rendezvous, or whether he had gotten caught in the tremen-
dum, the image of his journey was maddening. It took no
effort at all for me to envision it, for I had the experience of
my own journey.
The other world, which don Juan had referred to practi-
cally since the moment we met, had always been a metaphor,
an obscure way of labeling some perceptual distortion, or at
best a way of talking about some undefinable state of being.
Even though don Juan had made me perceive indescribable
features of the world, I could not consider my experiences to
be anything beyond a play on my perception, a directed
mirage of sorts that he had managed to make me undergo,
either by means of psychotropic plants, or by means I could
not deduce rationally. Every time that had happened. I had
shielded myself with the thought that the unity of the me
I knew and was familiar with had been only temporarily dis-
placed. Inevitably, as soon as that unity was restored, the world
became again the sanctuary for my inviolable, rational self.
The scope that la Gorda had opened with her revelations was
terrifying.
She stood up and pulled me up off the bench. She said that I
had to leave before the twilight set in. All of them walked with
me to my car and we said good-bye.
La Gorda gave me a last command. She told me that on my
return I should go directly to the Genaros’ house.
We don’t want to see you until you know what to do, she
said with a radiant smile. But don’t delay too long.
The little sisters nodded.
Those mountains are not going to let us stay here much
longer, she said, and with a subtle movement of her chin she
pointed to the ominous, eroded hills across the valley.
I asked her one more question. I wanted to know if she had
any idea where the Nagual and Genaro would go after we had
completed our rendezvous. She looked up at the sky, raised her
arms and made an indescribable gesture with them to point out
that there was no limit to that vastness.