The Art of Dreaming (31 page)

Don Juan
peered at me, and, in the tone and manner of someone making a painful
revelation, he said that, for instance, the nagual Lujan received from the
tenant a gift of fifty positions. He shook his head rhythmically, as if he were
silently asking me to consider what he had just said. I kept quiet.

"Fifty
positions!" he exclaimed in wonder. "For a gift, one or, at the most,
two positions of the assemblage point should be more than adequate."

He shrugged
his shoulders, gesturing bewilderment.

"I was
told that the tenant liked the nagual Lujan immensely," he continued.
"They struck up such a close friendship that they were practically
inseparable. I was told that the nagual Lujan and the tenant used to stroll
into the church over there every morning for early mass."

"Right
here, in this town?" I asked, in total surprise.

"Right
here," he replied. "Possibly they sat down on this very spot, on
another bench, over a hundred years ago."

"The
nagual Lujan and the tenant really walked in this plaza?" I asked again,
unable to overcome my surprise.

"You
bet!" he exclaimed. "I brought you here tonight because the poem you
were reading to me cued me that it was time for you to meet the tenant."

Panic
overtook me with the speed of wildfire. I had to breathe through my mouth for a
moment.

"We
have been discussing the strange accomplishments of the sorcerers of ancient
times," don Juan continued. "But it's always hard when one has to
talk exclusively in idealities, without any firsthand knowledge. I can repeat
to you from now until doomsday something that is crystal clear to me but
impossible for you to understand or believe, because you don't have any
practical knowledge of it."

He stood up
and gazed at me from head to toe.

"Let's
go to church," he said. "The tenant likes the church and its
surroundings. I'm positive this is the moment to go there."

Very few
times in the course of my association with don Juan had I felt such
apprehension. I was numb. My entire body trembled when I stood up. My stomach
was tied in knots, yet I followed him without a word when he headed for the
church, my knees wobbling and sagging involuntarily every time I took a step.
By the time we had walked the short block from the plaza to the limestone steps
of the church portico, I was about to faint. Don Juan put his arm around my
shoulders to prop me up.

"There's
the tenant," he said as casually as if he had just spotted an old friend.

I looked in
the direction he was pointing and saw a group of five women and three men at
the far end of the portico. My fast and panicked glance did not register
anything unusual about those people. I couldn't even tell whether they were
going into the church or coming out of it. I noticed, though, that they seemed
to be congregated there accidentally. They were not together. By the time don
Juan and I reached the small door, cut out in the church's massive wooden
portals, three women had entered the church. The three men and the other two
women were walking away. I experienced a moment of confusion and looked at don
Juan for directions. He pointed with a movement of his chin to the holy water
font.

"We
must observe the rules and cross ourselves," he whispered.

"Where's
the tenant?" I asked, also in a whisper. Don Juan dipped the tips of his
fingers in the basin and made the sign of the cross. With an imperative gesture
of the chin, he urged me to do the same.

"Was
the tenant one of the three men who left?" I whispered nearly in his ear.

"No,"
he whispered back. "The tenant is one of the three women who stayed. The
one in the back row."

At that
moment, a woman in the back row turned her head toward me, smiled, and nodded
at me.

I reached
the door in one jump and ran out.

Don Juan
ran after me. With incredible agility, he overtook me and held me by the arm.
"Where are you going?" he asked, his face and body contorting with
laughter.

He held me
firmly by the arm as I took big gulps of air. I was veritably choking. Peals of
laughter came out of him, like ocean waves. I forcefully pulled away and walked
toward the plaza. He followed me.

"I
never imagined you were going to get so upset," he said, as new waves of
laughter shook his body.

"Why
didn't you tell me that the tenant is a woman?"

"That
sorcerer in there is the death defier," he said solemnly. "For such a
sorcerer, so versed in the shifts of the assemblage point, to be a man or a
woman is a matter of choice or convenience. This is the first part of the
lesson in
dreaming
I said you were going to get. And the death defier is
the mysterious visitor who's going to guide you through it."

He held his
sides as laughter made him cough. I was speechless. Then a sudden fury
possessed me. I was not mad at don Juan or myself or anyone in particular. It
was a cold fury, which made me feel as if my chest and all my neck muscles were
going to explode.

"Let's
go back to the church," I shouted, and I didn't recognize my own voice.

"Now,
now," he said softly. "You don't have to jump into the fire just like
that. Think. Deliberate. Measure things up. Cool that mind of yours. Never in
your life have you been put to such a test. You need calmness now.

"I
can't tell you what to do," he continued. "I can only, like any other
nagual, put you in front of your challenge, after telling you, in quite oblique
terms, everything that is pertinent. This is another of the nagual's maneuvers:
to say everything without saying it or to ask without asking."

I wanted to
get it over with quickly. But don Juan said that a moment's pause would restore
whatever was left of my self-assurance. My knees were about to give in.
Solicitously, don Juan made me sit down on the curb. He sat next to me.

"The
first part of the
dreaming
lesson in question is that maleness and
femaleness are not final states but are the result of a specific act of
positioning the assemblage point," he said. "And this act is,
naturally, a matter of volition and training. Since it was a subject close to
the old sorcerers' hearts, they are the only ones who can shed light on
it."

Perhaps
because it was the only rational thing to do, I began to argue with don Juan.
"I can't accept or believe what you are saying," I said. I felt heat
rising to my face.

"But
you saw the woman," don Juan retorted. "Do you think that all of this
is a trick?" "I don't know what to think."

"That
being in the church is a real woman," he said forcefully. "Why should
that be so disturbing to you? The fact that she was born a man attests only to
the power of the old sorcerers' machinations. This shouldn't surprise you. You
have already embodied all the principles of sorcery."

My insides
were about to burst with tension. In an accusing tone, don Juan said that I was
just being argumentative. With forced patience but real pomposity, I explained
to him the biological foundation of maleness and femaleness.

"I
understand all that," he said. "And you're right in what you're
saying. Your flaw is to try to make your assessments universal."

"What
we're talking about are basic principles," I shouted. "They'll be
pertinent to man here or in any other place in the universe."

"True.
True," he said in a quiet voice. "Everything you say is true as long
as our assemblage point remains on its habitual position. But the moment it is
displaced beyond certain boundaries and our daily world is no longer in
function, none of the principles you cherish has the total value you're talking
about.

"Your
mistake is to forget that the death defier has transcended those boundaries
thousands upon thousands of times. It doesn't take a genius to realize that the
tenant is no longer bound by the same forces that bind you now."

I told him
that my quarrel, if it could be called a quarrel, was not with him but with
accepting the practical side of sorcery, which, up to that moment, had been so
farfetched that it had never posed a real problem to me. I reiterated that, as
a dreamer, it was within my experience to attest that in
dreaming
anything is possible. I reminded him that he himself had sponsored and
cultivated this conviction, together with the ultimate necessity for soundness
of mind. What he was proposing as the tenant's case was not sane. It was a
subject only for
dreaming
, certainly not for the daily world. I let him
know that to me it was an abhorrent and untenable proposition.

"Why
this violent reaction?" he asked with a smile.

His
question caught me off guard. I felt embarrassed. "I think it threatens me
at the core," I admitted. And I meant it. To think that the woman in the church
was a man was somehow nauseating to me.

A thought
played in my mind: perhaps the tenant is a transvestite. I queried don Juan, in
earnest, about this possibility. He laughed so hard he seemed about to get ill.

"That's
too mundane a possibility," he said. "Maybe your old friends would do
such a thing. Your new ones are more resourceful and less masturbatory. I
repeat. That being in the church is a woman. It is a she. And she has all the
organs and attributes of a female." He smiled maliciously "You've
always been attracted to women, haven't you? It seems that this situation has
been tailored just for you."

His mirth
was so intense and childlike that it was contagious. We both laughed. He, with
total abandon. I, with total apprehension.

I came to a
decision then. I stood up and said out loud that I had no desire to deal with
the tenant in any form or shape. My choice was to bypass all this business and
go back to don Juan's house and then home.

Don Juan
said that my decision was perfectly all right with him, and we started back to
his house. My thoughts raced wildly. Am I doing the right thing? Am I running
away out of fear? Of course, I immediately rationalized my decision as the
right and unavoidable one. After all, I assured myself, I was not interested in
acquisitions, and the tenant's gifts were like acquiring property. Then doubt
and curiosity hit me. There were so many questions I could have asked the death
defier.

My heart
began to pound so intensely I felt it beating against my stomach. The pounding
suddenly changed into the emissary's voice. It broke its promise not to
interfere and said that an incredible force was accelerating my heart beat in
order to drive me back to the church; to walk toward don Juan's house was to
walk toward my death.

I stopped
walking and hurriedly confronted don Juan with the emissary's words. "Is
this true?" I asked.

"I am
afraid it is," he admitted sheepishly.

"Why
didn't you tell me yourself, don Juan? Were you going to let me die because you
think I am a coward?" I asked in a furious mood.

"You
were not going to die just like that. Your energy body has endless resources.
And it had never occurred to me to think you're a coward. I respect your
decisions, and I don't give a damn about what motivates them.

"You
are at the end of the road, just like me. So be a true nagual. Don't be ashamed
of what you are. If you were a coward, I think you would have died of fright
years ago. But if you're too afraid to meet the death defier, then die rather
than face him. There is no shame in that."

"Let's
go back to the church," I said, as calmly as I could.

"Now
we're getting to the crux of the matter!" don Juan exclaimed. "But
first, let's go back to the park and sit down on a bench and carefully consider
your options. We can spare the time; besides, it's too early for the business
at hand."

We walked
back to the park and immediately found an unoccupied bench and sat down.

"You
have to understand that only you, yourself, can make the decision to meet or
not to meet the tenant or to accept or reject his gifts of power," don
Juan said. "But your decision has to be voiced to the woman in the church,
face to face and alone; otherwise it won't be valid."

Don Juan
said that the tenant's gifts were extraordinary but that the price for them was
tremendous. And that he himself did not approve of either, the gifts or the
price.

"Before
you make your real decision," don Juan continued, "you have to know
all the details of our transactions with that sorcerer."

"I'd
rather not hear about this anymore, don Juan," I pleaded.

"It's
your duty to know," he said. "How else are you going to make up your
mind?" "Don't you think that the less I know about the tenant the
better off I'll be?"

"No.
This is not a matter of hiding until the danger is over. This is the moment of
truth. Everything you've done and experienced in the sorcerers' world has
channeled you to this spot. I didn't want to say it, because I knew your energy
body was going to tell you, but there is no way to get out of this appointment.
Not even by dying. Do you understand?" He shook me by the shoulders.
"Do you understand?" he repeated.