Castaneda, Carlos – The Second Ring of Power

She laughed at her own recollection of the nickname don

Juan had given her.

But stalking your weaknesses is not enough to drop them,

she said. You can stalk them from now to doomsday and it

won’t make a bit of difference. That’s why the Nagual didn’t

want to tell me what to do. What a warrior really needs in

order to be an impeccable stalker is to have a purpose.

La Gorda recounted how she had lived from day to day,

before she met the Nagual, with nothing to look forward to.

She had no hopes, no dreams, no desire for anything. The

opportunity to eat, however, was always accessible to her; for

some reason that she could not fathom, there had been plenty

of food available to her every single day of her life. So much of

it, in fact, that at one time she weighed two hundred and

thirty-six pounds.

Eating was the only thing I enjoyed in life, la Gorda

said. Besides, I never saw myself as being fat. I thought I was

rather pretty and that people liked me as I was. Everyone said

that I looked healthy.

The Nagual told me something very strange. He said that

I had an enormous amount of personal power and due to that I

had always managed to get food from friends while the rela-

tives in my own house were going hungry.

Everybody has enough personal power for something. The

trick for me was to pull my personal power away from food

to my warrior’s purpose.

And what is that purpose, Gorda? I asked half in jest.

To enter into the other world, she replied with a grin and

pretended to hit me on top of my head with her knuckles, the

way don Juan used to do when he thought I was indulging.

There was no more light for me to write. I wanted her to

bring a lantern but she complained that she was too tired and

had to sleep a bit before the little sisters arrived.

We went into the front room. She gave me a blanket, then

wrapped herself in another one and fell asleep instantly. I sat

with my back against the wall. The brick surface of the bed

was hard even with four straw mats. It was more comfortable

to lie down. The moment I did I fell asleep.

I woke up suddenly with an unbearable thirst. I wanted to

go to the kitchen to drink some water but I could not orient

myself in the darkness. I could feel la Gorda bundled up in

her blanket next to me. I shook her two or three times and

asked her to help me get some water. She grumbled some un-

intelligible words. She apparently was so sound asleep that she

did not want to wake up. I shook her again and suddenly

she woke up; only it was not la Gorda. Whoever I was shaking

yelled at me in a gruff, masculine voice to shut up. There was

a man there in place of la Gorda! My fright was instantaneous

and uncontrollable. I jumped out of bed and ran for the front

door. But my sense of orientation was off and I ended up out

in the kitchen. I grabbed a lantern and lit it as fast as I could.

La Gorda came out of the outhouse in the back at that moment

and asked me if there was something wrong. I nervously told

her what had happened. She seemed a bit disoriented herself.

Her mouth was open and her eyes had lost their usual sheen.

She shook her head vigorously and that seemed to restore her

alertness. She took the lantern and we walked into the front

room.

There was no one in the bed. La Gorda lit three more lan-

terns. She appeared to be worried. She told me to stay where

I was, then she opened the door to their room. I noticed that

there was light coming from inside. She closed the door again

and said in a matter-of-fact tone not to worry, that it was

nothing, and that she was going to make us something to eat.

With the speed and efficiency of a short-order cook she made

some food. She also made a hot chocolate drink with cornmeal.

We sat across from each other and ate in complete silence.

The night was cold. It looked as if it was going to rain. The

three kerosene lanterns that she had brought to the dining area

cast a yellowish light that was very soothing. She took some

boards that were stacked up on the floor, against the wall, and

placed them vertically in a deep groove on the transverse sup-

porting beam of the roof. There was a long slit in the floor

parallel to the beam that served to hold the boards in place.

The result was a portable wall that enclosed the dining area.

Who was in the bed? I asked.

In bed, next to you, was Josefina, who else? she replied as

if savoring her words, and then laughed. She’s a master at

jokes like that. For a moment I thought it was something else,

but then I caught the scent that Josefina’s body has when she’s

carrying out one of her pranks.

What was she trying to do? Scare me to death? I asked.

You’re not their favorite, you know, she replied. They

don’t like to be taken out of the path they’re familiar with.

They hate the fact that Soledad is leaving. They don’t want

to understand that we are all leaving this area. It looks like our

time is up. I knew that today. As I left the house I felt that

those barren hills out there were making me tired. I had never

felt that way until today.

Where are you going to go?

I don’t know yet. It looks as if that depends on you. On

your power.

On me? In what way, Gorda?

Let me explain. The day before you arrived the little sisters

and I went to the city. I wanted to find you in the city because

I had a very strange vision in my dreaming. In that vision I

was in the city with you. I saw you in my vision as plainly as

I see you now. You didn’t know who I was but you talked to

me. I couldn’t make out what you said. I went back to the

same vision three times but I was not strong enough in my

dreaming to find out what you were saying to me. I figured

that my vision was telling me that I had to go to the city and

trust my power to find you there. I was sure that you were on

your way.

Did the little sisters know why you took them to the city?

I asked.

I didn’t tell them anything, she replied. I just took them

there. We wandered around the streets all morning.

Her statements put me in a very strange frame of mind.

Spasms of nervous excitation ran through my entire body. I

had to stand up and walk around for a moment. I sat down

again and told her that I had been in the city the same day, and

that I had wandered around the marketplace all afternoon

looking for don Juan. She stared at me with her mouth open.

We must have passed each other, she said and sighed. We

were in the market and in the park. We sat on the steps of the

church most of the afternoon so as not to attract attention to

ourselves.

The hotel where I had stayed was practically next door to

the church. I remembered that I had stood for a long time

looking at the people on the steps of the church. Something

was pulling me to examine them. I had the absurd notion that

both don Juan and don Genaro were going to be among those

people, sitting like beggars just to surprise me.

When did you leave the city? I asked.

We left around five o’clock and headed for the Nagual’s

spot in the mountains, she replied.

I had also had the certainty that don Juan had left at the end

of the day. The feelings I had had during that entire episode of

looking for don Juan became very clear to me. In light of what

she had told me I had to revise my stand. I had conveniently

explained away the certainty I had had that don Juan was

there in the streets of the city as an irrational expectation, a

result of my consistently finding him there in the past. But la

Gorda had been in the city actually looking for me and she

was the being closest to don Juan in temperament. I had felt

all along that his presence was there. La Gorda’s statement had

merely confirmed something that my body knew beyond the

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