Frida, page 22
Frida didn’t notice.
“I quit too!” she announced, making a fist. “Solidarity!”
“Solidarity!” trumpeted Diego. But he was still looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
Actually, Diego was just putting up a front. He felt lost without the Party. After he dropped out, some of his best friends abandoned him. Tina would have nothing to do with any of us. Diego had just taken over as the new director of the Academy of San Carlos, but everywhere, people were turning against him, and before we knew it, they fired him. He started working longer hours than ever, I guess in order to blot out the pain. He worked on the murals at the National Palace, the Ministry of Public Education, and the ones that, well—the ones that started us on the road to trouble—the murals at the Ministry of Health.
We were sitting in a little café in Coyoacán, I can’t remember which one. Actually, I can’t even remember if Frida and Diego were married yet. I think they were just married. Frida was doodling, drawing obscene pictures that made Diego roar with delight. They were both obsessed with genitals. She was smoking one cigarette after the other, and so was I. The smoke made me nauseous because I was pregnant, but even so, I kept on lighting up those cheap cigarettes, those bitter, black Mexican cigarettes that make you feel as though your lungs will burst. Now I only smoke blond cigarettes, American cigarettes. Every once in a while, Diego tried to caress my leg under the table, running his fingers up my thigh, under my dress. I’d turn away and cross my knees so that he couldn’t get his hand on my crotch. I was used to his antics, and so was Frida, but you could never tell how she’d react. Sometimes she’d just laugh it off when he flirted with other women, but other times she’d fly into a rage. I didn’t want her mad at me, so I just smoked and giggled as if nothing was happening.
Diego was working on the murals at the Ministry of Health at the time—six huge nudes, allegories of Purity, Knowledge, Strength, Moderation, Life … what else?—Moderation—no, I said that … oh, of course, Health. We were fooling around, the three of us, when all of a sudden Frida blurted out: “Hey Diego, why don’t you use Cristi for your wall? She’s pregnant now, and her tits are really big!”
“Frida!” was all I could say. I mean, what was I supposed to say? I just sat there, gasping.
The thing is, it was true. I was feeling very voluptuous. As I told you before, my husband wasn’t looking at me very much those days, but when I’d walk down the street, other men would eye me and go Pssst! pssst! ¡Llévame a Edén, mi amor, llévame al Paraíso! Take me to Eden, my love, take me to Paradise! I had that full, round, soft body that men associate with submissiveness. That’s what drove them crazy—the idea that they could do whatever they wanted with me. Not that I was so pretty, or that my hips were so ample or my skin was so tight. It was that I was like a big plush doll they could squeeze or lie on, like a pillow. I was pliable.
Diego chortled. “Cristi!” he said. “Why, I never thought of that! That’s a fine idea!”
Like hell he never thought of that. He’d been looking me up and down since the first time we’d met, only back then, he wanted Frida, so he couldn’t very well come after me too. Even when they were courting, Frida knew Diego fooled around with other women, but her own sister? She wouldn’t have stood for it. A little groping under the table was one thing, but anything more than that … And now, here she was saying I should pose for him. Was she toying with me? Trying to shock me? I think she just liked playing with fire, pushing people to their limits. She knew that Diego usually wound up in bed with his models. She was always trying to catch him, then she’d fly into a rage when she did. But now she was pretending that posing nude had nothing to do with sex, that this was going to be a strictly professional arrangement. I mean, she knew that Diego liked my body. He was always flirting, teasing, making comments. So why was she trying to put us both in this risky situation? It was a game she was playing. She was going to choose all the models for the Ministry of Health, she said. Was she going to put the crotches of all her best friends within reach of her oversexed husband just to see what would happen?
“Tell me about the mural,” I said, to make time. I didn’t want to answer right away. I didn’t want to say what a great idea, or something like that, then change my mind later.
“It’s a series of allegories,” he said.
I must have looked at him as though he had belched in Chinese, because he added, “Figures that represent ideas.” The way Diego explained things, he didn’t make you feel stupid. He didn’t say it as if he were defining a word I was too ignorant to know. He just said it, you know, naturally. “Figures that represent ideas.”
And then he went on: “Six nude figures, with decorations showing a hand holding bundles of wheat—ripe wheat, ripe, like you.” He patted my belly. “Ripe and voluptuous, just like you. You’d be perfect.”
The word nude stuck in my mind. I knew the painting was of nudes, but the way he said it made me feel as though he was looking right through my blouse. Frida loved to be nude, to paint herself in the nude. But I had less experience in that department, and I still had Mami’s old-fashioned ideas. For Diego, there was nothing moral or immoral about nudity. People had bodies. They could either cover them with clothes or not. He loved beautiful objects, including the beautiful bodies of women, and he filled his paintings with them. He painted a lot of nudes, and he had a lot of women because he also loved sex. But he didn’t paint nudes because they were sexy, but because they were gorgeous and interesting forms. Also, a body could represent something to him—an ample, shapely one like mine could be fertility, or a scrawny one could be misery.
I wasn’t so sure what I wanted to do. The way Diego had been looking at me, I knew once I took my clothes off for him—I mean, I knew at the end of the session it wouldn’t just be “Thanks for your help and adiós.” I knew that … something might happen.
“I think you’d make a very good model,” Diego said, suddenly serious. His hand wasn’t on my leg anymore. I guess I was supposed to pretend I understood just because I would have to undress didn’t mean he was going to seduce me. I was confused. Here he was suddenly being solemn, distant even, when I knew that what he wanted was to break into me like a plow into fresh, moist ground.
Frida was egging me on. “Go ahead, say yes,” she said. “You’re pretty enough. You’re much prettier than I am.” What I think is that Frida was excited by the idea of having me take off my clothes for Diego. She almost always went to watch him paint, and all I could think was that the two of them would be standing there, fully clothed, while I would be posing stark naked. Sort of like a gang rape, only with just eyes. Their eyes on my body, on my nipples, on my thighs. It would be even more uncomfortable because, well, this is awful to say because she was my sister, but don’t forget that Frida liked girls, too. I could feel my face redden. They say that pregnant women don’t become aroused, but it’s not true. The thought of those four eyes kneading my flesh made me dizzy, feverish. That night, I waited for Pinedo to come home with my heart in my throat. For the first time in months, I really wanted him. He came in drunk, as usual, smelling of whores, but I didn’t care. I attacked him so passionately I thought he would give up his hookers forever. At least, I thought he’d remember making love to me when he woke up. But then I knew I was wrong. Afterward, he fell off me like a concrete block and plunged into a void. Down, down through the bed, through the floor, through the earth like a lifeless mass, down to the core of the planet, so far away from me … so far that I knew I couldn’t reach him, no matter how hard I tried. Once in a while I heard his voice, a million miles away, drifting toward the surface from an abyss. He was muttering things, things related to arguments he had had, to debts, to women. Things that had nothing to do with us.
“Absolutely,” Frida was saying. “She would make an excellent model. She’s so fecund-looking! Like a beautiful tree laden with luscious fruit. Come on, Cristi. Say you’ll do it!”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’d have to think about it. What would my husband say?”
But we all knew he wouldn’t say anything, or if he did, it didn’t matter. Lots of men find their pregnant wives disgusting, but still, they can’t stand to think of them in another man’s arms. But Pinedo … It’s not that he wasn’t possessive. It’s more that he gave up on our marriage almost from the very beginning. He surrendered to the inevitable, to what he thought was inevitable. He thought that Diego and Frida and their whole crowd were degenerate. He detested Diego. If a housepainter went out drinking and whoring, that was okay. That was normal. But a painter of pictures, an artist, a man who stood around looking at naked women all day, that wasn’t healthy, that was perverted. He associated Diego, and Frida too, with depravity. And because Frida and I were so close, he began to think that I was just like her, that it was just a matter of time before I started doing the things she did. “Whore!” he would scream. “You, your sister, Tina, Lupe, you’re all the same! She-cats on the prowl!” When I got pregnant with Isolda, he started to run around. He couldn’t stand to look at my swollen belly. It made him sick, he said. “Who do you suppose made me puff up like this?” I asked him. “Do you think I got pregnant all bxy myself? This baby is yours!” After Isolda was born, for a while he got a kick out of playing the proud papá. You know, the macho guy whose wife pops one out nine months after the wedding. But when I got pregnant a second time, he just snapped. He became unbearable. He’d ram me against the wall and snarl, “This one isn’t mine! Whose baby are you carrying?” You can’t imagine how those words stung. He behaved as though he couldn’t stand to look at me. I knew he wouldn’t say a word if he found out I was posing for Diego, because, well, he was expecting it. He was expecting me to fall, just like, you know, just like Eve. In fact, he thought I already had.
Which allegory do you think I posed for? I was Knowledge! I think Diego chose me for that one as a joke. Me, Cristina, the stupid sister! I was sitting very demurely, looking down, my knees together, holding a little flower in my hand. Frida said a flower is symbolic of female sex because it opens up like the female sex organ, but maybe her head was full of cornmeal. Off to the side, a serpent is slithering up a tree. According to Frida, the serpent convinced Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and then Eve knew she was naked and found out about sex. But in spite of all these sex organs, it’s not a very sexy picture. Knowledge isn’t very enticing. I just sort of sit there, looking down at the flower.
I also posed for Life, the allegory on the ceiling. It looks like I’m flying, or rather, hovering in the air, because Life encompasses all of nature, everything represented by all the other allegories. Actually, I was lying down on my back when Diego painted me. Flat on my back.
Posing nude for Diego wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I stopped being embarrassed after a little while. In the beginning, he was very professional, very matter-of-fact. He surprised me, really, because I thought he’d be flirting with me the whole time, but that came later. I suppose Frida’s presence kept him in line—that, and the fact that I was pregnant, and very, very nervous. For a long time, he hardly looked at me, except to guide his brush. I never felt he was ogling me. To tell you the truth, I liked posing for Diego. I was the most prominent of the allegories—Knowledge and Life. You have to remember that this was all happening when Pinedo was treating me like scum. He was always belittling me. Sometimes, when he was drunk, he would get really mean, and other times he would just sit and sulk. I was beginning to think he wouldn’t stay with me even until the baby was born. I felt helpless, desperate, but posing made me realize that I wasn’t completely worthless. If the great Diego Rivera appreciated me, I must be good for something. After a while, Pinedo began to fade out of my life. Whether he was there or not, whether he was drunk or not … it just didn’t matter. Diego was the one who filled my mind. After the Ministry of Health, Diego asked me to pose for him all the time. After Antonio was born and I got my figure back, I got to be his favorite model. It was something I could do for him that nobody else could, because Frida—it’s strange—but Frida didn’t like Diego to paint her nude. She did nude self-portraits, but she hardly ever posed for her husband. Maybe it was because she was lame and her back was twisted. I already told you she was a master of camouflage, and in her own paintings she could camouflage her imperfections. But she couldn’t be sure how Diego would recreate her, so she wouldn’t pose for him. Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe she just got a thrill out of watching him paint other women, out of tempting fate. She was almost always on the scaffold with him, and in a strange way, her presence was sort of comforting. Feelings were starting to grow inside me, disturbing feelings. But I kept telling myself, I’m not doing anything wrong. How can I be doing anything wrong? Diego’s wife—my own sister!—is standing right here beside me.
When you’re sitting for an artist, you don’t feel embarrassed, because the work he’s doing creates a kind of barrier. I mean, you’re there for a purpose. You’re helping him do his job. It’s not as though you’re just standing there for his pleasure. And his clothes create a barrier too. That’s what I kept telling myself.
Frida was busy setting up her new home. She went shopping with—you’ll never guess who—Lupe Marín! Lupe helped her buy pots and tablecloths and material for curtains. In other words, she did what Mami should have done. Mami still couldn’t stand Diego, and it was a long trip from Coyoacán to Mexico City, so she wound up leaving Frida pretty much on her own. I guess Mami was disappointed in all of her daughters, although, God knows, I tried.
Lupe even taught Frida how to make an extraordinary mole poblano, Diego’s favorite dish. They wound up becoming good friends. It’s funny, Frida always made friends with Diego’s sweethearts. Maybe it was a way of holding on to him. She made her rivals into allies so they wouldn’t betray her, so they’d leave her husband alone once and for all. But it didn’t work, did it? After all, who can you trust if not your own sister?
Frida didn’t use her new curtains for very long, because she and Diego moved to Cuernavaca. Maybe you knew the American ambassador, his name was Dwight Morrow. He liked Diego’s work and commissioned him to paint a mural in the Cortés Palace. Diego was always ranting about you Americans, about how you exploited Mexico, taking natural resources out of the country and treating us all like morons who didn’t know a bull’s ass from a whiskey bottle. Still, when Americans offered him dough, he took it. That’s one of the reasons the communists got after him. About the time my Antonio was born, Frida and Diego moved to Morrow’s house in Cuernavaca so Diego could work on the Cortés mural. The ambassador was going to be on vacation, so it worked out perfectly. The residence was a very luxurious affair, from what Frida told me. I didn’t visit them because I was too busy with my baby. But I’m not surprised they accepted Morrow’s invitation; Diego was fond of his comfort.
After she got married, Frida stopped painting for a while. She spent her time watching her husband work, choosing his models. But Frida was sort of bored in Cuernavaca. There was nothing much for her to do but wait on Diego and attend social events, so she started painting a bit to pass the time. And then it happened, the event we were all waiting for, the great, spectacular event that was going to represent a milestone in the history of the world, the phenomenon that Frida had dreamed of since she was a teenager.
Frida was pregnant! She was going to have Diego’s baby, just as she had predicted years before.
What kind of a comment is that? Of course I was happy. We were all thrilled. After all, what more could Mami want but a few more grandchildren? And Papá didn’t care much for babies, but I’m sure he would have been gaga if the babies had been Frida’s. And no, it’s not what you think. I was dying to be an aunt. Dying! None of my other sisters had made me an aunt and now Frida was going to. At last, we were going to be a typical Mexican family, with grandchildren and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, aunts, cousins, everything!
Naturally, Frida’s pregnancy was exceptional, because everything about Frida was exceptional. When I got pregnant, the family was happy, but no one made too much of a fuss. After all, Cristina was a real woman, with breasts like gourds ready to spill their juices and thighs like wings, ready to spread. Everyone expected me to produce a healthy baby, and I did. And, of course, they rejoiced. And when Antonio was born, they rejoiced even more, because he was the first and only male heir. Mami had had a baby boy before Frida was born, but he died of pneumonia, so Antonio was special, and I felt special because I had given him life.
But with Frida, it was different. When she announced that she was expecting, they were all delirious—we were all delirious—because we all wanted the baby so much and we knew she was crazy to be a mother. We all went to church and lit candles to the Virgin—Mami, Maty, Adri, and I, and even our half sisters from Papá’s first marriage, María Luisa and Margarita, who was very devout and later became a nun.
When Frida found out she was expecting, she moved back to Coyoacán and into her old room, so that Mami could take care of her—bring her broth, straighten her bedclothes, change her flowers, just like in the good old days. She required special attention. Even I had to wait on her, although I had just had a baby myself.
But then something awful happened. The doctor told Frida that her baby was all twisted in the wrong position, head up, feet down. It was possible that it would grow the wrong way, that it would get stuck and she wouldn’t be able to deliver it. Of course, he said, she could wait and see if it flipped itself around, but even if it did, there might be complications. Frida’s uterus had been badly mangled in the bus accident, and who knew if there was even room for a baby to develop fully? We were all devastated. Frida cried and cried. So did I. Really.
