The Witch of Portobello Page 0,19

note: It has not been possible to locate this village on the map. The name may have been deliberately changed, or the place itself may have disappeared after Stalin's forced migrations. ) According to my grandfather, the actress was part of a sect, who believed that they had found the remedy for all ills through a particular kind of dance, because the dance brought the dancer into contact with the light from the Vertex.

They feared that the tradition would disappear; the inhabitants of the village were soon to be transported to another place. Both the actress and her friends begged him to write down what they had learned. He did, but clearly didn't think it was of much importance, because he left his notes inside a book, and there they remained until the day I found them.

Athena broke in:

'But dance isn't something you write about, you have to do it.'

'Exactly. All the notes say is this: Dance to the point of exhaustion, as if you were a mountaineer climbing a hill, a sacred mountain. Dance until you are so out of breath that your organism is forced to obtain oxygen some other way, and it is that, in the end, which will cause you to lose your identity and your relationship with space and time. Dance only to the sound of percussion; repeat the process every day; know that, at a certain moment, your eyes will, quite naturally, close, and you will begin to see a light that comes from within, a light that answers your questions and develops your hidden powers.'

'Have you developed some special power?'

Instead of replying, I suggested that she join our group, since her son seemed perfectly at ease even when the noise of the cymbals and the other percussion instruments was at its loudest. The following day, at the usual time, she was there for the start of the session. I introduced her to my friends, explaining that she was my upstairs neighbour. No one said anything about their lives or asked her what she did. When the moment came, I turned on the music and we began to dance.

She started dancing with the child in her arms, but he soon fell asleep, and she put him down on the sofa. Before I closed my eyes and went into a trance, I saw that she had understood exactly what I meant by the path of the Vertex.

Every day, except Sunday, she was there with the child. We would exchange a few words of welcome, then I would put on the music a friend of mine had brought from the Russian steppes, and we would all dance to the point of exhaustion. After a month of this, she asked me for a copy of the tape.

'I'd like to do the dancing in the morning, before I leave Viorel at my Mum's house and go to work.'

I tried to dissuade her.

'I don't know, I think a group that's connected by the same energy creates a kind of aura that helps everyone get into the trance state. Besides, doing the dancing before you go to work is just asking to get the sack, because you'll be exhausted all day.'

Athena thought for a moment, then said:

'You're absolutely right when you talk about collective energy. In your group, for example, there are four couples and your wife. All of them have found love. That's why they can share such a positive vibration with me. But I'm on my own, or, rather, I'm with my son, but he can't yet manifest his love in a way we can understand. So I'd prefer to accept my loneliness. If I try to run away from it now, I'll never find a partner again. If I accept it, rather than fight against it, things might change. I've noticed that loneliness gets stronger when we try to face it down, but gets weaker when we simply ignore it.'

'Did you join our group in search of love?'

'That would be a perfectly good reason, I think, but the answer is No. I came in search of a meaning for my life, because, at present, its only meaning is my son, Viorel, and I'm afraid I might end up destroying him, either by being over-protective or by projecting onto him the dreams I've never managed to realise. Then one night, while I was dancing, I felt that I'd been cured. If we were talking about some physical ailment, we'd probably call it a miracle, but it was a