“People have no idea of the strange power we carry within ourselves,” he went on. “At this moment, for instance, you have the means to reach infinity. If you continue with your needless behavior, you may succeed in pushing your assemblage point beyond a certain threshold, from which there is no return.”
I understood the peril he was talking about, or rather I had the bodily sensation that I was standing on the brink of an abyss, and that if I leaned forward I would fall into it.
“Your assemblage point moved to heightened awareness,” he continued, “because I have lent you my energy.”
We ate in silence, very simple food. Don Juan did not allow me to drink coffee or tea.
“While you are using my energy,” he said, “you’re not in your own time. You are in mine. I drink water.”
As we were walking back to my car I felt a bit nauseous. I staggered and almost lost my balance. It was a sensation similar to that of walking while wearing glasses for the first time.
“Get hold of yourself,” don Juan said, smiling.
“Where we’re going, you’ll need to be extremely precise.”
He told me to drive across the international border into the twin city of Nogales, Mexico. While I was driving, he gave me directions: which street to take, when to make right or left hand turns, how fast to go.
“I know this area,” I said quite peeved. “Tell me where you want to go and I’ll take you there. Like a taxi driver.”
“O.K.,” he said. “Take me to 1573 Heavenward Avenue.”
I did not know Heavenward Avenue, or if such a street really existed. In fact, I had the suspicion he had just concocted a name to embarrass me. I kept silent. There was a mocking glint in his shiny eyes.
“Egomania is a real tyrant,” he said. “We must work ceaselessly to dethrone it.”
He continued to tell me how to drive. Finally he asked me to stop in front of a one-story, light-beige house on a corner lot, in a well-to-do neighborhood.
There was something about the house that immediately caught my eye: a thick layer of ocher gravel all around it. The solid street door, the window sashes, and the house trim were all painted ocher, like the gravel. All the visible windows had closed Venetian blinds. To all appearances it was a typical suburban middle-class dwelling.
We got out of the car. Don Juan led the way. He did not knock or open the door with a key, but when we got to it, the door opened silently on oiled hinges—all by itself, as far as I could detect.
Don Juan quickly entered. He did not invite me in. I just followed him. I was curious to see who had opened the door from the inside, but there was no one there.
The interior of the house was very soothing. There were no pictures on the smooth, scrupulously clean walls. There were no lamps or book shelves either. A golden yellow tile floor contrasted most pleasingly with the off-white color of the walls. We were in a small and narrow hall that opened into a spacious living room with a high ceiling and a brick fireplace. Half the room was completely empty, but next to the fireplace was a semicircle of expensive furniture: two large beige couches in the middle, flanked by two armchairs covered in fabric of the same color. There was a heavy, round, solid oak coffee table in the center. Judging from what I was seeing around the house, the people who lived there appeared to be well off, but frugal. And they obviously liked to sit around the fire. Two men, perhaps in their mid-fifties, sat in the armchairs. They stood when we entered. One of them was Indian, the other Latin American. Don Juan introduced me first to the Indian, who was nearer to me.
“This is Silvio Manuel,” don Juan said to me. “He’s the most powerful and dangerous sorcerer of my party, and the most mysterious too.”
Silvio Manuel’s features were out of a Mayan fresco. His complexion was pale, almost yellow. I thought he looked Chinese. His eyes were slanted, but without the epicanthic fold. They were big, black, and brilliant. He was beardless. His hair was jet-black with specks of gray in it. He had high cheekbones and full lips. He was perhaps five feet seven, thin, wiry, and he wore a yellow sport shirt, brown slacks, and a thin beige jacket. Judging from his clothes and general mannerisms, he seemed to be Mexican-American.
I smiled and extended my hand to Silvio Manuel, but he did not take it. He nodded perfunctorily.
“And this is Vicente Medrano,” don Juan said, turning to the other man. “He’s the most knowledgeable and the oldest of my companions. He is oldest not in terms of age, but because he was my benefactor’s first disciple.”
Vicente nodded just as perfunctorily as Silvio Manuel had, and also did not say a word.
He was a bit taller than Silvio Manuel, but just as lean. He had a pinkish complexion and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. His features were almost delicate: a thin, beautifully chiseled nose, a small mouth, thin lips. Bushy, dark eyebrows contrasted with his graying beard and hair. His eyes were brown and also brilliant and laughed in spite of his frowning expression.
He was conservatively dressed in a greenish seersucker suit and open-collared sport shirt. He too seemed to be Mexican-American. I guessed him to be the owner of the house.
In contrast, don Juan looked like an Indian peon. His straw hat, his worn-out shoes, his old khaki pants and plaid shirt were those of a gardener or a handyman.
The impression I had, upon seeing all three of them together, was that don Juan was in disguise. The military image came to me that don Juan was the commanding officer of a clandestine operation, an officer who, no matter how hard he tried, could not hide his years of command.
I also had the feeling that they must all have been around the same age, although don Juan looked much older than the other two, yet seemed infinitely stronger.
“I think you already know that Carlos is by far the biggest indulger I have ever met,” don Juan told them with a most serious expression. “Bigger even than our benefactor. I assure you that if there is someone who takes indulging seriously, this is the man.”
I laughed, but no one else did. The two men observed me with a strange glint in their eyes.
“For sure you’ll make a memorable trio,” don Juan continued. “The oldest and most knowledgeable, the most dangerous and powerful, and the most self-indulgent.”
They still did not laugh. They scrutinized me until I became self-conscious. Then Vicente broke the silence.
“I don’t know why you brought him inside the house,” he said in a dry, cutting tone. “He’s of little use to us. Put him out in the backyard.”
“And tie him.” Silvio Manuel added.
Don Juan turned to me. “Come on,” he said in a soft voice and pointed with a quick sideways movement of his head to the back of the house.
It was more than obvious that the two men did not like me. I did not know what to say. I was definitely angry and hurt, but those feelings were somehow deflected by my state of heightened awareness.
We walked into the backyard. Don Juan casually picked up a leather rope and twirled it around my neck with tremendous speed. His movements were so fast and so nimble that an instant later, before I could realize what was happening, I was tied at the neck, like a dog, to one of the two cinder-block columns supporting the heavy roof over the back porch.
Don Juan shook his head from side to side in a gesture of resignation or disbelief and went back into the house as I began to yell at him to untie me. The rope was so tight around my neck it prevented me from screaming as loud as I would have liked.
I could not believe what was taking place. Containing my anger, I tried to undo the knot at my neck. It was so compact that the leather strands seemed glued together. I hurt my nails trying to pull them apart.
I had an attack of uncontrollable wrath and growled like an impotent animal. Then I grabbed the rope, twisted it around my forearms, and bracing my feet against the cinder-block column, pulled. But the leather was too tough for the strength of my muscles.
I felt humiliated and scared. Fear brought me a moment of sobriety. I knew I had let don Juan’s false aura of reasonableness deceive me.
I assessed my situation as objectively as I could and saw no way to escape except by cutting the leather rope. I frantically began to rub it against the sharp corner of the cinder-block column. I thought that if I could rip the rope before any of the men came to the back, I had a chance to run to my car and take off, never to return.