Elena Poniatowska - Leonora

‘This painter has an overwhelming imagination. He is a genius!’

‘He is abnormal.’

‘Then I too would like to be abnormal, just like him.’

During the winter holidays of 1932, Leonora goes to Switzerland with her parents, staying near to the Jungfrau glacier. Her mother ice-skates and her father devotes himself to his beloved curling. Leonora goes skiing but takes a fall, something that provokes several spectators to rush to her rescue. Abashed, she informs them that her sport is riding, which she knows how to do well. A group of young people invite her to descend from the snowy peaks in their sleigh, then to go out dancing in the evening. They share a fondue and they are captivated by her, then annoyed because she prefers the company of two St. Bernards who follow her all the way home to her bedroom with a mountain of snow on each paw.

‘Miss Carrington, this is forbidden. Dogs must be kept outside.’

‘Miss Carrington, animals must not be brought into the dining room.’

So Leonora takes off for the whole day with the dogs, and Harold Carrington is annoyed in his turn. Why can’t his only daughter behave like other girls? Leonora sees horses made of ice between the trees, the slightest sound reminds her of cantering horses, she finds the imprint of hooves in the snow, and the blinding whiteness of the snowflakes form the back of an immense mare covering the earth.

A telegram arrives in Switzerland from Florence. Miss Penrose informs her that her room-mate, Elizabeth Apple, has caught an infectious disease: scarlet fever.

Immediately, Leonora is doubled over. A searing pain paralyses her right leg.

‘It’s an attack of appendicitis,’ the hotel doctor diagnoses, more accustomed to attending to broken bones. ‘She needs to be taken at once to hospital in Berne.’

When she awakens, the first thing Leonora sees is her mother’s face:

‘It is beyond doubt that riding so much has led to your intestines getting tied into knots.’

‘How can you say something so stupid?’ she overhears her father saying.

So he is here in the hospital. His dark voice, in stark contrast to the surrounding whiteness, is worrying.

When she is allowed to get up, her father helps her walk.

‘At Hazelwood you’ll convalesce more rapidly.’

A fortnight later, Leonora enters his library and asks him:

‘There must be an awful lot of schools for young ladies in Paris, mustn’t there?’

Harold and Maurie Carrington agree with her, her mother positively enthusiastic.

‘It is very easy to get to Paris, and I’ll come and see you there after the next charity auction in Islington.’

SPEAKING FRENCH SINCE CHILDHOOD is an asset, since it permits Leonora to walk fearlessly about Paris. Streets exercise far stronger powers of seduction than school for her.

‘Where are you going to, Leonora?’

‘Out into the street.’

‘But you have a class in French literature.’

‘I learn more out of doors. The whole history of France lies in its paving stones. And I’m intrigued by how men’s trousers protrude from under the pissoirs. ’

‘If you persist in breaking the rules, we shall be obliged to expel you.’

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure.’

They expel her again. Why is it so hard to change her ways? Her monthly allowance will have to be cut, in order to tame her by imposing restrictions. Her irate father moves her to a school with a harsher reputation: Miss Sampson’s Paris establishment. There her tiny room has a view over the cemetery. ‘I refuse to remain in this prison, it brings bad luck.’ She escapes and seeks out a Professor of Fine Arts known to her parents, Simon, who, on seeing how firmly her mind is made up, opens his door to her. The ferocity of this young girl in some way resembles that of the early Knights Templar or the Illuminati. It is difficult to reject her and yes, Leonora is more at ease because Simon allows her to spend all day in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, go up the Rue des Beaux Arts and walk at dusk along the Seine, which she observes from the Pont Neuf, chatting with whomever attracts her attention. Simon even accompanies her along the quais, seeking out books on alchemy on the bookstalls, and sharing a coffee with her in cafés on Saint-Germain-des-Prés. His sole stipulation is that she returns by ten-thirty at night.

Whenever she runs out of money, she goes to the Ritz, where her father keeps a permanent suite and Jules the porter is mortified by the state of her shoes.

‘It’s because I walk around so much.’

‘Please don’t concern yourself. Here, take these francs, and I’ll put them on your father’s account. If you stay in Paris long enough, you’ll learn how to recognise the scent of the chestnut trees.’

Her mother rescues her, arriving in Paris with train tickets to travel wherever they choose.

‘They say that if you miss out on a romantic date or a trip to Paris, you die without knowing that you have lived,’ Maurie happily explains. She is a keen traveller and knows that her daughter is an incomparable companion, whenever she chooses to be so.

Maurie can see Harold’s character traits reflected in Leonora; they exercise the same power over other people. The head of Imperial Chemical Industries rules the world and Leonora faces up to him: where on earth does she find the gall to do this?

‘Your father does not understand your behaviour, all he looks forward to is your presentation at Court, hoping that there at least you’ll find your head.’

Visiting museums in Italy and France with Leonora is like going on two journeys at the same time: a traditional one and the magical one her daughter is always embarked on.

‘Look Mummy, this is a Brueghel. Let me see the wall caption, but I am certain that it is really him.’

Maurie is filled with pride that her daughter recognises each artist by their paintings.

‘I would like to go to Germany to see the Brueghels there. And Heironymus Bosch, Grünewald and Cranach. I would also like to see Hans Baldung’s The Knight, the Young Maiden and Death and Caspar David Friedrich’s series on The Ruins of Eldena Abbey .’

Leonora spends long hours in front of each painting, observing it with reverence, taking out her notebook, making rapid sketches. She departs the museum only reluctantly, and sits contemplatively on the edge of the fountain while her mother consults the Baedeker, and decides what they’ll go and visit the next day.

Leonora has an appetite for every type of food, tasting aubergines and risotto, ordering the house wine. She smiles and flirts with the bell boy, the porter, the hotel manager, the key manager, and the man with a moustache and beard at the adjacent table. Not to mention the handsome young man who invites her to dance.

Every guest leaves their shoes outside their room door for them to be polished, and Leonora swaps them around the corridor. At night, as they fall asleep, mother and daughter reprise their accounts of the day, and their vivid commentaries surpass the lived experience. To Maurie, all is transformed into a fiesta. How delightful it would be to always live like that! Despite the fact that to Leonora it is wholly incomprehensible that any woman would wish to be married to Harold Carrington, Maurie’s life had at least been made easy.

‘Your father is a highly attractive man.’

‘I hardly think so.’

‘He’s a man of character.’

‘That I’m well aware of it, as I suffer from it.’

‘He is endowed with a superior intelligence.’

‘In this respect I agree with you.’

‘What we are we owe to your father.’