Читать «Карлос Кастанеда, книги 1-11 (на английском языке)» онлайн - страница 1724

"Not until you are capable of taking orders from a woman without detriment to your being will you be complete," don Juan had said. "But that woman cannot be any woman. It must be somebody special, somebody who has power, and a quality of ruthlessness that will not allow you to be the man-in-charge that you fancy yourself to be."

Of course, I laughed off his statements. I thought he was definitely joking. The truth of the matter was that he wasn't joking at all. One day, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar returned, and we went to Mexico. We went to a department store in the city of Guadalajara, and there, we found Florinda Matus, the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen: extremely tall - five feet eleven, lean, angular, with a beautiful face, old, and yet very young.

"Ah! There you are!" she exclaimed, when she saw us. "The Three Musketeers! The Pep Boys - Eenie, Meenie and Mo! I've been looking for you all over!"

And without any more to say, she took over. Florinda Donner-Grau, of course, was delighted beyond measure. Taisha Abelar was extremely reserved, as usual, and I was mortified, almost furious. I knew that the arrangement was not going to work. I was ready to clash with this woman the first time she opened her daring mouth and came up with shit like "Eenie, Meenie and Mo - the Pep Boys."

Unsuspected things that I had in reserve, however, came to my aid, and prevented me from any reaction of wrath or annoyance, and I got along with Florinda superbly, better than I could have dreamed. She ruled us with an iron hand. She was the undisputed queen of our lives. She had the power, the detachment, to carry out her job of tuning us in the most subtle way. She didn't allow us to drown in self-pity or complaining if something was not quite to our liking. She was not at all like don Juan. She lacked his sobriety, but she had another quality that balanced her lack: she was as fast as anything could be. One glance was sufficient for her to comprehend an entire situation, and to act instantaneously in accordance with what was expected of her.

One of her favorite ploys, which I enjoyed immensely, was to formally ask an audience, or a group of people she was talking to, "Does anyone here know anything about the pressure and displacement of gases?" She would ask such a question in true seriousness. And when the audience responded, "No, no, we don't," she would say, "Then, I could say anything I want, true?!" - and indeed she would go ahead and say anything she wanted. She would actually sometimes say such ridiculous things that I would fall on the floor laughing.

Her other classical question was, "Does anyone here know anything about the retina of chimpanzees? No?" - and Florinda would say barbarities about the retina of chimpanzees. Never in my life had I enjoyed my time more thoroughly. I was her admirer and unbiased follower.

I once had a fistula by the crest of the bone of my hip, a product of a fall that I had taken years before into a ravine filled with cactus needles. There had been seventy-five needles stuck in my body. One of them either hadn't come out completely or had left a residue of dirt or debris that years later produced a fistula.