“My goodness what a surprise!” she exclaimed.
“Dona Soledad?” I asked, incredulously.
“Don’t you recognize me?” she replied, laughing.
I made some stupid comments about her surprising agility.
“Why do you always see me as a helpless old woman?” she asked, looking at me with an air of mock challenge.
She bluntly accused me of having nicknamed her “Mrs. Pyramid.” I remembered that I had once said to Nestor that her shape reminded me of a pyramid. She had a very broad and massive behind and a small pointed head. The long dresses that she usually wore added to the effect.
“Look at me,” she said. “Do I still look like a pyramid?”
She was smiling but her eyes made me feel uncomfortable. I attempted to defend myself by making a joke but she cut me off and coaxed me to admit that I was responsible for the nickname. I assured her that I had never intended it as such and that anyway, at that moment she was so lean that her shape was the furthest thing from a pyramid.
“What’s happened to you, dona Soledad?” I asked. “You’re transformed.”
“You said it,” she replied briskly. “I’ve been transformed! “
I meant it figuratively. However, upon closer examination I had to admit that there was no room for a metaphor. She was truly a changed person. I suddenly had a dry, metallic taste in my mouth. I was afraid.
She placed her fists on her hips and stood with her legs slightly apart, facing me. She was wearing a light green, gathered skirt and a whitish blouse. Her skirt was shorter than those she used to wear. I could not see her hair; she had it tied with a thick band, a turban-like piece of cloth. She was barefoot and she rhythmically tapped her big feet on the ground as she smiled with the candor of a young girl. I had never seen anyone exude as much strength as she did. I noticed a strange gleam in her eyes, a disturbing gleam but not a frightening one. I thought that perhaps I had never really examined her appearance carefully. Among other things I felt guilty for having glossed over many people during my years with don Juan. The force of his personality had rendered everyone else pale and unimportant.
I told her that I had never imagined that she could have such a stupendous vitality, that my carelessness was to blame for not really knowing her, and that no doubt I would have to meet everyone else all over again.
She came closer to me. She smiled and put her right hand on the back of my left arm, grabbing it gently.
“That’s for sure,” she whispered in my ear.
Her smile froze and her eyes became glazed. She was so close to me that I felt her breasts rubbing my left shoulder. My discomfort increased as I tried to convince myself that there was no reason for alarm. I repeated to myself over and over that I really had never known Pablito’s mother, and that in spite of her odd behavior she was probably being her nor-mal self. But some frightened part of me knew that those were only bracing thoughts with no substance at all, because no matter how much I may have glossed over her person, not only did I remember her very well but I had known her very well. She represented to me the archetype of a mother; I thought her to be in her late fifties or even older. Her weak muscles moved her bulky weight with extreme difficulty. Her hair had a lot of gray in it. She was, as I remembered her, a sad, somber woman with kind, handsome features, a dedicated, suffering mother, always in the kitchen, always tired. I also remembered her to be a very gentle and unselfish woman, and a very timid one, timid to the point of being thoroughly sub-servient to anyone who happened to be around. That was the picture I had of her, reinforced throughout years of casual contact. That day something was terribly different. The woman I was confronting did not at all fit the image I had of Pablito’s mother, and yet she was the same person, leaner and stronger, looking twenty years younger, than the last time I had seen her. I felt a shiver in my body.
She moved a couple of steps in front of me and faced me.
“Let me look at you,” she said. “The Nagual told us that you’re a devil.”
I remembered then that all of them, Pablito, his mother, his sisters and Nestor, had always seemed unwilling to voice don Juan’s name and called him “the Nagual,” a usage which I myself adopted when talking with them.
She daringly put her hands on my shoulders, something she had never done before. My body tensed. I really did not know what to say. There was a long pause that allowed me to take stock of myself. Her appearance and behavior had frightened me to the point that I had forgotten to ask about Pablito and Nestor.
“Tell me, where is Pablito?” I asked her with a sudden wave of apprehension.
“Oh, he’s gone to the mountains,” she responded in a non-committal tone and moved away from me.
“And where is Nestor?”
She rolled her eyes as if to show her indifference.
“They are together in the mountains,” she said in the same tone.
I felt genuinely relieved and told her that I had known without the shadow of a doubt that they were all right.
She glanced at me and smiled. A wave of happiness and ebullience came upon me and I embraced her. She boldly returned the embrace and held me; that act was so outlandish that it took my breath away. Her body was rigid. I sensed an extraordinary strength in her. My heart began to pound. I gently tried to push her away as I asked her if Nestor was still seeing don Genaro and don Juan. During our farewell meeting don Juan had expressed doubts that Nestor was ready to finish his apprenticeship.
“Genaro has left forever,” she said letting go of me.
She fretted nervously with the edge of her blouse.
“How about don Juan?”
“The Nagual is gone too,” she said, puckering her lips.
“Where did they go?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
I told her that both of them had said good-bye to me two years before, and that all I knew was that they were leaving at that time. I had not really dared to speculate where they had gone. They had never told me their whereabouts in the past, and I had come to accept the fact that if they wanted to disappear from my life all they had to do was to refuse to see me.
“They’re not around, that’s for sure,” she said, frowning, “And they won’t be coming back, that’s also for sure.”
Her voice was extremely unemotional. I began to feel annoyed with her. I wanted to leave.
“But you’re here,” she said, changing her frown into a smile. “You must wait for Pablito and Nestor. They’ve been dying to see you.”
She held my arm firmly and pulled me away from my car. Compared to the way she had been in the past, her boldness was astounding.
“But first, let me show you my friend,” she said and forci-bly led me to the side of the house.
There was a fenced area, like a small corral. A huge male dog was there. The first thing that attracted my attention was his healthy, lustrous, yellowish-brown fur. He did not seem to be a mean dog. He was not chained and the fence was not high enough to hold him. The dog remained impassive as we got closer to him, not even wagging his tail. Dona Soledad pointed to a good-sized cage in the back. A coyote was curled up inside.
“That’s my friend,” she said. “The dog is not. He belongs to my girls.”
The dog looked at me and yawned. I liked him. I had a nonsensical feeling of kinship with him.
“Come, let’s go into the house,” she said, pulling me by the arm.
I hesitated. Some part of me was utterly alarmed and wanted to get out of there quickly, and yet another part of me would not have left for the world.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you?” she asked in an accusing tone.
“I most certainly am!” I exclaimed.
She giggled, and in a most comforting tone she declared that she was a clumsy, primitive woman who was very awk-ward with words, and that she hardly knew how to treat peo-ple. She looked straight into my eyes and said that don Juan had commissioned her to help me, because he worried about me.
“He told us that you’re not serious and go around causing a lot of trouble to innocent people,” she said.