Version 2007.03.16

## “The Sorcerers' Crossing: A Woman's Journey” - ©1992 by Taisha Abelar

### Chapter 1

I had walked to an isolated spot away from the highway and people in order to sketch the early morning shadows on the unique lava mountains that fringe the Gran Desierto, in southern Arizona.

The dark brown jagged rocks sparkled as bursts of sunlight illuminated their peaks. Strewn on the ground around me were huge chunks of porous rocks, remnants of the lava flow from a gigantic volcanic eruption.

Making myself comfortable on a large clump of rock and oblivious to anything else, I had sunk into my work, as I often did in that rugged, beautiful place.

I had finished outlining the promontories and depressions of the distant mountains when I noticed a woman watching me.

It annoyed me no end that someone would disturb my solitude. I tried my utmost to ignore her, but when she moved nearer to look at my work, I turned around in anger to face her.

Her high cheekbones and shoulder-length black hair made her look Eurasian. She had a smooth, creamy complexion, so it was difficult to judge her age; she could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty. She was perhaps two inches taller than I, which would have made her five nine, but with her powerful frame, she looked twice my size. Yet, in her black silk pants and Oriental jacket, she seemed extremely fit.

I noticed her eyes. They were green and sparkling.

It was that friendly gleam that made my anger vanish, and I heard myself asking the woman an inane question, "Do you live around here?"

"No," she said, taking a few steps toward me. "I'm on my way to the U.S. border checkpoint at Sonoyta.

"I stopped to stretch my legs and ended up in this isolated spot.

"I was so surprised to see someone out here, so far away from everything, that I couldn't help intruding the way I have. Let me introduce myself. My name is Clara Grau."

She extended her hand and I shook it, and without the slightest hesitation I told her that I was given the name Taisha when I was born, but later, my parents didn't think the name was American enough and began calling me Martha, after my mother. I detested that name and decided on Mary instead.

"How interesting!" she mused. "You have three names that are so different. I'll call you Taisha, since it's your birth name."

I was glad she had selected that name. It was the one I had chosen nyself. Although at first I had agreed with my parents about the name being too foreign, I had disliked the name Martha so much that I ended up making Taisha my secret name.

In a harsh tone that she immediately concealed behind a benign smile, she bombarded me with a series of statements in the guise of questions. "You're not from Arizona," she began.

I responded to her truthfully, an unusual thing for me to do, accustomed as I was to being cautious with people, especially strangers. "I came to Arizona a year ago to work."

"You couldn't be more than twenty."

"I'll be twenty-one in a couple of months."

"You have a slight accent. You don't seem to be an American, but I can't pinpoint your exact nationality."

"I am an American, but as a child I lived in Germany," I said. "My father is American and my mother, Hungarian. I left home when I went to college and never went back, because I didn't want to have anything more to do with my family."

"I take it you didn't get along with them?"

"No. I was miserable. I couldn't wait to leave home."

She smiled and nodded as if she was familiar with the feeling of wanting to escape.

"Are you married?" the, woman asked.

"No. I don't have anyone in the world." I said that with the touch of self-pity I had always had whenever I talked about myself.

She didn't make any comment, but spoke calmly and precisely as if she wanted to put me at ease and at the same time convey as much information about herself as she could with each of her sentences.

As she talked, I put my drawing pencils in my case but without taking my eyes away from her. I didn't want to give her the impression I wasn't listening.

"I was an only child and both my parents are dead now," she said. "My father's family are Mexican from Oaxaca. But my mother's family are Americans of German descent. They are from back east, but now live in Phoenix. I just returned from the wedding of one of my cousins."

"Do you also live in Phoenix?" I asked.

"I've lived half my life in Arizona and the other half in Mexico," she replied. "But for the past years, my home has been in the state of Sonora, Mexico."

I began to zip up my portfolio. Meeting and talking to this woman had so unsettled me that I knew I wouldn't be able to do any more work that day.

"I've also traveled to the Orient," she said, regaining my attention. "There, I learned acupuncture and the martial and healing arts. I've even lived for a number of years in a Buddhist temple."

"Really?" I glanced at her eyes. They had the look of a person who meditated a great deal. They were fiery, and yet tranquil.

"I'm very interested in the Orient," I said, "especially in Japan. I also have studied Buddhism and the martial arts."

"Really?" she said, echoing me. "I wish I could tell you my Buddhist name, but secret names shouldn't be revealed except under the proper circumstances."

"I told you my secret name," I said, tightening the straps of my portfolio.

"Yes, Taisha, you did, and that's very significant to me," she replied with undue seriousness. "But still, right now it's time only for introductions."

"Did you drive here?" I asked, scanning the area for her car.

"I was just going to ask you the same question," she said.

"I left my car about a quarter of a mile back, on a dirt road south of here. Where is yours?"

"Is your car a white Chevrolet?" she asked cheerfully.

"Yes."

"Well, mine is parked next to it." She giggled as if she had said something funny. I was surprised to find her laughter so irritating.

"I've got to go now," I said. "It's been very pleasant meeting you. Good-bye!"

I started to walk to my car, thinking that the woman would remain behind admiring the scenery.

"Let's not say good-bye yet," she protested. "I'm coming with you."

We walked together. Next to my one hundred and ten pounds, the woman was like a huge boulder. Her midsection was round and powerful. She projected the feeling that she could easily have been obese, but she wasn't.

"May I ask you a personal question, Mrs. Grau?" I said, just to break the awkward silence.

She stopped walking and faced me.

"I'm not anybody's Mrs.," she snapped. "I am Clara Grau.

"You can call me Clara, and, yes, go right ahead and ask me anything you wish."

"I take it you're not partial to love and marriage," I commented, reacting to her tone.

For a second, she gave me a fearsome look, but she softened it instantly, and said, "I'm definitely not partial to slavery, but not only for women.

"Now, what was it that you were going to ask me?"

Her reaction was so unexpected that I lost track of what I was going to ask and embarrassed myself by staring at her.

"What made you walk all the way to this place in particular?" I asked hurriedly.

"I came here because this is a place of energy." She pointed at the lava formations in the distance. "Those mountains were once spewed forth from the heart of the earth, like blood.

"Whenever I'm in Arizona, I always make a detour to come here. This place oozes a peculiar earthly energy.

"Now let me ask you the same question, what made you pick this spot?"

"I often come here. It's my favorite place to sketch." I didn't mean it as a joke, but she burst out laughing.

"This detail settles it!" she exclaimed, then continued in a quieter tone.

"I'm going to ask you to do something you may consider outlandish or even foolish, but hear me out.

"I'd like you to come to my house and spend a few days as my guest."

I raised my hand to thank her and say no, but she urged me to reconsider. She assured me that our common interest in the Orient and the martial arts warranted a serious exchange of ideas.

"Where exactly do you live?" I asked.

"Near the city of Navojoa."

"But that's more than four hundred miles from here."

"Yes, it's quite a distance. But it's so beautiful and peaceful there that I'm certain you would like it."

She kept silent for a moment as if waiting for my reply, then continued, "Besides, I have the feeling that there is nothing definite you're involved in at the moment, and you've been at a loss to find something to do. Well, this could be just the thing you've been waiting for."

She was right about my being completely at a loss as to what to do with my life.

I had just taken some time off from a secretarial job in order to catch up with my artwork, but I certainly didn't have the slightest desire to be anyone's house guest.

I looked around, searching the terrain for something that would give me an inkling of what to do next.

I had never been able to explain where I had gotten the idea that one could get help or clues from the surroundings, but I usually did get help that way.

I had a technique, which seemed to have come to me out of nowhere, by means of which I often found options previously unknown to me.

I usually let my thoughts wander away as I fixed my eyes on the southern horizon, although I had no idea why I always picked the south.

After a few minutes of silence, insights usually came to me to help me decide what to do or how to proceed in a particular situation.

I fixed my gaze on the southern horizon while we walked, and suddenly I saw the mood of my life stretched out before me like the barren desert.

I can truthfully say that although I knew that the whole area of southern Arizona, a bit of California, and half of the state of Sonora, Mexico, is the Sonoran Desert, I had never before noticed how lonely and desolate this wasteland was.

It took a moment for the impact of my realization that my life was as empty and barren as that desert to register.

I had broken off with my family, and I had no family of my own. I didn't even have any prospects for the future. I had no job. I had lived off a small inheritance left to me by the aunt I was named after, but this income had run out.

I was utterly alone in the world. The vastness that stretched all around, harsh and indifferent, summoned up in me an overwhelming sense of self-pity. I felt in need of a friend, someone to break the solitude of my life.

I knew it would be foolish to accept Clara's invitation and jump into an unknown situation over which I had no control, but there was something about the directness of her manner and about her physical vitality that aroused in me both curiosity and a feeling of respect.

I found myself admiring and even envying her beauty and strength.

I thought that she was a most striking and powerful woman, independent, self-reliant, indifferent, yet not hard or humorless. She possessed the exact qualities I had always wanted for myself.

But above all, her presence seemed to dispel my barrenness. She made the space around her energetic, vibrant, full of endless possibilities.

Yet still, it was my unbending policy never to accept invitations to people's houses, and certainly not from someone whom I had just met in the wilderness.

I had a small apartment in Tucson and to accept invitations meant to me that I had to reciprocate; a thing that I wasn't prepared to do.

For a moment, I stood there motionless, not knowing which way to turn.

"Please say that you'll come," Clara urged. "It would mean a great deal to me."

"All right, I suppose I could visit with you," I said lamely, wanting to say the exact opposite.

She looked at me elated and I immediately disguised my panic with a conviviality I was far from feeling. "It'll be good for me to change scenery," I said. "It'll be an adventure!"

She nodded approvingly. "You won't regret it," she said with an air of confidence that helped to dispel my doubts. "We can practice martial arts together."

She delivered a few brisk movements with her hand that were at once graceful and powerful. It seemed incongruous to me that this robust woman could be so agile.

Noticing that she easily adopted the stance of a long-pole fighter, I asked, "What specific style of martial arts did you study in the Orient?"

"In the Orient, I studied all the styles, and yet none of them in particular," she replied, with just a hint of a smile. "When we are at my house, I'll be happy to demonstrate them."

We walked the rest of the way in silence.

When we reached the place where the cars were parked, I locked my gear in the trunk and waited for Clara to say something.

"Well, let's get started," she said. "I'll lead the way. Do you drive fast or slow, Taisha?"

"At a crawl."

"Me too. Living in China cured me from hurrying."

"May I ask you a question about China, Clara?"

"Of course. I've already said that you may ask anything you want without asking permission first."

"You must have been in China before the Second World War. Isn't that so?"

"Oh, yes. I was there a lifetime ago. I gather that you've never been to mainland China, yourself."

"No. I've only been to Taiwan and Japan."

"Of course things were different before the war," Clara mused. "The line to the past was still intact then. Now everything is severed."

I didn't know why I was afraid to ask her what she meant by her remark, so I asked instead how long would the drive to her house be.

Clara was disturbingly vague: She only warned me to be prepared for an arduous trip. She softened her tone and added that she found my courage extremely rewarding.

"To go so nonchalantly with a stranger," she said, "is either utterly foolish or tremendously daring."

"Usually I'm very cautious," I explained, "but this time I'm not myself at all."

This was the truth, and the more I thought about my inexplicable behavior, the greater became my discomfort.

"Please tell me a little more about yourself," she asked pleasantly.

As if to put me at ease, she came and stood by the door of my car.

Again I found myself conveying true information about myself. "My mother is Hungarian but from an old Austrian family," I said.

"She met my father in England during the Second World War, when the two of them worked in a field hospital. After the war, they moved to the United States and then they went to South Africa."

"Why did they go to South Africa?"

"My mother wanted to be with her relatives that lived there."

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"I have two brothers, a year apart in age. The oldest is twenty-six now."

Her eyes were focused on me.

With an unprecedented ease, I unburdened painful feelings I had kept bottled up all my life.

I told her that I grew up lonely. My brothers never paid attention to me because I was a girl.

When I was little, they used to tie a rope around me and hook me to a post like a dog while they ran around the yard and played soccer. All I could do was tug at my rope and watch them having a good time.

Later, when I was older, I'd run after them. But by that time they both had bicycles and I could never keep up with them.

When I used to complain to my mother, her usual reply was that boys will be boys, and that I should play with dolls and help around the house.

"Your mother raised you in the traditional European way," she said.

"I know it. But that's no consolation."

Once I had started, it seemed that there was no way for me to stop telling this woman more about my life.

I said that whereas my brothers went on trips and, later, away to school, I had to stay at home.

I wanted to have adventures like the boys, but according to my mother, girls had to learn to make beds and to iron clothes.

"It's adventure enough to take care of a family," my mother used to say. "Women are born to obey."

I was on the verge of tears when I told Clara that I had three male masters to serve as far back as I could remember: my father and my two brothers.

"That sounds like an armful," Clara remarked.

"It was terrible. I left home to get as far away from them as I could," I said. "And to have adventures too.

"But so far, I haven't had all that much fun and excitement. I suppose I just wasn't brought up to be happy and light-hearted."

Describing my life to a total stranger made me extremely anxious.

I stopped talking and looked at Clara, waiting for a reaction that would either alleviate my anxiety or would increase it to the point of making me change my mind and not go with her after all.

"Well, it seems that there's only one thing you know how to do well, so you may as well make the most of it," she said.

I thought she was going to say I could draw or paint, but to my utter chagrin, she added, "All you know how to do is to feel sorry for yourself."

I tightened my fingers on the handle of the car door. "That's not true," I protested. "Who are you to say that?"

She burst out laughing and shook her head. "You and I are very alike," she said:

"We've been taught to be passive, subservient and to adapt to situations; but inside we're seething.

We're like a volcano ready to erupt; and what makes us even more frustrated is that we have no dreams or expectations except the one of someday finding the right man who will take us out of our misery."

She left me speechless.

"Well? Am I right? Am I right?" she kept asking. "Be honest, am I right?"

I clenched my hands, getting ready to tell her off.

Clara smiled warmly, exuding vigor and a sense of well-being that made me feel that I didn't need to lie or hide my feelings from her.

"Yes, you have me pegged," I agreed.

I had to admit that the only thing that gave meaning to my dreary existence, besides my artwork, was the vague hope that someday I would meet a man who would understand me and appreciate me for the special person I was.

"Maybe your life will change for the better," she said in a promissory tone.

She got into her car and signaled me with her hand to follow her.

I became aware then that she had never asked me if I had my passport or enough clothes or money or had other obligations.

That didn't frighten or discourage me. I didn't know why, but as I released the handbrake and began moving, I was certain I had made the right decision. Perhaps my life was going to change after, all.