Slavenka Drakulic - Frida's Bed

But the leg so provocatively displayed was a slap in Frida’s face as well. Lupe’s behavior shocked her, and for the first time since meeting the Maestro she had doubts about whether she would be able to hold her own with all these women hovering around him. She was grateful to the Maestro for having chosen her over Lupe. She was still too young to understand that the scene that had just taken place had been for her benefit‚ not the Maestro’s. She could not yet know what she was about to find out, that his latest wedding was not the beginning of a new chapter in his life. The Maestro would continue to chase pretty girls, because in his mind they had nothing to do with his love for Frida, his third wife.

The Maestro had already had quite a bit to drink. When Doña Matilda turned her back on the scene, Frida did not notice the look on his face. In the dusk of the smoke-filled room and the subdued lamplight, he could not but see Lupe’s alabaster white leg. He could not but hear her taunting comment, but he decided to ignore her and simply turned around to resume his conversation. What she saw was a man, her husband, for whom the entire performance had been amusing. She breathed a sigh of relief. A sense of superiority filled her. She walked over to the drunken Lupe and held her up so that she would not fall. I’ve got a headache, said Lupe, collapsing, her eyes closed and quite faint now. Somebody brought her a glass of water. Frida dipped a napkin in the water and placed it on Lupe’s brow. Frida had before her a beautiful woman who was losing the battle to a cripple. I’m sorry, Lupe mumbled, not looking at her. There is nothing to be sorry about, Frida said, savoring her own generosity. It was not until later, when she remembered Lupe’s words and realized that she herself was the loser, that she understood the full cruelty of the situation.

But at that moment, on her wedding day, she thought how, even though she did not have the voluptuous body of a Lupe, it was her the Maestro had chosen, her whom he loved. It was a moment of triumph for her youth and her self-confidence. And her mother, who worried about Frida from a distance, never let her know what she was about to find out for herself: that her victory would be short-lived; that victory and defeat are brother and sister; that a beautiful leg will always win out over a lame one, that is simply how things are. And that love can — exceptionally — grow into something quite different, into something that has nothing to do with what kind of legs you have. But Frida did not understand that yet and could not bear this cursed fear of rejection that afflicts women. It was a feeling she would soon know herself.

She never forgot the incident or the three women of such disparate experience — the beautiful abandoned Lupe, the naïve sick Frida and the shocked Catholic mother. And in the background were the men, the Maestro, her father, her friends, all of them behaving as if such hysterical female outbursts had nothing to do with them. The scene was drowned out by the music and loud buzz of conversation.

But whenever she thought of it, she was always hurt by the recollection of her mother gathering up the folds of her dress, turning on her heel and walking out of the room, her shoulders slightly stooped, looking defeated somehow.

Soon after the wedding, she realized that the Maestro’s love for her was not to the exclusion of other women.

Of course he’s got an eye for other women, she would say to herself; take a better look at yourself, open your eyes. Darling Maestro, my illness, or, let’s be precise about it, my illnesses, were your best ally. I was grateful that you even deigned to notice me. I was so plain and awkward, and cheeky, to boot. I was a nobody, a talented beginner who splashed paint on canvas and dreamed about supporting her family by selling her artwork. And you were famous, the most famous painter and ladies’ man in all of Mexico. I knew that, of course, everybody knew it, but like my two predecessors I thought that I, with my limitless love, would somehow manage to change and domesticate you. Because, of course, no one had ever loved you as much as I did.

But then for the first time I realized that — No, no, that’s not how it was, I hadn’t understood a thing. I had been too infantile, too self-confident. You told me about it yourself, in passing, you mentioned your latest “assistant,” Iona. Oh, yes, I remember the moment, her name, that feeling of numbness when I can still see, still hear, but am not there anymore: I can’t feel my arms or my legs, my heart has stopped beating; I cannot move, I cannot utter a single word; I am floundering; I am disappearing. You hold me up and stop me from collapsing; you sit me down on a chair; you look worried, but I see it all from a distance; I feel removed, numb.

I must admit I was both stunned and fascinated by the incidental way in which you mentioned that you were sleeping with another woman. It was in a conversation, not in a fight or an argument, but in an ordinary conversation. Because for you sex with other women — with your “models,” your “assistants,” your lady friends and protégés — was exactly that, incidental. They were always around, close at hand. They surrounded you like air. At first I tried to understand your need to conquer, to possess beautiful women as being part of your artistic nature, part of your striving for absolute beauty in everything. But it turned out that painting simply gave you opportunities other men didn’t have. The women were often naked — you liked to paint nudes and this was a way to possess them — and they were laid out to your eye, your touch and all your senses. Like on a platter. You painted them, but you reacted like the male of the species. Your behavior left no room for thought, it never occurred to you that your actions could hurt me. That day, when I first realized the nature of your relationship with Iona, you tried to tell me how such things weren’t important to you. You said that it was just a superficial, physical relationship. Physical , you said, that is the word you used. How could you have been so thoughtless to say that to me — me, whose body has terrorized my entire life? But I was so taken aback that I said nothing.

There is a photograph of you, Maestro, standing with María Félix in front of your portrait of her. She is standing in profile, wearing a light-colored dress. Bare-shouldered, her dark thick hair tumbling down her back. You are standing next to each other, your bodies almost (but not yet) touching. Her right hand is on your shoulder. It is almost possessive. She is looking you straight in the eye as if to say, You’re mine! You are already a gentleman of a certain age, with thinning hair and a slight stoop. You are looking at her with such a blissful smile on your face that the photograph remains etched in my memory. At first I thought you were admiring her beauty and that that was why you were reveling in her presence. It was pure chance that it was María Félix and not some other stunner, I told myself when I saw the photograph in the papers. And I would not have been upset, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, had you not been holding her by the elbow. The two of you looked as if you had been caught dancing and were about to twirl out of sight. It was how you were holding her that gave you away. It was too intimate. I realized, Maestro, that you knew this dazzling, raven-haired woman only too well. The pain of it was like a migraine that suddenly takes hold of you, lasts for days and never quite goes away. You live in a state of anticipation, a fear of when it will strike next.

In those first years of her marriage Frida only dabbled in painting. She was untrue to herself, ignoring her talent, the very thing that had so captivated the Maestro. He became more important to her than painting. She thought he had found a way into her inner self, buried deep inside her prison. Occasionally she would put brush to canvas and paint, portraits mostly, nothing dramatic, nothing painful or bloody yet. There was money, she no longer had to worry about that.