Being in Dreaming: Chapter 02.

Being in Dreaming ©1991 by Florinda Donner.

Chapter 02.

It was around eight o'clock in the morning when we arrived at the healer's house in the outskirts of Ciudad Obregon.

It was a massive old house with whitewashed walls and a tile roof grayed with age. It had wrought-iron windows and an arched doorway.

The heavy door to the street was wide open.

With the confidence of someone familiar with her surroundings, Delia Flores led me across the dark hall, down a long corridor, toward the back, and to a sparsely furnished room with a narrow bed, a table, and several chairs.

What was most unusual about the room was that it had a door in each of the four walls. They were all closed.

"Wait here," Delia ordered me, and pointing with her chin toward the bed she said, "Take a little nap while I get the healer. It might take me some time," she added, closing the door behind her.

I waited for her footsteps to fade down the corridor before I inspected the most unlikely healing room I had ever seen.

The whitewashed walls were bare. The light brown tiles of the floor shone like a mirror.

There was no altar, no images or figurines of saints, the Virgin, or Jesus, which I had always assumed were customary in healing rooms.

I poked my head through all four doors. Two opened into dark corridors. The other two led to a yard enclosed by a high fence.

As I was tiptoeing down a dark corridor, toward another room, I heard a low, menacing snarl behind me.

Slowly, I turned around.

Barely two feet away there stood an enormous, ferocious-looking black dog.

It did not attack me but stood its ground growling, showing its fangs.

Without directly meeting the animal's eyes, yet not letting it out of my sight, I walked backward to the healing room.

The dog followed me all the way to the door.

I closed the door softly, right on the beast's nose, and leaned against the wall until my heartbeat was back to normal.

I lay down on the bed, and after a few moments, without the slightest intention of doing so, I fell into a deep sleep.

I was roused by a soft touch on my shoulder.

I opened my eyes and looked up into an old woman's wrinkled pink face.

"You are dreaming," she said. "And I am part of your dream."

Automatically, I nodded in agreement. However, I was not convinced that I was dreaming.

The woman was extraordinarily small. She was not a midget or a dwarf, but rather she was the size of a child, with skinny arms and narrow, fragile-looking shoulders.

"Are you the healer?" I asked.

"I am Esperanza," she said. "I am the one who brings dreams."

Her voice was smooth and unusually low. She spoke Spanish fluently, yet her voice had a curious, exotic quality, as though Spanish was a language to which the muscles of her upper lip were not accustomed.

Gradually, the sound of her voice rose until it became a disembodied force filling the room. The sound made me think of running water in the depths of a cave.

I mumbled to myself, "She is not a woman. She is the sound of darkness."

"I will remove the cause of your nightmares now," she said, and she fixed me with an imperious gaze as her fingers closed lightly around my neck.

She promised, "I will get them out; one by one."

Her hands moved across my chest like a soft wave.

She smiled triumphantly, then motioned me to examine her opened palms. "See? They came out so easily."

She was gazing at me with an expression of such accomplishment and wonder, I could not bring myself to tell her that I did not see anything in her hands.

Certain that the healing session was over, I thanked her and sat up.

She shook her head in a gesture of reproach and gently pushed me back on the bed. "You are asleep," she reminded me. "I am the one who brings dreams, remember?"

I would have loved to insist that I was wide awake, but all I managed to do was to grin foolishly as sleep pulled me into a comforting slumber.

Laughter and whispers crowded around me like shadows.

I fought to wake myself. It took me a great effort to open my eyes and sit up, and to look at the people gathered around the table.

The peculiar dimness in the room made it difficult to see them clearly. Delia was among them.

I was about to call out her name when an insistent scratching sound behind me made me turn around.

A man, precariously squatting on a high stool, was noisily shelling peanuts.

At first sight he seemed to be a young man, but somehow I knew him to be old. He was slight of body, with a smooth, beardless face. His smile was a mixture of cunning and innocence.

He asked, "Want some?"

Before I could so much as nod, my mouth dropped open.

All I could do was stare at him as he shifted his weight to one hand and effortlessly lifted his small, wiry body into a handstand.

From that position he threw a peanut at me, and it went straight into my gaping mouth.

I choked on it.

A sharp tap between my shoulder blades immediately restored my breathing.

I was grateful and I wondered who had reacted so swiftly. I turned to the people who were now all standing by me.

The man who had tapped my back said, "I am Mariano Aureliano." He shook my hand.

His gentle tone and the charming formality of his gesture mitigated the fierce expression in his eyes and the severity of his aquiline features. The upward slant of his dark brows made him look like a bird of prey.

His white hair and his weathered, copperish face bespoke of age, but his muscular body exuded the vitality of youth.

There were six women in the group, including Delia.

All of them shook my hand in that same eloquent formality.

They did not tell me their names. They simply said that they were glad to meet me.

Physically, they did not resemble each other, and yet there was a striking likeness about them.

They shared a contradictory blend of youth and age, and a blend of strength and delicacy that was most baffling to me- accustomed as I was to the roughness and directness of my male-oriented, patriarchal, German family.

Just as with Mariano Aureliano and the acrobat on the stool, I could not tell the women's ages. They could have been as much in their forties as in their sixties.

I experienced a fleeting anxiety as the women kept staring at me.

I had the distinct impression they could see inside me and were reflecting on what they saw.

Their amused and contemplative smiles did little to reassure me.

Anxious to break that disturbing silence in any way I could, I turned away from them and faced the man on the stool. I asked him if he was an acrobat.

"I am Mr. Flores," he said. He did a back flip from the stool and landed in a cross-legged position on the floor.

He pronounced, "I am not an acrobat. I am a wizard."

There was a smile of unmistakable glee on his face as he reached into his pocket and pulled out my silk scarf; the one I had tied around the donkey's neck.

"I know who you are. You are her husband!" I exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Delia. "You two sure played a clever trick on me."

Mr. Flores did not say a word. He simply gazed at me in polite silence. He finally pronounced, "I am nobody's husband."

Then he cartwheeled out of the room through one of the doors that led to the yard.

On an impulse, I jumped off the bed and went after him.

Blinded momentarily by the brightness outside, I stood for a few seconds dazed by the glare, then crossed the yard and ran down the side of a dirt road into a recently ploughed field partitioned off by tall eucalyptus trees.

It was hot. The sun bore down like flames. The furrows shimmered in the heat like effervescent giant snakes.

I called out, "Mr. Flores." But there was no answer.

I was certain that he was hiding behind one of the trees, and I crossed the field in a run.

"Watch those bare feet!" warned a voice coming from above me.

Startled, I looked up, straight into Mr. Flores' upside-down face. He was hanging from a branch, dangling from his legs.

He admonished sternly, "It is dangerous and utterly foolish to run about without shoes." He swung back and forth like a trapeze artist.

"This place is infested with rattlesnakes. You had better join me up here. It is safe and cool."

Knowing that the branches were far too high to reach, I nonetheless held up my arms with childish trust.

Before I realized what he intended to do, Mr. Flores had grabbed my wrists and whisked me up into the tree with no more effort than if I had been a rag doll.

Dazzled, I sat beside him staring at the rustling leaves that glimmered in the sunlight like slivers of gold.

"Do you hear what the wind is telling you?" Mr. Flores asked after a long silence.

He moved his head this way and that so I could fully appreciate the astounding manner in which he wiggled his ears.

I exclaimed in a whisper, "Zamurito!," as memories flooded my mind.

'Zamurito', little buzzard, was the nickname of my childhood friend from Venezuela.

Mr. Flores had the same delicate, birdlike features, jet-black hair, and mustard-colored eyes.

And most astounding, Mr. Flores, like Zamurito, could wiggle his ears one at a time or both together.

I told Mr. Flores about my friend, whom I had known since kindergarten.

In the second grade, we had shared a desk.

Instead of eating our lunch at the school grounds, during the long midday recess we used to sneak outside, and climb to the top of a nearby hill to eat in the shade of what we believed was the largest mango tree in the world.

Its lowest branches touched the ground and its highest swept the clouds. In the fruit season, we used to gorge ourselves on mangoes.

The hilltop was our favorite place until the day we found the body of the school janitor hanging from a high branch.

Neither of us wanted to lose face in front of the other, so we did not dare to move or to cry.

We did not climb up the branches that day but tried to eat our lunch on the ground, practically under the dead man, wondering which of us would break down first.

Zamurito asked me in a whisper, "Have you ever thought of dying?"

I looked up at the hanged man, and at that same instant the wind rustled through the branches with an unfamiliar insistence.

In the rustle I had distinctly heard the dead man whispering to me that death was soothing.

It was so uncanny that I got up, and ran away screaming; indifferent to what Zamurito might have thought of me.

"The wind made those branches and leaves speak to you," Mr. Flores said as I finished my story.

His voice was soft and low. His golden eyes shone with a feverish light as he went on to explain that at the moment of his death, in one instantaneous flash, the old janitor's memories, feelings, and emotions were released and absorbed by the mango tree.

Mr. Flores repeated, "The wind made those branches and leaves speak to you; for the wind is yours by right."

Dreamily, he glanced through the leaves, his eyes searching beyond the field stretching away in the sun.

"Being a woman enables you to command the wind," he went on. "Women do not know it, but they can have a dialogue with the wind any time."

I shook my head uncomprehendingly, and my tone betrayed my mounting unease as I said, "I really do not know what you are talking about.

"This is like a dream. If it were not that it goes on and on, I would swear this is one of my nightmares."

His prolonged silence annoyed me, and I could feel my face flush with irritation.

I pondered aloud to myself, "What am I doing here; sitting in a tree with a crazy old man?"

I was apprehensive that I may have offended him, so I opted for apologizing for my bluntness.

Then Mr. Flores admitted, "I realize that my words do not make much sense to you. That is because there is too much crust on you. It prevents you from hearing what the wind has to say."

Puzzled, I asked suspiciously, "Too much crust? Do you mean that I am dirty?"

He said, "That, too," and I blushed.

He smiled, and repeated that I was enveloped by too thick a crust and that this crust could not be washed away with soap and water, regardless of how many baths I took.

He explained, "You are filled with judgments, and they prevent you from understanding what I am telling you; that the wind is yours to command."

He regarded me with narrowed, critical eyes.

"Well?" he demanded impatiently. Before I knew what was happening he had taken hold of my hands and in one swift, fluid motion had swung me around and gently dropped me to the ground.

I thought I saw his arms and legs stretch like rubber bands. It was a fleeting image, which I immediately explained to myself as a perceptual distortion caused by the heat.

I did not dwell upon it, for at that precise moment I was distracted by the sight of Delia Flores and her friends spreading a large canvas cloth under the next tree.

I was baffled that I had failed to see or hear the group approach, and I asked Delia, "When did you get here?"

Delia said, "We are going to have a picnic in your honor."

And one of the women added, "Because you joined us today."

I had failed to see who had spoken, and ill at ease I asked them, "How did I join you?"

I gazed from one to the other, expecting one of them to explain the statement.

Indifferent to my growing unease, the women busied themselves with the canvas cloth, making sure it was spread out smoothly.

The longer I watched them, the more concerned I became. It was all so strange to me.

I could easily explain why I had accepted Delia's invitation to see a healer, but I could not at all understand my subsequent actions.

It was as if someone else had taken over my rational faculties, and was making me stay there and react and say things I did not mean to.

And now they were going to have a celebration in my honor. It was disconcerting to say the least.

No matter how hard I thought about it, I could not figure out what I was doing there.

My Germanic upbringing got the better of me, and I mumbled, "I certainly have not merited any of this. People do not just do things for others for the hell of it."

Only upon hearing Mariano Aureliano's exuberant laughter did I realize that all of them were staring at me.

As he tapped me on the shoulder, Mariano Aureliano said, "There is no reason to ponder so heavily what is happening to you today. We are having a picnic because we like to do things on the spur of the moment.

"And since you have been healed by Esperanza today, my friends here like to say the picnic is in your honor."

He spoke casually, almost indifferently, as if he were talking of some trifling matter.

Yet his eyes said something else.

They were hard and serious as though it were vital I listen to him carefully.

He continued, "It is a joy for my friends to say that the picnic is in your honor. Accept it, just as they say it; in simplicity and without premeditation."

His eyes became soft as he gazed at the women, then he turned to me and added, "The picnic is not in your honor at all, I assure you.

"And yet," he mused, "it is in your honor.

"It is a contradiction that will take you quite some time to understand."

I became inordinately ponderous the way I always had when threatened. Sullenly I said, "I did not ask anyone to do anything for me.

"Delia brought me here, and I am thankful." I then felt compelled to add, "And I would like to pay for any services rendered to me."

I was certain I had offended them, and I knew that any minute now I would be asked to leave. Other than hurting my ego, it would not have bothered me much.

I was frightened, and I had had enough of them.

To my surprise and annoyance, they did not take me seriously.

They laughed at me. But the angrier I became, the greater was their mirth.

Their shiny, laughing eyes were fixed on me, as if I were an unknown organism.

Wrath made me forget my fear. I lashed out at them, accusing them of taking me for a fool.

For some reason, I insisted on pairing Delia together with Mr. Flores. I accused Delia and her husband of having played a disgusting joke on me.

I turned to Delia and said, "You brought me here, so you and your friends can use me as your clown."

The more I ranted, the more they laughed.

I was about to weep with self-pity, anger, and frustration when Mariano Aureliano came to stand beside me.

He began to talk to me as if I were a child.

I wanted to tell him that I could take care of myself, that I did not need his sympathy, and that I was going home.

But something in his tone and in his eyes appeased me so thoroughly that I was certain he had hypnotized me as he spoke.

And yet, I knew he had not.

What was so unknown and disturbing to me was the suddenness and completeness of my change. What would have ordinarily taken days had happened in an instant.

All my life I had indulged in brooding over every indignity or affront I had suffered whether real or imagined. With systematic thoroughness, I would mull them over until every detail was explained to my satisfaction.

As I now looked at Mariano Aureliano, I felt like laughing at my earlier outburst.

I could hardly remember what it was that had infuriated me to the point of tears.

Delia pulled me by the arm and asked me to help the other women.

As we unpacked the china plates, crystal goblets, and ornate silverware from the various baskets they had brought, the women did not talk to me or to each other.

And only little sighs of pleasure escaped their lips as Mariano Aureliano opened the serving dishes.

There were tamales, enchiladas, a hot chili stew, and hand-made tortillas. These were not flour tortillas as was customary in northern Mexico, and which I did not much care for, but were corn tortillas.

Delia handed me a plate with a little bit of everything on it.

I ate so greedily I was finished before anyone else. I gushed, hoping for seconds, "This is the most delicious food I have ever tasted."

No one offered them, so to hide my disappointment, I commented on the beauty of the antique lace trim around the canvas cloth we were sitting on.

The woman sitting at Mariano Aureliano's left said, "I did that."

She was old-looking, with disheveled gray hair that hid her face. In spite of the heat, she wore a long skirt, a blouse, and a sweater.

"It is authentic Belgian lace," she explained to me in a gentle, dreamy voice. Her long slender hands, glinting with exquisite jeweled rings, lingered lovingly on the broad trim.

In great detail, she told me about her handiwork, showing me the kinds of stitches and threads she had used to sew on the trim.

Occasionally, I caught a fleeting glimpse of her face through all that mass of hair, but I could not tell what she looked like.

She repeated, "It is authentic Belgian lace. It is part of my trousseau."

She picked up a crystal goblet, took a sip of water and added, "These, too, are part of my trousseau. They are Baccarat."

I did not doubt that they were.

The lovely plates were of the finest porcelain, though each one was different.

I was wondering whether a discreet peek under mine would pass unnoticed, when the woman sitting to Mariano Aureliano's right encouraged me to do so.

She urged me, saying, "Do not be shy. Take a look. You are among friends."

Grinning, she lifted her own plate. "Limoges," she pronounced, then lifted mine briefly and noted that it was a Rosenthal.

This woman had childlike, delicate features. She was small, with round, thickly lashed black eyes. Her hair was black, except for the crown of her head, which had turned white, and was combed back into a tight little chignon.

There was a force and an edge to her that was quite chilling as she then besieged me with direct, personal questions.

But I did not mind her inquisitor's tone since I was accustomed to having been bombarded with questions by my father and brothers when I went on a date; or when I embarked on any kind of activity on my own.

I had resented that, but this had been the norm for my interactions at home. As a result, I never learned how to converse.

Conversation for me was parrying verbal attacks, and defending myself at any cost.

I was surprised when this woman's coercive interrogation did not immediately make me feel like defending myself.

But then she asked, "Are you married?"

I wished that she would change the subject as I softly but firmly said, "No."

She insisted, "Do you have a man?"

I was beginning to feel the stirring of my old defensive self as I retorted, "No. I do not."

She went on, "Is there a type of man you are partial to? Are there any personality traits you prefer in a man?"

For an instant I wondered whether she was making fun of me, but she seemed to be genuinely interested, as did her companions.

Their curious, anticipating faces put me at ease, and so I forgot my belligerent nature; and forgot that these women might be old enough to be my grandmothers.

I spoke to them as if they were friends of my age, and we were discussing men.

I began, "He has to be tall and handsome. He has to have a sense of humor. He has to be sensitive without being wishy-washy. He has to be intelligent without being an intellectual."

I lowered my voice and in a confidential tone added, "My father used to say that intellectual men are weak to the core, and traitors; all of them. I think I agree with my father."

The woman inquired, "Is that all you want in a man?"

I hastened to say, "No. Above all, the man of my dreams has to be athletic."

One of the other women interjected, "Like your father."

I responded defensively, saying, "Naturally.

"My father was a great athlete; a fabulous skier and swimmer."

The first woman asked, "Do you get along with him?"

I enthused, "Marvelously.

"I adore him. Just the thought of him brings tears to my eyes."

She inquired, "Why are you not with him?"

I explained, "I am too much like him. There is something in me that I can not quite understand nor control which pulls me away."

"What about your mother?"

I sighed, "My mother."

I paused for a moment to find the best words to describe her.

I said, "She is very strong. She is the sober part in me. The part that is silent and does not need reinforcement."

"Are you very close to your parents?"

I said softly, ""In spirit, I am. In practice, I am a loner. I do not have many attachments."

Then, as if something inside me was pushing to come out, I revealed a personality flaw that not even in my most introspective moments would I have admitted to myself.

I said, "I use people rather than nourish or cherish them."

But then I immediately amended that statement by saying, "But I am quite capable of feeling affection."

I gazed from one person to the other, first with a mixture of relief, and then with disappointment as I saw none of them seemed to attach any importance to my confession.

One of the women went on to ask me if I would describe myself as a courageous being or as a coward.

I stated, "I am a confirmed coward. But unfortunately my cowardice never stops me."

The woman who had first questioned me inquired, "Stops you from what?"

Her black eyes were serious, and the wide span of her brows, like a line drawn with a piece of charcoal, was concentrated in a frown.

I said, "From doing dangerous things."

I was pleased to notice that they seemed to be hanging on my every word as I explained that another one of my serious flaws was my great facility to get into trouble.

The first woman's face, which had been grave all this time, broke into a brilliant, almost malicious smile as she asked, "What trouble have you gotten into that you can tell us about?"

"How about the trouble I am in now?" I said half in jest, yet fearing that they might take my comment the wrong way.

To my surprise and relief they all laughed and yelled the way rural people are wont to do when something strikes them as daring or funny.

When they had all calmed down the first woman asked, "How did you end up in the United States?"

I shrugged, not really knowing what to say. I finally mumbled, "I wanted to go to school. I was in England first, but I did not do much except have a good time.

"I really do not know what I want to study. I think I am in search of something, although I do not know exactly what."

"That brings us back to my first question," the woman said.

Her thin, pert face and her dark eyes were animated and peering like an animal's as she asked, "Are you in search of a man?"

I admitted, "I suppose I am," but then I added impatiently, "What woman is not?

"And why do you ask me so insistently about it? Do you have someone in mind? Is this some kind of a test?"

"We do have someone in mind," Delia Flores interjected. "But he is not a man." She and the others laughed and shrieked with such abandon I could not help but giggle, too.

"This is definitely a test," the first woman assured me as soon as everyone was quiet.

She was silent for a moment; her eyes watchful and considering. Then she continued, "From what you told me, I can conclude that you are thoroughly middle class."

She flung her arms wide in a gesture of forced acceptance, and said, "But then, what else can a German woman, born in the New World, be?"

She saw the anger in my face and, with a barely suppressed grin on her lips she added, "Middle-class people have middle-class dreams."

Seeing that I was about to explode, Mariano Aureliano explained that she was asking all these questions because they were simply curious about me. Only seldom did they have visitors and hardly ever any young ones.

I complained, "That does not mean that I have to be insulted."

As though I had not said anything, Mariano Aureliano continued to make excuses for the women.

His gentle tone and his reassuring pat on my back melted my anger, just as it had before.

His smile was so touchingly angelic I did not for a moment doubt his sincerity when he then began to flatter me.

He said that I was one of the most extraordinary and remarkable persons they had ever met.

I was so moved that I encouraged him to ask anything he wanted to know about me.

He inquired, "Do you feel important?"

I nodded and stated, "All of us are very important to ourselves. Yes, I think I am important, not in a general sense, but specifically, just to myself."

At great length I talked about a positive self-image, self-worth, and how vital it was to reinforce our importance in order to be psychically healthy individuals.

"And what do you think about women?" he asked. "Do you think they are more or less important than men?"

"It is quite obvious that men are more important," I said. "Women do not have a choice. They have to be less important in order for family life to roll on smooth wheels, so to speak."

"But is it right?" Mariano Aureliano insisted.

I declared, "Well, of course, it is right. Men are inherently superior. That is why they run the world.

"I have been brought up by an authoritarian father, who, although he raised me as freely as my brothers, nevertheless let me know that certain things are not so important for a woman.

"That is why I do not know what I am doing in school or what I want in life."

I looked at Mariano Aureliano, then in a helpless, defeated tone I added, "I suppose I am looking for a man who is as sure of himself as my father."

One of the women interjected, "She is a simpleton!"

Mariano Aureliano assured everyone, "No. No, she is not. She is just confused, and as opinionated as her father."

Mr. Flores descended from the tree like a leaf, softly and without a sound.

He then stressed the word 'German' as he corrected Mariano Aureliano emphatically, saying, "Her 'German' father."

Mr. Flores served himself an immoderate amount of food.

Mariano Aureliano agreed and grinned. "How right you are.

"Being as opinionated as her German father, she is simply repeating what she has heard all her life."

My anger, which rose and fell like some mysterious fever, was not only due to what they were saying about me, but also because they were talking about me as if I were not present.

"She is unredeemable," another woman said.

Mariano Aureliano defended me with conviction, saying, "She is fine for the purpose at hand."

Mr. Flores backed Mariano Aureliano.

Then the only woman who had not spoken so far said in a deep, husky voice that she agreed with the men; that I was fine for the purposes at hand.

She was tall and slender. Her pale-complexioned face was gaunt and severe, was crowned by braided white hair, and was highlighted by large, luminous eyes.

In spite of her worn, drab clothes, there was something innately elegant about her.

Unable to contain myself any longer, I shouted, "What are you all doing to me? Do you not realize how horrible it is for me to hear you talk about me as if I were not here?"

Mariano Aureliano fixed his fierce eyes on me, and in a tone that was devoid of all feeling, he said, "You are not here. At least not yet.

"And most important, you do not count. Not now or ever."

I almost fainted with wrath. No one had ever spoken to me so harshly and with such indifference to my feelings.

I yelled, "I puke and piss and shit on all of you, goddamned, cocksucking farts!"

Mariano Aureliano exclaimed, "My God! A German hick!" and they all laughed.

I was about to jump up and stomp away when Mariano Aureliano tapped me repeatedly on my back.

"There, there," he murmured as if burping a baby.

And as before, instead of resenting being treated like a child, my anger vanished. I felt light and happy.

Shaking my head uncomprehendingly, I looked at them, giggled, and said, "I learned to speak Spanish in the streets of Caracas with the riffraff. I can cuss horribly."

Delia asked, "Did you not just love the sweet tamales?" She closed her eyes in delicate appreciation.

Her question seemed to be a password, and the interrogation was over.

Mr. Flores responded for me, "Of course she did! She only wishes she had been served more. She has an insatiable appetite."

He came to sit beside me then said, "Mariano Aureliano outdid himself and cooked a delight."

I asked in disbelief, "You mean he cooked the food? He has all these women, and he cooks?"

Mortified by how my words might be interpreted, I hastened to apologize. I explained that it surprised me to no end that a Mexican male would cook at home when there were women.

Their laughter made me realize that I had not meant to say that either.

Mr. Flores, with his words interspersed by everybody's laughter, asked, "Especially if the women are his women. Is that not what you meant?"

He continued, "You are quite right in that they are Mariano's women. Or to be more precise, Mariano belongs to them."

He slapped his knee gleefully, then turned to the tallest of the women, the one who had only spoken once, and said, "Would you tell her about us."

I was still mortified by my gaffe as I said, "Obviously, Mr. Aureliano does not have that many wives."

The woman retorted, "Why not?"

Everyone laughed again. It was a joyful, youthful laughter, yet it did not put me at ease.

She said, "All of us here are bound together by our struggle, by our deep affection for one another, and by the realization that without one another nothing is possible."

I, in a voice that betrayed my growing apprehension, asked, "You are not part of a religious group, are you? You do not belong to some kind of a commune, do you?"

The woman replied, "We belong to power. My companions and I are the inheritors of an ancient tradition. We are part of a myth."

I did not understand what she was saying.

I glanced uneasily at the others. Their eyes were fixed on me and they watched me with a mixture of expectation and amusement.

I shifted my attention back to the tall woman. She, too, was observing me with that same bemused expression. Her eyes were so shiny they sparkled.

She leaned over her crystal goblet, and daintily sipped her water.

She explained softly, "We are essentially dreamers. We are all dreaming now, and by the fact that you were brought to us, you are also dreaming with us."

She said that so smoothly that I really did not realize what she had said.

I asked in mock incredulity, "You mean I am sleeping and having a dream with you?" I bit my lip to suppress the laughter bubbling up within me.

She admitted, "That is not exactly what you are doing, but it is close enough."

Unperturbed by my nervous giggles, she went on to explain that what was happening to me was more like an extraordinary dream where all of them were helping me by dreaming my dream.

I started to say, "But that is idio...," but she silenced me with a wave of her hand.

She assured me, "We are all dreaming the same dream."

She seemed to be transported by a joy that I was at a loss to understand.

I looked for the chili sauce that had dribbled on my blouse as I asked, "What about the delicious food I just ate?"

I showed her the spots, and in a loud, agitated tone I insisted "That can not be a dream. I ate that food! I did! I ate it myself."

She regarded me with a cool composure, as though she had been expecting just such an outburst. She asked equably, "But what about Mr. Flores lifting you up to the top of the eucalyptus tree?"

I was on the verge of telling her that he had not lifted me to the top of the tree, but only to a branch, when she whispered, "Have you thought about that?"

I snappishly said, "No. I have not."

"Of course, you have not," she agreed, nodding her head knowingly as if she were aware that I had only that instant remembered that even the lowest branch of any of the trees around us was impossible to reach from the ground.

She said then that the reason I had not thought about it was because in dreams we are not rational. She then stressed, "In dreams we can only act."

I interrupted her, saying, "Wait a minute. I may be a little dizzy, I admit. After all, you and your friends are the strangest people I have ever met. But I am as awake as I can be."

Seeing that she was laughing at me, I yelled, "This is not a dream!"

With an imperceptible nod of her head she motioned to Mr. Flores, who in one swift movement reached for my hand and propelled himself, with me in tow, to a branch of the nearest eucalyptus tree.

We sat there for an instant, and before I could say anything, he pulled me back to the ground, to the same spot where we had been sitting.

The tall woman asked, "Do you see what I mean?"

"No, I do not," I screamed, knowing that I had had a hallucination.

My fear turned to rage, and I let out a stream of the foulest imprecations.

My rage spent, I was engulfed by a wave of self-pity, and I began to weep. In between sobs I asked, "What have you people done to me? Have you put something in the food? In the water?"

The tall woman said kindly, "We have done nothing of the sort. You do not need anything..."

But I could barely hear her. My tears were like some dark, gauzy veil that blurred her face and also her words.

Although I could no longer see her or her companions, I heard her say, "Hold on. Hold on. Do not wake up yet."

There was something so compelling about her tone that I knew that my very life depended on seeing her again.

I broke through the veil of my tears with some unknown and totally unexpected force.

I heard a soft clapping sound, and then I saw them. They were smiling, and their eyes shone so intensely their pupils seemed to be lit by some inner fire.

I apologized first to the women, and then to the two men for my silly outburst; but they would not hear of it.

They said that I had performed exceptionally well.

Mariano Aureliano said, "We are the living parts of a myth."

He puckered his lips, blew into the air, and said, "I will blow you to the the person who now holds the myth in his hands. He will help you clarify all this."

I asked flippantly, "And who might he be?"

I was going to ask whether he would be as opinionated as my father, but I was distracted by Mariano Aureliano.

He was still blowing into the air. His white hair stood on end, and his cheeks were red and distended.

As if in answer to his effort, a soft breeze began to rustle through the eucalyptus trees.

He nodded, apparently aware of my unspoken thought and confusion.

Gently, he turned me until I faced the Bacatete Mountains.

The breeze turned into a wind; a wind so harsh and cold it hurt to breathe.

With a seemingly boneless, uncoiling movement, the tall woman rose, grabbed my hand, and pulled me with her across the ploughed furrows.

We came to a sudden halt in the middle of the field.

I could have sworn that with her outstretched arms she was luring a spiral of dust and dead leaves spinning in the distance.

She whispered, "In dreams, everything is possible."

Laughing, I opened my arms to beckon the wind.

Dust and leaves danced around us with such force that everything blurred before my eyes.

Suddenly, the tall woman was far away. Her body seemed to be dissolving in a reddish light until it completely vanished from my field of vision.

And then blackness filled my head.