I wanted to tell her that I was a fiasco as a healer. Her eyes
seemed to catch my mood and they held it until it froze.
Rosa wanted to sleep. She was either dead tired or ill. I did
not want to find out which. I picked her up in my arms; she
was lighter than I would have imagined. I took her to don
Juan’s bed and gently placed her on it. Lidia covered her.
The room was very dark. I looked out of the window and saw
a cloudless sky filled with stars. Up to that moment I had been
oblivious to the fact that we were at a very high altitude.
As I looked at the sky, I felt a surge of optimism. Somehow
the stars looked festive to me. The southeast was indeed a
lovely direction to face.
I had a sudden urge that I felt obliged to satisfy. I wanted
to see how different the view of the sky was from dona Sole-
dad’s window, which faced the north. I took Lidia by the
hand with the intention of leading her there, but a ticklish
sensation on top of my head stopped me. It went like a ripple
down my back to my waist, and from there it went to the pit
of my stomach. I sat down on the mat. I made an effort to
think about my feelings. It seemed that at the very moment I
had felt the tickling on my head my thoughts had diminished
in strength and number. I tried, but I could not involve my-
self in the usual mental process that I call thinking.
My mental deliberations made me oblivious to Lidia. She
had knelt on the floor, facing me. I became aware that her
enormous eyes were scrutinizing me from a few inches away.
I automatically took her hand again and walked to dona Sole-
dad’s room. As we reached the door I felt her whole body
stiffening. I had to pull her. I was about to cross the threshold
when I caught sight of the bulky, dark mass of a human body
huddled against the wall opposite the door. The sight was so
unexpected that I gasped and let go of Lidia’s hand. It was
dona Soledad. She was resting her head against the wall. I
turned to Lidia. She had recoiled a couple of steps. I wanted
to whisper that dona Soledad had returned, but there were
no sounds to my words although I was sure I had vocalized
them. I would have tried to talk again had it not been that
I had an urge to act. It was as if words took too much time
and I had very little of it. I stepped into the room and walked
over to dona Soledad. She appeared to be in great pain. I
squatted by her side, and rather than asking her anything, I
lifted her face to look at her. I saw something on her forehead;
it looked like the plaster of leaves that she had made for her-
self. It was dark, viscous to the touch. I felt the imperative
need to peel it off her forehead. In a very bold fashion I
grabbed her head, tilled it back and yanked the plaster off.
It was like peeling off rubber. She did not move or complain
about pain. Underneath the plaster there was a yellowish-
green blotch. It moved, as if it were alive or imbued with
energy. I looked at it for a moment, unable to do anything.
I poked it with my finger and it stuck to it like glue. I did not
panic as I ordinarily would have; I rather liked the stuff. I
stirred it with the tips of my fingers and all of it came off her
forehead. I stood up. The gooey substance felt warm. It was
like a sticky paste for an instant and then it dried up between
my fingers and on the palm of my hand. I then felt another
jolt of apprehension and ran to don Juan’s room. I grabbed
Rosa’s arm and wiped the same fluorescent, yellowish-green
stuff from her hand that I had wiped from dona Soledad’s
forehead.
My heart was pounding so hard that I could hardly stand
on my feet. I wanted to lie down, but something in me pushed
me to the window and made me jog on the spot.
I cannot recall how long I jogged there. Suddenly I felt
that someone was wiping my neck and shoulders. I became
aware then that I was practically nude, perspiring profusely.
Lidia had a cloth around my shoulders and was wiping the
sweat off my face. My normal thought processes came back
to me all at once. I looked around the room. Rosa was sound
asleep. I ran to dona Soledad’s room. I expected to find her
also asleep, but there was no one there. Lidia had trailed be-
hind me. I told her what had happened. She rushed to Rosa
and woke her up while I put on my clothes. Rosa did not want
to wake up. Lidia grabbed her injured hand and squeezed it.
In one single, springing movement Rosa stood up and was
fully awake.
They began to rush around the house turning off the lan-
terns. They seemed to be getting ready to run away. I wanted
to ask them why they were in such a hurry, when I realized
that I had dressed in a great hurry myself. We were rushing
together; not only that, but they seemed to be waiting for
direct commands from me.
We ran out of the house carrying all the packages I had
brought. Lidia had advised me not to leave any of them be-
hind; I had not yet assigned them and they still belonged to
me. I threw them in the back seat of the car while the two
girls crammed into the front. I started the car and backed up
slowly, finding my way in the darkness.
Once we were on the road I was brought face to face with
the most pressing issue. Both of them said in unison that I was
the leader; their actions were dependent on my decisions. I
was the Nagual. We could not just run out of the house and
drive away aimlessly. I had to guide them. But the truth was
that I had no idea where to go or what to do. I turned casually
to look at them. The headlights cast a glare inside the car and
their eyes were like mirrors that reflected it. I remembered
that don Juan’s eyes did the same; they seemed to reflect more
light than the eyes of an average person.
I knew that the two girls were aware of my impasse. Rather
than making a joke about it in order to cover up my inca-
pacity, I bluntly put the responsibility of a solution in their
laps. I said that I lacked practice as the Nagual and would
appreciate it if they would oblige me with a suggestion or a
hint as to where we should go. They seemed disgusted with
me. They clicked their tongues and shook their heads. I men-
tally shuffled through various courses of action, none of which
was feasible, such as driving them to town, or taking them to
Nestor’s house, or even taking them to Mexico City.
I stopped the car. I was driving toward town. I wanted
more than anything else in the world to have a heart-to-heart
talk with the girls. I opened my mouth to begin, but they
turned away from me, faced each other and put their arms
around each other’s shoulders. That appeared to be an indica-
tion that they had locked themselves in and were not listening
tome.
My frustration was enormous. What I craved for at that
moment was don Juan’s mastery over any situation at hand,
his intellectual companionship, his humor. Instead I was in the
company of two nincompoops.
I caught a gesture of dejection in Lidia’s face and that
stopped my avalanche of self-pity. I became overtly aware,
for the first time, that there was no end to our mutual disap-
pointment. Obviously they too were accustomed, although in
a different manner, to the mastery of don Juan. For them the
shift from the Nagual himself to me must have been disastrous.
I sat for a long while with the motor running. Then all at
once I again had a bodily shiver that started on the top of my
head as a ticklish sensation and I knew then what had hap-
pened when I had entered dona Soledad’s room awhile before.
I had not seen her in an ordinary sense. What I had thought
was dona Soledad huddled against the wall was in fact the
memory of her leaving her body the instant after I had hit
her. I also knew that when I touched that gooey, phosphores-