WHEN FRIDA WAS RELEASED FROM THE HOSPITAL, MAMI WAS SO RELIEVED that she offered a mass of thanksgiving, which we all dutifully attended, except Frida, of course, who couldn’t be moved, and Papá, who was too traumatized to deal with God. Then Mami took out an ad in the local newspaper expressing her appreciation to the Red Cross. Everyone remarked that it was a nice gesture, although Elena Cabrera Andrade, Estela’s mother, went around saying that Matilde Kahlo was always looking for a way to get her name in the society pages.
Frida was impossible. “Paint my nails for me, Cristi. No! Not like that, you moron!” “Read me this story, Cristi. Dummy! You don’t even understand what you’re reading!” “Cristi, bring me my mirror.” “Cristi, bring me a glass of water.” “Cristi, bring me the note that came from Alex. I know you’re hiding it.”
She was convinced that I stashed away Alex’s daily letters because I was jealous of their magnificent love affair. The truth is, Alex never wrote. Or not very often. Anyway, I was having a magnificent love affair of my own. Pinedo and I were going to be married, so it wasn’t as though I had nothing to think about except Frida and Alex.
At first, the Cachuchas came to see her, but then fewer and fewer were willing to spend two hours on the trolley to make the round-trip visit to Coyoacán. Frida didn’t like being alone, so she’d call for me to come sit by her bed. But then she’d get nasty and complain that I didn’t pay enough attention to her. It’s true that she was as bored as a plank full of carpenter ants, but that was no excuse for barking at me all the time. I wound up looking for excuses to get out of the house so I’d have to spend as little time with her as possible.
As for the wedding, Mami was a disappointment. I mean, mothers are supposed to go all gaga when their daughters get married, aren’t they? They’re supposed to shop and make guest lists, plan menus, put announcements in newspapers, all that stuff, aren’t they? Announcements like, you know … “The noted European photographer Guillermo Kahlo and Mrs. Matilde Calderón de Kahlo announce the marriage of their daughter Cristina to …” I thought she would be harping at Papá about dress fittings. But no. She had to attend to Frida. Well, of course. Frida had been in a serious accident.
It just didn’t seem fair, because Frida was the one who had always been the troublemaker. Along with Maty. Maty was no bargain either, according to what Mami had been saying for years. But now, all of a sudden, everything was different. Maty had gotten married, and Mami let up on her. In fact, now Maty came to the house all the time, and she and Frida were the two new best friends. I should have been the star, since I was the one getting married. I was doing everything right, wasn’t I? I was playing by the rules. But Mami treated Maty as though she were the prodigal daughter, and as for Frida, Mami couldn’t do enough for the poor little invalid.
Frida wrote to Alex almost daily—long, pleading letters in which she itemized her ailments and begged him to visit and to write. “Oh my darling Alex, I spent the whole night vomiting! Please come to me.” Or else, “Oh dear, beloved Alex, my stomach is so inflamed I can hardly fart! I’m dying to see you!” And then, long, detailed descriptions of all her operations—one on her arm, one on her spine, one on her uterus. Really, for such a smart girl, she was pretty stupid. What I mean is, what man wants to read stuff like that? Is it really wise to tell your lover that it hurts when you take a crap? No wonder Alex practically stopped answering. He did come to visit once, but Rufina told him Frida wasn’t home. After all those years, Rufina was still mad at Frida and Maty for putting one over on her the night Maty ran away with Paco. Rufina took vengeance on Frida every chance she got. That’s why she told Alex that Frida had gone to visit I don’t remember who. Imagine, after he had spent a whole hour on the trolley. Frida was furious. “That maid hates me!” she sobbed. “She hates me!”
To tell you the truth, we were all getting tired of Frida’s complaining. Frida was hurting, yes, but she was also playing for sympathy. She moaned incessantly, but the truth is that she was making a lot of progress. Mami was convinced that the Virgin was lending a hand because, you know, the Virgin loves a sinner. Just like Jesus. That’s why he went into the den of thieves, remember? And don’t forget Mary Magdalene.
Before we knew it, Frida was sitting up, then standing, then walking. Sometime in December, she decided she was well enough to make a trip to Mexico City. Mami didn’t want to let her go, but finally, she gave her permission—not that Frida cared one way or another about Mami’s permission. The condition was that I go with her. About that, Frida wasn’t one bit happy. The last thing she wanted was me tagging along, because her reason for going in the first place was to see Alex.
“As soon as we get to the city, I’ll dump you somewhere,” she said. “Then we can meet up at El Lazo Roto for lunch.”
She left me off near the Zócalo and pointed out the place where we would eat. “Now, don’t wander off and get lost so I have to spend the whole afternoon looking for you,” she scolded. I hated it when she talked to me that way. As though I were a four-year-old. As though I were an idiot. She didn’t think I was capable of going for a walk and finding my way back. She thought I was too dumb to keep track of where I was going.
“He’s not here,” the maid told her when she knocked on the Gómez Arias’ door. Frida waited a while in the parlor, then took off for the Ibero American Library. But Alex wasn’t there, either. She walked around the Prepa. She peeked into the cafés and shops where she knew he hung out. She couldn’t find Alex, but Agustina Reyna was buying a book at the Librería La Mancha, and I guess it was impossible for Frida to pretend she hadn’t seen her. Anyhow, the two of them showed up together at El Lazo Roto, where I had been waiting for a good fifteen minutes. Not that I’m picky about time, but the point is, I didn’t get lost.
It was an uncomfortable situation. After all, I wasn’t supposed to be there. For one thing, I wasn’t a Cachucha, and therefore wasn’t bright enough to carry on an exchange with such superior people. For another, what they wanted to talk about was Alex, and for that, I was definitely in the way. Neither of them made any effort at all to include me in the conversation, so I just sat there stupidly eating my arroz con pollo and looking at the table.
Agustina was fumbling around for something to say. Neither of them wanted to be the first to mention Alex.
“So, will you be back with us next year?” ventured La Reyna. “Will you finish up at the Prepa, then enroll at the university?”
“I don’t know,” said Frida. “I don’t think I’ll be able to continue at school.”
Agustina tried hard to look disappointed. “That’s too bad. But you could make up your tests.” Because of her accident, Frida had missed the fall round of examinations.
They chitchatted a while. Frida talked about her accident, about how she had already lost the habit of studying, about our medical expenses. “As soon as I get back on my feet, I mean, really back on my feet, I’m going to have to get a full-time job to help my parents,” she told Agustina.
There was an uncomfortable pause, and then Agustina made a move.
“What were you doing at the library this morning?” she asked slyly. I didn’t think it was a very subtle question.
“What do you mean?” asked Frida. We both knew what she meant.
“Were you looking for Alex?”
“No … ,” stammered Frida. “I … I just wanted to see who was there.”
“You know,” said Agustina, “you ought to try to forget Alex. I’m trying to forget him myself.”
The remark caught Frida off guard, and for once she was slow on the comeback.
“You know,” added La Reyna, “Alex isn’t a gentleman at all. He said some horrible things about me. He said I was almost as big a tramp as you!”
Now, I’ve certainly been candid about Frida. I’ve recognized her faults. I never said she was perfect, or even close to perfect, but Agustina’s words left me flabbergasted. How could she say a thing like that about my sister? It was a cruel thing to say, and poor Frida, she was stunned. Agustina looked at me and smiled as if she had just made some innocuous comment like “I think it’s going to rain,” or “The cathedral looks pretty all lit up.” I know that Frida wanted to cry, but she held it in. I could almost feel her saying to herself, “I won’t cry here, I won’t cry here.” My own chest was constricting and my back ached horribly. You see, that’s the way it was with Frida and me. When she suffered, I suffered. When she felt pain, I felt pain.
Yes, it’s true that sometimes I’d grow impatient with her. When you live with a person who’s as demanding as Frida, you’re bound to grow impatient. One thing has nothing to do with the other. You can love a person and still get annoyed at her. The point is, when Frida was miserable, so was I, and sitting there that day in El Lazo Roto with Agustina Reyna, we were both miserable.
“You know what else he said?” Agustina went on.
“She doesn’t want to know what else he said,” I interrupted. Frida squeezed my hand in gratitude, but Agustina had no intention of letting up.
“He said that you were a worse slut than Nahui Olín, that woman who used to model for Rivera. He said that what you gave to him, you also gave to Lira, and to who knows how many others: Lira … Fernández …”
Frida looked mortified. Maybe she was upset that Alex knew about Fernández. As for Lira, that was the first I’d heard about it.
“He even said that the worst accident he ever had in his life was you, but that he was finally recovering. So I guess,” said La Reyna, savoring the effect her words were having on Frida, “that Alex has ruined both our reputations, so both of us had better forget him.”
That afternoon we returned to Alejandro’s house together, but the maid turned us away.
It’s true that I sometimes criticize Frida, but what you have to understand is that we were so close that it was impossible for us not to get on each other’s nerves. After we came back from the city, Frida became … I don’t know the right word … melancholy, I guess. Nowadays, they say depressed. You’re the one who knows about this sort of thing. Is depressed the right word? I don’t know whether it was because she really adored Alex and couldn’t bear to lose him, or because she couldn’t stand rejection of any kind, but she sank into a funk as gloomy as purgatory. It was awful. I couldn’t think of my novio or my wedding or anything but Frida. I forgot about the dress, the lace, the music, the invitations, the flowers I had dreamed of for months. There wouldn’t be any money for any of it, anyway.
As I told you, Frida had made a quick recovery in spite of all those operations. In just a month she was out of the hospital, but after that visit to the capital, she started having relapses. They say that a person’s state of mind affects her health. Is that true? It must be, because Frida’s poor little body seemed to be coming apart like a sand castle slapped by a wave. The doctors hadn’t taken X rays. They had seen no need, since her spine seemed to be mending nicely. Now they discovered she was a wreck inside. She was in constant pain, and she had to have one medical procedure after the other. There was no money left, and Papá couldn’t pay for the treatments the doctors said that Frida needed. Instead of real medication, they gave her plaster corsets, which helped for a while, but then the pain started all over again.
I shouldn’t mention it, but I had dreamed of a nice wedding, with an embroidered dress trimmed with Mexican lace. I would have used Maty’s if she had had one, but Maty had been living with Paco for about eight or ten years when they finally got married, so what was the point of making a party? Adri used a hand-me-down from María Luisa, and I would have used it too, even though I didn’t care much for my half sister. The thing is, it had a big stain on it, and who wants to start married life with a stain?
I know I told you that I forgot about the wedding, that I was too wrapped up in Frida even to think about it, but I guess it would be more accurate to say that I put it out of my mind. You’re right, I didn’t forget about it entirely. I mean, no woman forgets about her own wedding. Looking back, I guess it was a bad omen, all these problems.
Frida wasn’t very interested in my romance. Nothing I did ever interested her until I—until I fell in love with someone that she loved too. That got her attention.
Frida continued writing to Alex to no avail. And what made her feel worse was that I had a fiancé who walked me home from work and came to call every Sunday. I was basking in my novio’s attention. I knew that eventually I would be a bride, and a bride is always the star, at least for one day. Did I rub Frida’s nose in it? Did I gush just to make her feel bad? I honestly don’t know. What I can tell you, though, is that during those months Frida was as dejected as I had ever seen her.
Most of the time she had to stay in bed, but whenever she could get up, she puttered around the house, and that’s how she discovered the one thing that would bring her relief: Papá’s paints.
“Cristi, do you remember those chimerical mornings when we were little, and we accompanied Papá on his painting expeditions?” she once said to me. I was embarrassed to tell her I didn’t know what chimerical meant, so I kept my mouth shut. It didn’t matter, though, because Frida wasn’t waiting for a response. She just kept on talking. “Sometimes I’d help Papá set up his easel and paints, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t pay much attention to his work. How about you, Cristi?”
“Me either,” I mumbled. Actually, most of the time I didn’t go. Most of the time it was just her and Papá.
“But I should have, because now I feel like trying my hand at painting. Do you think I could do it, Cristi?”
All I knew was that the only time Frida had had any training in art was when she was working for Fernández. Papá had never tried to teach her painting because he wanted her to be a doctor. Even when it looked as though she’d never return to school, he still held out the hope that she’d somehow get her medical degree.
“Can I have these?” she asked Papá, holding up some containers of color. “It looks as though you haven’t used them for years.”
Papá’s answer surprised me. “No, Frida,” he said. “They’re mine.”
“It’s the German in him,” she whispered. “He always starts out by being obstinate, but he’ll come around.”
And sure enough, after a few days he agreed to lend them to her, but just for a while. “All right,” she said, “just for a while,” although both of them knew she’d never return them.
The pains in her back and legs prevented Frida from sitting for long periods, so Mami hired a carpenter to construct a special easel that hooked onto the bed. That way, Frida could paint lying down. Then Mami hung up a mirror so that Frida could use herself as a model. Mami thought painting would be a nice distraction for Frida. To tell you the truth, I think everyone was happy to have her occupied and quiet.
The funny thing is, Mami had fought with Frida like a hyena after the Leticia Santiago affair, but now she bustled around her room, straightening up, freshening her flowers, gathering her dirty clothes for the maid to wash. It was Mami who bathed her and fixed her hair. It was Mami who smoothed down her sheets. And now Mami had ordered this wonderful new easel for her. Frida asked me: “Is it possible for a girl to love and hate her mother at the same time?”
What made Mami so attentive? Guilt? The realization that Frida might die? Maternal duty, pure and simple? I can’t tell you. I don’t know. Anyway, you’re the one who’s supposed to figure it all out.
At first, Frida painted a few hours a day, then for mornings and afternoons at a time. Toward the end of summer, 1926, she completed her first self-portrait, which she sent to Alex as a gift. It wasn’t that good, to tell you the truth. It was sort of stiff, not at all like the things she did after she got more practice. She painted herself as a Renaissance lady—the kind we had seen in books—with a distant gaze and a velvet dress. Anyhow, it worked. Alex not only accepted the painting, but once again became Frida’s novio.
You know, Frida could be arrogant, but she was also very fragile. What I mean is, she wasn’t all that sure of herself, in spite of that cocky attitude. Sometimes, when she was painting, she would suddenly start to cry, “It’s no good! I don’t know what I’m doing! If only Papá would teach me!” But Papá was too busy with his own problems to worry about Frida’s new hobby.
One day she couldn’t get the colors quite right in a self-portrait. “This stupid painting,” she screamed. “I hate this stupid painting!” I just stood there and watched her. I knew better than to intervene. I had just had an argument with Antonio about the date of our wedding—he was tired of the postponements—and the last thing I wanted was a tussle with Frida. “Damn it!” she howled. “Damn! Damn! Damn! I can’t do anything right!” All of a sudden she took the brush and starting drawing black X’s all over the picture.
At that point, I had to open my mouth. “What are you doing!” I demanded. After all, those paints and canvases cost money. She had used up Papá’s old cache weeks before, and he had had to go out and buy new materials for her, which she was now wasting. And just when Papá was telling me there wasn’t any money for a wedding!
Frida just kept on painting X’s. Then she took her brush and started to scribble, mixing all the colors together until they were a black-brown mess. A mess the color of shit! That’s what she had done, you see, she had covered herself with shit! Shit in her eyes, shit in her hair, shit in her mouth, shit on her forehead.
“Stop it, Frida!” Now I was screaming.
But she wasn’t through, and what she did next mortified me. She pressed her open hands against the wet canvas, then smeared the disgusting concoction of colors all over her eyes, her hair, her mouth, her forehead.
She was crying, really sobbing, and the tears poured down her face, making channels in the muck.
“Please stop it, Frida,” I begged. I was terrified. “Stop it! Stop it, please!” I wasn’t yelling anymore. I was trying to calm her, but she wasn’t even conscious of my presence.
“Oh God,” she moaned. “Oh God. I can’t do anything right. No wonder no one loves me!” Then she stuck her hand right into the paint on the palette, the red paint, and started spreading it all over her cheeks, over her corset, her sheets, her pillow, everything. Her entire face was covered with red and brown and black, every part of her face except her teeth, and even they were tinged with red. It looked like blood was dripping from her mouth. It was as though she was bathed in blood. She was transforming herself into a ghoul! All of a sudden, an image flashed into my mind. Miss Caballero’s class. The time when the teacher had tried to embarrass Frida in front of the other children, and Frida had wriggled free and covered herself with paint. And now it was happening again! I let out another scream, and Mami came running, but before she could attend to Frida, she had to attend to me because I was hysterical. She called for Inocencia, who brought me a hierba luisa with something in it and put me to bed. I think I slept all the way through supper.
But in spite of everything, Frida kept on painting. Mostly she painted her favorite subject: herself. No, that’s not fair. Frida was stuck in bed most of the time, so it was normal for her to use herself as a model. After Frida was able to spend more time sitting up, Maty would come and sit for her, or Adri would. She painted portraits of me and Mami too. Everyone said her work was lovely. Everyone said she had talent. She began to think that maybe she could even earn some money as a painter. But she really didn’t trust our judgment, and she was right not to. After all, we were all friends and family. What did we know about painting? “Who can I ask?” she kept saying. “Who would give me an honest opinion?” On the one hand, I think she honestly wanted to know whether or not her work was worth anything. On the other, I suspect she was frightened by the idea of asking an expert. Who wouldn’t be?
“Well,” I said to her, “you used to know a famous painter.”
Frida bit her finger and thought about it a while. “No,” she said finally, “I could never ask Diego Rivera.”
“Why not?” I insisted. “You said he was nice, that he wasn’t a snob.”
She stood there a while without speaking. “He’s the only person whose opinion I could trust absolutely,” she said finally.
But she didn’t look him up, and we didn’t talk about it anymore that day, or the next either, as I remember. About a week or two later she brought it up again.
“I really need an impartial evaluation,” she said. “I know you and Mami mean well, but I can’t trust your opinions. You don’t know the slightest thing about painting. And neither do I.”
I thought it was kind of miraculous that Frida admitted that there was something she didn’t know anything about. Especially art. After all, she had read a lot of Papá’s books, and she had spent a lot of time at the library. You would have thought she would consider herself some kind of an authority.
“Well,” I said, “go find an expert. Go find Rivera.”
“I don’t know whether or not he’d remember me. After he finished painting the amphitheater, I only saw him a couple of times. Once at one of Tina’s parties. He was carrying a pistol and all of a sudden started shooting streetlamps out the window. He even shot Tina’s phonograph! It was scary … and funny! But he was with another girl. Maybe he didn’t even notice me—even though he did grab me around the waist and put his hand on my ass.”
Frida was talking about Tina Modotti, the mistress of Edward Weston. You know, Weston, the American photographer. Tina had come to Mexico with him and stayed here after he left. Well, Tina was part of the avant-garde crowd that some of the Cachuchas hung around with after they finished the Prepa. A few of Frida’s old friends started taking her to Tina’s parties. Tina knew all the artists. She slept with most of them, including Diego, and she gave these wild orgies at her house. All the top talent went, and Frida, too, not only because she liked the artsy crowd and wanted to be one of them, but also because she was sure of not running into Alex there. He had a new girlfriend now, and he had changed. He had become very, very serious.
“Who cares if Rivera remembers you! He probably doesn’t, because he was probably too drunk or crazy to know whose ass he was feeling, but it doesn’t matter, Frida, just go find him. Ask him! What have you got to lose?”
Frida didn’t answer. She just stood there, but after a while, a satisfied little smile began to form on her lips, and I knew she had made up her mind.