Frida, page 19
“She doesn’t want to know what else he said,” I interrupted. Frida squeezed my hand in gratitude, but Agustina had no intention of letting up.
“He said that you were a worse slut than Nahui Olín, that woman who used to model for Rivera. He said that what you gave to him, you also gave to Lira, and to who knows how many others: Lira … Fernández …”
Frida looked mortified. Maybe she was upset that Alex knew about Fernández. As for Lira, that was the first I’d heard about it.
“He even said that the worst accident he ever had in his life was you, but that he was finally recovering. So I guess,” said La Reyna, savoring the effect her words were having on Frida, “that Alex has ruined both our reputations, so both of us had better forget him.”
That afternoon we returned to Alejandro’s house together, but the maid turned us away.
It’s true that I sometimes criticize Frida, but what you have to understand is that we were so close that it was impossible for us not to get on each other’s nerves. After we came back from the city, Frida became … I don’t know the right word … melancholy, I guess. Nowadays, they say depressed. You’re the one who knows about this sort of thing. Is depressed the right word? I don’t know whether it was because she really adored Alex and couldn’t bear to lose him, or because she couldn’t stand rejection of any kind, but she sank into a funk as gloomy as purgatory. It was awful. I couldn’t think of my novio or my wedding or anything but Frida. I forgot about the dress, the lace, the music, the invitations, the flowers I had dreamed of for months. There wouldn’t be any money for any of it, anyway.
As I told you, Frida had made a quick recovery in spite of all those operations. In just a month she was out of the hospital, but after that visit to the capital, she started having relapses. They say that a person’s state of mind affects her health. Is that true? It must be, because Frida’s poor little body seemed to be coming apart like a sand castle slapped by a wave. The doctors hadn’t taken X rays. They had seen no need, since her spine seemed to be mending nicely. Now they discovered she was a wreck inside. She was in constant pain, and she had to have one medical procedure after the other. There was no money left, and Papá couldn’t pay for the treatments the doctors said that Frida needed. Instead of real medication, they gave her plaster corsets, which helped for a while, but then the pain started all over again.
I shouldn’t mention it, but I had dreamed of a nice wedding, with an embroidered dress trimmed with Mexican lace. I would have used Maty’s if she had had one, but Maty had been living with Paco for about eight or ten years when they finally got married, so what was the point of making a party? Adri used a hand-me-down from María Luisa, and I would have used it too, even though I didn’t care much for my half sister. The thing is, it had a big stain on it, and who wants to start married life with a stain?
I know I told you that I forgot about the wedding, that I was too wrapped up in Frida even to think about it, but I guess it would be more accurate to say that I put it out of my mind. You’re right, I didn’t forget about it entirely. I mean, no woman forgets about her own wedding. Looking back, I guess it was a bad omen, all these problems.
Frida wasn’t very interested in my romance. Nothing I did ever interested her until I—until I fell in love with someone that she loved too. That got her attention.
Frida continued writing to Alex to no avail. And what made her feel worse was that I had a fiancé who walked me home from work and came to call every Sunday. I was basking in my novio’s attention. I knew that eventually I would be a bride, and a bride is always the star, at least for one day. Did I rub Frida’s nose in it? Did I gush just to make her feel bad? I honestly don’t know. What I can tell you, though, is that during those months Frida was as dejected as I had ever seen her.
Most of the time she had to stay in bed, but whenever she could get up, she puttered around the house, and that’s how she discovered the one thing that would bring her relief: Papá’s paints.
“Cristi, do you remember those chimerical mornings when we were little, and we accompanied Papá on his painting expeditions?” she once said to me. I was embarrassed to tell her I didn’t know what chimerical meant, so I kept my mouth shut. It didn’t matter, though, because Frida wasn’t waiting for a response. She just kept on talking. “Sometimes I’d help Papá set up his easel and paints, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t pay much attention to his work. How about you, Cristi?”
“Me either,” I mumbled. Actually, most of the time I didn’t go. Most of the time it was just her and Papá.
“But I should have, because now I feel like trying my hand at painting. Do you think I could do it, Cristi?”
All I knew was that the only time Frida had had any training in art was when she was working for Fernández. Papá had never tried to teach her painting because he wanted her to be a doctor. Even when it looked as though she’d never return to school, he still held out the hope that she’d somehow get her medical degree.
“Can I have these?” she asked Papá, holding up some containers of color. “It looks as though you haven’t used them for years.”
Papá’s answer surprised me. “No, Frida,” he said. “They’re mine.”
“It’s the German in him,” she whispered. “He always starts out by being obstinate, but he’ll come around.”
And sure enough, after a few days he agreed to lend them to her, but just for a while. “All right,” she said, “just for a while,” although both of them knew she’d never return them.
The pains in her back and legs prevented Frida from sitting for long periods, so Mami hired a carpenter to construct a special easel that hooked onto the bed. That way, Frida could paint lying down. Then Mami hung up a mirror so that Frida could use herself as a model. Mami thought painting would be a nice distraction for Frida. To tell you the truth, I think everyone was happy to have her occupied and quiet.
The funny thing is, Mami had fought with Frida like a hyena after the Leticia Santiago affair, but now she bustled around her room, straightening up, freshening her flowers, gathering her dirty clothes for the maid to wash. It was Mami who bathed her and fixed her hair. It was Mami who smoothed down her sheets. And now Mami had ordered this wonderful new easel for her. Frida asked me: “Is it possible for a girl to love and hate her mother at the same time?”
What made Mami so attentive? Guilt? The realization that Frida might die? Maternal duty, pure and simple? I can’t tell you. I don’t know. Anyway, you’re the one who’s supposed to figure it all out.
At first, Frida painted a few hours a day, then for mornings and afternoons at a time. Toward the end of summer, 1926, she completed her first self-portrait, which she sent to Alex as a gift. It wasn’t that good, to tell you the truth. It was sort of stiff, not at all like the things she did after she got more practice. She painted herself as a Renaissance lady—the kind we had seen in books—with a distant gaze and a velvet dress. Anyhow, it worked. Alex not only accepted the painting, but once again became Frida’s novio.
You know, Frida could be arrogant, but she was also very fragile. What I mean is, she wasn’t all that sure of herself, in spite of that cocky attitude. Sometimes, when she was painting, she would suddenly start to cry, “It’s no good! I don’t know what I’m doing! If only Papá would teach me!” But Papá was too busy with his own problems to worry about Frida’s new hobby.
One day she couldn’t get the colors quite right in a self-portrait. “This stupid painting,” she screamed. “I hate this stupid painting!” I just stood there and watched her. I knew better than to intervene. I had just had an argument with Antonio about the date of our wedding—he was tired of the postponements—and the last thing I wanted was a tussle with Frida. “Damn it!” she howled. “Damn! Damn! Damn! I can’t do anything right!” All of a sudden she took the brush and starting drawing black X’s all over the picture.
At that point, I had to open my mouth. “What are you doing!” I demanded. After all, those paints and canvases cost money. She had used up Papá’s old cache weeks before, and he had had to go out and buy new materials for her, which she was now wasting. And just when Papá was telling me there wasn’t any money for a wedding!
Frida just kept on painting X’s. Then she took her brush and started to scribble, mixing all the colors together until they were a black-brown mess. A mess the color of shit! That’s what she had done, you see, she had covered herself with shit! Shit in her eyes, shit in her hair, shit in her mouth, shit on her forehead.
“Stop it, Frida!” Now I was screaming.
But she wasn’t through, and what she did next mortified me. She pressed her open hands against the wet canvas, then smeared the disgusting concoction of colors all over her eyes, her hair, her mouth, her forehead.
She was crying, really sobbing, and the tears poured down her face, making channels in the muck.
“Please stop it, Frida,” I begged. I was terrified. “Stop it! Stop it, please!” I wasn’t yelling anymore. I was trying to calm her, but she wasn’t even conscious of my presence.
“Oh God,” she moaned. “Oh God. I can’t do anything right. No wonder no one loves me!” Then she stuck her hand right into the paint on the palette, the red paint, and started spreading it all over her cheeks, over her corset, her sheets, her pillow, everything. Her entire face was covered with red and brown and black, every part of her face except her teeth, and even they were tinged with red. It looked like blood was dripping from her mouth. It was as though she was bathed in blood. She was transforming herself into a ghoul! All of a sudden, an image flashed into my mind. Miss Caballero’s class. The time when the teacher had tried to embarrass Frida in front of the other children, and Frida had wriggled free and covered herself with paint. And now it was happening again! I let out another scream, and Mami came running, but before she could attend to Frida, she had to attend to me because I was hysterical. She called for Inocencia, who brought me a hierba luisa with something in it and put me to bed. I think I slept all the way through supper.
But in spite of everything, Frida kept on painting. Mostly she painted her favorite subject: herself. No, that’s not fair. Frida was stuck in bed most of the time, so it was normal for her to use herself as a model. After Frida was able to spend more time sitting up, Maty would come and sit for her, or Adri would. She painted portraits of me and Mami too. Everyone said her work was lovely. Everyone said she had talent. She began to think that maybe she could even earn some money as a painter. But she really didn’t trust our judgment, and she was right not to. After all, we were all friends and family. What did we know about painting? “Who can I ask?” she kept saying. “Who would give me an honest opinion?” On the one hand, I think she honestly wanted to know whether or not her work was worth anything. On the other, I suspect she was frightened by the idea of asking an expert. Who wouldn’t be?
“Well,” I said to her, “you used to know a famous painter.”
Frida bit her finger and thought about it a while. “No,” she said finally, “I could never ask Diego Rivera.”
“Why not?” I insisted. “You said he was nice, that he wasn’t a snob.”
She stood there a while without speaking. “He’s the only person whose opinion I could trust absolutely,” she said finally.
But she didn’t look him up, and we didn’t talk about it anymore that day, or the next either, as I remember. About a week or two later she brought it up again.
“I really need an impartial evaluation,” she said. “I know you and Mami mean well, but I can’t trust your opinions. You don’t know the slightest thing about painting. And neither do I.”
I thought it was kind of miraculous that Frida admitted that there was something she didn’t know anything about. Especially art. After all, she had read a lot of Papá’s books, and she had spent a lot of time at the library. You would have thought she would consider herself some kind of an authority.
“Well,” I said, “go find an expert. Go find Rivera.”
“I don’t know whether or not he’d remember me. After he finished painting the amphitheater, I only saw him a couple of times. Once at one of Tina’s parties. He was carrying a pistol and all of a sudden started shooting streetlamps out the window. He even shot Tina’s phonograph! It was scary … and funny! But he was with another girl. Maybe he didn’t even notice me—even though he did grab me around the waist and put his hand on my ass.”
Frida was talking about Tina Modotti, the mistress of Edward Weston. You know, Weston, the American photographer. Tina had come to Mexico with him and stayed here after he left. Well, Tina was part of the avant-garde crowd that some of the Cachuchas hung around with after they finished the Prepa. A few of Frida’s old friends started taking her to Tina’s parties. Tina knew all the artists. She slept with most of them, including Diego, and she gave these wild orgies at her house. All the top talent went, and Frida, too, not only because she liked the artsy crowd and wanted to be one of them, but also because she was sure of not running into Alex there. He had a new girlfriend now, and he had changed. He had become very, very serious.
“Who cares if Rivera remembers you! He probably doesn’t, because he was probably too drunk or crazy to know whose ass he was feeling, but it doesn’t matter, Frida, just go find him. Ask him! What have you got to lose?”
Frida didn’t answer. She just stood there, but after a while, a satisfied little smile began to form on her lips, and I knew she had made up her mind.
CHAPTER 13
Encounters and Couplings
THERE ARE A LOT OF BOGUS STORIES ABOUT FRIDA AND DIEGO. REPORTERS were always writing about them, and whatever they didn’t know, they just made up. They’d come down here to interview us. All of us. Me too. They were interested in everything about Frida—her old letters, her little dogs, her doll collection, her dirty hankies, even her sisters. And then Diego wrote this book a few years ago. Let’s see … it’s 1963 now and Diego died in 1957 … It must have come out in ’58. He describes how he met Frida, but just like everyone else, he leaves out one important detail, which is: I was there.
Only, I was invisible. This is what happened: At the time, Diego was painting the frescoes at the Ministry of Education. Wonderful frescoes, Frida said. Paintings that celebrated our Mexican heritage by depicting Indians working in the fields that had been returned to them by the Revolution, Indians holding meetings and deciding their own destinies, Indians in school, learning to improve themselves. Tra-la-la! Frida was always singing the communist tune in those days, always on the soapbox pushing the communist line. What were they learning, those Indians? Were they learning Spanish, the language of the conqueror? Were they learning the farming methods invented by Europeans? Now people are asking if all that “improvement” of the Indians was such a good idea, or if all we really did was wipe out their culture, but back then, no one asked. Especially Frida. She was too carried away with the Party slogans. She had just joined the Young Communist League. Well, where was I?
Frida had about three or four paintings she wanted to show Diego. They were heavy canvases, and her back was still giving her problems, so I offered to go with her and help carry them. No matter what they say, I always tried to help Frida.
We had a nice trip in the trolley. Frida was a little jittery, but she was chipper and talkative, and she kept telling jokes about Diego’s looks. But as we got closer to the Ministry of Education, she started to clam up. She was growing more and more tense, and then, all of a sudden, she said to me, “Listen, Cristi, I don’t think you should go the rest of the way with me. Why don’t you give me the paintings you’re holding, and I’ll go see Rivera alone.” I was stunned. After all, I had taken the morning off from work to accompany her, and now she was telling me to get lost. It seemed pretty rude to me.
“And what will I do while you talk to Diego Rivera?”
“You could just wander around.”
“I don’t want to just wander around,” I said.
We kept walking toward the Ministry of Education. When we were a few meters away from the entrance, she turned to me.
“Give me the canvases,” she commanded. “Then go into that little shop and buy yourself some pastries and something to drink, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I’m done talking to him.” She pointed toward the Pastelería Agua Mansa. “You like to eat,” she added. She was being sarcastic.
I handed over the paintings and she took off, walking as fast as she could, which wasn’t very fast, since her spine and leg were bothering her and the paintings were bulky. I let her get pretty far ahead of me, then followed her into the Ministry at a distance.
Why do you think she didn’t want me to go with her? Because I was the prettier one and she didn’t want Diego to see me? Because she didn’t want him to know that she was an invalid who needed help carrying her paintings? Or was it just nerves? Maybe she was afraid he would tell her to shove off and she didn’t want a witness, or maybe she thought he’d take her for a baby if she showed up with her sister. Anyhow, I crept along until I pretty much caught up with her. She was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to turn around, I guess. I was careful to be very, very quiet. I got pretty close, then ducked into a doorway.
Diego was on the scaffold. From where I stood, he looked like an enormous ass topped by a peanut-sized head. Frida walked right up to him. “Diego!” she called. “Please come down. I have to talk to you about something.”
An awful thought popped into my mind: I hope he drops a brush on her head and tells her to scram. I hope he spits at her! It was a horrible, mean-spirited thing to think, but I was miffed because Frida hadn’t let me go with her to meet Diego Rivera. I stood there fuming and waiting to see what would happen. What happened was nothing. Diego looked at her and smiled, but kept on working. Lots of young girls went to watch him paint. He was used to it, and he loved the attention, but he couldn’t stop every time a pretty face materialized in front of him. Good, I thought. He’s just going to ignore her.
“He said that you were a worse slut than Nahui Olín, that woman who used to model for Rivera. He said that what you gave to him, you also gave to Lira, and to who knows how many others: Lira … Fernández …”
Frida looked mortified. Maybe she was upset that Alex knew about Fernández. As for Lira, that was the first I’d heard about it.
“He even said that the worst accident he ever had in his life was you, but that he was finally recovering. So I guess,” said La Reyna, savoring the effect her words were having on Frida, “that Alex has ruined both our reputations, so both of us had better forget him.”
That afternoon we returned to Alejandro’s house together, but the maid turned us away.
It’s true that I sometimes criticize Frida, but what you have to understand is that we were so close that it was impossible for us not to get on each other’s nerves. After we came back from the city, Frida became … I don’t know the right word … melancholy, I guess. Nowadays, they say depressed. You’re the one who knows about this sort of thing. Is depressed the right word? I don’t know whether it was because she really adored Alex and couldn’t bear to lose him, or because she couldn’t stand rejection of any kind, but she sank into a funk as gloomy as purgatory. It was awful. I couldn’t think of my novio or my wedding or anything but Frida. I forgot about the dress, the lace, the music, the invitations, the flowers I had dreamed of for months. There wouldn’t be any money for any of it, anyway.
As I told you, Frida had made a quick recovery in spite of all those operations. In just a month she was out of the hospital, but after that visit to the capital, she started having relapses. They say that a person’s state of mind affects her health. Is that true? It must be, because Frida’s poor little body seemed to be coming apart like a sand castle slapped by a wave. The doctors hadn’t taken X rays. They had seen no need, since her spine seemed to be mending nicely. Now they discovered she was a wreck inside. She was in constant pain, and she had to have one medical procedure after the other. There was no money left, and Papá couldn’t pay for the treatments the doctors said that Frida needed. Instead of real medication, they gave her plaster corsets, which helped for a while, but then the pain started all over again.
I shouldn’t mention it, but I had dreamed of a nice wedding, with an embroidered dress trimmed with Mexican lace. I would have used Maty’s if she had had one, but Maty had been living with Paco for about eight or ten years when they finally got married, so what was the point of making a party? Adri used a hand-me-down from María Luisa, and I would have used it too, even though I didn’t care much for my half sister. The thing is, it had a big stain on it, and who wants to start married life with a stain?
I know I told you that I forgot about the wedding, that I was too wrapped up in Frida even to think about it, but I guess it would be more accurate to say that I put it out of my mind. You’re right, I didn’t forget about it entirely. I mean, no woman forgets about her own wedding. Looking back, I guess it was a bad omen, all these problems.
Frida wasn’t very interested in my romance. Nothing I did ever interested her until I—until I fell in love with someone that she loved too. That got her attention.
Frida continued writing to Alex to no avail. And what made her feel worse was that I had a fiancé who walked me home from work and came to call every Sunday. I was basking in my novio’s attention. I knew that eventually I would be a bride, and a bride is always the star, at least for one day. Did I rub Frida’s nose in it? Did I gush just to make her feel bad? I honestly don’t know. What I can tell you, though, is that during those months Frida was as dejected as I had ever seen her.
Most of the time she had to stay in bed, but whenever she could get up, she puttered around the house, and that’s how she discovered the one thing that would bring her relief: Papá’s paints.
“Cristi, do you remember those chimerical mornings when we were little, and we accompanied Papá on his painting expeditions?” she once said to me. I was embarrassed to tell her I didn’t know what chimerical meant, so I kept my mouth shut. It didn’t matter, though, because Frida wasn’t waiting for a response. She just kept on talking. “Sometimes I’d help Papá set up his easel and paints, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t pay much attention to his work. How about you, Cristi?”
“Me either,” I mumbled. Actually, most of the time I didn’t go. Most of the time it was just her and Papá.
“But I should have, because now I feel like trying my hand at painting. Do you think I could do it, Cristi?”
All I knew was that the only time Frida had had any training in art was when she was working for Fernández. Papá had never tried to teach her painting because he wanted her to be a doctor. Even when it looked as though she’d never return to school, he still held out the hope that she’d somehow get her medical degree.
“Can I have these?” she asked Papá, holding up some containers of color. “It looks as though you haven’t used them for years.”
Papá’s answer surprised me. “No, Frida,” he said. “They’re mine.”
“It’s the German in him,” she whispered. “He always starts out by being obstinate, but he’ll come around.”
And sure enough, after a few days he agreed to lend them to her, but just for a while. “All right,” she said, “just for a while,” although both of them knew she’d never return them.
The pains in her back and legs prevented Frida from sitting for long periods, so Mami hired a carpenter to construct a special easel that hooked onto the bed. That way, Frida could paint lying down. Then Mami hung up a mirror so that Frida could use herself as a model. Mami thought painting would be a nice distraction for Frida. To tell you the truth, I think everyone was happy to have her occupied and quiet.
The funny thing is, Mami had fought with Frida like a hyena after the Leticia Santiago affair, but now she bustled around her room, straightening up, freshening her flowers, gathering her dirty clothes for the maid to wash. It was Mami who bathed her and fixed her hair. It was Mami who smoothed down her sheets. And now Mami had ordered this wonderful new easel for her. Frida asked me: “Is it possible for a girl to love and hate her mother at the same time?”
What made Mami so attentive? Guilt? The realization that Frida might die? Maternal duty, pure and simple? I can’t tell you. I don’t know. Anyway, you’re the one who’s supposed to figure it all out.
At first, Frida painted a few hours a day, then for mornings and afternoons at a time. Toward the end of summer, 1926, she completed her first self-portrait, which she sent to Alex as a gift. It wasn’t that good, to tell you the truth. It was sort of stiff, not at all like the things she did after she got more practice. She painted herself as a Renaissance lady—the kind we had seen in books—with a distant gaze and a velvet dress. Anyhow, it worked. Alex not only accepted the painting, but once again became Frida’s novio.
You know, Frida could be arrogant, but she was also very fragile. What I mean is, she wasn’t all that sure of herself, in spite of that cocky attitude. Sometimes, when she was painting, she would suddenly start to cry, “It’s no good! I don’t know what I’m doing! If only Papá would teach me!” But Papá was too busy with his own problems to worry about Frida’s new hobby.
One day she couldn’t get the colors quite right in a self-portrait. “This stupid painting,” she screamed. “I hate this stupid painting!” I just stood there and watched her. I knew better than to intervene. I had just had an argument with Antonio about the date of our wedding—he was tired of the postponements—and the last thing I wanted was a tussle with Frida. “Damn it!” she howled. “Damn! Damn! Damn! I can’t do anything right!” All of a sudden she took the brush and starting drawing black X’s all over the picture.
At that point, I had to open my mouth. “What are you doing!” I demanded. After all, those paints and canvases cost money. She had used up Papá’s old cache weeks before, and he had had to go out and buy new materials for her, which she was now wasting. And just when Papá was telling me there wasn’t any money for a wedding!
Frida just kept on painting X’s. Then she took her brush and started to scribble, mixing all the colors together until they were a black-brown mess. A mess the color of shit! That’s what she had done, you see, she had covered herself with shit! Shit in her eyes, shit in her hair, shit in her mouth, shit on her forehead.
“Stop it, Frida!” Now I was screaming.
But she wasn’t through, and what she did next mortified me. She pressed her open hands against the wet canvas, then smeared the disgusting concoction of colors all over her eyes, her hair, her mouth, her forehead.
She was crying, really sobbing, and the tears poured down her face, making channels in the muck.
“Please stop it, Frida,” I begged. I was terrified. “Stop it! Stop it, please!” I wasn’t yelling anymore. I was trying to calm her, but she wasn’t even conscious of my presence.
“Oh God,” she moaned. “Oh God. I can’t do anything right. No wonder no one loves me!” Then she stuck her hand right into the paint on the palette, the red paint, and started spreading it all over her cheeks, over her corset, her sheets, her pillow, everything. Her entire face was covered with red and brown and black, every part of her face except her teeth, and even they were tinged with red. It looked like blood was dripping from her mouth. It was as though she was bathed in blood. She was transforming herself into a ghoul! All of a sudden, an image flashed into my mind. Miss Caballero’s class. The time when the teacher had tried to embarrass Frida in front of the other children, and Frida had wriggled free and covered herself with paint. And now it was happening again! I let out another scream, and Mami came running, but before she could attend to Frida, she had to attend to me because I was hysterical. She called for Inocencia, who brought me a hierba luisa with something in it and put me to bed. I think I slept all the way through supper.
But in spite of everything, Frida kept on painting. Mostly she painted her favorite subject: herself. No, that’s not fair. Frida was stuck in bed most of the time, so it was normal for her to use herself as a model. After Frida was able to spend more time sitting up, Maty would come and sit for her, or Adri would. She painted portraits of me and Mami too. Everyone said her work was lovely. Everyone said she had talent. She began to think that maybe she could even earn some money as a painter. But she really didn’t trust our judgment, and she was right not to. After all, we were all friends and family. What did we know about painting? “Who can I ask?” she kept saying. “Who would give me an honest opinion?” On the one hand, I think she honestly wanted to know whether or not her work was worth anything. On the other, I suspect she was frightened by the idea of asking an expert. Who wouldn’t be?
“Well,” I said to her, “you used to know a famous painter.”
Frida bit her finger and thought about it a while. “No,” she said finally, “I could never ask Diego Rivera.”
“Why not?” I insisted. “You said he was nice, that he wasn’t a snob.”
She stood there a while without speaking. “He’s the only person whose opinion I could trust absolutely,” she said finally.
But she didn’t look him up, and we didn’t talk about it anymore that day, or the next either, as I remember. About a week or two later she brought it up again.
“I really need an impartial evaluation,” she said. “I know you and Mami mean well, but I can’t trust your opinions. You don’t know the slightest thing about painting. And neither do I.”
I thought it was kind of miraculous that Frida admitted that there was something she didn’t know anything about. Especially art. After all, she had read a lot of Papá’s books, and she had spent a lot of time at the library. You would have thought she would consider herself some kind of an authority.
“Well,” I said, “go find an expert. Go find Rivera.”
“I don’t know whether or not he’d remember me. After he finished painting the amphitheater, I only saw him a couple of times. Once at one of Tina’s parties. He was carrying a pistol and all of a sudden started shooting streetlamps out the window. He even shot Tina’s phonograph! It was scary … and funny! But he was with another girl. Maybe he didn’t even notice me—even though he did grab me around the waist and put his hand on my ass.”
Frida was talking about Tina Modotti, the mistress of Edward Weston. You know, Weston, the American photographer. Tina had come to Mexico with him and stayed here after he left. Well, Tina was part of the avant-garde crowd that some of the Cachuchas hung around with after they finished the Prepa. A few of Frida’s old friends started taking her to Tina’s parties. Tina knew all the artists. She slept with most of them, including Diego, and she gave these wild orgies at her house. All the top talent went, and Frida, too, not only because she liked the artsy crowd and wanted to be one of them, but also because she was sure of not running into Alex there. He had a new girlfriend now, and he had changed. He had become very, very serious.
“Who cares if Rivera remembers you! He probably doesn’t, because he was probably too drunk or crazy to know whose ass he was feeling, but it doesn’t matter, Frida, just go find him. Ask him! What have you got to lose?”
Frida didn’t answer. She just stood there, but after a while, a satisfied little smile began to form on her lips, and I knew she had made up her mind.
CHAPTER 13
Encounters and Couplings
THERE ARE A LOT OF BOGUS STORIES ABOUT FRIDA AND DIEGO. REPORTERS were always writing about them, and whatever they didn’t know, they just made up. They’d come down here to interview us. All of us. Me too. They were interested in everything about Frida—her old letters, her little dogs, her doll collection, her dirty hankies, even her sisters. And then Diego wrote this book a few years ago. Let’s see … it’s 1963 now and Diego died in 1957 … It must have come out in ’58. He describes how he met Frida, but just like everyone else, he leaves out one important detail, which is: I was there.
Only, I was invisible. This is what happened: At the time, Diego was painting the frescoes at the Ministry of Education. Wonderful frescoes, Frida said. Paintings that celebrated our Mexican heritage by depicting Indians working in the fields that had been returned to them by the Revolution, Indians holding meetings and deciding their own destinies, Indians in school, learning to improve themselves. Tra-la-la! Frida was always singing the communist tune in those days, always on the soapbox pushing the communist line. What were they learning, those Indians? Were they learning Spanish, the language of the conqueror? Were they learning the farming methods invented by Europeans? Now people are asking if all that “improvement” of the Indians was such a good idea, or if all we really did was wipe out their culture, but back then, no one asked. Especially Frida. She was too carried away with the Party slogans. She had just joined the Young Communist League. Well, where was I?
Frida had about three or four paintings she wanted to show Diego. They were heavy canvases, and her back was still giving her problems, so I offered to go with her and help carry them. No matter what they say, I always tried to help Frida.
We had a nice trip in the trolley. Frida was a little jittery, but she was chipper and talkative, and she kept telling jokes about Diego’s looks. But as we got closer to the Ministry of Education, she started to clam up. She was growing more and more tense, and then, all of a sudden, she said to me, “Listen, Cristi, I don’t think you should go the rest of the way with me. Why don’t you give me the paintings you’re holding, and I’ll go see Rivera alone.” I was stunned. After all, I had taken the morning off from work to accompany her, and now she was telling me to get lost. It seemed pretty rude to me.
“And what will I do while you talk to Diego Rivera?”
“You could just wander around.”
“I don’t want to just wander around,” I said.
We kept walking toward the Ministry of Education. When we were a few meters away from the entrance, she turned to me.
“Give me the canvases,” she commanded. “Then go into that little shop and buy yourself some pastries and something to drink, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I’m done talking to him.” She pointed toward the Pastelería Agua Mansa. “You like to eat,” she added. She was being sarcastic.
I handed over the paintings and she took off, walking as fast as she could, which wasn’t very fast, since her spine and leg were bothering her and the paintings were bulky. I let her get pretty far ahead of me, then followed her into the Ministry at a distance.
Why do you think she didn’t want me to go with her? Because I was the prettier one and she didn’t want Diego to see me? Because she didn’t want him to know that she was an invalid who needed help carrying her paintings? Or was it just nerves? Maybe she was afraid he would tell her to shove off and she didn’t want a witness, or maybe she thought he’d take her for a baby if she showed up with her sister. Anyhow, I crept along until I pretty much caught up with her. She was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to turn around, I guess. I was careful to be very, very quiet. I got pretty close, then ducked into a doorway.
Diego was on the scaffold. From where I stood, he looked like an enormous ass topped by a peanut-sized head. Frida walked right up to him. “Diego!” she called. “Please come down. I have to talk to you about something.”
An awful thought popped into my mind: I hope he drops a brush on her head and tells her to scram. I hope he spits at her! It was a horrible, mean-spirited thing to think, but I was miffed because Frida hadn’t let me go with her to meet Diego Rivera. I stood there fuming and waiting to see what would happen. What happened was nothing. Diego looked at her and smiled, but kept on working. Lots of young girls went to watch him paint. He was used to it, and he loved the attention, but he couldn’t stop every time a pretty face materialized in front of him. Good, I thought. He’s just going to ignore her.
