Being in Dreaming: Chapter 10.

Being in Dreaming ©1991 by Florinda Donner.

Chapter 10.

The bed was big and comfortably soft. A golden radiance filled the room.

Hoping to prolong this moment of well-being a bit longer, I closed my eyes and buried myself in sleepy bliss amidst fragrant linen sheets and subtly scented lavender pillow cases.

However, as I remembered the previous night's events, I could feel every muscle and every bone in my body tense. I recalled disconnected fragments of some god-awful dream.

But there was no continuity and no linear sequence to all I had experienced during those interminable hours.

I remembered I had awoken twice during the night; in different beds, in different rooms, and even in a different house.

As if they had a life of their own, these disconnected images piled up and expanded all at once into a labyrinth that somehow I was able to comprehend all at once.

That is, I perceived every event and every moment simultaneously.

The sensation of those images growing out of my skull into an enormous, fanciful headdress was so real that I jumped out of bed, and dashed across the room to the steel and glass dresser.

The three-paneled mirror was covered with rice paper. I tried to peel off a corner, but the paper clung to the glass like a skin.

The sight of the silver-backed hairbrush with its matching comb, the bottles of perfume, and the jars of cosmetics on the dresser had a soothing effect on me. I, too, would have arranged the bottles and jars by size; in a row, like tools.

Somehow I knew that I was in Florinda's room in the witches' house.

This knowledge restored my sense of equilibrium.

Florinda's room was enormous. The bed and the dresser were the only pieces of furniture in it. They stood in opposite corners away from the walls, and at an angle; leaving a triangular space behind them.

I pondered the arrangement of the bed and the dresser for quite some time but I could not figure out whether it followed some kind of esoteric pattern, the significance of which eluded me, or whether it was merely the result of Florinda's aesthetic whim.

Curious as to where the three doors in the room led, I tried them all.

The first one was locked from the outside.

The second one opened to a small, rectangular-shaped walled-in patio. Puzzled, I stared at the sky, until it finally dawned on me that it was not morning, as I had assumed upon awakening, but late afternoon.

I was not disturbed that I had slept the whole day. On the contrary, I was elated. Convinced that I was an insomniac, I was always overjoyed by my oversleeping spells.

The third door opened into the corridor.

Anxious to find Isidore Baltazar, I made my way to the living room. It was empty.

There was something forbidding about the neat and straight manner in which the furniture was arranged.

Nothing revealed that anyone had sat on the couch and the armchairs the night before. Even the cushions stood stiffly, as if at attention.

The dining room across the corridor looked equally forsaken and equally austere.

Not a chair was out of place. I found neither a crumb nor a stain on the polished surface of the mahogany table. Nothing betrayed that I had sat there last night with the nagual Mariano Aureliano and Mr. Flores, and had eaten dinner.

In the kitchen, separated from the dining room by an arched vestibule and a narrow hall, I found a jug, half filled with champurrado, and a covered plate with some sweet tamales.

I was too hungry to bother with heating them. I poured myself a mugful of the thick chocolate, and ate the three corn cakes directly from their corn-husk wrappings. Stuffed with pieces of pineapple, raisins, and slivered almonds, they were delicious.

It was inconceivable to me that I had been left alone in the house, yet I could not ignore the stillness around me.

It was not the comforting peace one is conscious of when people are purposely being quiet, but rather it was the overwhelming soundlessness of a deserted place.

The possibility that, indeed, I had been abandoned there made me choke on a piece of tamale.

On my way back to Florinda's room, I paused in front of every door I passed.

As I knocked repeatedly, I called out, "Anybody home?"

There was no answer.

I was about to step outside when I distinctly heard someone ask, "Who is calling?"

The voice was deep and raspy, but I could not tell whether it was a man or a woman who had spoken.

And I could not determine from which direction, let alone from which room, the voice had come.

I retraced my steps and called out again at the top of my voice whether anybody was home.

Upon reaching the far end of the corridor, I hesitated for a moment in front of a closed door.

I turned the doorknob, then quietly opened it a crack, and sidled in.

With my eyes tightly shut, I reclined against the wall, and waited for my heartbeat to normalize.

I thought guiltily, "Suppose someone caught me in here." But my curiosity outweighed any sense of wrong-doing as I breathed in the air of mystery and of enchantment that permeated the room.

The heavy, dark curtains were drawn, and the only light came from a tall reading lamp.

Its huge shade, fringed with tassels, cast a circle of yellow light on the chaise lounge by the window.

At the very center of the room stood a four-poster bed. Canopied and curtained, it dominated the space as if it were a throne.

The bronze and wood-carved oriental figurines ensconced on the four round tables in each corner, appeared to stand guard over the room like some celestial deities.

Books, papers, and magazines were piled on the drop-front French desk and on the chest of drawers.

There was no mirror on the kidney-shaped dresser, and instead of a comb and brush, or bottles of perfume and cosmetics, a set of fragile-looking demitasses stood on the glass-topped surface.

Strands of pearls, gold chains, rings, and brooches spilled from the delicate gold-rimmed cups like some abandoned treasure.

I recognized two of the rings. I had seen them on Zoila's hand.

The inspection of the bed I reserved for last.

Almost reverentially, as if indeed it were a throne, I pulled back the curtain and gasped with delight. The brightly colored pillows on the silky green spread made me think of wild flowers in a meadow.

And yet an involuntary shiver shook my body as I stood in the middle of the room.

I could not help but feel that the warmth, the mystery, and the enchantment this room exuded were but an illusion.

The sensation of having stepped into some kind of a mirage was even more pronounced in the next room I explored.

It, too, seemed warm and friendly at first. The very air was tender and loving, and echoes of laughter seemed to bounce off the walls.

However, this atmosphere of warmth was only a tenuous, fleeting impression like the fading sunlight streaking through the glassless, gauze-curtained windows.

As in the other room, the bed dominated the space. It too was canopied and decorated with brightly colored pillows that had been tossed about with absentminded abandon.

Against one wall stood a sewing machine. It was an old hand-painted treadle machine.

Next to it was a tall bookcase. But instead of books, the shelves were stacked with bolts of the finest cottons, silks, and wool gabardine cloth, all neatly arranged by color and fabric.

Six different colored wigs, all stretched over staked gourds, were displayed on a low table under the window.

Among them was the blond one I had seen Delia Flores wear, and the dark, curly one Mariano Aureliano had pulled over my head outside the coffee shop in Tucson.

The next room was a bit further down from the others and was across the hall.

The last of the afternoon sun's rays were filtering through a latticed wall, and lay on the floor like a carpet of light and shadows; a wavering square of rectangular patterns.

Compared to the other two rooms, it gave me the impression of being empty.

The few pieces of furniture were so artfully placed it made the space seem larger than it actually was.

Low bookshelves with glass doors lined the walls.

At the far end, in an alcove, stood a narrow bed. The white-and-grey-checkered blanket hung low, and matched the shadows on the floor.

The dainty rosewood secretaire with its delicate chair of ebonized rosewood with ormolu did not detract from the overall sense of starkness of the room but rather enhanced it. I knew that it was Carmela's room.

I would have liked to check the titles of the books behind the glass panels, but my anxiety was too great.

As if someone were chasing me, I dashed out into the corridor and down to the inside patio.

I sat on one of the rush chairs.

I was trembling and perspiring, and yet my hands were icy cold. It was not guilt that had me shaking- I would not have minded getting caught snooping around- but rather it was the alien, other-worldly quality that these beautifully furnished rooms exuded.

The stillness that clung about the walls was an unnatural stillness. It had nothing to do with the absence of its inhabitants, but with the absence of feelings and emotions that usually permeate lived-in spaces.

Every time someone had referred to the women as sorceresses and witches, I had inwardly laughed. They neither acted nor looked as I had expected witches to look and act; flamboyantly dramatic and sinister.

But now I knew for certain that they were indeed different from other human beings.

It frightened me that they were different in ways I could not understand; in ways I could not even conceive.

A soft, rasping sound put an end to my disturbing thoughts.

Following the distinctly eerie noise, I tiptoed down the corridor; away from the bedrooms, and toward the other end of the house.

The rasping sound came from a room at the back of the kitchen. I crept up softly, only to have the sound die down the instant I pressed my ear against the door.

It resumed as soon as I moved away.

Puzzled, I once more pressed my ear to the door, and the rasping sound promptly ceased.

I moved back and forth several times, and, as if the rasping sound were dependent on my doings, it either started or stopped.

Determined to find out who was hiding- or worse, who was purposely trying to frighten me- I reached for the doorknob.

Unable to open the door, I fumbled for several minutes before I realized that it was locked, and that the key had been left in the lock.

That someone dangerous might have been confined in that room, and for a very good reason, only came to my mind once I was inside.

An oppressive semi-darkness clung about the heavy drawn curtains like something alive that was luring the shadows of the entire house to this enormous room.

The light grew dimmer. The shadows thickened around what appeared to be discarded pieces of furniture and peculiar-looking small and enormous figures made out of wood and metal.

The same rasping sound that had drawn me to this room broke the silence.

Like felines, the shadows prowled about the room as if searching for prey.

In frozen horror, I watched the curtain. It pulsated and breathed like a monster of my nightmares.

All of a sudden, the sound and the movement ceased. The motionless silence was even more frightening.

I turned to leave, and the pulsating, rasping sound began again.

Resolutely, I crossed the room and I pulled back the curtain.

I laughed out loud upon discovering the broken glass pane in the French door. The wind had been alternately sucking and blowing the curtain through the jagged gap.

The fading afternoon light streaming through the half-opened curtain rearranged the shadows in the room and revealed an oval-shaped mirror on the wall; half hidden by one of the odd-looking metal figures.

I squeezed myself between the sculpture and the wall, and gazed rapturously into the old Venetian glass. It was blurry and misty with age, and it distorted my image so grotesquely that I ran out of the room.

I went through the back door and outside the house.

The wide clearing behind the house was deserted.

The sky was still bright, but the tall fruit trees circling the grounds had already turned the color of twilight.

A flock of crows passed overhead. Their black flapping wings extinguished the brightness in the sky, and night swiftly descended into the yard.

With a feeling of utter dejection and despair, I sat on the ground and wept. The harder I cried, the more pleasure I felt from lamenting at the top of my voice.

The sound of a rake jolted me out of my self-pity.

I looked up and saw a slight person raking leaves toward a small fire in the back of the clearing.

As I rushed towards her, I cried out, "Esperanza!" but I stopped abruptly upon realizing that it was not her, but a man.

I mumbled apologetically, "I am sorry. I mistook you for someone else."

I held out my hand and introduced myself.

I tried not to stare at him, but I could not help myself. I was not quite sure that he was not Esperanza disguised as a man.

He put his hand in mine, pressing it softly, and said, "I am the caretaker."

He did not tell me his name, and his hand felt as brittle as a bird's wing in mine.

He was a thin, ancient-looking man. His face was birdlike, too, aquiline and keen-eyed. His white hair was tufted and feathery.

It was not only his slight frame and birdlike appearance that reminded me of Esperanza, but also the wrinkled, expressionless face and his eyes, shiny and limpid as those of a child; and his teeth, small and square and very white.

I asked, "Do you know where Florinda is?"

He shook his head, and I added, "Do you know where any of the others are?"

He was silent for a long moment, and then as though I had not asked him anything, he repeated that he was the caretaker, and said, "I take care of everything."

Eyeing him suspiciously, I asked, "You do?"

He was so frail and puny-looking that he did not seem capable of taking care of anything, including himself.

Smiling sweetly, as if thus he could erase my doubts, he repeated, "I take care of everything."

He was about to say something else, but instead he chewed his lower lip thoughtfully for a moment, then turned around, and went on raking the leaves into a little pile; with neat, deft, quick movements.

I asked, "Where is everyone?"

Resting his chin on his hand, which was cupped over the end of the rake handle, he glanced at me absently.

Then grinning inanely and looked all around him as though at any moment someone might materialize from behind one of the fruit trees.

Sighing loudly and impatiently, I turned to leave.

He cleared his throat, and in a voice that was wavering and hoarse with old age said, "The old nagual took Isidore Baltazar to the mountains."

He did not look at me. His eyes were focused somewhere in the distance as he said, "They will be back in a couple of days."

I screeched indignantly, "Days! Are you sure you heard them correctly?"

Dismayed that my worst fear had come true, I could only mumble, "How could he have left me here all by myself?"

The old man pulled back a leaf that the wind had blown away from the pile in front of him, and he said, "They left last night."

I contradicted him forcefully, saying, "That is impossible. We only got here last night.

"Late last night," I stressed.

Indifferent to my assertively rude tone and to my presence, the old man set fire to the little pile of leaves in front of him.

I squatted beside him and asked, "Did Isidore Baltazar not leave a message for me? Did he not leave me a note or something?"

I felt an impulse to shout, but for some reason I did not dare.

Some mystifying aspect of the old man's appearance disconcerted me. The thought that he was Esperanza in disguise still nagged me.

I asked, "Did Esperanza go with them to the mountains?"

My voice trembled because suddenly I was seized by a desperate desire to laugh. Short of pulling down his pants and showing me his genitals, there was nothing he could do to convince me that he was indeed a man.

His attention was fixed on the little pile of burning leaves as he murmured, "Esperanza is in the house. She is in the house with the others."

I contradicted him rudely, saying, "Do not be ridiculous. She is not in the house. No one is in the house. I have been searching for them the whole afternoon. I checked every room."

He watched me as intently as he had watched the burning leaves, and repeated obstinately, "She is in the little house."

The glint of mischief in his eyes made me want to kick him.

I began, "What little..." But my voice faded as I remembered the other house; the one I had seen upon our arrival. It actually caused me an intense physical pain to think of that place.

I said peevishly, "You could have told me right away that Esperanza is in the little house."

Surreptitiously, I glanced all around me, but I could not see the place. The tall trees, and the wall beyond, hid it from view.

I rose, and said, "I am going to see if Esperanza is indeed there as you claim."

The old man rose, too, and turning toward the nearest tree, he reached for an oil lamp and a burlap sack hanging from a low branch.

He said, "I am afraid I can not let you go there by yourself."

Piqued, I countered, "I do not see why not. Perhaps you are not aware of it, but I am Florinda's guest.

I paused for a moment, and then added for good measure, "I was taken to the little house last night. I was there for sure."

He listened carefully, but his face looked doubtful.

After a pause, he warned me, "It is tricky to get there. I have to prepare the path for you. I have to..."

He seemed to catch himself in the middle of a thought that he did not want to express. He shrugged, then repeated that he had to prepare the path for me.

I asked irritably, "What is there to prepare? Do you have to cut through the chaparral with a machete?"

He repeated obstinately, "I am the caretaker. I prepare the path."

Then he sat on the ground to light the oil lamp. For an instant it sputtered in the air, but then burned strongly.

His features appeared almost fleshless and unwrinkled as if the light had smoothed away the mark of time.

He said, "As soon as I am done with burning these leaves, I will take you there myself."

Clearly, the man was senile and needed to be humored, so I offered, "I will help you."

I followed him around the clearing and helped him gather the leaves into little piles which he promptly burned.

As soon as the ashes had cooled, he swept them into the burlap sack. The sack was lined with plastic.

It was the particular detail of the plastic lining that brought back to me a half-forgotten childhood memory.

As we swept the heaps of ashes into the sack, I told him that as a small child living in a village near Caracas, I was often awakened by the sound of a rake.

I used to sneak out of bed, and cat-footed, creep down the corridor past my parents' and brothers' rooms into the parlor which faced the plaza.

Heedful of the creaking hinges, I used to open the wooden panels covering the windows and squeeze through the wrought iron bars.

The old man in charge of keeping the plaza clean was always there to greet me with a toothless smile, and together we used to rake into little piles the leaves that had fallen during the night. Any other kind of refuse we would put into trash cans.

We burned these piles, and as soon as the ashes had cooled, we swept them into a silk-lined burlap sack. The old man claimed that the water fairies, dwelling in a sacred stream in the nearby mountains, turned the ashes into gold dust.

Seeing how delighted the caretaker was with my story, I asked, "Do you also know of fairies who change ashes into gold dust?"

He did not answer, but he giggled with such pleasure and abandon that I could not help but laugh, also.

Before I knew it, we had reached the last little pile of ashes next to a recessed, arched doorway built into the wall. The narrow wooden gate stood wide open.

Across the chaparral was the other house almost hidden in shadows.

No light shone through the windows, and it appeared to be shifting away from me.

I wondered whether the house was but a figment of my imagination like a place remembered in a dream, so I blinked repeatedly and rubbed my eyes.

Something was wrong, I decided, as I then recalled walking up to the witches' house the night before with Isidore Baltazar.

The smaller house had stood to the right of the larger one. How then, I asked myself, could I now see the place from the witches' backyard?

In an effort to orient myself, I moved this way and that, but I could not get my bearings. I bumped into the old man who was squatting before the pile of ashes, and fell over him.

With astounding agility he rose, helped me up, and said, "You are full of ashes." He wiped my face with the folded cuff of his khaki shirt.

Suddenly, the elusive house appeared to be only a few steps away, and was sharply focused and silhouetted against the sky. I cried out, "There it is!"

I repeated, "There it is," and I jumped up and down as if by doing so I could hold the house in place; detain it in time.

I said, "That is the true house of the witches."

I stood still in front of the old man so he could proceed with wiping the ashes off my face, and I added, "The big house is but a front."

The old man, savoring his words, said slowly, "The house of the witches." Then, seemingly amused, he cackled.

He swept the last of the ashes into his burlap sack, then motioned me to follow him through the gate.

Two orange trees grew on the other side of the gate, and away from the wall.

A cool breeze rustled through the blooming branches, but the flowers did not stir; nor did they fall to the ground.

Against the dark foliage, the blossoms looked carved as though they had been made of milky quartz.

Like sentinels, the two trees stood guard over the narrow path.

The path was white and very straight, like a line that had been drawn on the landscape with a ruler.

The old man handed me the oil lamp, then scooped out a handful of ashes from his burlap sack and poured them from one hand to the other as though he were weighing them before he sprinkled them onto the ground.

His voice was no longer hoarse, and had an airy quality that sounded energetic and convincing as he said, "Do not ask any questions, and do as I say."

He bent slightly, and walking backwards, he let the rest of the ashes trickle directly from his burlap sack onto the narrow trail.

He admonished me, saying, "Keep your feet on the line of ashes. If you do not, you will never reach the house."

I coughed to hide my nervous laughter.

Holding out my arms, I balanced on the narrow line of ashes as if it were a tightrope.

Each time we stopped for the old man to catch his breath, I turned to look at the house we had just left.

It seemed to be receding into the distance, but the house in front of us did not seem to get any closer.

I tried to convince myself that it was merely an optical illusion, and yet I had the vague certainty that I would never make it on my own to either house.

As if sensing my discomfort, the old man patted my arm reassuringly, and said, "That is why I am preparing the path."

He looked into his burlap sack and added, "It will not be long now before we will get there.

"Just remember to keep your feet on the line of ashes. If you do, you will be able to move back and forth safely; anytime."

My mind told me that the man was a lunatic.

My body, however, knew that I was lost without him and his ashes. I was so absorbed in keeping my feet on the faint line, it took me by surprise when we finally stood in front of the door.

The old man took the oil lamp from my hand, cleared his throat, then rapped lightly on the carved panel with his knuckles.

He did not wait for an answer, but pushed the door open and went inside.

I was afraid to be left behind, and cried out, "Do not go so fast!"

I followed him into a narrow vestibule where he left the oil lamp on a low table.

Then without a word or a backward glance, he opened a door at the far end, and he disappeared into the darkness.

Guided by some vague memory, I stepped into the dimly lit rooom, and went directly to the mat on the floor.

There was no doubt in my mind now that I had been there the night before, and that I had slept on that very mat.

What I was not so sure of was how I had gotten to that room in the first place.

That Mariano Aureliano had carried me on his his back across the chaparral was vivid in my mind.

I was also certain that I had woken up in that room with Clara sitting beside me on the mat before being carried over by the old nagual.

Confident that within moments all would be explained to me, I sat on the mat.

The light in the oil lamp flickered and then went out.

I sensed, rather than saw, things and people moving around me. I heard a murmur of voices and intangible sounds coming from every corner. Out of all these noises, I recognized a familiar rustling of skirts and a soft giggle.

"Esperanza?" I whispered, "God! I am so glad to see you!" Although it was her I expected to see, I was nevertheless stunned when she sat beside me on the mat. Timidly, I touched her arm.

She assured me, "It is me."

Only after hearing her voice was I convinced that it was indeed Esperanza and not the caretaker who had exchanged his khaki pants and shirt for her rustling petticoats and white dress.

And once I felt the soothing touch of her hand on my face, all thoughts of the caretaker vanished.

I asked, "How did I get here?"

She laughed, "The caretaker brought you here. Do you not remember?"

She turned toward the low table, and relighted the oil lamp.

I clarified, "I am talking about last night. I know I was here. I woke up on this mat. Clara was here with me. And then Florinda was here, and the other women..."

My voice trailed off as I remembered that I had awoken afterward in the living room of the other house, and then again on a bed.

I shook my head as if I could thus bring some order to my memories.

Forlornly, I gazed at Esperanza, hoping she would fill in the gaps. I told her of the difficulties I was having remembering the night's events in sequential order.

Esperanza said, "You should not have any problems. Get in the track of dreams. You are dreaming-awake now."

I asked mockingly, "You mean that I am asleep now, this very instant?"

Then I leaned toward her and asked, "Are you asleep, too?"

Esperanza enunciated her words carefully, saying, "We are not asleep. You and I are dreaming-awake."

She held up her hands in a helpless gesture, and said, "I told you what to do last year. Remember?"

Then, as if someone had just whispered it into my ear, a rescuing thought suddenly occurred to me.

'When in doubt, one must separate the two tracks; the track for ordinary affairs, and the track for dreams. Each one has a different state of awareness.'

I felt elated, for I knew that the first track one should test is the track of dreams. If the situation at hand does not fit that track, then one is not dreaming.

My elation quickly vanished when I tried to test the track for dreams.

I had no inkling of how to go about it or of what the track for dreams was, for that matter. And worse, I could not remember who had told me about it.

Esperanza, just behind me, said, "I did.

"You have moved a great deal in the realm of dreams.

"You nearly remembered what I told you last year on the day after the picnic.

"I said to you then that, when in doubt about whether you are in a dream or whether you are awake, you should test the track where dreams run on- meaning the awareness we have in dreams- by feeling the thing you are in contact with.

"If you are dreaming, your feeling comes back to you as an echo. If it does not come back, then you are not dreaming."

Smiling, she pinched my thigh and said, "Try it on this mat you are lying on. Feel it with your buttocks. If the feeling returns, then you are dreaming."

There was no feeling returning to my numbed buttocks. In fact, I was so numb that I did not feel the mat. It seemed to me I was lying on the rough tiles of the floor.

I had a strong urge to point out to her that it should be the opposite- if the feeling returns, then one is awake- but I controlled myself in time.

I knew without any doubt that what she meant by 'the feeling returning to us' had nothing to do with our known, agreed-upon knowledge of what feeling is.

The distinction between being awake and dreaming-awake still eluded me, yet I was certain that its meaning had nothing to do with our ordinary way of understanding awareness.

Right then, however, words came out of my mouth without any control on my part.

I said, "I know that I am dreaming-awake, and that is that."

I sensed that I was near a new, deeper level of understanding, and yet I could not quite grasp it.

I asked, "What I would like to know is, when did I fall asleep?"

"I have already told you, you are not asleep. You are dreaming-awake."

I began to laugh involuntarily, in a quiet, utterly nervous manner.

She did not seem to notice or to care.

I asked, "When did the transition occur?"

Esperanza said, "When the caretaker was making you cross the chaparral and you had to concentrate on keeping your feet on the ashes."

I, in a not altogether pleasant voice, exclaimed, "He must have hypnotized me!"

I began to talk incoherently, and entangled myself in words without quite succeeding in making sense, until finally I was weeping and denouncing them all.

Esperanza watched me silently with her eyebrows lifted, and her eyes wide open in surprise.

I was immediately ashamed of my outburst. But at the same time I was glad I had spoken because a momentary relief washed over me- the kind that comes after a confrontation.

Esperanza continued, "Your confusion originates with your facility to move from one state of awareness into the other with great ease.

"If you had struggled, like everybody else does to attain smooth transitions, then you would know that dreaming-awake is not just hypnosis."

She paused for an instant, then finished softly, saying, "Dreaming-awake is the most sophisticated state humans can attain."

She stared off into the room as if a clearer explanation might suddenly be brought to her by someone hiding in the shadows.

Then she turned to me and asked, "Did you eat your little food?"

Her change of subject took me by surprise, and I began to stammer.

Once I recovered, I told her that I had indeed eaten the sweet tamales. "I was so hungry, I did not bother to heat them up. They were delicious."

Idly playing with her shawl, Esperanza asked me to give her an account of what I had done since I awoke in Florinda's room.

As if I had been given a truth-telling potion, I blurted out more than I intended to reveal, but Esperanza did not seem to mind my snooping around the women's rooms.

She was not impressed with my knowing to whom each room belonged.

What interested her to no end, however, was my encounter with the caretaker.

With a smile of unmistakable glee on her face, she listened as I told my tale of confusing the man with her.

When I mentioned that at one point I considered asking him to pull down his pants so I could check his genitals, she doubled up on the mat, shrieking with laughter.

She leaned against me and whispered suggestively in my ear, "I will put you at ease." There was a wicked gleam in her eyes as she added, "I will show you mine."

I tried to ward her off, saying, "There is no need to, Esperanza. I do not doubt that you are a woman."

She casually dismissed my words, saying, "One can never be too sure what one is."

Oblivious to my embarrassment, caused not so much by her imminent nudity but by the thought that I had to look at her old, wrinkled body, she lay down on the mat, and with great finesse slowly lifted her skirts.

My curiosity won out over my embarrassment.

I stared at her, open-mouthed. She had no panties on. She had no pubic hair. Her body was incredibly young, and the flesh was strong and firm with muscles delicately delineated.

She was all one color; an even, copperish pink. There were no stretch marks on her skin, and no ruptured veins. Nothing marred the smoothness of her stomach and legs.

I reached out to touch her, as if needing to reassure myself that her silky, smooth-looking skin was real, and she opened the lips of her vagina with her fingers.

I averted my face, not so much from embarrassment as from my conflicting emotions.

Nudity, whether male or female, was not the issue for me.

I had grown up quite freely at home. No one was particularly careful to avoid being seen naked.

And while in school in England, I had been invited one summer to spend a couple of weeks in Sweden at a friend's house by the sea. The whole family belonged to a nudist colony, and they all worshiped the sun with every bit of their naked skin.

Seeing Esperanza naked before me was different.

I was aroused in a most peculiar manner. I had never really focused on a woman's sexual organs.

Of course, I had examined myself thoroughly in the mirror, and from every possible angle.

I had also seen pornographic movies, which I had not only disliked, but had found offensive as well.

Seeing Esperanza so intimately was a shattering experience because I had always taken my sexual responses for granted.

I had thought that, as a woman, I could only get aroused with a male.

My overwhelming desire to jump on top of her took me completely by surprise, and was counterbalanced by the fact that I did not have a penis.

When Esperanza suddenly rose from the mat and took off her blouse I gasped out loud, then stared at the floor until the feverish, tingling sensation in my face and neck subsided.

Esperanza demanded impatiently, "Look at me!"

She was completely naked. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed.

Her body was slight, yet bigger and stronger looking than when dressed. Her breasts were full and pointed.

In a soft, alluring tone, she commanded, "Touch them!"

Her words echoed around the room like a disembodied sound, a mesmerizing rhythm that swelled into a throb in the air. It was a pulse of sound I felt rather than heard, and which, little by little, tightened and quickened until it beat fast and hard like the rhythm of my own heart.

Then all I heard and felt was Esperanza's laughter.

I was suddenly suspicious and guilty about my daring, and when I could talk, I asked, "Is the caretaker hiding in here, by any chance?"

"I hope not!" she cried out with such an air of dismay that it made me laugh.

I asked, "Where is he?"

Her eyes opened wide, and then she grinned as though she were going to laugh.

But Esperanza wiped the mirth from her face, and in a serious tone said that the caretaker was somewhere on the grounds. She said that he took care of both houses, but that he did not go around spying on anybody.

I tried to sound skeptical as I asked, "Is he really the caretaker? I do not want to malign him, but he really does not look capable of taking care of anything."

Esperanza giggled and then said that his frailness was deceptive. She assured me, "He is very capable.

"You have to be careful with him. He likes young girls, and especially blond ones."

She leaned closer, and, as if afraid we might be overheard, whispered in my ear, "Did he make a pass at you?"

I defended him, saying, "Heavens no! He was exquisitely polite and helpful. It is just that..."

My voice trailed off into a whisper. My attention had begun to wander in an odd sort of way to the furniture in the room which I could not see because the low-burning oil lamp cast more shadows than light on my surroundings.

When I finally managed to focus my attention back on Esperanza, I was no longer concerned with the caretaker.

All I could think of, and with a persistence I could not shake off, was why Isidore Baltazar had left for the mountains without letting me know, and without leaving me a note.

I turned to Esperanza and asked, "Why would he leave me like that? He must have told someone when he will return."

Seeing her all-knowing smirk, I added belligerently, "I am sure you know what is going on."

Esperanza seemed quite incapable of understanding my plight as she insisted, "I do not.

"I do not concern myself with such things, and neither should you. Isidore Baltazar is gone, and that is that.

"He will be back in a couple of days, in a couple of weeks... Who knows? It all depends on what happens in the mountains."

I shrieked, asking, "It all depends?"

I found her lack of sympathy and understanding abominable as I demanded, "What about me? I can not stay here for weeks."

Esperanza inquired innocently, "Why not?"

I regarded her as if she were demented, then blurted out that I had nothing to wear; that there was nothing for me to do there...

My list of complaints was endless, and they came pouring out until I was exhausted.

I finished by saying, "I simply have to go home to be in my normal milieu."

I felt my inevitable tears, and I did my best to suppress them.

"Normal?" Esperanza repeated the word slowly, as though she were tasting it, then said, "You can leave any time you wish.

"No one is holding you back. It can easily be arranged to get you to the border where you can catch a Greyhound bus bound for Los Angeles."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

I did not want that either.

I did not know what I wanted, but the thought of leaving was unbearable. I somehow knew that if I left I would never find these people again, not even Isidore Baltazar in Los Angeles.

I began to weep uncontrollably. I would not have been able to put it into words, but the bleakness of a life and of a future without them was unbearable to me.

I did not notice Esperanza leaving the room, and I did not notice her coming back. I would not have noticed anything if it were not for the delicious aroma of hot chocolate wafting under my nose.

She assured me, "You will feel better after eating," and she placed a tray in my lap.

Smiling slowly and affectionately, she sat beside me and confided that there is nothing like chocolate to take away one's sadness.

I could not have agree with her more. I took a few hesitant sips and ate several of the buttered, rolled tortillas.

I told her that although I did not really know her or any of her friends, I could not conceive of not ever seeing them again.

I confessed that I felt a freedom and an ease with her and her group that I had never encountered anywhere else before.

It was a strange feeling, I explained, part physical, part psychological, and wholly defiant of analysis.

I could describe it only as a sense of well-being or a certainty that I had finally found a place where I belonged.

Esperanza knew exactly what it was I was trying to express.

She said that having been part of the sorcerers' world even for a short time was addictive.

It was not the amount of time, she stressed, but the intensity of the encounters that mattered. Then she added, "And your encounters have been very intense."

I asked, "Have they?"

Esperanza lifted her eyebrows with sincere surprise, then rubbed her chin in an exaggerated attitude, as though she were deliberating on a problem that had no solution.

After a long silence, she finally pronounced, "You will walk lighter after you fully realize that there is no going back to your old life."

Her voice, though low, had an extraordinary force. Her eyes held mine for a moment, and I knew in that instant what her words meant.

I said softly, "Nothing will ever be the same for me again."

Esperanza nodded, and said, "You will return to the world, but not to your world or to your old life."

She rose from the mat with the abrupt majesty small people command.

She rushed toward the door, only to come to a sudden halt. Turning to look at me, she said, "It is wildly exciting to do something without knowing why we are doing it.

"And it is even more exciting to set out to do something without knowing what the end result will be."

I disagree with her intensely, and declared, "I need to know what I a doing. I need to know what I am getting into."

She sighed, and held up her hands in comical deprecation.

Esperanza spoke harshly, saying, "Freedom is terribly frightening." And before I had a chance to respond, she added gently, "Freedom requires spontaneous acts.

"You have no idea what it is to abandon yourself spontaneously..."

I interjected, "Everything I do is spontaneous. Why do you think I am here? Do you think I deliberated much whether I should come or not?"

She returned to the mat, and stood looking down at me for a long moment before she said, "Of course you did not deliberate about it. But your acts of spontaneity are due to a lack of thought rather than being due to an act of abandon."

She stomped her foot to prevent me from interring her again, and went on, "A real spontaneous act is an act in which you abandon yourself completely, but only after profound deliberation.

"An act where all the pros and cons have been taken into consideration and duly discarded.

"You expect nothing, and you regret nothing.

"With acts of that nature, sorcerers beckon freedom." I pulled at the hem of her dress to prevent her from leaving, and mumbled under my breath, "I am not a sorcerer."

However, Esperanza made it clear that she had no interest in continuing our conversation.

I followed her outside and across the clearing to the path that led to the other house.

As the caretaker had done earlier, she too urged me to keep my feet on the line of ashes. "If you do not," she admonished, "you will fall into the abyss."

I repeated uncertainly, "Abyss?" and I glanced all around me at the mass of dark chaparral extending on either side of us.

A light breeze sprung up. Voices and whispers rose from a dark mass of shadows. Instinctively, I held on to Esperanza's skirt.

Turning to face me, she asked, "Can you hear them?"

I murmured hoarsely, "Who am I supposed to hear?"

Esperanza moved closer, and then, as if afraid we might be overheard, she whispered in my ear, "Surems of another time. They use the wind to wander across the desert; forever awake."

I inquired, "You mean ghosts?"

Esperanza said with a finality, "There are no ghosts," and she started walking again.

I made sure that my feet stayed on the line of ashes, and I did not let go of her skirt until she came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the patio of the big house.

For an instant she hesitated, as though she could not decide to which part of the house she ought to take me.

Then she went up and down the various corridors and turned corners until finally we stepped into an immense room that had escaped my earlier exploration of the house.

The walls were lined to the ceiling with books. At one end of the room stood a sturdy, long, wooden table. At the other end hung a white, flouncy, hand-woven hammock.

I exclaimed, "What a magnificent room! Whose is it?"

Esperanza offered graciously, "Yours."

She went to the wooden chest standing by the door and opened it.

"The nights are cold," she warned, and handed me three thick woolen blankets.

I asked excitedly, "You mean I can sleep in here?"

My whole body shivered with pleasure as I matted the hammock with the blankets, and lowered myself into it.

As a child, I had often slept in a hammock.

Sighing with contentment, I rocked myself back and forth, then pulled in my legs and stretched out luxuriously.

I said, "Knowing how to sleep in a hammock is like knowing how to ride a bicycle. One never forgets how."

But there was no one to hear me. She had left without my noticing it.