The Second Ring of Power (35 page)

"How does that sound work?" I asked. "And what is
it?"

"You know that better than I do. What more can I tell you?"
she replied in a harsh voice.
She seemed to catch herself being
impatient. She smiled sheepishly and lowered her head.

"I feel stupid telling you what you already know," she said.
"Do you ask me questions like that to test if I have really lost my
form?"

I told her that I was confused, for I had the feeling that I knew what
that sound was and yet it
was as if I did not know anything about
it, because for me to know something I actually had to be
able
to verbalize my knowledge. In this case, I did not even know how to begin
verbalizing it. The only thing I could do, therefore, was to ask her questions,
hoping that her answers would
help me.

"I can't help you with that sound," she said.

I experienced a sudden and tremendous discomfort. I told her that I was
habituated to dealing
with don Juan and that I needed him
then, more than ever, to explain everything to me.

"Do you miss the Nagual?" she asked.

I said that I did, and that I had not realized how much I missed him
until I was back again in his homeland.

"You miss him because you're still clinging to your human
form," she said, and giggled as if she were delighted at my sadness.

"Don't you miss him yourself, Gorda?"

"No. Not me. I'm him. All my luminosity has been changed; how
could I miss something that
is myself?"

"How is your luminosity different?"

"A human being, or any other living creature, has a pale yellow
glow. Animals are more
yellow, humans are more white. But a
sorcerer is amber, like clear honey in the sunlight. Some
women
sorceresses are greenish. The Nagual said that those are the most powerful and
the most
difficult."

"What color are you, Gorda?"

"Amber, just like you and all the rest of us. That's what the
Nagual and Genaro told me. I've
never seen myself. But I've seen
everyone else. All of us are amber. And all of us, with the
exception
of you, are like a tombstone. Average human beings are like eggs; that's why
the
Nagual called them luminous eggs. Sorcerers change not
only the color of their luminosity but their shape. We are like tombstones;
only we are round at both ends."

"Am I still shaped like an egg, Gorda?"

"No. You're shaped like a tombstone, except that you have an ugly,
dull patch in your middle.
As long as you have that patch you
won't be able to fly, like sorcerers fly, like I flew last night for
you.
You won't even be able to drop your human form."

I became entangled in a passionate argument not so much with her as with
myself. I insisted
that their stand on how to regain that alleged
completeness was simply preposterous. I told her that she could not possibly
argue successfully with me that one had to turn one's back to one's
own
children in order to pursue the vaguest of all possible goals: to enter into
the world of the
nagual. I was so thoroughly convinced that I was
right that I got carried away and shouted angry
words at her.
She was not in any way flustered by my outburst.

"Not everybody has to do that," she said. "Only sorcerers
who want to enter into the other
world. There are plenty of good sorcerers who
see
and
are incomplete. To be complete is only for us Toltecs.

"Take Soledad, for instance. She's the best witch you can find and
she's incomplete. She had
two children; one of them was a girl.
Fortunately for Soledad her daughter died. The Nagual said
that
the edge of the spirit of a person who dies goes back to the givers, meaning
that that edge
goes back to the parents. If the givers are dead
and the person has children, the edge goes to the
child who is
complete. And if all the children are complete, that edge goes to the one with
power
and not necessarily to the best or the most diligent.
For example, when Josefina's mother died, the
edge went to
the craziest of the lot, Josefina. It should have gone to her brother who is a
hardworking,
responsible man, but Josefina is more powerful than her brother. Soledad's daughter
died without leaving any children and Soledad got a boost
that closed half her hole. Now, the
only hope she has to close it
completely is for Pablito to die. And by the same token, Pablito's
great
hope for a boost is for Soledad to die."

I told her in very strong terms that what she was saying was disgusting
and horrifying to me.
She agreed that I was right. She
affirmed that at one time she herself had believed that that particular
sorcerers' stand was the ugliest thing possible. She looked at me with shining
eyes.
There was something malicious about her grin.

"The Nagual told me that you understand everything but you don't
want to do anything about
it," she said in a soft voice.

I began to argue again. I told her that what the Nagual had said about
me had nothing to do
with my revulsion for the particular
stand that we were discussing. I explained that I liked
children,
that I had the most profound respect for them, and that I empathized very
deeply with
their helplessness in the awesome world around them. I
could not conceive hurting a child in any
sense, not for
any reason.

"The Nagual didn't make the rule," she said. "The rule
is made somewhere out there, and not
by a man."

I defended myself by saying that I was not angry with her or the Nagual
but that I was arguing
in the abstract, because I could not
fathom the value of it all.

"The value is that we need all our edge, all our power, our
completeness in order to enter into
that other world," she said. "I was a religious
woman. I could tell you what I used to repeat
without
knowing what I meant. I wanted my soul to enter the kingdom of heaven. I still
want that,
except that I'm on a
different path. The world of the nagual is the kingdom of heaven."

I objected to her religious connotation on principle. I had become
accustomed by don Juan never to dwell on that subject. She very calmly
explained that she saw no difference in terms of
life-style
between us and true nuns and priests. She pointed out that not only were true
nuns and
priests complete as a rule, but they did not even weaken
themselves with sexual acts.

"The Nagual said that that is the reason they will never be
exterminated, no matter who tries to
exterminate them," she
said. "Those who are after them are always empty; they don't have the
vigor
that true nuns and priests have. I liked the Nagual for saying that. I will
always cheer for the
nuns and priests. We are alike. We have
given up the world and yet we are in the midst of it. Priests and nuns would
make great flying sorcerers if someone would tell them that they can do
it."

The memory of my father's and my grandfather's admiration for the
Mexican revolution came
to my mind. They mostly admired the
attempt to exterminate the clergy. My father inherited that
admiration
from his father and I inherited it from both of them. It was a sort of
affiliation that we
had. One of the first things that don Juan
undermined in my personality was that affiliation.

I once told don Juan, as if I were voicing my own opinion, something I
had heard all my life,
that the favorite ploy of the Church
was to keep us in ignorance. Don Juan had a most serious
expression
on his face. It was as if my statements had touched a deep fiber in him. I
thought
immediately of the centuries of exploitation that the
Indians had endured.

"Those dirty bastards," he said. "They have kept me in
ignorance, and you too."

I caught his irony tight away and we both laughed. I had never really
examined that stand. I
did not believe it but I had nothing
else to take its place. I told don Juan about my grandfather and my father and
their views on religion as the liberal men they were.

"It doesn't matter what anybody says or does," he said.
"You must be an impeccable man
yourself. The fight is right
here in this chest."

He patted my chest gently.

"If your grandfather and father would be trying to be impeccable
warriors," don Juan went on,
"they wouldn't have time for petty fights. It
takes all the time and all the energy we have to
conquer the idiocy in us. And that's what matters. The rest is of no
importance. Nothing of what
your
grandfather or father said about the Church gave them well-being. To be an
impeccable
warrior, on the other
hand, will give you vigor and youth and power. So, it is proper for you to
choose wisely."

My choice was the impeccability and simplicity of a warrior's life.
Because of that choice I
felt that I had to take la Gorda's
words in a most serious manner and that was more threatening to me than even
don Genaro's acts. He used to frighten me at a most profound level. His
actions,
although certifying, were assimilated, however, into the
coherent continuum of their teachings.
La Gorda's
words and actions were a different kind of threat to me, somehow more concrete
and real than the other.

La Gorda's body shivered for a moment. A ripple went through it, making
her contract the muscles of her shoulders and arms. She grabbed the edge of the
table with an awkward rigidity.
Then she relaxed until she was again
her usual self.

She smiled at me. Her eyes and smile were dazzling. She said in a casual
tone that she had just "seen" my dilemma.

"It's useless to close your eyes and pretend that you don't want
to do anything or that you don't
know anything," she said.
"You can do that with people but not with me. I know now why the
Nagual
commissioned me to tell you all this. I'm a nobody. You admire great people;
the Nagual and Genaro were the greatest of all."

She stopped and examined me. She seemed to be waiting for my reaction to
what she said.

"You fought against what the Nagual and Genaro told you, all the
way," she went on. "That's why you're behind. And you fought them
because they were great. That's your particular way of
being. But you
can't fight against what I tell you, because you can't look up to me at all. I
am your
peer; I am in your cycle. You like to fight those who are
better than you. It's no challenge to fight
my stand. So,
those two devils have finally bagged you through me. Poor little Nagual, you've
lost the game."

She came closer to me and whispered in my ear that the Nagual had also
said that she should never try to take my writing pad away from me because that
would be as dangerous as trying to
snatch a bone from a hungry
dog's mouth.

She put her arms around me, resting her head on my shoulders, and
laughed quietly and softly.

Her "seeing" had numbed me. I knew that she was absolutely
right. She had pegged me to
perfection. She bugged me for a long
time with her head against mine. The proximity of her body
somehow was very soothing.
She was just like don Juan at that. She exuded strength and
conviction and purpose. She was wrong to say that
I could not admire her.

"Let's forget this," she said suddenly. "Let's talk about
what we have to do tonight."
"What exactly are we going
to do tonight, Gorda?"

"We have our last appointment with
power
."

"Is it another dreadful battle with somebody?"

"No. The little sisters are simply going to show you something
that will complete your visit
here. The Nagual told me that after
that you may go away and never return, or that you may
choose to stay
with us. Either way, what they have to show you is their art. The art of the
dreamer."

"And what is that art? "

"Genaro told me that he tried time and time again to acquaint you
with the art of the dreamer.
He showed you his other body, his body
of
dreaming
; once he even made you be in two places at once, but your
emptiness did not let you see what he was pointing out to you. It looks as if
all his
efforts went through the hole in your body.

"Now it seems that it is different. Genaro made the little sisters
the dreamers that they are and
tonight they will show you Genaro's
art. In that respect, the little sisters are the true children of
Genaro."