Free The Active Side of Infinity by Carlos Castaneda Page B

were keeping step in a parade.
    I prepared myself to go to the old man's house with Lucas Coronado.
Instead, he politely declined; he wanted me to drive him
back to his house.
    "I think you found the man you were looking for, and I feel that
you should be alone," he said.
    I marveled at how extraordinarily polite these Yaqui Indians were, and
yet, at the same time, so fierce. I had been told that the
Yaquis were savages who had no qualms about killing anyone; as
far as I was concerned, though, their most remarkable feature was their
politeness and consideration.
    I drove to the house of Ignacio Flores's father, and there I found the
man I was looking for. "I wonder why Jorge Campos lied and told me that he
knew you," I said at the end of my account.
    "He didn't lie to you," don Juan said with the conviction of
someone who was condoning Jorge Campos's behavior. "He didn't even
misrepresent himself. He thought you were an easy mark and was
going to cheat you. He couldn't carry out his plan, though, because infinity overpowered him. Do you know that he disappeared soon
after he met you, never to be found?
    "Jorge Campos was a most meaningful personage for you," he
continued. "You will find, in whatever transpired between the
two of you, a sort of guiding blueprint, because he is the representation of
your life."
    "Why? I'm not a crook!" I protested.
    He laughed, as if he knew something that I didn't. The next thing I
knew, I found myself in the midst of an extensive explanation
of my actions, my ideals, my expectations. However, a strange thought
urged me to consider with the same fervor with which I was explaining myself that
under certain circumstances, I might be like Jorge Campos. I found the thought
inadmissible, and I used all my available energy to try to disprove
it. However, down in the depths of myself, I didn't care to
apologize if I were like Jorge Campos.
    When I voiced my dilemma, don Juan laughed so hard that he choked, many
times.
    "If I were you," he commented, "I'd listen to my inner
voice. What difference would it make if you were like Jorge Campos: a crook! He
was a cheap crook. You are more elaborate. This is the power of the
recounting. This is why sorcerers use it. It puts you into contact with something
that you didn't even suspect existed in you."
    I wanted to leave right then. Don Juan knew exactly how I felt.
    "Don't listen to the superficial voice that makes you angry,"
he said commandingly. "Listen to that deeper voice that is going
to guide you from now on, the voice that is laughing. Listen to it! And
laugh with it. Laugh! Laugh!"
    His words were like a hypnotic command to me. Against my will, I began
to laugh. Never had I been so happy. I felt free, unmasked.
    "Recount to yourself the story of Jorge Campos, over and
over,"
    don Juan said. "You will find endless wealth in it. Every detail
is part of a map. It is the nature of infinity, once we
cross a certain threshold, to put a blueprint in front of us."
    He peered at me for a long time. He didn't merely glance as before, but
he gazed intently at me. "One deed which Jorge Campos
couldn't avoid performing," he finally said, "was to put you in
contact with the other man: Lucas Coronado, who is as meaningful to you as
Jorge Campos himself, maybe even more.
    In the course of recounting the story of those two men, I had realized
that I had spent more time with Lucas Coronado than with
Jorge Campos; however, our exchanges had not been as intense, and
were marked by enormous lagoons of silence. Lucas Coronado was not by nature a talkative
man, and by some strange twist, whenever he was silent he managed to drag me
with him into that state.
    "Lucas Coronado is. the other part of your map," don Juan
said. "Don't you find it strange that he is a
sculptor, like yourself, a super-sensitive artist who was, like yourself at one
time, in search of a sponsor for his art? He looked for a sponsor just like you
looked for a woman, a lover of the arts, who would