the sea.
“Dios mío! Do you understand how much those shoes cost me?” He clenched his fist. “You're acting like a silly peasant girl.”
“Mierda criollo! Is your fault for believing you can dress a campesina in silk and she will dance like some conquistador’s lady.”
“Forgive me, Rosita. Even dressed up, I am only a silly old professor.”
“No more. You are a man with no job these days.”
His smile collapsed like a child who dropped his chocolado.
“Shhh. People will hear you. Please dance with me, amor.”
I could not stay angry. He always acts so sure about everything, but in the depths of those black eyes I see… what? Sadness? Wistfulness? He puts so much into the cause. He needs loving… my loving.
Barefoot, I caught on easy to his fancy moves. We floated across the dance floor as if drifting just above the waves, dancing so close I could feel his heart beating. Was this a heart in love? The sun had dropped into the sea, twilight had fallen, but I was flooded with the brilliance of dancing with him. Then he spoke.
“We have work to do, amor. Time to go.”
The world went dark. “But Diego, this is so perfect… dancing, feeling beautiful. Por favor, no work now.”
“I have important plans for tonight.”
“Is New Year and you know it’s my birthday, no night to work.” I looked down, caught sight of my bare, calloused feet beside his shiny black shoes. He must be disappointed.
“Am I not dancing well enough to fit in here?”
“You’re dancing beautifully.”
Did I look too much like a campesina? “Are you embarrassed?”
He pulled me back and we danced a few more steps. “You are the most elegant woman here. I would not trade you for any five of those others. Understand?”
“So why did we come all the way down here to the capital? Why did you get me this dress—much money, I know—for only one hour’s dancing, if I really fit here? Truth, Diego?”
“Truth? I wanted to give you a taste of our life after the Pachakutiq.” He leaned even closer, whispered in my ear. “We are here, dressed like the finest folk, so we can make the greatest start to a revolution ever made.”
“But why tonight?”
Laying one finger against my lips, he whispered again. “Tonight no one expects revolution.”
“But tonight is a time for celebration, dancing—”
“We’ll celebrate after,” he interrupted. I sighed, but followed him, dancing across the pavilion, away from the ocean. Away from the dancers, down the park path and into the streets of this huge city, this city built by conquistadors. The concrete felt cool beneath my feet. Claro, walking was easier than dancing. Once beyond the park, the chaos of salsa, drums, familiar smells of meat, chilis, smoke from the cooking grates and sea salt washed over us. The push of crowds laughing and dancing and chugging down litres of chicha was shocking after the elegant pavilion.
Diego steered me through the throng, hands on my shoulders, protective, whispering underneath the clamour. “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
“What are you telling me?"
“It’s a Neruda poem, a love sonnet I memorized for you, my dark lady.” He swung me around and kissed me.
“Does Neruda write poems about food? Let’s stop at one of these chicharias and eat.” I pointed into a dark doorway just as a waiter came out and sent a rocket starbursting into the sky. “This looks like a good one.”
“Not now. We don’t want to be remembered. The military hang around these places.”
“But I’m hungry.”
He walked faster, pushing me ahead, into a gravelled alley that bit my feet, then up a set of outside stairs to a private room. Through the upstairs window, I saw a table loaded with empanadas, pacayas—those ice cream beans, my favourites, tasting of vanilla, plus a bottle of Pisco. In the far corner, sat a bed piled with giant white pillows.
“Is this good enough to celebrate your eighteenth birthday?”
My legs shook as we entered. I screwed the cap off the Pisco and took a swig to steady myself. “Whose room is this?”
“Belongs to one of my contacts. It’s safe for us. I brought your things here.” He dropped his tux jacket on the chair, then took the Pisco and set it back on the table. “Later.”
For a moment, I hesitated, but he led me to the bed, started kissing my eyes, my earlobes, pulled off my dress. Shiver. His cheek was still rough despite the shave, but his skin smelled clean, warm, like the dark soap Señor Maldonado used on his horses’ tack. Plus a hint of vanilla. I tried to undress him, but he caught my hands and pulled my arms over his shoulders.
No, Señor Professor, I am younger and stronger than you ever were. I caught him with my legs around his waist, pulled him down. We played, we loved—our second time—still new and wondrous. I tossed a pillow at his head. He ducked, then kissed me again and again, until I lay back and closed my eyes.
“Sleepy, amor?”
“Dreamy.”
His weight shifted the bed as he got up. He went to the table, piled empanadas and fruit on a plate. “Alas, we still have work to do. Eat something.”
I took a beef empanada, but managed only one bite along with a whole pod of the sweet pacaya beans.
“Por favor, no go out now.”
“The sooner we start, the sooner success. We’ll come back later to enjoy ourselves.” He opened a cupboard, took out another bottle, fatter than the Pisco, and stuffed it into the top of his backpack, not hidden. “Champagne.”
“For tonight’s success?”
“For camouflage.”
“But I’ve never had champagne.” I heard the whine in my own voice.
He frowned. “When the Pachakutiq is successful, you can have a whole cellar full of champagne. For now, we must go.”
“For work, I will put on my pants and jacket. Where’s my backpack?”
“In the cupboard. But wear your dress. We want to look like all the others celebrating.” He held it out to me, zipped it up, then wrapped my manta around my shoulders before putting on his own jacket. Gracias Pachamama, he didn’t notice me pulling socks and hiking boots on while he checked his handsomeness in the mirror. He straightened the bow tie, pulled on his backpack, and finally picked up his briefcase from beside the door. I followed him out and down those rickety back stairs.
In the alley below, he led me past huts of tin, cardboard, and plastic bags that sat beside workshops, edged an empty lot overgrown with weeds and broken bricks where a large sow nursed a flood of piglets. It looked more like my home village than I had seen before in this romantic city.
“Where are we going?”
“To a place where Las Fuerzas del Fuego can light the revolutionary fire.”
I tried a hiking-boot tango across the gravel street. “I want to dance, Diego. It’s magic dancing with you.”
“I know you want the freedom of the holiday to dance and play, but we will not have that freedom until after we succeed.” He kept walking, twisting as he glanced up and down the road. Maybe looking for a place for another kiss, sí? No. He stopped in front of a high fence.
I saw only barbed wire, dirt, faint lights. “What’s here?”
“The plant that sends power into the city.”
“What does this capital city power plant have to do with land reform for my people?”
“You Quechua may be descendants of the Incas, but you’ve had nothing since the conquistadors defeated you. We need to get the attention of the powerful.”
“You think we can dance up to them in our New Year’s clothes and say, hey criollos, we want our land back?”
“Tonight, I will begin destroying their power structure by cutting off their electric power. I will black out the New Year’s celebrations of politicians and the army.” He opened his briefcase and began assembling his AK-47.
“You’re going to shoot the power pylons?”
“Tonight, I bomb the power plant.”
“Will make them furious, Diego. There are too many people out here.” I tried to grab the AK, but he pulled it away.
“No fear, Comrade Qhispi. I’ve studied their workers’ schedule. There's no one in the plant from eight at night until six in—”
“Is early to use our revolutionary names, sí? Before we take action?”
“It’s discipline. From tonight onwards until we achieve success of the Pachakutiq, we are not our old selves. We are not student and professor. We are not lovers. I am your commander. You are my soldier.”
Hide my tears, not lovers? Why, after the dancing?
“Sí, Commander Bolivar.” I pulled my hand away and saluted as if he was already leader of the country.
“You need to understand, amor. Tonight we begin the most important action of our lives. We must make the key people understand our Pachakutiq is real, no little dream that will disappear by morning.”
“Carried out by dreamers in silk and tuxedo?”
“A grand disguise, sí?” He pointed at my feet and frowned. “Except for your boots, we are two beautiful people celebrating tonight.”
“Doesn’t feel like a celebration.”
“I’m not going to stand here arguing. I’m going in.”
I grabbed him by his pack, pulled him back.
“Basta! Stop! I have the bomb in there.”
“Imbécil! You understand nothing about explosives if you carried a bomb down a public street!”
“You aren’t ready to fight?”
“Not on an ordinary street on New Year’s Eve, Diego. People are everywhere dancing, having ordinary fun, no time for explosions.”
“You want to dance more than you want our revolution?”
“Mierda! You know I am as dedicated to the Pachakutiq as you are, but I want better timing.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So you are too polite to interrupt the criollos’ New Year’s fun even for your people’s future?”
“You understand nothing about me, imbécil,” I turned away.
“You were happy enough to build the bombs.”
I kept walking, back toward the beautiful room. Claro, I was happy to build bombs to fight the government, not to terrify a bunch of dancers.
“Do what you want, but wait until I get out of here.” I walked faster. Thank Pachamama I have my boots on. Wish I wasn’t wearing this dress, then I could run.
“No wonder your people have succeeded at nothing for centuries! You’re all cowards,” he shouted. “It must be your mestiza blood, too dilute to be a real Inca.”
I stopped, pulled up my dress, ran at him, kicked him where he hurt. Grabbed the mierda backpack as it dropped.
“I’ll show you who’s a real Inca.”
Imbécil laughed.
“Bastardo! Where’s my gun?”
“I already told you, there’s no one in the plant at night.”
“Be ready for everything you taught us. Where’s my mierda gun?”
He pulled the Sig Sauer we used for target practice from his briefcase, cut a sliver out of the fence with his bolt cutters. Thank Pachamama I am slender. I slipped through easily.
Once inside, my heart beat loud in my ears, my legs shaking so hard I was afraid I’d fall. Is this really how to help my people? Nothing has worked for five hundred years… but now my heart and legs steady. I had that vision of Atahualpa. It’s time. We are starting our revolution and I am the one to do it. I, Rosa Amaru, will reclaim our land. I will lead the Incas’ Pachakutiq.
I raced across the paved yard to the central pylon, attached the backpack, and lit the fuse as we’d practised, feeling the joy of beginning.
I was already halfway back to the fence when a light flashed across my face. A watchman.
“Run,” I shouted. “Rapido!”
He froze. I could feel his astonishment at a woman dancing through his plant in a fancy gown. He fumbled with the assault rifle on his shoulder. Mierda! My Sig—
The explosion tossed me high.
Watchman, gone… fence gone. Towers erupt, flame… fall—shatter, slam me to earth… light flashes blood red. Help, Pachamama… a ragged chunk of hand clutches his flashlight… noise, sirens—the clack-clack-clack of Diego’s AK, distant. Dark shadow spread beneath the wings of a Horned Owl, flying away.
Rough voices shouted. “Terruca, terruca.”
Boots… pain…
Aya! No tear my beautiful dress!
