|
Diego! She barked and hollered to no avail.
His canvas and models, akimbo, and not to mention an audible cornucopia of a neighboring market, absorbed her voice like a gritty sponge. There was a slight breeze, too.
Frida sat back in the woven seat, centered in Mr. Kahlo’s garden, raised her brow momentarily, and released it with a sigh. The warm bangles on her arm clanged to her wrist with the ashing of her cigarette.
Her arms ached from a morning of sketching portraiture on burlap and fastening braids, like a crown, in her hair. Blue and gold muslin skirted her ankles hugging the legs of the chair. Her bare feet were dirty and narrowed into toes clad with copper and onyx rings.
Near her feet, on the terracotta pathway, sat two wooden crates of plantains and mangoes. They attracted flies. A few found themselves on the surface as if stepped and stuck in glue. She picked up a sweet green mango, ripe, held it in her left palm and massaged it with those
fingertips. She gazed intently toward the whitewashed terrace overlooking the garden and stole a view of Diego.
His wet oxford shirt stretched across his back as the sun shone upon it. Later, she would press knots around bones and fat to smooth the muscles. From the canvas, he withdrew a few paces and cocked his head to the right. He stepped forward, with a straight neck now, to resume
and directed his brush toward shadows along the model’s, her sister’s, paler belly framed by red apples slices.
They had planned to discuss Rockefeller and New York in the upcoming months. She looked over the landscape of cacti and papaya just beyond the gates, and found it difficult to imagine the hills like white elephants she’d seen in some photographs.
Ms. Kahlo let the mango drop to the ground and watched it roll a bit, then stop, when hitting a gray rock. She smoldered her cigarette between mustardy clefts in her fingers and watched the smoke rise from a brown clay pot. |