Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Two Fridas

2009; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 83; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2009.0159

1945-8134

Zsófia Bán, Jim B. Tucker,

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FICTION The Two Fridas ZsofiaBan hey had us sitting together though we didn't want to. We even said we didn't. JL At thatour teacherwhisked her cane staff through theair,with an astonishing alacrity given her body weight. Who asked you, she asked, and since no one had asked, we decided not to answer rather than be asked again. We sat in silence. Held our traps.The whole class held their traps. You might say it's not particularly good being a new kid. Everyone is constantly sizing you up, particularly if there are two of you, and even more particularly if the two of you are one. We tried to ease the situation by dressing differently: Frida would wear a richly laced longwhite dress with three-quarter sleeves, whose lower hem was adorned with a cute littlered flowerpattern,while I had on a blue-and-yellow topmatched with a long olive-green skirtwith white flounces at the hem (wearing jewelry was sadly not allowed, which always made us feel likewe were going out naked). Even so, we were constantly being mistaken for each other. They said it was con fusing thatwe both had the same name, but we thought that should actually make things easier. Not for them, though.Well, my littledolls, we were told with unbridled superiority, around here the custom is to call two identical copies by differentnames. So they wouldn't be so identical. Well there is a certain logic to that, we said when we still thought there was some sense indebating them,but you must admit that another view is equally acceptable: if two identicals are identi cal, then theirnames should be identical too. The multiplicity of such systems of logic is termed "cultural difference." This got a big belly laugh out of thewhole class. The only one who didn't laughwas theGypsy boy Sanyi Lakatos. He could empathize; he knew from cultural differences. I'll smash their faces in ifyou want, he said.We didn't, but thanked him kindly anyway. Gracias. We liked Sanyi Lakatos. He could flipa compass over his five fingers like nobody else. He also reminded us of the boys back home. Especially Diego. Diego was half-Indian,while Sanyi Lakatos was completely Indian. One of us always carried a medallion portrait ofDiego until the ladywho taught chemistry confiscated it. She said itwas distracting us from the compounds. If she only knew how wrong shewas! The best chemistry in theworld was the kind we had with Diego, but those flat-chested toothpicks couldn't even imag ine what that was. We were much more developed than theywere: for one thing,we already had mustaches, something they found?how should we put it??off-putting.(Well, all right?they gave us hell for it.)They said that sort of thingwasn't done around here. Said we couldn't assemble for patrol like that. Said a Pioneer couldn't go around looking like that. Thank God, we said, one less thing toworry about. Needless to say, we shouldn't have said that. There's no God around here, screamed the homeroom teacher, and her face,glistening fromfat, went all red.No, she said, just listen toComrade Lenik, and Comrade Prin cipal. (Wewondered about thisComrade Lenik, but dared not ask any questions, thinking this would onlymake matters worse.) Pack rightoff to theprincipal's office,and take your report cards. Our comrade principal (ifhe was our comrade, thenwe were themayor ofTeotihuac?n) received us with excessive smarm,which onlymade him more frightening. He inquired, and I quote, what had brought us there,and had we perhaps gone a step over the line, and now now girls, let's have a confession before Iget all ina huff.Sincewe didn't know why we were there, we said nothing. Girls, 30 i World Literature Today he said, better not squinch your eyebrows like thatwhen talking tome, before things get ugly. Unfortunately, we were in no position to satisfy this request spliced into a threat,since we were stuck that way. Itwas no use Grandma Kal?'s tell ing us a thousand times,Oh Fridas Fridas, don't squinch your eyebrows because you'll get...