The Second Ring of Power (4 page)

She did not answer; instead she banged on the door furiously and I
banged back even harder.
We went on hitting the door for a few
minutes. She stopped and started begging me to open it. I
had
a surge of nervous energy. I knew that if I opened the door I might have a
chance to flee. I moved the iron bar from the door. She staggered in. Her
blouse was torn. The band that held her
hair had fallen
off and her long hair was all over her face.

"Look what that son of a bitch dog did to me!" she yelled.
"Look! Look!"

I took a deep breath. She seemed to be somewhat dazed. She sat down on
a bench and began to take off her tattered blouse. I seized that moment to run
out of the house and make a dash for the car. With a speed that was born only
out of fear, I got inside, shut the door, automatically turned on the motor and
put the car in reverse. I stepped on the gas and turned my head to look back
through the rear window. As I turned I felt a hot breath on my face; I heard a
horrendous
growl and saw in a flash the demoniacal eyes of the dog.
He was standing on the back seat. I saw his horrible teeth almost in my eyes. I
ducked my head. His teeth grabbed my hair. I must have
curled my
whole body on the seat, and in doing so I let my foot off the clutch. The jerk
of the car
made the beast lose his balance. I opened the door and
scrambled out. The head of the dog jutted
out through
the door. I heard his enormous teeth click as his jaws closed tight, missing my
heels
by a few inches. The car began to roll back and I made
another dash for the house.

I stopped before I had reached the door.

Dona Soledad was standing there. She had tied her hair up again. She
had thrown a shawl over
her shoulders. She stared at me for a
moment and then began to laugh, very softly at first as if her
wounds hurt her, and then
loudly. She pointed a finger at me and held her stomach as she
convulsed with laughter. She bent over and
stretched, seemingly to catch her breath. She was
naked above the waist. I could see her breasts,
shaking with the convulsions of her laughter.

I felt that all was lost. I looked back toward the car. It had come to
a stop after rolling four or
five feet; the door had closed again,
sealing the dog inside. I could see and hear the enormous
beast
biting the back of the front seat and pawing the windows.

A most peculiar decision faced me at that moment. I did not know who
scared me the most,
dona Soledad or the dog. After a moment's thought I decided that the dog was
just a stupid beast.

I ran back to the car and climbed up on the roof. The noise enraged the
dog. I heard him
ripping the upholstery. Lying on the roof I managed
to open the driver's door. My idea was to
open both
doors and then slide from the roof into the car, through one of them, after the
dog had gone out the other one. I leaned over to open the right door. I had
forgotten that it was locked. At
that moment the dog's head came out
through the opened door. I had an attack of blind panic at
the
idea that the dog was going to jump out of the car and onto the roof.

In less than a second I had leaped to the ground and found myself
standing at the door of the
house.

Dona Soledad was bracing herself in the doorway. Laughter came out of
her in spurts that
seemed almost painful.

The dog had remained inside the car, still frothing with rage.
Apparently he was too large and could not squeeze his bulky frame over the
front seat. I went to the car and gently closed the door
again.
I began to look for a stick long enough to release the safety lock on the
right-hand door.

I searched in the area in front of the house. There was not a single
piece of wood lying around.
Dona Soledad, in the meantime, had gone
inside. I assessed my situation. I had no other
alternative but
to ask her help. With great trepidation, I crossed the threshold, looking in
every direction in case she might have been hiding behind the door, waiting for
me.

"Dona Soledad!" I yelled out.

"What the hell do you want?" she yelled back from her room.

"Would you please go out and get your dog out of my car?" I
said.

"Are you kidding?" she replied. "That's not my dog. I've
told you already, he belongs to my
girls."

"Where are your girls?" I asked.

"They are in the mountains," she replied.

She came out of her room and faced me.

"Do you want to see what that goddamned dog did to me?" she
asked in a dry tone. "Look!"
She unwrapped
her shawl and showed me her naked back.

I found no visible tooth marks on her back; there were only a few long,
superficial scratches
she might have gotten by rubbing
against the hard ground. For all that matter, she could have
scratched
herself when she attacked me.

"You have nothing there," I said.

"Come and look in the light," she said and went over by the
door.

She insisted that I look carefully for the gashes of the dog's teeth. I
felt stupid. I had a heavy sensation around my eyes, especially on my brow. I
went outside instead. The dog had not moved
and began to
bark as soon as I came out the door.

I cursed myself. There was no one to blame but me. I had walked into
that trap like a fool. I
resolved right then to walk to town.
But my wallet, my papers, everything I had was in my
briefcase on
the floor of the car, right under the dog's feet. I had an attack of despair.
It was
useless to walk to town. I did not have enough money in
my pockets even to buy a cup of coffee.
Besides, I did
not know a soul in town. I had no other alternative but to get the dog out of
the car.

"What kind of food does that dog eat?" I yelled from the door.

"Why don't you try your leg?" dona Soledad yelled back from
her room, and cackled.

I looked for some cooked food in the house. The pots were empty. There
was nothing else for
me to do but to confront her again. My
despair had turned into rage. I stormed into her room
ready for a
fight to the death. She was lying on her bed, covered with her shawl.

"Please forgive me for having done all those things to you,"
she said bluntly, looking at the
ceiling.

Her boldness stopped my rage.

"You must understand my position," she went on. "I
couldn't let you go."

She laughed softly, and in a clear, calm and very pleasing voice said
that she was guilty of
being greedy and clumsy, that she had
nearly succeeded in scaring me away with her antics, but
that
the situation had suddenly changed. She paused and sat up in her bed, covering
her breasts
with her shawl, then added that a strange confidence had
descended into her body. She looked up at the ceiling and moved her arms in a
weird, rhythmical flow, like a windmill.

"There is no way for you to leave now," she said.

She scrutinized me without laughing. My internal rage had subsided but
my despair was more
acute than ever. I honestly knew that in matters
of sheer strength I was no match for her or the
dog.

She said that our appointment had been set up years in advance, and that
neither of us had enough power to hurry it, or break it.

"Don't knock yourself out trying to leave," she said.
"That's as useless as my trying to keep
you here.
Something besides your will will release you from here, and something besides
my will
will keep you here."

Somehow her confidence had not only mellowed her, but had given her a
great command over
words. Her statements were compelling and crystal
clear. Don Juan had always said that I was a
trusting soul
when it came to words. As she talked I found myself thinking that she was not
really
as threatening as I thought. She no longer projected the
feeling of having a chip on her shoulder. My reason was almost at ease but
another part of me was not. All the muscles of my body were
like
tense wires, and yet I had to admit to myself that although she scared me out
of my wits I
found her most appealing. She watched me.

"I'll show you how useless it is to try to leave," she said,
jumping out of bed. "I'm going to
help you. What
do you need?"

She observed me with a gleam in her eyes. Her small white teeth gave her
smile a devilish
touch. Her chubby face was strangely smooth and fairly
free of wrinkles. Two deep lines running
from the sides
of her nose to the corners of her mouth gave her face the appearance of
maturity,
but not age. In standing up from the bed she casually
let her shawl fall straight down, uncovering
her full breasts.
She did not bother to cover herself. Instead she swelled up her chest and
lifted her
breasts.

"Oh, you've noticed, eh?" she said, and rocked her body from
side to side as if pleased with
herself. "I always keep my hair
tied behind my head. The Nagual told me to do so. The pull
makes
my face younger."

I had been sure that she was going to talk about her breasts. Her shift
was a surprise to me.

"I don't mean that the pull on my hair is going to make me look
younger," she went on with a
charming smile. "The pull
on my hair makes me younger."

"How is that possible?" I asked.

She answered me with a question. She wanted to know if I had correctly
understood don Juan when he said that anything was possible if one wants it
with unbending intent. I was after a more
precise
explanation. I wanted to know what else she did besides tying her hair, in
order to look so
young. She said that she lay in her bed and emptied
herself of any thoughts and feelings and then let the lines of her floor pull
her wrinkles away. I pressed her for more details: any feelings,

sensations, perceptions that she had experienced while lying on her
bed. She insisted that she felt
nothing, that she did not know how the
lines in her floor worked, and that she only knew not to
let
her thoughts interfere.

She placed her hands on my chest and shoved me very gently. It seemed to
be a gesture to
show that she had had enough of my questions. We
walked outside, through the back door. I told
her that I
needed a long stick. She went directly to a pile of firewood, but there were no
long
sticks. I asked her if she could get me a couple of nails
in order to join together two pieces of
firewood. We looked unsuccessfully
all over the house for nails. As a final resort I had to
dislodge the longest stick I could find in the
chicken coop that Pablito had built in the back. The stick, although it was a
bit flimsy, seemed suited for my purpose.

Dona Soledad had not smiled or joked during our search. She seemed to be
utterly absorbed in
her task of helping me. Her concentration was so
intense that I had the feeling she was wishing
me to succeed.

I walked to my car, armed with the long stick and a shorter one from the
pile of firewood.
Dona Soledad stood by the front door.

I began to tease the dog with the short stick in my right hand and at
the same time I tried to
release the safety lock with the long one in my other hand. The dog nearly bit
my right hand and
made me drop the short stick. The rage and power of the enormous beast were so
immense that I
nearly lost the long one too. The dog was about to
bite it in two when dona Soledad came to my
aid; pounding
on the back window she drew the dog's attention and he let go of it.

Encouraged by her distracting maneuver I dove, headfirst, and slid
across the length of the
front seat and managed to release the
safety lock. I tried to pull back immediately, but the dog
charged
toward me with all his might and actually thrust his massive shoulders and
front paws
over the front seat, before I had time to back out. I
felt his paws on my shoulder. I cringed. I knew
that he was
going to maul me. The dog lowered his head to go in for the kill, but instead
of biting
me he hit the steering wheel. I curried out and in one
move climbed over the hood and onto the
roof. I had
goose bumps all over my body.

I opened the right-hand door. I asked dona Soledad to hand me the long
stick and with it I
pushed the lever to release the backrest from its
straight position. I conceived that if I teased the
dog he would
ram it forward, allowing himself room to get out of the car. But he did not
move. He bit furiously on the stick instead.