Frida, page 39
My heart was breaking. My sister was performing like a marionette, the kind of dancing skeleton that amateur puppeteers dangle and jerk on the Day of the Dead. Jerk jerk step-to-the-right, jerk jerk step-to-the-left. Wherever we went, she allowed the crowds to pull her strings. She had lost weight, and her face had become sharp and bony. She was so drunk or drugged most of the time that she couldn’t even put on her makeup straight. She’d paint on a macabre ghoul’s mouth. I wanted to take her in my arms and say Stop, Frida, stop! I couldn’t stand to see her become their toy, their amusement. I wanted to kiss her, to take her home, to put her to bed. My poor, darling sister. I wanted to say Make them leave you alone, Frida. Let me take you home to die in peace! But she had to play the role. Even then, she had to be the star.
The night she told the Titanic joke at Eddie Kaufman’s party, Diego and I took her back to Coyoacán afterward. On the way home she was hysterical, weeping and laughing almost at the same time. Her face was screwed up in pain, like the face of a rag doll that someone had washed and wrung out. Diego left for San Angel right away. Her nurse—Señora Mayet wasn’t working for us yet—her nurse had prepared her medication, and just as she was bending over to give it to her, Frida reached out and grabbed her crotch. The woman just snorted. “Come on, Miss Frida, take your medicine.” “Yeah, give me those pills, and give me some pussy too, you little bitch!” The nurse just laughed and slapped her fingers as though she were a naughty child. Frida took her cane and tried to work it up between the woman’s legs. “Come on, darling,” she cooed. “Lift up your skirt for Frida.” We could never keep nurses very long, because Frida always went after them. They all ran away after a week or two. All of them except that one, because she shared Frida’s inclinations. I’m sure that in addition to Demerol and barbiturates she gave her a hand job once in a while. But eventually, even she couldn’t take Frida’s temper tantrums anymore, and she left too. I can’t even remember all the nurses we had, doctor. Women who came and went. Came because Diego offered a good salary and because it was an honor to empty the bedpans of the great Frida and left because the canings and the crotch grabbing just got to be too much. Then it was up to me to smooth Frida’s brow and hold her hand. “Give me a shot, little Kity!” she would beg. “No, Frida. It’s not time yet.” “Come on, Kity. Give me some Demerol. Give me some codeine, some opium, some atropine. Anything!” She couldn’t take straight morphine, only Demerol, because it’s a synthetic. “Please, Kity. Come on, Cristi Kity. If you loved me, you’d do it!” “I can’t, Frida. Try to go to sleep.” “I can’t sleep without drugs. Come on, Kity, give me a jab.” I couldn’t bear to look at her body. But she would maneuver herself onto her stomach and hike up her nightgown, and what could I do? “Find a spot!” “There is no spot!” “Find one!” She’d be trembling and screaming, and I’d be afraid she was going to have some kind of an attack, so what could I do? I’d find a tiny patch of clear skin and inject her, and in a while, she’d calm down.
2:51 A.M. Her eyes are open, wide open. I’ve pulled the curtain back a bit because it frightens me to sit alone in a pitch-black room. Her pupils catch the moonlight and flash like knives.
“Where’s Maty?”
“Maty left hours ago, Frida. Go back to sleep.” But she can’t sleep because her leg hurts, the leg she doesn’t have, the leg they cut off. A piercing pain, she says. A dagger in the calf. “Demerol!” But it’s not time yet, and I can’t break the rules because Mayet is in the doorway. She’s come to check on her.
“Why aren’t you sleeping, Miss Frida?”
“You know why I’m not sleeping, you cunt! I’m in pain, terrible pain! Give me Demerol!”
Señora Mayet turns on a lamp and takes Frida’s temperature. “Why don’t you go to bed, Miss Cristina? I’ll stay with her the rest of the night.”
“That’s all right. I’ll stay with her.”
She doesn’t trust me. She suspects I break the rules. She suspects I disobey her when she’s not looking. I try to allay her misgivings.
“I’m not sleepy, Señora Mayet. I’ll just sit here a while longer. You go on to bed.”
“Yes, Señora Mayet. You go to bed. My sister will take care of me.” Frida’s voice is more robust than you’d expect. The nurse vacillates, but only for a moment.
“Don’t give her any medication, Miss Cristi.”
“No, Señora Mayet.”
“Just a compress on her forehead, if she needs it. But no more drugs.”
Frida doesn’t say a word.
“Promise you’ll call if you need me.”
“Of course, Señora Mayet.”
The nurse turns out the light. We hear her footsteps in the patio. We hear the toilet flush. Silence. Two, four, five, ten minutes. “Cristi, I can’t take any more.” Her voice, barely audible, is pleading, desperate. “I know, darling.” I fill the syringe and inject her. Her hand brushes mine, and she tries to squeeze my fingers in gratitude. In a moment, her eyes close and she is quiet.
Five years ago, Frida spent nine months in the Hospital Inglés. That’s when they started talking about amputation. Her circulation was bad. Two of her toes had turned black, and the doctors said gangrene had set in. Gangrene. That means your body starts to disintegrate slowly, so slowly you don’t even notice it, until one day you wake up and part of you is dead. They had to cut off two of her toes.
Maty and I went to see her every day. Adri went every other day. Diego took a room in the hospital and stayed there with her. By then, his romance with María was over. But even while it was going on, and this is one thing I want to make absolutely clear, he loved her. He always loved her, just as I did. We hurt one another, but we loved one another.
They operated on her back. I can’t remember all the details. They decided Frida needed a bone graph, but it turned out to be disastrous. They put a horrible corset on her after the operation to keep her from moving, but it kept her wound from draining properly, and before long an abscess formed on her back. The whole thing was infected. It stank so badly you could vomit. Maty said Frida smelled like a dead dog. I thought she smelled like a pig’s fart. It’s a horrible thing to say, but I’d gag every time I went into her hospital room. Imagine how she felt, poor Frida, so finicky about her clothes, her hair, her jewelry. Imagine how she felt when the stench from her sores starting driving people away. “Do it, Cristi,” she pleaded. “An overdose of Demerol.” But instead, I begged the doctor—his name was Juan Farill—to save her, to give her something stronger for the pain, and I prayed. I admit it, I prayed. Because even though Frida said the Catholic Church was full of shit, that Catholicism was evil, I just didn’t know what else to do, so I prayed.
I never pray anymore, although sometimes I want to.
They made a new plaster corset with a hole in the back so the filth could ooze out. But her body was a cesspool. The wounds didn’t heal. She still stank like a rotting carcass, and yet … I couldn’t … I knew she wanted to die, but she was my sister, after all, and I loved her.
They set up an easel in her room and fastened it to the bed so she could paint lying down. People came in to watch her. Diego brought in a Huichol Indian in an elaborate costume to pose for her. A handsome young man with perfect features and long hair, copper skin, even white teeth. What a vision he was, with his wide-brimmed, bangle-edged hat, his embroidered shawl, his short red cape, his exquisitely worked cloth belt. He wore a slew of bracelets and an ornate, woven shoulder-strapped bag. Frida was in heaven—her with a ring on every finger, her painted corsets, her dangling earrings, and him with his trinkets and baubles. Between the two of them, they were a frenzy of color and design. For a while, he was her favorite toy.
But she had other toys. She had a collection of skulls, which she trimmed with flowers and ribbon and labeled with our names. Mine was a smiling sugar skull with colored jellies. Hers had a hammer and sickle and pink bows and flounces. Cristina dead. Frida dead. Life and death. The gay and the macabre.
She liked to have people in. I was there all the time, of course, and so was Maty. Diego too. But this wasn’t just a family affair. The doctors and nurses would congregate around her, and guests flooded the room. María Félix—who, of course, had become Frida’s good friend—Lupe Marín, Isolda and Antonio, Fanny and the other Fridos, old buddies from the Prepa. Adelina Zendejas was one of the pals from the old days who came all the time. Politicians and poets, actors and neighborhood children. Even La Reyna dropped by once or twice. Diego got ahold of a projector and showed Laurel and Hardy movies. Sometimes he would dance and Adelina would play the tambourine. I brought food, baskets and baskets of it. Frida would laugh and tell dirty jokes. “Why did the widow wear a black tampon? Because that’s where she missed him most!” She oozed joy and hope, as long as she had an audience. But when there was no one around, it was Polish my nails! Do my hair! Bring me my mirror! Find my ring! She had a silver ring with a turquoise quetzal bird on it, and she got it into her head that if she lost it, another part of her body would rot and fall off, another toe, perhaps, or a finger, or an earlobe. If I said, Your nails, Frida? I think you need to rest now, she’d get nasty. Don’t tell me what I need to do, Fatso. My friends will be here soon, and they can’t see me like this! She was horrified by the prospect of abandonment. She had to be surrounded by people. She had to be in the limelight. Her health depended on it, so I’d polish her nails, comb her hair, decorate her braids with silk bows and flowers. And then she looked beautiful. I have to admit it. She looked beautiful, in spite of the disease that was consuming her body, eating her alive. Beautiful, like the ornate plaster skulls that filled her room. Once the crowd materialized, it was an ongoing party, pure alegría, except for one thing: Frida was dying, and everybody knew it. Yet they allowed themselves to be comforted by her fake high spirits. After they all went home, she would squeeze my hand and plead, “Do it, Kity, my darling Kity. Put me out of my misery.”
And still, when they finally sent her home from the Hospital Inglés, she was glad to be alive. In spite of her wheelchair, in spite of the plaster corset that crushed and bruised her flesh. She threw herself into everything. She partied constantly, a smile on her face and a cigarette dangling from her fingers. She surrounded herself with stars. Josephine Baker. Concha Michel. María Félix. Not Lola. Frida and Lola had had a falling-out. Frida had sent her a painting out of the blue, a painting Lola hadn’t asked for, along with a bill. That’s what Frida sometimes did when she needed dough. She sent her friends unsolicited paintings and then billed them. Only Lola refused to play that game. Lola refused to write a check. Instead, she returned the gift. She was through with Diego, and she didn’t need either one of them anymore. The end, but so what? Who needed Dolores del Río? We had poets like Carlos Pellicer, painters like Dr. Atl, photographers like Lola Alvarez Bravo. And movie stars galore. Because Frida needed stars. She needed to be the star of stars.
Frida had to do everything in a big way. How do you say it? With pizzazz. She partied with pizzazz, she suffered with pizzazz, she even mourned with pizzazz. When Stalin died, she went into spasms of suffering. You should have seen her wail and weep for the reporters and photographers. I don’t want to imply that her commitment wasn’t sincere. It was completely sincere. She had always wanted to meet Stalin, and she had missed the chance. She felt that something precious had slipped through her fingers, that the world was somehow drifting away from her. But even if she never got to meet him in life, at least she could be with him through art. She painted a double portrait. Frida and Stalin. It was a portrait within a portrait. One side showed an easel with Stalin’s picture, very large, very dominant, and the other side showed Frida seated and dressed in a red Tehuana costume. He’s large, she’s small. He’s a piece of art, she’s a live woman. He’s her creation, but she’s his creation too, because without him, she wouldn’t be the devout communist, the enlightened thinker, that she is. He’s turned away from her, and she looks out at the viewer as if sitting for a photograph. Frida and Stalin, together and not together.
Art was what kept her going. Creating beauty out of pain helped her make sense of things. It gave her suffering a purpose. She would decorate her plaster casts, those instruments of torture, turn them into things of beauty. She painted hammers and sickles on them, stars and flowers, birds and babies. She painted a fetus on one of them, so when she wore it, she felt as though she were carrying a baby.
3:47 A.M. How much longer until dawn? Every muscle in my body tingles. My mind is bubbling like a pot of mole. I’m pure electricity. Tonight I’ll atone for my sins. My darling Frida, you’ll soar like an eagle, like an águila! Someone’s in the street. I push the curtain aside. It’s Marco Antonio, the baker. I can barely see him, but I recognize his stocky body, his straggly, shoulder-length hair, his limp. As a boy he caught a bullet in the ankle. Now he stands on his disfigured foot all day, baking crusty rolls and egg bread. For the Día de los Muertos he makes Dead Man’s Bread, and for Epiphany he makes rosca de Reyes with cinnamon, anise, and raisins. Like all of us, he learned young to lick his wounds and keep on living. His sombrero is pulled down almost over his eyes to protect him from the damp air. How can he see where he’s going? I can’t make out his feet in the darkness, but I can hear his sandals scraping against the moist ground. Soon Ana Teresa, the tortilla maker, will come hustling along. Her step will be light, like that of a chicken in a hurry. Before long the shadows will fade, and morning will creep over the rooftops. It’s already tomorrow.
April 1953. Last year. It seems like centuries ago. Frida was lying in bed, just as she is right now, except that the sun had been up for hours. Her eyes closed, her face pasty.
Yes, it’s the first week in April 1953. Her jaw has lost the taut smoothness it once had. She’s forty-six years old, not twenty, but the servants still treat her like a spoiled child. The paintings are gone. They were packed up and sent days ago. Her hand hangs limply over the side of the bed. She holds a cigarette, but she isn’t smoking. Soon it will be time to dress her, but not yet. Dr. Farill limps in and sits down by the bed. Frida loves him because he’s lame like she is. He uses crutches. He’s bald, with heavy eyebrows, a round face, and a sense of humor. “Hi, beautiful,” he says to Frida. “Hi cutie,” she answers without opening her eyes. How can she be sure it’s him? Frida knows everything. “Did my tubby sister give you something to eat?” “Not yet, but she will. Cristi always takes good care of me.” “Not too good, I hope,” Frida’s voice is tinged with sarcasm. Just tinged, not dripping.
The room smells of chili, lilacs, alcohol, and urine. I leave when Farill starts to examine Frida, although she hasn’t asked me to. She doesn’t care if I watch him thump and manipulate her bruised body.
The phone rings. It’s Maty. She’s at the gallery. She says reporters are already there, hugging the entrance. Like bees, she says. Like bees swarming around a hive.
Dr. Farill says that Frida is running a fever. It would be better if she didn’t go. “The wound hasn’t healed,” he says. “It’s infected.” The bone transplant, was a failure, and Frida’s spine is a mess. She cries all night from the pain.
“She can’t go,” says Farill. “She can’t walk. She can’t even stand up.”
“Go fuck yourself,” says Frida. “I’m going.”
Diego is standing in the doorway. “Go fuck yourself,” he says. “She’s going.”
She has been looking forward to this forever—her exhibition at Lola Alvarez Bravo’s Galería de Arte Contemporáneo. The only individual show she has ever had in Mexico, and only the second of her entire life. “Listen, doc,” she says to Farill. Her voice is softer now, more playful. “I can’t die today. Keep la pelona out of here, at least until after the vernissage.” But Farill shakes his head. The pain has been excruciating, and he would have to administer a dangerous dose of drugs. Even then, standing for hours would be unthinkable. Even sitting for a few minutes might be impossible. “No, Frida,” he says. “I can’t permit it.” He is standing about a foot from Frida’s canopied bed, one hand on the post.
“Get out of here, you fucking bastard!” She throws her lighted cigarette at his face, but she has no force in her arms. The cigarette hits his jacket and falls. Diego signals the doctor to follow him into the corridor. “Come on, Juan,” he says. “There must be a way.” “No!” screams Frida. “You’re not going to decide this without me! You’re not going to treat me as though I’m already dead! Keep your asses right here, and we’ll work this out together!”
Another call. It’s Maty again. The phones are ringing off the hook at the gallery, she says. Everyone wants to know if Frida will be there. The pictures have all been hung. The staff is putting up labels. Deliverymen are bringing in fresh flowers and champagne. Lola Alvarez Bravo has planned the whole thing, and with her usual artistic flair, she’s made it into a gala, a Hollywood event. “But people want to know if Frida’s well enough to come,” says Maty. “Without Frida, well, everyone wants to see Frida.”
Weeks ago Frida sent out invitations, the kind of little booklet poets make to hand out to their friends. Poor poets who have no money to pay a printer. Booklets fastened with ribbon or string, with handwritten verses on colored paper. Frida made a bunch of them, hundreds. “This is my party! My party!” She’s screaming at Juan Farill, her beloved doctor, screaming like a hawk diving in for the kill. But he’s not budging. He’s used to it. We all are. All of us except Diego. He can’t take Frida’s hysterics, which is why he comes by less now. These days he’s spending his time in his studio with Emma Hurtado, his art dealer. Beautiful Emma, with her rich chocolate-brown hair. Who knew he would eventually wind up marrying her? “Get that fucker out of here,” shrieks Frida. “I don’t need any prick of a doctor to tell me what I can do and what I can’t do!” Actually, she loves for Juan Farill to tell her what she can and can’t do. It’s just that today, today she just can’t give in.
