Version 2007.03.09

## “Being in Dreaming: An Initiation into the Sorcerers' World” - ©1991 by Florinda Donner

### Chapter 6

HTML EDITOR:

He explained that he had been as careless and undisciplined as one could be, but that he never knew the difference because he was imprisoned by the mood of the time.

END HTML EDITOR

Dumbfounded, I stared at the guest speaker. In his three-piece suit, short, curly hair, and clean-shaven face, Joe Cortez looked like someone from another time amidst the long-haired, bearded and beaded, casually dressed students in one of the large lecture auditoriums at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Hastily, I slipped into the empty seat in the back row of the packed auditorium, a seat saved for me by the same friend I had gone hiking with in the Santa Susana Mountains.

"Who is he?" I asked her.

Shaking her head in disbelief, she regarded me impatiently, then scribbled Carlos Castaneda on a piece of paper.

"Who in the dickens is Carlos Castaneda?" I asked and giggled involuntarily.

"I gave you his book," she hissed, then added that he was a well-known anthropologist who had done extensive fieldwork in Mexico.

I was about to confide to my friend that the guest speaker was the same man I had met in the mountains the day I had gotten lost.

However, for some very good reason, I didn't say anything.

That man was responsible for almost destroying our friendship, which I treasured immensely.

My friend had been adamant in her opinion that the story about Evans-Pritchard's son was hogwash.

I had insisted that the two men had nothing to gain by telling me a tall tale. I just knew that they had candidly spoken the truth.

My friend, mad at me for believing them, had called me a gullible fool.

Since neither of us had been willing to yield, our argument had become quite heated.

Her husband, hoping to bring us out of our frenzy, had suggested that perhaps I had been told the truth.

Irked by his lack of solidarity with her, my friend had yelled at him to shut up.

We had driven home in a morose state, our friendship strained.

It took a couple of weeks to wash away the bad feeling.

In the meantime, I had tried my information on Evans-Pritchard's son on several people more versed in anthropological matters and in anthropologists than I or my friend. Needless to say, I was made to feel like an idiot.

Out of stubbornness, I held on to my blind belief that I alone knew the truth.

I had been reared to be practical; if one lies, it has to be to gain something that can't be gained otherwise. And I was at a loss to figure out what those men could have had to gain.

I paid little attention to Carlos Castaneda's lecture. I was too absorbed with wondering about his reason for lying to me about his name. Given as I was to deducing other people's motives from a simple statement or an observation, I had a field day trying to search for a clue to his. But then I remembered that I, too, had given him a false name. And I couldn't determine why I had done so.

After long mental deliberation, I decided that I had lied because automatically I hadn't trusted him. He was too self-confident, too cocky to inspire my trust. My mother had reared me to distrust Latin men, especially if they were not somewhat subservient. She used to say that Latin machos were like bantam cocks, interested only in fighting, eating, and having sex, in that order. And I suppose I had believed her without even thinking about it.

I finally looked at Carlos Castaneda. I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was talking about. But I became fascinated by his movements.

He seemed to speak with his whole body, and his words, rather than emerging from his mouth, seemed to flow from his hands, which he moved with the gracefulness and agility of a magician.

Boldly, I walked up to him after the lecture.

He was surrounded by students. He was so solicitous and engaging with the women that I automatically despised him.

"You've lied to me about your name, Joe Cortez," I said in Spanish, pointing an accusing finger at him.

Holding his hand over his stomach, as if he had received a blow, he gazed at me with that same hesitant, disbelieving expression he had had when he first saw me in the mountains.

"It is also a lie that your friend Gumersindo is the son of Evans-Pritchard," I added before he recovered from his surprise at seeing me. "Isn't it?"

He made a pleading gesture for me not to say any more.

He didn't seem to be in the least embarrassed.

There was such plain and simple wonder in his eyes that my righteous wrath was stopped short.

Gently, he held me by the wrist, as if afraid I would leave.

After he finished talking with the students, he silently led me to a secluded bench, shaded by a gigantic pine tree, in the north campus.

"All this is so strange that I am truthfully speechless," he said in English as we sat down.

He gazed at me as if he still couldn't believe I was sitting beside him.

"I never thought I would find you again," he mused:

"After we left, my friend- his name, by the way is Nestor- and I discussed you at great length.

We concluded that you were a semiapparition."

He abruptly changed to Spanish and said that they even went back to the place where they had left me in the hope of finding me.

"Why did you want to find me?" I asked in English; confident that he would respond in English that he went there because he liked me.

In Spanish, there is no way to say that one just likes someone else. The response has to be more florid and at the same time more precise. In Spanish, one can either happen to evoke a good feeling- me caes bien- or arouse total passion- me gustos.

My candid question plunged him into a long silence. He seemed to be fighting whether he ought to speak or not.

At last, he said that finding me in the fog that afternoon had caused him a profound upheaval.

His face was enraptured as he revealed all this, and his voice betrayed the deepest awe as he added that finding me in the lecture room had been nearly the end of him.

"Why?" I asked, my vanity pricked.

I instantly regretted it because I was convinced he was going to tell me he was head over heels in love with me, and that would have been too disturbing. I wouldn't have known how to respond.

"It's a very long story," he said, still in a pensive mood.

He puckered his lips, as if he were talking to himself, rehearsing what he was going to say next.

I knew the signs of a man who is preparing to make his pitch. "I haven't read your work," I said in order to head him off in a different direction. "What is it about?"

"I've written a couple of books about sorcery," he replied.

"What kind of sorcery? Voodoo, spiritualism, or what?"

"Do you know anything about sorcery?" he asked with a note expectation in his voice.

"Of course I do. I grew up with it.

"I've spent a great deal of time in the coastal region of Venezuela: It's an area that is famous for its sorcerers.

"Most summers of my childhood were spent with a family of witches."

"Witches?"

"Yes," I said, pleased with his reaction. "I had a nanny who is a witch.

"She was a black woman from Puerto Cabello. She took care of me until I was an adolescent. Both my parents worked, and when I was a child, they were quite happy to leave me in her care.

"She could handle me much better than either of my parents. She would let me do as I pleased.

"My parents, of course, let her take me everywhere. During the school holidays she would take me with her to visit her family.

"It was not her biological family but her witch family. Although I wasn't allowed to participate in any of their rituals and trance sessions, I did manage to see a great deal."

He regarded me curiously, as if he didn't believe me.

Then he asked with a bemused smile, "What made her a witch?"

"All sorts of things. She killed chickens and offered them to the Gods in exchange for favors. She and her fellow witches- men and women- would dance until they would go into a trance. She recited secret incantations that had the power to heal her friends and injure her enemies. Her specialty was love potions. She prepared them with medicinal plants and all sorts of bodily refuse, such as menstrual blood, nail clippings, and hair, preferably pubic hair. She made amulets for good luck in gambling or in matters of love."

"And your parents allowed all this?" he asked in disbelief.

"At home, no one knew about it, except myself and my nanny's clients, of course," I explained. "She made house calls, as any doctor would.

"All she ever did at home was to burn candles behind the toilet bowl whenever I had nightmares. Since it seemed to help me and there was no danger of anything catching fire amidst the tiles, my mother openly allowed her to do this."

He suddenly stood up and began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" I asked, wondering whether he thought I had made it all up. "It's the truth, I assure you."

"You assert something to yourself, and as far as you are concerned, once you make the assertion it turns into the truth," he said with a serious face.

"But I told you the truth," I insisted, certain that he was referring to my nanny.

"I can see through people," he said calmly. "For instance, I see you're convinced that I am going to make a pass at you. You've convinced yourself about it and now it is the truth. That's what I am talking about."

I tried to say something, but indignation took my breath away. I would have liked to run away. But that would have been too humiliating.

He frowned slightly, and I had the unpleasant impression that he knew what I was feeling.

My face got red. I trembled with suppressed anger.

Nonetheless, within moments I felt extraordinarily calm. It wasn't due to any conscious effort on my part; yet I had the distinct sensation that something in me had shifted.

I had the vague recollection that I had gone through a similar experience before, but my memory faded away as fast as it came.

"What are you doing to me?" I muttered.

"I just happen to see through people," he said in a contrite tone. "Not all the time and certainly not with everybody, but only with the people I am intimately associated with.

"I don't know why I can see through you."

His sincerity was apparent. He seemed much more baffled than I was.

He sat down again and moved closer to me on the bench.

We remained in total silence for a while. It was a most pleasant experience to be able to drop all effort at making conversation and not feel that I was being stupid.

I looked up at the sky. It was cloudless and transparent like blue glass.

A soft breeze blew through the pine branches, and the needles fell on us like a gentle rain.

Then the breeze turned into a wind, and the dry, yellow, fallen leaves of the nearby sycamore blew toward us.

They swirled around us with a soft, rhythmic sound. In one abrupt swoop, the wind carried the leaves high up into the air.

"That was a fine display of the spirit," he murmured. "And it was for you; the wind, the leaves spinning in the air in front of us.

"The sorcerer I work with would say that that was an omen. Something pointed you out to me, at the precise moment I was thinking that I'd better leave. I cannot leave now."

Thinking only about his last statement, I felt inexplicably happy. It wasn't a triumphant happiness, the kind of glee one feels when getting one's way. It was rather a feeling of profound well-being that didn't last long.

My ponderous self took over suddenly and demanded that I be rid of those thoughts and feelings. I had no business being there. I had cut a class, missed lunch with my real friends, missed my daily laps at the pool in the women's gym.

"Perhaps it'll be better if I leave," I said. I intended it as a statement of relief, but when I said it, it sounded as if I were feeling sorry for myself- which somehow I was.

But instead of leaving, I asked him, as casually as I could, whether he had always been able to see through people.

"No, not always." His kind tone clearly betrayed that he was conscious of my inner turmoil. "The old sorcerer I work with has recently taught me how."

"Do you think that he could teach me, too?"

"Yes, I think he would." He seemed amazed at his own statement. "If he feels about you the way I do, he'll certainly try to."

"Did you know about sorcery before?" I asked timidly, slowly coming out of my agitation.

"In Latin America everybody thinks that they know, and I believed I did.

"In that sense, you remind me of myself. Like you, I was convinced that I knew what sorcery was.

"But then, when I really encountered it, it wasn't like I thought it was."

"How was it?"

"Simple. So simple that it's scary," he confided:

"We think that sorcery is scary because of its malignancy.

"The sorcery I encountered is not malignant at all, and because of that, it's the scariest thing there is."

I interrupted him and commented that he must be referring to white as opposed to black sorcery.

"Don't talk nonsense, damn it!" he impatiently snapped at me.

The shock of hearing him speak to me in that manner was so great that I gasped for breath. I was instantly thrown back into turmoil.

He turned his face to avoid my gaze.

He had dared to yell at me. I became so angry I thought I was going to have a fit. My ears were buzzing. I saw dark spots in front of my eyes.

"I would have hit him, if he hadn't jumped out of my reach so swiftly.

"You're very undisciplined," he said and sat down again. "And quite violent.

"Your nanny must have indulged your every whim and treated you as if you were made of precious glass."

Seeing my scowling frown, he went on to say that he hadn't really yelled at me out of impatience or anger. "It doesn't matter to me personally whether you listen or not," he explained. "But it matters to someone else on whose behalf I shouted at you. Someone who is watching us."

I was perplexed at first, then uneasy. I looked all around me, wondering whether his sorcerer teacher might be watching us.

He ignored me and went on to say, "My father never mentioned to me that we have a constant witness. And he never mentioned it because he didn't know it. Just like you, yourself, don't know it."

"What kind of nonsense are you talking about?" My raspy, angry voice reflected my feelings at the moment.

He had yelled at me, he had insulted me. I resented that he was talking his head off as if nothing had happened. If he believed that I was going to overlook his actions, he was in for a surprise. "You won't get away with it," I thought, smiling at him maliciously. "Not with me, buddy."

"I'm talking about a force, an entity, a presence which is neither a force nor an entity nor a presence," he explained with an angelic smile.

He seemed totally oblivious to my belligerent mood. "Sounds like gibberish, but it isn't.

"I am referring to something that only sorcerers know about. They call it the spirit. Our personal watcher, our perennial witness."

I don't know exactly how or what precise word triggered it, but suddenly he had my full attention.

He went on talking about this force, which he said wasn't God or anything to do with religion or morality, but an impersonal force, a power that was there for us to use if we only learned to reduce ourselves to nothing.

He even held my hand, and I didn't mind it. In fact, I liked the feel of his strong, soft touch. I became morbidly fascinated with the strange power he had over me. I was aghast that I longed to sit with him on that bench indefinitely with my hand in his.

He went on talking. And I went on listening to every word he said. But at the same time I perversely wondered when he was going to grab my leg, for I knew that he wasn't going to have enough with my hand, and I couldn't do anything to stop him. Or was it that I didn't want to do anything to stop him?

He explained that he had been as careless and undisciplined as one could be, but that he never knew the difference because he was imprisoned by the mood of the time.

"What's the mood of the time?" I asked in a rough, unfriendly voice, lest he think I was enjoying being with him.

"Sorcerers call it the modality of the time," he said. "In our day, it's the concern of the middle class. I am a middle-class man, just like you're a middle-class woman--"

"Classifications of that nature don't hold any validity," I interrupted him rudely, yanking my hand out of his. "They are simply generalizations."

I scowled at him suspiciously. There was something startlingly familiar about his words, but I couldn't think where I had heard them before or what significance I was attaching to them.

Yet I was sure those words had a very vital significance for me if I could only recall what I already knew about them.

"Don't give me this social scientist gaff," he said jovially. "I'm as aware of it as you are."

Giving in to a wave of total frustration, I took his hand and bit it.

"I'm truly sorry about that," I instantly mumbled, before he recovered from his surprise. "I don't know why I did it. I haven't bitten anyone since I was a child."

I sidled to the far edge of the bench, in readiness for his retaliation. It didn't come.

"You're absolutely primitive" was all he said, rubbing his hand in a dazed sort of way.

I let out a deep sigh of relief.

His power over me was shattered. And I remembered that I had an old score to settle with him.

He had turned me into the laughingstock of my anthropology student friends. "Let's go back to our original problem," I said, trying to arouse my anger. "Why did you tell me all that nonsense about Evans-Pritchard's son? You must have realized that I was going to make a fool of myself."

I watched him carefully, certain that confronting him like this after the bite would finally break his self-control or at least rattle him. I expected him to yell, to lose his confidence and impudence.

But he remained unperturbed. He took a deep breath and adopted a serious expression.

"I know that it looks like a simple case of people telling tall tales for their amusement," he began in a light, casual tone. "But it's more complex than that."

He chuckled softly, then reminded me that he hadn't known at that time that I was a student of anthropology and that I would make a fool of myself.

He paused for a moment, as if searching for the proper words, then he shrugged helplessly and added, "I really can't explain to you now why I introduced my friend to you as Evans-Pritchard's son, unless I tell you much more about myself and my aims; and that's not practical."

"Why not?"

"Because the more you know about me, the more entangled you'll become."

He regarded me thoughtfully, and I could see in his eyes that he was sincere. "And I don't mean a mental entanglement. I mean you'll become personally entangled with me."

This was such a blatant display of gall that I regained all my confidence.

I fell back on my well-tried sarcastic laughter and said in a cutting tone, "You are perfectly disgusting. I know your kind. You are the typical example of the conceited Latin macho I have battled with all my life."

Seeing the expression of surprise on his face, I pressed on in my most haughty tone, "How dare you to think that I'll be entangled with you?"

He didn't become red in the face as I expected. He slapped his knee and laughed uproariously, as if that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. And to my utter dismay, he began to tickle me in the ribs as if I were a child.

Afraid to laugh- I was ticklish- I screeched with indignation. "How dare you to touch me!" I stood up to leave. I was shaking.

And then I shocked myself even further by sitting down again.

Seeing that he was about to tickle me again, I curled my hands into fists and held them before me. "I'll smash your nose if you touch me again," I warned him.

Thoroughly unconcerned by my threat, he reclined his head against the back of the bench and closed his eyes.

He laughed gaily, a deep chortling laugh that made him shiver all over. "You're a typical German girl who grew up surrounded by brown people," he said, turning sideways toward me.

How do you know I am German? I never told you that," I said in a faltering voice I intended to be softly menacing.

I knew that you were German when I first met you," he said. "You confirmed it the moment you lied that you were Swedish. Only Germans born in the New World after the Second World War lie like that. That is, of course, if they live in the United States."

Although I wasn't going to admit this to him, he was right.

I often felt people's hostility as soon as they learned that my parents were Germans; in their eyes it automatically made us Nazis.

It didn't make any difference when I told them that my parents were idealists.

Of course, I had to admit to myself that, like good Germans, they believed that their kind were inherently better; but basically they were gentle souls who had been apolitical all lives.

"All I did was to agree with you," I pointed out acidly. "You saw blond hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, and all you could think of was a Swede. You are not very imaginative, are you?"

I pushed my advantage. "You had no business lying yourself, unless you're a fucking liar by nature," I went on, my voice rising against my will. Tapping his chest with my index finger I added derisively, "Joe Cortez, eh?"

Is your name really Cristina Gebauer?" he shot back, imitating my odious, loud voice.

"Carmen Gebauer!" I shouted, offended that he hadn't remembered the name correctly.

Then, suddenly ashamed of my outburst, I went into a chaotic defense of myself.

After a few moments, realizing that I didn't know what I was saying, I abruptly stopped and confessed that I was indeed German, and that Carmen Gebauer was the name of a childhood friend.

"I like that," he said softly, a barely suppressed grin on his lips. Whether he was referring to my lying or to my confession I couldn't tell.

His eyes were brimming with kindness and with amusement. In a tender, wistful voice he proceeded to tell me the story of his childhood girlfriend, Fabiola Kunze.

Confused by his reaction, I turned away and gazed at the nearby sycamore and the pine trees beyond.

Then, eager to hide my interest in his story, I began to play with my fingernails: I pushed back the cuticles and peeled off the nail polish, methodically and thoughtfully.

The story of Fabiola Kunze resembled my own life so closely that after a few moments I forgot all about my pretense at indifference and listened to him attentively.

I suspected that he was fabricating the story, and yet I had to give him credit for coming up with details that only a daughter of a German family in the New World would know.

Fabiola allegedly was mortally afraid of dark Latin boys, but she was equally afraid of the Germans. The Latins scared her because of their irresponsibility; the Germans, because they were so predictable.

I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud when he described scenes of Fabiola's home on a Sunday afternoon when two dozen Germans would sit around a beautifully set table- with the best china, silver, and crystal- and she would have to listen to two dozen monologues that passed for conversation.

As he went on giving specific details of those Sunday afternoons, I began to feel more and more uncomfortable: there was Fabiola's father prohibiting political debates in his house but compulsively aiming at starting one, seeking devious ways to tell dirty jokes about Catholic priests.

Or her mother's mortal dread: her fine china was in the hands of these clumsy oafs.

His words were cues to which I unconsciously responded. I began to see scenes of my Sunday afternoons like pictures flashed on the wall for my observation.

I was a veritable bundle of nerves. I wanted to stomp and carry on as only I knew how. I wanted to hate this man, but I couldn't. I wanted vindication, apologies, but I couldn't get any from him. I wanted to dominate him. I wanted him to fall in love with me so I could reject him.

Ashamed of my immature feelings, I made a great effort to pull myself together. Pretending to be bored, I leaned toward him and asked, "Why did you lie about your name?"

"I didn't lie," he pronounced. "That's my name. I have several names. Sorcerers have different names for different occasions."

"How convenient!" I exclaimed sarcastically.

"Very convenient," he echoed and gave a slight wink, which infuriated me beyond measure.

And then he did something completely outlandish and unexpected. He put his arms around me.

There was no sexual overtone in his embrace. It was the spontaneous, sweet, and simple gesture of a child who wants to comfort a friend. His touch soothed me instantly and so completely that I began to sob uncontrollably.

"I'm such a shit," I confessed. "I want to beat you, and look at me. I am in your arms." I was about to add that I was enjoying it when a surge of energy rushed through me.

As if I had awakened From a dream, I pushed him away. "Let go of me," I hissed and stomped away.

I heard him choking with laughter. I wasn't in the least concerned about his chuckles: my outburst had dissipated instantly.

I stood rooted to the spot, trembling all over, unable to walk away. And then, as if I had a giant rubber band attached to me, I returned to the bench.

"Don't feel bad," he said kindly.

He seemed to know exactly what it was that was pulling me back to the bench. He patted my back as one does a baby's after a meal.

"It isn't what you or I do," he continued. "It's something outside the two of us which is acting upon us.

"It's been acting upon me for a long time. Now I am accustomed to it.

"But I can't understand why it acts upon you.

"Don't ask me what it is," he said, anticipating my question. "I can't yet explain it to you."

I wasn't going to ask him anything anyway: My mind had stopped functioning.

I felt exactly as if I were asleep, dreaming that I was talking.

Moments later, my numbness passed. I felt more animated yet not quite like my usual self. "What's happening to me?" I asked.

"You are being focused and pushed by something that doesn't come from you," he said. "Something is pushing you, using me as a tool. Something is superimposing another criterion on your middle-class convictions."

"Don't start on that middle-class idiocy," I said feebly. It was more like I was pleading with him.

I smiled helplessly, thinking that I had lost my usual gall.

"These, by the way, are not my own opinions or ideas," he said:

"I'm like you, strictly a product of middle-class ideology.

"Imagine my horror when I came face to face with a different and more prevailing ideology. It ripped me apart."

"What ideology is that?" I asked meekly, my voice so low it as barely audible.

"A man brought that ideology to me," he explained. "Or rather, the spirit spoke and acted on me through him.

"That man is a sorcerer. I've written about him. His name is Juan Matus. He's the one ho made me face my middle-class mentality.

"Juan Matus once asked me a grand question: 'What do you think university is?'

"I, of course, answered him like a social scientist: 'A center of higher learning.'

"He corrected me and declared that a uniersity should be called a 'Middle-Class Institute' because it is the stitution we attend to further perfect our middle-class values.

"We attend the institute to become professionists, he said. The ideology of our social class tells us that we must prepare ourselves for occupying managerial positions.

"Juan Matus said that men go to the middle-class institute to become engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc., and women go there to get a suitable husband, provider, and father of their children. Suitable is naturally defined by middle-class values."

I wanted to contradict him. I wanted to shout at him that I knew people who weren't necessarily interested in a career or looking for a spouse; that I knew people who were interested in ideas, in learning for its own sake.

But I didn't know such people.

I felt a terrible pressure in my chest and had an attack of dry coughing.

It wasn't the cough or the physical discomfort that made me wriggle in my seat and prevented me from arguing with him. It was the certainty that he was speaking about me: I was going to a university precisely to find a suitable man.

Again I stood up, ready to leave: I had even extended my hand to shake his in farewell when I felt a powerful tug on my back.

It was so strong I had to sit down, lest I fall. I knew he hadn't touched me: I had been looking at him all the time.

Thoughts of people I didn't quite remember; of dreams I hadn't quite forgotten came crowding into my mind forming an intricate pattern from which I couldn't extricate myself.

Unknown faces, half-heard sentences, dark images of places, and blurred images of people threw me momentarily into some kind of limbo.

I was close to remembering something about all this kaleidoscope of visualizations and sounds; but the knowledge flittered away, and a feeling of calm and ease overtook me; a tranquility so deep that it screened out all my desire to assert myself.

I stretched my legs in front of me as if I didn't have a care in the world- and at the moment I didn't- and began to talk.

I couldn't remember ever talking about myself so frankly before, and I couldn't fathom why I was suddenly so unguarded with him.

I told him about Venezuela, my parents, my childhood, my restlessness, my meaningless life.

I told him of things I wouldn't even admit to myself.

"I've been studying anthropology since last year. And I really don't know why," I said.

I was beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable by my own revelations.

I shifted restlessly on the bench, but I couldn't stop myself from adding, "Two subjects that interest me more are Spanish and German literature. To be in the anthropology department defies all I know about myself."

"That detail intrigues me to no end," he said. "I can't get into it now, but it seems as if I had been placed here for you to find me, or vice versa."

"What does all this mean?" I asked, then blushed, realizing that I was interpreting and centering everything on my womanhood.

He seemed to be thoroughly aware of my state of mind.

He reached for my hand and pressed it against his heart. "Me gustas, nibelunga," he exclaimed dramatically, and for good measure he translated the words into English, "I'm passionately attracted to you, Nibelung."

He looked at me with the eyes of a Latin lover and then burst into raucous laughter. "You're convinced I have to say this to you sooner or later, so it might as well be now."

Instead of getting angry at being teased, I laughed: His humor gave me great pleasure.

The only Nibelungen I knew were from my father's German mythology books. Siegfried and the Nibelungen. As far as I could remember, they were underground, magical, dwarfish beings.

"Are you calling me a dwarf?" I asked in jest.

"God forbid!" he protested. "I'm calling you a German mythical being."

Shortly afterwards, as if it were the only thing we could have done, we drove to the Santa Susana Mountains, to the place we had met.

Neither of us said a single word as we sat on the cliff overlooking the Indian burial ground.

Moved by a pure impulse of companionship, we sat there in silence, oblivious to the afternoon turning into night.