Casa Azul

by Laban Carrick Hill

  Leaning on her cane, Frida hobbled down the alley looking for anything that might help, but Fulang had already found the only thing of use.

  Maria started to climb up the stone wall, but she quickly fell back. Her fingers and toes were too big to fit into the crevices like Victor’s.

  CRAAAAAACK!

  The iron bracket broke away a little more.

  “Stand back,” commanded Diego. He waved his arms for everyone to step away from the wall.

  CRAAAAAACK!

  The bracket broke free. Victor dropped like a rock, straight down. His arms flailed out. He kicked his legs spasmodically in an attempt to somehow stop himself. But he could not.

  Victor fell helplessly toward the ground.

  “Victor!” Maria screamed.

  Diego stepped up to the wall below Victor and caught the boy in his massive arms. He staggered under the impact but kept his balance. The bracket just passed his head and slammed into the ground. Then he raised Victor for everyone to see. “He’s safe!”

  Maria ran over to the two as Diego set Victor down.

  “Don’t scare me like that,” she told her brother as she hugged him tightly. “I don’t think I could live if I lost you.” They both cried.

  “Hold it right there!” shouted a policeman, interrupting the reunion. “Everyone up against the wall!” He had out his gun.

  A moment later five other policemen were in the alley with their guns pointed at the group.

  “We’ve caught them red-handed!” shouted the policeman to the other officers.

  Diego held out his arms with his hands open. “Please, we’re not thieves.”

  “Don’t argue with me!” shouted the first policeman. “Up against the wall!”

  They all put their hands against the wall.

  Another policeman did a double take as he got closer. “Diego? Diego Rivera?” He rushed down the alley and grabbed the first policeman’s arm. “Alejandro, this is Diego Rivera.”

  The first policeman suddenly realized his mistake. “Oh, Diego, I am so sorry.”

  “Esta bien, no te preocupes. It is nothing,” said Diego, stepping away from the wall. “And this is Frida.” He waved his hand toward his former wife.

  Frida stepped forward. “I am so grateful that you have arrived.”

  “What is going on here?” a sergeant barked when he entered the alley.

  “An attempt to rob the diamond exchange was thwarted by these brave children,” explained Diego, lying just a little. He pointed to Maria and Victor, standing speechless behind him. “They are heroes of Mexico!”

  The policemen holstered their weapons.

  Diego stepped out of the way. “These two small friends of ours, Victor and Maria … uh …”

  “Ortiz,” added Maria.

  “Yes, well, Victor and Maria Ortiz alerted Frida and myself to this plan to break into the Federica Diamond Exchange,” explained Diego.

  “Right up there!” pointed Victor, gaining courage from Diego. “That third-floor window.”

  The policemen looked up.

  “That’s pretty high up,” said one officer skeptically.

  “That’s why the thieves wanted me to climb up,” answered Victor, rather enjoying being the center of attention.

  “The boy’s sister called us,” interjected Diego. “And Frida and I came right away, but young Victor here had already scared away the thieves.”

  “Not too far away!” The noise from a scuffle echoed down the alleyway as a policeman dragged Oswaldo back to the scene of the attempted crime. “I found this little rodent running away, about a block from here,” explained the officer.

  “I didn’t do anything,” cried Oswaldo. “I was going home to my sick mother.”

  The policeman threw Oswaldo to the ground. “Don’t lie to me, you sewer rat. I’ve seen you before. You’re hooked up with that thief they call Oscar.”

  “No!” shrieked Oswaldo.

  “You’re going to the work farm,” said the policeman. He started to drag the boy away.

  “Wait!” shouted Oswaldo. He broke free of the police officer and ran to Maria. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the brooch.

  “My brooch!”

  “I didn’t give it to Oscar. I was going to because he wanted me to steal it from you, but I didn’t.” He handed the brooch to Maria. “I would never hurt you.”

  Maria looked down at the brooch. Then impulsively she kissed Oswaldo. She turned to Diego and Frida. “We can’t let them take him. He only needs someone to help him be good.”

  Frida took Maria’s hand. “There’s not much we can do.”

  “Please! He didn’t mean it. He was just scared of that awful man.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” replied the sergeant. “He’s a thief, and we’ve been looking for him for a while.”

  “But he wants to be good,” pressed Maria. “Just give him a chance.”

  The sergeant looked at the officer who held Oswaldo. “Okay,” he said, speaking to Oswaldo. “Tell us where to find Oscar, and we’ll get you in the orphanage instead of the work farm.”

  Oswaldo nodded. Quietly he said, “He’s in Cutter’s Alley. The old door that’s off its hinges leads to a cave underground. He’s in there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A New Happiness

  In the middle of the night, Maria finally knew what the outcome to the wrestling championship of the world was to be. She couldn’t wait to tell Victor. It was early, and his eyes were half shut, but soon they widened.

  “As I was telling you before, El Corazón had transformed himself into a stone statue of the Aztec god of life, Quetzalcoatl,” she said, “while El Diablo had become a stone statue of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war. Now, even though they were made of stone, they were still gods and able to move. In fact, the stone gave them even greater strength. While the crowd went wild, the two gods squared off in the ring and circled each other. With each move that one would perform, the other would do an equally effective counter-move. This meant that neither of these two gods would ever get the upper hand over the other. Instead, they wound up in eternal combat with each other, the wrestling match going on and on forever. The crowds would come and go, watching some of the match for a while and then moving on.”

  “There’s no winner?” asked Victor, disappointed.

  “No winner,” explained Maria. “Instead, the two gods must battle each other through eternity, always at a standstill. If one ever wins, the balance between good and evil in the world would end and so would the world.”

  “But what if good wins, isn’t that better?” pressed Victor.

  “It seems as if it would make sense that if good triumphs, the world would be a better place,” said Maria. “But you must remember. Without evil there is no good. The two must balance each other. It is the way of the world. So neither can win.” Maria’s thoughts turned to Oswaldo.

  “I don’t think I understand this,” replied Victor.

  “You will,” Maria said.

  Knock! Knock!

  “Are you two awake?” called Frida.

  “Please, come in,” said Maria.

  “I have news!” She held out the telegraph. “Let’s open it together.”

  Maria tore open the envelope and the three of them read it.

  Children STOP Weeping with joy STOP

  Letter lost STOP Coming to get you

  STOP Till next week STOP Love Mama

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A New Portrait

  That night, long after everyone had gone to bed after spending the day preparing for Ana Ortiz’s arrival, Frida padded through the house and entered her studio.

  Fulang, who slept lightly, awoke when Frida opened the door. Silently, she crept into the studio to watch over Frida as she worked.

  Frida gazed for a few minutes at her Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird.

  A sick feeling overcame Fulang at the sight of this painting. She wanted to leave, but h
er loyalty to Frida was too strong.

  Frida sat, looking at her image. Once Frida picked up her brush, Fulang settled in a corner of the studio where she could not see the painting. She sat and watched Frida work until eventually she fell asleep.

  Frida painted through the night, filling in the dark background and defining the foreground with herself, Caimito, and Chica. She worked feverishly, painting an image in and painting it out and repainting it. Thick layers of paint built up on the canvas, making it as dense as the tropical forest in the background. Frida’s eyebrows became one long single brow that cut across her forehead, almost like a crown. Caimito’s and Chica’s faces became more distinct and full of expression. The blood on Frida’s neck grew a darker crimson. Dawn broke through the gauze curtains of the room. In the morning light Frida looked at the painting and decided it was done.

  “Wake up, monkey,” she called to Fulang.

  Fulang yawned and stretched. She had forgotten that she had fallen asleep in Frida’s studio and so for a moment was disoriented. Groggily she came over to where Frida was painting. She had forgotten that Frida was working on the painting that gave her such sorrow. She was simply pleased that Frida seemed to have moved on from the depression of the last few days.

  That changed, however, when she glanced up at the canvas on the easel. Fulang thought she was going to faint.

  “You like?” asked Frida playfully.

  “Y—y—yes!” stammered Fulang.

  On the easel was the portrait of Frida, Caimito, and Chica; but it had changed dramatically. On Frida’s right shoulder, Caimito no longer looked menacing. In fact, he seemed more playful than dangerous to Fulang. His hand wasn’t pulling at the thorn necklace. Though a thorn still broke the skin on Frida’s neck, it was unclear whether Caimito had put it there or was trying to alleviate the pain by pulling it. On Frida’s left shoulder, Chica had dropped the hummingbird. Though the bird was still dead, it merely hung from the thorn necklace, while Chica looked down at it without expression.

  “You’ve changed it,” Fulang finally said.

  Frida put down her brush. “I finally decided to take my own advice. The gods demanded it. Like the battle between Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli, neither death nor life can triumph. There always must be a balance between joy and sorrow. It can never be all or nothing. It is always somewhere in between.”

  Frida picked up the canvas and carried it awkwardly into the living room. She replaced the portrait of Dr. Eloesser with it. She moved stiffly as if all her joints needed to be oiled.

  “We didn’t need Dr. Eloesser after all,” Chica said to Fulang.

  “Well, not the living one at least,” said Fulang. “The portrait helped us.”

  “This will be the painting I display at my Cinco de Mayo fiesta,” said Frida.

  Fulang felt as if the celebration had already begun. Impulsively she leaped into the garden and found Caimito napping in a tree. She quickly climbed the tree and gave Caimito a peck on the cheek, startling the monkey awake.

  Frida Kahlo’s Life and Art

  Frida Kahlo’s life was a long struggle between extreme physical suffering and an extraordinary hunger for life. She overcame her physical limitations and pain through sheer will to become one of Mexico’s greatest artists.

  Much like the way she painted and lived her life, Frida fabricated her birth date so that it corresponded with how she perceived herself. During her life she claimed that she was born on July 7, 1910, the same year as the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. To her the fact that she was actually born on July 6, 1907, had no relevance. What mattered was how she felt in her heart. She identified with the incredible optimism and hope that the revolution brought to many Mexicans despite the suffering that war also brings. Like the revolution, Frida was full of hope in spite of pain.

  At age six, Frida contracted polio. Although she recovered, her right leg never fully developed and always remained thinner than her left. But this setback did not deter her. By the time she entered high school at the prestigious National Prepatory School, she was a tomboy full of mischief. Despite being one of only thirty-five girls among two thousand boys, Frida quickly became the ringleader of a rebellious and intellectually ambitious group called the Cachuchas. They were known to play pranks on teachers at the school. In 1922, while Diego Rivera was completing his mural in the Bolívar Amphitheater at the school, Frida became infatuated with him. Legend has it that at the time she declared to her friends: “My ambition is to have a child with Diego Rivera. And I’m going to tell him someday.” Nothing came of this infatuation at the time, but she did play a few pranks on Diego, such as stealing his lunch, while he was working. So although they had not yet met, he was aware of her.

  The accident that would affect the rest of her life occurred three years later, on September 17, 1925. She and a friend spent the day wandering the colorful street stalls that were set up for the Mexican National Day celebration. As evening approached, they boarded a passing bus to return to Coyoacán, the suburb of Mexico City where she lived. As the driver rushed through the city, he tried to pass in front of a turning trolley. The heavy trolley broadsided the bus. The accident left Frida Kahlo with a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and eleven fractures in her right leg. In addition, her right foot was dislocated and crushed, and her left shoulder was out of joint. For a month Frida was forced to stay flat on her back, encased in a plaster cast and enclosed in a boxlike structure. During her convalescence from the accident she began painting because she was bored. This became her lifelong profession.

  To her doctor’s surprise, Frida regained her ability to walk. However, for the rest of her life she lived in tremendous pain and suffered debilitating fatigue. She was sometimes hospitalized for long periods of time or bedridden for months, and thirty-five operations were performed over the last twenty-nine years of her life. To manage the pain, she turned to alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes, none of which helped much.

  It was painting that sustained her and provided entrée into the artistic scene of Mexico, where she met Diego Rivera again. She took four little paintings to Diego, who was painting on scaffolds at the Ministry of Public Education. Diego liked her work and encouraged her. Soon they became involved and were married on August 21, 1929. Over the next eleven years, their marriage was a tumultuous relationship that took them to Detroit, New York, and France, among other places. Though deeply in love, both had affairs with other people; and they fought ferociously. Their marriage has been called the union between an elephant and a dove, because Diego was huge and very fat, and Frida was small (a little more than five feet) and slender.

  Despite Diego’s affairs with other women (one with Frida’s sister), he supported Frida’s art completely and was a dogged promoter of her work. He recommended that she begin wearing traditional Mexican clothing, which consisted of long, colorful dresses and exotic jewelry. These garments, along with Frida’s thick, connecting eyebrows, became the trademark of her self-portraits. Frida in turn was Diego’s most trusted critic and the love of his life.

  What carried Frida through her constant pain was her indomitable spirit. She was outgoing and witty. She liked to sprinkle her conversation with vivid expletives. She loved to drink tequila and sing off-color songs to guests at the crazy parties she hosted. Men were fascinated by her, and because of this Frida had numerous, scandalous affairs. Frida was a bisexual and also had affairs with many women.

  In 1937 she had an affair with the Communist leader Leon Trotsky. Both Frida and Diego were committed communists who participated in numerous protests. This was why Trotsky had come to stay at her home, along with his wife. Frida was later arrested for his murder but was released. Diego was also under suspicion. Several years after Trotsky’s death, Diego and Frida enjoyed telling people that they invited him to Mexico just to get him killed, but no one knows if they were telling the truth or not. They were fantastic storytellers.

  All over the world p
eople loved Frida. In 1938, when she went to France, she became the darling of the French surrealist movement. Pablo Picasso became so enamored of her that he made her a pair of earrings. During her visit, she even appeared on the cover of the French magazine Vogue. Her work was included in shows in the United States and in Mexico.

  In 1940 Frida and Diego divorced but remarried within a year. It was during the year of the divorce, however, that Frida was able to step out from behind Diego’s shadow and find herself as an artist. Frida painted the world as she experienced it, not as it was. Her canvases recorded her emotional reality, which did not always correspond to physical reality. Using jarring colors and odd spatial relationships, she painted the anger and hurt over her stormy marriage, the painful miscarriages, and the physical suffering she underwent because of the accident. Many of her pictures include startling symbolic images and elements from Mexican history.

  Even after they remarried, Frida continued living at Casa Azul, the home in which she was born; Diego would visit and occasionally spend the night. After the divorce Frida tried to be independent of Diego. Perhaps as a result, the five years after their remarriage were the most serene of their married life.

  In 1943, at Diego’s suggestion, Frida began teaching at the Ministry of Public Education’s experimental new School for Painting and Sculpture. Shortly after starting to teach, Frida’s health made it impossible for her to travel to the school, so her students came to Casa Azul. Despite her failing health, Frida continued to paint. These years were her most productive.

  With Frida’s health getting worse, by 1950 her doctor thought a bone graft might decrease her pain. This operation proved disastrous. The implanted bone caused a severe infection, and Frida spent the next nine months in the hospital.

  Frida only had one exhibition in Mexico, and it was in the spring of 1953. Her health was very bad by this time. She had recently had her right leg amputated below the knee because of the gangrenous condition of her foot. In her diary she wrote the poignant phrase, “Pies para qué los quiero, si tengo alas pa’ volar?” (“Feet—why do I need them if I have wings to fly?”)