Elena Poniatowska - Leonora

‘I think I could give classes in photography.’

‘Well and good. As long as you don’t advertise classes of one hour and then stay another five and let everyone exploit you,’ Remedios warns her.

Leonora offers to accompany her home to the Calle Tabasco and, on reaching her front door, since Kati has not yet finished telling her story, she takes her by the arm and leads her on towards her own house.

‘Keep me company again, Leonora, back to my place.’

‘Please Kati, that’s enough for now.’

From that moment on, Leonora no longer feels herself to be alone, Remedios and Kati’s friendship makes all the difference. Apart from her time, Kati doesn’t know what more she can offer her. ‘Are you cold? Here, take my jumper.’ Small and intelligent, she is also dynamic and highly observant, bringing home news of the outside world. Seeing her appear in her tartan skirt is already a treat. Kati is not the slightest bit fashion-conscious. In contrast, Remedios clinches her wide belt another notch around her already tiny waist, wears only black and has two smart pairs of high heels. Nine years older than Leonora, she is the animator, the teacher, the one with whom all the men fall in love, yet who still protects Benjamin, while she permits herself the luxury of collecting stray cats and turning them into talismans as she does stones, sea shells, and the crystals with which she adorns her library.

Being together protects them, and they take shelter, holding each other by the hand.

‘We lived in clandestinity,’ Remedios says, ‘and we’ve now grown used to it.’

‘In clandestinity and with frugality,’ adds Benjamin, who still has not found work.

‘We have friends,’ Remedios says soothingly. ‘Look how much Paalen loves you!’

In New York, thanks to Breton, Paalen put his painting Combat of the Saturnine Princes II at the disposal of Peggy Guggenheim, to sell on his behalf and so resolve Péret’s financial problems.

Wolfgang, Alice and Eva come over from San Angel. Paalen looks very pale, for the impossibility of returning to Austria pains him. Years earlier, the Nazis put his name on the list of ‘degenerate artists’, just as they did with Max. Alice is a poet, but Paalen introduces her to painting, just as he propels Eva Sulzer towards photography.

‘There’s no such thing as art, only artists,’ is Paalen’s opinion. If Homer or Rembrandt or Shakespeare had never been born, becoming an artist would be just the same as taking up any other kind of job.’

‘The artist is a supreme egotist,’ interrupts Eva Sulzer.

‘It is a simple matter to destroy them,’ ventures Remedios.

‘I consider art to be a skill,’ interjects José Horna.

‘It may be a skill but I paint with my emotions, desires, fantasies and fears; I put my skill at the service of my self, my noir animal , my unconscious opens the door for me, and through it I can reach the point of intense suffering,’ alleges Alice Rahon vehemently.

‘Then you are a masochist,’ says Paalen, laughing.

Remedios’ friendship is like an open patio to Leonora, as was the green garden that surrounds Hazelwood Hall. She knows that, for her, solitude is now over. Remedios is her ideal foil, she finishes the sentences she can only begin, her smile embraces her, she is her twin sister. Nobody is of as much interest to her as she is, she longs to show Remedios her canvases, the short stories she has been writing, tell her her life story. ‘May she love me — what I want more than anything else at this moment in time is that Remedios will come to love me.’ For her part, Remedios, too, feels tenderly towards this slim, highly unusual figure, who turns up at midday and offers to help out in the kitchen.

‘Ever since I first met you I became all the more Leonora. Before, I didn’t know who I was. Now my dogs bark and my cat miaows, but until now they never spoke a word to me.’

To discover Remedios is to cling tightly to a lifebelt, to walk beside Kati is to move forward at twice the speed, José Horna, the Andalusian, loves life and seizes hold of it with joy:

‘How handsome José is!’

‘Yes, I got to know him in the International Anarchist Federation, and he asked for photos to use in making his posters.’

‘At last I don’t feel as if I’m sinking.’

‘Were you falling into the well? I know what that’s like,’ says Remedios. ‘What’s important is that you don’t discount your own thoughts.’

‘It’s more that I can’t paint, nothing comes out.’

‘Something is bound to come out. Look, for the time being, all we need is a pair of scissors,’ says Remedios, covering the table with sheets of newspaper. ‘We’ll find something. I collected photos of human organs, medicaments, surgical operations, plants, flowers and animals in some medical magazines. They’re perfect for making collages. See here we have a shoe catalogue. See, Kati and Leonora, we can turn this stove into a dancer’s body and if we can find some plucked chickens, it would be great to stick them on to her head like a crown.’

Leonora returns Kati’s smile, Kati who never seems to tire with so much running around the city centre.

‘Why don’t you come over tomorrow evening and meet Gunther Gerzso? He is really amusing.’

Leonora turns up with her dogs, and Remedios’ wide smile reassures her that she is welcome.

‘See here, I’ve got these little scraps of fabric for you. They are to make dolls with. Do you like sewing? I sew everything here, and I can even tailor a proper women’s suit.’

That afternoon, Leonora makes her first doll.

‘It chimes with me in some way I can’t comprehend,’ she explains to Remedios. ‘According to the Celts, each one of us has a double. Maybe this doll will become my double.’

‘Did you stitch your heart?’

‘Yes, and I joined it to my head.’

Week after week, Leonora brings over more dolls.

‘This one has a nose as wide as a turnip, perhaps some day I’ll get it finished. This one has turned out just like Mlle. Varenne. And the other one you have here contains a peyote plant inside it, and I’ve been told it can live for many years,’ she announces with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

‘What a good training you’ve had, Leonora,’ Kati says to her.

‘Yes it was a real training, undertaken to kill time as we say in English. But what I do here is not to kill time but to shorten it.’

Remedios gets used to seeing her come in with her mass of dishevelled black hair, dressed in a jumper, slacks and moccasins, shoes that permit her to minimise distances, since she always goes to and from the Calle Artes on foot.

‘I think I’ve never taken a taxi from the day I came here, except with Renato. I adore the trams but he is less keen on them.’

‘Who is Renato?’

‘He is my reason for being in Mexico.’

‘Did you prefer him to Max?’

‘I don’t know, I suppose I did, because I am sitting here with you rather than in New York.’

‘Was that your decision?’

‘I don’t know if it was a decision or not. I think that I’ve never taken a decision in my life.’

‘Of course you have. You decided to leave your parents.’

‘Every child leaves their parents at some time or other. In my case, Remedios, things just happen to me.’

Side by side, Remedios and Leonora cut up pictures of boxers, horses, star fish, and strip out fashion or medical catalogues. Leonora sticks a shoe on top of a head and then recants: ‘No, that looks too much like Dalí.’ She chooses a tree that she surrounds with sardine tins, and cuts out a cat on which she sticks Marlene Dietrich’s face, courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar. She puts a tortoise on top of an aeroplane, and a staircase that drops down to a cauldron, out of which emerge two twins wearing uniform. Remedios sticks paper flowers on to a deep blue sea. They all laugh. Remedios’ laughter always makes Leonora feel much better.