“One day, while we were in the mountains of his homeland, I listened to the wind for the first time. It came directly to my womb. I was lying on top of a flat rock and the wind twirled around me. I had already seen it that day whirling around the bushes, but this time it came over me and stopped. It felt like a bird that had landed on my stomach. The Nagual had made me take off all my clothes; I was stark naked but I was not cold because the wind was warming me up.”
“Were you afraid, dona Soledad?”
“Afraid? I was petrified. The wind was alive; it licked me from my head to my toes. And then it got inside my whole body. I was like a balloon, and the wind came out of my ears and my mouth and other parts I don’t want to mention. I thought I was going to die, and I would’ve run away had it not been that the Nagual held me to the rock. He spoke to me in my ear and calmed me down. I lay quietly and let the wind do whatever it wanted with me. It was then that it told me what to do.”
“What to do with what?”
“With my life, my things, my room, my feelings. It was not clear at first. I thought it was me thinking. The Nagual said that all of us do that. When we are quiet, though, we realize that it is something else telling us things.”
“Did you hear a voice?”
“No. The wind moves inside the body of a woman. The Nagual says that that is so because women have wombs. Once it’s inside the womb the wind simply picks you up and tells you to do things. The more quiet and relaxed the woman is the better the results. You may say that all of a sudden the woman finds herself doing things that she had no idea how to do.
“From that day on the wind came to me all the time. It spoke to me in my womb and told me everything I wanted to know. The Nagual saw from the beginning that I was the north wind. Other winds never spoke to me like that, although I had learned to distinguish them.”
“How many kinds of winds are there?”
“There are four winds, like there are four directions. That’s, of course, for sorcerers and for whatever sorcerers do. Four is a power number for them. The first wind is the breeze, the morning. It brings hope and brightness; it is the herald of the day. It comes and goes and gets into everything. Sometimes it is mild and unnoticeable; other times it is nagging and bothersome.
“Another wind is the hard wind, either hot or cold or both. A midday wind. Blasting full of energy but also full of blind-ness. It breaks through doors and brings down walls. A sorcerer must be terribly strong to tackle the hard wind.
“Then there is the cold wind of the afternoon. Sad and try-ing. A wind that would never leave you in peace. It will chill you and make you cry. The Nagual said that there is such depth to it, though, that it is more than worthwhile to seek it.
“And at last there is the hot wind. It warms and protects and envelops everything. It is a night wind for sorcerers. Its power goes together with the darkness.
“Those are the four winds. They are also associated with the four directions. The breeze is the east. The cold wind is the west. The hot one is the south. The hard wind is the north.
“The four winds also have personalities. The breeze is gay and sleek and shifty. The cold wind is moody and melancholy and always pensive. The hot wind is happy and abandoned and bouncy. The hard wind is energetic and commandeering and impatient.
“The Nagual told me that the four winds are women. That is why female warriors seek them. Winds and women are alike. That is also the reason why women are better than men. I would say that women learn faster if they cling to their specific wind.”
“How can a woman know what her specific wind is?”
“If the woman quiets down and is not talking to herself, her wind will pick her up, just like that.”
She made a gesture of grabbing.
“Does she have to lie naked?”
“That helps. Especially if she is shy. I was a fat old woman. I had never taken off my clothes in my life. I slept in them and when I took a bath I always had my slip on. For me to show my fat body to the wind was like dying. The Nagual knew that and played it for all it was worth. He knew of the friendship of women and the wind, but he introduced me to Mescalito because he was baffled by me.
“After turning my head that first terrible day, the Nagual found himself with me on his hands. He told me that he had no idea what to do with me. But one thing was for sure, he didn’t want a fat old woman snooping around his world. The Nagual said that he felt about me the way he felt about you. Baffled. Both of us shouldn’t be here. You’re not an Indian and I’m an old cow. We are both useless if you come right down to it. And look at us. Something must have happened.
“A woman, of course, is much more supple than a man. A woman changes very easily with the power of a sorcerer. Especially with the power of a sorcerer like the Nagual. A male apprentice, according to the Nagual, is extremely difficult. For example, you yourself haven’t changed as much as la Gorda, and she started her apprenticeship way after you did. A woman is softer and more gentle, and above all a woman is like a gourd; she receives. But somehow a man commands more power. The Nagual never agreed with that, though. He believed that women are unequaled, tops. He also believed that I felt men were better only because I am an empty woman. He must be right. I have been empty for so long that I can’t remember what it feels like to be complete. The Nagual said that if I ever become complete I will change my feelings about it. But if he was right his Gorda would have done as well as Eligio, and as you know, she hasn’t.”
I could not follow the flow of her narrative because of her unstated assumption that I knew what she was referring to. In this case I had no idea what Eligio or la Gorda had done.
“In what way was la Gorda different from Eligio?” I asked.
She looked at me for a moment as if measuring something in me. Then she sat up with her knees against her chest.
“The Nagual told me everything,” she said briskly. “The Nagual had no secrets from me. Eligio was the best; that’s why he is not in the world now. He didn’t return. In fact he was so good that he didn’t have to jump from a precipice when his apprenticeship was over. He was like Genaro; one day while he was working in the field something came to him and took him away. He knew how to let go.”
I felt like asking her if I had really jumped into the abyss. I deliberated for a moment before going ahead with my question. After all I had come to see Pablito and Nestor to clarify that point. Any information I could get on the topic from anyone involved in don Juan’s world was indeed a bonus tome.
She laughed at my question, as I had anticipated.
“You mean you don’t know what you yourself did?” she asked.
“It’s too farfetched to be real,” I said.
“That is the Nagual’s world for sure. Not a thing in it is real. He himself told me not to believe anything. But still the male apprentices have to jump. Unless they are truly magnificent, like Eligio.
“The Nagual took us, me and la Gorda, to that mountain and made us look down to the bottom of it. There he showed us the kind of flying Nagual he was. But only la Gorda could follow him. She also wanted to jump into the abyss. The Nagual told her that that was useless. He said female warriors have to do things more painful and more difficult than that. He also told us that the jump was only for the four of you. And that is what happened, the four of you jumped.”
She had said that the four of us had jumped, but I only knew of Pablito and myself having done that. In light of her statements I figured that don Juan and don Genaro must have followed us. That did not seem odd to me; it was rather pleasing and touching.