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 al-
together. 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 men-
struate. 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 yel-
lowish 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.
A short time after he had found Lidia, while she was still
sick and in my care, the Nagual found you. You were brought
to him by a man he had never seen before in his life. The
Nagual saw that the man’s death was hovering above his head,
and he found it very odd that the man would point you out to
him at such a time. You made the Nagual laugh and right
away the Nagual set a test for you. He didn’t take you, he told
you to come and find him. He has tested you ever since like he
has tested no one else. He said that that was your path.
For three years he had only two apprentices, Lidia and
you. Then one day while he was visiting his friend Vicente,
a curer from the north, some people brought in a crazy girl, a
girl who did nothing else but cry. The people took the Nagual
for Vicente and placed the girl in his hands. The Nagual told
me that the girl ran to him and clung to him as if she knew
him. The Nagual told her parents that they had to leave her
with him. They were worried about the cost but the Nagual
assured them that it would be free. I suppose that the girl was
such a pain in the ass to them that they didn’t mind getting rid
of her.
The Nagual brought her to me. That was hell! She was
truly crazy. That was Josefina. It took the Nagual years to
cure her. But even to this day she’s crazier than a bat. She was,
of course, crazy about the Nagual and there was a terrible
fight between Lidia and Josefina. They hated each other. But
I liked them both. But the Nagual, when he saw that they
couldn’t get along, became very firm with them. As you know
the Nagual can’t get mad at anyone. So he scared them half to
death. One day Lidia got mad and left. She had decided to
find herself a young husband. On the road she found a tiny
chicken. It had just been hatched and was lost in the middle
of the road. Lidia picked it up, and since she was in a deserted
area with no houses around, she figured that the chicken be-
longed to no one. She put it inside her blouse, in between her
breasts to keep it warm. Lidia told me that she ran and in do-
ing so the little chicken began to move to her side. She tried to
bring him back to the front but she couldn’t catch him. The
chicken ran very fast around her sides and her back, inside her
blouse. The chicken’s feet tickled her at first and then they