Casa Azul Read online

  For Susan Pfau,

  my big sister,

  who always knew what was best for me,

  whether I agreed or not

  Contents

  Preface

  1 A Journey

  2 The Saddest Day in the World

  3 The Great Heart of Mexico

  4 Casa Azul

  5 Old Big Eyes

  6 Advice from Dr. Eloesser

  7 A Magic Trick

  8 Backstreets

  9 Dinner and a Story

  10 No Hope at All

  11 A Thief’s Life

  12 Wrestle Mania

  13 A Good Deed

  14 Cold Alley

  15 Painting the World

  16 Lourdes 27

  17 Retablo

  18 A Magical World

  19 Hope

  20 Help from Diego

  21 Monkey Shines

  22 A New Happiness

  23 A New Portrait

  Frida Kahlo’s Life and Art

  A Timeline of Kahlo’s Life

  For More Information

  Preface

  Casa Azul is full of lies. All novels are full of lies. The irony is that it takes lies to tell the Truth. That is, the Truth with a capital T, not the truth about whether you ate the last chocolate chip cookie or not. Stories allow us to discover something essential about ourselves and about the human condition. The reason stories work so well is because they are not limited by the facts of real life. The problem with real life is that it does not always add up. So much seems random and pointless, in a word, accidental. Stories bend and change facts in order to reveal the Truth, which real life can never really successfully do.

  Casa Azul combines some of the facts about Frida Kahlo’s life with some outright lies to uncover the essence of her motivation to create. Kahlo herself was an aficionado of lying. After she became a communist, she changed the date of her birth from 1907 to 1910 to reflect her solidarity with the start of the Mexican Revolution. As an artist, she created a world on canvas that stepped beyond simply representing what she saw with her eyes. “I paint my own reality,” she once said. “The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head, without any other consideration.” As a result, her paintings included images of things that could never exist in the real world.

  In her painting Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, she tried to reveal to the viewer the kind of tension between suffering and beauty that she lived with every day. The painting depicts her as regal and accepting, while the monkey and cat on her shoulders are caught somewhere between menace and peace. The painting is ambiguous because Kahlo felt that life never presented clear choices. The painting is strange, and very unreal. No one would wear a thorn necklace with a dead hummingbird hanging from it as a pendant. There are flowers with wings like butterflies hovering over her head. The tropical leaves in the background seem pressed against glass, eliminating depth and perspective. The world depicted in this painting is wholly constructed. It could never exist outside the painting.

  This kind of art was called surrealism. Sur is a prefix that means “beyond” or “over,” so surrealism means “beyond realism.” Kahlo’s paintings used surrealism to articulate her emotional reality, which did not always align with the facts of her life.

  This novel attempts to do the same not only with Kahlo’s life, but also with the lives of Maria and Victor Ortiz. Set in 1940, the year the famous artist Diego Rivera divorced Kahlo, Casa Azul brings the reader into a fantasy world that is based in reality but that also steps beyond the rules of normal everyday life. This is the story of two children who encounter Frida Kahlo under extraordinary circumstances. Like Kahlo’s paintings, the story you are about to read is truly unbelievable because it is meant to tell you something you can believe.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Journey

  “No, Father,” answered Maria Ortiz. Her eyes were cast downward at the ground because she was embarrassed about disobeying her priest. She played nervously with the beautiful turquoise brooch pinned to her blouse. The silver in the brooch caught the morning light and reflected in her eyes.

  “Please, there are good families here who will take you in—you and your brother,” pressed Father Michelangelo. His pale face tensed under the wisp of a beard that covered his jaw. He placed his hand on Victor’s shoulder and glanced down the dirt track lined with adobe buildings on each side. Beyond, fields of corn and grain spread out along a creek that flowed through the town.

  Maria glared at Father Michelangelo, then guiltily locked her eyes again on the ground and shook her head firmly. Her hair tumbled over her face, so the priest could not see it. She touched the brooch again as if it were some kind of talisman from which she could draw courage. She did not like going against the priest’s wishes, but she was the head of her family now. It was her decision to make. “Father … I’m old enough to marry and have children. I can take care of my brother.”

  “I want to go with Maria,” Victor said as he gripped his older sister’s hand.

  The three stood silently under the hot Mexican sun. The air around them radiated with heat, creating mirages of shimmering puddles in the distance. At Maria’s feet was a small, battered cardboard suitcase held together with a knotted piece of twine. It contained all of Maria and Victor’s belongings—a change of clothes, a photograph of their mother, and food for the trip.

  “Victor is just a boy,” pleaded Father Michelangelo. “At least leave him with me. I could take care of him until you find your mother.”

  “It’s not your decision,” answered Maria firmly. She was fourteen years old now, and had long been caring for her brother, who was six years younger.

  She looked at the priest defiantly and saw the ropes of sweat streaming down his face and plastering his short-cropped hair to his head. Anyone who wore heavy black wool robes in this heat did not have the sense to take care of children. She felt cool in comparison, dressed in her best traditional Tehuana costume with the elaborate blue ribbons her grandmother had sewn on it. Earlier that morning she had pressed its stiff, colorful cotton fabric with an iron heated on the wood stove.

  Victor pulled on his sister’s hand. “When will the bus come?” She sighed. Victor had started acting even younger than he was.

  “Soon, poquito.” Maria glanced down the dirt track for any sign of the bus. “When we get to Mexico City, I’ll buy you a toy.”

  “Really? Promise?” Barely up to her shoulders, the boy wore the worn canvas pants, coarse shirt, and straw sombrero of a peasant, and like his sister, on his feet were handmade sandals.

  “Sí, I promise.” Maria squeezed her brother’s hand tightly to reassure him that she would never leave him. “Now, go play.”

  Time passed slowly while Maria stared impatiently down the dry, dusty road at a stand of banyan trees. She was so tired of this boring village. She desperately wanted to see the city—where everything was happening. There was nothing left for her or her brother here. She watched the leaves rustle gently in a slight breeze.

  “You don’t have to wait with us,” she told the priest, trying to hint that she’d like to be left alone.

  “I can’t leave you now,” he protested, indignant at the suggestion.

  Maria gritted her teeth. Father Michelangelo meant well, even if he didn’t understand. She wished she could leave him and wait for the bus in the shade of those trees. But that would be disrespectful to the priest, who was the most important person in her village.

  Instead, she stayed in the harsh sunlight in front of the small adobe church, La Asunción de Maria. Like the village, this was the only church she had ever known. The village of Xtogon was nothing more than a dozen one-room adobe houses, one of w
hich served as the bodega. The church was the largest structure in town, and during the rainy season, it served as the school as well. The small cemetery beside the church held one new grave covered with freshly turned earth. A small, plain white cross stood at its head. Maria took pains not to look that way as she and her brother waited, and at the same time she stood between Victor and the cemetery so that he would not look either.

  “Your grandmother would not have approved,” Father Michelangelo said with finality.

  “My grandmother is dead,” replied Maria, as a deep sadness bloomed on her face. She fought to hold back the tears, but one escaped. She quickly wiped it away with a dusty hand, leaving a streak across her cheek. “And all I have left of her is this brooch.” She fingered the jewelry once again.

  “Don’t lose it,” replied the priest automatically.

  I’m not a child, she thought bitterly. Why can’t he understand this?

  In the tense silence, she watched Victor as he chased a small lizard crawling up the wall of the church. His quick hand snatched at the scrambling creature, but he only captured the lizard’s tail, which broke away easily. In a matter of days the lizard would grow a new one. Maria saw Victor pocket the tail and knew he would play with it on the long bus ride.

  Just then dozens of bright green parrots exploded from the banyan trees down the road. Like a green blanket tossed across the sky, the parrots circled above and settled in a new tree farther from the road. Their caws drowned out the wheeze and rumble of an ancient bus, that suddenly came into sight. All three watched the battered vehicle sway toward them along the deeply rutted track. The driver honked twice to announce its arrival, and the bus lurched into the village. Grinding its brakes, it slowed to a stop in front of the church. The driver cranked open the door and looked at the three people. The windows on this bus had long ago been removed. Passengers hung out the openings along the side and stared at them. They were mostly peasants traveling from one village to the next in search of work or, if they had the fare, heading to Mexico City to start a new life.

  “Wait,” said Father Michelangelo. He hurried across the street. His robes dragged along the ground, sending up plumes of dust. He slipped into an adobe shack with smoke coming lazily out of its chimney. Maria and Victor stood there for a moment. They looked inside the bus and saw that it was full. Standing room only. The driver pointed to the luggage rack above. Maria and Victor could see the faces of passengers between the suitcases and cages holding chickens.

  “It’s much cooler up here,” called down a man in a black suit and a torn straw hat.

  “Really?” Maria nodded and dug into her purse for the money to pay the fares. She turned her back to the bus so no one could see exactly how much money she had. Once the driver had given her two tickets in exchange, a hand reached down from above. Maria grabbed it and allowed herself to be lifted onto the bus’s roof. She thanked the man in the black suit. The driver stepped from the bus and hoisted Victor so he could be pulled up as well.

  The driver closed the door and gunned the engine before putting the bus in gear.

  “Wait!” called Father Michelangelo as he emerged from the shack. He was carrying a paper bag that was already soaked with grease. He handed up the bag to Maria. “Here are some tamales for your ride.”

  “Thank you, Father, for all that you have done,” said Maria.

  She and her brother were perched like birds atop the tied-down luggage. Next to them and the man in the black suit were two others, a young couple not much older than Maria, who had wedged themselves between two wooden crates. They both bowed their heads and smiled.

  “Why don’t you tell Victor one of your stories?” Father Michelangelo called up. He smiled and bounced nervously on the balls of his feet, as if he were trying to rise to the height of the bus’s roof so he could confirm that Maria and Victor were safe. “Perhaps one about his wrestlers. Victor loves them so.”

  Maria nodded. “I will, Father.” She banged her fist on the roof to signal the driver to leave.

  “This trip will give you lots of adventures for your stories,” the priest added. “I’ll see you when you return.”

  “Good-bye, Father,” called Maria.

  “Come back soon,” called the priest. He raised his arm and waved.

  The driver shifted into gear and the bus rolled down the rutted track toward the next village, as it would all the way to the capital, Mexico City. Below, inside the bus, somebody began to play a guitar and sing.

  “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.”

  Everyone on the bus laughed. The man next to the woman on the roof whispered in her ear, “I would always love you even if you were bald.”

  The woman laughed and hit his shoulder. “If you were bald, I would drop you like a hot tamale.”

  Maria and Victor watched as the priest and his waving arm got smaller and smaller until both disappeared below the horizon.

  “I thought we’d never go,” muttered Maria. All she wanted to do was think about the adventures that lay ahead, and try to forget the painful memories that were left behind.

  Maria stared out at the dry, spare landscape. On the thin spikes of a magueys plant by the rutted dirt road, a torn red bandanna fluttered in the breeze. It reminded her of the red cape the matador used to taunt the bull at the Day of the Dead festival.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Saddest Day in the World

  With bright red ribbons tumbling from her tightly braided hair, a crying woman stood unwillingly in a courtroom three hundred miles north, far from the green fields and adobe village of Maria and Victor’s home. Her marriage to the man she still loved was about to be torn asunder.

  Like all divorces, this was a formal affair, set in a courtroom before a judge. There were lawyers for both sides and spectators in the gallery. Reporters for all of Mexico City’s newspapers were waiting as well, because this wasn’t the end of just any marriage. This was the divorce of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s greatest living artists. They were so famous that they were always referred to by their first names.

  For Mexico this was a sad day. But for Frida this was the saddest day in the world. She never imagined that her marriage to Diego would end. The newspapers called their marriage a “union of lions.” Their love, their battles, their separations, and their sufferings were beyond the petty concerns of normal couples. Even at this moment when their marriage would be cast aside like a pair of old shoes, Frida believed deep in her heart that Diego belonged to her and she belonged to him.

  “All rise! The Honorable Miguel Figuenza is presiding,” called out the court reporter as he banged the gavel.

  Everyone rose as the judge entered the courtroom from a door hidden behind the raised desk.

  Nervously, Frida watched him, wiping her tears away.

  She turned and thrust out her chin at Diego. “Look at him,” Frida seemed to say to no one but the pet monkey on her shoulder. “He looks like he’s enjoying himself. I could strangle him.”

  Diego stood on the opposite side of the courtroom with his hat in his hand and his head bowed. He looked anything but happy.

  “He probably has that woman waiting for him outside the courthouse,” she continued. “Now he can go cheat on some other woman.”

  The monkey seemed to be trying to comfort Frida by speaking to her, but it was only chatter. Perched on her shoulder, Fulang was dressed like Frida in traditional Tehuana costume. As a show of solidarity to the campesinos, Frida dressed herself, and sometimes her pets, in peasant clothes worn in the countryside: a starched white blouse decorated with ruffles, a full red velvet skirt embroidered with ribbons, a woven shawl called a rebozo draped across the shoulders, and a beaded jade necklace. Fulang delicately picked dried mango from Frida’s hand and ate the sweet pieces. Her small
fingers reminded Frida of a child’s, the child she knew she would never have.

  Just as quickly as her anger flared, Frida was overwhelmed with sadness and memories. “Diego courted me in a room very much like this one,” Frida whispered hoarsely. Fulang nodded as if she understood. Frida glanced up at the huge mural covering the wall behind the judge. “Twelve years ago I brought three paintings for him to see while he was painting a mural in the Ministry of Public Education.”

  Fulang cooed, again as if she understood.

  Frida lost herself in the memory of seeing Diego standing like a giant on the tall scaffolding, painting the image of campesinos, Mexico’s peasants, rising up against the brutal land owners. “His paintings were the most beautiful I had ever seen. They showed the people with all their hopes and aspirations marching toward a more perfect world. His browns were the color of the people, and his strokes with his paintbrush made the crops come alive.”

  She smiled as she remembered Diego in his green overalls and wide-brimmed hat, announcing, “Art is like ham. It nourishes people.” She had written the words in her diary, along with everything else from that time. And she had returned to these pages time and again over the years and memorized the passages. Now she recalled them as the proceedings around her receded from her consciousness and happy memories took over.

  “Meeting Diego was the first good thing that happened to me after the accident,” Frida said.

  Fulang dipped her head just like someone who was listening.

  “I’ve told you about the accident before. How I was almost killed when a trolley struck the bus I was riding in. But that’s not what I want to talk about now.” Frida paused and lost herself in the memory. “Diego was like a giant knight in shining armor bringing light to the people.”

  The court proceedings began, but Frida was oblivious to them now.

  “The first moment I was allowed to walk, I went immediately to see Diego. I had been painting since the accident and knew that only he could tell me if my paintings were worth anything. When I got to the ministry, I called to him. ‘Diego, come down here now.’ He laughed at my boldness, but he came down. And I told him I was here not to flirt but for art. He looked at my paintings and told me to paint some more. Then he said: ‘You have talent.”’