The Lacuna
Page 54
With damages repaired to her satisfaction, she fell asleep almost immediately, leaving one strange landscape for another, her dreams. Soon she would leave this place altogether—Diego, Mexico, the house and everyone in it.
The bones of the ancient city radiated heat, but the little river ran a cool thread through its belly. A lizard moved in the grass of the bank, running into the shade of a ledge, coming to rest near a stone that seemed rounded and glossy, even in shadow. That stone was smooth to the touch, and when turned over, revealed itself not as an ordinary pebble but a small, carved figurine. A little man made of jade or obsidian, something ancient, small enough to hide inside a closed hand. A remarkable artifact. It should be turned over to the professor. Obviously it would be wrong to take it from this place.
Every detail of the little figure was perfect: his rounded belly with indented navel, his short legs and fierce face. A headdress that resembled a neat pile of biscuits. Eyes deeply indented under arched brows. And inside his rounded lips, a hole for a mouth, like a tunnel from another time, speaking. I am looking for the door to another world. I’ve waited thousands of years. Take me.
The New York Times, April 15, 1939
Rivera Still Admires Trotsky; Regrets Their Views Clashed
Artist Explains He Quit Fourth International So as Not to Embarrass Leader—Reveals Letter Caused Their Rift
By Diego Rivera
MEXICO CITY, April 14—The incident between Trotsky and myself is not a quarrel. It is a lamentable misunderstanding which, going too far, brought about the irreparable. That compelled me to break my relations with a great man for whom I always had, and I continue having, the greatest admiration and respect. I am very far from harboring the silly presumption of engaging in a polemic with Trotsky, whom I consider the center and the visible head of the revolutionary movement that is the Fourth International.
The Mexican proverb says, “He who does not block the way helps a lot.” In the future, my personal actions and opinions, should I have any, will block neither Trotsky’s nor the Fourth International’s path.
The incident between Trotsky and myself had its origin in a letter addressed by me to my friend, the French Poet André Breton. That letter was typed in French for me by one of Trotsky’s secretaries. Trotsky happened to see a copy that had been left on the secretary’s desk, according to the written declaration that he sent me, and the concepts I expressed in my letter, in reference to the general situation of the Leftist forces in the world, to the social role of artists and to their position and rights within the revolutionary movement, besides some personal allusions to him, so displeased Trotsky that he expressed opinions against me which I found unacceptable and which compelled me to split with him.
Trotsky toils without respite, helping continually with his mental effort the slow and difficult work in preparation for the liberation of the workers of the entire world. About him he has a general staff of young secretaries, volunteers come from the four corners of the earth, to help in this work. Meanwhile, other voluntary workers watch day and night over the safety of the man who, together with Lenin, gave its victory to the proletariat of Russia. These and all the other thousands of heroes of October now, from the exile imposed upon them by Stalin’s counter-revolution, continue to labor for the future victory of the workers of the entire world.
The enemies, the “organizers of defeat,” Stalin and his GPU, persecute the man of October. Everywhere they have tried to hurt him, to annihilate him psychologically through the extermination of his family…. Meanwhile his closest collaborators, persecuted and threatened, are murdered, one after another. It is natural that this state of things and the accumulation of sufferings it produces have had their effect upon the man of October, despite his enormous will power and self-assurance. It is natural that Trotsky’s disposition should have become more and more difficult, despite his huge reserve of goodness and generosity.
I regret that fate should have decreed that I should collide against that difficult side of his nature. But my dignity as a man precluded my doing anything to avoid it.
Casa Trotsky, 1939–1940 (VB)
On the morning Lev and Natalya moved out of the Blue House, an egret came down from the sky, its broad white wings spread like a parachute, and landed in the courtyard. It extended the S-curve of its long neck until nearly as tall as a man, turning its long-beaked head this way and that, peering at each person present. Then it strode across the bricks to the front gate, lifting its long legs at the knee like a man riding a bicycle. The chief guard shoved the gate open, just a crack, and four men with pistols in their belts stood watching an egret cross Allende Street, disappearing around the corner.
Frida would have claimed it as an omen on Lev’s departure. But she is not here, she’s in Paris where everyone is an idiot, according to her reports. Natalya, unprepared to trust in signs, was swaddled in the same woolen suit and hat she wore the day they arrived on the ship from Norway. Lev was less armored, in a white shirt open at the collar. Each carried one small suitcase. Van, who has been inattentive since falling in love again (this time she’s American), kept his eyes down and stayed busy moving crates of papers into the car sent by Diego. Diego himself was not present.
Every person may have felt some accusation in the heron’s glare, for which member of the household was blameless? Frida went away, leaving Diego and Lev with only their needles of irritability to fill a space evacuated of desire. And Diego, poor man, can only be the person he is. An organizer who can’t get to meetings on time, a secretary who forgets to answer letters. He has the heart of an anarchist, not a party functionary.
Some blame of course goes to Stalin: his threats hanging over this house, the murders of Trotsky’s children, peers, and collaborators, the annihilation of his whole generation in Russia. Stalin’s cruelties have pressed the souls of this household flat as ancient skeletons in the dust.
But most to be blamed: the careless secretary who unraveled everything.
Diego wrote the newspapers about his split from Trotsky, reporting his desire to stand out of the way of a great man. “An accumulation of sufferings have had their effect,” he wrote, without naming them all: the affair with Frida, for example, though that’s said to be forgiven. The note he dashed off to Breton complained, “The bearded old goat is serious every minute. For God’s sake, can’t he let the Revolution rest for a night and get drunk with a friend who risked everything? Who’s housed and fed his entourage for two damn years? How can any mortal tolerate these overcast Russian temperaments?”
The bones of the ancient city radiated heat, but the little river ran a cool thread through its belly. A lizard moved in the grass of the bank, running into the shade of a ledge, coming to rest near a stone that seemed rounded and glossy, even in shadow. That stone was smooth to the touch, and when turned over, revealed itself not as an ordinary pebble but a small, carved figurine. A little man made of jade or obsidian, something ancient, small enough to hide inside a closed hand. A remarkable artifact. It should be turned over to the professor. Obviously it would be wrong to take it from this place.
Every detail of the little figure was perfect: his rounded belly with indented navel, his short legs and fierce face. A headdress that resembled a neat pile of biscuits. Eyes deeply indented under arched brows. And inside his rounded lips, a hole for a mouth, like a tunnel from another time, speaking. I am looking for the door to another world. I’ve waited thousands of years. Take me.
The New York Times, April 15, 1939
Rivera Still Admires Trotsky; Regrets Their Views Clashed
Artist Explains He Quit Fourth International So as Not to Embarrass Leader—Reveals Letter Caused Their Rift
By Diego Rivera
MEXICO CITY, April 14—The incident between Trotsky and myself is not a quarrel. It is a lamentable misunderstanding which, going too far, brought about the irreparable. That compelled me to break my relations with a great man for whom I always had, and I continue having, the greatest admiration and respect. I am very far from harboring the silly presumption of engaging in a polemic with Trotsky, whom I consider the center and the visible head of the revolutionary movement that is the Fourth International.
The Mexican proverb says, “He who does not block the way helps a lot.” In the future, my personal actions and opinions, should I have any, will block neither Trotsky’s nor the Fourth International’s path.
The incident between Trotsky and myself had its origin in a letter addressed by me to my friend, the French Poet André Breton. That letter was typed in French for me by one of Trotsky’s secretaries. Trotsky happened to see a copy that had been left on the secretary’s desk, according to the written declaration that he sent me, and the concepts I expressed in my letter, in reference to the general situation of the Leftist forces in the world, to the social role of artists and to their position and rights within the revolutionary movement, besides some personal allusions to him, so displeased Trotsky that he expressed opinions against me which I found unacceptable and which compelled me to split with him.
Trotsky toils without respite, helping continually with his mental effort the slow and difficult work in preparation for the liberation of the workers of the entire world. About him he has a general staff of young secretaries, volunteers come from the four corners of the earth, to help in this work. Meanwhile, other voluntary workers watch day and night over the safety of the man who, together with Lenin, gave its victory to the proletariat of Russia. These and all the other thousands of heroes of October now, from the exile imposed upon them by Stalin’s counter-revolution, continue to labor for the future victory of the workers of the entire world.
The enemies, the “organizers of defeat,” Stalin and his GPU, persecute the man of October. Everywhere they have tried to hurt him, to annihilate him psychologically through the extermination of his family…. Meanwhile his closest collaborators, persecuted and threatened, are murdered, one after another. It is natural that this state of things and the accumulation of sufferings it produces have had their effect upon the man of October, despite his enormous will power and self-assurance. It is natural that Trotsky’s disposition should have become more and more difficult, despite his huge reserve of goodness and generosity.
I regret that fate should have decreed that I should collide against that difficult side of his nature. But my dignity as a man precluded my doing anything to avoid it.
Casa Trotsky, 1939–1940 (VB)
On the morning Lev and Natalya moved out of the Blue House, an egret came down from the sky, its broad white wings spread like a parachute, and landed in the courtyard. It extended the S-curve of its long neck until nearly as tall as a man, turning its long-beaked head this way and that, peering at each person present. Then it strode across the bricks to the front gate, lifting its long legs at the knee like a man riding a bicycle. The chief guard shoved the gate open, just a crack, and four men with pistols in their belts stood watching an egret cross Allende Street, disappearing around the corner.
Frida would have claimed it as an omen on Lev’s departure. But she is not here, she’s in Paris where everyone is an idiot, according to her reports. Natalya, unprepared to trust in signs, was swaddled in the same woolen suit and hat she wore the day they arrived on the ship from Norway. Lev was less armored, in a white shirt open at the collar. Each carried one small suitcase. Van, who has been inattentive since falling in love again (this time she’s American), kept his eyes down and stayed busy moving crates of papers into the car sent by Diego. Diego himself was not present.
Every person may have felt some accusation in the heron’s glare, for which member of the household was blameless? Frida went away, leaving Diego and Lev with only their needles of irritability to fill a space evacuated of desire. And Diego, poor man, can only be the person he is. An organizer who can’t get to meetings on time, a secretary who forgets to answer letters. He has the heart of an anarchist, not a party functionary.
Some blame of course goes to Stalin: his threats hanging over this house, the murders of Trotsky’s children, peers, and collaborators, the annihilation of his whole generation in Russia. Stalin’s cruelties have pressed the souls of this household flat as ancient skeletons in the dust.
But most to be blamed: the careless secretary who unraveled everything.
Diego wrote the newspapers about his split from Trotsky, reporting his desire to stand out of the way of a great man. “An accumulation of sufferings have had their effect,” he wrote, without naming them all: the affair with Frida, for example, though that’s said to be forgiven. The note he dashed off to Breton complained, “The bearded old goat is serious every minute. For God’s sake, can’t he let the Revolution rest for a night and get drunk with a friend who risked everything? Who’s housed and fed his entourage for two damn years? How can any mortal tolerate these overcast Russian temperaments?”
