Lidia would be the west, Josefina, the east, Rosa, the south and
she, the north. The other alternative was for us to change our
direction and face the south but without turning around. That
was the alternative of power, and it entailed putting on out
second face.
I told la Gorda that I did not understand what our second
face was. She said that she had been entrusted by the Nagual
to try getting the second attention of all of us bundled up to-
gether, and that every Toltec warrior had two faces and faced
two opposite directions. The second face was the second at-
tention.
La Gorda suddenly released her grip. All the others did the
same. She sat down again and motioned me to sit by her. The
little sisters remained standing. La Gorda asked me if every-
thing was clear to me. It was, and at the same time it was not.
Before I had time to formulate a question, she blurted out that
one of the last things the Nagual had entrusted her to tell me
was that I had to change my direction by summing up my
second attention together with theirs, and put on my power
face to see what was behind me.
La Gorda stood up and motioned me to follow her. She led
me to the door of their room. She gently pushed me into the
room. Once I had crossed the threshold, Lidia, Rosa, Josefina
and she joined me, in that order, and then la Gorda closed the
door.
The room was very dark. It did not seem to have any win-
dows. La Gorda grabbed me by the arm and placed me in what
I thought was the center of the room. All of them surrounded
me. I could not see them at all; I could only feel them flanking
me on four sides.
After a while my eyes became accustomed to the darkness.
I could see that the room had two windows which had been
blocked off by panels. A bit of light came through them and I
could distinguish everybody. Then all of them held me the
way they had done a few minutes before, and in perfect
unison they placed their heads against mine. I could feel their
hot breaths all around me. I closed my eyes in order to sum up
the image of my gazing. I could not do it. I felt very tired and
sleepy. My eyes itched terribly; I wanted to rub them, but
Lidia and Josefina held my arms tightly.
We stayed in that position for a very long time. My fatigue
was unbearable and finally I slumped. I thought that my knees
had given in. I had the feeling that I was going to collapse on
the floor and fall asleep right there. But there was no floor. In
fact, there was nothing underneath me. My fright upon real-
izing that was so intense that I was fully awake in an instant; a
force greater than my fright, however, pushed me back into
that sleepy state again. I abandoned myself. I was floating with
them like a balloon. It was as if I had fallen asleep and was
dreaming and in that dream I saw a series of disconnected
images. We were no longer in the darkness of their room.
There was so much light that it blinded me. At times I could
see Rosa’s face against mine; out of the corner of my eyes I
could also see Lidia’s and Josefina’s. I could feel their fore-
heads pressed hard against my ears. And then the image would
change and I would see instead la Gorda’s face against mine.
Every time that happened she would put her mouth on mine
and breathe. I did not like that at all. Some force in me tried
to get loose. I felt terrified. I tried to push all of them away.
The harder I tried, the harder they held me. That convinced
me that la Gorda had tricked me and had finally led me into a
death trap. But contrary to the others la Gorda had been an
impeccable player. The thought that she had played an im-
peccable hand made me feel better. At one point I did not
care to struggle any longer. I became curious about the mo-
ment of my death, which I believed was imminent, and I let
go of myself. I experienced then an unequaled joy, an exuber-
ance that I was sure was the herald of my end, if not my death
itself. I pulled Lidia and Josefina even closer to me. At that
moment la Gorda was in front of me. I did not mind that she
was breathing in my mouth; in fact I was surprised that she
stopped then. The instant she did, all of them also stopped
pressing their heads on mine. They began to look around and
by so doing they also freed my head. I could move it. Lidia,
la Gorda and Josefina were so close to me that I could see only
through the opening in between their heads. I could not figure
out where we were. One thing I was certain of, we were not
standing on the ground. We were in the air. Another thing I
knew for sure was that we had shifted our order. Lidia was to
my left and Josefina, to my right. La Gorda’s face was covered
with perspiration and so were Lidia’s and Josefina’s. I could
only feel Rosa behind me. I could see her hands coming from
my armpits and holding onto my shoulders.
La Gorda was saying something I could not hear. She enun-
ciated her words slowly as if she were giving me time to read
her lips, but I got caught up in the details of her mouth. At one
instant I felt that the four of them were moving me; they were
deliberately rocking me. That forced me to pay attention to
la Gorda’s silent words. I clearly read her lips this time. She
was telling me to turn around. I tried but my head seemed to
be fixed. I felt that someone was biting my lips. I watched la
Gorda. She was not biting me but she was looking at me as
she mouthed her command to turn my head around. As she
talked, I also felt that she was actually licking my entire face
or biting my lips and cheeks.
La Gorda’s face was somehow distorted. It looked big and
yellowish. I thought that perhaps since the whole scene was
yellowish, her face was reflecting that glow. I could almost
hear her ordering me to turn my head around. Finally the
annoyance that the biting was causing me made me shake my
head. And suddenly the sound of la Gorda’s voice became
clearly audible. She was in back of me and she was yelling at
me to turn my attention around. Rose was the one who was
licking my face. I pushed her away from my face with my
forehead. Rosa was weeping. Her face was covered with per-
spiration. I could hear la Gorda’s voice behind me. She said
that I had exhausted them by fighting them and that she did
not know what to do to catch our original attention. The little
sisters were whining.
My thoughts were crystal clear. My rational processes, how-
ever, were not deductive. I knew things quickly and directly
and there was no doubt of any sort in my mind. For instance,
I knew immediately that I had to go back to sleep again, and
that that would make us plummet down. But I also knew that
I had to let them bring us to their house. I was useless for
that. If I could focus my second attention at all, it had to be on
a place that don Juan had given me in northern Mexico. I had
always been able to picture it in my mind like nothing else in
the world. I did not dare to sum up that vision. I knew that we
would have ended up there.
I thought that I had to tell la Gorda what I knew, but I
could not talk. Yet some part of me knew that she understood.
I trusted her implicitly and I fell asleep in a matter of seconds.
In my dream I was looking at the kitchen of their house. Pa-
blito, Nestor and Benigno were there. They looked extraordi-
narily large and they glowed. I could not focus my eyes on
them, because a sheet of transparent plastic material was in
between them and myself. Then I realized that it was as if I
were looking at them through a glass window while somebody
was throwing water on the glass. Finally the glass shattered
and the water hit me in the face.
Pablito was drenching me with a bucket. Nestor and Be-
nigno were also standing there. La Gorda, the little sisters and