Elena Poniatowska - Leonora

‘Yes, and I promise you that we shall set this world to rights. But we’ll start with you, Leonor. At what age did you begin menstruation?’

‘I don’t discuss such matters.’

‘I am your doctor.’

‘Look here, the moon crossed over the sun, and on this small table, I can arrange various solar systems as perfect and complete as yours …’

‘What is my solar system?’

‘The one you so impudently cause to rotate over our heads, and which causes our convulsions.’

‘Do I appear aggressive to you?’

‘Aggressive? What you perform are the inhuman actions of an authoritarian system of a Nazi, fascist and racist system.’

Leonora starts to tremble.

‘Quieten down, I only want to try and help you. When did you start menstruating?’

‘Europe transformed my blood into energy. My blood is both masculine and feminine at the same time, it is microcosmic, and forms part of the universe because it is the wine I offer both the moon and the sun to drink. I used to make wine, I know all there is to know about vineyards and, just as I trod my own grapes, so I’ll trample the Germans invading France, Spain and England.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Luis Morales replies sympathetically. ‘Women surrender their lives in the cause of humanity. If it were down to them, there would be no more wars. Take comfort: our sons have died for God, Spain and the king!’

‘But look here, I don’t believe in God, I don’t have any sons, still less am I a patriot, and the king is an idiot. All I want is to get out of here, if only you and my father would let me.’

‘That depends entirely on your good behaviour,’ Luis Morales tells her.

‘Inside this matchbox I put a picture of Franco and, next to him, a little piece of excrement. Take a look: it’s dry now.’

Luis Morales blinks repeatedly, and his blue eyes no longer seem so prominent.

‘Tell me, what is your father like?’

‘My father is the perfect example of the common man.’

‘And you accept that?’

‘He is an ethical, honest and tolerant man, attached to all he deems normal and rational, and hasn’t the least understanding of me.’

‘Does he understand your brothers?’

‘Yes, because they do exactly what he wants them to.’

‘Good. Yet your father is not a bad person, you yourself said as much.’

‘No he isn’t, but he always preferred my brothers and sidelined me because I am a woman. He is lord and master of house and home, and his presence intimidates everyone. Even when I was a child, I can remember that as soon as he appeared, we all stopped playing.’

‘Why can you not obey your father?’

‘Because there’s something inside me that prevents it. Whenever I used to tell him I was bored at home, he would answer with: “Breed fox terriers”, as if training dogs could save me. Or else say “Learn to cook”, when I was incapable of showing the least interest in whether you first have to put the butter or the egg into the frying pan. He would have been happiest of all had I married a rich man and gone to Mass every Sunday.’

‘And why, now that you are here in the sanatorium, do you think you are entitled to special treatment?’ Luis Morales asks her, with a touch of sarcasm.

‘Because I am special. May I smoke?’

‘Yes.’

Although it is forbidden to smoke in the sanatorium, he lights her cigarette for her. Don Luis had had a vocation to the priest-hood, but a preference for medicine.

‘How good you didn’t become a priest, I loathe the clergy! At least you have no pretensions to sanctimoniousness. In any case, I like you as a man.’

‘Do you find me attractive?’

‘It depends.’

This woman, with her prodigious inner life and her beauty, is a gift from God. Her desire for independence and her self-confidence dazzle him. Accustomed to treating patients who are the victims of circumstances, Leonora causes him to marvel: she is certainly a unique case. Don Luis smiles on her. She is unsure whether or not to return the smile.

Leonora tries to say one thing and something else comes out. Her mouth is suddenly filled with saliva. ‘If only this superior man, god, doctor and analyst, would just leave me in peace!’

‘No more interrogations,’ and she rises restlessly. ‘I need to reflect and to find a solution. Yesterday I was on the point of reaching one.’

What does this man want of her? Why does he destroy her routine? All of a sudden the certainty that Morales wishes to do her harm imposes itself:

‘Leave me alone, leave me! Can’t you tell that I am stretched out in the sun, on the white stones of St. Martin d’Ardèche?’

The doctor smiles: ‘It’s normal for you to feel dislocated. You need to take your time.’

She begins to turn away and the nurse takes her by the arm.

As the days go by, other inmates observe her through the glass door. They come into her room. Sometimes the Prince of Monaco, as noble as his lineage, greets her reverentially, waving his cadaverous hand around in the air. Others, including the Marquess Da Silva, the intimate friend of King Alfonso Xlll and of Franco, parades around as if wearing a crown on his head, and when he extends his hand, Leonora notices his nails are bitten.

‘He chews them because he is a heroin addict,’ says José. ‘They injected him with Cardiazol, but he thought it was the sting of a spider.’

‘You are a friend of Franco’s,’ Leonora tells the Marquess Da Silva, possessed of an innate elegance, ‘and I urgently need to speak to him. Kindly obtain an appointment for me! If you do this, the war will be over.’

Leonora ties her personal life to what else goes on in the world: she is the earth, her arms are olive branches raised against Nazism. It is not she who is imprisoned but rather England, France, Spain who are inside the asylum. Governments are the sum total of every form of egotism that has brought Europe to its demise. He wants to treat their populations precisely as Harold Carrington did her. Her fight is against repression. If they would only untie her, she would once again become the lover of the wind, and gather up all those countries in her arms to carry them off to a safe place high above the clouds.

The Prince of Monaco with his aquiline nose and his wayward gaze has installed a typewriter and a radio in his quarters in the Villa Pilar. From morning till night, he types away with two fingers, writing letters to diplomats. And he invites Leonora to come and listen to broadcasts on Radio Andorra.

‘Why do you have so many maps pinned to your wall? Are you going to stay here forever?’

Leonora seeks out the route from St. Martin d’Ardèche and the prince tells her that, if she wishes, she can mark it out in red crayon.

‘So you will know your way back, Lady Carrington,’ he tells her.

‘I am not a Lady, my family has no aristocratic titles. What it does have are airs and graces, which is why they have presumed to incarcerate me here.’

‘Why would you want to leave? Outside these walls there’s carnage. Inside here, they treat us like royalty.’

‘But without the courtiers. I’ve got such a tune going round inside my head that all I want to do is dance.’

‘Then go out into the garden and dance, follow your instincts. I would accompany you, had I not to write to the Duke of Sessa, and to Cayetana de Alba’s parents to let them know they need to find her another hairdresser.’

She doesn’t need to be told twice, and Leonora leaves with her arms held high above her head, swaying as she walks. Now yes, the freedom in her body is hers alone; the new-found lightness in her thighs carry her way beyond the asylum. ‘I shall never grow tired, all of me is a fortress!’ When dusk falls, Leonora twirls on her toes and attempts to sing a ballad without need for words. Its melody accompanies the beating of her heart. Are the sidhes sending her this music? The Prince of Monaco leaves the typewriter, throws his letters in the air, advances on her clicking invisible castanets and stamps frenetically until he hears Frau Asegurado shouting: