The Bad Girl (51 page)

I've come, and now you know."

She spoke with the old mocking expression, the ironic gleam in

her eyes disproving the words she was saying to me. From time to

time, she took a sip of tea. Her stupid little game succeeded in

irritating me.

"Do you know something, bad girl?" I said, drawing her a little

closer so I could speak to her in a very quiet voice, with all my

accumulated rage. "Do you remember that night in the apartment,

when I almost wrung your neck? I've regretted not doing it a

thousand times."

"I still have the Arab dancer's costume," she whispered, with all

the roguishness left in her. "I remember that night very well. You hit

me and then we made delicious love. You told me some very pretty

things. Today you haven't told me a single one. I'm ready to believe

that it's true you don't love me anymore."

I wanted to slap her, kick her all the way out of the Cafe Barbieri,

do all the physical and moral harm to her one human being can do

to another, and at the same time, great imbecile that I am, I wanted

to take her in my arms, ask her why she was so thin and worn, and

caress and kiss her. My hair stood on end as I imagined she could

read my thoughts.

"If you want me to admit I've behaved badly with you and been

egotistical, I admit it," she whispered, bringing her face close to

mine, but I moved back. "If you want me to spend the rest of my life

telling you that Elena's right, that I've done you harm and haven't

valued your love, and all that other nonsense, all right, I will. Is that

what you want to stop being angry, Ricardito?"

"I want you to leave. Once and for all, forever and ever, to

disappear from my life."

"Well, well, something cheap and sentimental. It was time, good

boy."

"I don't believe a word you say. I know very well you looked for

me because you thought I could help you out of one of your

entanglements now that the poor old man has thrown you out."

"He didn't throw me out, I threw him out," she corrected me,

very calmly. "Or rather, I turned him over safe and sound to his dear

children, who missed their daddy so much. You should be grateful to

me, good boy. If you knew the headaches and money I saved you by

going away with him, you'd kiss my hands. You don't know how

expensive this adventure has been for the poor man."

She gave a piercing, mocking little laugh, as wicked as it could be.

"They accused me of abducting him," she added, as if enjoying a

good joke. "They presented false medical certificates to the judge,

claiming their father had senile dementia and didn't know what he

was doing when he ran off with me. The truth is, it wasn't worth

wasting time fighting for him. I was delighted to give him back. Let

them and Martine wipe away his snot and take his blood pressure

twice a day."

"You're the most perverse person I've ever known, bad girl. A

monster of egotism and insensitivity. Capable of knifing with

absolute coldness the people who have been kindest to you."

"Well, yes, maybe that's true," she agreed. "I've been stabbed a

lot in my life too, I assure you. I don't regret anything I've done.

Well, except having made you suffer. I've decided to change. That's

why I'm here."

She sat looking at me with a hypocritical expression that I found

even more irritating.

"Whoever doesn't know you can buy that. Do you actually think

I'm going to take this repentant wife number seriously? You, bad

girl?"

"Yes, me. I came looking for you because I love you. Because I

need you. Because I can't live with anybody except you. Though you

may think it's a little late, I know this now. That's why, from now

on, even though I die of hunger and have to live like a hippie, I'm

going to live with you. And no one else. Would you like me to

become a hippie and stop bathing? Dress like a scarecrow, like the

one you're with now? Whatever you want."

She had a coughing fit and her eyes reddened because of the

spasm. She drank from my glass of water.

"Do you mind if we leave here?" she said, coughing again. "With

this smoke and dust I can't breathe. Everybody smokes in Spain. It's

one of the things I dislike about this country. Wherever you go,

people are blowing mouthfuls of smoke at you."

I asked for the check, paid it, and we left. When we were on the

street and I saw her in the light of day, I was shocked at how thin

she was. When she was sitting down, I had noticed only how thin

her face was. But now, when she was standing, and there were no

shadows, she looked like a human ruin. Her body had bent slightly

and her walk was uncertain, as if she were avoiding obstacles. Her

breasts seemed to have shrunk until they almost had disappeared,

and the bones in her shoulders jutted out sharply beneath her

blouse. In addition to her handbag, she carried a bulging briefcase.

"If you think I've become very skinny, very ugly, and very old,

please don't tell me. Where can we go?"

"Nowhere. Here, in Lavapies, all the cafes are as old and dusty as

this one. And all of them are full of smokers. So we'd better say

goodbye here."

"I need to talk to you. It won't take very long, I promise."

She was holding my arm and her fingers, so thin, so bony,

seemed like those of a little girl.

"Do you want to go to my house?" I said, regretting it the very

moment I made the suggestion. "I live close by. But I warn you, it'll

disgust you more than this cafe."

"Let's go wherever," she said. "But if that foul-smelling hippie

shows up, I'll scratch her eyes out."

"She's in Germany, don't worry."

Going up the four flights was long and complicated. She climbed

the stairs very* slowly and stopped to rest at each landing. She never

let go of my arm. When we reached the top floor, she had turned

even paler and her forehead glittered with perspiration.

As soon as we walked in the apartment, she dropped onto the

little armchair in the living room and took deep breaths. Then,

without saying a word or getting up from the spot, she began to

examine everything around her, her eyes very serious and her brows

and forehead wrinkled in a frown: Marcella's models and drawings

and rags scattered everywhere, magazines and books piled up in the

corners and on the shelves, the general disorder. When she came to

the unmade bed, I saw her face change suddenly. I went to the

kitchen to bring her a bottle of mineral water. I found her in the

same place, staring at the bed.

"You had a mania for order and cleanliness, Ricardito," she

murmured. "I find it incredible that you live in such a pigsty."

I sat down beside her and was assailed by a great sadness. What

she said was true. My apartment in Ecole Militaire, small and

modest, had always been impeccably clean and orderly. But this

brothel reflected very clearly your irreversible decline, Ricardito.

"I need you to sign some papers," the bad girl said, pointing at

the briefcase she had set on the floor.

"The only paper I'd sign for you would be the one for our divorce,

if this marriage is still valid," I replied. "Knowing you, I wouldn't be

surprised if you had me sign something fraudulent and I ended up

in jail. I've known you for forty years, Chilean girl."

"You don't know me very* well," she said serenely. "Maybe I could

do some bad things to other people. But not to you."

"You've done the worst things to me that a woman can do to a

man. You made me believe you loved me while you calmly seduced

other men because they had more money, and you left me with no

pangs of conscience. You haven't done it once but twice, three times.

Leaving me destroyed, confused, without the heart for anything. And

then you still have the effrontery to tell me one more time, with the

most brazen face, that you want us to live together again. The truth

is, you ought to be on display in a circus."

"I'm sorry. I won't play any bad tricks on you again."

"You won't have the chance, because I'll never live with you

again. Nobody's loved you like I have, nobody's done all that I...

Well, I feel stupid saying this nonsense to you. What is it you want

from me?"

"Two things," she said. "Leave the dirty hippie and come live with

me. And sign these papers. There's no trick. I've transferred

everything I have to you. A little house in the south of France, near

Sete, and stocks in Electricity of France. Everything's been put in

your name. But you have to sign these papers for the transfer to be

valid. Read them, consult a lawyer. I'm not doing it for me but for

you. I want to leave you everything I have."

"Thank you very much, but I can't accept this very generous gift

from you. Because that little house and those stocks were probably

stolen from mafiosi and I have no desire to be a dummy for you or

the gangster of the day you're working for. Can it be the famous

Fukuda again, I hope?"

Then, before I could stop her, she threw* her arms around my

neck and held on to me with all her strength.

"Stop scolding and saying bad things to me," she complained as

she kissed me on the neck. "Tell me instead you're happy to see me.

Tell me you missed me, that you love me and not the hippie you live

with in this barnyard."

I didn't dare move her aw*ay, terrified of feeling the skeleton her

body had become, a w*aist, back, arms in which all the muscles

seemed to have disappeared, leaving only bones and skin. The frail,

delicate person pressed against me gave off a fragrance that made

me think of a garden filled with flowers. I couldn't pretend anymore.

"Why are you so thin?" I asked in her ear.

"Tell me first you love me. That you don't love this hippie, that

you began to live with her only out of spite, because I left you. Since

I found out you were with her, I've been dying slowly of jealousy."

Now I felt her little heart beating against mine. I searched for her

mouth and gave her a long kiss. I felt her tongue entwined with

mine, and I swallowed her saliva. When I slipped my hand under her

blouse and caressed her back, I felt all her ribs and her spine as if

they weren't separated from my fingers by even the slightest film of

flesh. She had no breasts; her diminutive nipples were flat against

her skin.

"Why are you so thin?" I asked again. "Have you been sick? What

did you have?"

"I can't make love to you, don't touch me there. They operated on

me, they took out everything. I don't want you to see me naked. My

body's covered with scars. I don't want you to be disgusted by me."

She cried in despair and I couldn't calm her. Then I sat her on my

knees and caressed her for a long time, the way I did in Paris when

she had her attacks of fear. Her bottom too had melted away, and

her thighs were as thin as her arms. She looked like one of those

living corpses shown in photographs of concentration camps. I

caressed her, kissed her, told her I loved her and would take care of

her, and, at the same time, I felt an indescribable horror because I

was absolutely certain she hadn't been gravely ill but was gravely ill

now and would die soon. No one could be so thin and recover.

"You still haven't told me you love me more than the hippie,

good boy."

"Of course I love you more than her and more than anybody, bad

girl. You're the only woman in the world I ever loved, the only one I

love now. And though you've done bad things to me, you've also

given me wonderful happiness. Come, I want to have you naked in

my arms and make love to you."

I carried her to the bed, lay her down, and undressed her. With

her eyes closed, she let herself be undressed, turning to the side,

showing me as little of her body as possible. But, caressing and

kissing her, I made her straighten and open out. They hadn't

operated on her, they had destroyed her. Her breasts had been

removed and the nipples crudely replaced, leaving thick, circular

scars like two red corollas. But the worst scar started at her vagina

and meandered up to her navel, a crust between brown and pink that

seemed recent. The impact it had on me was so huge that, without

realizing what I was doing, I covered it with the sheet. And I knew

I'd never be able to make love to her again.

"I didn't want you to see me like this and feel repelled by your

wife," she said. "But-"

"But I love you and now I'll take care of you until you're

completely healed. Why didn't you call me so I could be with you?"

"I couldn't find you anywhere. I've been looking for you for

months. It's what made me most desperate: dying without seeing

you again."

They had operated on her the second time barely three weeks

ago, in a hospital in Montpellier. The doctors had been very frank.

The tumor in her vagina had been detected too late, and though they

removed it, the postoperative examination indicated that metastasis

had begun, and there was almost nothing they could do.