Casa Azul Read online

  Though her actions seemed naive to her now, Frida knew that they were true. She had been only eighteen, and had just recovered from a bus accident in which the handrail of the trolley had driven through her body. This tragedy had given her an understanding of the world beyond her years. She then put that pain and suffering in her painting, and through this she had discovered a gift. She had been made sensitive to the world. Her life, like her art, could communicate in ways unknown to others.

  “Is the petition before me agreed upon by both parties?” asked Judge Figuenza.

  Frida was startled out of her reverie by the judge’s words. She nodded and whispered, “Yes, Your Honor.” She gazed at Diego as she repeated these words louder so that the entire court could hear. She still loved this giant frog of a man, but he had abandoned her for reasons Frida could not fathom.

  As the judge finalized the divorce, Diego broke with decorum and crossed the courtroom. He held out his hands as if he was asking her to forgive him. Frida stood still as she watched him come, while Fulang hissed and bared her teeth.

  “Frida,” said Diego. “I love you, but you cannot waste yourself on me. Mexico deserves more. Your art deserves more.” His massive shoulders slumped.

  “Go back to your cochinada, your piggery,” spat Frida. She took a painful step backward for she would never recover from the accident. Then suddenly a mean and tight smile spread across her face. She reached down and grabbed Diego’s crotch. “You will be back soon enough … when you tire of your whores.”

  “Listen to me,” pressed Diego. “This divorce must happen if you are going to step out of my shadow. I have watched it kill you, but more importantly, kill your painting. I will not be responsible any longer.”

  Just as quickly, Frida’s emotions swung again and tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt confused by Diego’s words. “But I cannot live without you!” she pleaded.

  “You must,” Diego said with finality. As he turned to leave, Frida gripped his sleeve and fell stiffly to her knees. Fulang tried to wipe the tears from Frida’s cheeks.

  Diego pulled himself free and disappeared into the corridor.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Great Heart of Mexico

  “I’m scared.”

  Maria snaked her arm around her little brother’s small shoulders and pulled him close. Squeezed between chicken cages and crates on the roof of an ancient bus, she felt strong being able to comfort Victor. Together they rocked on top of the bus as it made its way down the uneven burro track that now served as the highway between their village and Mexico City.

  “Everything will be fine,” Maria cooed. She could feel that her brother’s muscles were knotted and tense but so were hers. Still, she tried to keep her voice calm and comforting. “We’re going to have so much fun in Mexico City. It’ll be better than even the biggest fiesta in Xtogon.”

  “But what about Mama?” asked Victor. “I want to find her.”

  “Oh, we will. Once we get to Mexico City we’ll find Mama and she’ll take care of you.” For Maria, the trip was just as much about being free of the small village and on her own, away from adults who treated her like a child, as it was about finding their mother.

  “Do you know where your mother is?” asked the young woman across from Maria.

  “Sí, I have the address where she works,” explained Maria. “Last year she went to the city to work for a rich family.”

  “Bueno,” said the young woman. “Mexico City is not a place to be lost in.” Maria did not mention that she had not heard from her mother in weeks and that her father had left years before and disappeared too. In reality, she didn’t want to admit to herself that her mother might be gone forever. Now that her grandmother had passed away, she was determined not to lose her mother the same way as her father.

  Maria watched Victor pick at the small hole at the cuff of his shirt. “Stop that,” she said with the same tone her mother used to use. “You’ll ruin your only good shirt.”

  “Tell me about El Corazón,” Victor whispered. He buried his head in his sister’s shoulder. “I wish Grandma was here. She could find Mama.”

  As their grandmother had grown sicker, Father Michelangelo had written to their mother at the address she had left them. The letter was never answered. Maria tried not to think about this. She knew it must be a mistake.

  “A story, please, Maricita,” pleaded Victor. He squeezed her hand tightly.

  Maria looked out across the dry, rocky landscape to gather her thoughts. She had been telling Victor wrestling stories for years. She began her latest tale. “As you know, El Corazón, the great heart of Mexico, beat El Perro, the dog, for the wrestling championship of the world.”

  “Sí, sí, and he hurt his shoulder early in the match and had to beat that dirty dog with only one arm,” Victor added. Back in their village the entire town would gather each week in the plaza to hear Father Michelangelo read the newspaper’s account of the Saturday night matches at the arena in Mexico City. Maria and Victor would beg their grandmother to buy the newest edition of Wrestling Comics when it arrived each month. They would pour over the pictures and imagine what it would be like to see these great warriors in real life. Maria would then make up stories about the wrestlers and the matches they fought to entertain her little brother.

  “Can we go to the wrestling matches at the arena?” asked Victor, getting excited. Maria was glad to see him forget about his troubles as he thought about the possibility of seeing these great wrestlers in person.

  “Of course.” Maria laughed, knowing she really didn’t mean it. “Now let me tell the story.” She sat up straight against the chicken cages and thought for a moment. Then a smile spread across her face. “El Corazón’s archenemy is El Diablo.” Maria made the sign of the cross with her hand over her chest to protect herself from such evil. Victor mimicked his sister. “There is no wrestler more evil than he.”

  Victor nodded. “He is meaner than that rabid dog, El Perro.” He made as if to spit but his sister put her hand on his shoulder to stop him. Only the lowliest animals on the earth spit, their mother always told them.

  “Sí.” Maria paused dramatically. The other passengers on the roof of the bus had become interested in the story as well and were now listening intently. “This night at the Mexico City Arena, El Corazón is matched against that villain El Diablo.”

  Everyone on the roof of the bus made the sign of the cross.

  “Oh, he’s going to murder him,” Victor said excitedly.

  “Victor,” Maria said sharply. “We don’t wish that on anyone.”

  “Not even El Diablo?” he asked.

  “Not even him. Father Michelangelo says it is okay to wish that a wrestler loses a match, but never death.”

  “Maybe a broken leg then?”

  “No.”

  “Hand?”

  “No.”

  Victor hung his head in disappointment.

  “When El Corazón enters the arena, the crowd erupts in cheers,” Maria described. “Women faint at the sight of him. Men leap to their feet and scream like little boys.”

  “Not me,” Victor interrupted, puffing out his chest.

  Maria got Victor in a headlock and rubbed her knuckle against his skull. “Yes, you!”

  The other passengers laughed.

  “Now, are you going to let me tell the story?”

  Victor nodded.

  “El Corazón was dressed in white satin tights that shimmered in the lights. His mask covered his entire head, and it had a bloodred heart over his face. His cape was white fur, as light as a feather. It also had a bloodred heart sewn in its center. When he climbed into the ring, he raised his arms and drank in the crowd’s love. He blew kisses and bowed. It was clear that El Corazón loved his fans as much as they loved him. But before the cheers died …”

  Maria paused and looked at her listeners. The couple smiled back at her, while the man in the black suit waved his hand to encourage her to continue.

>   “El Diablo dashed into the ring and leaped onto El Corazón’s back.”

  “Oh no,” murmured the man sitting next to his wife.

  “Sí. The referee had not yet entered the ring, and that scoundrel had made a sneaky attack.” Maria shrugged. “There was nothing else to do but start the match. The timekeeper rang the bell and the referee slid under the bottom rope, still tying his shoes.

  “El Diablo had El Corazón in an illegal choke hold. His notorious and deadly Sleeper Hold. As you remember, no one has ever escaped from El Diablo’s Sleeper Hold.”

  “No!” cried Victor.

  “Sí,” Maria said with finality. “The match was in danger of being over before it had even begun. The referee started his count to disqualify El Diablo, but then El Corazón took measures into his own hands. He backed up very fast and slammed the evil one into a turnbuckle. This stunned El Diablo, and El Corazón took advantage and delivered a forearm to the chest.”

  Victor clapped his hands together in delight

  “Then he grabbed El Diablo’s arm and swung him across the ring into the other turnbuckle,” explained Maria. “With quick efficiency, he planted his foot in the devil’s stomach. El Diablo bent over as if he were badly hurt. But he wasn’t.”

  “Watch out!” shouted Victor.

  Maria nodded. “He was just tricking El Corazón. So when Corazón approached to finish off this piece of garbage, El Diablo struck. He rammed his head into our hero’s stomach. El Corazón staggered backward, and El Diablo delivered a flying kick, sending him into the ropes. When he bounced back, El Diablo wrapped his arms around El Corazón’s chest and tossed him over his head like a sack of masa harina.”

  The passengers on the roof groaned.

  “Sí. It was terrible. The match had hardly started and it looked as if El Corazón was finished. He lay writhing in pain on the canvas. El Diablo celebrated by waving his fists at the booing crowd. To add insult to injury, he leaped into the air and slammed his arm against El Corazón’s chest. Then he pinned El Corazón to the mat. The referee dashed across the ring and began to count our hero out.”

  “No!” cried Victor.

  “One!”

  “Save yourself, El Corazón!”

  “Two!”

  “Get up!”

  “But before the referee could slap his hand against the mat a third time, El Corazón kicked out, throwing the devil off him and lifting his shoulders.”

  The rooftop passengers cheered.

  “It was close, but El Corazón summoned just enough strength from the love of his fans, because, as you know, that is where he gains his power to fight. The crowd went wild as El Corazón leaped to his feet and slapped his hand against his heart to indicate that his heart beat for them.”

  As she told the story, Maria watched her little brother. She was relieved to see that he had forgotten his worries, but she could not forget hers.

  Memories of her grandmother’s death filled her with sadness. In her mind’s eye, she could see her grandmother wasting away with fever. Each day for the past month, Grandmother had became paler and thinner until she could almost blow away in a stiff wind. It was as if she had grown so slight that her body could no longer hold on to her soul. So two nights earlier, exhausted from all the worry and work she’d been doing, Maria had slept for the first time in days. And that was the night her grandmother’s soul rose up to heaven. The next morning Maria discovered her dead. In her heart she believed that if she had been there and had not been sleeping she could have caught the soul and not allowed it to leave her grandmother. She would do a better job of protecting Victor.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Casa Azul

  Upon returning from the courthouse, Frida shooed Fulang away to play in the courtyard of Casa Azul, the childhood home to which she had returned. “Beat it, monkey!” she snapped harshly, using the American slang she loved so much.

  Fulang leaped from her shoulder onto a low-hanging branch of a plane tree. She started to say something but thought better of it and disappeared into the upper branches. Now that they were back at Frida’s house, Fulang could have spoken back.

  Inside, Frida wandered aimlessly from room to room, absentmindedly picking up belongings—a hairbrush, a candy Day of the Dead skull, a paintbrush—returning each to its place without really recognizing what she had just held. As she passed through her home, the paintings, the photographs, the sculptures—anything with a face—did not just seem to watch her, they actually did. Her home was alive in ways that other homes would never be.

  Years before, a miracle had descended upon her life out of the ashes of pain and tragedy. Frida had been given the gift of making her home a haven for all things. Anything that crossed her threshold, whether it was living or inanimate, could speak, as long as it had a mouth. But this gift did not come easily. It was a gift from the spirits, who had taken pity on her after her terrible accident.

  She had been just a teenager in 1925, riding home on a bus after shopping. The driver turned too slowly in front of an oncoming trolley. The collision crushed the bus and broke nearly every bone in Frida’s body.

  This accident seemed to tap into an ancient awareness, something pre-colonial, from the days of the Aztec empire. Aztecs believed in a shared consciousness among all beings. Through this power, people could communicate with things not human. After her accident, Frida discovered that for anyone who entered Casa Azul, this was not just legend; it was true. They could hear the voices of the world around them and could speak to them.

  Now in Casa Azul, Frida drifted as if in a dream among her things until she came to her bedroom. There she collapsed on her bed, dazed by the events of the day. On the pillow in a square of warm sunlight lay Chica, her black cat.

  Leaping up, Chica meowed. “Hey!”

  “Beat it, rat trapper!”

  Chica leaped off the bed. “Well, excuse me, Miss Moody.” Then she padded across the room and settled in another patch of sunlight on the floor. Her black fur shimmered like velvet.

  Frida turned away from her cat. “I don’t need this abuse.”

  “Qué? What?” said Chica. I was the one lying there innocently sunning herself when Frida had come in and started it, she thought. What is her problem?

  Frida was lost in her own thoughts and could not imagine what the rest of the day and the next and the day after that would be like alone—without Diego. She had married him twelve years before and moved from this house, Casa Azul, to Diego’s studio. A few years earlier, he had built them a home with adjoining studios. Now that was gone.

  As Frida’s mind danced over the memories, her eyes stared up at the canopy above her bed. Because she had had to spend so much recovery time in bed, it was decorated with Day of the Dead skeletons, ribbons, and odds and ends that had caught her fancy over the years. A glass box was suspended just overhead. It was filled with dried butterflies. In the shadows of the canopy, the bright-colored wings seemed to glow. The intense blues, garish greens, pulsing oranges, and deep, rich reds held her attention, and disgusted her. “How can you be so bright and gay on a day like this?” she challenged the dead butterflies.

  Trapped in their glass box, the butterflies responded with simply a muffled cry.

  Clearly annoyed, Frida reached up and pulled the glass box free. Violently, she opened it and poured out the butterflies. Their cries whispered as they drifted toward the floor.

  At this the candy Day of the Dead skull on the windowsill became alarmed. He knew Frida loved those butterflies and had placed them on her canopy so she could gaze at them always.

  “Psssst!” he whispered, with the kind of awkward lisp a mouth with no lips would have. He did not want Frida to hear. “Psssst!”

  Chica raised her head and saw what Frida had done. Quickly, she jumped to the windowsill. “Fulang!”

  Outside the window, Fulang rested on a branch. She was watching one of the wild monkeys of the neighborhood fly through the trees chasing squirrels. He seemed so quic
k and strong. He was handsome, with a toothy smile that flashed at a moment’s notice. Fulang had been admiring the monkey since he had moved into the neighborhood. She wanted to get his attention, but she was too shy to speak. Instead, she chewed at a flea on her shoulder as her eyes studied the remarkable monkey playing high in the branches nearby.

  “Fulang!” Chica hopped onto the tree branch by the window and swiped at the monkey.

  Startled, Fulang stumbled off the branch and fell to the ground. “Watch what you’re doing!”

  Chica motioned toward the window.

  On the windowsill the skull made as if he had eyeballs and could roll them. Fulang leaped to the sill. Chica followed. Inside, Frida was untying the ribbons around her bed’s canopy. When she was done, she took the ribbons out of her hair and off the hem of her skirt as well. It was as if she was removing all gaiety from the room.

  Alarmed, Fulang hopped to the easel propped in a corner, where a portrait of Diego in large green overalls and an expansive cowboy hat sat nearly done. Fulang nudged the portrait. “Do something!” The portrait of Diego glanced up at Fulang, for it was alive too. Its eyes followed the monkey’s gaze to where Frida was carefully wrapping a portrait of her sister with ribbons. It was as if she were covering the entire image in bandages, or cloaking it as the images in a church were covered on Holy Thursday.

  “Frida!” the image of Diego commanded. “Stop that!”

  Frida turned to her nearly finished painting of Diego and smiled. “You don’t matter anymore. You toad!” She held up a handful of ribbons. “These are for you.” She wrapped Diego’s portrait.

  “Stop this!” the portrait protested in a muffled voice. “You must paint. This is why we are divorced.”