The bed was big and comfortablysoft. A golden radiance filled the room.

Hoping to prolong this moment ofwell-being a bit longer, I closed my eyes and buried myself in sleepy blissamidst fragrant linen sheets and subtly scented lavender pillow cases.  

I could feel every muscle andevery bone in my body tense as I remembered the night's events; disconnectedfragments of some god-awful dream.  

There was no continuity, nolinear sequence to all I had experienced during those interminable hours.  

I had awoken twice during thenight, in different beds, in different rooms, even in a different house.  

As if they had a life of theirown, these disconnected images piled up and expanded, all at once, into alabyrinth that somehow I was able to comprehend all at once.  

That is, I perceived every eventsimultaneously.  

The sensation of those imagesgrowing out of my skull into an enormous, fanciful headdress was so real Ijumped out of bed and dashed across the room to the steel and glassdresser.  

The three-paneled mirror wascovered with rice paper. I tried to peel off a corner, but the paper clung tothe glass like a skin.  

The sight of the silver-backedhairbrush with its matching comb, the bottles of perfume, and the jars ofcosmetics on the dresser had a soothing effect on me: I, too, would havearranged the bottles and jars by size, in a row, like tools.  

Somehow I knew that I was inFlorinda's room, in the witches' house.  

This knowledge restored my senseof equilibrium.  

Florinda's room was enormous. Thebed and the dresser were the only pieces of furniture in it. They stood inopposite corners, away from the walls and at an angle, leaving a triangularspace behind them.  

I pondered the arrangement of thebed and the dresser for quite some time but couldn't figure out whether itfollowed some kind of esoteric pattern, the significance of which eluded me, orwhether it was merely the result of Florinda's aesthetic whim.  

Curious as to where the threedoors in the room led, I tried them all.

The first one was locked from theoutside.  

The second one opened to a small,rectangular-shaped walled-in patio. Puzzled, I stared at the sky, until itfinally dawned on me that it was not morning, as I had assumed upon awakening,but late afternoon.  

I wasn't disturbed that I hadslept the whole day. On the contrary, I was elated. Convinced that I am aninsomniac, I am always overjoyed by my oversleeping spells.  

The third door opened into thecorridor.  

Anxious to find IsidoreBaltazar,I made my way to the living room. It was empty.

There was something forbiddingabout the neat and straight manner in which the furniture was arranged.  

Nothing revealed that anyone hadsat on the couch and the armchairs the night before. Even the cushions stoodstiffly, as if at attention.  

The dining room across thecorridor looked equally forsaken, equally austere.  

Not a chair was out of place. Nota crumb; not a stain in the polished surface of the mahogany table; nothingbetrayed that I had sat there last night with the nagual Mariano Aureliano andMr. Flores, and eaten dinner.  

In the kitchen, separated fromthe dining room by an arched vestibule and a narrow hall, I found a jug, halffilled with champurrado, and a covered plate with some sweet tamales.  

I was too hungry to bother withheating them. I poured myself a mugful of the thick chocolate and ate the threecorn cakes directly from their corn-husk wrappings. Stuffed with pieces ofpineapple, raisins, and slivered almonds, they were delicious.  

It was inconceivable to me that Ihad been left alone in the house, yet I couldn't ignore the stillness aroundme.  

It wasn't the comforting peace oneis conscious of when people are purposely being quiet, but rather it was theoverwhelming soundlessness of a deserted place.

The possibility that, indeed, Ihad been abandoned there made me choke on a piece of tamale.  

On my way back to Florinda's room,I paused in front of every door I passed.

"Anybody home?" Icalled out as I knocked repeatedly.  

There was no answer.  

I was about to step outside whenI distinctly heard someone ask, "Who is calling?"  

The voice was deep and raspy, butI couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman who had spoken.  

I couldn't determine from whichdirection, let alone from which room, the voice had come.  

I retraced my steps and calledout again at the top of my voice whether anybody was home.  

Upon reaching the far end of thecorridor, I hesitated for a moment in front of a closed door.  

I turned the doorknob, thenquietly opened it a crack and sidled in.

With my eyes tightly shut, Ireclined against the wall and waited for my heartbeat to normalize.  

Suppose someone caught me inhere, I thought guiltily, but my curiosity outweighed any sense of wrong-doingas I breathed in the air of mystery, of enchantment, that permeated theroom.  

The heavy, dark curtains weredrawn, and the only light came from a tall reading lamp.  

Its huge shade, fringed withtassels, cast a circle of yellow light on the chaise lounge by the window.  

At the very center of the roomstood a four-poster bed: Canopied and curtained, it dominated the space as ifit were a throne.

The bronze and wood-carvedoriental figurines, ensconced on the four round tables in each corner, appearedto stand guard over the room like some celestial deities.  

Books, papers, and magazines werepiled on the drop-front French desk and on the chest of drawers.  

There was no mirror on thekidney-shaped dresser, and instead of a comb and brush, or bottles of perfumeand cosmetics, a set of fragile-looking demitasses [* demitasse- small coffeecup; for serving black coffee] stood on the glass-topped surface.  

Strands of pearls, gold chains,rings, and brooches spilled from the delicate gold-rimmed cups like someabandoned treasure.  

I recognized two of the rings: Ihad seen them on Zoila's hand.  

The inspection of the bed Ireserved for last.  

Almost reverentially, as ifindeed it were a throne, I pulled back the curtain and gasped with delight. Thebrightly colored pillows on the silky green spread made me think of wildflowers in a meadow.  

And yet an involuntary shivershook my body as I stood in the middle of the room.  

I couldn't help but feel that thewarmth, the mystery, and the enchantment this room exuded were but anillusion.  

The sensation of having steppedinto some kind of a mirage was even more pronounced in the third room.  

It, too, seemed warm and friendlyat first. The very air was tender and loving. Echoes of laugher seemed tobounce off the walls.  

However, this atmosphere ofwarmth was only a tenuous, fleeting impression, like the fading sunlightstreaking through the glassless, gauze-curtained windows.  

As in the other room, the beddominated the space. It too was canopied and decorated with brightly coloredpillows that had been tossed about with absentminded abandon.  

Against one wall stood a sewingmachine. It was an old one; a hand-painted treadle machine.  

Next to it was a tall bookcase.Instead of books, the shelves were stacked with bolts of the finest cottons,silks, and wool gabardine cloth, all neatly arranged by color and fabric.  

Six different colored wigs, allstretched over staked gourds, were dislayed on a low table under thewindow.  

Among them was the blond one Ihad seen Delia Flores wear, and the dark, curly one Mariano Aureliano hadpulled over my head outside the coffee shop in Tucson.  

The fourth room was a bit furtherdown from the others and across the hall.

The last afternoon sun rays,filtering through a latticed wall, lay on the floor like a carpet of light andshadows, a wavering square of rectangular patterns.  

Compared to the other two rooms,it gave the impression of being empty.  

The few pieces of furniture wereso artfully placed it made the space seem larger than it actually was.  

Low bookshelves with glass doorslined the walls.  

At the far end, in an alcove,stood a narrow bed. The white-and-grey-checkered blanket hung low, and matchedthe shadows on the floor.  

The dainty rosewood secretairewith its delicate chair of ebonized rosewood with ormolu didn't detract fromthe overall sense of starkness of the room but rather enhanced it. I knew thatit was Carmela's room.  

I would have liked to check thetitles of the books behind the glass panels, but my anxiety was too great.  

As if someone were chasing me, Idashed out into the corridor and down to the inside patio.  

I sat on one of the rush chairs.  

I was trembling and perspiring,yet my hands were icy cold. It wasn't guilt that had me shaking- I wouldn'thave minded getting caught snooping around- but the alien, otherworldly qualitythese beautifully furnished rooms exuded.

The stillness that clung aboutthe walls was an unnatural stillness. It had nothing to do with the absence ofits inhabitants, but with the absence of feelings and emotions that usuallypermeate lived-in spaces.  

Every time someone had referredto the women as sorceresses and witches, I had inwardly laughed. They neitheracted nor looked as I had expected witches to look and act- flamboyantlydramatic and sinister.  

But now I knew for certain thatthey were indeed different from other human beings.  

It frightened me that they weredifferent in ways I couldn't understand; in ways I couldn't even conceive.  

A soft, rasping sound put an endto my disturbing thoughts.  

Following the distinctly eerienoise, I tiptoed down the corridor, away from the bedrooms, toward the otherend of the house.  

The rasping sound came from aroom at the back of the kitchen. I crept up softly, only to have the sound diedown the instant I pressed my ear against the door.  

It resumed as soon as I movedaway.  

Puzzled, I once more pressed myear to the door, and the rasping sound promptly ceased.  

I moved back and forth severaltimes, and, as if the rasping sound were dependent on my doings, it eitherstarted or stopped.  

Determined to find out who washiding- or worse, who was purposely trying to frighten me- I reached for thedoorknob.  

Unable to open the door, Ifumbled for several minutes before I realized that it was locked and that thekey had been left in the lock.  

That someone dangerous might havebeen confined in that room, for a very good reason, only came to me once I wasinside.  

An oppressive semidarkness clungabout the heavy drawn curtains, like something alive that was luring theshadows of the entire house to this enormous room.  

The light grew dimmer. Theshadows thickened around what appeared to be discarded pieces of furniture andpeculiar-looking small and enormous figures made out of wood and metal.  

The same rasping sound that haddrawn me to this room broke the silence.

Like felines, the shadows prowledabout the room as if searching for prey.

In frozen horror, I watched thecurtain. It pulsated and breathed like a monster of my nightmares.  

All of a sudden, the sound andthe movement ceased. The motionless silence was even more frightening.  

I turned to leave, and thepulsating, rasping sound began again.  

Resolutely, I crossed the roomand pulled back the curtain.  

I laughed out loud upondiscovering the broken glass pane in the French door. The wind had beenalternately sucking and blowing the curtain through the jagged gap.  

The fading afternoon lightstreaming through the half-opened curtain rearranged the shadows in the roomand revealed an oval-shaped mirror on the wall, half hidden by one of theodd-looking metal figures.  

I squeezed myself between thesculpture and the wall and gazed rapturously into the old Venetian glass. Itwas blurry and misty with age, and it distorted my image so grotesquely that Iran out of the room.  

I went outside the house, throughthe back door.  

The wide clearing behind thehouse was deserted.  

The sky was still bright, but thetall fruit trees circling the grounds had already turned the color oftwilight.  

A flock of crows passed overhead.Their black flapping wings extinguished the brightness in the sky, and nightswiftly descended into the yard.  

With a feeling of utter dejectionand despair, I sat on the ground and wept. The harder I cried, the morepleasure I felt from lamenting at the top of my voice.  

The sound of a rake jolted me outof my self-pity.  

I looked up and saw a slightperson raking leaves toward a small fire in the back of the clearing.  

"Esperanza!" I criedout, rushing toward her, only to stop abruptly upon realizing that it wasn'ther but a man.  

"I'm sorry," I mumbledapologetically. "I mistook you for someone else."  

I held out my hand and introducedmyself.  

I tried not to stare at him, butI couldn't help it: I wasn't quite sure that he wasn't Esperanza disguised as aman.  

He put his hand in mine, pressingit softly, and said, "I'm the caretaker." He didn't tell me hisname.  

His hand felt as brittle as abird's wing in mine.  

He was a thin, ancient-lookingman. His face was birdlike, too, aquiline and keen-eyed. His white hair wastufted and feathery.  

It wasn't only his slight frameand birdlike appearance that reminded me of Esperanza, but also the wrinkled,expressionless face and the eyes, shiny and limpid as those of a child, and theteeth, small and square and very white.  

"Do you know where Florindais?" I asked.  

He shook his head and I added,"Do you know where any of the others are?"  

He was silent for a long moment,and then as though I hadn't asked him anything, he repeated that he was thecaretaker. "I take care of everything."  

"You do?" I asked,eyeing him suspiciously.  

He was so frail and puny-lookinghe didn't seem capable of taking care of anything, including himself.  

"I take care ofeverything," he repeated, smiling sweetly as if thus he could erase mydoubts.  

He was about to say somethingelse, but instead he chewed his lower lip thoughtfully for a moment, thenturned around, and went on raking the leaves into a little pile with neat,deft, quick movements.  

"Where is everyone?" Iasked.  

Resting his chin on his hand,cupped over the end of the rake handle, he glanced at me absently.  

Then grinning inanely, he lookedall around him, as though at any moment someone might materialize from behindone of the fruit trees.  

Sighing loudly and impatiently, Iturned to leave.  

He cleared his throat, and in a voicethat was wavering and hoarse with old age said, "The old nagual tookIsidoreBaltazar to the mountains."  

He didn't look at me: His eyeswere focused somewhere in the distance. "They'll be back in a couple ofdays."  

"Days!" I screechedindignantly. "Are you sure you heard them correctly?"  

Dismayed that my worst fear hadcome true, I could only mumble, "How could he have left me here all bymyself?"  

"They left last night,"the old man said, pulling back a leaf that the wind had blown away from thepile in front of him.  

"That's impossible," Icontradicted him forcefully. "We only got here last night. Late lastnight," I stressed.  

Indifferent to my assertivelyrude tone and to my presence, the old man set fire to the little pile of leavesin front of him.  

"Didn't IsidoreBaltazarleave a message for me?" I asked, squatting beside him. "Didn't heleave me a note or something?"  

I felt an impulse to shout, butfor some reason I didn't dare.  

Some mystifying aspect of the oldman's appearance disconcerted me. The thought that he was Esperanza in disguisestill nagged me.  

"Did Esperanza go with themto the mountains?" I asked.  

My voice trembled becausesuddenly I was seized by a desperate desire to laugh. Short of pulling down hispants and showing me his genitals, there was nothing he could do to convince methat he was indeed a man.  

"Esperanza is in thehouse," he murmured, his attention fixed on the little pile of burningleaves. "She's in the house with the others."  

"Don't be ridiculous: She'snot in the house," I contradicted him rudely. "No one is in thehouse. I've been searching for them the whole afternoon. I checked everyroom."  

"She's in the littlehouse," the old man repeated obstinately, watching me as intently as hehad watched the burning leaves. The glint of mischief in his eyes made me wantto kick him.  

"What little..." Myvoice faded as I remembered the other house, the one I had seen upon ourarrival. It actually caused me an intense physical pain to think of that place.  

"You could have told meright away that Esperanza is in the little house," I said peevishly.  

Surreptitiously, I glanced allaround me, but I couldn't see the place. The tall trees and the wall beyond hidit from view.  

"I'm going to see ifEsperanza is indeed there as you claim," I said, rising.  

The old man rose, too, andturning toward the nearest tree, he reached for an oil lamp and a burlap sackhanging from a low branch. "I'm afraid I can't let you go there byyourself," he said.  

"I don't see why not,"I countered, piqued. "Perhaps you're not aware of it, but I'm Florinda'sguest.  

"I was taken to the littlehouse last night." I paused for a moment, then added for good measure,"I was there for sure."  

He listened carefully, but hisface looked doubtful.  

"It's tricky to getthere," he warned me at last. "I have to prepare the path for you. Ihave to..."  

He seemed to catch himself in themiddle of a thought he didn't want to express. He shrugged, then repeated thathe had to prepare the path for me.  

"What's there toprepare?" I asked irritably. "Do you have to cut through thechaparral with a machete?"  

"I'm the caretaker. Iprepare the path," he repeated obstinately and sat on the ground to lightthe oil lamp.  

For an instant it guttered in theair, then burned strongly. His features appeared almost fleshless, unwrinkled,as if the light had smoothed away the mark of time. "As soon as I'm donewith burning these leaves, I'll take you there myself."  

"I'll help you," Ioffered. Clearly, the man was senile and needed to be humored.  

I followed him around theclearing and helped him gather the leaves into little piles, which he promptlyburned.  

As soon as the ashes had cooled,he swept them into the burlap sack. The sack was lined with plastic.  

It was this particular detail-the plastic lining- that brought back a half-forgotten childhood memory.  

As we swept the heaps of ashesinto the sack, I told him that as a small child living in a village nearCaracas, I was often awakened by the sound of a rake.  

I used to sneak out of bed and,cat-footed, creep down the corridor, past my parents' and brothers' rooms intothe parlor, which faced the plaza.  

Heedful of the creaking hinges, Iused to open the wooden panels covering the windows and squeeze through thewrought iron bars.  

The old man in charge of keepingthe plaza clean was always there to greet me with a toothless smile, andtogether we used to rake into little piles the leaves that had fallen duringthe night- any other kind of refuse was put into trash cans.  

We burned these piles, and assoon as the ashes had cooled, we swept them into a silklined burlap sack. Heclaimed that the water fairies, dwelling in a sacred stream in the nearbymountains, turned the ashes into gold dust.

"Do you also know of fairieswho change ashes into gold dust?" I asked, seeing how delighted thecaretaker was with my story.  

He didn't answer but giggled withsuch pleasure and abandon I couldn't help but laugh, too.  

Before I knew it, we had reachedthe last little pile of ashes next to a recessed, arched doorway built into thewall. The narrow wooden gate stood wide open.

Across the chaparral was theother house almost hidden in shadows.

No light shone through thewindows, and it appeared to be shifting away from me.  

Wondering whether the house wasbut a figment of my imagination; a place remembered in a dream, I blinkedrepeatedly and rubbed my eyes.  

Something was wrong, I decided,as I recalled walking up to the witches' house the night before withIsidoreBaltazar.  

The smaller house had stood tothe right of the larger one. How then, I asked myself, could I now see theplace from the witches' backyard?  

In an effort to orient myself, Imoved this way and that, but I couldn't get my bearings. I bumped into the oldman, who was squatting before the pile of ashes, and fell over him.  

With astounding agility he roseand helped me up. "You're full of ashes," he said, wiping my facewith the folded cuff of his khaki shirt.

"There it is!" I criedout. Sharply focused, silhouetted against the sky, the elusive house appearedto be only a few steps away:  

"There it is," Irepeated, jumping up and down as if by doing so I could hold the house inplace; detain it in time.  

"That's the true house ofthe witches," I added, standing still in front of the old man so he couldproceed with wiping the ashes off my face. "The big house is but afront."  

"The house of thewitches," the old man said slowly, savoring his words. Then he cackled,seemingly amused.  

He swept the last of the ashesinto his burlap sack, then motioned me to follow him through the gate.  

Two orange trees grew on theother side of the gate, away from the wall.

A cool breeze rustled through theblooming branches, but the flowers didn't stir. They didn't fall to theground.  

Against the dark foliage, theblossoms looked carved, as though they had been made of milky quartz.  

Like sentinels, the two treesstood guard over the narrow path.  

The path was white and verystraight, like a line that had been drawn on the landscape with a ruler.  

The old man handed me the oillamp, then scooped out a handful of ashes from his burlap sack and poured themfrom one hand to the other- as though he were weighing them- before hesprinkled them onto the ground.  

"Don't ask any questions anddo as I say," he said, his voice no longer hoarse: It had an airy quality:It sounded energetic and convincing.  

He bent slightly, and walkingbackwards, he let the rest of the ashes trickle directly from his burlap sackonto the narrow trail.  

"Keep your feet on the lineof ashes," he admonished. "If you don't, you'll never reach thehouse."  

I coughed to hide my nervouslaughter.  

Holding out my arms, I balancedon the narrow line of ashes as if it were a tightrope.  

Each time we stopped for the oldman to catch his breath, I turned to look at the house we had just left.  

It seemed to be receding into thedistance; and the one in front of us didn't seem to get any closer.  

I tried to convince myself thatit was merely an optical illusion, yet I had the vague certainty that I wouldnever make it on my own to either house.

As if sensing my discomfort, theold man patted my arm reassuringly. "That's why I'm preparing thepath."  

He looked into his burlap sackand added, "It won't be long now before we'll get there.  

"Just remember to keep yourfeet on the line of ashes. If you do, you'll be able to move back and forthsafely, anytime."  

My mind told me that the man wasa lunatic.  

My body, however, knew that I waslost without him and his ashes. I was so absorbed in keeping my feet on thefaint line, it took me by surprise when we finally stood in front of thedoor.  

The old man took the oil lampfrom my hand, cleared his throat, then rapped lightly on the carved panel withhis knuckles.  

He didn't wait for an answer butpushed the door open and went inside.  

"Don't go so fast!" Icried out, afraid to be left behind.  

I followed him into a narrowvestibule. He left the oil lamp on a low table.

Then without a word or a backwardglance, he opened a door at the far end and disappeared into the darkness.  

Guided by some vague memory, Istepped into the dimly lit rooom and went directly to the mat on thefloor.  

There was no doubt in my mind nowthat I had been there the night before, that I had slept on that very mat.  

What I wasn't so sure of was howI got to that room in the first place.  

That Mariano Aureliano hadcarried me on his on his back across the chaparral was vivid in my mind. I alsowas certain that I had woken up in that room- before being carried over by theold nagual- with Clara sitting beside me on the mat.  

Confident that within moments allwould be explained to me, I sat on the mat.

The light in the oil lampflickered and then went out.  

I sensed, rather than saw, thingsand people moving around me. I heard a murmur of voices, intangible soundscoming from every corner. Out of all these noises, I recognized a familiarrustling of skirts and a soft giggle.  

"Esperanza?" I whispered,"God! I am so glad to see you!" Although it was her I expected tosee, I was nevertheless stunned when she sat beside me on the mat. Timidly, Itouched her arm.  

"It's me," she assuredme.  

Only after hearing her voice wasI convinced that it was indeed Esperanza and not the caretaker who hadexchanged his khaki pants and shirt for the rustling petticoats and the whitedress. And once I felt the soothing touch of her hand on my face, all thoughtsthe caretaker vanished.  

"How did I get here?" Iasked.  

"The caretaker brought youhere," she laughed. "Don't you remember?"  

She turned toward the low tableand relit the oil lamp.  

"I'm talking about lastnight," I clarified. "I know I was here. I woke up on this mat. Clarawas here with me. And then Florinda was here, and the other women..."  

My voice trailed off as Iremembered that I had awoken afterward in the living room of the other houseand then again on a bed.  

I shook my head, as if I couldthus bring some order to my memories.  

Forlornly, I gazed at Esperanza,hoping she would fill in the gaps. I told her of the difficulties I was havingremembering the night's events in sequential order.  

"You shouldn't have anyproblems," she said. "Get in the track of dreams: You'redreaming-awake now."  

"You mean that I am asleepnow, this very instant?" I asked mockingly. I leaned toward her and asked,"Are you asleep, too?"  

"We are not asleep,"she repeated, enunciating her words carefully. "You and I aredreaming-awake."  

She held up her hands in ahelpless gesture. "I told you what to do last year. Remember?"  

A rescuing thought suddenlyoccurred to me, as if someone had just whispered it in my ear: 'When in doubt,one must separate the two tracks; the track for ordinary affairs and the trackfor dreams since each has a different state of awareness.'  

I felt elated, for I knew thatthe first track one should test is the track of dreams. If the situation athand doesn't fit that track, then one is not dreaming.  

My elation quickly vanished whenI tried to test the track for dreams.  

I had no inkling of how to goabout it or of what the track for dreams was, for that matter; and worse, Icouldn't remember who had told me about it.

"I did," Esperanza saidjust behind me:  

"You have moved a great dealin the realm of dreams.  

"You nearly remembered whatI told you last year, the day after the picnic.

"I said to you then that,when in doubt about whether you are in a dream or whether you are awake, youshould test the track where dreams run on- meaning the awareness we have indreams- by feeling the thing you are in contact with.  

"If you are dreaming, yourfeeling comes back to you as an echo. If it doesn't come back, then you are notdreaming."  

Smiling, she pinched my thigh andsaid, "Try it on this mat you're lying on. Feel it with your buttocks. Ifthe feeling returns, then you're dreaming."  

There was no feeling returning tomy numbed buttocks. In fact, I was so numb that I didn't feel the mat. Itseemed to me I was lying on the rough tiles of the floor.  

I had a strong urge to point outto her that it should be the opposite- if the feeling returns, then one isawake- but I controlled myself in time.  

I knew without any doubt thatwhat she meant by 'the feeling returning to us' had nothing to do with ourknown, agreed-upon knowledge of what feeling is.  

The distinction between beingawake and dreaming-awake still eluded me, yet I was certain that its meaninghad nothing to do with our ordinary way of understanding awareness.  

Right then, however, words cameout of my mouth without any control on my part.

I said, "I know that I amdreaming-awake, and that's that."  

I sensed that I was near a new,deeper level of understanding, and yet I could not quite grasp it.  

I asked, "What I would liketo know is, when did I fall asleep?"

"I've already told you,you're not asleep. You are dreaming-awake."  

I began to laugh involuntarily,in a quiet, utterly nervous manner.  

She didn't seem to notice or tocare.  

"When did the transition occur?"I asked.  

"When the caretaker wasmaking you cross the chaparral and you had to concentrate on keeping your feeton the ashes."  

"He must have hypnotizedme!" I exclaimed, in a not altogether pleasant voice.  

I began to talk incoherently,entangling myself in words without quite succeeding in making sense, untilfinally I was weeping and denouncing them all.

Esperanza watched me silently,her eyebrows lifted, her eyes wide open with surprise.  

I was immediately ashamed of myoutburst; but at the same time I was glad I had spoken because a momentaryrelief, the kind that comes after a confrontation, washed over me.  

"Your confusion," shecontinued, "originates with your facility to move from one state ofawareness into the other with great ease.

"If you had struggled, likeeverybody else does to attain smooth transitions, then you would know thatdreaming-awake is not just hypnosis."

She paused for an instant, thenfinished softly, "Dreaming-awake is the most sophisticated state humanscan attain."  

She stared off into the room asif a clearer explanation might suddenly be brought to her by someone hiding inthe shadows.  

Then she turned to me and asked,"Did you eat your little food?"

Her change of subject took me bysurprise, and I began to stammer.  

Once I recovered, I told her thatI had indeed eaten the sweet tamales. "I was so hungry, I didn't bother toheat them up. They were delicious."

Idly playing with her shawl,Esperanza asked me to give her an account of what I had done since I awoke inFlorinda's room.  

As if I had been given atruth-telling potion, I blurted out more than I intended to reveal, butEsperanza didn't seem to mind my snooping around the women's rooms.  

She wasn't impressed with myknowing to whom each room belonged.  

What interested her to no end,however, was my encounter with the caretaker.

With a smile of unmistakable gleeon her face, she listened as I told my tale of confusing the man with her.  

When I mentioned that at onepoint I considered asking him to pull down his pants so I could check hisgenitals, she doubled up on the mat, shrieking with laughter.  

She leaned against me andwhispered suggestively in my ear, "I'll put you at ease." There was awicked gleam in her eyes as she added, "I'll show you mine."  

"There is no need to,Esperanza," I tried to ward her off. "I don't doubt that you are awoman."  

"One can never be too surewhat one is," she casually dismissed my words.  

Oblivious to my embarrassment-caused not so much by her imminent nudity but by the thought that I had to lookat her old, wrinkled body- she lay down on the mat and with great finesseslowly lifted her skirts.  

My curiosity won out over myembarrassment.  

I stared at her, open-mouthed.She had no panties on. She had no pubic hair. Her body was incredibly young,the flesh strong and firm, the muscles delicately delineated.  

She was all one color; an even,copperish pink. There were no stretch marks on her skin, no ruptured veins.Nothing marred the smoothness of her stomach and legs.  

I reached out to touch her, as ifneeding to reassure myself that her silky, smooth-looking skin was real, andshe opened the lips of her vagina with her fingers.  

I averted my face, not so muchfrom embarrassment as from my conflicting emotions.  

Nudity, whether male or female,wasn't the issue.

I had grown up quite freely athome. No one was particularly careful to avoid being seen naked.  

And while in school in England, Ihad been invited one summer to spend a couple of weeks in Sweden at a friend'shouse by the sea. The whole family belonged to a nudist colony, and they allworshiped the sun with every bit of their naked skin.  

Seeing Esperanza naked before mewas different.  

I was aroused in a most peculiarmanner. I had never really focused on a woman's sexual organs.  

Of course, I had examined myselfthoroughly in the mirror, and from every possible angle.  

I had also seen pornographicmovies, which I had not only disliked, but had found offensive as well.  

Seeing Esperanza so intimatelywas a shattering experience, for I had always taken my sexual responses forgranted.  

I had thought that as a woman Icould only get aroused with a male.  

My overwhelming desire to jump ontop of her took me completely by surprise and was counterbalanced by the factthat I didn't have a penis.  

When Esperanza suddenly rose fromthe mat and took off her blouse I gasped out loud, then stared at the flooruntil the feverish, tingling sensation in my face and neck subsided.  

"Look at me!" Esperanzademanded impatiently.  

Her eyes were bright. Her cheekswere flushed.  

She was completely naked.  

Her body was slight, yet biggerand stronger looking than when dressed. Her breasts were full and pointed.  

"Touch them!" shecommanded in a soft, alluring tone.  

Her words echoed around the roomlike a disembodied sound, a mesmerizing rhythm that swelled into a throb in theair, a pulse of sound felt rather than heard, which little by little tightenedand quickened until it beat fast and hard, like the rhythm of my ownheart.  

Then all I heard and felt wasEsperanza's laughter.  

"Is the caretaker hiding inhere, by any chance?" I asked when I could talk. I was suddenly suspiciousand guilty about my daring.  

"I hope not!" she criedout with such an air of dismay that it made me laugh.  

"Where is he?" Iasked.  

Her eyes opened wide, then shegrinned as though she were going to laugh.

But she wiped the mirth from herface, and in a serious tone said that the caretaker was somewhere on thegrounds, and that he took care of both houses but he didn't go around spying onanybody.  

"Is he really thecaretaker?" I asked, trying to sound skeptical. "I don't want tomalign him, but he really doesn't look capable of taking care ofanything."  

Esperanza giggled then said thathis frailness was deceptive. "He is very capable," she assuredme:  

"You have to be careful withhim. He likes young girls, especially blond ones."  

She leaned closer and, as ifafraid we might be overheard, whispered in my ear, "Did he make a pass atyou?"  

"Heavens no!" Idefended him. "He was exquisitely polite and helpful.  

"It's just that..." Myvoice trailed off into a whisper, and my attention began to wander in an oddsort of way to the furniture in the room, which I couldn't see because thelowburning oil lamp cast more shadows than light on my surroundings.  

When I finally managed to focusmy attention back on her, I was no longer concerned with the caretaker.  

All I could think of, with apersistence I couldn't shake off, was why IsidoreBaltazar had left for themountains without letting me know, without leaving me a note.  

"Why would he leave me likethat?" I asked, turning to Esperanza. "He must have told someone whenhe'll return."  

Seeing her all-knowing smirk, Iadded belligerently, "I'm sure you know what's going on."  

"I don't," sheinsisted, quite incapable of understanding my plight. "I don't concernmyself with such things.  

"And neither should you.IsidoreBaltazar is gone, and that's that.

"He'll be back in a coupleof days, in a couple of weeks. Who knows? It all depends on what happens in themountains."  

"It all depends?" Ishrieked.  

I found her lack of sympathy andunderstanding abominable. "What about me?" I demanded. "I can'tstay here for weeks."  

"Why not?" Esperanzainquired innocently.  

I regarded her as if she weredemented, then blurted out that I had nothing to wear, that there was nothingfor me to do here.  

My list of complaints wasendless: They came pouring out until I was exhausted.  

"I simply have to go home;be in my normal milieu," I finished. I felt the inevitable tears, and didmy best to suppress them.  

"Normal?" Esperanzarepeated the word slowly, as though she were tasting it. "You can leaveany time you wish.  

"No one is holding you back.It can easily be arranged to get you to the border where you can catch aGreyhound bus bound for Los Angeles."

I nodded, not trusting myself tospeak.  

I didn't want that either.  

I didn't know what I wanted, butthe thought of leaving was unbearable. I somehow knew that if I left I wouldnever find these people again, not even IsidoreBaltazar in Los Angeles.  

I began to weep uncontrollably. Iwouldn't have been able to put it into words, but the bleakness of a life, of afuture without them, was unbearable to me.

I didn't notice Esperanza leavingthe room, and I didn't notice her coming back. I wouldn't have noticed anythingif it wasn't for the delicious aroma of hot chocolate wafting under mynose.  

"You'll feel better aftereating," she assured me, placing a tray in my lap.  

Smiling slowly andaffectionately, she sat beside me and confided that there is nothing likechocolate to take away one's sadness.  

I couldn't agree with her more. Itook a few hesitant sips and ate several of the buttered, rolledtortillas.  

I told her that although I didn'treally know her or any of her friends, I couldn't conceive of not ever seeingthem again.  

I confessed that I felt a freedomand an ease with her and her group that I had never encountered anywhere elsebefore.  

It was a strange feeling, Iexplained, part physical, part psychological, and wholly defiant ofanalysis.  

I could describe it only as asense of well-being or a certainty that I had finally found a place where Ibelonged.  

Esperanza knew exactly what itwas I was trying to express.  

She said that having been part ofthe sorcerers' world even for a short time was addictive.  

It wasn't the amount of time, shestressed, but the intensity of the encounters that mattered. "And your encountershave been very intense," she said.  

"They have?" Iasked.  

Esperanza lifted her eyebrowswith sincere surprise, then rubbed her chin in an exaggerated attitude, asthough she were deliberating on a problem that had no solution.  

After a long silence, she finallypronounced, "You will walk lighter after you fully realize that there isno going back to your old life."  

Her voice, though low, had anextraordinary force. Her eyes held mine for a moment, and I knew that instantwhat her words meant.  

"Nothing will ever be thesame for me again," I said softly.  

Esperanza nodded. "You'llreturn to the world, but not to your world or to your old life," she said,rising from the mat with the abrupt majesty small people command.  

She rushed toward the door, onlyto come to a sudden halt. "It's wildly exciting to do something withoutknowing why we are doing it," she said, turning to look at me:  

"And it's even more excitingto set out to do something without knowing what the end result willbe."  

I couldn't disagree with hermore, and declared, "I need to know what I'm doing. I need to know whatI'm getting into."  

She sighed and held up her handsin comical deprecation.  

"Freedom is terriblyfrightening," she spoke harshly; and before I had a chance to respond, sheadded gently, "Freedom requires spontaneous acts.  

"You have no idea what it isto abandon yourself spontaneously..."

"Everything I do isspontaneous," I interjected. "Why do you think I am here? Do youthink I deliberated much whether I should come or not?"  

She returned to the mat and stoodlooking down at me for a long moment before she said, "Of course youdidn't deliberate about it. But your acts of spontaneity are due to a lack ofthought rather than to an act of abandon."

She stomped her foot to preventme from interring her again. "A real spontaneous act is an act in whichyou abandon yourself completely, but only after profound deliberation,"she went on;  

"An act where all the prosand cons have been taken into consideration and duly discarded.  

"You expect nothing, and youregret nothing.  

"With acts of that nature,sorcerers beckon freedom."  

"I'm not a sorcerer," Imumbled under my breath, pulling at the hem of her dress to prevent her fromleaving, but she made it clear that she had no interest in continuing ourconversation.  

I followed her outside, acrossthe clearing, to the path that led to the other house.  

As the caretaker had doneearlier, she too urged me to keep feet on the line of ashes. "If youdon't," she admonished, "you'll fall into the abyss."  

"Abyss?" I repeateduncertainly, glancing all around me at the mass of dark chaparral extending oneither side of us.  

A light breeze sprung up. Voicesand whispers rose from a dark mass of shadows. Instinctively, I held on toEsperanza's skirt.  

"Can you hear them?"she asked, turning to face me.  

"Who am I supposed tohear?" I murmured hoarsely.  

Esperanza moved closer, then, asif afraid we might be overheard, she whispered in my ear, "Surems ofanother time. They use the wind to wander across the desert, foreverawake."  

"You mean ghosts?"  

"There are no ghosts,"she said with finality, and started walking again.  

I made sure that my feet stayedon the line of ashes, and I didn't let go of her skirt until she came to anabrupt halt in the middle of the patio of the big house.  

For an instant she hesitated, asthough she couldn't decide to which part of the house she ought to takeme.  

Then she went up and down thevarious corridors and turned corners until finally we stepped into an immenseroom that had escaped my earlier exploration of the house.  

The walls were lined to theceiling with books. At one end of the room stood a sturdy, long, woodentable.At the other end hung a white, flouncy, hand-woven hammock.

"What a magnificentroom!" I exclaimed. "Whose is it?"  

"Yours," Esperanzaoffered graciously.  

She went to the wooden cheststanding by the door and opened it. "The nights are cold," shewarned, handing me three thick woolen blankets.

"You mean I can sleep inhere?" I asked excitedly.  

My whole body shivered withpleasure as I matted the hammock with the blankets and lowered myself intoit.  

As a child, I had often slept inone.  

Sighing with contentment, Irocked myself back and forth, then pulled in my legs and stretched outluxuriously. "Knowing how to sleep in a hammock is like knowing how toride a bicycle: One never forgets how," I said to her.  

But there was no one to hear me.She had left without my noticing it.  

Chapter 11

I turned off the light and layvery still in my hammock, lulled by the noises of the house, strange creakingsounds and the trickling of water from an earthenware filter standing outsidemy door.  

Abruptly, I sat up as theunmistakable sound of footsteps echoed along the corridor. "Who could itbe at this hour?" I thought.  

I tiptoed across the room andpressed my ear against the door.  

The footsteps were heavy. Myheart beat fast and loud as the steps came closer. They stopped in front of mydoor.  

The knock was urgent, andalthough I was expecting it, it nonetheless startled me. I jumped back,knocking over a chair.  

"Did you have anightmare?" Florinda asked, stepping into the room. She left the door halfopen, and the light from the corridor shone inside.  

"I thought you would behappy to hear the sound of my steps," she said mockingly, smiling at me."I didn't want to sneak up on you."

She straightened up the chair,and draped a pair of khaki pants and a shirt over the backrest.  

"Compliments of thecaretaker. He says you can keep them."

"Keep them?" Irepeated, eyeing the garments suspiciously. They looked clean and ironed."What's wrong with my jeans?"  

"You'll be more comfortablein these pants during the long drive to Los Angeles," Florinda said.  

"But I don't want toleave!" I cried out in alarm. "I'm staying here until IsidoreBaltazarreturns."  

Florinda laughed, then seeingthat I was about to weep, she said, "IsidoreBaltazar is back, but you'rewelcome to stay longer if you wish."

"Oh, no, I don't," Iblurted out.  

The anxiety I had felt for thepast two days was all but forgotten. So were all the questions I had wanted toask Florinda.  

All I could think of was thatIsidoreBaltazar was back. "Can I see him now?" I asked.  

"I'm afraid you can't."Florinda stopped me from leaving the room.

For a moment her statement didn'tregister. I stared at her uncomprehendingly, and she repeated that it wasn'tpossible to see the new nagual tonight.  

"Why not?" I asked,bewildered. "I'm sure he would want to see me."  

"I'm sure he would,"she readily agreed. "But he is sound asleep, and you can't wake himup."  

It was such a fierce refusal thatall I could do was stare at her, speechless.

Florinda looked at the floor fora long time, then gazed up at me.  

Her expression was sad. For aninstant I believed she would relent and take me to see IsidoreBaltazar.  

Instead, she repeated with sharpfinality, "I'm afraid you can't see him tonight."  

Hastily, as if afraid she mightstill change her mind, she embraced and kissed me, and then left the room.  

She switched off the lightoutside, then turned from the shadows of the corridor to look at me and said,"Go to sleep now."  

Tossing and turning, I lay awakefor hours.  

Close to dawn I finally got upand put on the clothes Florinda had brought me.

They fit me well, except for thepants, which I had to cinch in at the waist with a piece of string- I had nobelt with me.  

Shoes in hand, I stole down thecorridor past the caretaker's room to the back entrance. Mindful of thecreaking hinges, I opened the door carefully and only a crack.  

It was still dark outside, yet asoft, radiant blue was spreading across the eastern sky.  

I ran to the arched doorway builtinto the wall, stopping momentarily by the two trees outside it that guardedthe path.  

The air was heavy with thefragrance of orange blossoms.  

Whatever lingering doubts I mighthave had about crossing the chaparral were dispelled as I dicovered that freshashes had been strewn on the ground.  

Without another thought I dashedto the other house.  

The door was ajar, but I didn'tgo in right away.  

I crouched beneath the window andwaited for some kind of a sound.  

I didn't have to wait long beforeI heard a loud snoring.  

I listened for a while and wentinside. Guided by that distinct snoring sound, I went directly to the room atthe back of the house.  

In the darkness I could hardlymake out the sleeping form on the straw mat, yet I had no doubt that it wasIsidoreBaltazar.  

Fearing that he might be startledif I were to wake him too suddenly, I returned to the front room and sat on thecouch.  

I was so excited I could not sitstill. I was beside myself with joy thinking that any moment now he would wakeup.  

Twice I tiptoed back into theroom and looked at him. He had turned in his sleep and was no longersnoring.  

I must have dozed off on thecouch. I sensed through my fitful sleep that someone stood in the room.  

I half roused to murmur,"I'm waiting for IsidoreBaltazar to wake up," but I knew I had madeno sound.  

I made a conscious effort to situp.  

I swayed dizzily before I couldfocus my eyes on the man standing beside me. It was Mariano Aureliano.  

"Is IsidoreBaltazar stillasleep?" I asked him.  

The old nagual gazed at me for along time.  

Wondering whether I was dreaming,I boldly reached for his hand, only to drop it abruptly. It burnt as if it wereon fire.  

He raised his brows, seeminglysurprised by my actions.  

"You won't be able to seeIsidoreBaltazar until the morning," he spoke slowly, as if it cost him agreat effort to enunciate the words.  

Before I had a chance to say thatit was almost morning; that I would wait for IsidoreBaltazar on the couch, Ifelt Mariano Aureliano's burning hand on my back, pushing me across thethreshold.  

"Go back to yourhammock."  

There was a sudden rush ofwind.  

I turned around to protest, butMariano Aureliano was no longer there.  

The wind reverberated in my headlike a deep gong. The sound grew softer and softer until it was but a barevibration.  

I opened my mouth to prolong thelast faint echoes.  

It was midmorning when I awoke inmy hammock, wearing the clothes Florinda had brought me.  

Automatically, almost withoutthought, I went outside and across the clearing to the little house.  

The door was locked.  

I knocked repeatedly and I calledout, but there was no answer.  

I tried to force the windows openbut they too were locked.  

I was so shaken I was on theverge of tears.  

I ran down the hill to the smallclearing beside the road, the only spot where a car could be parked.IsidoreBaltazar's van was not there.  

I walked along the dirt road forquite some time, looking for fresh tire tracks. There were none.  

More confused than ever, Ireturned to the house.  

Knowing that it would be uselessto look for the women in their rooms, I stood in the middle of the inside patioand yelled for Florinda at the top of my voice.

There was no sound, except forthe echo of my own voice settling around me.

No matter how many times Ireviewed what Florinda had said, I couldn't come up with a satisfyingexplaination.  

The only thing I could be sure ofwas that Florinda had come to my room in the middle of the night to bring methe clothes I was wearing. Her visit and her statement that IsidoreBaltazar wasback must have triggered a vivid dream in me.

To stop myself from speculatingwhy I was alone in the house- not even the caretaker seemed to be about- Ibegan to mop the floors.  

Cleaning always had a soothingeffect on me. I was done with all the rooms including the kitchen when I heardthe distinct sound of a Volkswagen engine.

I ran down the hill and flungmyself at IsidoreBaltazar even before he got out of the van, almost jerking himto the ground.  

"I still can't get overit," he laughed, putting his arms around me in a tight embrace. "Youwere the one the nagual told me so much about. Do you know that I nearly passedout when they greeted you?"  

He didn't wait for my comment buthugged me again, and laughing, lifted me off the ground.  

Then, as if some restraint hadbroken free within him, he began to talk nonstop.  

He said that he had known aboutme for a year. The nagual had told him that he was entrusting a weird girl tohim.  

The nagual had described thatgirl metaphorically as 'twelve o'clock in the morning of a clear day which isneither windy nor calm, neither cold nor hot, but alternates between all those,driving one nuts.'  

IsidoreBaltazar confessed thatbeing the pompous ass that he was, he knew instantaneously that the nagual wasreferring to his girlfriend.  

"Who is yourgirlfriend?" I cut him short.  

He made a sharp movement with hishand, positively displeased by my words.

"This is not a story offacts," he snapped. "This is a story of ideas; so you would see howidiotic I am."  

His annoyance quickly gave way toa brilliant smile. "I actually believed I could find out for myself whothat girl was." He paused for an instant, then added softly, "I'veeven involved a married woman with children in my search."  

He heaved a deep sigh thengrinned and said, "The moral of my story is that in the sorcerers' worldone has to cancel out the ego or it is curtains for us; for in that world,there is no way for average persons like ourselves to predictanything."  

Then, seeing that I was weeping,he held me off at arm's length and gazed at me anxiously. "What is thematter, nibelunga?"  

"Nothing really," Ilaughed in between my sobs, drying my tears. "I don't have an abstractmentality that can worry about the world of abstract stories," I addedcynically.  

In as hard a tone as I couldmuster, I added, "I worry about the here and now. You've got no idea whatI've been through in this house."  

"Of course, I have a verygood idea," he retorted with deliberate harshness. "I've been at itfor years."  

He regarded me with aninquisitor's eye and asked, "What I want to know is, why didn't you tellme you had been with them already?"

"I was about to, but Ididn't feel it was important," I mumbled in confusion.  

Then my voice acquired a firm andsteady ring as words poured involuntarily out of me. "It turns out thatmeeting them was the only important thing I have ever done."  

To hide my surprise, Iimmediately began to complain that I had been left in the house all bymyself.  

"I didn't have a chance tolet you know that I was off to the mountains with the nagual," hewhispered with a sudden irrepressible smile.

"I forgot all aboutthat," I assured him. "I'm talking about today.  

"This morning when I awoke,I expected you to be here. I was certain you had spent the night in the littlehouse, sleeping on a straw mat. When I couldn't find you, Ipanicked."  

Seeing his puzzled face, I toldhim of Florinda's midnight visit, of my subsequent dream, and of finding myselfalone in the house upon awakening this morning.

I sounded incoherent. My thoughtsand words were all mixed up. However, I couldn't stop talking.  

"There are so many things Icannot accept," I said, finally putting an end to my diatribe. "Yet Icannot refute them either."  

IsidoreBaltazar didn't say aword. He kept staring at me as if expecting me to continue, his eyebrows raisedin an inquiring, mocking arch.  

His face was thin and drawn andthe color of smoke. His skin exuded a strange coolness and a faint scent ofearth, as if he had spent his days underground in a cave.  

All thought of my turmoilvanished as I gazed into his ominous left eye, with its terrible, mercilessgaze.  

At that moment it no longermattered what was the authentic truth and what was the illusion- the dreamwithin a dream.  

I laughed out loud, feeling aslight as the wind. I could feel an unbearable weight being lifted off myshoulders as I kept staring into his wizard's eye.  

I recognized it. Florinda, MarianoAureliano, Esperanza, and the caretaker all had such an eye. Preordained forall time to be without feeling; without emotion, that eye mirrorsemptiness.  

Then, as if it had revealedenough, an inside lid- as in a lizard's eye- shut over the left pupil.  

Before I had a chance to commenton his wizard's eye, IsidoreBaltazar closed both eyes for an instant.  

When he opened them again theywere exactly alike, dark and shiny with laughter, the wizard's eye but anillusion.  

He put one arm around my shouldersand walked with me up the hill.  

"Get your things," hesaid just before reaching the house. "I'll wait for you in thecar."  

I thought it odd that he wouldn'tcome in with me, but at the time I didn't think of asking him why.  

Only as I was gathering my fewbelongings did it occur to me that perhaps he was afraid of the women.  

That possibility then made melaugh out loud; for I suddenly knew with a certainty that astonished me thatthe only thing Baltazar was not afraid of was women.  

I was still laughing when Ireached the van at the bottom of the hill.

I opened my mouth to explain toIsidoreBaltazar the cause of my mirth, when a strange, fierce emotion floodedme; a stab so strong I couldn't speak.  

What I felt wasn't sexualpassion. Neither was it platonic affection. It wasn't the feeling I felt for myparents or brothers or friends.  

I simply loved IsidoreBaltazarwith a love that was untainted by any expectation, doubts, or dread.  

As if I had spoken out loud,IsidoreBaltazar embraced me so fiercely I could hardly breathe.  

We drove off very slowly.  

I craned my neck out the window,hoping to catch a glimpse of the caretaker amidst the fruit trees.  

"It feels odd to leave likethis," I mused, slumping back in my seat. "In a way Florinda saidgoodbye to me last night. But I wish I could have thanked Esperanza and thecaretaker."  

The dirt road wound around thehill, and as we reached a sharp bend, the back of the little house came intoview.  

IsidoreBaltazar stopped the carand turned off the engine. He pointed to the frail old man sitting on a cratein front of the house.  

I wanted to get out of the carand run up the hill, but he held me back.

"Just wave at him," hewhispered.  

The caretaker rose from thecrate. The wind made his loose jacket and pants flap against his limbs, as ifthey were wings.  

He laughed out loud, then bentbackwards, and seemingly with the wind's momentum did a double back flip.  

For a moment he appeared to besuspended high in the air.  

He never landed on the ground butvanished, as if the wind had sucked him away.

Where did he go?" Iwhispered in awe.  

"To the other side,"IsidoreBaltazar giggled with childlike delight. "That was his way ofsaying good-bye to you."  

He set the car in motionagain.  

As if he were baiting me, heglanced at me mockingly from time to time. "What is it that's troublingyou, nibelunga?" he finally asked.  

"You know who he is, don'tyou?" I said accusingly. "He isn't the caretaker, is he?"  

IsidoreBaltazar frowned slightly,then after a long silence he reminded me that, for me, the nagual Juan Matuswas Mariano Aureliano.  

He assured me that there must bea good reason that I knew him under that name. "I'm sure there is anequally sound justification for the old man not to reveal his name toyou."  

I argued that, since I knew whoMariano Aureliano was, I didn't see the purpose of the old man'spretension.  

"And," I stressedsmugly, "I do know who the caretaker is."  

I glanced sideways to seeIsidoreBaltazar's reaction. His face revealed nothing.  

"Like all the people in thesorcerers' world, the caretaker is a sorcerer," he said. "But youdon't know who he is."  

He turned to me briefly, thenfixed his attention again on the road. "After all these years, I don'tknow who any of them really is, including the nagual Juan Matus.  

"As long as I am with him, Ithink I know who he is. The moment his back is turned, however, I am at aloss."  

Almost dreamily, IsidoreBaltazarwent on to say that in the world of everyday life, our subjective states areshared by all our fellow men.  

For this reason, we know at alltimes what our fellow men would do under given circumstances.  

"You're wrong, you're deadlywrong," I shouted. "Not to know what our fellow men would do undergiven circumstances is what's exciting about life.  

"That's one of the fewexciting things left. Don't tell me you want to do away with it."  

"We don't know what ourfellow men would exactly do," he explained patiently, "but we couldwrite down a list of possibilities which would hold true; a very long list, Igrant you, yet a finite list.  

"In order to write down thislist, we don't have to ask our fellow men for their preferences. All we have todo is place ourselves in their position and write down the possibilitiespertinent to us. They'll be true to everybody, because we share them. Oursubjective states are shared by all of us."  

He said that our subjectiveknowledge of the world is known to us as common sense.  

It might be slightly differentfrom group to group, from culture to culture, yet in spite of all thesedifferences, common sense is sufficiently homogeneous to warrant the statementthat the everyday world is an intersubjective world.  

"With sorcerers, however,the common sense we are accustomed to is no longer in operation," hestressed. "They have another kind of common sense, because they have otherkinds of subjective states."  

"You mean that they are likebeings from another planet?" I asked.

IsidoreBaltazar laughed."Yes. They are like beings from another planet."  

"Is that why they are sosecretive?"  

"I don't think secretive isthe right term," he remarked thoughtfully:

"They deal differently withthe everyday world. Their behavior appears secretive to us because we don'tshare the same meaning.  

"And since we don't have anystandards to measure what is common sense to them, we opt for believing thattheir behavior is secretive."  

"They do whatever we do:they sleep, they cook their meals, they read," I interjected. "Yet Icould never catch them in the act. Believe me, they are secretive."  

Smiling, he shook his head."You saw what they wished you to see," he insisted. "And yetthey weren't hiding anything from you. You couldn't see. That's all."  

I was about to contradict him,but I didn't want him to dislike me.  

It wasn't so much that he wasright, for I didn't really understand what he was talking about; rather, I feltthat all my snooping around had not given me a clue as to who these people wereor what they did. Sighing, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against thebackrest.  

As we drove, I told him again ofmy dream; how real it was to have seen him asleep, snoring on the straw mat. Itold him of my conversation with Mariano Aureliano; the heat on his hand.  

The more I spoke, the more I wasconvinced that it hadn't been a dream at all. I drove myself into such a stateof agitation I ended up weeping.  

"I don't know what they didto me," I said. "I'm not quite sure whether I'm awake or dreamingeven now.  

"Florinda kept telling methat I was dreaming-awake."  

IsidoreBaltazar nodded, then saidsoftly, "The nagual Juan Matus refers to it as heightenedawareness."  

"Heightened awareness,"I repeated.  

The words rolled easily off mytongue even though they sounded exactly the opposite of dreaming-awake.  

I vaguely remembered hearing thembefore. Either Florinda or Esperanza had used the term, but I couldn't recallin what connection.  

The words were on the verge ofsuggesting some meaning, albeit vague, but my brain was already too dulled bymy unsuccessful attempts to recount my daily activities at the witches'house.  

Regardless of how hard I tried,there were certain episodes I could not recall.

I fumbled for words that somehowpaled and died away in front on my very eyes, like a vision half seen and halfremembered.  

It wasn't that I had forgottenanything, but rather, images came to me fragmented, like pieces in a puzzlethat didn't quite fit.  

This forgetfulness was a physicalsensation, as if a fog had settled over certain parts of my brain.  

"So dreaming-awake andheightened awareness are the same?" More than a question, it was astatement whose meaning escaped me.  

I shifted in my seat and, pullingmy legs under me, sat facing IsidoroBaltazar.

The sun outlined his profile. Theblack curly hair falling over his high forehead, the sculpted cheekbones, thestrong nose and chin, and finely chiseled lips gave him a Romanappearance.  

"I must be still inheightened awareness," I said, "I never noticed you before."  

The car swayed on the road as hethrew his head back and laughed. "You are definitely dreaming-awake,"he stated, slapping his thigh. "Don't you remember that I'm short, brown,and homely looking?"  

I giggled. Not because I agreedwith his description but because it was the only thing I remembered him sayingin the lecture he gave the day I formally met him.  

My merriment was quickly replacedby an odd anxiety. It seemed that months had passed, instead of only two days,since we came to the house of the witches.

"Time passes differently inthe sorcerers' world," IsidoreBaltazar said as if I had spoken out loud."And one experiences it differently."

He went on to say that one of themost difficult aspects of his apprenticeship was to deal with sequences ofevents in terms of time. Often they were all mixed up in his mind; confusedimages that sank deeper whenever he tried to focus on them.  

"Only now, with the nagual'shelp, do I remember aspects and events of his teachings that took place yearsago," he said.  

"How does he help you?"I asked. "Does he hypnotize you?"

"He makes me shift levels ofawareness," he said. "And when he does, it is not only that Iremember past events, but I relive them."

"How does he do that?"I insisted. "I mean, make you shift."

"Until recently I believedthat it was accomplished by a sharp pat on my back, between the shoulderblades," he said:  

"But now I'm quite certainthat his mere presence makes me shift levels of awareness."  

"Then he does hypnotizeyou," I insisted.  

He shook his head and said,"Sorcerers are experts at shifting levels of awareness. Some are so adeptthey can shift the level of awareness of others."  

I nodded. Already I had numerousquestions, but he gestured for patience.

"Sorcerers," he wenton, "make one see that the whole nature of reality is different from whatwe believe it to be; that is, from what we have been taught it to be.  

"Intellectually, we arewilling to tease ourselves with the idea that culture predetermines: who we are,how we behave, what we are willing to know, or what we are able to feel.  

"But we are not willing toembody this idea; to accept it as a concrete, practical proposition.  

...  

"And the reason for that isthat we are not willing to accept that culture also predetermines what we areable to perceive.  

"Sorcery makes us aware ofdifferent realities; different possibilities, not only about the world but alsoabout ourselves, to the extent that we no longer are able to believe in eventhe most solid assumptions about ourselves and our surroundings."  

I was surprised that I couldabsorb his words so easily, when I didn't really understand them.  

"A sorcerer is not onlyaware of different realities," he went on, "but he uses thatknowledge in practicalities.  

"Sorcerers know- not onlyintellectually but also practically- that reality, or the world as we know it,consists only of an agreement extracted out of every one of us.  

"That agreement could bemade to collapse, since it's only a social phenomenon. And when it collapses,the whole world collapses with it."

Seeing that I couldn't follow hisargument, he tried to present it from another angle.  

He said that the social worlddefines perception to us in proportion to its usefulness in guiding us throughthe complexity of experience in everyday life.

The social world sets limits towhat we perceive; sets limits to what we are capable of perceiving.  

"To a sorcerer, perceptioncan go beyond these agreed-upon parameters," he stressed. "Theseparameters are constructed and buttressed by words, by language, by thoughts.That is, by agreement."  

"And sorcerers don'tagree?" I asked tentatively, in an effort to understand his premise.  

"They do agree," hesaid, beaming at me, "but their agreement is different.  

"Sorcerers break the normalagreement, not only intellectually but also physically or practically orwhatever one wants to call it.  

"Sorcerers collapse theparameters of socially determined perception; and to understand what sorcerersmean by that, one has to become a practitioner.

"That is, one has to becommitted. One has to lend the mind as well as the body.  

"It has to be a conscious,fearless surrender."  

"The body?" I askedsuspiciously, immediately wondering what kind of ritual might be involved."What do they want with my body?"

"Nothing, nibelunga,"he laughed.  

Then, in a serious yet kind tone,he added that neither my body nor my mind was yet in any condition to followthe arduous path of the sorcerer.  

Seeing that I was about toprotest, he quickly allowed that there was nothing wrong with either my mind ormy body.  

"Wait a minute now!" Iinterjected forcefully.  

IsidoreBaltazar ignored myinterruption and went on to say that the world of sorcerers is a sophisticatedworld; that it wasn't enough to understand its principles intuitively. One alsoneeded to assimilate them intellectually.  

HTML EDITOR:  

I disagree.  

Since sorcery is percieveddirectly, intellect is an afterthought.  

Originally fueled by his desireto bring sorcery to the academic world in reasonable terms, Castaneda'scontinuing belief that sorcery can be intellectually understood is the primarycause of his shortcomings to date.  

END HTML EDITOR  

"Contrary to what peoplebelieve," he explained, "sorcerers are not practitioners of obscureesoteric rituals, but stand ahead of our times.

"And the mode of our time isreason. We are reasonable men as a whole.

"Sorcerers, however, are menof reason, which is a different matter altogether. Sorcerers have a romancewith ideas.  

They have cultivated reason toits limits, for they believe that only by fully understanding the intellect canthey embody the principles of sorcery without losing sight of their ownsobriety and integrity.  

"This is where sorcerers differdrastically from us. We have very little sobriety and even lessintegrity."  

He glanced at me briefly andsmiled.  

I had the unpleasant impressionthat he knew exactly what I was thinking, or rather, that I couldn't think atall.  

I had understood his words, buttheir meaning had eluded me.  

I didn't know what to say. Ididn't even know what to ask.  

For the first time in my life, Ifelt utterly stupid.  

It didn't make me feelinadequate, though, for I realized that he was right. My interest in intellectualmatters had always been shallow and superficial. To have a romance with ideaswas a totally alien concept to me.  

We were at the U.S. border inArizona in a few hours, yet the drive was unwarrantedly exhausting.  

I wanted to talk, but I didn'tknow what to say, or rather, I couldn't find the words to express myself.  

I felt somehow intimidated by allthat had happened. It was a new feeling for me.

Sensing my uncertainty anddiscomfort, IsidoroBaltazar began to talk.

In a candid manner, he admittedto being baffled by the sorcerers' world even to this day; even after so manyyears of studying and interacting with them.

"And when I say studying, Ireally mean studying." He laughed and slapped his thigh to emphasize hisstatement.  

"Only this morning I wasclobbered by the sorcerers' world in ways impossible to describe."  

He spoke in a tone that was halfassertion, half complaint, yet there was such a delighted power in his voice;some wonderful inner strength in him, that I felt uplifted.  

He gave me the impression that hecould do anything, endure anything, and allow nothing to matter.  

I sensed a will in him; anability to overcome all obstacles.  

"Imagine, I really thought Iwas gone with the nagual for only two days." Laughing, he turned to me andshook me with his free hand.  

I had been so absorbed by thesound, the vitality of his voice, that I failed to understand what he wastalking about.  

I asked him to repeat what he hadsaid. He did, and I still missed what he meant.

"I don't get what's excitingyou so much," I finally said, suddenly irritated by my inability to graspwhat he was trying to tell me. "You were gone for two days. What ofit?"  

"What?" His loudexclamation made me jump in my seat, and banged my head on the roof of thevan.  

He peered straight into my eyesbut didn't say a word.  

I knew he was not accusing me ofanything, yet I felt that he was making fun of my moroseness, my changingmoods, or my lack of attention.  

He parked the car on the side ofthe road, turned off the engine, then shifted in his seat to face me.  

"And now I want you to tellme all you've experienced." There was a nervous excitement in his voice, arestlessness, a vitality.  

He assured me that the sequentialorder of events didn't mean a thing.  

His compelling, engaging smilewas so reassuring, I told him at it length all I remembered.  

He listened attentively,chuckling from time to time, urging me with a movement of his chin every time Ifaltered.  

"So, all this has happenedto you in..." He paused, gazing at me with shining eyes, then casuallyadded, "two days?"  

"Yes," I saidfirmly.  

He crossed his arms over hischest in an expansive gesture.  

"Well, I have news foryou," he said. The merry look in his eyes belied the seriousness of histone, the set expression of his straight lips. "I've been gone for twelvedays. But I thought it was only two.  

"I thought you were going toappreciate the irony of it because you had kept a better count of time. Youdidn't, though. You're just like me. We've lost ten days."  

"Ten days," I mumbled,bewildered, then turned to look out the window.

I didn't say a word for the restof the trip. It wasn't that I didn't believe him. It wasn't that I didn't wantto talk.  

There was nothing for me to say,even after I bought the L.A. Times in the first newsstand that carried it andcorroborated that, indeed, I had lost ten days.

But were they really lost?  

I asked myself that question, yetI didn't wish a reply.