The Power of Silence (19 page)

Don Juan
had been right. I did not like what he said. I tried not to lose face and made
a sarcastic comeback.

"I'm
not that bad, don Juan," I said.

My voice
sounded surprisingly unnatural to me.

"Oh,
yes, you are that bad," he said with a serious expression. "You are
petty, wasteful, opinionated, coercive, short-tempered, conceited. You are
morose, ponderous, and ungrateful. You have an inexhaustible capacity for
self-indulgence. And worst of all, you have an exalted idea of yourself, with
nothing whatever to back it up.

"I
could sincerely say that your mere presence makes me feel like vomiting."

I wanted to
get angry. I wanted to protest, to complain that he had no right to talk to me
that way, but I could not utter a single word. I was crushed. I felt numb.

My
expression, upon hearing the bottom truth, must have been something, for don
Juan broke into such gales of laughter I thought he was going to choke.

"I
told you you were not going to like it or understand it," he said.
"Warriors' reasons are very simple, but their finesse is extreme. It is a
rare opportunity for a warrior to be given a genuine chance to be impeccable in
spite of his basic feelings. You gave me such a unique chance. The act of
giving freely and impeccably rejuvenates me and renews my wonder. What I get
from our association is indeed of incalculable value to me. I am in your
debt."

His eyes
were shining, but without mischievousness, as he peered at me.

Don Juan
began to explain what he had done.

"I am
the nagual, I moved your assemblage point with the shine of my eyes," he
said matter-
of-factly. "The
nagual's eyes can do that. It's not difficult. After all, the eyes of all
living beings can move someone else's assemblage point, especially if their
eyes are focused on intent. Under normal conditions, however, people's eyes are
focused on the world, looking for food . . . looking for shelter. . . ."

He nudged
my shoulder.

"Looking
for love," he added and broke into a loud laugh.

Don Juan
constantly teased me about my "looking for love." He never forgot a
naive answer I once gave him when he had asked me what I actively looked for in
life. He had been steering me toward admitting that I did not have a clear
goal, and he roared with laughter when I said that I was looking for love.

"A
good hunter mesmerizes his prey with his eyes," he went on. "With his
gaze he moves the assemblage point of his prey, and yet his eyes are on the
world, looking for food."

I asked him
if sorcerers could mesmerize people with their gaze. He chuckled and said that
what I really wanted to know was if I could mesmerize women with my gaze, in
spite of the fact that my eyes were focused on the world, looking for love. He
added, seriously, that the sorcerers' safety valve was that by the time their
eyes were really focused on intent, they were no longer interested in
mesmerizing anyone.

"But,
for sorcerers to use the shine of their eyes to move their own or anyone else's
assemblage point," he continued, "they have to be ruthless. That is,
they have to be familiar with that specific position of the assemblage point
called the place of no pity. This is especially true for the naguals."

He said
that each nagual developed a brand of ruthlessness specific to him alone. He
took my case as an example and said that, because of my unstable natural
configuration, I appeared to seers as a sphere of luminosity not composed of
four balls compressed into one - the usual structure of a nagual - but as a
sphere composed of only three compressed balls. This configuration made me
automatically hide my ruthlessness behind a mask of indulgence and laxness.

"Naguals
are very misleading," don Juan went on. "They always give the
impression of something they are not, and they do it so completely that
everybody, including those who know them best, believe their masquerade."

"I
really don't understand how you can say that I am masquerading, don Juan,"
I protested.

"You
pass yourself off as an indulgent, relaxed man," he said. "You give
the impression of being generous, of having great compassion. And everybody is
convinced of your genuineness. They can even swear that that is the way you
are."

"But
that is the way I am!"

Don Juan
doubled up with laughter. The direction the conversation had taken was not to
my ting. I wanted to set the record straight. I argued vehemently that I was
truthful in everything I did, and challenged him to give me an example of my
being otherwise. He said I compulsively treated people with unwarranted
generosity, giving them a false sense of my ease and openness. And I argued
that being open was my nature. He laughed and retorted that if this were the
case, why should be that I always demanded, without voicing it, that the people
I dealt with be aware I was deceiving them? The proof was that when they failed
to be aware of my ploy and took my pseudo-laxness at face value, I turned on
them with exactly the cold ruthlessness I was trying to mask.

His
comments made me feel desperate, because I couldn't argue with them. I remained
quiet. I did not want to show that I was hurt. I was wondering what to do when he
stood and started to walk away. I stopped him by holding his sleeve. It was an
unplanned move on my part which startled me and made him laugh. He sat down
again with a look of surprise on his face.

"I
didn't mean to be rude," I said, "but I've got to know more about
this. It upsets me."

"Make
your assemblage point move," he urged. "We've discussed ruthlessness
before. Recollect it!"

He eyed me
with genuine expectation although he must have seen that I could not recollect
anything, for he continued to talk about the naguals' patterns of ruthlessness.
He said that his own method consisted of subjecting people to a flurry of
coercion and denial, hidden behind sham understanding and reasonableness.

"What
about all the explanations you give me?" I asked. "Aren't they the
result of genuine reasonableness and desire to help me understand?"

"No,"
he replied. "They are the result of my ruthlessness."

I argued
passionately that my own desire to understand was genuine. He patted me on the
shoulder and explained that my desire to understand was genuine, but my
generosity was not. He said that naguals masked their ruthlessness
automatically, even against their will.

As I
listened to his explanation, I had the peculiar sensation in the back of my
mind that at some point we had covered the concept of ruthlessness extensively.

"I'm
not a rational man," he continued, looking into my eyes. "I only
appear to be because my mask is so effective. What you perceive as
reasonableness is my lack of pity, because that's what ruthlessness is: a total
lack of pity.

"In
your case, since you mask your lack of pity with generosity, you appear at
ease, open. But actually you are as generous as I am reasonable. We are both
fakes. We have perfected the art of disguising the fact that we feel no
pity."

He said his
benefactor's total lack of pity was masked behind the facade of an easygoing,
practical joker with an irresistible need to poke fun at anyone with whom he
came into contact.

"My
benefactor's mask was that of a happy, unruffled man without a care in the
world," don Juan continued. "But underneath all that he was, like all
the naguals, as cold as the arctic wind."

"But
you are not cold, don Juan," I said sincerely.

"Of
course I am," he insisted. "The effectiveness of my mask is what gives
you the impression of warmth."

He went on
to explain that the nagual Elias's mask consisted of a maddening meticulousness
about all details and accuracy, which created the false impression of attention
and thoroughness.

He started
to describe the nagual Elias's behavior. As he talked, he kept watching me. And
perhaps because he was observing me so intently, I was unable to concentrate at
all on what he was saying. I made a supreme effort to gather my thoughts.

He watched
me for an instant, then went back to explaining ruthlessness, but I no longer
needed his explanation. I told him that I had recollected what he wanted me to
recollect: the first time my eyes had shone. Very early in my apprenticeship I
had achieved - by myself - a shift in my level of awareness. My assemblage
point reached the position called the place of no pity.

Don Juan
told me that there was no need to talk about the details of my recollection, at
least not at that moment, because talk was used only to lead one to
recollecting. Once the assemblage point moved, the total experience was
relived. He also told me the best way to assure a complete recollection was to
walk around.

And so both
of us stood up; walked very slowly and in silence, following a trail in those
mountains, until I had recollected everything.

We were in
the outskirts of Guaymas, in northern Mexico, on a drive from Nogales, Arizona, when it became evident to me that something was wrong with don Juan. For the last
hour or so he had been unusually quiet and somber. I did not think anything of
it, but then, abruptly, his body twitched out of control. His chin hit his
chest as if his neck muscles could no longer support the weight of his head.

"Are
you getting carsick, don Juan?" I asked, suddenly alarmed.

He did not
answer. He was breathing through his mouth.

During the
first part of our drive, which had taken several hours, he had been fine. We
had
talked a great deal about everything. When we had stopped in the city of Santa Ana to get gas, he
was even doing push-outs against the roof of the car to loosen up the muscles
of his shoulders.

"What's
wrong with you, don Juan?" I asked.

I felt
pangs of anxiety in my stomach. With his head down, he mumbled that he wanted
to go to a particular restaurant and in a slow, faltering voice gave me precise
directions on how to get there.

I parked my
car on a side street, a block from the restaurant. As I opened the car door on
my side, he held onto my arm with an iron grip. Painfully, and with my help, he
dragged himself out of the car, over the driver's seat. Once he was on the
sidewalk, he held onto my shoulders with both hands to straighten his back. In
ominous silence, we shuffled down the street toward the dilapidated building
where the restaurant was.

Don Juan
was hanging onto my arm with all his weight. His breathing was so accelerated
and the tremor in his body so alarming that I panicked. I stumbled and had to
brace myself against the wall to keep us both from falling to the sidewalk. My
anxiety was so intense I could not think. I looked into his eyes. They were
dull. They did not have the usual shine.

We clumsily
entered the restaurant and a solicitous waiter rushed over, as if on cue, to
help don Juan.

"How
are you feeling today?" he yelled into don Juan's ear.

He
practically carried don Juan from the door to a table, seated him, and then
disappeared. "Does he know you, don Juan?" I asked when we were
seated.

Without
looking at me, he mumbled something unintelligible. I stood up and went to the
kitchen to look for the busy waiter.

"Do
you know the old man I am with?" I asked when I was able to corner him.

"Of
course I know him," he said with the attitude of someone who has just
enough patience to answer one question. "He's the old man who suffers from
strokes."

That
statement settled things for me. I knew then that don Juan had suffered a mild
stroke while we were driving. There was nothing I could have done to avoid it
but I felt helpless and apprehensive. The feeling that the worst had not yet
happened made me feel sick to my stomach.

I went back
to the table and sat down in silence. Suddenly the same waiter arrived with two
plates of fresh shrimp and two large bowls of sea-turtle soup. The thought
occurred to me that either the restaurant served only shrimp and sea-turtle
soup or don Juan ate the same thing every time he was here.

The waiter
talked so loudly to don Juan he could be heard above the clatter of customers.

"Hope
you like your food!" he yelled. "If you need me, just lift your arm.
I'll come right away."

Don Juan
nodded his head affirmatively and the waiter left, after patting don Juan
affectionately on the back.

Don Juan
ate voraciously, smiling to himself from time to time. I was so apprehensive
that just the thought of food made me feel nauseous. But then I reached a
familiar threshold of anxiety, and the more I worried the hungrier I became. I
tried the food and found it incredibly good.

I felt
somewhat better after having eaten, but the situation had not changed, nor had
my anxiety diminished.

When don
Juan was through eating, he shot his arm straight above his head. In a moment,
the waiter came over and handed me the bill.