FRIDA WAS ALWAYS A WONDERFUL ACTRESS, AND SHE LOVED TO PERFORM. That’s why, the night she woke up screaming, I thought she was just putting on a show.
The shrieks of a child in pain. A shard of glass in the gut. A sliver of ice in the gullet that cuts off your breathing and paralyzes you, leaving you helpless to call out in the darkness. How can any mother bear it? When my Antonio and Isolda were little, sometimes they would cry out like that, and I would panic because the nightmare of Frida’s screams would scud back to me in jagged fragments. But on the night I’m describing to you, I was still a long way from being a mother. I was just a little girl, and my first thought was that Frida had had a bad dream or a gas bubble and had inconsiderately let out a yelp in order to rouse the household. It wouldn’t have been the first time. In fact, it had gotten to be a habit of hers, screaming in the night to bring everyone running. Mami in her ruffled nightcap and Inocencia in her frayed shawl would stumble into the room bleary-eyed and, like zombies, submit to Frida’s every command so that the poor little victim, the poor, suffering little darling, could get back to sleep.
“Inocencia, a cup of yerbabuena!” The maid would waddle into the kitchen to brew the soothing tea.
“Mami, the new doll!” Mami would pull it out of my arms and rest it on my sister’s chest.
Usually, Frida and I slept in the same room, but all that week she had had a cold, and so Mami put me in bed with Adriana and Matilde.
My big sisters must not have heard anything, because neither of them budged. I listened for Mami’s footsteps in the patio, but no one else seemed to be stirring. Maybe I dreamed it, I thought. I snuggled next to Adriana and tried to fall back to sleep.
I was just dozing off when another cry shattered the stillness. This time I bolted out of bed toward the room I usually shared with Frida. My first thought was to tell her to shut up, to stop making a racket. But then I saw that Mami and Papi were already there. Mami was trembling. Papá, still groggy, was staggering toward Frida’s bed.
I think a low-grade anxiety had been gnawing at Papá for days. Frida had been ill with a fever, a headache, a sore throat. It was just a cold, he kept saying. Papá had six daughters—the four of us and two others by his first wife. Of course, Mami had seen to it that our half sisters were packed off to a convent as soon as she married him. She wanted them out of the way so there would be no reminders of that other woman. Later on, we all became friends, but that’s another story. Even though Papá had always remained on the periphery of our upbringing, he knew that fevers and sore throats were common in small children. But then the nausea and vomiting started. And then the diarrhea.
“It must be a stomach virus,” he had said. That was in the afternoon.
“I guess so,” answered Mami. She was cutting a mamey, and as she pierced the russet-colored rind, the sweet yellow juices ran over her hand. “But I think we should call the doctor just the same.”
“Call him if you want.” Papá searched Mami’s face for a sign of serious concern. He thought that women were mysterious beings, like cats, and that they had secret ways of knowing things. Mami bit her lip and continued to slice the fruit with steady, even strokes. Maybe he thought her eyes looked apprehensive, maybe he wasn’t sure.
“You don’t suppose it’s anything more than a stomach virus, do you?” he asked. I think his voice quivered, but it was so long ago, I can’t swear to it. You reinvent these things in your mind. You relive them so many times that after a while you aren’t sure whether they really happened the way you think they did or whether you’ve made the whole thing up, embellishing the scene just a tiny bit every time you conjure it—adding this detail or that—until your mental image is totally different from reality.
Mami didn’t answer, but she didn’t send for the doctor, either. Money was tight, and doctors were expensive. I guess she thought it could wait one more day.
That evening Frida went to bed at the regular time, but she had complained of stiffness in the neck and spine during the day. I still thought she was carrying on just to get attention, but there was something about the way Papi stroked her hair and tucked her in that made me anxious.
“I don’t feel well, Papá,” she kept whining. She gasped, short of breath. Her voice was small and cracked. Papá looked at her pinched, frightened face and winced as though he had a gnarl of snakes in his stomach. “Oh God,” he whispered. “Even though I don’t believe in you, please make this be nothing more than a cold.” His eyes met Frida’s, and I felt—well, why not say it?—I felt jealous. Don’t forget that I was only five, after all, and to me it looked as though Frida might be playing one of her dying-orphan roles just to get Papá to sit with her.
“I know, Friducha,” he said, “but tomorrow we’ll call the doctor for sure.”
He turned out the light. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t see me there, cowering in the shadows. No sooner was he out the door than Frida called again.
“Papá,” she whimpered when he sat down beside her. Her eyes were glazed and feverish. “Cristi was horrible to me today.”
I hated her. I have to admit it. At that moment I hated her.
“No, I’m sure she wasn’t. Cristina’s just a baby. She does silly things, but she doesn’t really mean to bother you.”
“Yes, she does! She’s nasty!”
“I’ll tell Mami to talk to her.” Typical! He never sat me on his knee or stroked my hair and asked me if Frida’s stupid accusations were true. He just said dumb things like “I’ll tell Mami to talk to her.” He let Frida get away with everything just because she was the favorite.
Frida started to wail. “She took my doll!” That was a lie! I hadn’t touched her doll. Sometimes I did take her toys, but not that day, because I hadn’t even been allowed in the room. But did Papá think to ask me if it was true?
“All right. Tomorrow we’ll make her give it back,” he said.
“I want it back now!”
“Cristina’s sleeping now. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
Frida’s little fingers curled into a fist and her body trembled with rage. “I want it now!”
I was dying to call out, “I don’t have your ugly doll!,” but I didn’t want them to know I was eavesdropping, so I kept quiet.
Papá looked exhausted. With Frida’s illness, her crankiness had increased to the point that even he had to admit she was unbearable.
“Go to bed now, Friducha.”
“It’s not fair! I want it now!”
For the second time, Papá turned out the light, then lumbered toward his study. “You know what I am?” he said to the invisible creatures that inhabit the night. He spoke in a voice so low it was almost inaudible. “I’m some sort of ancient reptile who should have died centuries ago.” I peeped through the keyhole—it was the old-fashioned kind, large enough for a wrought-iron house key—and watched him scan his record collection without registering the name of a single disk, then again, more carefully. He made a selection, turned on the Victrola, and slumped into a fat, comfortable chair. Moments later, strains of a Beethoven sonata filled the room and trickled out the keyhole. He closed his eyes and tried to listen, but Frida started moaning again. He sat up and leaned toward the door as if he had heard her, even though I knew he couldn’t have. Her voice wasn’t strong enough to carry over the music. And yet again, the wince as if he had snakes in his stomach. It’s true I was just a young child, but I sensed his anxiety. I know now that he was straining to suppress the questions that had been tormenting him just below the threshold of consciousness: What if Frida’s illness wasn’t just a cold? What if something was seriously wrong with her?
I saw him doze in his chair, wake suddenly, then doze again. He resisted going to bed. I guess he felt that somehow, as long as he sat upright in that chair, he was less vulnerable to the demons that pursued him. His financial worries had already left him drained, and this new fear was gnawing him to bits. Finally, barely able to stand the oppressive weight of his eyelids, he forced his head erect and lugged himself to the door. I darted for a decorative table that stood outside the study and hid under it, and from there watched him trudge back to his bedroom.
The windows that opened to the patio were covered with heavy curtains. One curtain had been pushed aside and the pane left slightly ajar, perhaps to let in some fresh air. Standing on top of a watering can, I could see in just slightly, and I could hear, with difficulty, my parents’ muffled words.
Mami was lying with her head propped up, reading the Bible.
“Does it help?” asked Papá. I don’t think he intended to sound sarcastic, but Mami didn’t answer. She closed the book and rolled over on her side. He got into bed next to her, kissed her on the ear, then put out the light.
I peered into the black room. They were done talking. I was getting sleepy and it was senseless to stand there in the dark, so I made my way back to my sisters’ room and crawled under the covers next to Adriana. But I couldn’t drift off. I kept thinking of Papá in his bed, twisting and turning like a cat with nettles. I imagined him staring into the asphyxiating blackness, straining his ears to detect a cry or a moan or any other indication that Frida’s state was worsening.
I sank into a terrifying nightmare in which Papá was having an even more terrifying nightmare. Then, suddenly, both our nightmares were aborted by a terrifying reality: Frida’s scream. It lacerated the night and sent pains shooting through my head. But I didn’t move. Instead, I lay there, imagining Papá’s gargantuan efforts to pull his hand up to the edge of the blanket and to push it away with unwieldy, leaden fingers. Another cry, this one shriller and closer than the first, yet a million miles away.
I didn’t actually see Matilde and Adriana sit up in bed, but I sensed their movements, quick and automatic, as though Frida’s voice had activated springs in their hips. But I was out the door before them, racing barefoot to Frida’s bed.
“You should have brought the doctor,” Papá was saying. “It was a mistake to wait.”
Mami shot him a ferocious look.
“My leg!” wailed Frida. “My leg hurts! It’s awful!”
“Which leg?” Mami pulled back the blankets with disturbing efficiency.
“This one, the right one. All this part here.” Frida pointed to her calf.
Papá watched Mami lift Frida’s nightgown to the knee and massage the leg. She looked somber, but she wasn’t crying and she wasn’t hysterical. She didn’t act as though we were in the midst of a crisis.
“Here?” Mami asked, massaging more vigorously.
“It hurts!” screamed Frida. “I can’t stand it! It hurts, Mami! It hurts so bad I want to cut it off!”
Papá shuddered and squeezed his eyelids shut. “I’ll send for Dr. Costa,” he stammered.
“Send for him at once,” commanded Mami. She turned to my sister Matilde. “Tell Inocencia to come, and you,” she said to Adriana, “go boil water.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary to wake the servants,” whispered Papá.
“Just Inocencia and Manuel. Manuel will have to go for the doctor.”
Before Matilde could call her, Inocencia appeared at the door with a rosary in her hand. She looked like a fleecy, spectral sheep in her crumpled white nightgown. Her braids crossed the top of her head and flopped over on either side, like ears. Frida almost smiled. “Inocencia looks funny,” she simpered through the sobs.
“Holy Child of the Holy Father,” whispered Inocencia. “What is wrong with little Frida?”
“Bring some liniment. The child is in terrible pain.”
Mami massaged with determined hands. When she got tired, Inocencia took over. But Frida continued to wail.
“Frida, Fridita,” murmured the cook. “Come on, little one. You’re always so brave. Don’t cry now.”
Papi and I accompanied Manuel as far as the sidewalk. A phosphorescent moon hung inert in a heavy black sky. I strained to see if there was a face in it. There wasn’t. It was dead matter.
Dr. Costa took his time in coming. Manuel told us that he had had to bang on the gate forever before a servant appeared with a light in his hand.
“The doctor is asleep,” the servant said.
“Of course he’s asleep,” Manuel answered. “It is the middle of the night. Everyone is asleep. But this is an emergency. Wake him.”
The domestic resisted, but Manuel stuck to his guns.
“Little Frida Kahlo is sick. The child of Don Guillermo and Doña Matilde, on the corner of Londres and Allende.”
When the doctor finally appeared in our doorway, he was rumpled and groggy, but he hadn’t forgotten to bring his black bag. About forty-five minutes later, Manuel arrived. Costa had come in his chauffeur-driven automobile, leaving Manuel to walk. He was a bastard, all right. But Frida always loved doctors. I think she loved anyone who spent time looking at her, examining her, hanging on to her every word. As for me, I hate them. Well, not all of them. Not you.
The doctor examined her carefully but reached no conclusions. All he said was that she would have to go to the hospital in the morning for some tests.
“She can’t be moved,” Mami said. “She’s in too much pain.” But both she and Papá knew that they had no choice.
Matilde and Adriana stayed home. For some reason that I don’t understand even now, my parents insisted that I go with them. Maybe they thought that my presence would calm Frida during the long ride from Coyoacán to Mexico City. Maybe they brought me along to help keep her amused. I remember that the hospital air was bitter with pestilence and formaldehyde. Everything was green. Green walls, green floors, green chairs. I was growing nauseous. At least the wimples and habits of the nurses were white.
Papi looked dazed. Who knows what he was thinking. Back then, people were afraid to articulate, even mentally, the name of the dreaded childhood disease for which there was no cure. He was pallid, overcome, I suppose, by a kind of larval terror. I knew just from looking at him that his mouth tasted like ashes.
“I am truly one of the Chosen People,” Papá said out loud. “Everything in my life is putrefying.”
Mami was reciting the rosary. “Hail Mary, full of grace …” Her voice rasped like a wooden stick against a grate.
“Stop it!” Papi said in a loud whisper that made people turn around to look.
“Stop it? I’m praying to the Blessed Virgin for the health of our daughter!”
“Have faith in the doctors.”
“I have faith in God.”
“I don’t,” said Papi under his breath. He looked woozy. He sank onto a wooden hospital chair. I thought he had forgotten about me, but all of a sudden he said, “You know what I’m thinking about, Cristina?”
“What, Papi?”
“I’m making noisy pictures in my head: waves bashing rocks, biblical tempests, traffic accidents, erupting volcanoes, snarling tigers. That sort of thing. Can you guess why, Cristi?”
“Why, Papi?” I asked him.
“To drown out Mami’s praying.”
“But Mami’s praying for Fridita.”
He didn’t answer. Mami’s voice droned on: “Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia; el Señor es contigo; bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres … Dios te salve, María … salve María … salve María …”
“Do I love this woman?” Papi said.
“What?” I asked.
A man, a total stranger, was standing in front of us, looking dour.
Papi was suddenly hyperalert. I noticed a ginger-colored stain on the man’s white jacket, a black hair that extended about a quarter of a centimeter from the inside of his left nostril, and several flecks of yellowish dandruff on his collar. I realized he was a doctor. Some where, a baby wailed and birds screamed raucously. Something metal fell to the ground with what would have been a brain-shattering clatter if the object had been nearer. A nurse walked by carrying foul-smelling flowers. A rachitic old man hobbled past on the arm of an adolescent boy. Papi looked at his fingernails.
“We have examined Frida and arrived at a diagnosis,” said the doctor.
“Holy Virgin,” whispered Mami. Papi and I said nothing.
“I am sorry to have to tell you that the child has infantile paralysis.”
I didn’t know what “infantile paralysis” meant, but I flinched at the word sorry.
“Otherwise known as poliomyelitis, or polio.”
I looked from my mother to my father. Everyone knew what polio was—a horrible disease that made children so weak they couldn’t walk, couldn’t ride a bicycle or throw a ball or even play jacks. A dreadful thought crossed my mind: Ha! Now she won’t always be best at everything! No, wait. It wasn’t a real thought. I mean, it wasn’t something I sat and meditated on. It was just … sort of a flash. Then it was gone, but I felt miserable—guilty and treacherous. But you can’t blame me, really. After all, I was just a baby. I didn’t understand things, and Frida was always taunting me. It didn’t last, I didn’t dwell on it, it was just a streak of consciousness that vanished in an instant.
I didn’t know what to do. What sort of reaction was expected? Should I cry? Should I hang on to Mami or stage a temper tantrum? My parents weren’t offering much guidance. Mami was clutching her rosary, but her eyes were dry. I was surprised, astounded, at her reserve, although I suspected the dam would break once the doctor was out of the room.
“Your daughter has paralytic polio,” the doctor continued. “This is a viral disease, and there is no cure. During the active stages of the malady, Frida will have to stay in bed to avoid straining her limbs. Hot packs may help relieve the pain.”
“Is she going to die?” I whispered. My voice sounded tiny, even to my own ears. My words shivered in the air like robins in the snow.
“We’re all going to die,” said the doctor matter-of-factly.
At that moment I wished Papá were a sturdy, muscular man who knew how to punch. I wished he spoke Spanish without an accent.
Mami opened her mouth, but it took her a moment to force out the words. “How long … how long will the active stages last?”
“Impossible to tell. You will have to be very careful about her fluid intake. Plenty of liquids, do you understand?”
He said “do you understand?” as though he were talking to a two-year-old. Papi looked at the doctor as though the man were an imbecile.
“You must maintain her intake of liquids in order to prevent dehydration. That means loss of water. Dehydration could result in fecal impaction. That means the bowels are blocked by dry, hard material, and the patient cannot eliminate waste.”
“This man is used to talking to Indians,” said Papi under his breath.
“And afterward?” asked Mami. “I mean, after … the active stages?”
I held my breath. What if the doctor did not foresee an afterward?
“Please answer the question,” said Papi. I think he meant to sound commanding, but his voice trembled. He was pinned, you see, between his urgency about Frida’s condition and his resentment of the doctor’s stupefying arrogance. On the one hand, he wanted to draw as much information as possible out of the man, but on the other, he wanted to bloody his lip.
“Afterward,” (and I think he added “if there is an afterward,” but I can’t remember for sure), “Frida will have to exercise as much as possible in order to limit her paralysis. Dance. Jump rope. That sort of thing.”
His voice droned on, but I was no longer really listening. My mind was stuck on the words if there is an afterward … Yes, I’m certain he said that. Well, pretty certain. How can I tell you what I felt at that moment? Frida had always been victorious in all our rivalries, and yes, I had been jealous. There were moments when I despised her. But at that age, it’s natural for sisters to hate each other. What I mean is, I never wished she were … dead. I swear to you. I didn’t want her to die!
“I would like to speak with our regular doctor,” Papi was saying. His accent was thicker than usual.
“Of course. He’s with Frida. You can go in to see her now.”
Frida was sitting on a chair, her legs crossed demurely at the ankle. Her face was still contracted with pain, but she had clearly charmed Dr. Costa’s young assistant, Dr. San Pedro. He was sitting across from her, engaged in conversation, as enthralled as if he were talking with a fascinating and worldly woman. Dr. Costa paid no attention to them. He stood looking out the window, smoking and passing gas.
What more can I tell you? At school Frida had always protected me. Now, Frida could no longer go to school, and I found I didn’t need a protector. I could manage on my own. I stayed out of trouble. I made friends. I fascinated my classmates with stories of Frida’s awful disease and of our family’s heroic struggle to keep death from the door. Now sometimes I was the star of the show. Not often, but once in a while.
But Papá … The other day you were asking me about Papi, about what kind of a father he was. All I can say is that Frida’s illness changed him. Until then he had lived in his own world, lost in melancholy and the vapors of solitude. He and Frida would go out for walks—sometimes I would tag along too—but even on those special escapades, when the two of them would share their love of rocks and birds and insects, he always floated several feet above her, amiable yet somehow detached. But during the nine months Frida was confined to bed, he became more attentive—at least to her.
Frida was growing thin and solemn. Her withering right leg hung from her body like a dead snake. She seemed horrified yet fascinated by her transformation. Sometimes she scared me, the way she sat for hours, studying her face in the mirror, comparing her sallow cheeks with the chubby moist cheeks in the portrait Papi had taken of her only months before. She seemed to take a perverse pleasure in watching her body lose flesh and her eyes sink into their sockets.
“We’re doing everything we can,” Papi told her.
“That’s what Mami says.”
“The doctor promises that eventually you’ll be able to walk again.”
“The doctor farts like a pregnant dog.”
“Every time he comes, he stinks up the room.”
“He’s a good doctor, and he’s trying to help you.”
“I know, but he smells like a chamber pot!”
“Frida …”
Frida giggled, and Papá winked and squeezed her hand.
We all knew that Frida was struggling to make him believe that she was still the same mischievous little girl, but the fact is, she was becoming dejected and withdrawn. Sometimes, when he came home from work, Papi would catch her deep in thought, staring out the window into the drenched sky. She was like an iguana. She’d sit and stare at things for hours, eyes open, expressionless.
What do you mean, how did I feel about it? How did I feel about what?
Well, I wasn’t happy to see my sister meta—metamorphose into a … a creature.
The physical part? You mean her physical transformation? Well, no, I didn’t take pleasure in watching her shrivel up like that. How can you even suggest such a thing? It’s true that after always being the tubby one, the less attractive one, it was nice to be seen as pretty and healthy and cute. But I felt guilty, because now there could be no doubt about it, I was the adorable one. I was the little beauty. I felt as though I had stolen something from her. It was scary. We all thought she might die, and I was terrified that she was turning into a skeleton right before my very eyes. I thought that somehow I was to blame, because sometimes, not often, but once or twice, when we were very little, I had wished that she would disappear. And then, suddenly, she actually seemed to be wasting away before my very eyes. Deteriorating. Vanishing. But no, I swear to you, when she got sick, what I wanted most—I swear to you—what I really wanted was for her to get better.
The thing is, she not only looked weird, she acted as though she lived in another dimension. I mean, Frida had always had her imaginary princess, Zoraída, but now she seemed to be wandering over the edge. She conversed with a bunch of invisible people—the only people, it seemed, who could make her happy. Papá said not to worry, that they were probably warm, whimsical souls who gave her comfort and made her laugh. And it’s true that sometimes, when Frida became absorbed in her prattling, she would suddenly giggle. But when Papá questioned her about her new friends, she became sulky and taciturn.
Most of the time she stayed alone in her room. She couldn’t even hobble to the window to trace a door on the pane, but even so, she could conjure up Princess Frida Zoraída just by closing her eyes, breathing as deeply as possible, and reciting the magic words:
Zoraída, Zoraída
Come to see
Your little Frida.
Don’t be slow.
Don’t delay.
Come right now
So we can play!
“You know,” she told me, “Princess Frida Zoraída has a withered leg too.”
“How do you know?” I asked her.
“I saw her. She came to me out of the mists just last night.” She rolled her eyes and looked into space. Such a little performer.
But she wasn’t lying. Frida really did bring forth the princess out of the mists. Out of the mists of her own loneliness. According to her, the princess wore the same red-orange robe as before. Only her shoes were different. Instead of the pointed booties, she wore a ballet slipper on the left foot and a heavy orthopedic contraption on the right. On her right leg she wore a brace.
“She invited me to dance,” said Frida, “and when I told her I couldn’t dance anymore, she said, ‘Of course you can!’”
I was spellbound.
“My leg’s bad. Can’t you see?” Frida told her.
“So is mine! Can’t you see?” said the princess.
Then Princess Frida Zoraída took Frida by the fingertips and kissed her sweetly on the cheek, and the two of them soared, their ugly shoes floating in the air like sparkling, silver-black zeppelins.
Mami obeyed the doctor like a captain taking orders from a general, and she commanded Inocencia with military precision: “Get the tub and fill it with warm walnut water. That will relieve the pain.” Inocencia would prepare the medicinal bath. “Now have Frida soak her leg for half an hour.” Inocencia would wash the leg. “Now make compresses with hot towels and apply them to the muscles of the calves.” When Inocencia grew tired, Mami and Papi would take turns on the stool beside the bed.
Frida submitted without complaint. I’m sure she savored their attention. On the other hand, whenever I’d babble on about school, she’d become irritable. She didn’t want to hear about Estela’s mean pranks and María del Carmen’s idiotic submissiveness. She was no longer interested in Miss Caballero’s obsession with clean underpants. She had no patience with my tales of the girls’ shifting alliances. I suppose that, percolated through me, all the stories sounded alike. Sometimes the neighborhood children would come to visit, bubbling with news of parties and First Communions and best friends. Frida would listen a while, visibly bored. Then she would turn away and grab her leg, grimacing and moaning.
I don’t doubt that she was really suffering. But it was as though she welcomed pain as a distraction from the jabber of her friends. I don’t know. Maybe she resented that school and life went on as usual without her.
Frida was bedridden for nine months. Nine months! Nine months are forever in the life of a six-year-old. In nine months a six-year-old becomes seven, and the pudgy baby face turns into a firm, distinct profile. I remember when my Isolda was six. And when the six-year-old has polio, the transformation is even more dramatic. The child’s face vanishes altogether, and a thin, wan mask appears in its place. Instead of from those radiant eyes with their mischievous glint, Frida saw out of dull, faded disks. Instead of full and mirthful, her lips were thin and pallid. Worst of all, her cocky, six-year-old self-assuredness gave way to the excruciating shyness of the seven-year-old who knows she is different.
Nine months … the time it takes for a baby to grow in the womb and emerge into the sunlight. The time it took Frida to become an invalid.
The day finally did come when Frida was able to stand again, but … Look at this family portrait, doctor. It was taken in 1914. This gangly little girl shirking behind the bushes is not the same child who up and told off the class bully the year before. Look at her, doctor! She’s changed. She’s weak and gloomy. She doesn’t want to walk in the garden or swim or ride the new red bike Papá bought for her. All she wants to do is linger in the shadows. She prefers Princess Frida Zoraída to her playmates. She mopes around instead of making the huge effort it’s going to take to regain her strength.
But Papá wasn’t going to let his favorite child wither and die. “I’m not Job,” he told Mami. “I’m not going to let God take away everything.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in God,” Mami said dryly.
“I don’t,” answered Papá. “That’s why I’m not going to let him get away with this.”
He turned to Frida. “Come,” he said. “We’re going to walk.”
But Frida didn’t want to.
“Doctor’s orders.”
Frida whined and carried on, but Papá was unrelenting.
“This time you are not getting your own way,” he croaked. Whenever he got upset, his accent grew gelatinous. “You vill kum RRRight now!”
Frida didn’t laugh often, but she had to laugh at Papi’s sticky R. He sounded as though he was gargling.
“Yes, Herr Kahlo.”
“Don’t call me Herr Kahlo!”
“All RRRight, Herr Kahlo! I vill kum RRRight now, Herr Kahlo!”
They both burst out laughing. Papi didn’t like to be teased about his accent, but this was a good sign. At last, Frida was regaining her spunk.
They wouldn’t let me come along on their first few walks, but Papi must have realized that it was good for Frida to have someone to play with, or rather, someone to show off to.
In the beginning, we’d just stroll in the garden. Frida would have to rest under the big cedar tree every five or ten minutes, but soon she was hobbling after a ball that I’d toss first in one direction, then the other.
“I’m going to climb that cedar!” Frida said one day.
“Ah no, I don’t think you’re quite ready for that, lieber Frida,” said Papi.
“Listen, Herr Kahlo,” said Frida in mock defiance. “If I want to climb the tree, I’ll climb it.”
“You vill not!” teased Papá, egging her on.
“I vill so, Herr Kahlo. I vill do vatever I vant!”
“Okay, let’s see.”
Frida jumped at the cedar, wrapping her legs around it and holding tight with her knees. Then, inch by inch, she pulled herself upward.
“Bravo!” shouted Papi.
“BRRRavo yourself, Herr Kahlo!” shouted Frida. “You sound like you’re choking!”
Papá took us to Chapultepec Park, where Frida rowed on the lakes. She even learned to wrestle and box, and once, when a bunch of relatives were over, she gave one of our male cousins such a clobbering that he ran into the house crying with a bloody nose.
Dr. Costa didn’t think that wrestling was such a good idea.
“Hopscotch!” Frida snickered when he suggested that this game might be more suitable for a little girl.
“Hopscotch!” echoed Papi. He tweaked Frida on the elbow. “Vat an alt-fashioned, prejuticed man,” he whispered. “Ve vill see about hopscotch.”
Papi didn’t have money to buy new equipment for his studio, but somewhere he found the cash to buy Frida a slew of boys’ playthings: skates, balls, and a horn to go on the bright red bicycle that she finally learned to ride. She never offered to share those things with me, and frankly, I didn’t care. I preferred dolls.
Sometimes, on fragrant, mild, fall afternoons, we would go to the park, and Frida would jump on her bike and tear around like a demon, forcing strolling lovers off the path, terrifying smaller children, upsetting picnic baskets, and giving chase to dogs. She also became a really good swimmer and would race even the boys. She would play soccer with anyone—cousins, neighbors, even the street urchins who hung around the pulquerías. And when she skated! When she skated, her skirts billowed out behind her like a kite straining to soar. What a sight!
Frida was making headway, but it wasn’t all uphill. The polio had left her legs uneven. Her limp weighed heavy on her seven-year-old mind, so Papá showed her how to layer socks to fill out her calf and saw to it that the doctor ordered a specially constructed right shoe with a built-up heel. With Papá’s hand firm under her elbow, Frida learned to walk steadily, then evenly, then gracefully. Sometimes she would go with Papá on his photographic excursions. They would trek for miles, and Frida would come back with pebbles and pieces of bark she had gathered in the country. She and Papá would sit in the patio after supper, celebrating the beauty of fireflies or the grace of frogs. Papá, who had always been so taciturn, seemed to open up to Frida. I think he shared his most intimate thoughts with her. Once in a while, when Papá was out with Frida, he would have one of those seizures, and she would shoo people away and stand guard over his equipment until the crisis passed. That made them even closer. Papá and Frida were best friends. Was I jealous? I don’t know. I think I just accepted it.
Papá never had a son. Well, he did—Mami had a baby boy, but he died almost right away, and I think Papá saw in Frida everything a son might have been, everything that he might have been if his life had turned out differently. And when Frida got sick, well, he just wasn’t willing to abandon the dream.
Papá had been a student at the University of Nuremberg, but he had an accident. He took a bad fall and injured his head, and that brought on those epileptic fits that plagued him for the rest of his life. Poor Papá! He had to give up his university career, and then his mother died. Not long afterward, his father married a woman Papá considered a pompous shrew. Papá’s world was coming unglued, and he felt the only solution was to get out of Germany. He was nineteen and adventurous, so he borrowed some money from his father, booked passage to Mexico, and never looked back.
We had seen them in the streets of Coyoacán—Estela, María del Carmen, Aurora, Inés—all the nasty little girls from school. They lined up to stare as we sauntered down the street holding Papá’s hands. Papá was so handsome. Or maybe he wasn’t. It’s hard to be objective about your own father. But, no, he was handsome. People said he was one of the handsomest men in Coyoacán. Fair-complected, with brown wavy hair. The girls, sometimes they would jeer. Sometimes they would point at Frida’s heavy shoe and chant, “Peg-leg Frida.”
“Just keep valking,” Papá would mutter. “Pay no attention.”
Papá would chase them away, and Frida would hold her tongue. She couldn’t say the awful things I knew she was thinking in front of Papá.
But then, finally, Dr. Costa said she was strong enough to return to school. There she was in enemy territory, and she couldn’t rely on Papá to protect her. She had to defend herself by her wits.
The girls took sides. Some admired Frida. She had battled an ogre and was still standing. They admired her not only for her unbelievable recovery, but also for her skill at sports, her graceful step, her audacity, her spunk, and, of course, her colorful vocabulary.
But others resented all the attention she was getting. Suddenly, Miss Caballero couldn’t do enough for her. “Here, Frida, let me strap on your book pack! Come, Frida, let me help you up the stairs!”
María del Carmen complained about Miss Caballero’s fawning, but Estela knew it was dangerous to tease Frida in the school patio because the teachers were keeping a close watch on things. They were afraid of Mami.
But Frida and I sometimes played in the park.
On a damp, cool afternoon, Frida was riding her bicycle and I was picnicking with a doll. What we didn’t know was that Estela and her bunch were spying on us from behind the bushes.
As Frida rode up the path, her dress billowing in the wind, a stone scudded out from behind a bush and landed in front of the bike. Startled, Frida screeched to a stop. A barrage of sticks and pebbles flew at her face and head, one of them scratching her eye, just below the lower lid.
A gaggle of children materialized from behind the vegetation. Stunned, Frida looked from one to another, then lurched forward on her bike. Inés and Anita caught her by the skirt and knocked her off balance. The girls formed a barricade and began to chant:
| ¡Frida Kahlo | Come, let’s see ya |
| Pata de palo! | Peg-leg Frida! |
| ¡Un pie bueno | One leg’s good |
| El otro malo! | The other’s just wood! |
As usual, Frida’s defense came from the lip.
“Bitches!” she screamed. “I shit on your stupid songs!”
“¡Frida Kahlo!” chanted the girls.
“Get out of my way!” yelled Frida. “You came through your mothers’ assholes instead of through the holes between their legs!” You see, at six or seven, Frida knew all about those things, and so did I. We had older sisters.
The girls were too accustomed to Frida’s mouth to be shocked. They kept on singing: “¡Frida Kahlo! ¡Pata de palo!”
Frida placed her good foot on the left pedal and glared at them. Estela was leading the chorus, using a stick for a baton.
Frida shifted her weight and took off, ramming into María del Carmen and Inés, who fell into the dirt.
“You idiot!” shrieked Inés. “You ripped my pinafore!”
Anita tripped after Frida, trying to grab her skirt. But Frida was far down the path, chanting gleefully:
Inés, Anita!
Carmen, Estela!
Too damn ugly
To catch a fellah!
“Trash!” hissed Estela. “I know how you catch fellows! You let them touch your—”
“You should see her wrestle!” interrupted Anita. “My mother says it’s disgusting. She gets down on the floor with the boys and everything.”
“She’ll never get married, though,” shrieked Inés in Frida’s direction. “Who’s going to want to marry a deformed girl?”
But beyond the curve, Frida was still singing:
Inés, Anita!
Carmen, Estela!
Too damn ugly
To catch a fellah!