The Second Ring of Power (9 page)

She told me to lie down next to her. I knelt on the bed, by her side. In
a very soft voice she
asked me if I was afraid. I said no,
which was the truth. There in her room, at that moment, I was
being
confronted by an old response of mine, which had manifested itself countless
times, a
mixture of curiosity and suicidal indifference.

Almost in a whisper she said that she had to be impeccable with me and
tell me that our
meeting was crucial for both of us. She said that
the Nagual had given her direct and detailed orders of what to do. As she
talked I could not help laughing at her tremendous effort to sound
like
don Juan. I listened to her statements and could predict what she would say
next.

Suddenly she sat up. Her face was a few inches from mine. I could see
her white teeth shining in the semidarkness of the room. She put her arms
around me in an embrace and pulled me on top
of her.

My mind was very clear, and yet something was leading me deeper and
deeper into a sort of
morass. I was experiencing myself as
something I had no conception of. Suddenly I knew that I had, somehow, been
feeling her feelings all along. She was the strange one. She had mesmerized me
with words. She was a cold, old woman. And her designs were not those of youth
and vigor,
in spite of her vitality and strength. I knew then that
don Juan had not turned her head in the same
direction as
mine. That thought would have been ridiculous in any other context;
nonetheless, at
that moment I took it as a true insight. A feeling
of alarm swept through my body. I wanted to get
out of her bed.
But there seemed to be an extraordinary force around me that kept me fixed,
incapable
of moving away. I was paralyzed.

She must have felt my realization. All of a sudden she pulled the band
that tied her hair and in
one swift movement she wrapped it
around my neck. I felt the tension of the band on my skin, but
somehow
it did not seem real.

Don Juan had always said to me that our great enemy is the fact that we
never believe what is
happening to us. At the moment dona Soledad was wrapping the cloth like a noose around my
throat, I knew
what he meant. But even after I had had that intellectual reflection, my body
did
not react. I remained flaccid, almost indifferent to what
seemed to be my death.

I felt the exertion of her arms and shoulders as she tightened the band
around my neck. She
was choking me with great force and expertise. I
began to gasp. Her eyes stared at me with a
maddening
glare. I knew then that she intended to kill me.

Don Juan had said that when we finally realize what is going on it is
usually too late to turn
back. He contended that it is always
the intellect that fools us, because it receives the message
first,
but rather than giving it credence and acting on it immediately, it dallies
with it instead.

I heard then, or perhaps I felt, a snapping sound at the base of my
neck, right behind my
windpipe. I knew that she had cracked
my neck. My ears buzzed and then they tingled. I
experienced an
exceptional clarity of hearing. I thought that I must be dying. I loathed my
incapacity
to do anything to defend myself. I could not even move a muscle to kick her. I
was
unable to breathe anymore. My body shivered, and suddenly
I stood up and was free, out of her
deadly grip. I looked down on
the bed. I seemed to be looking down from the ceiling. I saw my body,
motionless and limp on top of hers. I saw horror in her eyes. I wanted her to
let go of the
noose. I had a fit of wrath for having been so stupid and
hit her smack on the forehead with my
fist. She shrieked and held her
head and then passed out, but before she did I caught a fleeting
glimpse
of a phantasmagoric scene. I saw dona Soledad being hurled out of the bed by
the force of my blow. I saw her running toward the wall and huddling up against
it like a frightened child.

The next impression I had was of having a terrible difficulty in
breathing. My neck hurt. My
throat seemed to have dried up so
intensely that I could not swallow. It took me a long time to
gather
enough strength to get up. I then examined dona Soledad. She was lying
unconscious on
the bed. She had an enormous red lump on her
forehead. I got some water and splashed it on her face, the way don Juan had
always done with me. When she regained consciousness I made her walk, holding
her by the armpits. She was soaked in perspiration. I applied towels with cold
water
on her forehead. She threw up, and I was almost sure she
had a brain concussion. She was
shivering. I tried to pile clothes and
blankets over her for warmth but she took off all her clothes
and
turned her body to face the wind. She asked me to leave her alone and said that
if the wind
changed direction, it would be a sign that she was going
to get well. She held my hand in a sort of
brief handshake
and told me that it was fate that had pitted us against each other.

"I think one of us was supposed to die tonight," she said.

"Don't be silly. You're not finished yet," I said and really
meant it.

Something made me feel confident that she was all right. I went
outside, picked up a stick and
walked to my car. The dog growled. He
was still curled up on the seat. I told him to get out. He meekly jumped out.
There was something different about him. I saw his enormous shape trotting
away
in the semidarkness. He went to his corral.

I was free. I sat in the car for a moment to deliberate. No, I was not
free. Something was
pulling me back into the house. I had unfinished
business there. I was no longer afraid of dona
Soledad
.
In fact, an extraordinary indifference had taken possession of me. I felt that
she had
given me, deliberately or unconsciously, a supremely
important lesson. Under the horrendous
pressure of her
attempt to kill me, I had actually acted upon her from a level that would have
been
inconceivable under normal circumstances. I had nearly
been strangled; something in that
confounded room of hers had
rendered me helpless and yet I had extricated myself. I could not
imagine
what had happened. Perhaps it was as don Juan had always maintained, that all
of us have an extra potential, something which is there but rarely gets to be
used. I had actually hit
dona Soledad from a phantom position.

I took my flashlight from the car, went back into the house, lit all
the kerosene lanterns I could
find and sat down at the table in the
front room to write. Working relaxed me.

Toward dawn dona Soledad stumbled out of her room. She could hardly keep
her balance. She
was completely naked. She became ill and collapsed
by the door. I gave her some water and tried to cover her with a blanket. She
refused it. I became concerned with the possibility of her losing
body
heat. She muttered that she had to be naked if she expected the wind to cure
her. She made a
plaster of mashed leaves, applied it to her
forehead and fixed it in place with her turban. She
wrapped a
blanket around her body and came to the table where I was writing and sat down
facing
me. Her eyes were red. She looked truly sick.

"There is something I must tell you," she said in a weak
voice. "The Nagual set me up to wait for you; I had to wait even if it
took twenty years. He gave me instructions on how to entice you and steal your
power. He knew that sooner or later you had to come to see Pablito and Nestor,
so
he told me to use that opportunity to bewitch you and
take everything you have. The Nagual said that if I lived an impeccable life my
power would bring you here when there would be no one else
in
the house. My power did that. Today you came when everybody was gone. My
impeccable life
had helped me. All that was left for me to do was
to take your power and then kill you."

"But why would you want to do such a horrible thing?"

"Because I need your power for my own journey. The Nagual had to
set it up that way. You
had to be the one; after all, I really
don't know you. You mean nothing to me. So why shouldn't I
take
something I need so desperately from someone who doesn't count at all? Those
were the Nagual's very words."

"Why would the Nagual want to hurt me? You yourself said that he
worried about me."

"What I've done to you tonight has nothing to do with what he
feels for you or myself. This is
only between the two of us. There have
been no witnesses to what took place today between the two of us, because both
of us are part of the Nagual himself. But you in particular have received
and
kept something of him that I don't have, something that I need desperately, the
special power that he gave you. The Nagual said that he had given something to
each of his six children. I can't
reach Eligio. I can't take it
from my girls, so that leaves you as my prey. I made the power the
Nagual
gave me grow, and in growing it changed my body. You made your power grow too.
I
wanted that power from you and for that I had to kill you. The Nagual
said that even if you didn't
die, you would fall under my spell and
become my prisoner for life if I wanted it so. Either way,

your power was going to be mine."

"But how could my death benefit you?"

"Not your death but your power. I did it because I need a boost;
without it I will have a hellish time on my journey. I don't have enough guts.
That's why I dislike la Gorda. She's young and has
plenty of
guts. I'm old and have second thoughts and doubts. If you want to know the
truth, the
real struggle is between Pablito and myself. He is my
mortal enemy, not you. The Nagual said
that your power
could make my journey easier and help me get what I need."

"How on earth can Pablito be your enemy?"

"When the Nagual changed me, he knew what would eventually happen.
First of all, he set me
up so my eyes would face the north,
and although you and my girls are the same, I am the
opposite of you
people. I go in a different direction. Pablito, Nestor and Benigno are with
you;
the direction of their eyes is the same as yours. All of
you will go together toward Yucatan.

"Pablito is my enemy not because his eyes were set in the opposite
direction, but because he is
my son. This is what I had to tell you,
even though you don't know what I am talking about. I
have to enter
into the other world. Where the Nagual is now. Where Genaro and Eligio are now.
Even if I have to destroy Pablito to do that."

"What are you saying, dona Soledad? You're crazy!"

"No, I am not. There is nothing more important for us living
beings than to enter into that
world. I will tell you that for me
that is true. To get to that world I live the way the Nagual taught
me.
Without the hope of that world I am nothing, nothing. I was a fat old cow. Now
that hope
gives me a guide, a direction, and even if I can't take
your power, I still have my purpose."

She rested her head on the table, using her arms as a pillow. The force
of her statements had
numbed me. I had not understood what
exactly she had meant, but I could almost empathize with
her
plea, although it was the strangest thing I had yet heard from her that night.
Her purpose was
a warrior's purpose, in don Juan's style and
terminology. I never knew, however, that one had to
destroy people
in order to fulfill it.

She lifted up her head and looked at me with half-closed eyelids.

"At the beginning everything worked fine for me today," she
said. "I was a bit scared when
you drove up. I had waited years
for that moment. The Nagual told me that you like women. He
said
you are an easy prey for them, so I played you for a quick finish. I figured
that you would go
for it. The Nagual had taught me how I should grab
you at the moment when you are the weakest.
I was leading
you to that moment with my body. But you became suspicious. I was too clumsy. I
had taken you to my room, as the Nagual told me to do, so the lines of
my floor would entrap you
and make you helpless. But you fooled
my floor by liking it and by watching its lines intently. It
had
no power as long as your eyes were on its lines. Your body knew what to do.
Then you
scared my floor, yelling the way you did. Sudden noises
like that are deadly, especially the voice of a sorcerer. The power of my floor
died out like a flame. I knew it, but you didn't.