That’s why I said that when I entered Don Chente’s apartment to undergo the second hypnosis session I was bewildered and my willpower was quashed, the events of Saturday night having plunged me into a morbid state of disquietude for several days, because without wanting to, I had had to face certain repulsive parts of myself that I refused to accept but whose existence panicked me, giving me the feeling that something very powerful had disintegrated inside me. This time, fortunately, Don Chente led me from the elevator directly to the small room, where I immediately lay down on the exam table, ready to begin the process of relaxation, just as we had done the first time, hoping that as a result of this session I would be able to sort out the muddle inside me, but Don Chente told me to try to relax on my own, to use all my powers of concentration, and he would return in a few minutes, then he left. So I focused my attention on my toes, sending them instructions to relax, without ceasing to think about them for a single instant, until I soon felt the typical tingle of relaxation, then moved to the soles of my feet, then to my ankles, and thereby I ascended along my lower limbs, feeling lighter and lighter, and soon I was nodding off: I was a child wandering through the orange groves on a finca in the Planes de Renderos, a five-year-old child, fully aware of my father’s instructions not to pick a single orange even though what I wanted more than anything else was, precisely, to pick one of the oranges I was walking past on that old finca adjacent to the house where we were living, a finca of orange groves where I later came across two people huddled under a tree whose faces looked familiar, but I didn’t quite recognize them, two people discreetly enjoying the oranges they had recently and surreptitiously picked and who invited me to join their feast. Then I was awoken by the sound of the door opening and Don Chente entering, though I remained in that state of levity even when he instructed me to open my eyes, which I immediately did, and it took me only a few seconds to recognize the shining object that was moving back and forth in front of my face, it was a silver pocket watch dangling from Don Chente’s hand and upon which he asked me to focus my attention, which I did with ease while he talked to me in a way I had seen in some movie or other when the circus magician speaks to a volunteer, who then suddenly begins to follow the magician’s instructions without any consciousness of how ridiculous. .
“Wake up!” Don Chente ordered, but I was returning from so far away that it felt like a lot of time had passed between when I heard his voice and when I opened my eyes; and even once my eyes were open, I remained on the table, not moving, as if waiting to return to full consciousness, in a state so serene I didn’t want to leave it for anything in the world. “I’ll wait for you in my office,” Don Chente said, giving me time alone, for I refused to budge, knowing that the tiniest movement would bring me back, this time fully aware that I might have spent the whole day on that table, that’s how far away I felt I’d been — but I soon lifted my arm to look at the time.