Castaneda, Carlos – The Second Ring of Power

Do Rosa or Josefina envy la Gorda?

No, they don’t. All of us have accepted our fates. The

Nagual said that power comes only after we accept our fate

without recriminations. I used to complain a lot and feel

terrible because I liked the Nagual. I thought I was a woman.

But he showed me that I was not. He showed me that I was a

warrior. My life had ended before I met him. This body that

you see here is new. The same thing happened to all of us. Per-

haps you were not like us, but to us the Nagual was a new life.

When he told us that he was going to leave, because he had

to do other things, we thought we would die. But look at us

now. We’re alive, and do you know why? Because the Nagual

showed us that we were himself. He’s here with us. He’ll al-

ways be here. We are his body and his spirit.

Do all four of you feel the same way?

We are not four. We are one. That is our fate. We have to

carry each other. And you are the same. All of us are the same.

Even Soledad is the same, although she goes in a different

direction.

And Pablito, Nestor and Benigno? Where do they fit?

We don’t know. We don’t like them. Especially Pablito.

He’s a coward. He has not accepted his fate and wants to

wriggle out of it. He even wants to chuck his chances as a sor-

cerer and live an ordinary life. That’ll be great for Soledad.

But the Nagual gave us orders to help him. We arc getting

tired of helping him, though. Maybe one of these days la

Gorda will push him out of the way forever.

Can she do that?

Can she do that! Of course she can. She’s got more of the

Nagual than the rest of us. Perhaps even more than you.

Why do you think the Nagual never told me that you

were his apprentices?

Because you’re empty.

Did he say that I was empty?

Everyone knows you’re empty. It is written on your

body.

How can you tell that?

There is a hole in the middle.

In the middle of my body? Where?

She very gently touched a spot on the right side of my

stomach. She drew a circle with her finger as if she were fol-

lowing the edges of an invisible hole four or five inches in

diameter.

Are you empty yourself, Lidia?

Are you kidding? I am complete. Can’t you see?

Her answers to my questions were taking a turn that I had

not expected. I did not want to antagonize her with my ignor-

ance. I shook my head affirmatively.

Why do you think I have a hole here that makes me

empty? I asked after deliberating what the most innocent

question would be.

She did not answer. She turned her back to me and com-

plained that the light of the lantern bothered her eyes. I in-

sisted on a response. She faced me defiantly.

I don’t want to talk to you anymore, she said. You are

stupid. Not even Pablito is that stupid and he’s the worst.

I did not want to end up in another blind alley by pretend-

ing that I knew what she was talking about, so I asked her

again what caused my emptiness. I coaxed her to talk, giving

her ample assurances that don Juan had never explained that

topic to me. He had said time and time again that I was empty

and I understood him the way any Western man would under-

stand that statement. I thought he meant that I was somehow

void of determination, will, purpose or even intelligence. He

had never spoken to me about a hole in my body.

There is a hole there on the right side, she said matter-of-

factly. A hole that a woman made when she emptied you.

Would you know who the woman is?

Only you can tell that. The Nagual said that men, most of

the time, cannot tell who had emptied them. Women are more

fortunate; they know for a fact who emptied them.

Are your sisters empty, like me?

Don’t be stupid. How can they be empty?

Dona Soledad said that she was empty. Does she look like

me?

No. The hole in her stomach was enormous. It was on both

sides, which meant that a man and a woman emptied her.

What did dona Soledad do with a man and a woman?

She gave her completeness to them.

I vacillated for a moment before asking the next question. I

wanted to assess all the implications of her statement.

La Gorda was even worse than Soledad, Lidia went on.

Two women emptied her. The hole in her stomach was like

a cavern. But now she has closed it. She is complete again.

Tell me about those two women.

I just can’t tell you anything more, she said in a most im-

perative tone. Only la Gorda can speak to you about this

matter. Wait until she comes.

Why only la Gorda?

Because she knows everything.

Is she the only one who knows everything?

The Witness knows as much, maybe even more, but he is

Genaro himself and that makes him very difficult to handle.

We don’t like him.

Why don’t you like him?

Those three bums are awful. They are crazy like Genaro.

Well, they are Genaro himself. They are always fighting us

because they were afraid of the Nagual and now they are tak-

ing their revenge on us. That’s what la Gorda says anyway.

And what makes la Gorda say that?

The Nagual told her things he didn’t tell the rest of us. She

sees. The Nagual said that you also see. Josefina, Rosa and I

don’t see, and yet all five of us are the same. We are the same.

The phrase we are the same, which dona Soledad had used

the night before, brought on an avalanche of thoughts and

fears. I put my writing pad away. I looked around. I was in a

strange world lying in a strange bed in between two young

women I did not know. And yet I felt at ease there. My body

experienced abandon and indifference. I trusted them.

Are you going to sleep here? I asked.

Where else?

How about your own room?

We can’t leave you alone. We feel the same way you do;

you are a stranger, except that we are bound to help you. La

Gorda said that no matter how stupid you are, we have to look

after you. She said we have to sleep in the same bed with you

as if you were the Nagual himself.

Lidia turned off the lantern. I remained sitting with my back

against the wall. I closed my eyes to think and I fell asleep in-

stantly.

Lidia, Rosa and I had been sitting on a flat area just outside

the front door for nearly two hours, since eight o’clock in the

morning. I had tried to steer them into a conversation but they

had refused to talk. They seemed to be very relaxed, almost

asleep. Their mood of abandonment was not contagious, how-

ever. Sitting there in that forced silence had put me into a

mood of my own. Their house sat on top of a small hill; the

front door faced the east. From where I sat I could see almost

the entire narrow valley that ran from east to west. I could not

see the town but I could see the green areas of cultivated fields

on the floor of the valley. On the other side and flanking the

valley in every direction, there were gigantic, round, eroded

hills. There were no high mountains in the vicinity of the

valley, only those enormous, eroded, round hills, the sight of

which created in me the most intense feeling of oppression. I

had the sensation that those hills were about to transport me

to another time.

Lidia spoke to me all of a sudden and her voice disrupted my

reverie. She pulled my sleeve.

Here comes Josefina, she said.

I looked at the winding trail that led from the valley to the

house. I saw a woman walking slowly up the trail, perhaps

fifty yards away. I noticed immediately the remarkable dif-

ference in age between Lidia and Rosa and the approaching

woman. I looked at her again. I would never have thought

Josefina to be that old. Judging by her slow gait and the pos-

ture of her body, she seemed to be a woman in her midfifties.

She was thin, wore a long, dark skirt and was carrying a load

of firewood on her back. She had a bundle tied around her

waist; it looked as though she had a bundled-up child riding on

her left hip. She seemed to be breast-feeding it as she walked.

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