Upon returning home, I was faced again with the task of organizing my field notes. What don Juan and don Genaro had made me experience became all the more poignant as I recapitulated the events. I noticed, however, that my usual reaction of indulging for months in bewilderment and awe over what I had gone through was not as intense as it had been in the past. Various times, I deliberately attempted to engage my feelings, as I had done before, in speculation and even in self-pity. But something was missing.
I had also had the intention of writing down a number of questions to ask don Juan, don Genaro, or even Pablito. The project failed before I had begun it. There was something in me that prevented my entering into a mood of inquiry or perplexity.
I did not purposely seek to go back to don Juan and don Genaro, but neither did I shy away from the possibility. One day however, without any premeditation on my part, I simply felt that it was time to see them.
In the past, every time I was about to leave for Mexico, I had always had the feeling that there were thousands of important and pressing questions that I wanted to ask don Juan. This time there was nothing on my mind. It was as if after I had worked over my notes I had become emptied of the past and ready for the here and now of don Juan and don Genaro's world.
I had to wait only a few hours before don Juan 'found' me in the market of a little town in the mountains of central Mexico. He greeted me with utmost affection and made a casual suggestion. He said that before we arrived at don Genaro's place, he would like to pay a visit to don Genaro's apprentices, Pablito and Nestor.
As I turned off the highway he told me to keep a close watch for any unusual sight on the side of the road or on the road itself. I asked him to give me more precise clues about what he had in mind.
"I can't," he said. "The nagual doesn't need precise clues."
I slowed the car down in an automatic response to his reply. He laughed loudly and signaled me with a movement of his hand to keep on driving.
As we approached the town where Pablito and Nestor lived don Juan told me to stop my car. He moved his chin imperceptibly and pointed to a group of medium size boulders on the left side of the road.
"There's the nagual" he said in a whisper.
There was no one around. I had expected to see don Genaro. I looked at the boulders again and then I scanned the area around them. There was nothing in sight. I strained my eyes to distinguish anything: a small animal, an insect, a shadow, a strange formation of the rocks, anything unusual. I gave up after a moment and turned to face don Juan. He held my questioning gaze without smiling and then gently pushed my arm with the back of his hand to make me look at the boulders again. I stared at them, then don Juan got out of the car and told me to follow him and examine them.
We walked slowly on a gentle slope for about sixty or seventy yards to the base of the rocks. He stood there for a moment and whispered in my right ear that the 'nagual' was waiting for me right at that place. I told him that no matter how hard I tried, all I could distinguish were the rocks and a few tufts of weeds and some cactuses. He insisted, however, that the 'nagual' was there waiting for me.
He ordered me to sit down, turn off my internal dialogue, and keep my unfocused eyes on the top of the boulders. He sat by me, and putting his mouth to my right ear whispered that the 'nagual' had seen me, that it was there although I could not visualize it, and that my problem was merely one of not being capable of completely shutting off my internal dialogue.
I heard every word he said in a state of inner silence. I understood everything, yet I was incapable of answering. The effort needed to think and talk would have been impossible. My reactions to his comments were not thoughts proper but rather complete units of feeling which had all the innuendos [* innuendos- indirect implications] of meaning that I usually associate with thinking.
He whispered that it was very difficult to start by oneself on the path towards the 'nagual', and that I was indeed most fortunate to have been launched by the moth and its song. He said that by holding the memory of the 'moth's call', I could bring it back to aid me.
His words were either an overpowering suggestion or perhaps I summoned that perceptual phenomenon he called the 'moth's call', for no sooner had he whispered his words to me than the extraordinary sputtering sound became audible. Its richness of tone made me feel as if I were inside an echo chamber.
As the sound grew in loudness or proximity, I also detected, in a dreamlike state, that something was moving on top of the boulders. The movement frightened me so intensely that I immediately regained my crystal clear awareness. My eyes focused on the boulders. Don Genaro was sitting on top of one of them! His feet were dangling and with the heels of his shoes he was hammering the rock; producing a rhythmical sound that seemed to be synchronized with the 'moth's call'. He smiled and waved his hand at me. I wanted to think rationally. I had a feeling; the desire to figure out how he got there, or how I saw him there; but I could not involve my reason at all. All I could do under the circumstances was to look at him while he sat smiling waving his hand.
After a moment he seemed to get ready to slide down the round boulder. I saw him stiffening his legs, preparing his feet for landing on the hard ground, and arching his back until it almost touched the surface of the rock in order to gain sliding momentum.
But in the middle of his descent his body stopped. I had the impression he got stuck. He kicked a couple of times with both legs as if he were floating in water. He seemed to be trying to get loose from something that had trapped him by the seat of his pants. He rubbed the sides of his buttocks frantically with both hands. He actually gave me the impression of being painfully caught.
I wanted to run to him and aid him, but don Juan held my arm. I heard him say to me, half choking with laughter, "Watch him! Watch him!"
Don Genaro kicked, contorted his body and wiggled from side to side as if he were loosening a nail. Then I heard a loud pop and he glided, or was hurled, to where don Juan and I were standing. He landed four or five feet in front of me on his feet. He rubbed his buttocks and jumped up and down in a dance of pain yelling profanities.
"The rock didn't want to let me go and grabbed me by the ass," he said to me in a sheepish tone.
I experienced a sensation of unequaled joy. I laughed loudly. I noticed that my mirth was equal to my clarity of mind. I was engulfed at that moment in an overall state of great awareness. Everything around me was crystal clear. I had been drowsy or absent-minded before because of my inner silence. But then something in don Genaro's sudden appearance had created a state of great lucidity.
Don Genaro kept on rubbing his buttocks and jumping up and down for a while longer. Then he limped to my car, opened the door, and crawled into the back seat.
I automatically turned around to talk to don Juan. He was not anywhere in sight. I started to call him out loud. Don Genaro got out of the car, and began to run around in circles also calling don Juan's name in a shrill, frantic tone.
It was only then as I watched him that I realized he was mimicking me. I had had an attack of such an intense fear upon finding myself alone with don Genaro that I had run around the car three or four times in quite an unconscious manner yelling don Juan's name.
Don Genaro said that we had to pick up Pablito and Nestor, and that don Juan would be waiting for us somewhere along the way.
After I had overcome my initial fright, I told him that I was glad to see him. He teased me about my reaction. He said that don Juan was not like a father to me, but rather like a mother. He made some remarks and puns about 'mothers' that were utterly funny. I was laughing so hard that I did not notice that we had arrived at Pablito's house.
Don Genaro told me to stop and he got out of the car. Pablito was standing by the door of his house. He came running and got in the car and sat next to me in the front.
"Let's go to Nestor's place," he said as if he were in a hurry.
I turned to look for don Genaro. He was not around. Pablito urged me in a pleading voice to hurry.
We drove up to Nestor's house. He was also waiting by the door. We got out of the car. I had the feeling that the two of them knew what was going on.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Didn't Genaro tell you?" Pablito asked me with a tone of incredulity.
I assured them that neither don Juan nor don Genaro had mentioned anything to me.
"We're going to a power place," Pablito said.
"What are we going to do there?" I asked.
They both said in unison that they did not know. Nestor added that don Genaro had told him to guide me to the place.
"Did you come from Genaro's house?" Pablito asked.
I mentioned that I had been with don Juan and that we had found don Genaro on the way and that don Juan had left me with him.
"Where did don Genaro go?" I asked Pablito.
But Pablito did not know what I was talking about. He had not seen don Genaro in my car.
"He drove with me to your house," I said.
"I think you had the nagual in your car," Nestor said in a frightened tone.
He did not want to sit in the back and crammed next to Pablito in the front.
We drove in silence, except for Nestor's short commands to show the way.
I wanted to think about the events of that morning, but somehow I knew that any attempt to explain them was a fruitless indulging on my part. I tried to engage Nestor and Pablito in a conversation. They said that they were too nervous inside the car and could not talk. I enjoyed their candid reply and did not press them any further.
After more than an hour's drive, we parked the car on a side road and climbed up the side of a steep mountain. We walked in silence for another hour or so with Nestor in the lead; and then we stopped at the bottom of a huge cliff which was perhaps over two hundred feet high with a nearly vertical drop.
With half-closed eyes Nestor scanned the ground looking for a proper place to sit. I was painfully aware that he was clumsy in his scanning movements. Pablito, who was next to me, seemed at various times to be on the verge of stepping in and correcting him, but he restrained himself and relaxed. Then Nestor selected a place after a moment's hesitation. Pablito sighed with relief. I knew that the place Nestor had selected was the proper one, but I could not figure out how I knew that. Thus I involved myself in the pseudo [* pseudo- not genuine but having the appearance of] problem of imagining what place I would have selected myself if I had been leading them. I could not, however, even begin to speculate on the procedure I would have followed. Pablito was obviously aware of what I was doing.
"You can't do that," he whispered to me.
I laughed with embarrassment as if he had caught me doing something illicit. Pablito laughed and said that don Genaro always walked around in the mountains with both of them and gave each of them the lead from time to time so he knew that there was no way of imagining what would have been one's choice.
"Genaro says that the reason why there is no way to do that is because there are only right and wrong choices," he said. "If you make a wrong choice your body knows it, and so does the body of everyone else. But if you make a right choice, the body knows that and relaxes and forgets right away that there was a choice. You reload your body, see, like a gun, for the next choice. If you want to use your body again for making the same choice, it doesn't work."
Nestor looked at me. He was apparently curious about my taking notes. He nodded affirmatively as if agreeing with Pablito and then smiled for the first time. Two of his upper teeth were crooked.
Pablito explained that Nestor was not mean or morbid but embarrassed by his teeth and that that was the reason he never smiled. Nestor laughed, covering his mouth. I told him that I could send him to a dentist to have his teeth straightened. They thought that my suggestion was a joke and laughed like two children.
"Genaro says that he has to overcome the feeling of shame by himself," Pablito said. "Besides, Genaro says that he's lucky. While everyone else bites the same way, Nestor can split a bone lengthwise with his strong crooked teeth and he can bite a hole through your finger like a nail."
Nestor opened his mouth and showed me his teeth. The left incisor and the canine had grown in sideways. He made his teeth clatter by biting on them and growled like a dog. He made two or three mock advances towards me. Pablito laughed.
I had never seen Nestor so light. The few times I had been with him in the past he had given me the impression of being a middle-aged man. As he sat there smiling with his crooked teeth I marveled at his youthful appearance. He looked like a young man in his early twenties.
Pablito again read my thoughts to perfection.
"He's losing his self-importance," he said. "That's why he's younger."
Nestor nodded affirmatively and without saying a word he let out a very loud fart. I was startled and dropped my pencil.
Pablito and Nestor nearly died laughing. When they had calmed down, Nestor came to my side and showed me a homemade contraption that made a peculiar sound when squeezed with the hand. He explained that don Genaro had showed him how to make it.
It had a minute bellows, and the vibrator could be any kind of leaf that was placed in a slit between the two pieces of wood that were the compressors. Nestor said that the kind of sound it produced depended on the type of leaf that one used as a vibrator. He wanted me to try it and showed me how to squeeze the compressors to produce a certain type of sound, and how to open them in order to produce another.
"What do you use it for?" I asked.
They both exchanged a glance.
"That's his spirit catcher, you fool," Pablito said cuttingly.
His tone was peevish but his smile was friendly. They were both such a strange unnerving mixture of don Genaro and don Juan.
I became absorbed in a horrible thought. Were don Juan and don Genaro playing tricks on me? I had a moment of supreme terror. But something snapped inside of my stomach and I instantly became calm again. I knew that Pablito and Nestor were using don Genaro and don Juan as models for behavior. I myself had found that I also was behaving more and more like them.
Pablito said that Nestor was lucky to have a spirit catcher and that he did not have one himself.
"What shall we do here?" I asked Pablito.
Nestor answered as if I had addressed the question to him.
"Genaro told me that we have to wait here, and while we wait we should laugh and enjoy ourselves," he said.
"How long do you think we have to wait?" I asked.
He did not answer. He shook his head and looked at Pablito as if asking him.
"I have no idea," Pablito said.
We got involved then in a lively conversation about Pablito's sisters. Nestor teased him that his oldest sister had such a mean look that she could kill lice with her eyes. He said that Pablito was afraid of her because she was so strong that once in a fit of anger she plucked a handful of his hair as if it were chicken feathers.
Pablito conceded that his oldest sister had been a beast, but that the 'nagual' had fixed her and brought her into line. After he had told me the story of how she was made to behave, I realized that Pablito and Nestor never mentioned don Juan's name but referred to him as the 'nagual'. Apparently don Juan had intervened in Pablito's life and coerced all his sisters into leading a more harmonious life. Pablito said that after the 'nagual' was through with them they were like saints.
Nestor wanted to know what I did with my notes. I explained my work to them. I had the weird sensation that they were genuinely interested in what I was saying and I ended up talking about anthropology and philosophy. I felt ludicrous and wanted to stop, but I found myself immersed in my elucidation and unable to cut it short. I had the unsettling sensation that both of them as a team were somehow forcing me into that lengthy explanation. Their eyes were fixed on me. They did not seemed to be bored or tired.
I was in the middle of a comment when I heard the faint sound of the 'moth's call'. My body stiffened and I never finished my sentence.
"The nagual is here," I said automatically.
Nestor and Pablito exchanged a look that I thought was sheer terror, and jumped to my side and flanked me. Their mouths were open. They looked like frightened children.
I had an inconceivable sensory experience then. My left ear began to move. I felt it sort of wiggling by itself. It practically turned my head in a half circle until I was facing what I thought to be the east. My head tilted slightly to the right. In that position I was capable of detecting the rich sputtering sound of the 'moth's call'. It sounded as if it were far away coming from the northeast. Once I had established the direction, my ear picked up an incredible amount of sounds. I had no way of knowing, however, whether they were memories of sounds I had heard before or actual sounds which were being produced then.
The place where we were was the rugged west slope of a mountain range. Towards the northeast there were groves of trees and patches of mountain shrubs. My ear seemed to pick up the sound of something heavy moving over rocks; coming from that direction.
Nestor and Pablito were either responding to my actions or they themselves were hearing the same sounds. I would have liked to ask them, but I did not dare; or perhaps I was incapable of interrupting my concentration.
Nestor and Pablito huddled against me, by my sides, when the sound became louder and closer. Nestor seemed to be the one who was most affected by it. His body shivered uncontrollably.
At one moment my left arm began to shake. It raised without my volition until it was almost level with my face, and then it pointed to an area of shrubs. I heard a vibratory sound or a roar. It was a familiar sound to me. I had heard it many years before under the influence of a psychotropic plant.
I detected in the shrubs a gigantic black shape. It was as if the shrubs themselves were becoming darker by degrees until they had changed into an ominous blackness. It had no definite form, but it moved. It seemed to breathe. I heard a chilling scream which was mixed with the yells of terror of Pablito and Nestor, and the shrubs, or the black shape into which they had turned, flew up towards us.
I could not maintain my equanimity. Somehow something in me faltered. The shape first hovered over us, and then engulfed us. The light around us became opaque. It was as if the sun had set. Or as if all of a sudden it had become twilight. I felt Nestor and Pablito's heads under my armpits. I brought my arms down over their heads in an unconscious protective movement, and I fell spinning backwards.
I did not reach the rocky ground, however, for an instant later I found myself standing up flanked by Pablito and Nestor. Both of them, although taller than I, seemed to have shriveled. By arching their legs and backs they were actually shorter than I, and fit under my arms.
Don Juan and don Genaro were standing in front of us. Don Genaro's eyes glittered like the eyes of a cat at night. Don Juan's eyes had the same glow. I had never seen don Juan look that way. He was truly awesome; more so than don Genaro. He seemed younger and stronger than usual. Looking at both of them, I had the maddening feeling that they were not men like myself.
Pablito and Nestor whined quietly. Then don Genaro said that we were the picture of the Trinity. I was the Father, Pablito was the Son, and Nestor the Holy Ghost. Don Juan and don Genaro laughed in a booming tone. Pablito and Nestor smiled meekly.
Don Genaro said that we had to disentangle ourselves, because embraces were permissible only between men and women, or between a man and his burro.
I realized then that I was standing on the same spot I had been before, and that obviously I had not spun backwards as I thought I had. In fact, Nestor and Pablito were also on the same spot they had been on.
Don Genaro signaled Pablito and Nestor with a movement of his head. Don Juan signaled me to follow them. Nestor took the lead and pointed out a sitting place for me and another one for Pablito. We sat in a straight line, about fifty yards from the place where don Juan and don Genaro stood motionless at the base of the cliff.
As I kept on staring at them, my eyes went involuntarily out of focus. I knew I had definitely crossed them because I was seeing four of them. Then my left eye image of don Juan became superimposed on the right eye image of don Genaro. The result of the merger was that I saw an iridescent being standing in between don Juan and don Genaro. It was not a man as I ordinarily see men. It was rather a ball of white fire. Something like fibers of light covered it.
I shook my head. The double image was dispelled, and yet the sight of don Juan and don Genaro as luminous beings persisted. I was seeing two strange elongated luminous objects. They looked like white iridescent footballs with fibers; fibers that had a light of their own.
The two luminous beings shivered. I actually saw their fibers shaking and then they whizzed out of sight. They were pulled up by a long filament; a cobweb that seemed to shoot out from the top of the cliff. The sensation I had was that a long beam of light or a luminous line had dropped from the rock and lifted them up. I perceived the sequence with my eyes and with my body.
I was also capable of noticing enormous disparities in my mode of perceiving, but I was incapable of speculating about them as I would have ordinarily done. Thus I was aware that I was looking straight at the base of the cliff, and yet I was seeing don Juan and don Genaro on the top as if I had tilted my head up forty-five degrees.
I wanted to feel afraid, perhaps to cover my face and weep, or do something else within my normal range of responses. But I seemed to be locked. My desires were not thoughts as I know thoughts, therefore they could not evoke the emotional response I was accustomed to eliciting [* eliciting- call forth emotions, feelings, or responses] in myself.
Don Juan and don Genaro plunged to the ground. I felt that they had done so judging by the consuming feeling of falling that I experienced in my stomach.
Don Genaro remained where he had landed, but don Juan walked towards us and sat down, behind me, to my right.
Nestor was in a crouching position; his legs tucked in against his stomach. He was resting his chin on his cupped palms. His forearms served as supports by being propped against his thighs.
Pablito was sitting with his body slightly bent forward, holding his hands against his stomach. I noticed then that I had placed my forearms across my umbilical region and I was holding myself by the skin on my sides. I had grabbed myself so hard that my sides ached.
Don Juan spoke in a dry murmur, addressing all of us.
"You must fix your gaze on the nagual" he said. "All thoughts and words must be washed away."
He repeated it five or six times. His voice was strange, unknown to me. It gave me the actual feeling of the scales on the skin of a lizard. That simile was a feeling not a conscious thought. Each of his words peeled, like scales. There was such an eerie rhythm to them. They were muffled; dry; like soft coughing; a rhythmical murmur made into a command.
Don Genaro stood motionless. As I stared at him I could not keep my image conversion, and my eyes crossed involuntarily. In that state I noticed again a strange luminosity in don Genaro's body. My eyes were beginning to close, or to tear. Don Juan came to my rescue. I heard him giving a command not to cross the eyes. I felt a soft tap on my head. He had apparently hit me with a pebble, I saw the pebble bounce a couple of times on the rocks near me. He must have also hit Nestor and Pablito. I heard the sound of other pebbles as they bounced on the rocks.
Don Genaro adopted a strange dancing posture. His knees were bent. His arms were extended to his sides; his fingers outstretched. He seemed to be about to twirl. In fact, he half whirled around and then he was pulled up.
I had the clear perception that he had been hoisted up by the line of a giant caterpillar that lifted his body to the very top of the cliff. My perception of the upward movement was a most weird mixture of visual and bodily sensations. I half saw and half felt his flight to the top. There was something that looked or felt like a line, or an almost imperceptible thread of light pulling him up. I did not see his flight upward in the sense I would follow a bird in flight with my eyes. There was no linear sequence to his movement. I did not have to raise my head to keep him within my field of vision. I saw the line pulling him, then I felt his movement in my body or with my body, and the next instant he was on the very top of the cliff hundreds of feet up.
After a few minutes he plummeted down. I felt his falling and groaned involuntarily.
Don Genaro repeated his feat three more times. Each time, my perception was tuned. During his last upward leap I could actually distinguish a series of lines emanating from his midsection, and I knew when he was about to ascend or descend, judging by the way the lines of his body moved. When he was about to leap upward, the lines bent upward. The opposite happened when he was about to leap downward; the lines bent outward and down.
After his fourth leap don Genaro came to us and sat down behind Pablito and Nestor. Then don Juan moved to the front and stood where don Genaro had been. He stood motionless for a while. Don Genaro gave some brief instructions to Pablito and Nestor. I did not understand what he had said. I glanced at them and saw that he had made each one hold a rock and place it against the area of their navels.
I was wondering whether I also had to do that when he told me that the precaution did not apply to me, but nonetheless I should have a rock within reach just in case I got ill. Don Genaro jutted his chin forward to indicate that I should gaze at don Juan, then he said something unintelligible. He repeated it, and although I did not understand his words, I knew that it was more or less the same formula that don Juan had voiced.
The words did not really matter: It was the rhythm, the dryness of tone, the coughlike quality. I had the certainty that whatever language don Genaro was using was more appropriate than Spanish for the staccato quality of the rhythm.
Don Juan did exactly as don Genaro had initially done, but then instead of leaping upward he twirled around like a gymnast. In a semi-aware way I expected him to land on his feet again. He never did. His body kept on twirling a few feet above the ground. The circles were very rapid at first, then they slowed down. From where I was I could see don Juan's body hanging, like don Genaro's body had, from a threadlike light. He whirled slowly as if allowing us to fully view him. Then he began to ascend. He gained altitude until he reached the top of the cliff. Don Juan was actually floating as if he had no weight. His turns were slow and evoked the image of an astronaut in space whirling around in a state of weightlessness.
I got dizzy as I watched him. My feeling of getting ill seemed to trigger him and he began to whirl at a greater speed. He moved away from the cliff, and as he gained speed I became utterly sick. I grabbed the rock and placed it on my stomach. I pressed it against my body as hard as I could. Its touch soothed me a bit. The act of reaching for the rock and holding it against me had allowed me a moment's break. Although I had not taken my eyes away from don Juan, I had nevertheless broken my concentration.
Before I reached for the rock I felt that the speed which his floating body had gained was blurring his shape. He looked like a rotating disk and then a light that was spinning. After I had placed the rock against my body his speed diminished. He looked like a hat floating in the air; a kite that bobbed back and forth.
The movement of the kite was even more unsettling. I became uncontrollably ill. I heard the flapping of bird wings, and after a moment of uncertainty I knew that the event had ended.
I felt so ill and exhausted that I lay down to sleep. I must have dozed off for a while. I opened my eyes when someone shook my arm. It was Pablito. He spoke to me in a frantic tone and said that I could not fall asleep because if I did all of us would die.
He insisted that we had to leave right away even if we had to drag ourselves on all fours. He also seemed to be physically exhausted. In fact, I had the idea that we should spend the night there. The prospect of walking to my car in the dark seemed most dreadful to me. I tried to convince Pablito who was getting more frantic. Nestor was so ill that he was indifferent.
Pablito sat down in a state of total despair. I made an effort to organize my thoughts. It was quite dark by then although there was still enough light to distinguish the rocks around us. The quietness was exquisite and soothing. I enjoyed the moment fully, but suddenly my body jumped. I heard the distant sound of a branch being cracked. I automatically turned to Pablito. He seemed to know what had happened to me. We grabbed Nestor by the armpits and practically lifted him up. We dragged him and ran. He apparently was the only one who knew the way. He gave us short commands from time to time.
I was not concerned with what we did. My attention was focused on my left ear which seemed to be a unit independent from the rest of me. Some feeling in me forced me to stop every so often and scan the surroundings with my ear. I knew something was following us. It was something massive. It crushed small rocks as it advanced.
Nestor regained a degree of composure and walked by himself, holding on to Pablito's arm occasionally.
We arrived at a group of trees. By then it was completely dark. I heard a sudden and extremely loud cracking sound. It was like the cracking of a monstrous whip that lashed the tops of the trees. I could feel a wave of some sort rippling overhead.
Pablito and Nestor screamed and scrambled out of there at full speed. I wanted them to stop. I was not sure I could run in the dark. But at that instant I heard and felt a series of heavy exhalations right behind me. My fright was indescribable.
The three of us ran together until we reached the car. Nestor led us in some unknown way.
I thought that I should leave them at their houses and then go to a hotel in town: I would not have gone to don Genaro's place for anything in the world.
But Nestor did not want to leave the car; neither did Pablito and neither did I. We ended up at Pablito's house. He sent Nestor to buy some beer and cola while his mother and sisters prepared food for us. Nestor made a joke and asked if he could be escorted by the oldest sister in case he was attacked by dogs or drunkards. Pablito laughed and told me that he had been entrusted with Nestor.
"Who has entrusted you with him?" I asked.
"Power, of course!" he replied. "At one time Nestor was older than me, but Genaro did something to him and now he's much younger. You saw that, didn't you?"
"What did don Genaro do?" I asked.
"You know, he made him a child again. He was too important and heavy. He would've died if he was not turned younger."
There was something truly candid and endearing about Pablito. The simplicity of his explanation was overwhelming to me. Nestor was indeed younger. Not only did he look younger, but he acted like an innocent child. I knew without any doubt that he genuinely felt like one.
"I take care of him," Pablito continued. "Genaro says that it's an honor to look after a warrior. Nestor is a fine warrior."
His eyes shone, like don Genaro's. He patted me vigorously on the back and laughed.
"Wish him well, Carlitos," he said. "Wish him well."
I was very tired. I had a strange surge of happy sadness. I told him that I came from a place where people rarely if ever wish one another well.
"I know," he said. "The same thing happened to me. But I'm a warrior now and I can afford to wish him well."