Elena Poniatowska - Leonora

‘What do you understand by a sheep and by a wolf?’ he amiably enquires of Leonora.

‘According to Gurdjieff, the wolf and the sheep must live together in harmony. The wolf represents the body and the sheep the emotions. Have I understood this correctly? The truth is that I find it quite impossible to believe that the wolf and the lamb will lie down together, and even more impossible that you refuse to permit me to smoke here.’

‘If you succeed in giving up cigarettes, your victory will be your salvation.’

‘And who told you that I wish to be saved?’

Within a few days, Leonora is growing annoyed. It has become intolerable to her that her companions in their fifties are now behaving like five-year-olds. They cry whenever they open their mouths, lamenting their lot in life.

‘Sentimentalism is a form of boredom,’ Leonora repeats impatiently.

It also reminds her of what Renato Leduc used to say: ‘In life one has to do as one wishes, or else end up opening every other sentence with “I wish I had … I would have preferred to have …”, expressions not worth a damn.’

In order to unburden herself, she tears her friends to pieces in a daily diary addressed to Remedios, in which she also makes fun of Rodney and his wife, Janet.

‘If only, rather than sarcastically mock everyone else, you would follow your meditation exercises, this retreat could be of great benefit to you,’ Rodney sweetly tells her, as if he could divine the content of her writing.

‘I have the feeling that, wherever it is I am going, I’m still carrying a sack of rocks on my back,’ answers Leonora.

‘These are the rocks made by your own curse, they belong to your false personality, one that you have yet to renounce.’

‘What do you mean? There’s nothing in the least false about my personality!’

‘That’s what you think. You need to look more deeply inside yourself, recall your past history, tear off the mask to reveal your true self. Gurdjieff said: “You must make every effort to ensure that your past does not become your future.”’

‘There are always times, though, when no matter how hard I try the past takes possession of the present.’

‘The past dies if the present cuts its throat,’ Lillian Firestone announces, with her spectacles perched on the end of her nose.

At meal times, Janet serves up frugal portions. When Natasha attempts to obtain a second helping, Janet explains: ‘If you eat too much you won’t be able to experience the full force of cosmic energy.’

Janet insists on a policy of lights out at ten o’clock at night. ‘It seems almost as if I’ve been sent back to the convent,’ Leonora grumbles. She cannot abide Lillian Firestone and writes as much to Remedios: ‘What on earth was the position of the stars at the hour of her birth? I can only believe such an imbecile must have been born back in the Stone Age.’ Nor can she bear the look on Natasha’s face and the banality of her smile. At every opportunity she interjects: ‘I want to integrate myself with the Cosmos.’ To which Leonora replies, by way of a joke, that what she wants is a catapult to get her there. The other woman showers her with thanks: ‘Deep within me I know I carry my astral body. How good it is that you understand that!’

‘Our life is like a series of shipwrecks, we have fled one catastrophe only to fall into another. This retreat is a life-belt. Remember what Gurdjieff tells us: “He who advances slowly goes far.”’

‘Then it would appear that Gurdjieff cannot be described as exactly original, since this comes straight out of one of La Fontaine’s Fables ,’ Leonora answers back, in her most acid tones.

In addition to teaching them how to assume the lotus position, Rodney Collin Smith instructs them in how to breathe and to meditate. He requests that they purchase copies of his book, The Theory of Eternal Life , based on Ouspensky’s theories. He tells them that he is currently working on The Theory of Celestial Influence and will give them each a copy when it is published. He also has faith in Zen Buddhism; it is the reason he requests that they remain still, their eyes lowered, paying attention to their breathing, for immobility obliges them to live in the present moment.

Later on, he initiates them into sacred dance movements and to communal ways of working, in order to unite the spirit with the body and teach the love of one’s neighbour. They make their beds, sweep their cabins, and take turns to prepare their meagre meals. Rodney himself regularly appears with a broom or a dishcloth, and is often to be found crouching on the floor tiles in the kitchen, scrubbing away with a benign smile on his face, even while the sweat runs down into his eyes.

Another communicant named Georgina snaps at Natasha as she is knitting a scarf: ‘Are you knitting a sweater for a cobra? And where on earth did you find such a nauseous green shade of wool?’ Leonora approves of Georgina’s frankness, most of all when Bible study hour comes around again:

‘Everyone knows that the Bible can’t be trusted. According to Noah: “It doesn’t matter in the least to me how high the water rises as long as it doesn’t reach the wine.” So he filled the Ark with animals, got drunk, fell in the water, and his wife left him there to drown.’

‘That not right, Leonora,’ protests Natasha.

‘Of course it is, his wife was left his entire inheritance and in those days a yoke of oxen was worth more than a bank account.’

What a relief to leave such air-heads to the ministrations of their spiritual guide!

Christopher Fremantle, who also hails from Great Britain, is another guru. Remedios Varo is enthusiastic:

‘He’s a painter, just like we are. Get a move on, let’s find out what he’s made of! He was really close to Gurdjieff. He applies the master’s ideas to his painting: to him concentration is a supreme undertaking.’

Through him, the initiates discover lines they never knew existed in a flower, or a fruit, or a wooden table. When the master asks: ‘What is more important, form or colour?’ Leonora hesitates, remembering Max’s frottages , his grattages , and finally considers form to come before all else.

‘Fremantle is an exceptional being, in addition to which he is really rather handsome. Thanks to him all our palettes will be reduced to a single colour,’ sighs Leonora.

Anne Fremantle’s generosity captivates Kati, Eva and Leonora, who share their spiritual conclusions with Remedios:

‘Free yourself of every stereotypical expression, free yourself from commonplace beliefs, free yourself from clichés, free yourself from visits, free yourself of those who call themselves visionaries, or at least that’s what the two hemispheres of my brain are telling me.’

‘Lately I’ve been dreaming of a picture of a nun who winks one eye at me from the top of her tower,’ Remedios tells Leonora. ‘I think it relates to a figure in a painting from the studio of the Spanish painter Zurbarán, or maybe from one in the eighteenth century, and it is sinister and bewitching.’

‘Then paint it.’

‘I’ve already painted Towards the Tower. Don’t you remember?’

In addition to the bedevilled nuns of Loudun, the two artists are intrigued by the spectacle of nuns possessed by the devils of Louviers, who put the exorcist to rout. Each of the nuns is tormented by a different demon. Sister Mary of the Holy Sacrament is possessed by Putifar, Sister Anne of the Nativity by Leviathan, Sister Mary of the Child Jesus by Phaeton, Sister Elizabeth of Saint Saviour by Asmodeo. During her holidays in Manzanillo, Leonora paints them on the point of drowning: Nunscape at Manzanillo . Remedios, also convent-educated, applauds it: