Frida, page 29
We were all fascinated with Lola. The first Mexican actress to become a real Hollywood sensation. There were a few others who almost made it. Ramón Novarro and Antonio Moreno before him. But the one to really dazzle the gringos, the one to become a legend was Lola. She was lucky, though. Just like Frida, she hooked up with a man who … I’m not saying they didn’t have talent. They had phenomenal talent, but to have a powerful man behind you, it helps. You can’t deny it. I was never smart that way. Lola’s father took off for the States and left Lola and her mamá in Mexico. Lola learned French and also flamenco dancing, which was very popular with the daughters of the wealthy. Of course, her mother was anxious to marry her off. A pretty girl in a household is like a honey pot at a picnic. It attracts pests. So, at fifteen, she married Jaime Martínez del Río, and that’s how she became Dolores del Río. He was almost twenty years older than she was, a lawyer, a landholder, a great catch! They went to Europe on their honeymoon. They visited London, Paris. They basked on the seashore in Cannes. They were gone for two years in all. Jaime was well connected. Once they were back in Mexico, his friend the painter Adolfo Best Maugard introduced him to some American movie people, including the director Edwin Carewe, and it was smooth sailing from then on. Carewe got Lola her first role, the couple moved to Hollywood, and you know the rest.
I was sitting in the boat with my eyes closed, listening to her talk, her voice like a marimba. She was in ecstasy. She had divorced Del Río years before and had just married the art director Cedric Gibbons a couple of months ago. They were on a sort of belated honeymoon in Mexico. It’s tough being a movie star. You’re always so busy, you have no time to do what ordinary people do, take honeymoons, go drinking, whatever. We had just finished eating, and the maid, who we treated as one of the group but who still had to clean up, was gathering dishes. We had brought Frida’s favorite earthenware with us, heavy, rustic earthenware with Indian designs. The cups were clinking against the saucers. Another maid was serving rich, delicious coffee. The aroma mingled with the scents of hibiscus and wild orchids. The birds warbled on, the crickets were out in full force, everything was alive. It was divine. Frida’s pet monkey Fulang-Chang chattered incessantly in his cage. She had locked him up so that he wouldn’t latch on to a branch and swing his way to freedom. It was heavenly. The trajinera glided along, swishing against petals and fragments of plant. The bright pinks, purples, and greens of daylight were deepening into the muted shades of evening. And there I was, right in the middle of it, my head on Dolores del Río’s shoulder! I can hear her. She’s talking about Gene Raymond, her costar in Flying Down to Río. “The film just opened at Radio City Music Hall … you must all go to see it, darlings.”
Frida doesn’t know where to rest her eyes. She is flirting unabashedly with Lola, showing her pretty teeth, biting suggestively into a banana, taking discreet little swigs from a flask she carries with her everywhere. She drinks cognac. Constantly. Frida drinks constantly now. At the same time, she is fascinated with the punter’s crotch, and every so often calls his name so that he will have to adjust his position and she can watch the shifting of the bulge between his legs. Now she has finished her banana and takes out a thin little cigar, very fine and stylish. She lights it and sucks on it while looking Lola straight in the eye.
Diego wriggles off his seat next to Jean van Heijenoort and carefully, carefully makes his way to the bench across from Lola and me. He doesn’t stand. If he did, the canoe would rock and pitch like a reef in a storm, and Diego would go crashing overboard, causing such a seaquake that the fish would come flying up in waves like birds. So he crouches and moves warily across the space from one bench to the other, then sets down first one enormous cheek, then his whole ass. Finally, he shifts his feet so that he’s facing me … no … facing Lola. He smiles at her, a big, wet smile, a perverse smile. She smiles back. Her husband isn’t with us. He stayed back at her mother’s house. Montezuma’s revenge, maybe.
Diego leers at Lola. I catch the eye of the gondolier. I simper suggestively, and the young man winks and smiles, then looks away. He is nineteen or twenty. His work has made him muscular and taut. His thigh contracts as he pushes the oar. Diego jerks his head toward me suddenly—he moves in little froglike twitches—and discovers the game I’m playing with the boy. It’s nothing, really. A sly grin. A provocative pout. Suddenly, Diego’s face becomes mean. His mouth twists into a kind of sneer as he pulls his foot back sharply then shoots his boot into my ankle. The pain is so intense I have to clamp my teeth together to keep from shrieking. Like a bolt of electricity, the pain surges up my leg to my hip, my side. My eyes fill with tears.
Lola seems oblivious. Jean is telling her about how Trotsky has been misunderstood by the Stalinists and how wonderful it would be if he could find refuge in Mexico. Trotsky has always wanted to come to Mexico and finish the biography of Lenin he began years ago. Now it looks as if it might happen. That’s why Jean is here, to make the arrangements. He tilts his blond head toward Lola. He is so intense, so passionate, when he talks about Trotsky. Lola listens as though she’s thinking about her next film assignment.
Frida has seen everything.
“¡lmbécil!” she hisses at Diego, but he just smirks, then runs his tongue over his upper lip.
Frida gropes her way to the other side of the gondola. She sits next to me and puts her arm around my shoulders. Then she takes my hand in hers and kisses it. I want to bury my head in her bosom like a little girl, but I can’t, so I bite my lip to keep from crying and pretend to listen to Jean chatter on about Trotsky.
Diego is interested, because Trotsky is one of his heroes. He asks Jean questions about where Trotsky will stay once he gets to Mexico and offers the Casa Azul—Papá’s house, Frida’s house, my house—as a safe haven, should they actually find a way to smuggle him into the country. Suddenly I hate Diego, and I love Frida more than ever.
It’s well after dark by the time we’re back in town. Diego and most of the others have slept in the car and now they want to go out dancing.
“I’m too tired,” I announce. “I’m going home.” But nobody will hear of it. They stuff me into the car, my car, and make me drive to a place in a working-class barrio, a dimly lit cantina where sweaty laborers drink pulque or beer and smoke sawdust cigarettes. They watch us with expressionless faces, their mustaches wet and their hats pulled over their brows. They speak in low voices, as if conspiring. Once in a while, a gold tooth cap glitters in the light of the lone bulb. This is a scene from a third-rate Mexican movie, I think. In the center of the room there’s a small space without tables—maybe two meters by three—which serves as a dance floor. But none of the customers are dancing. They’re all men.
Diego decides where we will sit—a table near the counter where the heat is stifling. Lola sits across from him, and he looks at her with eyes like a beast’s. They’re going to spend the night together, I think. Frida looks at me as if to say “Now you see what it’s like,” but I ignore her.
Why was I surprised? Everyone knew that Diego slept with every female he could get his hands on. Why did I think he would be faithful to me when he was never faithful to the one woman he really loved?
Let’s see. Jean van Heijenoort sat next to Lola, and I sat across from him, next to Diego. Frida sat on the end. She ordered a rum, and while they brought it, she took a couple of swigs of cognac from her flask.
Jean wanted to dance. He said to Lola, “Let’s dance,” and he tugged on her arm. Diego got up and pulled me toward him.
“I don’t feel like dancing,” I said. I pleaded to be left alone, but he dragged me out onto the splintery floor.
“Isn’t Lola beautiful?” he whispered in my ear. His breath was heavy and rank with liquor.
“Very beautiful,” I answered.
“Doesn’t she have a magnificent ass?”
I had been on the verge of tears for hours, and now I felt as though the dam was bursting, but somehow I managed to hold myself together.
“Yes, magnificent,” I whispered.
“Should I make love to her tonight?”
I didn’t answer.
“Should I?” he insisted, crushing me against him.
“Go ahead. Enjoy yourself.”
“Yes, I will. Of course I will. I’ll enjoy myself more than I ever have with any other woman.”
I tried to push away from him. I was suffocating.
“Maybe Frida will sleep with her too. What a delicious thought, the two of them together, both so beautiful, so sensuous. Two female bodies entwined, the possibilities are dizzying!”
I said nothing.
“You know, I’m glad that Frida loves other women. It keeps her busy. It gives her an outlet.”
I continued to dance in silence. I wished he would let me go back to the table. I wanted to sit down.
“Who are you looking at?” he said suddenly.
“Looking at? No one.”
“Yes, you are. You’re looking at that boy over there.”
“You’re nuts, Diego. Estás loco.”
“Don’t talk to me like that, you bitch! You’re humiliating me in front of all these people!”
I knew he was drunk.
“Calm down, Diego,” I said. “I’m not looking at anyone. Don’t be silly, mi amor. I don’t have the energy to flirt right now.”
“On top of everything, you’re making fun of me,” he snarled.
I pried loose enough to glance around the room. Lola and Jean were lost in the rhythm of their bodies, but Frida was watching us, her smirk changing to concern.
“Don’t be silly,” I whispered again. I tried to sound soothing.
“You bitch! Don’t pretend you’re not coming on to that little shit in the checked shirt.” He hissed when he said ese pedacito de mierda.
“No, Diego. I swear, I’m not.” I was fed up with his carrying on, but I was trying to keep him calm. I was afraid he’d whip out his pistol and shoot up the place. I’d seen him do it before.
We danced a while longer, and then he started up again. “You’re looking at the guy behind my back. I know it, I feel it!”
I lowered my voice as much as I could. “What do you care what I do?” I whispered. “What difference does it make if I look at other men? After all, you’re going to fuck Lola.”
The rest I remember in a kind of nauseating slow motion. I saw his hand move up behind his head as though it were an animal, an independent creature, then pause in preparation for the attack. Poised, fierce, vicious. I saw it fall hard and fast, but somehow I didn’t make the connection between that and the horrible crack, then the ache in my jaw. My mouth was full of blood. I could taste it. I was afraid I was going to throw up. I felt myself wobble, lose my balance, and then suddenly Frida was there, holding me, sustaining me.
“¡Bruto!” she snapped at her husband.
She took me back to her apartment. Beyond that point, the images get blurry. Compresses—hot? cold? I can’t remember. A swig of alcohol … a deluge of tears … and Frida holding me in her arms like a baby.
“Poor Cristi, poor poor Cristi,” she kept saying. “Pobrecita Cristinita. Pobre muñequita.”
She stroked my cheek with her knuckles. “Just because he smacks you around a little bit doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you, Cristinita,” she said gently. “And just because he sleeps with other women doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. That’s the way he is, Cristi. He’s just, well, he’s an artist.”
Since my relationship, my affair, with Diego, Frida had started to grow more detached. It wasn’t that she didn’t still love him. She did. She loved him more than anything, but she was struggling to become self-reliant. Diego had so many friends. He was always entertaining celebrities at his house, politicians like the Trotskyite bigwigs and the president, Lázaro Cárdenas, writers like the American John Dos Passos. And then there was the movie star crowd. But Frida was developing her own group of friends, and besides, she was becoming a successful painter. More and more people were getting to know about her. The newspapers wrote about her, not just because she was the wife of the great Diego Rivera, but because she was an artist. That’s what she wanted, control over her own life. She didn’t want to be just Diego Rivera’s little woman. She had to have her own individuality. Even when she moved back to her own house, the blue house next to Diego’s big pink house, she kept her life separate. She remained in control. Her pain had made her strong. The pain I caused her when I had that affair with Diego. It was a kind of turning point, not only for her, but for me, too, because once it was over I was so sorry, so filled with guilt and remorse, that all I wanted to do was make it up to her. I spent the rest of my life trying to make it up to her.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I think Frida really wanted to forgive me, but I had hurt her so horribly. She was angry. She tried to keep it inside, but she showed her hostility in a million different ways. Yet, at that moment, there in her apartment, I felt that things were all right between Frida and me. I thought that she had forgiven me. From then on, I did everything I could to make her love me. I took charge of her medicine. I counted out her pills. She took so many of them. Pain pills, pills to make the swelling in her foot go down, pills to help her sleep. I gave her massages and I prepared her medicinal baths. I loved her so much, and I felt so terrible about what I had done to her. That night, lying there in her arms, hearing her try to calm me, trying to make me feel as though Diego still loved me, I felt that Frida cared so much about me. I vowed to do everything I could to make things easier for her and to heal the wound. And maybe the wound would have mended if it hadn’t been for Trotsky.
Diego adored Trotsky. Trotsky was his hero. Trotsky was this romantic figure who had fought for an ideal and had been misunderstood and rejected by his own people. The Stalinist communists hated him, and I think that Diego, who also had been spurned by the more—how can I put it?—the more orthodox communists, identified with Trotsky. He had painted pictures of him. One was in New York, in the Trotskyite office there, and one was in the Rockefeller Center mural. Now that Jean and the International Communist League were working to get Trotsky out of Europe, Diego saw his chance to be his savior.
Trotsky couldn’t stay over there because he had too many enemies. In Mexico, also, the Stalinists attacked him, and Siqueiros, who was a fanatical supporter of Stalin, criticized him every chance he got. He threw shit not only at Trotsky, but also at Diego. He accused Diego of selling his paintings to rich American tourists, to selling out to the gringos. When they snuck Trotsky into Mexico in … let’s see, it must have been in 1937 … Diego brought him and his wife, Natalia, to the Casa Azul in Coyoacán. It was dangerous to harbor Trotsky, and that made Diego all the more anxious to do it. Diego loved excitement. He loved risk! Poor Papá. He was so confused. He didn’t know who Trotsky was. He kept saying, “Is that poor man involved in politics? It’s dangerous to be in politics these days!”
What can I tell you about Leon? He had incredible eyes—eyes like vast, unfathomable lakes. You could lose yourself in those eyes. You could disappear into their blueness. They swallowed you up and made you forget everything around you. He wore glasses, and their tortoiseshell frames were like a shoreline, where everything turns to brown and gold. On some people glasses look ugly, but Leon’s grabbed your attention and drew you into those mysterious eyes. They seduced you and paralyzed you. Then they would suck you in and consume you. He had an intensity about him. He walked like a soldier, looking straight ahead, with measured steps, all the same length. Head high, chin out. Sometimes you’d think he hadn’t even seen you, and then suddenly, he’d turn and wink, and his white beard and the tips of his mustache would quiver. He was obsessive about everything. He worked all the time. He was preparing a biography of Lenin, and he would sit for hours dictating to his secretaries. He was also preparing a deposition for a kind of mock trial in which he answered the charges brought against him by the Stalinists. When he was writing, he never looked up. The only one who could disturb him was Frida.
Trotsky was the one who brought Frida back to Diego. Trotsky and the civil war in Spain. The Spanish conflict was something we all cared about. The republicans and communists against the fascists. Frida got involved in propaganda and also in getting help for war orphans and the children of antifascist soldiers. The war got her involved in politics again, and that was a bond between her and Diego. Once Trotsky came to Mexico, Diego needed her more than ever. He had been seriously ill because of all that dieting. He had problems with his kidneys, his eyes, who knows what else. Frida’s foot bothered her, but she was in better shape than he was, so it became her job to look after the Trotskies.
That suited her just fine. Charming Frida! Witty Frida! The glamorous hostess, the brilliant conversationalist. She stepped right back into the limelight, just where she loved to be. Once the journalists found out where Trotsky was staying, the photographers couldn’t get enough of her. Here she was, posing in her frilly Tehuana dress, and there she was, posing in her chic new Chanel-inspired suit. She buzzed around Leon, waiting on him, making sure the meals were to his liking. “Do you have enough writing paper, Comrade?” and “Do you need some more blankets, Comrade?” and “Shall I have the cook prepare you an herbal tea and some pastelitos de almendra, Comrade?” She couldn’t do enough for him. Since security was an issue, she had to be very careful about servants, and she brought in her own girls to clean up after him. “Eusebia has made you the most delicious chiles rellenos, Comrade! Just for you. Just because you like them.” Natalia was ill with malaria, so she was out of the way a lot of the time. How convenient, right? So it was up to Frida to entertain Comrade Trotsky. She could talk to him about politics. Their secret language was English, because Trotsky didn’t speak Spanish. Most of the time, I didn’t know what was going on. In fact, most of the time, Frida treated me as if I weren’t even there. She’d translate only the most stupid, insignificant things. “Don’t worry, Cristinita. We’re not talking about you. I just asked Leon if he’d like a cup of tea.” It was like she was alone with him. I was hurt. After that incident with Lola, I thought Frida had really forgiven me and things were going to be just like before. But now Frida was up on her high horse again, acting like some Aztec princess and treating me as if I were her goddamn slave. But I didn’t just cower in the shadows while she was putting on her show. You see, I was Leon Trotsky’s chauffeur, and that meant that I spent long hours in the car with him.
