Casa Azul (4 page)

She took down the painting from the wall and held it in her arms. She rocked the portrait of Dismas, his eyes closed and his hands clasped across his chest with a pink gladiolus slipped between his dead fingers. “You are my only child now,” whispered Frida. “I will have no others.”

“Oh, please,” Chica purred, as she ran her tongue along the length of her tail. Like a shadow, her black body defied the patch of sun under the window where she lay. Her cold yellow eyes watched as Frida swaying. “This is just ruining my day. How can I get some sleep with her sobbing all the time?”

“Show a little consideration, why don’t you?” spat Fulang, as she gathered the butterflies back into their glass box. With small, delicate fingers she carefully lifted a monarch butterfly from the floor. Its beautiful orange-and-black wings shown like sheer gossamer in the light, and tears fell from the monarch as it was returned to the glass box.

The entire house—the chairs, the paintings, the knickknacks and whatnots—seemed to be on edge.

“Even when she’s bedridden with pain, she has some hope,” observed one of the skeletons hanging from the bed’s canopy.

“Diego is such a jerk,” added a doll on the dresser.

“We can’t just stand around and watch,” rattled the candy Day of the Dead skull. “You can’t stand around at all,” hissed Chica because the skull had no body. The skull’s teeth clacked so annoyingly when it talked that she found it impossible to listen to him.

“Very funny, but Skull has a point,” replied Fulang. “We can’t let this divorce ruin her. We have to bring her out of the dumps.”

Abruptly, Frida put down the portrait of Dismas and tore at her clothes. Awkwardly, she undressed, throwing her Tehuana costume into a corner and digging out an enormous pair of Diego’s pants from the dresser. They were gray and extravagantly hemmed with two-and-a-half-inch cuffs. The pants ballooned around her as she belted
them tightly around her small waist. She pulled on a voluminous crimson work shirt. As she buttoned the front, her body seemed to disappear into fabric so excessive that she seemed engulfed by a deflated hot air balloon. Her neck poked out of the buttoned collar like a chicken peeking out of a hen house. Slowly, she tucked the sprawling shirttail into her pants and began to pull on silk socks with funny little garters to hold them up. She slipped her feet into a pair of black oxfords left over from her school days and sat before the dressing mirror. She picked up a brush and ran it impatiently through her hair. The long black locks fell over her shoulders like a dark waterfall.

“What is she doing now?” clacked the skull in alarm.

“Frida, Diego’s clothes don’t fit you,” said Fulang.

Frida shrugged. “That’s the point. Nothing fits me anymore. I have no place.”

Chica casually bit the ends of her claws. The skull was unable to make any facial expressions because the bone made of sugar had no skin or muscles to move. Instead, it sat on the dresser with its hollow mouth agape.

Frida gazed critically at her image in the mirror. Finally she moved decisively, bowing her head forward and letting her black strands fall over her face. She picked up a pair of scissors and snipped high on her head, cutting away lengths of hair in large clumps. Within moments nearly all of her long black hair lay scattered on the floor.

“No!” gasped the skull. “I love your hair.” For the skull, everything was a crisis.

“Don’t worry,” suggested Fulang. “This will pass. It always does.”

“Well, it won’t,” replied Frida coldly as she snipped away.

Fulang reached down and began to place the shorn locks on her head. “How do I look, Frida?” She was trying to make light of Frida’s actions. “I’ve always wanted hair like yours.”

“It’s yours,” Frida replied without glancing at the monkey. “I am no longer a woman.” She put down the scissors with a decisive crack on the dresser. Then she deepened her voice in an apparent imitation of Diego. “
Mira que si te quisé, fué por el pelo. Ahora que no lo tienes, ya no te quiero
.” “Look if I loved you, it was for your hair. Now that you are bald, I don’t love you anymore.” She hummed a few notes and almost seemed about to break into song. Instead she picked up an old comb of Diego’s covered in hair pomade and ran it through her shorn locks. After a moment admiring the results in the mirror, she scooped more gel from Diego’s hair pomade jar and rubbed it into her hair. She combed her hair straight back in the style of Diego’s.

“My next conquest will be a woman,” Frida said as she grabbed the crotch of Diego’s pants like she had witnessed so many men do. “No more men.” Though no one would mistake her for a man, Frida had transformed herself as completely as possible from a beautiful woman who dressed in traditional clothes into a strangely masculine woman wearing clothes much too large for her. She no longer resembled the Frida whom Fulang knew. In a way she looked like a reduced, but much more beautiful, man.

Impulsively, Frida picked up a brush and smashed the mirror as if she couldn’t stand the image of herself anymore. “Give me that.” She snatched the locks Fulang had draped on her head. Then she gathered the remaining hair from the floor and dashed from her bedroom.

“I’ve got a feeling this isn’t going to end prettily,” muttered Fulang under her breath.

Frida disappeared into her painting studio at the other end of the house.

“What gives you that idea, genius?” cracked Chica.

“She could be destroying her paintings,” clacked the skull.

“She would never do that,” said Chica.

“Like she would never cut her hair?” added the skull.

“Shut up, you deformed candy cane, or I’ll lick off your face,” spat Chica.

“I think it’s time we take matters into our own hands,” suggested Fulang. “Follow me.” She picked up the skull and led them into the studio.

Inside the small and cramped painting studio, shelves lined one wall, while rolls of canvas and stretchers lined another wall. A tall mirror leaned against the wall beside the window. Frida sat in a bright yellow straight-backed chair and carefully draped strands of her shorn black hair over the back of it. She tied others around the legs and rungs. The last of the hair she scattered around her feet. The clumps of hair looked menacing, almost like vines or snakes that would soon entwine her. She arranged the scene as if the image would have to tell the entire story of her desolation after being divorced by Diego. This was the story of her life. She had to get it just right. She picked up a clump of hair and carefully braided it.

With a sense of exhaustion or perhaps inevitability, Frida picked up a paintbrush and began to sketch out the image of herself that
she saw in the mirror. If nothing else, Frida was a painter. Eventually she always ended up before an empty canvas, painting.

“This is not so bad after all,” said Chica. “At least she’s painting.” She padded out of the studio.

Still holding the skull, Fulang watched Frida intensely. She had to agree that it was a good sign that Frida was painting, but she still feared for her. In the short span of one day Frida had divorced Diego, weirdly wrapped her paintings in ribbons as if they were mummies, and cut away at her beauty. Now she was painting this image of herself on canvas as if to make the sudden and extraordinary changes permanent.

“How can you destroy yourself so completely?” asked Fulang.

Frida ignored the question. She seemed to be enjoying herself. “This is who I am now. With no child and no husband, I am no longer a woman.”

“That’s just stupid,” snapped Fulang. “I’m getting tired of all this drama.”

Frida laughed. After making a few strokes with her paintbrush, she sang again, “
Mira que si te quisé, fué por el pelo. Ahora que no lo tienes, ya no te quiero
.” A wry smile cropped up on her face. She blinked as if the words somehow stung her eyes.

Old Big Eyes

“W
e’re here!” shouted Victor.

The bus rumbled into a bustling plaza in the heart of Mexico City. Its brakes sighed as it pulled to the curb. A huge plume of exhaust exploded from its tailpipe and the engine heaved suddenly to a stop. The bus seemed to have gasped its last breath. The passengers spilled out quickly, while Victor and Maria were handed down from the roof by the same passenger who had pulled them up at the beginning of their journey.

“
Gracias, señor
,” said Maria politely. She straightened her skirt and blouse, while Victor took off his straw sombrero and held it tightly in his hands, looking around.

“It’s like a circus,” gasped Victor excitedly.

“It’s totally marvelous,” added Maria. “I’ve never seen so many people. This plaza has more people than our entire village. There must be hundreds of people here.”

“Thousands! Millions!” exclaimed Victor as he bounced on the balls of his feet to see through the crowd.

Suddenly rising above the din of voices, a silly little song that their grandmother used to sing to them, about a pesky armadillo that fell in love with an anteater, rang out. In a flash Victor dashed away.

“Victor!” snapped Maria. She watched him disappear between two women arguing over the price of a chicken. Quickly she followed, but Victor was lost in the press of people. “Victor!” she called after him angrily. “Come back here this minute!”

“
!Oye, amorcito!
You lost your brother?” a boy about her size asked, grabbing her shoulder. He was dressed in a pair of worn overalls with ragged cuffs and a blue work shirt that looked as if it was two sizes too big. He had rolled up the sleeves to his armpits. On his head was a man’s fedora that had clearly been discarded by its original owner.

Maria pushed him away and continued through the crowd.

Walking alongside her, the boy calmly said, “He’s gone to listen to Viejo Ojoton.”

Despite her fear, Maria laughed. “Viejo Ojoton? Old Big Eyes?” she said “That’s the funniest name I’ve ever heard.”

For the first time she looked at this boy. He was lean and strong and had a smile that made her want to return it.

The boy grabbed her wrist and pulled her along.

The hoarse voice of Old Big Eyes rang out above the throng. When they got to the edge of the crowd around the singer, there was Victor, and there was Old Big Eyes. The man was blind. His eyes were as large and milky white as dinner plates on his fat face, and he played an old guitar and kicked a big drum to keep time with his foot. Viejo Ojoton sang with all his heart:

Victor was so delighted he joined in to sing the chorus:

When Maria spotted Victor, she slumped with relief.

“He’s okay,” said the boy. “Children love Ojoton.”

Maria smiled. “Do you love him too?”

“Of course!”

“Then you are a boy too, no?” she laughed, flirting.

The boy slapped his chest. “Oh no! Oswaldo is a man of eighteen.” He glanced at Maria. “But you must still be a child.”

“I am eighteen, too!” lied Maria to impress Oswaldo. She pushed back her hair behind her ears and tried to look older. He politely changed the subject.

“I can tell by your accent that you’re not from the city.”

“My brother and I just arrived on the bus. My name is Maria.” She held out her hand to shake.

Oswaldo gave it a quick shake.

“Well, Maria, you look like an honest person,” he said, “and I need an honest person to help me.”

“I
am
honest,” replied Maria. She prided herself on her honesty. “Once I found two pesos that Conchita Rojo had dropped in the bodega and I returned them to her right away!”

“Exactly!” Oswaldo smiled. “I knew I had found the right person.” He stepped away from the crowd, but not so far that Maria would lose sight of Victor again.

Hesitating a moment, Maria followed. “
Sí?
”

The boy pulled a beautiful leather wallet out of his pocket. “I just found this,” he whispered, leaning conspiratorially toward the girl. He opened the wallet for a moment and flashed an apparent wad of cash. “It is full of money, and I want to return it to its owner.”

“Oh,
sí
.” Maria nodded her head.

“The problem is, I’m afraid one of the bandits in the plaza will steal it from me when I ask people if they’ve lost a wallet,” explained Oswaldo.

Maria glanced around the square. She saw any number of people who looked suspicious. “Why don’t I hold it for you then?”

“Wonderful! I wish I had thought of that,” the boy said. “Only how can I know that you won’t walk away with the money?”

“I won’t!”

Oswaldo made a face as if he were thinking hard to solve this problem of trust. He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it.” He opened the wallet once more. “You let me hold your money while you hold this money.”

Maria hesitated for a moment and played with her brooch as she thought.

“Don’t worry,” Oswaldo continued. “This wallet holds a lot more money than you could possibly have.”