Hard to Escape

Chapter 34

Three days later, our travels serendipitously brought Yin Li and I to the Frida Kahlo Museum, better known as the Blue House. It was where the acclaimed Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, had lived during her life. After her death, it became a museum dedicated to her life's works. The whole exterior of the small building was painted blue. But somehow, perched on a corner of the street in this shabby, slightly-rundown neighborhood, it didn't seem out of place at all.

Frida was a legendary female artist. As a result of the polio she contracted during childhood and the car accident she suffered in her youth, she was paralyzed and had to undergo over thirty surgeries. I walked the perimeter of the room and looked at the self-portraits she had painted at different periods in her life.

In one painting, a woman with thick brows and a piercing gaze sat upon a wheelchair. She bled, crying as if broken. Her body was shattered, the pieces scattered everywhere. In another, she painted herself soaring. In yet another, she wore a cold expression on her face, with a ripped-out heart. But in every single painting, she did not bow to the world, instead boldly facing the viewer outside the portrait straight-on.

I stared at her face. Even the hot Mexican heat couldn't stop me from shivering.

I instinctively felt fearful. It seemed like she could see through to my inner heart. In a certain way, we were connected to each other through the darkness. We were both women who had been broken and crushed by life, yet came out stronger.

Yin Li looked at the words on the wall above the paintings. It read: "Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?"

After the car accident and her subsequent paralysis, Frida experienced a breakthrough in her art. Likewise, I had also experienced a car accident, but with luck was still able to stand and dance.

A tour group from Europe was in front of Yin Li and I. The tour guide led the group, talking as he walked. "Frida was a woman who fought destiny. She never gave up on being an artist, and she never bowed her head for art. She experienced great pain in her life, and three miscarriages. Her husband had an affair with her sister. She married, divorced, and remarried, and she was entangled in countless messy romantic relationships. Yet her love for art made her life worth living. More than that, these complex life experiences let her see art in a new light. Because of this, her style changed many times throughout her life. She was never restrained. Her art left her with no regrets, and even when she was close to death, she wrote in her diary, 'I hope the leaving is joyful; and I hope never to return.'"

All the tourists had a look of admiration on their faces. It was as if in their perception, Frida Kahlo's life was the ideal of what an artist's life should look like. To them, artists ought to be tried and tested continuously by fate. Reality should be disappointing, but artists needed to grit their teeth and endure it. Artists should entrench themselves in art, create art, and eventually become ones worthy of the pity thrown their way.

"Frida received her guests in this very room, " the tour guide continued. "She drank here, laughed here, and lived a brilliant youth here. She lived every minute of her life unrestrained. Frida's beauty was the kind that cannot be defined nor restrained. She is a Mexican icon." 　　

As the tour guide continued to weave the legend of Frida, my discomfort worsened. In my chest was a voice that wanted to burst out and scream, "It's not like that!"

Seeing my pale face, Yin Li grew concerned. He came over to support me. "Yan Xiao, what's wrong? You nearly missed a step on the stairs just now."

But at this point I was already lost in my thoughts. In this room, I could feel the soul of the artist. She gazed at me with compassion. But she also saw right through me, and in her eyes was a sliver of ridicule.