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Florinda said, "Never mind, child, where you get these thoughts. Obviously you're plugging into the source itself.
"Everybody does that- plugs into the source itself- but it takes a sorcerer to be aware of it."
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..among those women no one was more, and no one was less than the other. That one woman in each group was the leader was in no way a matter of power, of prestige, or of accomplishment; but simply a matter of efficiency.
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At this point, the sequence of events, as I remember it, becomes blurry. I don't know what happened next. Perhaps I fell asleep and wasn't aware of it, or perhaps the pressure Mariano Aureliano exerted on my back was so great that I passed out.
When I came to my senses again, I was lying on a mat on the floor.
I opened my eyes and instantly became conscious of the intense brightness around me. There seemed to be sunlight in the room.
I blinked repeatedly, wondering whether there was something wrong with my eyes. I couldn't focus them.
"Mr. Aureliano," I called out. "There seems to be something wrong with my eyes."
I tried to sit up but couldn't.
It wasn't Mr. Aureliano or Mr. Flores who was standing by my side: A woman was there.
She was leaning over me blotting out the brightness, so to speak.
Her black hair hung loosely down her sides and shoulders: She had a round face and an imposing bust.
Again I tried to sit up. She didn't touch me, yet I knew that somehow she was holding me down.
"Don't call him Mr. Aureliano," she said. "Or Mariano either. That's very disrespectful of you:
"Call him nagual, and when you talk about him, call him the nagual Mariano Aureliano. He likes his full name." Her voice was melodious. I liked her.
I felt feisty. I wanted to ask her why all the nonsense about being disrespectful. I had heard Delia and all the other women call him the most ridiculous pet names and fuss over him as if he were their favorite doll.
He certainly had enjoyed every minute of it.
But I couldn't remember when and where I had witnessed that.
"Do you understand?" the woman asked.
I wanted to say yes, but I didn't have a voice. I tried, to no avail, to open my mouth and say something.
When she insisted on knowing if I had understood, all I could do was nod.
She offered me her hand to help me up. Before she touched me I was up, as if my desire to rise had superseded the actual contact with her hand and had pulled me into a sitting position before she did.
Astonished by this occurrence, I wanted to ask her about it, but I could barely keep myself upright. And as for talking, words simply refused to come out of my mouth.
She stroked my hair repeatedly. Obviously, she was thoroughly aware of my plight. She smiled kindly and said, "You're dreaming."
I didn't hear her say that, but I knew that her words had moved directly from her mind into mine.
She nodded and told me that, indeed, I could hear her thoughts and that she could hear mine. She assured me that she was like a figment of my imagination, yet she could act with me or upon me.
"Pay attention!" she commanded me. "I'm not moving my lips, and yet I am talking to you. Do the same."
Her mouth didn't move at all. Wondering whether I could feel a movement in her lips when she silently enunciated her words, I wanted to press my fingers against her mouth.
She was actually very good-looking but menacing. She reached for my hand and pressed it against her smiling lips. I didn't feel a thing.
"How can I talk without my lips?" I thought.
"You have a hole between your legs," she said directly into my mind. "Focus your attention on it. The pussy talks."
That remark hit a funny chord in me. I laughed so hard I lost my breath and blacked out again.
The woman shook me awake.
I was still on the same mat on the floor, but I was propped up with a thick cushion behind my back.
I blinked and shuddered, then drew a long breath and looked at her: She was sitting on the floor beside me.
"I'm not given to fainting," I said and surprised myself by being able to utter the words.
The sound of my own voice was so reassuring that I laughed out loud and repeated the same sentence several times.
"I know, I know," she appeased me. "Don't worry, you're not quite awake anyway. I am Clara. We have already met at Esperanza's."
I should have protested or asked her what she meant. Instead, without doubting for an instant, I accepted that I was still asleep and that we had met at Esperanza's.
Memories, foggy thoughts, visions of people, of places, began to emerge slowly.
A clear thought popped into my mind: I had dreamt once that I met her. It was a dream. Thus, I never had thought about it in terms of real events. The moment I hooked onto that realization, I remembered Clara.
"Of course, we've met," I said triumphantly. "But we met in a dream, so you are not real. I must be dreaming now, therefore I can remember you."
I sighed, content that it could all be explained so easily, and relaxed against the thick pillow.
Another clear memory of a dream popped into my mind. I couldn't recall exactly when I had dreamt this dream, but I remembered it as clearly as if the event had actually taken place: In it, Delia had introduced me to Clara.
Delia had described Clara as the most gregarious of the women dreamers. "She actually has friends who adore her," Delia had confided in me.
The Clara of that dream was quite tall, strong, and rotund.
She had observed me insistently as one observes a member of an unknown species, with careful eyes and nervous smiles.
And yet, in spite of her demanding scrutiny, I had liked her immensely. Her eyes were speculating and smiling and green. What I remembered best about her intense watchfulness was that she had looked at me with the unblinking stare of a cat.
"I know this is just a dream, Clara," I repeated, as if I needed to reassure myself.
"No. This is not just a dream, it's a special dream," Clara contradicted me forcefully:
"You're wrong to entertain such thoughts. Thoughts have power: Be watchful of them."
"You're not real, Clara," I insisted, in a strained, high-pitched voice. "You're a dream. That's why I can't remember you when I am awake."
My stubborn persistence made Clara chuckle. "You have never tried to remember me," she finally explained. "There was no point in it, no reason for it.
"We women are excruciatingly practical. Our great flaw or our great asset."
I was about to ask her what the practical aspect of remembering her now was, when she anticipated my question.
"Since I am in front of you, you need to remember me. And you do." She bent lower and, fixing me with her catlike stare, added, "And you won't forget me anymore.
"The sorcerers who reared me told me that women need two of anything in order to solidify it. Two sights of something, two readings, two frights, etc.
"You and I have now met twice. Now I am solid and real."
To prove how real she was, she pushed up the sleeves of her blouse and flexed her biceps. "Touch them," she urged me.
Giggling, I did. She indeed had hard, powerfully defined muscles. They felt as real as anything. She also made me touch the muscles of her thigh and calf.
"If this is a special dream," I said cautiously, what do I do in this dream?"
"Anything your heart desires," she said. "You're doing fine so far.
"I cannot guide you, though, for I am not your dreaming teacher. I am simply a fat witch who actually takes care of the other witches.
"It was my partner, Delia, who delivered you into the sorcerers' world, just like a midwife.
"But she was not the one who first found you. Florinda did."
"Who is Florinda?" I giggled uncontrollably. "And when did she find me?"
"Florinda is another witch," Clara said matter-of-factly, then began to giggle too. "You met her.
"She's the one who took you into her dream in Esperanza's house. Do you remember the picnic?"
"Ah," I sighed appreciatively. "You mean the tall woman with the husky voice?" A radiance filled me. I had always admired tall women.
"The tall woman with the husky voice," Clara confirmed:
"She found you a couple of years ago at a party you attended with your boyfriend; a plush dinner in Houston, Texas, at the house of an oilman."
"What would a witch be doing at a party in an oilman's house?" I asked.
Then the full impact of her claim hit me.
I was dumbstruck. Although I didn't remember seeing Florinda, I certainly did recall the party.
I had gone with a friend who flew in his private jet from Los Angeles just to attend that party and flew back the next day. I was his translator. There had been several Mexican businessmen at that party who didn't speak English.
"Jesus!" I exclaimed under my breath. "What a weird turn of events!"
In great detail I described the party to Clara. It was the first time I had been to Texas. Like some star-struck movie fan, I ogled the men, not because they were handsome but because they looked so outlandish to me in their Stetson hats, pastel-colored suits, and cowboy boots. The oilman had hired entertainers. They had staged a variety show, worthy of Las Vegas, in a nightclub grotto built especially for the occasion. It throbbed with loud music and strobe lights. And the food had been superb.
"But why would Florinda attend such a party?" I asked.
"The world of sorcerers is the strangest thing there is," Clara said by way of an answer.
She jumped up, like an acrobat, from a sitting position to a standing one, without using her arms.
She paced about the room, back and forth in front of my mat. She looked formidable in her full, dark skirt, her cowboy denim jacket- colorfully embroidered in the back- and her sturdy cowboy boots. An Australian hat, pulled low over her brow as if to protect her from the noonday sun, added the last touch to her eccentric, outlandish appearance.
"How do you like my outfit?" she asked, pausing in front of me. Her face was radiant.
"It's great," I gushed. She certainly had the flair, the confidence to carry off any kind of outfit. "It's really cool."
She kneeled beside me on the mat and in a confidential whisper said, "Delia is green with envy.
"We are always in competition to see who comes up with the nuttiest getup. It has to be crazy without being stupid."
She was silent for a moment, and her eyes watched me, considering. "You're welcome to compete," she offered. "Do you want to join us in our game?"
I nodded emphatically, and she spelled out the rules for me.
"Originality, practicality, low price, and no self-importance," she rattled off.
Then she rose again and twirled a few more times around the room.
Laughing, she collapsed beside me and said, "Florinda thinks I should encourage you to participate. She says that in that party, she found out that you had a touch for thoroughly practical outfits."
She could barely finish the sentence: She was overcome by a great burst of giggles.
"Did Florinda talk to me there?" I asked and gazed at her slyly, wondering whether she would tell me what I had omitted from my account; information that I wasn't going to volunteer.
Clara shook her head then gave me a distracted smile, meant to deflect further questions about the party.
"How did Delia happen to be at the baptism in Nogales, Arizona?" I asked, shifting the conversation to the events of the other party.
"Florinda sent her there," Clara admitted, tucking all her loose hair into her Australian hat. "She crashed the party by telling everyone that she had come with you."
"Wait a minute!" I interrupted her. "This is no dream. What are you trying to do to me?"
"I'm trying to instruct you," Clara insisted, without altering her air of indifference.
Her tone was even, almost casual. She didn't seem to be interested in the effect her words were having on me. Yet she watched me carefully as she added, "This is a dream, and we are certainly talking in your dream, because I am also dreaming your dream."
That her outlandish statements were enough to appease me was proof that I was dreaming.
My mind became calm, sleepy, and capable of accepting the situation.
I heard myself speak, a voice detached from my volition. "There is no way Florinda could have known about my driving to Nogales," I said. "My girlfriend's invitation was accepted on the spur of the moment."
"I knew that this would be incomprehensible to you," Clara sighed.
Then, looking into my eyes and weighing her words carefully, she declared, "Florinda is your mother more than any mother you ever had."
I found her statement preposterous, but I couldn't say a word.
"Florinda feels you," Clara continued. She had a devilish glint in her eyes as she added, "There is a homing device she uses. She knows wherever you are."
"What homing device?" I asked, my mind suddenly completely in control. The thought that someone might know at all times what I was up to filled me with dread.
"Her feelings for you are a homing device," Clara said with beautiful simplicity and in a tone so soft and harmonious that it made my apprehension vanish.
"What feelings for me, Clara?"
"Who knows, child?" she said wistfully. She drew her legs up, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on her knees. "I've never had a daughter like this."
My mood changed abruptly from amusement back to apprehension. In the rational, thought-out manner that was my style, I began to worry about the subtle implications of Clara's statement.
And it was precisely my rational deliberations that again turned on my doubts.
This couldn't possibly be a dream. I was awake: My concentration was too keen for me to be otherwise.
Sliding down the cushion propped against my back, I half closed my eyes.
I kept watching Clara through my lashes, wondering whether she would slowly fade away as people and scenes fade away in dreams.
She didn't. I felt momentarily reassured that I was awake and so was Clara.
"No, we're not awake," she contradicted me, again intruding into my thoughts.
"I can speak," I said by way of validating my state of total consciousness.
"Big deal!" she cackled. "Now I am going to do something that will wake you up, so that you can continue the conversation while you are really awake." She enunciated the last word with great care, drawing it out in an exaggerated fashion.
"Wait. Wait, Clara," I pleaded. "Give me time to adjust to all his." I preferred my uncertainty to what she might do to me.
Impervious to my pleading, Clara rose and reached for the pitcher of water standing on a low table nearby.
Still giggling, she hovered over me, holding the pitcher over my head.
I tried to roll to the side, but I was not able to do so. My body wouldn't obey me; it seemed to be glued to the mat.
Before she actually poured the water over me, I felt a cold, soft sprinkle on my face.
The coldness rather than the wetness produced a most peculiar sensation. It first blurred Clara's face looming over me the way ripples distort the surface of water.
Then the coldness centered itself on my stomach and pulled me inward, like a sleeve that's pulled inside out.
My last thought was that I was going to drown in a pitcher of water. Bubbles upon bubbles of darkness spun me around until everything went black.
When I came to myself again, I was no longer lying on the mat on the floor but on the couch in the living room.
Two women were standing at the foot of the couch, staring at me with wide, curious eyes.
Florinda, the tall, white-haired woman with the husky voice, was sitting beside me, humming an old lullaby- or so it seemed to me- and caressing my hair, my face, my arms, with great tenderness.
Her touch and the sound of her voice held me down.
I just lay there, my unblinking eyes fixed on hers, certain I was having one of my vivid dreams, which always began as dreams and ended up as nightmares.
Florinda was speaking to me. She was telling me to look into her eyes.
Her words moved soundlessly, like the wings of butterflies.
But whatever I saw in her eyes filled me with a familiar feeling- the irrational, abject terror I experienced in my nightmares.
I jumped up and bolted straight for the door. It was the automatic, animal's reaction I had always had in a nightmare.
"Don't be frightened, my darling," the tall woman said, coming after me. "Relax.
"We are all here to help you. There is no need to be so upset. You'll hurt your little body by subjecting it to unnecessary fright."
I had stopped by the door, not because she had persuaded me to stay but because I couldn't open the damn thing.
Frantically, I pulled and pushed the door. It didn't budge.
The tall woman was just behind me.
My trembling increased. I shook so hard that my body ached, and my heart beat so loudly and erratically I knew it would burst through my chest.
"Nagual!" the tall woman called out, turning her head over her shoulder. "You'd better do something. She's going to die of fright."
I didn't see to whom she was talking, but in my wild search for an escape, I saw a second door at the other end of the room.
I was certain I had enough energy left in me to make a dash for it, but my legs gave in on me.
As if life had already abandoned my body, I sank to the floor. My last breath escaped from me.
The woman's long arms swooped down on me like a great eagle's wings. She held me, put her mouth to mine, and breathed air into me.
Slowly, my body relaxed: My heartbeat returned to normal.
I was filled with a strange peace that quickly turned into a wild excitement.
It wasn't fear that filled me with wildness but her breath. It was hot: It scorched my throat, my lungs, my stomach, my groin; moving all the way to my hands and my feet.
In a flash, I knew that the woman was exactly like me only taller, as tall as I would have liked to be.
I felt such love for her that I did something outlandish: I kissed her passionately.
I felt her lips widen into a smile. Then she threw her head back and laughed. "This little rat kissed me," she said, turning to the others.
"I'm dreaming!" I exclaimed, and they all laughed with childlike abandon.
At first I couldn't help but laugh, too. Within moments, however, I was my usual self- embarrassed after one of my impulsive acts and angry at having been caught.
The tall woman embraced me. "I'm Florinda," she said, and she lifted me up and cradled me in her arms as if I were a baby:
"You and I are the same," she went on. "You're as petite as I would have liked to be. It's a great disadvantage to be tall. No one can ever cradle you. I'm five ten."
"I'm five two," I confessed, and we both laughed because we understood each other to perfection. I was short on the second inch but always rounded it up. I was certain Florinda was closer to five eleven but rounded it down to ten.
I kissed her cheeks and her eyes. I loved her with a love that was incomprehensible to me: It was a feeling untainted by doubt or dread or expectation: It was the love one feels in dreams.
Seemingly in complete agreement with me, Florinda chuckled softly.
The elusive light in her eyes, the ghostly whiteness of her hair, was like some forgotten memory.
I felt as if I had known her from the day I was born.
It occurred to me that children who liked their mothers must be lost children. Filial love coupled with admiration for the mother's physical being must result in a sense of total love, like the love I felt for this tall, mysterious woman.
She put me down. "This is Carmela," she said, turning me toward a beautiful, dark-eyed, dark-haired woman. Her features delicate, and her skin was flawless: She had the smooth, creamy pallor of someone who stays much indoors.
"I only take moon baths," she whispered in my ear as she embraced me. "You ought to do the same. You're too fair to be out in the sun: You're ruining your skin."
It was her voice, more than anything else, that I recognized. She was the same woman who had asked me all those direct, personal questions at the picnic.
I remembered her in a sitting position: she had seemed small and frail. To my surprise, she was three or four inches taller than I. Her powerful, muscular body made me feel insignificant in comparison.
With her arm draped around my shoulder, Florinda guided me toward the second woman who had been standing beside the couch when I awoke.
She was muscular and tall but not as tall as Florinda. She wasn't conventionally beautiful- her features were too strong for that- yet there was something striking, thoroughly attractive about her, including the faint shadow of fine hair on her upper lip, which she obviously didn't bother to wax or bleach. I sensed a tremendous force in her, an agitation that was completely under control yet still there.
"This is Zoila," Florinda said to me.
Zoila made no motion to either shake my hand or to embrace me.
Carmela laughed and spoke for Zoila: "I'm very happy to see you again."
Zoila's mouth curved in the loveliest of smiles, showing white, large, even teeth. As her long, slender hand, glinting with jeweled rings, brushed my cheek, I realized she was the one whose face had been hidden under a mass of scraggly hair. She was the one who had sewn the Belgian lace around the canvas cloth we had sat on during the picnic.
The three women surrounded me and made me sit on the couch.
"The first time we met you, you were dreaming," Florinda said. "So we really didn't have time to interact.
"This time, however, you're awake, so tell us about yourself."
I was about to interrupt her and say that this was a dream and that during the picnic, whether asleep or awake, I had told them everything worth knowing about myself.
"No, no. You're wrong," Florinda said, as if I had spoken my thoughts out loud. "You're completely awake now.
"And what we want to know is what you've done since our last meeting. Tell us specifically about Isidore Baltazar."
"You mean this is not a dream?" I asked timidly.
"No. This is not a dream," she assured me. "You were dreaming a few minutes ago, but this is different."
"I don't see the difference."
"That's because you're a good dreamer," she explained. "Your nightmares are real: You said that yourself."
My whole body tensed up; and then, as though it knew that it couldn't withstand another attack of fright, it gave up. My body abandoned itself to the moment.
I repeated to them what I had already told and retold Mariano Aureliano and Mr. Flores earlier.
This time, however, I remembered details I had altogether overlooked before such as the two sides of Isidore Baltazar's face; the two simultaneous moods he showed that were plainly revealed in his eyes.
The left one was sinister, menacing: The right one was friendly, open.
"He's a dangerous man," I maintained, carried away by my observations. "He has a peculiar power to move events in whatever direction he pleases, while he remains outside, watching you quirm."
The women were enthralled by what I was saying.
Florinda signaled me to continue.
"What makes people so vulnerable to his charm is that he is a generous man," I went on. "And generosity is perhaps the only virtue that none of us can resist, because we are dispossessed, [* dispossessed- physically or spiritually homeless or deprived of security] regardless of our background."
Realizing what I had said, I stopped abruptly and gazed at them, aghast.
"I don't know what has come upon me," I muttered in an attempt to apologize. "I truly don't know why I said that when I haven't thought about Isidore Baltazar in those terms myself.
"It's not me talking. I'm not even capable of making those kinds of judgments."
Florinda said, "Never mind, child, where you get these thoughts. Obviously you're plugging into the source itself.
"Everybody does that- plugs into the source itself- but it takes a sorcerer to be aware of it."
I didn't understand what she was trying to tell me. I restated that I had no intention of shooting off my big mouth.
Florinda giggled and regarded me for a few moments thoughtfully. "Act as if you were in a dream.
"Be daring and don't apologize," she said.
I felt stupid, incapable of analyzing what I felt.
Florinda nodded, as if in agreement, then turned to her companions and said, "Tell her about us."
Carmela cleared her throat and without looking at me said, "The three of us and Delia make a unit. We deal with the daily world."
I hung on her every word, but I didn't understand her at all.
"We're the unit of sorceresses who deal with people," Carmela clarified:
"There is another unit of four women who don't deal with people at all."
She took my hand in hers and examined my palm- as if she were to read my fortune- then closed it gently into a fist and added, "You're just like us in general. That is, you can deal with people.
"And you're like Florinda in particular."
Again she paused, and with a dreamy look on her face she repeated what Clara had already told me.
"It was Florinda who found you," she said. "Therefore, while you remain in the world of sorcerers, you belong to her.
"She'll guide you and look after you."
Her tone carried such a great certainty that it threw me into genuine worry.
"I don't belong to anyone," I said. "And I don't need anyone to look after me." My voice was strained, unnatural, uncertain.
Silently, the women watched me, bemused smiles on their faces.
"Do you think I need guidance?" I asked defiantly, gazing from one to the other.
Their eyes were half closed, their lips parted in those same contemplative smiles. The imperceptible nods of their chins clearly indicated that they were waiting for me to finish what I had to say.
"I think I do very well in life on my own," I finished lamely.
"Do you remember what you did at the party where I found you?" Florinda asked me.
As I stared at her in amazement, Carmela whispered in my ear, "Don't worry, you can always find a way to explain anything."
Florinda waved a finger at me, not in the slightest disturbed.
Panic crept over me at the thought that they might know that I had walked naked in that party in front of dozens of people.
Until that moment, I had been, if not proud of my outlandish behavior, at least acceptant of it. To my way of thinking, what I did at that party was a manifestation of my spontaneous personality.
First, I had taken a long horseback ride with the host, in my evening gown without a saddle, to show him- after he dared me and bet I couldn't do it- that I was as good on horseback as any cowboy. I had an uncle in Venezuela who had a stud farm, and I had been on a horse since I was a toddler.
Upon winning the bet, dizzy from the exertion and alcohol, I took a plunge in his giant pool- in the nude.
"I was there by the pool when you went in naked," Florinda said, obviously privy to my recollection. "You brushed me with your naked buttocks.
"You shocked everyone, including me. I liked your daringing. Above all, I liked that you walked naked all the way from the other side of the pool just to brush against me.
"I took that as an indication that the spirit was pointing you out to me."
"It can't be true," I mumbled. "If you had been at that party, I would have remembered you. You're too tall and striking-looking to be overlooked."
It wasn't meant as a compliment: I wanted to convince myself that I was being tricked, manipulated.
"I liked the fact that you were killing yourself just to show off," Florinda went on:
"You were a clown, eager to draw attention to yourself at any cost, especially when you jumped on a table and danced for a moment, shaking your buttocks shamelessly, while the host yelled his head off."
Instead of embarrassing me, her remarks filled me with an incredible sense of ease and delight.
I felt liberated. The secret was out, the secret I had never dared to admit, that I was a show-off who would do anything to get attention.
A new mood overtook me, definitely more humble, less defensive.
I feared, however, that such a mood wouldn't last. I knew that any insights and realizations I had arrived at in dreams had never survived.
But perhaps Florinda was right and this was no dream, and my new frame of mind would endure.
Seemingly cognizant of my thoughts, the three women nodded emphatically.
Instead of feeling encouraged by their agreement, it only revived my uncertainties.
As I had feared, my insightful mood was short-lived. Within moments I was burning with doubts; and I wanted a respite.
"Where is Delia?" I asked.
"She's in Oaxaca," Florinda said, then added pointedly, "She was here just to greet you."
I had thought that if I changed the subject, I would get a respite and have a chance to recuperate my strength.
Now I was facing something I had no resources to deal with.
I couldn't accuse Florinda outright- as I would normally have done with anybody- of telling lies in order to manipulate me.
I couldn't tell her that I suspected they had made me groggy and had taken me from room to room while I was unconscious.
"What you say is really preposterous, Florinda," I chided. "I can't believe that you expect me to take you seriously."
Chewing the inside of my lip, I stared at her long and hard. "I know that Delia is hiding in one of the rooms."
Florinda's eyes seemed to tell me she understood my quandary.
"You have no other option except to take me seriously," she said. Though her tone was mild, it was final.
I turned to the other two women, hoping for some kind of an answer, anything that would ease my growing apprehension.
"If someone else guides you, it's actually very easy to dream," Carmela confided:
"The only drawback is that that someone else has to be a nagual."
"I've been hearing all along about a nagual," I said. "What is a nagual?
"A nagual is a sorcerer of great power who can lead other sorcerers through and out of the darkness," Carmela explained:
"But the nagual himself told you all that a while ago. Don't you remember?"
Florinda interceded as my body contorted in an effort to remember. "Events we live in everyday life are easy to recall. We have plenty of practice in doing that.
"But events lived in dreams are another story. We have to struggle very hard to bring them back, simply because the body stores them in different places.
"With women who don't have your somnambulist brain," she pointed out, "dreaming instructions begin by making them draw a map of their bodies- a painstaking job that reveals where the visions of dreams are stored in their bodies."
"How do you draw this map, Florinda?" I asked, genuinely intrigued.
"By systematically tapping every inch of your body," she said:
"But I can't tell you more. I'm your mother, not your dreaming teacher. Now, she recommends a small wooden mallet for the actual tapping. And she also recommends to tap only the legs and hips. Very rarely, the body stores those memories in the chest or belly. What's stored in the chest, back, and belly are the memories of everyday life. But that's another matter.
"All that concerns you now is that remembering dreams has to do with physical pressure on the specific spot where that vision is stored.
"For instance, if you push your vagina by putting pressure on your clitoris, you'll remember what Mariano Aureliano told you," she finished with a kind of simple cheerfulness.
I stared at her aghast, then burst into nervous, fitful giggles. I wasn't going to push anything.
Florinda laughed, too, gleefully, seemingly enjoying my embarrassment. "If you won't do it," she threatened, "then I will simply have Carmela do it for you."
I turned to Carmela. With a half smile about to break into a laugh, she assured me that indeed she would push my vagina for me.
"There is no need to!" I cried out in dismay. "I remember everything!"
And indeed I did. And not only what Mariano Aureliano had said but also other events.
"Is Mr. Aureliano..."
"Clara told you to call him the nagual Mariano Aureliano," Carmela cut me off in midsentence.
"Dreams are doors into the unknown," Florinda said, stroking my head:
"Naguals lead by means of dreams. And the act of dreaming with purpose is the art of sorcerers. The nagual Mariano Aureliano has helped you to get into dreams that all of us dreamed."
I blinked repeatedly. I shook my head, then fell back against the cushions of the couch, shocked by the absurdity of all I was remembering.
I remembered that I had dreamed of them a year ago in Sonora, a dream that had lasted, I thought, forever.
In that dream, I met Clara, Nelida, and Hermelinda; the other team, the dreamers. They told me that the leader of that team was Zuleica but that I couldn't dream of her yet.
As the memory of that dream became clear in my mind, it also became clear that among those women no one was more, and no one was less than the other.
That one woman in each group was the leader was in no way a matter of power, of prestige, or of accomplishment; but simply a matter of efficiency.
I didn't know why, but I was convinced that all that mattered to them was the deep affection they had for each other.
In that dream everyone had said to me that Zuleica was my dreaming teacher. That was all I could remember.
Just as Clara had told me, I needed to see them or dream of them one more time in order to solidify my knowledge of them. As it was, they were but disembodied memories.
I vaguely heard Florinda say that after a few more tries I would fare much better in shifting from my memory of dreams, to the dream I was dreaming, and then to the normal state of awakeness.
I heard Florinda giggle, but I was no longer in the room.
I was outside, walking across the chaparral. I walked slowly along an invisible path, a little uneasy, for there was no light, no moon, no stars in the sky.
Pulled by some invisible force, I stepped into a large room.
It was dark inside except for the lines of light crisscrossing from wall to wall over the faces of the people sitting in two circles- an inner and an outer circle.
The light got bright and then became dim, as if someone in the circle were playing with the electric switch, turning it on and off.
I recognized Mariano Aureliano and Isidore Baltazar sitting, back to back, in the middle of the inner circle.
It wasn't so much that I recognized their faces but rather their energy. It wasn't that their energy was brighter than or different from anyone else's.
There was simply more of it. It was massive. It was one splendid, great lump of inexhaustible brilliance.
The room shone white. There was a vividness to things, a hardness to every edge and corner.
There was such a clarity in that room that everything stood out separately, by itself, especially those lines of light that were tied to the people sitting in the circle- or that emanated from them.
The people were all connected by lines of light, and they looked as if they were the suspension points of a giant spider web. They all communicated wordlessly, through the light.
I was pulled to that silent, electric tension until I, too, was a point in that web of luminosity.
I was stretched out on the couch; my head resting in Florinda's lap. "What's going to happen?" I asked, looking up at her.
She didn't answer; neither did Carmela or Zoila, who were sitting by her with their eyes closed.
I repeated my question several times, but all I heard was the gentle breathing of the three women.
I was certain they were asleep, yet I felt their quiet, keen eyes on me.
The darkness and the silence moved about the house like something alive, bringing with them an icy wind and the scent of the desert.