showed me that during that time I could actually let my atten-
tion go from the images of the world. If I don’t focus my
attention on the world, the world collapses.
How is that done, Gorda?
It’s very simple. When a woman menstruates she cannot
focus her attention. That’s the crack the Nagual told me
about. Instead of fighting to focus, a woman should let go of
the images, by gazing fixedly at distant hills, or by gazing at
water, like a river, or by gazing at the clouds.
If you gaze with your eyes open, you get dizzy and the
eyes get tired, but if you half-close them and blink a lot and
move them from mountain to mountain, or from cloud to
cloud, you can look for hours, or days if necessary.
The Nagual used to make us sit by the door and gaze at
those round hills on the other side of the valley. Sometimes
we used to sit there for days until the crack would open.
I wanted to hear more about it, but she stopped talking and
hurriedly sat very close to me. She signaled me with her hand
to listen. I heard a faint swishing sound and suddenly Lidia
stepped out into the kitchen. I thought that she must have
been asleep in their room and the sound of our voices had
woken her up.
She had changed the Western clothes she had been wearing
the last time I had seen her and had put on a long dress like
the Indian women of the area wore. She had a shawl on her
shoulders and was barefoot. Her long dress, instead of making
her look older and heavier, made her look like a child clad
in an older woman’s clothes.
She walked up to the table and greeted la Gorda with a
formal Good evening, Gorda. She then turned to me and
said, Good evening, Nagual.
Her greeting was so unexpected and her tone so serious
that I was about to laugh. I caught a warning from la Gorda.
She pretended to be scratching the top of her head with the
back of her left hand, which was clawed.
I answered Lidia the same way la Gorda had: Good eve-
ning to you, Lidia.
She sat down at the end of the table to the right of me. I
did not know whether or not to start up a conversation. I was
about to say something when la Gorda tapped my leg with
her knee, and with a subtle movement of her eyebrows sig-
naled me to listen. I heard again the muffled sound of a long
dress as it touched the floor. Josefina stood for a moment at
the door before walking toward the table. She greeted Lidia,
la Gorda and myself in that order. I could not keep a straight
face with her. She was also wearing a long dress, a shawl and
no shoes, but in her case the dress was three or four sizes larger
and she had put a thick padding into it. Her appearance was
thoroughly incongruous; her face was lean and young, but
her body looked grotesquely bloated.
She took a bench and placed it at the left end of the table
and sat down. All three of them looked extremely serious.
They were sitting with their legs pressed together and their
backs very straight.
I heard once more the rustle of a dress and Rosa come out.
She was dressed just like the others and was also barefoot. Her
greeting was as formal and the order naturally included Jose-
fina. Everyone answered her in the same formal tone. She sat
across the table facing me. All of us remained in absolute si-
lence for quite a while.
La Gorda spoke suddenly, and the sound of her voice made
everyone else jump. She said, pointing to me, that the Nagual
was going to show them his allies, and that he was going to
use his special call to bring them into the room.
I tried to make a joke and said that the Nagual was not
there, so he could not bring any allies. I thought they were
going to laugh. La Gorda covered her face and the little sis-
ters glared at me. La Gorda put her hand on my mouth and
whispered in my ear that it was absolutely necessary that I
refrain from saying idiotic things. She looked right into my
eyes and said that I had to call the allies by making the moths’
call.
I reluctantly began. But no sooner had I started than the
spirit of the occasion took over and I found that in a matter
of seconds I had given my maximum concentration to pro-
ducing the sound. I modulated its outflow and controlled the
air being expelled from my lungs in order to produce the
longest possible tapping. It sounded very melodious.
I took an enormous gasp of air to start a new series. I
stopped immediately. Something outside the house was an-
swering my call. The tapping sounds came from all around
the house, even from the roof. The little sisters stood up and
huddled like frightened children around la Gorda and myself.
Please, Nagual, don’t bring anything into the house,
Lidia pleaded with me.
Even la Gorda seemed a bit frightened. She gave me a
strong command with her hand to stop. I had not intended to
keep on producing the sound anyway. The allies, however,
either as formless forces or as beings that were prowling out-
side the door, were not dependent on my tapping sound. I felt
again, as I had felt two nights before in don Genaro’s house,
an unbearable pressure, a heaviness leaning against the entire
house. I could sense it in my navel as an itch, a nervousness
that soon turned into sheer physical anguish.
The three little sisters were beside themselves with fear,
especially Lidia and Josefina. Both of them were whining like
wounded dogs. All of them surrounded me and then clung to
me. Rosa crawled under the table and pushed her head up be-
tween my legs. La Gorda stood behind me as calmly as she
could. After a few moments the hysteria and fear of those
three girls mounted to enormous proportions. La Gorda
leaned over and whispered that I should make the opposite
sound, the sound that would disperse them. I had a moment
of supreme uncertainty. I really did not know any other
sound. But then I had a quick sensation of ticklishness on the
top of my head, a shiver in my body, and I remembered out
of nowhere a peculiar whistling that don Juan used to perform
at night and had endeavored to teach me. He had presented
it to me as a means to keep one’s balance while walking so as
not to stray away from the trail in the darkness.
I began my whistling and the pressure in my umbilical re-
gion ceased. La Gorda smiled and sighed with relief and the
little sisters moved away from my side, giggling as if all of it
had been merely a joke. I wanted to indulge in some soul-
searching deliberations about the abrupt transition from the
rather pleasant exchange I was having with la Gorda to that
unearthly situation. For an instant I pondered over whether
or not the whole thing was a ploy on their part. But I was too
weak. I felt I was about to pass out. My ears were buzzing.
The tension around my stomach was so intense that I believed
I was going to become ill right there. I rested my head on the
edge of the table. After a few minutes, however, I was again
relaxed enough to sit up straight.
The three girls seemed to have forgotten how frightened
they had been. In fact, they were laughing and pushing each
other as they each tied their shawls around their hips. La
Gorda did not seem nervous nor did she seem relaxed.
Rosa was pushed at one moment by the other two girls and
fell off the bench where all three of them were sitting. She
landed on her seat. I thought that she was going to get furious
but she giggled. I looked at la Gorda for directions. She Was
sitting with a very straight back. Her eyes were half-closed,
fixed on Rosa. The little sisters were laughing very loudly,
like nervous schoolgirls. Lidia pushed Josefina and sent her
tumbling over the bench to fall next to Rosa on the floor.
The instant Josefina was on the floor their laughter stopped.
Rosa and Josefina shook their bodies, making an incompre-
hensible movement with their buttocks; they moved them
from side to side as if they were grinding something against
the floor. Then they sprang up like two silent jaguars and
took Lidia by the arms. All three of them, without making the
slightest noise, spun around a couple of times. Rosa and Jose-