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."You know that.You have to."I remembered that during our last meeting don Genaro had called Nestor the Witness.Ithought at the time that the name was a joke or a ploy that don Genaro was using to ease thegripping tension and the anguish of those last moments together."That was no joke," Lidia said in a firm tone."Genaro and the Nagual followed a differentpath with the Witness.They took him along with them everywhere they went.And I meaneverywhere! The Witness has witnessed all there is to witness."Obviously there was a tremendous misunderstanding between us.I labored to explain that Iwas practically a stranger to them.Don Juan had kept me away from everyone, including Pablitoand Nestor.Outside of the casual hellos and goodbyes that all of them had exchanged with meover the years, we had never actually talked.I knew all of them mainly through the descriptionsthat don Juan had given me.Although I had once met Josefina I could not remember what shelooked like, and all I had ever seen of la Gorda was her gigantic behind.I said to them that I hadnot even known, until the day before, that the four of them were don Juan's apprentices, and thatBenigno was part of the group as well.They exchanged a coy look with each other.Rosa moved her lips to say something but Lidiagave her a command with her feet.I felt that after my long and soulful explanation they shouldnot still sneak messages to each other.My nerves were so taut that their covert foot movementswere just the thing to send me into a rage.I yelled at them at the top of my lungs and banged onthe table with my right hand.Rosa stood up with unbelievable speed, and I suppose as a responseto her sudden movement, my body, by itself, without the notice of my reason, moved a step back,just in time to avoid by inches a blow from a massive stick or some heavy object that Rosa waswielding in her left hand.It came down on the table with a thunderous noise.I heard again, as I had heard the night before while dona Soledad was choking me, a most38 peculiar and mysterious sound, a dry sound like a pipe breaking, right behind my windpipe at thebase of my neck.My ears popped, and with the speed of lightning my left arm came down on topof Rosa's stick and crushed it.I saw the whole scene myself, as if I had been watching a movie.Rosa screamed and I realized then that I had leaned forward with all my weight and had struckthe back of her hand with my left fist.I was appalled.Whatever was happening to me was notreal.It was a nightmare.Rosa kept on screaming.Lidia took her into don Juan's room.I heard heryells of pain for a few moments longer and then they stopped.I sat down at the table.Mythoughts were disassociated and incoherent.The peculiar sound at the base of my neck was something I had become keenly aware of.DonJuan had described it as the sound one makes at the moment of changing speed.I had the faintrecollection of having experienced it in his company.Although I had become aware of it theprevious night, I had not fully acknowledged it until it happened with Rosa.I realized then thatthe sound had created a special sensation of heat on the roof of my mouth and inside my ears.Theforce and dryness of the sound made me think of the peal of a large, cracked bell.Lidia returned awhile later.She seemed more calm and collected.She even smiled.I asked herto please help me unravel that riddle and tell me what had happened.After a long vacillation shetold me that when I had yelled and banged on the table Rosa got excited and nervous, andbelieving I was going to hurt them, she had tried to strike me with her "dream hand." I haddodged her blow and hit her on the back of her hand, the same way I had struck dona Soledad.Lidia said that Rosa's hand would be useless unless I found a way to help her.Rosa walked into the room then.Her arm was wrapped with a piece of cloth.She looked atme.Her eyes were like those of a child.My feelings were at the height of turmoil.Some part ofme felt ugly and guilty.But again another part remained unruffled.Had it not been for that part Iwould not have survived either dona Soledad's attack or Rosa's devastating blow.After a long silence I told them that it was very petty of me to be annoyed by their footmessages, but that there was no comparison between yelling or banging on the table and whatRosa had done.In view of the fact that I had no familiarity with their practices, she could havesevered my arm with her blow.I demanded, in a very intimidating tone, to see her hand.She reluctantly unwrapped it.It wasswollen and red.There was no doubt left in my mind that these people were carrying out somesort of test that don Juan had set up for me.By confronting them I was being hurled into a realmwhich was impossible to reach or accept in rational terms.He had said time and time again thatmy rationality comprised only a very small part of what he had called the totality of oneself.Under the impact of the unfamiliar and the altogether real danger of my physical annihilation, mybody had had to make use of its hidden resources, or die
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