I would caress the toy with the same sensuality I’d use with my nana Antonia’s breasts, or my mother’s, years after I had stopped nursing. Then I would try to make it work, and as soon as I knew clearly how it functioned, I’d take it apart to get to know its guts—as with the mountains—and put it together again sure of myself. Sometimes the toy was destroyed, something that has happened to my life many times.
I was proud to have invented a locomotive that didn’t resemble any other I had seen. It had a conic boiler placed on a platform ending at the chimney’s cylinder, with the fire beneath. The steam would activate a vertical piston on the platform that would directly move the back wheels.
An uncountable number of years later, in New York, Nelson Rockefeller, to whom I had told that childhood memory, invited me to lunch with some engineers and architects at Rockefeller Center and the Transportation Club. The lunch was being served in a private room. Well, in the middle of a table with photos of all kinds on machines, was something I couldn’t believe: a large picture of a locomotive from some Pennsylvania mine functioning as I had envisioned one when I was four years of age. People in Guanajuato used to call me “the engineer,” but now I don’t deal with mechanics, I don’t think they were wrong since it is only possible to be a painter, a sculptor, or an architect if you are a plastic engineer; in other words, someone who understands the nature and functioning of the materials he handles.
Among the mechanical toys at the Flower Castle, one day I discovered a doll that impressed me in a new way. It was very large, more or less the size of a girl my age, and I noticed that it resembled one of the girls I knew, Virginia Mena. Instead of playing dumb in front of the case, one Sunday I decided to have her come with me to see the doll, my head abuzz, trying to figure out how I would manage to take the doll apart, get to know its mechanism, and put her back together again. I recall that on the way I felt strange, and that frightened me at first.
In that state, I arrived at her house. I was wearing new shoes and made sure they made a noise on the pavement. I really felt as if my blood was boiling, that it would burst out in a stream from my ears. I arrived at her door after making a lot of noise as I walked. She happened to be in their downstairs hallway, all dolled up in a white embroidered dress with a cobalt blue underpinning. Like the doll, her curls fell on her shoulders. The dress revealed her neck, chest and arms. I felt something I had never experienced before as my eyes surveyed her down to her calves. Her ankles made me understand right away how important such things were. Her feet were tiny and were encased in bejeweled shoes. My blood was surging like the tide, as if it were the river that overran the town at times of floods. As I stood at the entrance, I don’t know what gesture she made, what moves; the fact is that when she saw me, Virginia opened her eyes wide, raised her arms, and let out a tremendous scream. That scream resonated within my skull. I couldn’t help it, I fell to the floor senseless.
What happened then?
Much later I woke up at home, where Melesio, the hired hand who always followed me everywhere at a distance without interfering, had taken me. Next to my bed was my mother, repeating nothing but “God help me, God help me,” and shaking her head. My great aunt was there also, peeking at me sadly without saying a word; my father too, with that friendly expression he reserved for me. He found some pretext to get rid of my mom and great aunt and when we were alone, he had a big smile on his face. He pulled my ear and all he said was, “Gosh, you pug-nosed devil, you sure had the hots for her!”
This whole thing took place days before my birthday party when not only would I be five years old, but I had already learned on my own how to read and write, so strong was my tremendous passion to find out what books had to say.
That day, a worried look on my face, Father said to me, “Don’t go thinking I didn’t want you to have a good time today. I went early to the Menas and asked the colonel to bring Virginia to you, but unfortunately, the whole family had gone off to their hacienda.”
His words made me feel a mixture of satisfaction and humiliation; all I could hold onto was that I had lost my senses in the desire to possess Virginia. So I answered my father angrily, “Why are you involved in what’s not your business? If I had wanted to, I would have gotten the doll; you’ve never known before about my asking them to send toys over. Now I want neither toys nor Virginia.” Furious, I stomped the floor with my foot while making fists and repeating, “Do you get it? I don’t want toys or Virginia now!”
Father didn’t lose his cool. He assumed an extremely affable look and said, “Good, good, wait a minute. He went to his room and came back carrying a gorgeous revolver, enameled in nickel, its handle mother-of-pearl. He also brought a basket full of ammunition, and he said, “Here’s your birthday present for this year; I didn’t want to give it to you so soon, but it’s better that you familiarize yourself with the gun before you have an accident with it. Learn how to handle it right away. It’s not beside the point to say that it can be used as a show-piece in front of those buddies of yours, your newly acquired friends, the Mejia Mora girls.” He broke off with a hearty laugh while he pulled at one of my ears, adding, “Those gals don’t scream like Virginia when you come near them, eh?”
I suppose that my father was either giving me more credit than I was due or, in his great wisdom, was choosing to push me forward so that I could fulfill soon what, one day or another, had to happen. Besides, what my new friends were all about was absolutely correct. The Mejia girls were marvelous then. In those days, miners had their pockets full of pesos by the weekend; those girls nailed a gold coin to the bone tips of their boots, which hugged their ankles and calves like a glove. The sound they made each time one of those stupendous gals paraded her infinite charms over the cobblestone streets and alleys of Guanajuato was precious.
Their hair was exceedingly black, loose or braided, reaching down to their waistlines. And that hair never lacked for a flower. They wore aggressive ones that came down their ears and reached the corner of their mouths with their scorpion-like tendrils. They painted great scars on their cheeks, and their blouses, skirts, and shawls stood out with their bright colors. Since then, I adore cobalt blues, cadmium yellows, and the strong red Indians call tlapalli. I also go for the odor of perfumed water and gross, inexpensive perfumes.
I got to be six years old in this manner, at which time I made a speech from the main altar of the Church of San Diego against the collectors of tithes, privileges, and alms (I have told his story many times and everyone thinks it’s a lie, but my friend, Mrs. Amalia Caballero de Castillo Ledón checked its veracity scientifically when she stayed in Guanajuato attending a conference on history). I recall other happenings, among them having executed a pencil drawing of a beloved lady when I was twelve years old, studying under don Andrés Ríos. This surprised all my teachers and earned me a stipend of twenty pesos a month, turning me into a careless student and a rake.
I was a pretty boy who learned the philosophy of life under an admirable teacher nicknamed The Baby from Begoña, an undefeatable ball player. He taught me how the most popular Lady of the Theatre, adored by all, from the president of the republic down to the humblest shoeshine boy, including a multimillionaire, was in a position to accept gifts. Because of all this I can assure you I grew up a child without a childhood, if you call childhood that false life in limbo that the criminal stupidity of adults forces minors to endure.
“Nobody ignores,” as Wenziner has said, “that Diego Rivera was an exceptionally precocious child.”
This precociousness, as we’ve seen, manifested itself from the age of five, solidifying itself subsequently into a powerful visual memory. Rivera could recall faces and colors from seventy years back, and enjoyed evoking an infancy fully awakened to nature.
What was your first concrete memory, I asked him as we continued talking about his childhood. He answered quickly.
My first concrete, emotional, and plastic memory is of a dog’s head larger in size than what we are used to in sculpture these days; a farmer gave it to my father during one of his trips as inspector of schools in the state of Guanajuato. Father had it placed in the small fountain in our yard so that the water came out the dog’s snout. That’s one of my precise memories and,