The Bad Girl (30 page)

in Tokyo. Until the next chapter!

I didn't tell Elena and Simon about the call or our appointment,

and I spent forty-eight hours in a somnambulistic state, alternating

between spasms of lucidity and a mental fog that lifted occasionally

so I could give myself over to a masochistic session of insults:

imbecile, cretin, you deserve everything that happens to you, has

happened to you, will happen to you.

The day of our appointment was one of those gray, wet, lateautumn

Parisian days when there are almost no leaves on the trees

or light in the sky, people's bad temper increases with the bad

weather, and you see men and women on the street concealed by

coats, scarves, gloves, umbrellas, hurrying along and filled with

hatred for the world. When I left UNESCO I looked for a taxi, but

since it was raining and there was no hope of finding one, I opted for

the Metro. I got off at the Saint-Germain station, and from the door

of La Rhumerie I saw her sitting on the terrace, with a cup of tea and

a bottle of Perrier in front of her. When she saw me she stood and

reached up to my cheeks.

"Can we give each other an accolade, or can't we do that either?"

The place was filled with people typical of the district: tourists,

playboys with chains around their necks and flamboyant vests and

jackets, girls in daring necklines and miniskirts, some of them made

up as if for a gala party. I ordered grog. We were silent, looking at

each other with some discomfort, not knowing what to say.

Kuriko's transformation was notable. She seemed not only to

have lost ten kilos—she had become a skeleton of a woman—but to

have aged ten years since that unforgettable night in Tokyo. She

dressed with a modesty* and neglect I only remembered seeing in her

on that distant morning when I picked her up at Orly Airport at

Paul's request. She wore a threadbare jacket that could have been a

man's, faded flannel trousers, shoes that were worn and unpolished.

Her hair was disheveled, and on her very thin fingers the nails

seemed badly cut, unfiled, as if she bit them. The bones of her

forehead, cheeks, and chin were prominent, stretching her very pale

skin and accentuating its greenish cast. Her eyes had lost their light,

and there was something fearful in them that recalled certain timid

animals. She didn't have on a single adornment or any trace of

makeup.

"How hard it's been for me to see you," she said at last. She

extended her hand, touched my arm, and attempted one of those

flirtatious smiles from the old days, which didn't turn out well this

time. "At least tell me if you're over your anger and hate me a little

less."

"Let's not talk about that," I replied. "Not now, not ever. Why did

you call me so many times?"

"You gave me half an hour, didn't you?" she said, letting go of my

arm and sitting up straight. "We have time. Tell me about yourself.

Are things going well? Do you have a girlfriend? Are you still doing

the same work?"

"A little pissant until death," I said with a reluctant laugh, but

she remained very serious, observing me.

"The years have made you touchy, Ricardo. Once your rancor

wouldn't have lasted so long." The old light twinkled in her eyes for

a second. "Are you still telling women cheap, sentimental things, or

don't you do that anymore?"

"How long have you been in Paris? What are you doing here?

Working for the Japanese gangster?"

She shook her head. I thought she was going to laugh, but

instead her expression hardened and those full lips that were still

prominent on her face trembled, though they too seemed somewhat

faded now, like the rest of her.

"Fukuda dropped me more than a year ago. That's why I came to

Paris."

"Now I understand why you're in this lamentable condition," I

said ironically. "I never imagined I'd see you like this, so broken."

"I was much worse," she acknowledged harshly. "At one point I

thought I was going to die. The last two times I tried to talk to you,

that was the reason. So at least you would be the one to bury me. I

wanted to ask you to have me cremated. The thought of worms

eating my body horrifies me. Well, that's over."

She spoke calmly, though allowing glimpses of a contained fury

in her words. She didn't seem to be putting on a self-pitying act to

impress me, or if she was, it was done with supreme skill. Instead,

she described things objectively, from a distance, like a police officer

or a notary.

"Did you try to kill yourself when the great love of your life left

you?"

She shook her head and shrugged.

"He always said that one day he'd get tired of me and drop me. I

was prepared. He didn't talk to hear his own voice. But he didn't

choose the best moment to do it, or the best reasons."

Her voice trembled and her mouth twisted into a grimace of

hatred. Her eyes filled with sparks. Was all of this just another farce

to make me feel sorry for her?

"If the subject makes you uncomfortable, we'll talk about

something else," I said. "What are you doing in Paris, what are you

living on? Did the gangster at least give you some compensation that

will let you live for a while without difficulties?"

"I was in prison in Lagos, a couple of months that seemed like a

century," she said, as if I suddenly were no longer there. "The most

awful, ugly city, and the most evil people in the world. Never even

think about going to Lagos. When I finally got out of prison, Fukuda

wouldn't let me come back to Tokyo. "You're burned, Kuriko.'

Burned in both senses of the word, he meant. Because now I was on

file with the international police. And burned because the blacks in

Nigeria probably infected me with AIDS. He hung up on me, just like

that, after telling me I shouldn't see him, or write to him, or call him

ever again. That's how he dropped me, as if I were a mangy dog. He

didn't even pay for my ticket to Paris. He's a cold, practical man who

knows what suits him. I no longer suited him. He's the exact

opposite of you. That's why Fukuda is rich and powerful and you are

and always will be a little pissant."

"Thanks. After all you've told me, that's praise."

Was any of it true? Or was it another of those fabulous lies that

marked all the stages of her life? She had regained her self-control.

She held her cup in both hands, sipping and blowing on the tea. It

was painful to see her so ruined, so badly dressed, looking so old.

"Is this great melodrama true? Isn't this another of your stories?

Were you really in prison?"

"Not only in prison but also raped by the Lagos police," she said,

fixing my eyes with hers, as if I were responsible for her misfortune.

"Some blacks whose English I couldn't understand because they

spoke pidgin. That's what David called my English when he wanted

to insult me: pidgin. But they didn't give me AIDS. Just crabs and

chancre. A horrible word, isn't it? Have you ever heard it? You

probably don't even know what it is, little saint. Chancre, infectious

ulcers. Something disgusting but not serious if you treat it in time

with antibiotics. But in damn Lagos they didn't treat me properly

and the infection almost killed me. I thought I was going to die.

That's why I called you. Now, fortunately, I'm all right."

What she was telling me could be true or false, but the

immeasurable rage that permeated everything she said was no pose.

Though with her, a performance was always possible. A formidable

pantomime? I felt disconcerted, confused. The last thing I expected

from our meeting was a story like this.

"I'm sorry you went through that hell," I said at last, just to say

something, because what can you say in response to this kind of

revelation? "If what you're telling me is true. You see, something

dreadful has happened to me where you're concerned. You've told

me so many stories in my life, it's difficult for me to believe

anything you say."

"It doesn't matter if you don't believe me," she said, grasping my

arm again and making an effort to seem cordial. "I know you're still

offended, that you'll never forgive me for what happened in Tokyo.

It doesn't matter. I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I don't want

money, either. What I want, in fact, is to call you once in a while and

occasionally have a cup of coffee with you, the way we're doing now.

That's all."

"Why don't you tell me the truth? For once in your life. Go on,

tell me the truth."

"The truth is, for the first time I feel uncertain and don't know

what to do. Very alone. It hasn't happened before, even though I've

had extremely difficult moments. If you must know, I'm sick with

fear." She spoke with a proud dryness, with a tone and attitude that

seemed to give the lie to what she was saying. She looked into my

eyes without blinking. "Fear's a sickness too. It paralyzes me, it

nullifies me. I didn't know that and now I do. I know some people

here in Paris, but I don't trust anybody. But I do trust you. That's the

truth, whether you believe me or not. Can I call you from time to

time? Can we see each other occasionally, in a bistrot, the way we're

doing today?"

"That's no problem. Of course we can."

We talked for another hour until it grew dark and the shop

windows and windows of the buildings on Saint-Germain lit up, and

the red and yellow lights of the cars formed a luminescent river that

flowed slowly along the boulevard past the terrace of La Rhumerie.

Then I remembered. Who answered the phone in my house the last

time she called? Did she remember?

She looked at me, intrigued, uncomprehending. But then she

nodded.

"Yes, a young woman. I thought you had a lover, but then I

realized she must have been a maid. Filipina?"

"A child. Did he talk to you? Are you sure?"

"He said you were away on a trip, I think. Nothing, a couple of

words. I left a message, I see he gave it to you. Why are you asking

about that now?"

"He talked to you? Are you sure?"

"A couple of words," she repeated, nodding. "Who's the boy? Did

you adopt him?"

"His name's Yilal. He's nine or ten years old. He's Vietnamese,

the son of neighbors who are friends of mine. Are you sure he spoke

to you? Because the boy is mute. His parents and I have never heard

his voice."

She was bewildered and for a long moment, half closing her eyes,

consulted her memory. She made several affirmative movements

with her head. Yes, yes, she remembered very clearly. They spoke

French. His voice was so delicate it seemed feminine to her. Highpitched

and exotic. They exchanged very few words. Just that I

wasn't there, I was away on a trip. And when she asked him to say

"the bad girl" had called—she said this in Spanish—the thin voice

interrupted: "What? What?" She had to spell "bad girl" in Spanish

for him. She remembered very well. The boy had spoken to her,

there was no doubt about it.

"Then you performed a miracle. Thanks to you, Yilal began to

speak."

"If I have those powers, I'm going to use them. I imagine witches

must make a ton of money in France."

A short while later, when we said goodbye at the entrance to the

Saint-Germain Metro station and I asked for her phone number and

address, she wouldn't give them to me. She would call me.

"You'll never change. Always the same mysteries, the same

stories, the same secrets."

"It's done me a lot of good to see you finally and talk to you." She

silenced me. "You won't hang up on me again, I hope."

"That depends on how you behave."

She stood on tiptoe and I felt her mouth purse in a rapid kiss on

my cheek.

I watched her disappear into the Metro entrance. From the back,

so thin, in flat shoes, she didn't seem to have aged as much as she

did from the front.

Though it was still drizzling and fairly cold, instead of taking the

Metro or a bus, I decided to walk. It was my sole physical activity

now; my visits to the gym had lasted only a few months. Exercises

bored me, and I was even more bored by the kind of people I met

running on the treadmill, chinning themselves, doing aerobics. On

the other hand, I enjoyed walking around this city* filled with secrets

and marvels, and on days when emotions ran high, like this one, a

long walk, even under an umbrella in the rain and wind, would do

me good.

Of all the things the bad girl told me, the only thing undoubtedly

true was that Yilal had exchanged a few words with her. This meant

the Gravoskis' son could speak; perhaps he had done it before, with

people who didn't know him, at school, on the street. It was a small

mystery he would reveal to his parents one day. I imagined the joy

of Simon and Elena when they heard the thin voice, a little highpitched,

that the bad girl had described to me. I was walking along

Boulevard Saint-Germain toward the Seine, when just before the

Juilliard bookstore I discovered a small shop that sold toy soldiers