The Witch of Portobello

And looking at Athena, Jesus might have replied: "My child, I've been excluded too. It's a very long time since they've allowed me in there."

PAVEL PODBIELSKI, FIFTY-SEVEN, OWNER OF THE APARTMENT

Athena and I had one thing in common: we were both refugees from a war and arrived in England when we were still children, although I fled Poland over fifty years ago. We both knew that despite the physical change, our traditions continue to exist in exile--communities join together again, language and religion remain alive, and in a place that will always be foreign to them, people tend to look after one another.

Traditions continue, but the desire to go back gradually disappears. That desire needs to stay alive in our hearts as a hope with which we like to delude ourselves, but it will never be put into practice; I'

ll never go back to live in Czestochowa, and Athena and her family will never return to Beirut.

It was this kind of solidarity that made me rent her the third floor of my house in Basset Road--normally, I'd prefer tenants without children. I'd made that mistake before, and two things had happened: I complained about the noise they made during the day, and they complained about the noise I made during the night. Both noises had their roots in sacred elements--crying and music--but they belonged to two completely different worlds, and it was hard for them to coexist.

I warned her, but she didn't really take it in and told me not to worry about her son. He spent all day at his grandmother's house anyway, and the apartment was conveniently close to her work at a local bank.

Despite my warnings, and despite holding out bravely at first, eight days later the doorbell rang. It was Athena, with her child in her arms.

"My son can't sleep. Couldn't you turn the music down at least for one night?"

Everyone in the room stared at her.

"What's going on?"

The child immediately stopped crying, as if he were as surprised as his mother to see that group of people, who had stopped in middance.

I pressed the pause button on the cassette player and beckoned her in. Then I restarted the music so as not to interrupt the ritual. Athena sat down in one corner of the room, rocking her child in her arms and watching him drift off to sleep despite the noise of drums and brass. She stayed for the whole ceremony and left along with the other guests, but--as I thought she would--she rang my doorbell the next morning, before going to work.

"You don't have to explain what I saw--people dancing with their eyes closed--because I know what that means. I often do the same myself, and at the moment, those are the only times of peace and serenity in my life. Before I became a mother, I used to go to clubs with my husband and my friends, and I'd see people dancing with their eyes closed there too. Some were just trying to look cool, and others seemed to be genuinely moved by a greater, more powerful force. And ever since I've been old enough to think for myself, I've always used dance as a way of getting in touch with something stronger and more powerful than myself. Anyway, could you tell me what that music was?"

"What are you doing this Sunday?"

"Nothing special. I might go for a walk with Viorel in Regent's Park and get some fresh air. I'll have plenty of time later on for a social calendar of my own; for the moment, I've decided to follow my son's."

"I'll come with you, if you like."

On the two nights before our walk, Athena came to watch the ritual. Her son fell asleep after only a few minutes, and she merely watched what was going on around her without saying a word. She sat quite still on the sofa, but I was sure that her soul was dancing.

On Sunday afternoon, while we were walking in the park, I asked her to pay attention to everything she was seeing and hearing: the leaves moving in the breeze, the waves on the lake, the birds singing, the dogs barking, the shouts of children as they ran back and forth, as if obeying some strange logic incomprehensible to grown-ups.

"Everything moves, and everything moves to a rhythm. And everything that moves to a rhythm creates a sound. At this moment, the same thing is happening here and everywhere else in the world. Our ancestors noticed the same thing when they tried to escape from the cold into caves: things moved and made noise. The first human beings may have been frightened by this at first, but that fear was soon replaced by a sense of awe: they understood that this was the way in which some Superior Being was communicating with them. In the hope of reciprocating that communication, they started imitating the sounds and movements around them--and thus dance and music were born. A few days ago, you told me that dance puts you in touch with something stronger than yourself."

"Yes, when I dance, I'm a free woman, or, rather, a free spirit who can travel through the universe, contemplate the present, divine the future, and be transformed into pure energy. And that gives me enormous pleasure, a joy that always goes far beyond everything I've experienced or will experience in my lifetime. There was a time when I was determined to become a saint, praising God through music and movement, but that path is closed to me forever now."

"Which path do you mean?"

She made her son more comfortable in his stroller. I saw that she didn't want to answer that question and so I asked again: when mouths close, it's because there's something important to be said.

Without a flicker of emotion, as if she'd always had to endure in silence the things life imposed on her, she told me about what had happened at the church, when the priest--possibly her only friend--had refused her communion. She also told me about the curse she had uttered then, and that she had left the Catholic Church forever.

"A saint is someone who lives his or her life with dignity," I explained. "All we have to do is understand that we're all here for a reason and to commit ourselves to that. Then we can laugh at our sufferings, large and small, and walk fearlessly, aware that each step has meaning. We can let ourselves be guided by the light emanating from the Vertex."

"What do you mean by the Vertex? In mathematics, it's the topmost angle of a triangle."

"In life too it's the culminating point, the goal of all those who, like everyone else, make mistakes, but who, even in their darkest moments, never lose sight of the light emanating from their hearts. That's what we're trying to do in our group. The Vertex is hidden inside us, and we can reach it if we accept it and recognize its light."

I explained that I'd come up with the name "The Search for the Vertex" for the dance she'd watched on previous nights, performed by people of all ages (at the time there were ten of us, aged between nineteen and sixty-five). Athena asked where I'd found out about it.

I told her that, immediately after the end of World War II, some of my family had managed to escape from the Communist regime that was taking over Poland, and decided to move to England. They'd been advised to bring with them art objects and antiquarian books, which, they were told, were highly valued in this part of the world.

Paintings and sculptures were quickly sold, but the books remained, gathering dust. My mother was keen for me to read and speak Polish, and the books formed part of my education. One day, inside a nineteenth-century edition of Thomas Malthus, I found two pages of notes written by my grandfather, who had died in a concentration camp. I started reading, assuming it would be something to do with an inheritance or else a passionate letter intended for a secret lover, because it was said that he'd fallen in love with someone in Russia.