The Lacuna Read online

  5 August

  The people who come to dinner with paint in their hair now have a name for themselves: the Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors. After the plates are cleared they bring the typewriter from the Painter's office and make a newspaper right on the dining table. The writer in charge, Senor Buerrero, was the pigmentist on the mural crew. They argue about everything: Which is better, art or philosophy? Easel art for the bourgeoisie, or murals for the public? Which is the more nationalist, pulque or tequila? The servants get an earful, better than any school yet. Tonight they argued about how to defeat fascism in Spain. Mexico opposes the Fascists, even though the gringos and British think a stern fellow like Franco is just the thing to straighten up Spain. The Riveras' old friend Siqueiros is there now, fighting alongside the Spaniards.

  But he was strange, Alfaro Siqueiros. The type to find a fight anywhere, war or no war. When he used to come to supper, Olunda would pull out her crucifix and say, "Dios mio, don't use the good talavera, it will be in pieces before the pastry." Rivera calls him a bang-bang artist, making murals with a spray gun and airplane paints. Siqueiros called Rivera a high-flying Communist, getting commissions from gringos and robber barons. Then Rivera would say, Look at your friend Stalin if you want to see the robber baron maximo, and usually that was when the talavera became endangered.

  Really, those two have only one fight: Who is a better painter, Siqueiros or Rivera?

  19 August

  The senora in the hospital all week; it seems very serious. They moved her again to the Ingles. It's a long drive to take her lunch. On the way back today we brought food to the Painter in the Palacio Bellas Artes, where he's touching up that mural after they put some electric wires in the wall behind. It's the re-creation of the one that frightened people in New York so badly. Last summer the plaster boys made bets it would show monsters with devils' heads, or worse. Seeing it now, it's hard to guess which part is frightening. No monsters. Maybe the white and dark-skinned workers side by side. In the United States they require different bathrooms. But the Painter says no, it was only the face of Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution.

  The boys on the plaster crew are all different ones from last summer, so no one there today remembered Sweet Buns. That name is gone. Sometimes the past can vanish.

  25 August

  Senora Frida is still in the hospital. The house is both dull and chaotic, the blue side ruled by the monkey lurking on the stairs, awaiting the return of his mistress. He hangs by one hand from the stair rail, scratching his nalgas. The Painter, on his side of the house, is doing approximately the same. She is the center of everything.

  29 August

  The Painter is working like a madman in his studio. Candelaria refuses to take him his food or clean the studio while he's in there, for reasons she won't disclose. An acceptable reason would be: it looks as if a giant dog, after a large lunch of food, socks, paints, trousers, and pencils, walked into that room and vomited everywhere.

  It's no easy trick to clean up around him. The man takes up a lot of space. He seems to be painting landscapes. Unlike his wife, he does not ask for a servant's opinion on his work. He interrogates. Yesterday: "How long have you been in this house?"

  "All day, senor. My bed is in the little carriage house, shared with Cesar."

  "I know that. And you used to be on the plaster crew. Sweet Buns, they called you. I'm asking how long you've been with us here in San Angel."

  "Living here, since last October, sir. Before that, two times in the summer when you had those gatherings and needed an extra cook. You hired me full-time after a girl left. Olunda recommended me to your service. Probably she regrets it now."

  "Why is that?"

  A pause. "Modesty should prevent my saying it, but my bread is better than hers. Beyond that, Olunda views life in general as a regrettable contract."

  "I see your point. That's enough for now."

  But today he launched a second interrogation, even more blunt. Beginning with: "Your name is Shepherd, and you're a foreigner. Is that right?"

  "Only one-half foreign, sir. Mexican mother, gringo father."

  "He lives in the United States? Doing what?"

  "Keeping track of money in a government office. Building and road repairs."

  "I see. And are you trustworthy?"

  "It's a hard question to answer, sir. Saying 'yes' could prove either case."

  He seemed to like that answer, smiling a little.

  "Half American does not mean half loyal, Senor Rivera. Your household is generous and inspiring. A worker could not ask for much more."

  "But workers do, every minute. I understand you're a writer."

  "Senor, what on earth gives you that understanding?"

  "One person. By name, Cesar."

  "He does?"

  "He says you scribble every night. Are you reporting on us to someone?"

  Cesar is a perseverant snitch. "It's nothing like that. Just a diary of kitchen nonsense and little stories. Romantic adventures set in other times. Nothing of consequence, meant for no one else's eyes."

  "Cesar says you write in English. Why is that?"

  "With respect to your old comrade driver. How does he know it's English?"

  The Painter considered this. "Meant for no one else's eyes, including Cesar's."

  "You could understand the need for privacy."

  His toad-frog face broadened helplessly. "You're talking to a man who smears his soul on the walls of public buildings. How would I understand?"

  "Well, no sir. But consider how your wife views her art, something she does for herself. It's more like that. But of course it isn't art, these little notebooks, there's no comparison. What she does is very good."

  "Don't panic, I'm not going to fire you. But we have to start being careful about security. We can't have a spy in our midst."

  "Of course not." A long pause. Clearly it is important not to ask why. Does he want more reassurance, something personal? "About the English, sir. It's a habit from school. They taught us to use typewriters, which are very handy, I have to say. But they didn't have the Spanish characters. So a story begun in English keeps going in English."

  "You know how to use a typewriter?" He seemed quite surprised.

  "Yes, senor. When the question of Spanish characters came up, the officer at school said no typewriter anywhere has characters beyond those needed for English. But it isn't true. The one you sometimes leave on the dining-room table has them."

  "Those gringos. What jingoists."

  "That was the problem at school. You can't get far on a story without the accents and ene. You begin with Senor Villasenor in the bath, reflecting on the experience of his years, but instead he is 'en el bano, reflexionando en las experiencias de sus anos.'"

  The Painter laughed, throwing a streak of blue across his big belly. Olunda will offer up some curses over those trousers. The big toad has a wonderful laugh. That must be what women like about him, besides the wad of tin. Not his face, for sure. But his joy, the way he gives himself up entirely. As he said, a soul smeared on walls.

  The suspect was then released, carrying a pile of dirty plates from the room of interrogations. If Cesar can read his name here, let him worry. Let him fret all day over Senor Villasenor in the bath, reflecting on the experiences of his anuses.

  3 September

  Senora Frida is back from the hospital, but not well. Both master and mistress are in the house now, requiring service day and night. Candelaria, forced to choose between devil and dragon, has chosen the one that needs her hair combed. Just as well, because the other devil needs a typist. The Communist Party has thrown him out over the never-ending argument of who is better, Stalin or Stotsky or Potsky or what. The other Communists won't come over for supper and do his typing anymore. And the mistress seems angry with him over some private matter. Olunda has plenty of theories. Poor toad-frog Diego, losing people faster than he can paint new ones on a wall.

  1
4 September

  Today General Wrong Turn got lost on the way to the house in Coyoacan where he lived for forty-one years. The errand was the usual, taking food to Senor Kahlo. When Cesar first began driving Guillermo Kahlo around for making his photographs, it was in a carriage. Not a motor coach in all Mexico City, he says, and those were the good days. It's true that horses have certain advantages: namely, knowing the way home.

  It's strange every time, returning to the Allende Street house where Senora Frida marched home from the Melchor market that birthday long ago, a stranger, with a shy boy carrying her bags because Every Man has the Right to make a Kite from his Pants. And in the courtyard inside, the Painter sat under the trees reading his newspaper, waiting to be found, all on a chance. How strange that a boy could make a kite of his pants, fly them around the world, and somehow arrive back at the house where everything began.

  1 October

  A tiresome day. Being the Painter's typist is harder than mixing his plaster. The worst of it isn't the typing but his interrogations. He says cleverness in a servant is not always a good thing. Candelaria, for example, could straighten all the papers on his desk and come away with no more idea of what's written there than Fulang Chang the monkey. And the master doesn't hold Fulang Chang entirely above suspicion. Only the illiterate, wide-eyed Candelaria. "How about you?" he needled. "What did you see just now, while you were typing the invoice letters?"

  "Nothing, Senor Rivera."

  "Nothing, including the official letterhead of the President of the Republic? You didn't notice a letter from Cardenas?"

  "Senor, I have to admit, that did catch my eye. The seals are outstanding. But you're an important person. Commissions from the government are nothing exceptional. I didn't care enough to read the letter, that's the truth. I'm uncurious about politics."

  He closed his newspaper, took the glasses off his nose, and stared across the room from the armchair where he likes to sit while reading and dictating. "Uncurious?"

  "Senor Rivera, you stand for the people, anyone can see the good of that. But leaders all seem the same, no matter what they promise. In the end they'll let the poor people go to the dogs."

  "A cynic! A rarity, in revolutionary Mexico. In your age group, anyway."

  "I didn't go to university. Perhaps that's helped me maintain my position."

  "A severe young man. You allow for no exceptions?"

  "Exceptions haven't presented themselves. I read the newspapers a little. Which I take from your studio when you're finished, senor. I offer that confession."

  "Here, take this one too, it's nothing but junk." He folded it and tossed it at the desk. "Did you ever hear of a man named Trotsky?"

  "No, sir. Is he a Pole?"

  "A Russian. There's a letter from him over there as well. In the same stack with the president's."

  "That one I did not see, Senor Rivera. I swear it's the truth."

  "I'm not accusing. The point I want to make is that you're wrong, idealism does exist. Have you heard of the Russian Revolution at least?"

  "Yes, sir. Lenin. He got you in trouble with the gringos on your mural."

  "That one. Leader of the Bolsheviks. He sent the monarchs packing, along with all the rich bloodsuckers living off the workers and peasants. He put the workers and peasants in charge. What do you say about that?"

  "With no disrespect, senor, I would say, how long did he last?"

  "Through the revolution and seven years after. He did what was best for his people, until death. All the while living in a rather cold little apartment in Moscow."

  "It's admirable, senor. And then he was murdered?"

  "He died of a stroke. With two men poised to succeed him: one with scruples, the other with cunning. I suppose you'll say it's predictable, the cunning one took power."

  "Did he?"

  "He did. Stalin. A selfish, power-mad bureaucrat, everything you seem to require in a leader of men."

  "I'm sorry, sir. It's not that I want to be right about this."

  "But I contend you are not. The other one, with scruples, could just as easily be in charge now. He was Lenin's right hand and best friend. Elected president of the Petrograd Soviet, a populist, certain to succeed Lenin. Different in every way from Stalin, who was infatuated with party bureaucracy. How could the people fail to support the populist over the bureaucrat?"

  "And yet they failed to do so?"

  "Only thanks to an accident of history."

  "Ah. The populist with scruples was murdered."

  "No, to Stalin's frustration, he remains alive in exile. Writing strategic theory, organizing support for a democratic People's Republic. And avoiding Stalin's ant colony of assassins, who are crawling over the earth right now looking for him."

  "It's a good story, senor. Strictly from the point of view of plot. May I ask, what was the accident of history?"

  "You can ask the man himself. He'll be here in a few months."

  "Here?"

  "Here. It's the Trotsky I mentioned, the letter lying over there on the desk under Cardenas. I've asked the president to grant him political asylum under my custody."

  So. For this, all the questions and mystery. The Painter stood grinning, his hair in an unruly halo around his head, or perhaps it was a devil's horns. His smile underlined by double chins. "Well, my young friend. Do you remain uncurious?"

  "Senor, I confess, I maintain that position with increasing difficulty."

  8 October

  Sometimes when the Painter is reading over the day's typing, there's time to look at the books in his library. The whole wall is shelves. On the bottom are Frida's wooden-spined box folders where she files the household papers. Each one she has identified with a picture drawn on its spine: a naked woman, for Diego's personal letters. The Evil Eye, for hers. The one for accounting has only a dollar sign.

  The rest is books, a wall of them about everything: political theory, mathematical theory, European art, Hinduism. One shelf the length of the room is devoted to Mexico's ancient people: archaeology, mythology. Scientific journals on the antiquities, which look tedious. But others are fascinating. The Painter took one down to show it off: a codex. Made a hundred years ago by monks, who labored to make exact replicas of the ancient books the Mexica people made on thick tree-bark paper. It didn't have pages exactly, but was one long folded panel like an accordion. The ancient language is pictures, little figures. Here, a man cut in half. There, men standing in boats, rowing.

  He said it was the Codex Boturini, about the peregrinations of the Azteca. On the advice of gods they left Aztlan in search of their new home, and took 214 years to find it. The long page was divided into two hundred fourteen small boxes, each one recording the main thing that happened in that year. Not good, mostly. A head hanging on a rotisserie over a fire! A man with eyeballs falling out! But most of the years showed simply their search for home. Anyone could feel the anguish of this book--what longing is keener? Pictographs of weary people walking, carrying babies or weapons. Small, inked footprints trailed down the full length of the book, the sad black tracks of heartache. When completely unfolded, the codex stretched almost the whole length of the studio. That is how long it is possible to walk, looking for home.

  November 2

  Day of the Dead. The senora made altars all over the house to recall her beloved dead: ancients, half-born children. "Who are your dead, Insolito?" she keeps asking.

  They request a suspension of all writing, this notebook put away. Cesar will enforce the ruling. They set their trap and pounced in the Painter's study at lunchtime, husband and wife in one room for once, for this purpose. For security. No more of your little notes. We've promised extraordinary measures for the Visitor, you can't imagine how frightened he is. Devil and dragon in one lair, the Painter sitting at his desk, and she pacing the yellow floorboards with rippling skirts, a tiny tempest. Not even a market list. They claim Cesar is becoming agitated, convinced he's sleeping in the same room with an agent of the GPU. "Po
or old General Wrong Turn, I know he's confused," she said. This woman who has said many times: Soli, to stop painting would feel like being dead. She understands what she's asking. To stop writing and be dead.

  "It's for safety," he added. A man who throws paint in the face of safety.

  Where are your dead, Soli? Here, and the devil take it, a notebook for the altar of the dead in this lonely house. Dead and gone, the companionship of words.

  Report from Coyoacan

  This record of events will be submitted to Senora Frida for weekly inspections, or at any other time she requires, for purposes of security. According to her authorized instruction it is to harbor no opinions, confessions, or fictions. Its purpose is: "To record for history the important things that happen." The senora's sympathy for record-keeping is noted with gratitude--HWS, 4 January, 1937.

  9 January: Arrival of the Visitor

  The petrol tanker Ruth arrived from Oslo at dawn this morning to discharge its only passengers at the Tampico docks. The landing party were brought from the ship by a small launch, under the watch of Norwegian guards, and welcomed onto Mexican soil by the following persons: Sra. Frida, Mr. Novack (American), and General Beltran representing the government of Mexico. Diego R. still hospitalized with an infection of the kidneys. The Visitor and party were taken by government train to the capital.

  11 January: Arrival of the Visitors in the House at Coyoacan

  He is to be known here as "Lev Davidovich." His wife: "Natalya." Because of the danger of assassination, a welcoming party assembled at the San Angel house to distract attention while Lev and Natalya were secretly brought here to Coyoacan. Their secretary of many years is expected to arrive here in the coming week. He did not travel together with them, but through New York.

  12 January

  The visitors are settled in the house, the former dining room serving as their bedroom with Lev's study in the adjacent small room. Lev in extraordinary spirits, despite his years of travails fleeing from Stalin and recent twenty-one days at sea. He steps through the glass doors of his study into the sunny courtyard and stretches himself, flexing his arms: a compact, muscular man, truly the Russian peasant to lead a revolution of peasants. He seems built for a life of work rather than confinement. When he's working at his desk, his broad hand clasps a pen as if it were an ax handle. When he smiles, his eyes shine and his cheeks dimple above the little white beard. Delight appears to be his natural state. Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he's entitled to joy rather than submission? This surprising man looks up at the bright Mexican sky, remarking that with only one country on earth that will have him now, he's glad this is the one.