“What are you talking about?” she asked after I had voiced my thoughts. “I meant you and the three apprentices of Genaro. You, Pablito and Nestor jumped on the same day.”
“Who is the other apprentice of don Genaro? I know only Pablito and Nestor?”
“You mean that you didn’t know that Benigno was Genaro’s apprentice?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“He was Genaro’s oldest apprentice. He jumped before you did and he jumped by himself.”
Benigno was one of five Indian youths I had once found while roaming in the Sonoran Desert with don Juan. They were in search of power objects. Don Juan told me that all of them were apprentices of sorcery. I struck up a peculiar friendship with Benigno in the few times I had seen him after that day. He was from southern Mexico. I liked him very much. For some unknown reason he seemed to delight himself by creating a tantalizing mystery about his personal life. I could never find out who he was or what he did. Every time I talked to him he baffled me with the disarming candor with which he evaded my probes. Once don Juan volunteered some information about Benigno and said that he was very fortunate in having found a teacher and a benefactor. I took don Juan’s statements as a casual remark that meant nothing. Dona Soledad had clarified a ten-year-old mystery for me.
“Why do you think don Juan never told me anything about Benigno?”
“Who knows? He must’ve had a reason. The Nagual never did anything thoughtlessly.”
I had to prop my aching back against her bed before resuming writing.
“Whatever happened to Benigno?”
“He’s doing fine. He’s perhaps better off than anyone else. You’ll see him. He’s with Pablito and Nestor. Right now they’re inseparable. Genaro’s brand is on them. The same thing happened to the girls; they’re inseparable because the Nagual’s brand is on them.”
I had to interrupt her again and ask her to explain what girls she was talking about.
“My girls,” she said.
“Your daughters? I mean Pablito’s sisters?”
“They are not Pablito’s sisters. They are the Nagual’s apprentices.”
Her disclosure shocked me. Ever since I had met Pablito, years before, I had been led to believe that the four girls who lived in his house were his sisters. Don Juan himself had told me so. I had a sudden relapse of the feeling of despair I had experienced all afternoon. Dona Soledad was not to be trusted; she was engineering something. I was sure that don Juan could not under any conditions have misled me so grossly.
Dona Soledad examined me with overt curiosity.
“The wind just told me that you don’t believe what I’m telling you,” she said, and laughed.
“The wind is right,” I said dryly.
“The girls that you’ve seen over the years are the Nagual’s. They were his apprentices. Now that the Nagual is gone they are the Nagual himself. But they are also my girls. Mine!”
“You mean that you’re not Pablito’s mother and they arc really your daughters?”
“I mean that they are mine. The Nagual gave them to me for safekeeping. You are always wrong because you rely on words to explain everything. Since I am Pablito’s mother and you heard that they were my girls, you figured out that they must be brother and sisters. The girls are my true babies. Pablito, although he’s the child that came out of my womb, is my mortal enemy.”
My reaction to her statements was a mixture of revulsion and anger. I thought that she was not only an aberrated woman, but a dangerous one. Somehow, part of me had known that since the moment I had arrived.
She watched me for a long time. To avoid looking at her I sat down on the bedspread again.
“The Nagual warned me about your weirdness,” she said suddenly, “but I couldn’t understand what he meant. Now I know. He told me to be careful and not to anger you because you’re violent. I’m sorry I was not as careful as I should’ve been. He also said that as long as you can write you could go to hell itself and not even feel it. I haven’t bothered you about that. Then he told me that you’re suspicious because words entangle you. I haven’t bothered you there, either. I’ve been talking my head off, trying not to entangle you.”
There was a silent accusation in her tone. I felt somehow embarrassed at being annoyed with her.
“What you’re telling me is very hard to believe,” I said. “Either you or don Juan has lied to me terribly.”
“Neither of us has lied. You understand only what you want to. The Nagual said that that is a condition of your emptiness.
“The girls are the Nagual’s children, just like you and Eligio are his children. He made six children, four women and two men. Genaro made three men. There are nine altogether. One of them, Eligio, already made it, so now it is up to the eight of you to try.”
“Where did Eligio go?”
“He went to join the Nagual and Genaro.”
“And where did the Nagual and Genaro go?”
“You know where they went. You’re just kidding me, aren’t you?”
“But that’s the point, dona Soledad. I’m not kidding you.”
“Then I will tell you. I can’t deny you anything. The Nagual and Genaro went back to the same place they came from, to the other world. When their time was up they simply stepped out into the darkness out there, and since they did not want to come back, the darkness of the night swallowed them up”
I felt it was useless to probe her any further. I was ready to change the subject, but she spoke first.
“You caught a glimpse of the other world when you jumped,” she went on. “But maybe the jump has confused you. Too bad. There is nothing that anyone can do about it. It is your fate to be a man. Women are better than men in that sense. They don’t have to jump into an abyss. Women have their own ways. They have their own abyss. Women menstruate. The Nagual told me that that was the door for them. During their period they become something else. I know that that was the time when he taught my girls. It was too late for me; I’m too old so I really don’t know what that door looks like. But the Nagual insisted that the girls pay attention to everything that happens to them during that time. He would take them during those days into the mountains and stay with them there until they would see the crack between the worlds.
“The Nagual, since he had no qualms or fear about doing anything, pushed them without mercy so they could find out for themselves that there is a crack in women, a crack that they disguise very well. During their period, no matter how well-made the disguise is, it falls away and women are bare. The Nagual pushed my girls until they were half-dead to open that crack. They did it. He made them do it, but it took them years.”
“How did they become apprentices?”
“Lidia was his first apprentice. He found her one morning when he had stopped at a disheveled hut in the mountains. The Nagual told me that there was no one in sight and yet there had been omens calling him to that house since early morning. The breeze had bothered him terribly. He said that he couldn’t even open his eyes every time he tried to walk away from that area. So when he found the house he knew that something was there. He looked under a pile of straw and twigs and found a girl. She was very ill. She could hardly talk, but still she told him that she didn’t need anyone to help her. She was going to keep on sleeping there and if she didn’t wake up anymore no one would lose a thing. The Nagual liked her spirit and talked to her in her language. He told her that he was going to cure her and take care of her until she was strong again. She refused. She was an Indian who had known only hardships and pain. She told the Nagual that she had already taken all the medicine that her parents had given her and nothing helped.
“The more she talked the more the Nagual understood that the omen had pointed her out to him in a most peculiar way. The omen was more like a command.
“The Nagual picked the girl up and put her on his shoulders, like a child, and brought her to Genaro’s place. Genaro made medicine for her. She couldn’t open her eyes anymore. The lids were stuck together. They were swollen and had a yellowish crud on them. They were festering. The Nagual tended her until she was well. He hired me to look after her and cook her meals. I helped her to get well with my food. She is my first baby. When she was well, and that took nearly a year, the Nagual wanted to return her to her parents, but the girl refused to go and went with him instead.