“Please forgive me for having done all those things to you,” she said bluntly, looking at the ceiling.
Her boldness stopped my rage.
“You must understand my position,” she went on. “I couldn’t let you go.”
She laughed softly, and in a clear, calm and very pleasing voice said that she was guilty of being greedy and clumsy, that she had nearly succeeded in scaring me away with her antics, but that the situation had suddenly changed. She paused and sat up in her bed, covering her breasts with her shawl, then added that a strange confidence had descended into her body. She looked up at the ceiling and moved her arms in a weird, rhythmical flow, like a windmill.
“There is no way for you to leave now,” she said.
She scrutinized me without laughing. My internal rage had subsided but my despair was more acute than ever. I honestly knew that in matters of sheer strength I was no match for her or the dog.
She said that our appointment had been set up years in advance, and that neither of us had enough power to hurry it, or break it.
“Don’t knock yourself out trying to leave,” she said. “That’s as useless as my trying to keep you here. Something besides your will will release you from here, and something besides my will will keep you here.”
Somehow her confidence had not only mellowed her, but had given her a great command over words. Her statements were compelling and crystal clear. Don Juan had always said that I was a trusting soul when it came to words. As she talked I found myself thinking that she was not really as threatening as I thought. She no longer projected the feeling of having a chip on her shoulder. My reason was almost at ease but another part of me was not. All the muscles of my body were like tense wires, and yet I had to admit to myself that although she scared me out of my wits I found her most appealing. She watched me.
“I’ll show you how useless it is to try to leave,” she said, jumping out of bed. “I’m going to help you. What do you need?”
She observed me with a gleam in her eyes. Her small white teeth gave her smile a devilish touch. Her chubby face was strangely smooth and fairly free of wrinkles. Two deep lines running from the sides of her nose to the corners of her mouth gave her face the appearance of maturity, but not age. In standing up from the bed she casually let her shawl fall straight down, uncovering her full breasts. She did not bother to cover herself. Instead she swelled up her chest and lifted her breasts.
“Oh, you’ve noticed, eh?” she said, and rocked her body from side to side as if pleased with herself. “I always keep my hair tied behind my head. The Nagual told me to do so. The pull makes my face younger.”
I had been sure that she was going to talk about her breasts. Her shift was a surprise to me.
“I don’t mean that the pull on my hair is going to make me look younger,” she went on with a charming smile. “The pull on my hair makes me younger.”
“How is that possible?” I asked.
She answered me with a question. She wanted to know if I had correctly understood don Juan when he said that anything was possible if one wants it with unbending intent. I was after a more precise explanation. I wanted to know what else she did besides tying her hair, in order to look so young. She said that she lay in her bed and emptied herself of any thoughts and feelings and then let the lines of her floor pull her wrinkles away. I pressed her for more details: any feelings, sensations, perceptions that she had experienced while lying on her bed. She insisted that she felt nothing, that she did not know how the lines in her floor worked, and that she only knew not to let her thoughts interfere.
She placed her hands on my chest and shoved me very gently. It seemed to be a gesture to show that she had had enough of my questions. We walked outside, through the back door. I told her that I needed a long stick. She went directly to a pile of firewood, but there were no long sticks. I asked her if she could get me a couple of nails in order to join together two pieces of firewood. We looked unsuccessfully all over the house for nails. As a final resort I had to dislodge the longest stick I could find in the chicken coop that Pablito had built in the back. The stick, although it was a bit flimsy, seemed suited for my purpose.
Dona Soledad had not smiled or joked during our search. She seemed to be utterly absorbed in her task of helping me. Her concentration was so intense that I had the feeling she was wishing me to succeed.
I walked to my car, armed with the long stick and a shorter one from the pile of firewood. Dona Soledad stood by the front door.
I began to tease the dog with the short stick in my right hand and at the same time I tried to release the safety lock with the long one in my other hand. The dog nearly bit my right hand and made me drop the short stick. The rage and power of the enormous beast were so immense that I nearly lost the long one too. The dog was about to bite it in two when dona Soledad came to my aid; pounding on the back window she drew the dog’s attention and he let go of it.
Encouraged by her distracting maneuver I dove, headfirst, and slid across the length of the front seat and managed to release the safety lock. I tried to pull back immediately, but the dog charged toward me with all his might and actually thrust his massive shoulders and front paws over the front seat, be-fore I had time to back out. I felt his paws on my shoulder. I cringed. I knew that he was going to maul me. The dog lowered his head to go in for the kill, but instead of biting me he hit the steering wheel. I scurried out and in one move climbed over the hood and onto the roof. I had goose bumps all over my body.
I opened the right-hand door. I asked dona Soledad to hand me the long stick and with it I pushed the lever to release the backrest from its straight position. I conceived that if I teased the dog he would ram it forward, allowing himself room to get out of the car. But he did not move. He bit furiously on the stick instead.
At that moment dona Soledad jumped onto the roof and lay next to me. She wanted to help me tease the dog. I told her that she could not stay on the roof because when the dog came out I was going to get in the car and drive away. I thanked her for her help and said that she should go back in the house. She shrugged her shoulders, jumped down and went back to the door. I pushed down the release again and with my cap I teased the dog. I snapped it around his eyes, in front of his muzzle. The dog’s fury was beyond anything I had seen but he would not leave the seat. Finally his massive jaws jerked the stick out of my grip. I climbed down to retrieve it from underneath the car. Suddenly I heard dona Soledad screaming.
“Watch out! He’s getting out! “
I glanced up at the car. The dog was squeezing himself over the seat. He had gotten his hind paws caught in the steering wheel; except for that, he was almost out.
I dashed to the house and got inside just in time to avoid being run down by that animal. His momentum was so powerful that he rammed against the door.
As she secured the door with its iron bar dona Soledad said in a cackling voice, “I told you it was useless.”
She cleared her throat and turned to look at me.
“Can you tie the dog with a rope?” I asked.
I was sure that she would give me a meaningless answer, but to my amazement she said that we should try everything, even luring the dog into the house and trapping him there.
Her idea appealed to me. I carefully opened the front door. The dog was no longer there. I ventured out a bit more. There was no sight of him. My hope was that the dog had gone back to his corral. I was going to wait another instant before I made a dash for my car, when I heard a deep growl and saw the massive head of the beast inside my car. He had crawled back onto the front seat.