The Power of Silence (32 page)

With no
preliminaries, and without stopping to think, don Juan then began to tell me a
sorcery story. He said that for an entire year he had been the only young
person in the nagual Julian's house. He was so completely self-centered he had
not even noticed when at the beginning of the second year his benefactor
brought three young men and four young women to live in the house. As far as
don Juan was concerned, those seven persons who arrived one at a time over two
or three months were simply servants and of no importance. One of the young men
was even made his assistant.

Don Juan
was convinced the nagual Julian had lured and cajoled them into coming to work
for him without wages. And he would have felt sorry for them had it not been
for their blind trust in the nagual Julian and their sickening attachment to
everyone and everything in the household.

His feeling
was that they were born slaves and that he had nothing to say to them. Yet he
was obliged to make friends with them and give them advice, not because he
wanted to, but because the nagual demanded it as part of his work. As they
sought his counseling, he was horrified by the poignancy and drama of their
life stories.

He secretly
congratulated himself for being better off than they. He sincerely felt he was
smarter than all of them put together. He boasted to them that he could see
through the nagual's maneuvers, although he could not claim to understand them.
And he laughed at their ridiculous attempts to be helpful. He considered them
servile and told them to their faces that they were being mercilessly exploited
by a professional tyrant.

But what
enraged him was that the four young women had crushes on the nagual Julian and
would do anything to please him. Don Juan sought solace in his work and plunged
into it to forget his anger, or for hours on end he would read the books that
the nagual Julian had in the house. Reading became his passion. When he was
reading, everyone knew not to bother him, except the nagual Julian, who took
pleasure in never leaving him in peace. He was always after don Juan to be
friends with the young men and women. He told him repeatedly that all of them,
don Juan included, were his sorcery apprentices. Don Juan was convinced the
nagual Julian knew nothing about sorcery, but he humored him, listening to him
without ever believing.

The nagual
Julian was unfazed by don Juan's lack of trust. He simply proceeded as if don
Juan believed him, and gathered all the apprentices together to give them
instruction. Periodically he took all of them on all-night excursions into the
local mountains. On most of these excursions the nagual would leave them by
themselves, stranded in those rugged mountains, with don Juan in charge.

The
rationale given for the trips was that in solitude, in the wilderness, they
would discover the spirit. But they never did. At least, not in any way don
Juan could understand. However, the nagual Julian insisted so strongly on the
importance of knowing the spirit that don Juan became obsessed with knowing
what the spirit was.

During one
of those nighttime excursions, the nagual Julian urged don Juan to go after the
spirit, even if he didn't understand it.

"Of
course, he meant the only thing a nagual could mean: the movement of the
assemblage point," don Juan said. "But he worded it in a way he
believed would make sense to me: go after the spirit.

"I
thought he was talking nonsense. At that time I had already formed my own
opinions and beliefs and was convinced that the spirit was what is known as
character, volition, guts, strength. And I believed I didn't have to go after
them. I had them all.

"The
nagual Julian insisted that the spirit was indefinable, that one could not even
feel it, much less talk about it. One could only beckon it, he said, by
acknowledging its existence. My retort was very much the same as yours: one
cannot beckon something that does not exist."

Don Juan
told me he had argued so much with the nagual that the nagual finally promised
him, in front of his entire household, that in one single stroke he was going
to show him not only what the spirit was, but how to define it. He also
promised to throw an enormous party, even inviting the neighbors, to celebrate
don Juan's lesson.

Don Juan
remarked that in those days, before the Mexican Revolution, the nagual Julian
and the seven women of his group passed themselves off as the wealthy owners of
a large hacienda. Nobody ever doubted their image, especially the nagual
Julian's, a rich and handsome landholder who had set aside his earnest desire
to pursue an ecclesiastical career in order to care for his seven unmarried
sisters.

One day,
during the rainy season, the nagual Julian announced that as soon as the rains
stopped, he would hold the enormous party he had promised don Juan. And one
Sunday afternoon he took his entire household to the banks of the river, which
was in flood because of the heavy rains. The nagual Julian rode his horse while
don Juan trotted respectfully behind, as was their custom in case they met any
of their neighbors; as far as the neighbors knew, don Juan was the landlord's
personal servant.

The nagual
chose for their picnic a site on high ground by the edge of the river. The
women had prepared food and drink. The nagual had even brought a group of
musicians from the town. It was a big party which included the peons of the
hacienda, neighbors, and even passing strangers that had meandered over to join
the fun.

Everybody
ate and drank to his heart's content. The nagual danced with all the women,
sang, and recited poetry. He told jokes and, with the help of some of the
women, staged skits to the delight of all.

At a given
moment, the nagual Julian asked if any of those present, especially the
apprentices, wanted to share don Juan's lesson. They all declined. All of them
were keenly aware of the nagual's hard tactics. Then he asked don Juan if he
was sure he wanted to find out what the spirit was.

Don Juan
could not say no. He simply could not back out. He announced that he was as
ready as he could ever be. The nagual guided him to the edge of the raging
river and made him kneel. The nagual began a long incantation in which he
invoked the power of the wind and the mountains and asked the power of the
river to advise don Juan.

His
incantation, meaningful as it might have been, was worded so irreverently that
everyone had to laugh. When he finished, he asked don Juan to stand up with his
eyes closed. Then he took the apprentice in his arms, as he would a child, and
threw him into the rushing waters, shouting, "Don't hate the river, for
heaven's sake!"

Relating
this incident sent don Juan into fits of laughter. Perhaps under other
circumstances I, too, might have found it hilarious. This time, however, the
story upset me tremendously.

"You
should have seen those people's faces," don Juan continued. "I caught
a glimpse of their dismay as I flew through the air on my way to the river. No
one had anticipated that that devilish nagual would do a thing like that."

Don Juan
said he had thought it was the end of his life. He was not a good swimmer, and
as he sank to the bottom of the river he cursed himself for allowing this to happen
to him. He was so angry he did not have time to panic. All he could think about
was his resolve that he was not going to die in that frigging river, at the
hands of that frigging man.

His feet
touched bottom and he propelled himself up. It was not a deep river, but the
flood waters had widened it a great deal. The current was swift, and it pulled
him along as he dog-paddled, trying not to let the rushing waters tumble him
around.

The current
dragged him a long distance. And while he was being dragged and trying his best
not to succumb, he entered into a strange frame of mind. He knew his flaw. He
was a very angry man and his pent-up anger made him hate and fight with
everyone around. But he could not hate or fight the river, or be impatient with
it, or fret, which were the ways he normally behaved with everything and
everybody in his life. All he could do with the river was follow its flow.

Don Juan
contended that that simple realization and the acquiescence it engendered
tipped the scales, so to speak, and he experienced a free movement of his
assemblage point. Suddenly, without being in any way aware of what was
happening, instead of being pulled by the rushing water, don Juan felt himself
running along the riverbank. He was running so fast that he had no time to
think. A tremendous force was pulling him, making him race over boulders and
fallen trees, as if they were not there.

After he
had run in that desperate fashion for quite a while, don Juan braved a quick
look at the reddish, rushing water. And he saw himself being roughly tumbled by
the current. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for such a moment. He
knew then, without involving his thought processes, that he was in two places
at once. And in one of them, in the rushing river, he was helpless.

All his
energy went into trying to save himself.

Without
thinking about it, he began angling away from the riverbank. It took all his
strength and determination to edge an inch at a time. He felt as if he were
dragging a tree. He moved so slowly that it took him an eternity to gain a few
yards.

The strain
was too much for him. Suddenly he was no longer running; he was falling down a
deep well. When he hit the water, the coldness of it made him scream. And then
he was back in the river, being dragged by the current. His fright upon finding
himself back in the rushing water was so intense that all he could do was to
wish with all his might to be safe and sound on the riverbank. And immediately
he was there again, running at breakneck speed parallel to, but a distance
from, the river.

As he ran,
he looked at the rushing water and saw himself struggling to stay afloat. He
wanted to yell a command; he wanted to order himself to swim at an angle, but
he had no voice. His anguish for the part of him that was in the water was
overwhelming. It served as a bridge between the two Juan Matuses. He was
instantly back in the water, swimming at an angle toward the bank.

The
incredible sensation of alternating between two places was enough to eradicate
his fear. He no longer cared about his fate. He alternated freely between
swimming in the river and racing on the bank. But whichever he was doing, he
consistently moved toward his left, racing away from the river or paddling to
the left shore.

He came out
on the left side of the river about five miles downstream. He had to wait
there, sheltering in the shrubs, for over a week. He was waiting for the waters
to subside so he could wade across, but he was also waiting until his fright
wore off and he was whole again.

Don Juan
said that what had happened was that the strong, sustained emotion of fighting
for his life had caused his assemblage point to move squarely to the place of
silent knowledge. Because he had never paid any attention to what the nagual
Julian told him about the assemblage point, he had no idea what was happening
to him. He was frightened at the thought that he might never be normal again.
But as he explored his split perception, he discovered its practical side and
found he liked it. He was double for days. He could be thoroughly one or the
other. Or he could be both at the same time. When he was both, things became
fuzzy and neither being was effective, so he abandoned that alternative. But
being one or the other opened up inconceivable possibilities for him.

While he
recuperated in the bushes, he established that one of his beings was more
flexible than the other and could cover distances in the blink of an eye and
find food or the best place to hide. It was this being that once went to the
nagual's house to see if they were worrying about him.

He heard
the young people crying for him, and that was certainly a surprise. He would
have gone on watching them indefinitely, since he adored the idea of finding
out what they thought of him, but the nagual Julian caught him and put an end
to it.

That was
the only time he had been truly afraid of the nagual. Don Juan heard the nagual
telling him to stop his nonsense. He appeared suddenly, a jet black,
bell-shaped object of immense weight and strength. He grabbed don Juan. Don
Juan did not know how the nagual was grabbing him, but it hurt in a most
unsettling way. It was a sharp nervous pain he felt in his stomach and groin.

"I was
instantly back on the riverbank," don Juan said, laughing. "I got up,
waded the recently subsided river, and started to walk home."

He paused
then asked me what I thought of his story. And I told him that it had appalled
me. "You could have drowned in that river," I said, almost shouting.
"What a brutal thing to do to you. The nagual Julian must have been
crazy!"

"Wait
a minute," don Juan protested. "The nagual Julian was devilish, but
not crazy. He did what he had to do in his role as nagual and teacher. It's
true that I could have died. But that's a risk we all have to take. You
yourself could have been easily eaten by the jaguar, or could have died from
any of the things I have made you do. The nagual Julian was bold and commanding
and tackled everything directly. No beating around the bush with him, no
mincing words."