ing sorcerers if someone would tell them that they can do it.
The memory of my father’s and my grandfather’s admira-
tion for the Mexican revolution came to my mind. They
mostly admired the attempt to exterminate the clergy. My
father inherited that admiration from his father and I inher-
ited it from both of them. It was a sort of affiliation that we
had. One of the first things that don Juan undermined in my
personality was that affiliation.
I once told don Juan, as if I were voicing my own opinion,
something I had heard all my life, that the favorite ploy of the
Church was to keep us in ignorance. Don Juan had a most
serious expression on his face. It was as if my statements had
touched a deep fiber in him. I thought immediately of the cen-
turies of exploitation that the Indians had endured.
Those dirty bastards, he said. They have kept me in
ignorance, and you too.
I caught his irony tight away and we both laughed. I had
never really examined that stand. I did not believe it but I had
nothing else to take its place. I told don Juan about my grand-
father and my father and their views on religion as the liberal
men they were.
It doesn’t matter what anybody says or does, he said.
You must be an impeccable man yourself. The fight is right
here in this chest.
He patted my chest gently.
If your grandfather and father would be trying to be im-
peccable warriors, don Juan went on, they wouldn’t have
time for petty fights. It takes all the time and all the energy
we have to conquer the idiocy in us. And that’s what matters.
The rest is of no importance. Nothing of what your grand-
father or father said about the Church gave them well-being.
To be an impeccable warrior, on the other hand, will give you
vigor and youth and power. So, it is proper for you to choose
wisely.
My choice was the impeccability and simplicity of a war-
rior’s life. Because of that choice I felt that I had to take la
Gorda’s words in a most serious manner and that was more
threatening to me than even don Genaro’s acts. He used to
frighten me at a most profound level. His actions, although
certifying, were assimilated, however, into the coherent con-
tinuum of their teachings. La Gorda’s words and actions were
a different kind of threat to me, somehow more concrete and
real than the other.
La Gorda’s body shivered for a moment. A ripple went
through it, making her contract the muscles of her shoulders
and arms. She grabbed the edge of the table with an awk-
ward rigidity. Then she relaxed until she was again her usual
self.
She smiled at me. Her eyes and smile were dazzling. She
said in a casual tone that she had just seen my dilemma.
It’s useless to close your eyes and pretend that you don’t
want to do anything or that you don’t know anything, she
said. You can do that with people but not with me. I know
now why the Nagual commissioned me to tell you all this.
I’m a nobody. You admire great people; the Nagual and Ge-
naro were the greatest of all.
She stopped and examined me. She seemed to be waiting
for my reaction to what she said.
You fought against what the Nagual and Genaro told you,
all the way, she went on. That’s why you’re behind. And
you fought them because they were great. That’s your par-
ticular way of being. But you can’t fight against what I tell
you, because you can’t look up to me at all. I am your peer;
I am in your cycle. You like to fight those who are better than
you. It’s no challenge to fight my stand. So, those two devils
have finally bagged you through me. Poor little Nagual,
you’ve lost the game.
She came closer to me and whispered in my ear that the
Nagual had also said that she should never try to take my
writing pad away from me because that would be as danger-
ous as trying to snatch a bone from a hungry dog’s mouth.
She put her arms around me, resting her head on my shoul-
ders, and laughed quietly and softly.
Her seeing had numbed me. I knew that she was abso-
lutely right. She had pegged me to perfection. She bugged me
for a long time with her head against mine. The proximity of
her body somehow was very soothing. She was just like don
Juan at that. She exuded strength and conviction and purpose.
She was wrong to say that I could not admire her.
Let’s forget this, she said suddenly. Let’s talk about what
we have to do tonight.
What exactly are we going to do tonight, Gorda?
We have our last appointment with power.
Is it another dreadful battle with somebody?
No. The little sisters are simply going to show you some-
thing that will complete your visit here. The Nagual told me
that after that you may go away and never return, or that you
may choose to stay with us. Either way, what they have to
show you is their art. The art of the dreamer.
And what is that art?
Genaro told me that he tried time and time again to ac-
quaint you with the art of the dreamer. He showed you his
other body, his body of dreaming; once he even made you
be in two places at once, but your emptiness did not let you
see what he was pointing out to you. It looks as if all his efforts
went through the hole in your body.
Now it seems that it is different. Genaro made the little
sisters the dreamers that they are and tonight they will show
you Genaro’s art. In that respect, the little sisters are the true
children of Genaro.
That reminded me of what Pablito had said earlier, that we
were the children of both, and that we were Toltecs. I asked
her what he had meant by that.
The Nagual told me that sorcerers used to be called Tol-
tecs in his benefactor’s language, she replied.
And what language was that, Gorda?
He never told me. But he and Genaro used to speak a lan-
guage that none of us could understand. And here, between all
of us, we understand four Indian languages.
Did don Genaro also say that he was a Toltec?
His benefactor was the same man, so he also said the same
thing.
From la Gorda’s responses I could surmise that she either did
not know a great deal on the subject or she did not want to
talk to me about it. I confronted her with my conclusions.
She confessed that she had never paid much attention to it
and wondered why I was putting so much value on it. I prac-
tically gave her a lecture on the ethnography of central
Mexico.
A sorcerer is a Toltec when that sorcerer has received the
mysteries of stalking and dreaming, she said casually. The
Nagual and Genaro received those mysteries from their bene-
factor and then they held them in their bodies. We are doing
the same, and because of that we are Toltecs like the Nagual
and Genaro.
The Nagual taught you and me equally to be dispassion-
ate. I am more dispassionate than you because I’m formless.
You still have your form and are empty, so you get caught in
every snag. One day, however, you’ll be complete again and
you’ll understand then that the Nagual was right. He said that
the world of people goes up and down and people go up and
down with their world; as sorcerers we have no business fol-
lowing them in their ups and downs.
The art of sorcerers is to be outside everything and be un-
noticeable. And more than anything else, the art of sorcerers
is never to waste their power. The Nagual told me that your
problem is that you always get caught in idiocies, like what
you’re doing now. I’m sure that you’re going to ask everyone
of us about the Toltecs, but you’re not going to ask anyone of
us about our attention.
Her laughter was clear and contagious. I admitted to her
that she was right. Small issues had always fascinated me. I
also told her that I was mystified by her usage of the word
attention.
I’ve told you already what the Nagual told me about
attention, she said. We hold the images of the world with
our attention. A male sorcerer is very difficult to train because
his attention is always closed, focused on something. A female,
on the other hand, is always open because most of the time
she is not focusing her attention on anything. Especially dur-
ing her menstrual period. The Nagual told me and then