Frida, page 34
As it turned out, I didn’t have to explain anything to anybody. Papá was still gaga from the sedative I had given him in the morning, and Graciela had fed him his midday meal and put him to bed. He was, she said, in for a nice long siesta.
Frida was too drunk to know what time it was. She had been boozing all morning. As Graciela chopped onions for Diego and Irene’s comida, Frida sipped from her flask. Her head got heavier and heavier until she tumbled into bed. She had been taking more painkillers than usual, for her back, her leg, her foot, and now she had a fungus infection on a finger. Dr. Ovando, a specialist, gave her some pills and told her to cut down on the painting because it was bad for her to hold a brush all day. That’s why Frida wasn’t chopping onions herself. Instead of painting, she lay around drinking and popping pills until she got mean, then hysterical; then she was dead to the world.
I thought the Paulette Goddard affair would just slip by. What difference did it make whether Frida knew about it or not? It was just another one of Diego’s escapades. And Frida was in such bad shape physically and emotionally.
But then the rumors started. Diego loved to flaunt his women, and he had shown up at the opening night of the movie Sólo para ti with Paulette on his arm, all lovey-dovey and goo-goo-eyed. There were tons of reporters. Diego’s picture came out in all the papers and his name was in all the headlines: FAMOUS MURALIST AND AMERICAN STAR TURN HEADS … RIVERA AND GODDARD TOGETHER AT OPENING … BLOND, BEAUTIFUL, AND IN LOVE WITH DIEGO RIVERA! … THE HOLLYWOOD-D.F. AXIS!
Under other circumstances, Frida would have been able to handle it, but after the breakup with Nick and the disappointment of her shows in New York and Paris, this was just too much.
No sooner did the news hit the papers than Lupe was at the door.
“I don’t mind if he sleeps with you!” she exploded. “After all, you’re his wife. But that American slut! He’s thumbing his nose at both of us.”
Frida started to cry. Not melodramatically, not hysterically, just softly, dabbing her eyes with Mami’s old embroidered handkerchief. It was clear that she was really hurting. There was nothing phony about it. She wasn’t just putting on a show. I know you’re going to say that the whole thing was Frida’s fault because, after all, she had betrayed Diego with Nick. But running off to New York and falling in love with Nick, that happened because Frida felt so desperate and abandoned.
And when it was all over with Nick, she came home to her husband, isn’t that true? Sick and broken, she came home to Diego. But instead of offering her his affection and his moral support, Diego was behaving like a shit. Yes, he came over and brought presents, but he never gave himself. And this affair with Paulette was just too much for Frida. Paulette was too beautiful, too sexy, too blond. I think Frida felt that she just couldn’t compete. She couldn’t be the contortionist lover for Diego any more than she could be for Nick, and it killed her to think she wasn’t able to meet her husband’s physical needs. It was destroying her. And now that Diego was broadcasting his relationship with Paulette, Frida just felt beaten down. Irene was a different story. Irene wasn’t important, she was just a studio assistant. But Paulette, who could compete with Paulette Goddard?
Frida began divorce proceedings on September 19, 1939, and by early the next year, the divorce was final.
She cut off all her hair. She always did that whenever she had a serious rift with Diego. It was her way of expressing pain, and you might even say it was a way of punishing him, because Diego loved her hair.
So, you see, Frida was all alone, all alone except for her loving twin. Who could take care of her better than I could? Who loved her as much as I did? I had to be there for her. Cristina, her sister, her sidekick, her slave.
CHAPTER 22
Connections
HIS NAME WAS RAMÓN MERCADER. HE MADE ME FEEL LIQUID, LIMPID, light. Like a jellyfish floating in warm water, free, bobbing, yielding to the whim of gentle currents. When he smiled at me, I remembered something I hadn’t thought about in years. A tiny beach we once visited somewhere near Cozumel when I was a child, sitting in the sun, heady from the briny vapors. But now I wasn’t a child. I was a jellyfish, formless, crystalline, compliant, trusting my fate to the powers that be. Kindly gods, gracious gods.
No other man has ever made me feel like that. It was the way he talked to me, and more than that, the way he listened to me. As though he actually cared about what I had to say. He asked questions. He wanted to know what I thought, what I knew. He was one of Frida’s friends, of course. A Spanish communist. She had met him in Paris, and now that he was in Mexico, he came over every once in a while, not nearly as often as I would have liked.
We weren’t lovers. I wished we were. I thought that he was the prince I had been waiting for, the Spanish conquistador who would carry me, the beautiful Aztec maiden, off into the sunset. Together we would form a new race, the mestizo race. But Ramón didn’t seem to have time for love. He was too tied up in his politics. And yet, when we talked, it was as though we were making love. He gave himself to me the way none of my other lovers ever had.
He was a man who grappled with things. We talked about the Party, of course. That was his passion. Trotsky, Diego, the future of Stalinism. Whether the Soviets would survive the Nazi offensive, whether or not the Americans would get involved. He never talked down to me, and he never spouted clichés the way Diego and Frida did. With Ramón, you had the feeling that everything he said came from the gut, from the soul. He had pondered the issues and come to his own conclusions. Every word he dredged up from the fathomless ocean of his soul.
Pretty poetic, huh? How did you like that? “The fathomless ocean of his soul.” That’s the way Ramón talked, with words like that, I heard him use that expression once. “Ah, Cristinita, these are truths I have dredged up from the fathomless ocean of my soul.” He seduced you with words. He was a Spaniard, and he had that beautiful Peninsular accent. Grathiash for gracias. Cothesh for coces. Ha! He made me giggle, with his Castilian pronunciation. It was so titillating. To tell you the truth, sometimes I didn’t even know what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter. Just to hear him talk made me feel like I was dying.
Frida was never alone. She needed to have people around her, adoring her, praising her. After the divorce, she sent out invitations by the truckload. The house became a grand hotel, with celebrities crowding through the door for an audience with the empress. Fascinating people. Stars as glamorous as Frida herself. Well, almost as glamorous. After her hair grew back out, she would receive them in her frilly costumes, a ring on every finger, a crown of hibiscus on her head. Brave Frida. The wronged woman. The suffering victim. Limping, masking her pain. Now, not only her health made her the object of admiration—“What courage, to face guests in such a state of affliction!”—but also her new status—“What courage, to go it alone without Diego!” She was a phenomenon in Mexico. The divorced woman. Not just a woman who lived without a man, plenty of us had done that. But a working woman, a true comrade, a woman who looked out for herself and made her contribution to society.
She played the comrade bit to the hilt. Chin up, eyes front, a smile on her lips, and a quip on her tongue. Sometimes, during her parties, she sat in the kitchen with the servants, cracking jokes. “See, compañeros? I make no distinctions!” “Where’s Frida?” someone would ask. “Husking corn!” “Peeling potatoes!” “Stirring the pudding!” Whatever the answer, the brigade responded with appreciative oohs and ahs.
I have to admit I loved the parties. I loved to be in the middle of the whirl, even if I was only there because I was Frida Kahlo’s sister. Sometimes I’d forget. What I mean is, sometimes I’d stop thinking about it and enjoy myself. After all, everyone was nice enough to me. And I was someone. I was part of the group. I belonged there. Yes, I did. But why did I keep feeling as though I had to prove it?
The one person I didn’t have to prove it to was Ramón Mercader.
“Your sister,” he once said to me. “She’s quite the little political dilettante, isn’t she?”
I didn’t understand, but I was embarrassed to say so.
Ramón realized I didn’t know the word, but instead of making some nasty crack the way Frida might have done—“My God, Cristina, don’t you even know what dilettante means!”—he just went on.
“Actually, Cristinita,” he said softly, “I prefer people like you … people who don’t make a spectacle of their politics.”
I caught on. “Frida isn’t making a spectacle. She really believes in communism.”
He ran his fingers over my cheek and smiled. I wanted to kiss his hand. He was talking about living one’s creed, about expressing one’s beliefs through one’s day-to-day existence, about the monumental contributions of ordinary people. I didn’t care about those things. I just wanted him to touch me. His words were like a warm, perfumed bath.
And then one day, Ramón Mercader disappeared. I looked for him at every social gathering, at every communist powwow, but he seemed to have vanished. I felt as though I were drying up on the sand. No one could tell me anything. I couldn’t find his address. He didn’t have a phone. Political assassinations were not uncommon in Mexico, and I checked the newspapers, half hoping, half dreading I would find his name. I braced myself for the expected headline: SPANISH COMMUNIST FOUND SHOT. But if Ramón had died, it hadn’t made the papers. Frida didn’t seem even to notice. She had plenty of friends. One Spanish communist, more or less, was hardly worth making a fuss about. It’s true that in spite of her parties and her gaiety, Frida was in bad shape, but that had nothing to do with Ramón. That had to do with the divorce. Not being married to Diego was more than my sister could abide. I knew what I had to do. I had to forget that I was in love. I had to push Ramón out of my mind and attend to my sister. I sniffed back my tears. I bit my lip. Good old Cristi.
I went to see Paulette Goddard. In spite of what they say, in spite of what you think, I loved my sister, and I couldn’t stand to see the way Diego’s affairs were consuming her, causing her health to decay, corroding her stamina as a fungus rots living flesh. It was horrible.
In spite of the divorce, Frida still doted on Diego. She fretted over him constantly. All day long, she’d say things like I wonder if Diego’s watching his diet, I wonder if Diego got those new shirts from New York, I wonder if Irene gives him enough pussy. I’m sorry, but that’s the way Frida talked. I wonder if he really loves Paulette, and what about Modesta? Modesta was one of his models, an Indian. She was an incredibly sensuous woman. He painted her in the nude, braiding her hair.
Diego and Frida still saw each other. In fact, she did his books. I know it’s unbelievable, but it’s true. Diego had no head for accounting, so Frida handled all his business—who paid, who owed money, how much came in, how much went out. She went on doing it for him just as though they were still together. And when she wasn’t by his side, she was dizzy with anxiety. What was Diego doing now? What was he eating, painting, thinking? She was obsessed with him.
On the outside, she was as spirited and sassy as ever, but not on the inside. That’s why I went to see Paulette. I was going to tell her what she was doing to Frida. Not that I expected her to care, but I was going to tell her anyway. Paulette was one of those women who was always involved with somebody famous. She had lived with Charlie Chaplin, and eventually she married him. I just loved Charlie Chaplin. He was so fabulous, so adorable, especially in Modern Times. That was my favorite movie of his. Well, I thought, since she’s had guys like that, why does she need Diego? Why doesn’t she just leave him alone? She had everything—money, looks, fame. She even tried out for Gone With the Wind. She wanted to be Scarlett. She didn’t get it.
I understand it wasn’t all her fault, that Diego was the one who was running after her. But my sister was beginning to look like a rag, all droopy and washed out, and I had to do something. When Frida went out on the street, she behaved like a movie star, a regular movie star, just like Rita Hayworth. She would wave at her admirers, ¡Hola, cuate! ¡Hola, mi amor!, flirting and winking, licking her lips as though eyeing a luscious mango whenever she’d see a cute boy, or girl, but then she’d get back home and hit the bottle, and before you knew it, she’d collapse like a pile of puke and wine-soaked laundry. Oh, she’d glue herself together for parties and for her public appearances, but once she was alone, she’d just crumple. The only time she was okay was when she was painting. Fortunately, she painted a lot that year. Self-portraits, of course. Frida with her monkey, a red ribbon running around her neck like bloody gashes. Frida in a man’s suit, all alone in the middle of nowhere, with her hair cropped short. She has a scissors in her hand and scattered around her are clippings of hair, swatches of hair, on her knees, on her hands, all over the chair, on the ground, as far as you can see. That picture frightened me when I saw it. It was an image of self-destruction. Scraps of Frida strewn everywhere, limp, dead, shreds of Frida flung around like garbage.
I went to see Paulette. For reasons I didn’t understand at the time, the road was closed off in front of the San Angel Hotel, so I parked on a side street. The receptionist announced me.
“Señorita Kahlo,” he said. And then, as if the name had struck a chord: “Are you related to Frida Kahlo, the wife of Diego Rivera?”
“She’s my sister.”
“The Frida Kahlo?”
“Yes.”
“She’s your sister?”
“Look, I’m in a hurry.”
But there was no reason to rush, because Paulette took her time answering the door.
“¡Un momento!” she called from inside. Not once, but several times. “¡Un momento! ¡Un momento!”
She’s got somebody in there, I thought. Some guy. While Diego’s cheating on Irene and Frida with her, she’s cheating on Diego with some up-and-coming movie producer. But when she finally let me in, I didn’t see signs that anyone else had been there. No ashtrays brimming with butts. No wineglasses stuffed hastily behind sofa pillows. No telltale odors.
I thought Paulette might not recognize me, even though I had been announced. At parties she had never paid much attention to me. What if she thought I was some movie buff who had found out her address and come to hound her? But she smiled and showed me in. I thought it was strange that she didn’t have at least one maid attending her. After all, a famous movie star like Paulette Goddard.
She was diaphanous, celestial. I half expected to catch her hovering a few centimeters above the floor. She was wearing a powder-blue sweater. Her eyes were wide and moist, and her lips—the color of begonias—were painted on perfectly. Her fragrance made me think of jasmine and honey, of ambrosia. It must have been French.
She kissed me on the cheek, but I didn’t love her the way I had loved Lola. She didn’t make me feel as though I was her friend. I was just an extra person who sometimes tagged along. She lacked Lola’s Mexican warmth. She seemed to be an angel floating up there somewhere—distant, untouchable. I know I said before we were friends but we weren’t really.
She went to the window and looked out. That seemed strange as well. After all, I had just gotten there. I mean, if someone had just come to visit you in your hotel suite, would you walk away from her and go look out the window? It occurred to me that she was spying on Diego, trying to see what he and Irene were up to. And yet, like Frida, Paulette had never shown jealousy toward Diego’s assistant. Irene was just a minor annoyance—like a mosquito or a fly.
Paulette bit her lip, but she didn’t mess up her lipstick. Me, whenever I bite my lip, I always leave my makeup a disaster.
She said something in English that I didn’t understand. I just smiled. How was I going to explain why I had come? I wondered.
“¡Un momento!” She flitted around the suite like she was looking for something. She seemed nervous. She kept glancing out the window. I walked over to the window myself, but there was no one in the street. At least, I didn’t see anyone.
“Look,” I said in Spanish—the only language I speak. “I’m not making a social visit. I came to talk to you about something very important.”
She nodded as if she understood. “¡Un momento!” she said again.
She picked up the phone and spat what sounded like an order into the receiver. Again she spoke in English. A few minutes later, a waiter knocked on the door with a serving table laden with coffee and sweets. It was a strange time to be serving dessert, I thought. In about an hour Graciela would be putting our merienda on the table at home. Paulette took hold of the table and wheeled it into the room herself, signaling the uniformed servant to leave. “Some Yankee custom,” I said to myself.
She smiled at me.
“Look,” I began again. “I’m not paying a social visit. I need to talk to you about my sister. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Sí, sí,” she said. “Comprendo perfectamente.” But she was obviously preoccupied with something else.
I was annoyed. She thinks she’s too important to talk to me, I thought. She thinks I’m one of her admirers, one of those drooling fans who break windows to get close to her at premiers. I opened my mouth to explain about Frida, how miserable she was, how hurt she was, but Paulette motioned for me to be quiet.
I waited in silence, my eyes glued on Paulette, my anger swelling.
All of a sudden, a look of terror crossed her face. She moved toward the window, then back to the phone.
“¿Qué pasa?”
She whispered into the receiver. I heard “Diego,” “danger,” “Trotsky,” “police,” “murder.”
I moved toward the window and looked out. The street had been transformed. Suddenly, my fingertips felt icy. What had happened? Police were everywhere, scores of them, and they were cordoning off Diego’s studio. They were preparing to take the house! Some of them had their guns drawn. Who did they think Diego was? Pancho Villa? It’s true that he walked around with a pistol and shot off his mouth as though he were Lenin’s grandmother, but Diego never killed anyone. Oh sure, he bragged that he had fought in the Russian Revolution and downed dozens of Czarists, but that was all bullshit. “I was hiding in a cellar when I spied the sable cloak of Count Alexander Kaminoff, so I cocked my gun and bam!” but it was nothing but bravado, what do you call it?—braggadocio. So what was this all about?
