Black stone on a white stone (an excerpt)
César Vallejo
I will die in Paris while it rains
On a day I already remember
I will die in Paris, and I do not run away
Perhaps in the autumn on a Thursday, as it is today
It will be a Thursday, because today,
the Thursday that I write these lines,
My bones feel the turn
And never so much as today, in all my road,
Have I seen myself alone
...
As soon as I arrived at the Yaqui community the Mexican storekeeper told me that he had rented a record player and twenty records from an outfit in San Juan de Raicedo for the fiesta he was planning to give that night in honour of the Virgin of Guadalupe. He’d already told everybody that he’d made all the necessary arrangements through Julio, the traveling salesman who came to the Yaqui settlement twice a month to collect instalments on a layaway plan for cheap articles of clothing, which he had succeeded in selling to some Yaqui Indians.
Julio brought the record player in the early afternoon, and hooked it up to the dynamo that provided electricity for the store. He made sure that it worked, then he turned up the volume to its maximum, reminded the storekeeper not to touch any knobs, and began to sort the twenty records.
– I know how many scratches each of them has
Julio said to the storekeeper
– Tell that to my daughter!
the storekeeper replied
– You’re responsible, not your daughter
– Well just the same, she’s the one who’ll be changing the records
Julio insisted that it didn’t matter to him whether she or anyone else was going to handle the record player, as long as the storekeeper paid for any records that were damaged. The storekeeper began to argue with Julio. Julio’s face became red; he turned from to time to the large group of Yaqui Indians congregated in front of the store, and made signs of despair or frustration by moving his hands or contorting his face in a grimace. Seemingly as a last resort, he demanded a cash deposit.
That precipitated another long argument about what constituted ‘a damaged record’. Julio stated with authority that any broken record must be paid for in full, as if it were new. The storekeeper became angrier and began to pull out his extension cords. He seemed bent on unhooking the record player and cancelling the party. He made it clear to his clients congregated in front of the store that he had tried his best to come to terms with Julio.
For a moment, it seemed that the party was going to fail before it had started.
Blas, the old Yaqui Indian in whose house I was staying made some derogatory comments in a loud voice about the Yaqui’s sad state of affairs, that they couldn’t even celebrate their most revered religious festivity, the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
I wanted to intervene and offer my help, but Blas stopped me. He said that if I were to make the cash deposit, the storekeeper himself would smash the records.
– He’s worse than anybody
he said
– Let him pay the deposit; he bleeds us so why shouldn’t he pay?
After a long discussion in which, oddly enough, everyone present was in favour of Julio, the storekeeper hit upon terms which were mutually agreeable.
He didn’t pay a cash deposit, but accepted responsibility for the records and the record player.
Julio’s motorcycle left a trail of dust as he headed for some of the more remote houses in the locality. Blas said that he was trying to get to his customers before they came to the store and spent all their money buying booze; as he was saying this, a group of Indians emerged from behind the store, Blas looked at them and began to laugh, and so did everyone else there. Blas told me that those Indians were Julio’s customers, and had been hiding behind the store, waiting for him to leave.
The party began early. The storekeeper’s daughter put a record on the turntable, and brought the arm down. There was a terrible high screech and a loud buzz, and then the blasting sound of trumpets and some guitars.
The party consisted of playing the records at full volume. There were four young Mexican men who danced with the storekeeper's two daughters and three other Mexican women. The Yaquis didn’t dance. They watched with apparent delight at every movement the dancers made. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, just watching and gulping down cheap tequila.
I bought individual drinks for everybody I knew. I wanted to avoid any feelings of resentment. I circulated among the numerous Indians and talked to them and then offered them drinks.
My pattern of behaviour worked, until they realised that I wasn’t drinking, at all. That seemed to annoy everyone at once. It was as if collectively they had discovered that I didn’t belong there. The Indians became very gruff, and gave me sly looks. The Mexicans, who were as drunk as the Indians, also realised at the same time that I hadn’t danced, and that appeared to offend them even more.
They became very aggressive. One of them forcibly took me by the arm and dragged me closer to the record player. Another served me a full cup of tequila and wanted me to drink it all in one gulp, to prove that I was a macho. I tried to stall them, and laughed idiotically as if I were actually enjoying the situation.
I said that I would like to dance first and then drink. One of the young men called out the name of a song. The girl in charge of the record player began to search in the pile of records. She seemed to be a little tipsy – although none of the women had openly been drinking – and had trouble fitting the record on the turntable. The young man said that the record she had selected wasn’t a twist.
She fumbled with the pile, trying to find a suitable one, and everyone closed in around her and left me.
That gave me time to run behind the store, away from the lighted area, and out of sight.
I stood about thirty yards away, in the darkness behind some bushes, trying to decide what to do.
I was tired; I thought that it was time to get in my car and go back home. I began to walk to Blas’s house, where my car was parked. I figured that if I drove slowly, no one would notice that I was leaving. The people around the record player were apparently still looking for the record: all I could hear was the high-pitched buzzing of the loudspeaker, but then came the blasting sound of a twist. I laughed out loud, thinking that they’d probably turned to where I’d been, but I’d disappeared.
I saw some dark silhouettes of people walking in the opposite direction, going towards the store. We passed each other and they mumbled buenas noches. I recognised them and spoke to them, and told them it was a great party. Before I came to a sharp bend in the road, I encountered two other people who I didn’t recognise but I greeted them anyway. The blasting of the record player was almost as loud there as it was in front of the store. It was a dark starless night, but the glare from the store lights allowed me to have a fairly good visual perception of my surroundings.
Blas’s house was very near, and I accelerated my pace. I noticed then the dark shape of a person, sitting, or perhaps squatting, to my left at the bend on the road. I thought for an instant that it might be one of the people from the party who had left before I had. The person seemed to be defecating on the side of the road. That seemed odd. People in the community went into the thick bushes to perform their bodily functions. I thought that whoever it was in front of me must have been drunk. I came to the person at the bend and said buenas noches. The person answered me with an eery inhuman howl. The hair on my body literally stood on end. For a second, I was paralyzed, then I began to walk fast. I took a backward glance and I saw that the dark silhouette had stood up half way. It was a woman. She was stooped over, leaning forward. She walked in that position for a few yards, and then she hopped. I began to run, while the woman hopped by my side like a bird, keeping up with my speed. By the time I’d arrived at Blas’s house she was cutting in front of me and we had almost touched.
I leaped across a ditch at the front of the house and crashed through the front door. Blas was already in the house and seemed unconcerned with my story.
– They pulled a good one on you.
he said
– The Indians take delight in teasing foreigners.
An excerpt from Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda
The first house was where Clair lived. The previous tenant - no actual tenancy agreement in the occupants' name because the house was a squat - had moved out, but not before dismantling one wall of his bedroom to use as fuel for the fireplace. That bedroom became open plan, exposed to the stairs on one side, until someone had the good sense to fit a curtain. The interior walls were made of solid wood panels and each room had a small fireplace for coal or logs. It was a classic two-up two-down with a built-on small kitchen and outside toilet beyond the coal shed. It was a perfectly functional and well-made house, in need of some tlc. Sadly it was later demolished, and I think that decision had already been reached at the time I was there. Oxford was moving with the times and this little corner of folklore was to be removed, since land was becoming more valuable in the area and the it had been decided that the terrace lacked sufficient architectural credentials to warrant preservation.
There was a back yard that opened onto a different road, and it was delimited by a tall brick wall. There was a communal friendly spirit in the yard, where Clair had built a shed to house her hand-built wood turning lathe. Clair was an extraordinary woman indeed, who somehow ended up with a man who played the conceited fool before the world. There are forces working through the spirit in these matters.
Clair had built a log store against the boundary wall outside the back door.
There was no electricity but we had running water for the kitchen sink.
I installed an upright piano and later Clair transformed the front sitting room into a workshop, but that was when things were getting out of hand and towards the end of my two-year tenure and our ill-fated union.
The house was lit by two big oil lamps of Clair's, very precious. They were brass lanterns with tall glass chimneys with mantles. They burned naturally very brightly with a warm incandescent and pure light. They were not of the type that requires pressurisation to start. They could simply be lit and gradually the mantle would start to glow white. It might take five minutes before the light started to truly shine. They started from a warm glow.
I have searched for them online but I have never managed to find the same type of lantern.
The second house was the only properly rented one, and was inhabited by council tenants: an elderly and mild mannered lady and her unmarried son, who was friendly and a bit heavy in the weight department. Clair was very fond of them both and I suppose I came to like them too, but I can't remember any interactions.
I suppose they had reason to raise their eyebrows from time to time with some of the things they saw, heard, and nosed in the air.
The third house was where Will and Robbie lived, generally also with a northern man named Scot, made of solid granite but very meek and gentle in his manners. He suffered from nerves. I thought they were all capital fellows and I admired them. They were skilled at squatting and cooking, and had created a very pleasant atmosphere in the house. I think they had an extension lead from the house next door, so a little power was available for lights and music.
Will and Robbie found a punt. It was a fibreglass hull craft that had sunk close to the bank, so we hauled it and bailed it out and eventually it was pretty neat. We could take trips up and down the Cherwell and the Thames whenever we wanted, with bottles of wine, sandwiches, and joints, without paying big money to a boat hire operator for an hour or two on the river.
I suppose it belonged to someone, but perhaps they had forgotten about it, lost it, or plain didn't care. In the summer months you could go up the river, drop in at a pub where they sold duck eggs, and then find some overhanging willows and slide under them in some quiet stretch of water, to watch the world go by and enjoy some smokes and some drinks in a very pleasant setting indeed, especially for young lovers.
The last house was initially a no-go area because a dangerous individual did live there and we were mainly frightened of him. He was supposedly a brazen felon and a heroin addict, though many years later I realised he was probably just a special branch or drug squad agent.
The house became accessible when this man supposedly overdosed and died. It was a shocking thing. Very sobering. Especially since Miranda (Robbie's ex girlfriend) had been living with him for a while. We had no words. No one had liked the man, except Miranda, so we were happy to be rid of him, but we would have preferred a less dramatic end. Death is a powerful spirit when it must be confronted.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
from Meditation 17, John Donne
All the inside walls and doors of that last taller house were painted black. It was smashed up and loveless, but it was bigger than the other houses because it had an extra story. On the top floor a visitor named Rob, who was later a resident, set up a massive Scalextric circuit and his sound system, so we used to race while listening to music. Scalextric cars were far more fun than my train set, which I had when I was a child. He played the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers debut album. It sounded amazing to me back then but it was very easy listening. The music had no depth and I struggled to understand my sense of dissatisfaction. It was feel-good music.
Rob was another good candidate for an undercover agent. He was noticeably and comfortably indifferent to social norms. He was forever smoking grass and hashish, and always financially comfortable. I think he had a car (we all had bikes). When he moved into the house I was sharing with Clair in Cave Street I remember he brought in a big box of pornographic magazines as a gift.
Access to pornography was problematic because it was too embarrassing to go and buy magazines in a corner shop, although some magazines had maintained sufficient editorial content to establish an intellectual than merely libidinous interest in the material. But true hard core porn was never anonymous or concealed.
This created an ethical issue among hippies (we called ourselves "heads") because movies and the general culture were promoting promiscuity and sexual experimentation, and it seemed that open access to pornography was a perfectly healthy and acceptable practice, despite our more traditional upbringings.
The resistance to this idea was essentially zero, because of the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, but a veneer of prudish morality remained so we feigned indifference to the shocking and arousing images we glimpsed on the top shelves of the local newsagent's.
This was the start of the pornography boom that has reached its logical zenith with the Internet and the relative anonymity it allows.
To get to grips with the problem would take a different spirit from our lazy conception of love and liberty. We weren't looking in the mirror except for vanity.
Not in those days.
We practiced monogamy. I mean that was the idea, but I was, and remain, a self-indulgent libertine.
I went to other squats to visit people there. Once there was a party being held in several adjacent apartments in a big block that was partially squatted, with a PA system and bands. It was quite the occasion with drugs circulating freely. This sort of event was likely to attract complaints and, ultimately, the police. I don't remember whether or not they arrived that time, but it's not unlikely
I always preferred not to interact with the police once I had got to know them a little bit, although it always depends on one's position in the world.
In Oxford I spontaneously went to the police station to ask after my friend Robbie, who had became psychotic from one moment to the next, though I might have missed the warning signs.
He (Robbie) started speaking strangely and displaying signs of delusion. Nothing would calm him down. He repeated "black is the colour and none is the number", which I found out later is from Dylan's hard rain classic. He then left the house with the express intention of turning himself in to the police. I don't think he had done anything worse than to smoke cannabis resin, which is what we were all doing, but he had become paranoid.
It wasn't strictly paranoia, because in those days serious criminal charges could be applied to punish possession of even minimal quantities of the plant and its derivatives. We all suffered from paranoia to some extent. In London we feared the vans of the special patrol group or SPG, mentioned in some reggae and punk lyrics from that era.
Robbie was a cultured young man who had dropped out of his mathematics course for philosophical reasons. He appeared shy and retiring but it was a facade I once saw him overpower a feared Glaswegian villain who was threatening us all:
If ya want guns – said the man, named or monikered Jock – I got guns, if ya want ya winders smashed....
He made a list of things that we really didn't want as though he were leafing through a catalogue of products he was selling door to door.
I don't remember what triggered it, but suddenly Robbie, who was sprawled on nearby sofa, leapt upon him and twisted his arm behind his back so he was face down on the cushions and unable to move and scarcely able to even speak.
The scene had a cinematographic quality about it. Almost like a screenplay.
Apart from his Oxford Uni credentials, Robbie had been the long-term partner of lady Miranda., who was the gone-bad daughter of a wealthy clan up north. Her brother was also among our confederates and I counted him a friend, as I did Robbie.
Jock, on the other hand, was a good candidate for an undercover drug squad officer. These men were generally ex military and a very rough bunch of coves. There was nothing in it for him privately or personally to get involved with a few hippies like us. The motive was a claimed (inexistent) offence perpetrated by Miranda's brother (in hiding) on Jock's acquaintance, also present - a sturdy looking man at least 10 yeas older than my friends and I, tall enough and rugged, but wasted on heroin.
Looking back, Robbie's athletic skilled execution of a classic police tackle and immobilisation manoeuvre seems at odds with the typical skillset of a lethargic drug-addled Oxford undergraduate.
When I reached the central police station to inquire whether Robbie had been "handed in", I was told to speak to a drug squad officer on the second floor.
The headquarters was an historic building with wood panelling and tiled floors. I entered a large office with a single central desk and a few chairs. There seemed to be no one around on that floor and I was alone with this plain clothes officer in the room. After a couple of introductory remarks he made it clear to me that it was in his power to "rough me up" or to arrange the matter, and to detain me in a cell should I failed to answer his questions to his satisfaction. It was intimidating and unwarranted. I had attended voluntarily to inquire after a friend. I was not accused of any crime. He also suggested, apropros of nothing, that I was a sexual deviant and that I had better leave his children alone, or else. I suppose that this would have been a classic jibe because of the hippie's long-hair code to which I adhered faithfully, lacking any originality in the matter of style.
I saw that I was facing a common or garden bully. I had met these fellows in school and I didn't like them at all. I answered to the best of my ability.
He was convinced that Robbie had been experimenting with some new type of drug that had reached Oxford and he wanted details, but I suppose my truthful account of the matter had the power of persuasion and I was allowed to go unscathed. I felt obliged to lie only when questioned about my own cannabis consumption. I claimed not to use the drug, because I though it pointless to invite a search of my rooms and person by admitting to an illegal albeit private practice.
Robbie was hospitalised for a while, but he did recover and I heard he was running a vegetarian restaurant down in Bristol for a while. He studied Indian cuisine in place of mathematics and was a skilled cook.
I didn't know how to deal with bullies back in the olden days, but now I don't fear them. God has sharpened my wits and placed his Words in my mouth so none may stand against me, except by subtlety, for a season.
The sorcerer’s struggle for assuredness is the most dramatic struggle there is – don Juan said – it’s painful and costly. Many many times it has actually cost sorcerers their lives.
He explained that in order for any sorcerer to have complete certainty about his actions or about his position in the sorcerers’ world, or to be capable of utilising intelligently his new continuity, he must invalidate the continuity of his old life; only then can his actions have the necessary assuredness to fortify and balance the tenuousness and instability of his new continuity.
The sorcerer-seers of modern times call this process of invalidation “the ticket to impeccability” or the sorcerer’s symbolic but final death – don Juan said – and in that field at Sinaloa I got my ticket to impeccability. I died there: the tenuousness of my new continuity cost me my life.
But did you die, don Juan, or did you just faint? – I asked, trying not to sound cynical.
I died in that field – he said – I felt my awareness flowing out of me and heading towards the eagle, but as I had impeccably recapitulated my life, the eagle did not swallow my awareness… the eagle spat me out, because my body was dead in the field but the eagle did not let me go through to freedom. It was as if it told me to go back, and try again.
I ascended the heights of blackness and descended again to the light of the earth and then I found myself in a shallow grave at the edge of the field covered with rocks and dirt.
Don Juan said that he knew instantly what to do. After digging himself out, he rearranged the grave to look as though a body were still there, and slipped away. He felt strong and determined. He knew that he had to return to his benefactor’s house but before he started on his return journey he wanted to see his family and explain to them that he was a sorcerer and for, for that reason, he couldn’t stay with them.
He wanted to explain that his downfall had been not knowing that sorcerers can never make a bridge to join the people of the world but, if people desire to do so, they have to make a bridge to join the sorcerer.
I went home – don Juan continued – but the house was empty. The shocked neighbors told me that farm workers had come earlier with the news that I had dropped dead at work, and my wife and her children had left.
How long were you dead don Juan? – I asked.
A whole day, apparently – he said.
Don Juan’s smile played on his lips. His eyes seemed to be made of shiny obsidian: He was watching my reaction… waiting for my comments.
What became of your family don Juan? – I asked
Aha, the question of a sensible man – he remarked – for a moment I thought you were going to ask me about my death.
I confessed that I had been about to, but that I knew he was seeing my question as I formulated it in my mind, and just to be contrary I asked something else. I didn’t mean it as a joke, but it made him laugh.
My family disappeared that day – he said – my wife was a survivor… she had to be, with the conditions we lived under; since I had been waiting for my death, she believed I had gotten what I wanted. There was nothing for her to do there, so she left. I missed the children, and I consoled myself with the thought that it wasn’t my fate to be with them, however sorcerers have a peculiar bent: they live exclusively in the twilight of a feeling, best described by the words “…and yet”…
When everything is crumbling down around them, sorcerers accept that the situation is terrible and then immediately escape to the twilight of “…and yet…”. I did that with those feelings for the children and the woman. With great discipline, especially on the part of the oldest boy, they had recapitulated their lives with me: only the spirit could decide the outcome of that affection.
He reminded me that he had taught me how warriors acted in such situations: they did their utmost, and then, without any remorse or regrets, they relaxed and let the spirit decide the outcome.
What was the decision of the spirit don Juan? – I asked.
He scrutinized me without answering. I knew he was completely aware of my motive for asking… I had experienced a similar affection and a similar loss.
The decision of the spirit is another basic core – he said – sorcery stories are built around it. We’ll talk about that specific decision when we get to discussing that basic core. Now, wasn’t there a question about my death you wanted to ask?
If they thought you were dead, why the shallow grave? – I asked – why didn’t they dig a real grave and bury you?
That’s more like you – he said, laughing – I asked the same question myself and I realized that all those farmworkers were pious people. I was a Christian. Christians are not buried just like that, nor are they left to rot like dogs. I think they were waiting for my family to come and collect the body and give it a proper burial, but my family never came.
Did you go and look for them don Juan? – I asked.
No. Sorcerers never look for anyone – he replied – and I was a sorcerer. I had paid with my life for the mistake of not knowing that I was a sorcerer, and that sorcerers never approach anyone.
From that day on, I have only accepted the company or the care of people or warriors who are dead, as I am.
from "The Power of Silence" by Carlos Castaneda
