repeatedly until she could focus her eyes again. She moved
her mouth, but she made no sound.
Touch her throat! Rosa yelled at me.
No! No! Lidia shouted back. Touch her head. It’s in her
head, you dummy!
She grabbed my hand and I reluctantly let her place it on
Josefina’s head.
Josefina shivered, and little by little she let out a series of
faint sounds. Somehow they seemed to me more melodious
than the inhuman sounds she made before.
Rosa also must have noticed the difference.
Did you hear that? Did you hear that? she asked me in a
whisper.
But whatever the difference might have been, Josefina let
out another series of sounds more grotesque than ever. When
she quieted down, she sobbed for a moment and then entered
into another state of euphoria. Lidia and Rosa finally quieted
her. She plunked down on the bench, apparently exhausted.
She could barely lift her eyelids to look at me. She smiled
meekly.
I am so very, very sorry, I said and held her hand.
Her whole body vibrated. She lowered her head and began
to weep again. I felt a surge of ultimate empathy for her. At
that moment I would have given my life to help her.
She sobbed uncontrollably as she tried to speak to me. Lidia
and Rosa appeared to be so caught up in her drama that they
were making the same gestures with their mouths.
For heaven’s sake, do something! Rosa exclaimed in a
pleading voice.
I experienced an unbearable anxiety. Josefina stood up and
embraced me, or rather clung to me in a frenzy and pushed
me away from the table. At that instant Lidia and Rosa, with
astounding agility, speed and control, grabbed me by the
shoulders with both hands and at the same time hooked the
heels of my feet with their feet. The weight of Josefina’s body
and her embrace, plus the speed of Lidia’s and Rosa’s ma-
neuver, rendered me helpless. They all moved at once, and
before I knew what was happening, they had laid me on the
floor with Josefina on top of me. I felt her heart pounding. She
held on to me with great force; the sound of her heart rever-
berated in my ears. I felt it pounding in my own chest. I tried
to push her away but she held on fast. Rosa and Lidia had me
pinned down on the floor with their weight on my arms and
legs. Rosa cackled insanely and began nibbling on my side.
Her small, sharp teeth chattered as her jaws snapped open and
shut with nervous spasms.
All at once I had a monstrous sensation of pain, physical re-
vulsion and terror. I lost my breath. My eyes could not focus.
I knew that I was passing out. I heard then the dry, cracking
sound of a pipe breaking at the base of my neck and felt the
ticklish sensation on top of my head, running like a shiver
through my entire body. The next thing I knew I was looking
at them from the other side of the kitchen. The three girls
were staring at me while they lay on the floor.
What are you people doing? I heard someone say in a
loud, harsh, commanding voice.
I then had an inconceivable feeling. I felt Josefina let go of
me and stand up. I was lying on the floor, and yet I was also
standing a distance away from them, looking at a woman I had
never seen before. She was by the door. She walked toward
me and stopped six or seven feet away. She stared at me for a
moment. I knew immediately that she was la Gorda. She de-
manded to know what was going on.
We were just playing a little joke on him, Josefina said
clearing her throat. I was pretending to be mute.
The three girls huddled up close together and began to
laugh. La Gorda remained impassive, looking at me.
They had tricked me! I found my stupidity and gullibility
so outrageous that I had a fit of hysterical laughter, which was
almost out of control. My body shivered.
I knew that Josefina had not just been playing, as she had
claimed. The three of them had meant business. I had actually
felt Josefina’s body as a force that, in fact, was getting inside
my own body. Rosa’s nibbling on my side, which undoubtedly
was a ruse to distract my attention, coincided with the sensa-
tion I had had that Josefina’s heart was pounding inside my
chest.
I heard la Gorda urging me to calm down.
I had a nervous flutter in my midsection and then a quiet,
calm anger swept over me. I loathed them. I had had enough
of them. I would have picked up my jacket and writing pad
and walked out of the house had it not been that I was not
quite myself yet. I was somewhat dizzy and my senses were
definitely out of line. I had had the sensation that when I had
first looked at the girls from across the kitchen, I was actually
viewing them from a position above my eye level, from a place
close to the ceiling. But something even more disconcerting
was that I had actually perceived that the ticklish sensation on
top of my head was what scooped me from Josefina’s embrace.
It was not as if something came out from the top of my head;
something actually did come out from the top of my head.
A few years before, don Juan and don Genaro had manoeu-
vred my perception and I had had an impossible double sen-
sation: I felt that don Juan had fallen on top of me and pinned
me to the ground, while at the same time I felt I was still
standing up. I was actually in both places at once. In sorcerers’
terms I could say that my body had stored the memory of that
double perception and seemed to have repeated it. There were,
however, two new things that had been added to my bodily
memory this time. One was that the ticklish sensation I had
become so aware of during the course of my confrontations
with those women was the vehicle to arriving at that double
perception; and the other was that the sound at the base of my
neck let loose something in me that was capable of coming out
of the top of my head.
After a minute or two I definitely felt that I was coming
down from near the ceiling until I was standing on the floor.
It took a while for my eyes to adjust to seeing at my normal
eye level.
As I looked at the four women I felt naked and vulnerable.
I then had an instant of disassociation, or lack of perceptual
continuity. It was as if I had shut my eyes, and some force
suddenly had made me twirl a couple of times. When I opened
my eyes the girls were staring at me with their mouths open.
But somehow I was myself again.
3
La Gorda
The first thing I noticed about la Gorda was her eyes: very
dark and calm. She seemed to be examining me from head
to toe. Her eyes scanned my body the same way don Juan’s
used to. In fact, her eyes had the same calmness and force. I
knew why she was the best. The thought that came to my
mind was that don Juan must have left her his eyes.
She was slightly taller than the other three girls. She had a
lean, dark body and a superb back. I noticed the graceful line
of her broad shoulders when she half turned her upper body
to face the three girls.
She gave them an unintelligible command and the three of
them sat down on a bench, right behind her. She was actually
shielding them from me with her body.
She turned to face me again. Her expression was one of ut-
most seriousness, but without a trace of gloom or heaviness.
She did not smile and yet she was friendly. She had very plea-
sant features: a nicely shaped face, neither round nor angular;
a small mouth with thin lips; a broad nose; high cheekbones;
and long, jet-black hair.
I could not help noticing her beautiful, muscular hands
which she kept clasped in front of her, over her umbilical
region. The backs of her hands were turned to me. I could see
her muscles being contracted rhythmically as she clasped her
palms.
She was wearing a long, faded orange cotton dress with
long sleeves and a brown shawl. There was something terribly
calming and final about her. I felt the presence of don Juan.
My body relaxed.
Sit down, sit down, she said to me in a coaxing tone.
I walked back to the table. She pointed out a place for me to