Elena Poniatowska - Leonora

‘If I didn’t obey my father, I am even less likely to obey you .’

Thanks to José, she manages to send Don Luis a sheet of paper with a triangle drawn on it, to explain why she was called to save the world, and why the Dutchman Van Ghent should be locked up instead of her.

Don Luis receives her in his consulting room, indicating a chair where she should be seated in front of him.

‘I possess certain powers,’ Leonora gesticulates, ‘many powers. When I see adverts on the streets of Madrid I can divine what is behind them, just like whenever I see tinned food, I can see the contents inside. If I read the names Amazon Company or Imperial Chemical, I can see all the way back to the fields or farms and impose quality control. When the phone rings and I pick it up to say “hello,” and then a voice does not answer, I know who it is. In any café in Madrid, or in the lobby of the Hotel Roma, I could descry anyone’s most secret intentions just by listening to the vibrations of their voice. Even with my back turned to the door, I could tell who was coming into the room, and I correctly identified Catherine and Michel or Van Ghent and Van Ghent’s son.’

‘Carry on,’ the doctor encourages her.

‘I could also understand every language, including even Irish. At times like that I adored myself, I revered myself — how omnipotent I was! — I contained everything within me. I congratulated myself because my eyes had miraculously become solar systems; my movements, a great dance of freedom; and I, integral to this dance, was about to save the city. In Madrid I listened to the song Ojos Verdes — and knew it to be a sign from the Cosmos, because Gerard has green eyes, as do both Alberto and Michel Lukacs — who got me out of St. Martin d’Ardèche — and the young Argentine who looked at me so sympathetically on the train.’

‘Could you draw a map of your journey from St. Martin d’Ardèche to here?’ Morales asks her, and sets her to work tracing her route all the way from France to Spain.

Leonora is unable to comply, or to satisfy him. Don Luis takes the pencil from her hand and sketches the itinerary of her journey himself. At the centre of the page he puts an M for Madrid. It is just at that moment that Leonora has a first flash of enlightenment: the M refers to her and not to mundo , to the world. If she can manage to reconstruct this itinerary, she can also re-establish communication between her mind and body.

The Morales are lords of the universe, using their powers to sow terror. She will overthrow them and set her companions there free.

The following afternoon an unknown man with a doctor’s briefcase in his hand pauses at her bedside:

‘I have come to take some blood we need for a test. I shall be back in a minute with Don Luis.’

To which Leonora replies: ‘Either you or Don Luis, I only receive one doctor at a time, and I am not willing to accept any injections on any pretext at all.’

The man with the briefcase starts arguing, and in return Leonora insults him. She prepares to leap out at him, and he moves swiftly aside. When Don Luis enters, Leonora announces:

‘I’m leaving.’

Suave and insinuating, Don Luis explains the blood sampling to her.

Leonora wants to reply to him but from her mouth again Hitler, Franco and their infamous alliance emerge, and their bombings; she holds the key to ending the war, and she can now count on an ally, her lover Alberto, the doctor waiting outside for her.

‘Where are you Alberto? Alberto has come to my rescue! O, Alberto, Alberto, Alberto! Alberto loves me! Albertooo!’

All of a sudden José, Santos, Frau Asegurado and Piadosa enter together and a white avalanche falls on top of her, covering her like a shroud: two hands clasp her legs, others stretch out one of her arms and, just before they stab her with the needle, she manages to ask:

‘Why are you treating me so badly? Can’t you understand that I’m a mare?’

Leonora coughs, then yells. Her muscles contract, spasms race from her womb to her breast, her head is thrown back, her jawbone seems to be dislocated. Her mouth opens in an immense, terrifying grimace.

‘Don’t let her over-arch her back, she could fracture her spinal column,’ Luis Morales orders, taking out his stethoscope, because the heartbeat accelerates in such a manner that it could easily race towards its final spasm.

Frau Asegurado, José and Santos immobilise Leonora’s arms and legs. In the case of other patients, the administration of Cardiazol had resulted in multiple fractures, one had even fallen and broken his entire vertebral column. Leonora moves around more than most, and her breasts are shaking.

‘She’s so very young,’ says José. ‘She has the strong legs of a well-built woman, the muscles are long, and it’s obvious she does a lot of sport.’

Luis Morales agrees with the male nurse.

‘What a shame,’ José interrupts once more. ‘She’s a good-looking girl.’

A convulsion in her vital organs sends Leonora back up to the surface so rapidly she feels vertiginous. She sees again those blue eyes with their fixed and frightening stare and howls:

‘I don’t want it, I don’t want this impure force within me! I am growing, I am growing bigger and bigger, and I am afraid!’

A current slices into her forehead and a shaft of pain crosses her body, doubles her over, and she’s left rigid. She is still just about able to think that nothing better than death could happen to her, when the electricity crackles and emits sparks: ‘It’s my neurons. They’re turning me into a lettuce leaf.’

The Cardiazol provokes something akin to an epileptic attack.

Later on, José confirms that her fit lasted for several minutes; convulsed, hideous, every part of her body, including her arms and wrists, her breasts and belly, were becoming twisted and deformed:

‘Look, just so that you understand me: your head was sizzling, your skin was scraped, we placed a rag between your teeth so that you couldn’t bite your tongue. When the convulsions began you stopped shouting. This form of treatment also produces diarrhoea, the patient loses all control of their bodily functions, tries to speak but only unintelligible sounds emerge.’

‘José, if it were up to you, and you were a doctor, would you use this form of therapy?’

‘This is the treatment offered to the incurable.’

‘The incurable?’

‘Yes. Your records read: “Incurable”.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It means that there is no remedy for your insanity.’

WHEN LEONORA ATTEMPTS TO SPEAK, either her tongue twists in her mouth or else her throat feels torn and raw. She spends entire days and nights naked and tormented by mosquitoes. Not to be able to scratch a mosquito bite is sheer torture. She becomes accustomed to the smell of her own sweat and urine; what she cannot adjust to are the swellings in her thighs. In addition, her back also hurts, her legs weigh her down, her temples are piercing and she has a permanent and terrible headache, as if she were wearing a tiara too small for her head.

‘You’ll continue experiencing these piercing pains for a few days, so for now we won’t move you, but it’s worth your putting up with these inconveniences because Cardiazol can bring immense benefits,’ Frau Asegurado informs her in the course of her constant daytime vigils.

José, who keeps watch over her on the night shift, lights a cigarette and places it between her lips so that she can take a few drags; he brings her a lemon, which Leonora eats whole, including the skin, and which helps to eliminate the bitter taste left in her mouth by the convulsions. He also wipes away her sweat with a damp towel, for which Leonora thanks him. The smell of her faeces doesn’t seem to bother him, and he seems a cheerful sort. When Leonora asks him if Piadosa, the cross-eyed auxiliary, has a name that means ‘pious one’ because her feet make her suffer so much, José guffaws out loud.