The Power of Silence (24 page)

"But
puncturing your rationality was not enough," don Juan went on. "I
knew that if your assemblage point was going to reach the place of no pity, I
had to break every vestige of my continuity. That was when I became really
senile and made you run around town, and finally got angry at you and slapped
you.

"You
were shocked, but you were on the road to instant recovery when I gave your
mirror of self-image what should have been its final blow. I yelled "bloody
murder". I didn't expect you to run away. I had forgotten about your
violent outbursts."

He said
that in spite of my on-the-spot recovery tactics, my assemblage point reached
the place of no pity when I became enraged at his senile behavior. Or perhaps
it had been the opposite: I became enraged because my assemblage point had
reached the place of no pity. It did not really matter. What counted was that
my assemblage point did arrive there.

Once it was
there, my own behavior changed markedly. I became cold and calculating and
indifferent to my personal safety.

I asked don
Juan whether he had seen all this. I did not remember telling him about it. He
replied that to know what I was feeling all he had to do was introspect and
remember his own experience.

He pointed
out that my assemblage point became fixed in its new position when he reverted
to his natural self. By then, my conviction about his normal continuity had
suffered such a profound upheaval that continuity no longer functioned as a
cohesive force. And it was at that moment, from its new position, that my
assemblage point allowed me to build another type of continuity, one which I
expressed in terms of a strange, detached hardness - a hardness that became my
normal mode of behavior from then on.

"Continuity
is so important in our lives that if it breaks it's always instantly
repaired," he went on. "In the case of sorcerers, however, once their
assemblage points reach the place of no pity, continuity is never the same.

"Since
you are naturally slow, you haven't noticed yet that since that day in Guaymas
you have become, among other things, capable of accepting any kind of
discontinuity at its face value - after a token struggle of your reason, of
course."

His eyes
were shining with laughter.

"It
was also that day that you acquired your masked ruthlessness," he went on.
"Your mask wasn't as well developed as it is now, of course, but what you
got then was the rudiments of what was to become your mask of generosity."

I tried to
protest. I did not like the idea of masked ruthlessness, no matter how he put
it. "Don't use your mask on me," he said, laughing. "Save it for
a better subject: someone who doesn't know you."

He urged me
to recollect accurately the moment the mask came to me.

"As
soon as you felt that cold fury coming over you," he went on, "you
had to mask it. You didn't joke about it, as my benefactor would have done. You
didn't try to sound reasonable about it, like I would. You didn't pretend to be
intrigued by it, like the nagual Elias would have. Those are the three nagual's
masks I know. What did you do then? You calmly walked to your car and gave half
of your packages away to the guy who was helping you carry them."

Until that
moment I had not remembered that indeed someone helped me carry the packages. I
told don Juan that I had seen lights dancing before my face, and I had thought
I was seeing them because, driven by my cold fury, I was on the verge of
fainting.

"You
were not on the verge of fainting," don Juan answered. "You were on
the verge of
entering a
dreaming
state and
seeing
the spirit all by yourself,
like Talia and my benefactor."

I said to
don Juan that it was not generosity that made me give away the packages but
cold fury. I had to do something to calm myself, and that was the first thing
that occurred to me.

"But
that's exactly what I've been telling you. Your generosity is not
genuine," he retorted and began to laugh at my dismay.

It had
gotten dark while don Juan was talking about breaking the mirror of
self-reflection. I told him I was thoroughly exhausted, and we should cancel
the rest of the trip and return home, but he maintained that we had to use
every minute of our available time to review the sorcery stories or
recollect
by making my assemblage point move as many times as possible.

I was in a
complaining mood. I said that a state of deep fatigue such as mine could only
breed uncertainty and lack of conviction.

"Your
uncertainty is to be expected," don Juan said matter-of-factly.
"After all, you are dealing with a new type of continuity. It takes time
to get used to it. Warriors spend years in limbo where they are neither average
men nor sorcerers."

"What
happens to them in the end?" I asked. "Do they choose sides?"

"No.
They have no choice," he replied. "All of them become aware of what
they already are: sorcerers. The difficulty is that the mirror of
self-reflection is extremely powerful and only lets its victims go after a
ferocious struggle."

He stopped
talking and seemed lost in thought. His body entered into the state of rigidity
I had seen before whenever he was engaged in what I characterized as reveries,
but which he described as instances in which his assemblage point had moved and
he was able to recollect.

"I'm
going to tell you the story of a sorcerer's ticket to impeccability," he
suddenly said after some thirty minutes of total silence. "I'm going to
tell you the story of my death."

He began to
recount what had happened to him after his arrival in Durango still disguised
in women's clothes, following his month-long journey through central Mexico. He said that old Belisario took him directly to a hacienda to hide from the
monstrous man who was chasing him.

As soon as
he arrived, don Juan - very daringly in view of his taciturn nature -
introduced himself to everyone in the house. There were seven beautiful women
and a strange unsociable man who did not utter a single word. Don Juan
delighted the lovely women with his rendition of the monstrous man's efforts to
capture him. Above all, they were enchanted with the disguise which he still
wore, and the story that went with it. They never tired of hearing the details
of his trip, and all of them advised him on how to perfect the knowledge he had
acquired during his journey. What surprised don Juan was their poise and
assuredness, which were unbelievable to him.

The seven
women were exquisite and they made him feel happy. He liked them and trusted
them. They treated him with respect and consideration. But something in their
eyes told him that under their facades of charm there existed a terrifying
coldness, an aloofness he could never penetrate.

The thought
occurred to him that in order for these strong and beautiful women to be so at
ease and to have no regard for formalities, they had to be loose women. Yet it
was obvious to him that they were not.

Don Juan
was left alone to roam the property. He was dazzled by the huge mansion and its
grounds. He had never seen anything like it. It was an old colonial house with
a high surrounding wall. Inside were balconies with flowerpots and patios with
enormous fruit trees that provided shade, privacy, and quiet.

There were
large rooms, and on the ground floor airy corridors around the patios. On the
upper floor there were mysterious bedrooms, where don Juan was not permitted to
set foot.

During the
following days don Juan was amazed by the profound interest the women took in
his well-being. They did everything for him. They seemed to hang on his every
word. Never before had people been so kind to him. But also, never before had
he felt so solitary. He was always in the company of the beautiful, strange
women, and yet he had never been so alone.

Don Juan
believed that his feeling of aloneness came from being unable to predict the behavior
of the women or to know their real feelings. He knew only what they told him
about themselves.

A few days
after his arrival, the woman who seemed to be their leader gave him some
brand-new men's clothes and told him that his woman's disguise was no longer
necessary, because whoever the monstrous man might have been, he was now
nowhere in sight. She told him he was free to go whenever he pleased.

Don Juan
begged to see Belisario, whom he had not seen since the day they arrived. The
woman said that Belisario was gone. He had left word, however, that don Juan
could stay in the house as long as he wanted - but only if he was in danger.

Don Juan
declared he was in mortal danger. During his few days in the house, he had seen
the monster constantly, always sneaking about the cultivated fields surrounding
the house. The woman did not believe him and told him bluntly that he was a con
artist, pretending to see the monster so they would take him in. She told him
their house was not a place to loaf. She stated they were serious people who
worked very hard and could not afford to keep a freeloader.

Don Juan
was insulted. He stomped out of the house, but when he caught sight of the
monster hiding behind the ornamental shrubbery bordering the walk, his fright
immediately replaced his anger.

He rushed
back into the house and begged the woman to let him stay. He promised to do
peon labor for no wages if he could only remain at the hacienda. She agreed,
with the understanding that don Juan would accept two conditions: that he not
ask any questions, and hat he do exactly as he was told without requiring any
explanations. She warned him that if he broke these rules as stay at the house
would be in jeopardy.

"I
stayed in the house really under protest," don Juan continued. "I did
not like to accept her conditions, but I knew that the monster was outside. In
the house I was safe. I knew that the monstrous man was always stopped at an
invisible boundary that encircled the house, at a distance of perhaps a hundred
yards. Within that circle I was safe. As far as I could discern, there must
have been something about that house that kept the monstrous man away, and that
was all I cared about.

"I
also realized that when the people of the house were around me the monster
never appeared."

After a few
weeks with no change in his situation, the young man who don Juan believed had
been living in the monster's house disguised as old Belisario reappeared. He
told don Juan that he had just arrived, that his name was Julian, and that he
owned the hacienda.

Don Juan naturally
asked him about his disguise. But the young man, looking him in the eye and
without the slightest hesitation, denied knowledge of any disguise.

"How
can you stand here in my own house and talk such rubbish?" he shouted at
don Juan. "What do you take me for?"

"But -
you are Belisario, aren't you?" don Juan insisted.

"No,"
the young man said. "Belisario is an old man. I am Julian and I'm young.
Don't you see?"

Don Juan
meekly admitted that he had not been quite convinced that it was a disguise and
immediately realized the absurdity of his statement. If being old was not a
disguise, then it was a transformation, and that was even more absurd.

Don Juan's
confusion increased by the moment. He asked about the monster and the young man
replied that he had no idea what monster he was talking about. He conceded that
don Juan must have been scared by something, otherwise old Belisario would not
have given him sanctuary. But whatever reason don Juan had for hiding, it was
his personal business.

Don Juan
was mortified by the coldness of his host's tone and manner. Risking his anger,
don Juan reminded him that they had met. His host replied that he had never
seen him before that day, but that he was honoring Belisario's wishes as he
felt obliged to do.

The young man
added that not only was he the owner of the house but that he was also in
charge of every person in that household, including don Juan, who, by the act
of hiding among them, had become a ward of the house. If don Juan did not like
the arrangement, he was free to go and take his chances with the monster no one
else was able to see.

Before he
made up his mind one way or another, don Juan judiciously decided to ask what
being a ward of the house involved.

The young
man took don Juan to a section of the mansion that was under construction and
said that that part of the house was symbolic of his own life and actions. It
was unfinished. Construction was indeed underway, but chances were it might
never be completed.

"You
are one of the elements of that incomplete construction," he said to don
Juan. "Let's say that you are the beam hat will support the roof. Until we
put it in place and put the roof on top of it, we won't know whether it will
support he weight. The master carpenter says it will. I am the master carpenter."

This
metaphorical explanation meant nothing to don Juan, who wanted to know what was
expected of him in matters of manual labor.