He had had a crush on me for days, because he could tell that's what I'd end up as. He had told the bus driver on the bus in Quechua so that none of us could understand. I knew that he had been watching me. I don't remember how I understood that, I don't remember a moment when that idea came to conscious; but when he told me that he'd been falling for me, I knew I had already known.
When he had gotten on the train that evening, and saw who he was sitting with, he had panicked, he later told me. I, eating my disgusting hamburguesa con queso, had intimidated him to the point where he had gotten up and headed for the door almost immediately: I had thought he was taking care of some last minute specifics before we left, he had actually gone to the bathroom and splashed water on his face to calm down.
He told me about the condor with that Andean-accent that I still couldn't grasp, even after four weeks immersed in it. He told me stories about other lovers, being a tour guide, how he wanted to go to Sweden-- and he told me about the condor. He told me how we're all on Earth as pumas, and then one day we become the condor or we become the serpiente. As the serpiente, you must stay with the earth; as the condor, you may fly beyond it. For the Incans, this trilogy was not about heaven and hell--it was about the strength of spirit, something that one could control and enhance, not a condemnation either way.
But I was going to be a condor, he told me. He could tell that my spirit was strong enough.
posted by iliza @ 9:17 PM
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