The Promised Party: Read an exclusive excerpt from a chapter on Frida Kahlo
A friend of the family, author Jennifer Clement was often in the house where Kahlo once lived. An excerpt from the chapter What Was Given.
Frida Kahlo liked to rest in bathtubs. At any lunch or dinner party, and after a few glasses of tequila, even though she preferred whisky, if possible, she’d go in search of the bathroom. Once there, she’d step into the waterless tub fully dressed in layers of skirts and petticoats and with her shoes on. Frida would sink down, as if the bathtub were a hospital bed or as if she were a mermaid in search of the sea, and rest her body. Ruth, Diego’s daughter, lived in the Studio House with her children, Ruth María and Pedro Diego.
Ruth María was my first friend and the Studio House was my second home.
At the Studio House, Ruth María and I left Diego’s side of the house and always crossed the short bridge from Diego’s roof to Frida’s roof and down the precarious external stairs into her house, where we spent most of our time. From the bridge we could see out to Calle Altavista and the San Ángel neighbourhood and look down on the tall wall of organ cacti below us. From there we could see the snow-covered peaks of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. We did not see the volcanoes; we saw the myth. Popocatépetl, a warrior, had come back from battle to find that his loved one, Iztaccíhuatl, had died. For ever after, he watched over her death sleep. They were our Romeo and Juliet.
Frida’s house had a small bathroom on the second floor. On hot May days before the rainy season, when the air was reddish brown with dust, Ruth María and I liked to fill the bath, slip off our cotton summer dresses and white leather sandals and cool off in the tub. Sometimes we’d dump half a bottle of egg-yellow Vanart shampoo into the water to try to make a bubble bath. Ruth María would stand up in the water filled with the thick yellow liquid and kick and stomp to churn it up or would kneel down outside the tub and try to stir the soap into bubbles with her hands. It never worked. But the cool water felt good and together we learned how to blow bubbles underwater.
Ruth María and I did not know the bathtub did not hold only our small bodies.
We did not know that the tub, with its round overflow drain and white rubber plug attached by a fine chain, had contained Frida Kahlo’s body too.
Frida painted herself there, resting in the water, with many objects and people floating on the water’s surface. This is an oil painting dated 1938 and named What the Water Gave Me. The water held a large seashell full of holes, which were bullet holes.
The water carried an island with a volcano, a dead woodpecker and an empty Mexican dress.
In the grey soapy water, there was a small skeleton resting on a hill.
The bathtub, which held our small bodies, still contained Frida.
(Excerpted with permission from The Promised Party: Kahlo, Basquiat and Me by Jennifer Clement, published by Canongate Books; 2024)
