Later, Leonard expanded his literary activities to include novels and then turned to writing songs and eventually to performing them. Although from the beginning he achieved popularity in the States, especially as a song-writer and performer, he wasn’t successful in Canada except among a small group of admirers. Canada refused to recognise his talents. Every grant, every award, he applied for was denied and everything he published, every performance he gave, received a negative review. Discouraged by repeated rejection he left Montreal and went to live in New York. Years later, when, as a successful super star with several gold albums, he returned to Montreal to give his first big concert there, he was still steeling himself against the anticipated negative response. Rachel and I found him in the dressing room composing a terse reply to the inevitable bad review he knew would appear in the Montreal Star.
“Why do you bother?” Rachel asked. “The London Times says you’re great, the New York Times says you’re fantastic, you get international rave reviews, why do you care what the pathetic little Montreal Star writes?”
“Because,” he answered sadly, “my mother reads the Montreal Star. She’s convinced I’m a failure.”
I came to know Leonard through my friendship with Irving and Rachel. I met him often at their home before he became famous, and then at least for Christmas once he was famous. He believed in maintaining traditions, said they were his anchor in the chaos of existence. Even if it meant flying from one side of the world to the other, he never failed to share the Christmas spirit with his dear friend Irving, and with Rachel and David. Ronit and I would come as well, and the six of us would usher in the Yuletide with blessings for peace and love. After dinner Leonard would lead us in various ceremonies and rituals, depending on what esoteric philosophy he was involved with at the time. One year we incanted the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum by the light of a single candle, entranced by the sound of the Tibetan words: God in unmanifest form is like a jewel in the centre of a lotus, manifest in my heart. We chanted invocations for peace and love until, in a semi-hypnotic state, we could feel our energies merging with the cosmic energies in an overwhelming energy of universal love. Even Irving was captivated.
It was Leonard who first introduced me to Tibet, an introduction that was to become an obsession. Leonard emanated a contagious magic. He was a master at evoking mystical atmospheres, creating strange moods where all things were possible. Like a magician he wove a spell impelling sceptic and believer alike to surrender to it. His writing and his music had this same compelling power. Like Rachel, I was especially receptive to these charged atmospheres. He once told me that I was a “familiar,” that force which is conducive to the creation of magic, like the black cat whose presence assists the clairvoyant — the catalyst that makes the magic happen. I had never considered that possibility but I was pleased he had. Leonard moved in and out of my life at intervals which became further apart the more famous he became.
The event I referred to earlier occurred one cold Montreal night. My friend Tom phoned telling me he had managed to procure some magic mushrooms. Leonard had introduced both Irving and Rachel to magic mushrooms, the love drug, and they reported huge ecstasies, delights of phenomenal proportions. I was a coward when it came to drugs. I even avoided aspirin. I didn’t smoke tobacco and rarely drank alcohol. Even when Shimon and I were travelling in Spain and a free bottle of wine came with every meal, we left it untouched. But the mushrooms intrigued me. They grew in Mexico where the Indians used them for religious, spiritual and magical rites. Friends I knew had swung in hammocks for months on end waiting for the magic mushroom to mature. I took the plunge.
Before leaving for Tom’s I phoned Rachel to convey my anxieties.
“You’re going to have a super time,” she assured me, “one of the most fabulous times of your life. Lucky thing. Phone me and tell me how it’s going. Better still, come over. Leonard is in town. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”
“I’ll phone and let you know,” I said, reassured. I crossed the threshold of Tom’s living room as though stepping on stage for my big performance. Tom, detecting my stage nerves, said he wouldn’t take any mushrooms so that I could rely on his sobriety. Tom radiated a Rock of Gibraltar dependability. He was raised on a farm in Saskatchewan drinking milk straight from the cows. I swallowed the mushrooms with total confidence.
By the time I phoned Rachel I was deep into the delights she had promised. Tom’s spartan living room was alive with paintings composed of tiny points of light, with music becoming dancing sound, with colours singing in a rainbow arc. I was the heart of a magic lantern.
“Rachel, everything is beaming diamond light.”
“Beaming diamond light,” Rachel repeated.
“Tell her to bring it here.” It was Leonard’s voice.
Tom and I arrived in a cocoon of silver snow flakes while I was at the peak of my trip and sat by the log fire splashing warmth in colours of gold. The room, usually lovely, was exquisite with its Indian table composed of tiny pieces of mother-of-pearl, radiating light, like a chest of jewels. Irving and Leonard sat on the pale gold sofa and I knelt beside them gazing into their faces, exhilarated by my crystal vision. “What do you see?” Leonard asked.
“I see a spiral of words dancing from your mouth on to the table where they wind among the jewels, fill with light and then sparkle into Irving’s mouth and dance back into your’s, leaping higher and growing more luminous each time they pass.”
Rachel, Irving and Leonard took turns asking, “What do you see?” and then began adding their visions to mine, in a shimmering cascade of words until the words began to rotate in a kaleidoscope of images, brilliant upon brilliant, our laughter whirling in the air like sparklers spinning, spiralling up and up, riding my contact high. Tom remained apart, blinded, unable to enter the magic circle as it sped faster and faster.
Suddenly Leonard raised his hand. The kaleidoscope stilled. His voice echoed from a solemn cavern deep within him. “Friends,” he said gravely, “I must reveal to you a problem I have, which I was unable to share until tonight.”
“The problems of Leonard Cohen, a legend in his own time, do not exist,” Rachel chanted. “A man who can have everything he wants, success, money, fame, women, is no longer entitled to have problems.”
“Can you have all the women you want?” Irving asked, his mouth pursing with admiration.
“Yes. It’s like magic. I enter a crowded elevator and point. When I reach my floor the woman I pointed at follows me.”
“And that’s a problem?” Irving intoned. “I should have such problems. It sounds more like a paradise.”
“Yes, that’s a problem. Because now that I can have any woman I lay my finger on, I can’t make love to any of them. I haven’t been able to have an erection for almost a year.”
“You,” Rachel gasped, “guru of love, every woman’s rising star, the man with the golden organ. You haven’t been able to have an erection?”
“Yes,” Leonard said, his eyes dark with shame. “I’m a fraud.”
Suddenly I felt a wild exhilaration. “On this night we have the power to magic your erection back.”
Leonard had laid his finger on me. His response was immediate. As though pronouncing a prophecy, he said: “Tonight shall be remembered as the night the erection of Leonard Cohen returned to earth.” His voice resounded with the power of miracle. “Henceforth virgins dressed in white will light candles to commemorate the miracle, proclaiming, ‘Leonard Cohen’s erection is alive. Magic is afoot.’”
Leonard, the orgy master, cracked his whip and the sparks burst into flame.
“We shall have an erection competition.” He was inspired, intoxicating. “The men will stand side by side, penises