They left together.
I welcomed being alone. I worked on my notes for hours.
The open-air dining area was cool and had very good light.
La Gorda returned around noon. She asked me if I wanted
to eat. I was not hungry, but she insisted that I eat. She said
that contacts with the allies were very debilitating, and that
she felt very weak herself.
After eating I sat down with la Gorda and was getting ready
to ask her about dreaming when the front door opened
loudly and Pablito walked in. He was panting. He obviously
had been running and appeared to be in a state of great excita-
tion. He stood at the door for a moment, catching his breath.
He hadn’t changed much. He seemed a bit older, or heavier, or
perhaps only more muscular. He was, however, still very lean
and wiry. His complexion was pale, as if he had not been in
the sun for a long time. The brownness of his eyes was accen-
tuated by a faint mark of weariness in his face. I remembered
Pablito as having a beguiling smile; as he stood there looking
at me, his smile was as charming as ever. He ran over to where
I was sitting and grasped my forearms for a moment, without
saying a word. I stood up. He then shook me gently and em-
braced me. I myself was utterly delighted to see him. I was
jumping up and down with an infantile joy. I did not know
what to say to him. He finally broke the silence.
Maestro, he said softly, nodding his head slightly as if he
were bowing to me.
The title of maestro, teacher, caught me by surprise. I
turned around as if I were looking for someone else who was
just behind me. I deliberately exaggerated my movements to
let him know that I was mystified. He smiled, and the only
thing that occurred to me was to ask him how he knew I was
there.
He said that he, Nestor and Benigno had been forced to
return because of a most unusual apprehension, which made
them run day and night without any pause. Nestor had gone
to their own house to find out if there was something there
that would account for the feeling that had driven them.
Benigno had gone to Soledad’s place and he himself had come
to the girls’ house.
You hit the jackpot, Pablito, la Gorda said, and laughed.
Pablito did not answer. He glared at her.
I’ll bet that you’re working yourself up to throw me out,
he said in a tone of great anger.
Don’t fight with me, Pablito, la Gorda said, unruffled.
Pablito turned to me and apologized, and then added in a
very loud voice, as if he wanted someone else in the house to
hear him, that he had brought his own chair to sit on and that
he could put it wherever he pleased.
There’s no one else around here except us, la Gorda said
softly, and chuckled.
I’ll bring in my chair anyway, Pablito said. You don’t
mind, Maestro, do you?
I looked at la Gorda. She gave me an almost imperceptible
go-ahead sign with the tip of her foot.
Bring it in. Bring anything you want, I said.
Pablito stepped out of the house.
They’re all that way, la Gorda said, all three of them.
Pablito came back a moment later carrying an unusual-
looking chair on his shoulders. The chair was shaped to follow
the contour of his back, so when he had it on his shoulders,
upside down, it looked like a backpack.
May I put it down? he asked me.
Of course, I replied, moving the bench over to make
room.
He laughed with exaggerated ease.
Aren’t you the Nagual? he asked me, and then looked at
la Gorda and added, Or do you have to wait for orders?
I am the Nagual, I said facetiously in order to humor him.
I sensed that he was about to pick a fight with la Gorda; she
must have sensed it too, for she excused herself and went out
the back.
Pablito put his chair down and slowly circled around me as
if he were inspecting my body. Then he took his low-back
narrow chair in one hand, turned it around and sat down, rest-
ing his folded arms on the back of the chair that was made to
allow him the maximum comfort as he sat astride it. I sat down
facing him. His mood had changed completely the instant la
Gorda left.
I must ask you to forgive me for acting the way I did, he
said smiling. But I had to get rid of that witch.
Is she that bad, Pablito?
You can bet on that, he replied.
To change the subject I told him that he looked very fine
and prosperous.
You look very fine yourself. Maestro, he said.
What’s this nonsense of calling me Maestro? I asked in a
joking tone.
Things are not the same as before, he replied. We are in
a new realm, and the Witness says that you’re a maestro now,
and the Witness cannot be wrong. But he will tell you the
whole story himself. He’ll be here shortly, and will he be glad
to see you again. I think that by now he must have felt that
you are here. As we were coming back, all of us had the feel-
ing that you might be on your way, but none of us felt that
you had already arrived.
I told him then that I had come for the sole purpose of see-
ing him and Nestor, that they were the only two people in
the world with whom I could talk about our last meeting with
don Juan and don Genaro, and that I needed more than any-
thing else to clear up the uncertainties that that last meeting
had created in me.
We’re bound to one another, he said. I’ll do anything I
can to help. You know that. But I must warn you that I’m not
as strong as you would want me to be. Perhaps it would be
better if we didn’t talk at all. But, on the other hand, if we
don’t talk we’ll never understand anything.
In a careful and deliberate manner I formulated my query.
I explained that there was one single issue at the crux of my
rational predicament.
Tell me, Pablito, I said, did we truly jump with our
bodies into the abyss?
I don’t know, he said. I really don’t know.
But you were there with me.
That’s the point. Was I really there?
I felt annoyed at his cryptic replies. I had the sensation that
if I would shake him or squeeze him, something in him would
be set free. It was apparent to me that he was deliberately
withholding something of great value. I protested that he
would choose to be secretive with me when we had a bond of
total trust.
Pablito shook his head as if silently objecting to my accusa-
tion.
I asked him to recount to me his whole experience, starting
from the time prior to our jump, when don Juan and don
Genaro had prepared us together for the final onslaught.
Pablito’s account was muddled and inconsistent. All he
could remember about the last moments before we jumped
into the abyss was that after don Juan and don Genaro had
said good-bye to both of us and had disappeared into the dark-
ness, his strength waned, he was about to fall on his face, but
I held him by his arm and carried him to the edge of the abyss
and there he blacked out.
What happened after you blacked out, Pablito?
I don’t know.
Did you have dreams or visions? What did you see?
As far as I’m concerned I had no visions, or if I did I
couldn’t pay any attention to them. My lack of impeccability
makes it impossible for me to remember them.
And then what happened?
I woke up at Genaro’s old place. I don’t know how I got
there.
He remained quiet, while I frantically searched in my mind
for a question, a comment, a critical statement or anything
that would add extra breadth to his statements. As it was,
nothing in Pablito’s account was usable to buttress what had
happened to me. I felt cheated. I was almost angry with him.
My feelings were a mixture of pity for Pablito and myself and
at the same time a most intense disappointment.
I’m sorry I’m such a letdown to you, Pablito said.
My immediate reaction to his words was to cover up my
feelings and assure him that I was not disappointed at all.
I am a sorcerer, he said, laughing, a poor one, but enough
of a one to know what my body tells me. And right now it tells