See what I mean? she asked smiling. The allies don’t
give a fig about my calling, no matter how close it is to yours.
Now try it yourself.
I tried. After a few seconds I heard the call being answered.
La Gorda jumped to her feet. I had the clear impression that
she was more surprised than I was. She hurriedly made me
stop, turned off the lantern and gathered up my notes.
She was about to open the front door, but she stopped
short; a most frightening sound came from just outside the
door. It sounded to me like a growl. It was so horrendous and
ominous that it made us both jump back, away from the door.
My physical alarm was so intense that I would have fled if I
had had a place to go.
Something heavy was leaning against the door; it made the
door creak. I looked at la Gorda. She seemed to be even more
alarmed. She was still standing with her arm outstretched as
if to open the door. Her mouth was open. She seemed to have
been frozen in midaction.
The door was about to be sprung open any moment. There
were no bangs on it, just a terrifying pressure, not only on the
door but all around the house.
La Gorda stood up and told me to embrace her quickly
from behind, locking my hands around her waist over her belly
button. She performed then a strange movement with her
hands. It was as though she were flipping a towel while hold-
ing it at the level of her eyes. She did it four times. Then she
made another strange movement. She placed her hands at the
middle of her chest with the palms up, one above the other
without touching. Her elbows were straight out to her sides.
She clasped her hands as if she had suddenly grabbed two un-
seen bars. She slowly turned her hands over until the palms
were facing down and then she made a most beautiful, ex-
ertive movement, a movement that seemed to engage every
muscle in her body. It was as though she were opening a
heavy sliding door that offered a great resistance. Her body
shivered with the exertion. Her arms moved slowly, as if
opening a very, very heavy door, until they were fully ex-
tended laterally.
I had the clear impression that as soon as she opened that
door a wind rushed through. That wind pulled us and we
actually went through the wall. Or rather, the walls of the
house went through us, or perhaps all three, la Gorda, the
house and myself, went through the door she had opened. All
of a sudden I was out in an open field. I could see the dark
shapes of the surrounding mountains and trees. I was no
longer holding onto la Gorda’s waist. A noise above me made
me look up, and I saw her hovering perhaps ten feet above me
like the black shape of a giant kite. I felt a terrible itch in my
belly button and then la Gorda plummeted down to the
ground at top speed, but instead of crashing she came to a
soft, total halt.
At the moment that la Gorda landed, the itch in my um-
bilical region turned into a horribly exhausting nervous pain.
It was as if her landing were pulling my insides out. I screamed
in pain at the top of my voice.
Then la Gorda was standing next to me, desperately out of
breath. I was sitting down. We were again in the room of don
Genaro’s house where we had been.
La Gorda seemed unable to catch her breath. She was
drenched in perspiration.
We’ve got to get out of here, she muttered.
It was a short drive to the little sisters’ house. None of them
was around. La Gorda lit a lantern and led me directly to the
open-air kitchen in back. There she undressed herself and
asked me to bathe her like a horse, by throwing water on her
body. I took a small tub full of water and proceeded to pour
it gently on her, but she wanted me to drench her.
She explained that a contact with the allies, like the one we
had, produced a most injurious perspiration that had to be
washed off immediately. She made me take off my clothes and
then drenched me in ice-cold water. Then she handed me
a clean piece of cloth and we dried ourselves as we walked
back into the house. She sat on the big bed in the front room
after hanging the lantern on the wall above it. Her knees were
up and I could see every part of her body. I hugged her naked
body, and it was then that I realized what dona Soledad had
meant when she said that la Gorda was the Nagual’s woman.
She was formless like don Juan. I could not possibly think of
her as a woman.
I started to put on my clothes. She took them away from
me. She said that before I could wear them again I had to
sun them. She gave me a blanket to put over my shoulders and
got another one for herself.
That attack of the allies was truly scary, she said as we
sat down on the bed. We were really lucky that we could
get out of their grip. I had no idea why the Nagual told me to
go to Genaro’s with you. Now I know. That house is where
the allies are the strongest. They missed us by the skin of our
teeth. We were lucky that I knew how to get out.
How did you do it, Gorda?
I really don’t know, she said. I simply did it. My body
knew how, I suppose, but when I want to think how I did it,
I can’t.
This was a great test for both of us. Until tonight I didn’t
know that I could open the eye, but look what I did. I actu-
ally opened the eye, just as the Nagual said I could. I’ve never
been able to do it until you came along. I’ve tried but it never
worked. This time the fear of those allies made me just grab
the eye the way the Nagual told me to, by shaking it four
times in its four directions. He said that I should shake it as I
shake a bed sheet, and then I should open it as a door, by hold-
ing it right at the middle. The rest was very easy. Once the
door was opened I felt a strong wind pulling me instead of
blowing me away. The trouble, the Nagual said, is to return.
You have to be very strong to do that. The Nagual and Ge-
naro and Eligio could go in and out of that eye like nothing.
For them the eye was not even an eye; they said it was an
orange light, like the sun. And so were the Nagual and Genaro
an orange light when they flew. I’m still very low on the
scale; the Nagual said that when I do my flying I spread out
and look like a pile of cow dung in the sky. I have no light.
That’s why the return is so dreadful for me. Tonight you
helped me and pulled me back twice. The reason I showed
you my flying tonight was because the Nagual gave me orders
to let you see it no matter how difficult or crummy it is. With
my flying I was supposed to be helping you, the same way
you were supposed to be helping me when you showed me
your double. I saw your whole maneuver from the door. You
were so busy feeling sorry for Josefina that your body didn’t
notice my presence. I saw how your double came out from
the top of your head. It wriggled out like a worm. I saw a
shiver that began in your feet and went through your body
and then your double came out. It was like you, but very
shiny. It was like the Nagual himself. That’s why the sisters
were petrified. I knew they thought that it was the Nagual
himself. But I couldn’t see all of it. I missed the sound because
I have no attention for it.
I beg your pardon?
The double needs a tremendous amount of attention. The
Nagual gave that attention to you but not to me. He told me
that he had run out of time.
She said something else about a certain kind of attention
but I was very tired. I fell asleep so suddenly that I did not
even have time to put my notes away.
4
The Genaros
I woke up around eight the next morning and found that la
Gorda had sunned my clothes and made breakfast. We ate in