longer real. After my encounter with the ally
nothing was real any more."
     We were quiet for a long time.
     "What was the final outcome of that experience, don Genaro?" I asked.
     "Final outcome?"
     "I mean, when and how did you finally reach Ixtlan?"
     Both of them broke into laughter at once.
     "So that's the final outcome for you, " don Juan remarked.
     "Let's put it this  way  then. There was no final  outcome  to Genaro's
journey. There will never be any final  outcome. Genaro is still on  his way
to Ixtlan!" Don Genaro glanced  at me with piercing eyes and then turned his
head to look into the distance, towards the south.
     "I will never reach  Ixtlan, "  he  said.  His voice was firm but soft,
almost a murmur. "Yet in my feelings . . . in my feelings sometimes  I think
I'm just one step from reaching it. Yet I never will. In my journey  I don't
even find the familiar landmarks I used to know. Nothing  is any  longer the
same."
     Don Juan and  don Genaro looked at  each other. There  was something so
sad about their look.
     "In my I find only phantom travelers," he said softly. I  looked at don
Juan. I had not understood what don Genaro had meant.
     "Everyone Genaro finds on his way to Ixtlan is only an ephemeral being,
"  don Juan explained. "Take  you,  for  instance.  You  are a phantom. Your
feelings and your eagerness are those  of people. That's why he says that he
encounters only phantom travelers on his."
     I suddenly realized that don Genaro's journey was  a metaphor. "Your is
not real then, " I said.
     "It is real!" don Genaro interjected. "The travelers are not real."
     He pointed to  don Juan with a  nod of his head  and said emphatically,
"This is the only  one  who is  real. The world is real  only when I am with
this one." Don Juan smiled. "Genaro was telling his story to you, " don Juan
said, "because yesterday  you stopped the world, and he thinks that you also
saw,  but  you  are such a fool that  you don't know it yourself. I keep  on
telling  him  that you are weird, and that sooner or later you will see.  At
any rate, in your next meeting  with the ally, if there is  a  next time for
you, you will have to wrestle with it and tame it. If you survive the shock,
which I'm  sure you will,  since  you're strong  and have been living like a
warrior, you  will  find yourself  alive  in an unknown  land.  Then, as  is
natural to all  of us, the first thing you will want to  do is  to  start on
your way back to Los Angeles. But there is no way to go back to Los Angeles.
What  you  left there  is  lost forever. By  then, of course, you will  be a
sorcerer, but that's no help; at a time like that what's important to all of
us is the  fact  that everything we love or hate  or wish for  has been left
behind.  Yet the feelings  in a  man do not die  or change, and the sorcerer
starts on  his  way back  home knowing that he will never  reach it, knowing
that no power  on earth,  not even his death, will deliver him to the place,
the things, the people he loved. That's what Genaro told you."
     Don  Juan's  explanation was  like  a catalyst; the full  impact of don
Genaro's story hit me suddenly when I began to link the tale to my own life.
     "What about the people I love?" I asked don Juan. "What would happen to
them?"
     "They would all be left behind, " he said.
     "But  is  there no way I  could retrieve them? Could I rescue them  and
take them with me?"
     "No. Your ally will spin you, alone, into unknown worlds."
     "But I could go back to Los  Angeles,  couldn't I? I could take the bus
or a plane and go there. Los Angeles would still be there, wouldn't it?"
     "Sure, " don Juan said, laughing. "And so will Manteca and Temecula and
Tucson."
     "And Tecate, " don Genaro added with great seriousness.
     "And Piedras Negras and Tranquitas, " don Juan said, smiling.
     Don Genaro added more  names  and  so  did  don  Juan;  and they became
involved in  enumerating a  series of the  most hilarious  and  unbelievable
names of cities and towns.
     "Spinning with your ally will change your idea of the world, " don Juan
said. "That  idea  is  everything; and  when that changes, the world  itself
changes."
     He reminded  me that  I had read  a  poem to him once  and wanted me to
recite it. He cued me with  a few words of it and I recalled having read  to
him some poems of Juan Ramon Jimenez.  The particular one he had in mind was
entitled "El Viaje Definitivo" (The Definitive Journey). I recited it.

     and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing:
     and my garden will stay, with its green tree,
     with its water well.
     Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid,
     and the bells in the belfry will chime,
     as they are chiming this very afternoon.
     The people who have loved me will pass away,
     and the town will burst anew every year.
     But my spirit will always wander nostalgic
     in the same recondite corner of my flowery garden.

     "That  is the feeling Genaro  is  talking about,  " don Juan said.  "In
order  to  be a  sorcerer  a  man must be passionate. A  passionate  man has
earthly belongings  and  things dear to him -if nothing else, just  the path
where he walks. "What Genaro told you in his story is precisely that. Genaro
left his passion in  Ixtlan: his home,  his  people, all the things he cared
for. And now he wanders  around in his feelings; and sometimes, as  he says,
he  almost reaches Ixtlan.  All of us have that  in common. For Genaro it is
Ixtlan; for you it will  be Los Angeles; for me ..." I did not want don Juan
to tell me about himself. He paused as if he had read my mind. Genaro sighed
and paraphrased the first lines of the poem.  "I left. And the birds stayed,
singing."  For  an instant  I sensed  a wave  of agony and  an indescribable
loneliness engulfing the three  of us. I  looked at  don  Genaro and I  knew
that, being a passionate man, he must have had so many ties of the heart, so
many things he cared for and left behind. I had the clear sensation that  at
that moment  the  power of his recollection was about to landslide and  that
don Genaro was on the verge of weeping. I  hurriedly moved my eyes away. Don
Genaro's passion, his supreme loneliness, made me cry.
     I looked at don Juan. He was  gazing at me.  "Only as a warrior can one
survive  the path of knowledge, " he said. "Because  the art of a warrior is
to balance the  terror of being a  man  with the wonder of  being a man."  I
gazed at the two of them, each in turn. Their eyes  were clear and peaceful.
They had summoned a wave of  overwhelming nostalgia, and when they seemed to
be on the verge of exploding into passionate tears, they held back the tidal
wave. For  an  instant  I  think  I saw.  I saw the loneliness of  man as  a
gigantic  wave which  had been  frozen in  front  of me,  held back  by  the
invisible wall of a metaphor.
     My sadness was  so overwhelming that  I felt euphoric. I embraced them.
Don Genaro  smiled  and  stood up. Don Juan also stood up and gently put his
hand on  my shoulder.  "We are going to  leave you here, " he said. "Do what
you think is proper. The  ally will be waiting  for you at the edge  of that
plain."
     He  pointed to a  dark valley in  the distance. "If you don't feel that
this is your time yet, don't keep your  appointment, " he went  on. "Nothing
is gained by forcing  the issue. If you  want to survive you must be crystal
clear and deadly sure of yourself."
     Don  Juan walked away without looking at me,  but don  Genaro  turned a
couple of times and urged  me with  a wink and  a movement of his head to go
forward. I looked  at them until they disappeared in the distance and then I
walked to my car and drove away. I knew that it was not my time, yet.
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