The Bad Girl (11 page)

Quillabamba, in the Cuzcan valley of La Convention, and captured

the Illarec ch'aska (morning star) camp, killing a good number of

guerrillas. Luis de la Puente, Paul Escobar, and a handful of their

followers had managed to escape, but the commandos, after a long

pursuit, surrounded and killed them. The article indicated that

military planes had bombed Mesa Pelada, using napalm. The corpses

had not been returned to their families or shown to the press.

According to the official communique, they had been buried in a

secret location to prevent their graves from becoming destinations

for revolutionary pilgrimages. The army showed reporters the

weapons, uniforms, documents, as well as maps and radio

equipment the guerrillas had stored at Mesa Pelada. In this way the

Pachacutec column, one of the rebel focal points of the Permian

revolution, had been wiped out. The army was hopeful that the

Tupac Amaru column, headed by Guillermo Lobaton and also under

siege, would soon fall.

"I don't know why you're making that face, you knew this would

happen sooner or later," Madame Arnoux said in surprise. "You

yourself told me so many times that this was the only way it could

turn out."

"I said it as a kind of magic charm, so it wouldn't happen."

I had said it and thought it and feared it, of course, but it was

different knowing it had happened and that Paul, the good friend

and companion of my early days in Paris, was now a corpse rotting

in some desolate wasteland in the eastern Andes, perhaps after

being executed—and no doubt tortured if the soldiers had captured

him alive. I overcame my feelings and proposed to the Chilean girl

that we drop the subject and not let the news ruin the gift from the

gods of my having her to myself for an entire weekend. She

managed that with no difficulty; for her, it seemed to me, Peru was

something she had very deliberately expelled from her thoughts like

a mass of bad memories (poverty, racism, discrimination, being

disregarded, multiple frustrations?), and, perhaps, she had made the

decision a long time ago to break forever with her native land. But in

spite of my efforts, I couldn't forget the damn news in Le Monde and

concentrate on the bad girl. Throughout supper at Allard, the ghost

of my friend took away my appetite and my good humor.

"It seems to me you're in no mood to faire la fete" she said with

compassion when we were having dessert. "Do you want to leave it

for another time, Ricardito?"

I insisted I didn't and kissed her hands and swore that in spite of

the awful news, spending a night with her was the most wonderful

thing that had ever happened to me. But when we reached my

apartment on Joseph Granier, and she took a coquettish baby-doll,

her toothbrush, and a change of clothes for the next day out of her

overnight case, and we lay down on the bed—I had bought flowers

for the living room and bedroom—I began to caress her and realized,

to my embarrassment and humiliation, that I was in no condition to

make love to her.

"This is what the French call a fiasco," she said, laughing. "Do

you know this is the first time it's happened to me with a man?"

"How many have you been with? Let me guess. Ten? Twenty?"

"I'm terrible at math," she said in anger. And she took her

revenge with a command: "Make me come with your mouth. I have

no reason to be in mourning. I hardly knew your friend Paul, and

besides, remember it was his fault I had to go to Cuba."

And just like that, as casually as she would have lit a cigarette,

she spread her legs and lay back, her arm across her eyes, in that

total immobility, that deep concentration into which, forgetting

about me and the world around her, she sank to wait for her

pleasure. She always took a long time to become excited and finish,

but that night she took even longer than usual, and two or three

times my tongue cramped and for a few moments I had to stop

kissing and sucking her. Each time her hand admonished me,

pulling my hair or pinching my shoulder. At last I felt her move and

heard the quiet little purr that seemed to move up from her belly to

her mouth, and I felt her limbs contract and heard her long, satisfied

sigh. "Thank you, Ricardito," she murmured. She fell asleep almost

immediately. I was awake for a long time, my throat tight with

anguish. My sleep was restless, and I had nightmares I could barely

recall the next day.

I awoke at about nine. The sun was no longer shining. Through

the skylight I could see the overcast sky, the color of a burro's belly,

the eternal Parisian sky. She slept, her back to me. She seemed very

young and fragile with her girl's body, quiet now, hardly stirred by

her light, slow breathing. No one, seeing her like this, could have

imagined the difficult life she must have had since she was born. I

tried to picture her childhood, being poor in the hell that Peru is for

the poor, and her adolescence, perhaps even worse, the countless

difficulties, defeats, sacrifices, concessions she must have suffered

in Peru, in Cuba, in order to move ahead and reach the place she was

now. And how hard and cold having to defend herself tooth and nail

against misfortune had made her, all the beds she'd had to pass

through to avoid being crushed by a life her experiences had

convinced her was a battlefield. I felt immense tenderness toward

her. I was sure it was my good fortune, and also my misfortune, that

I would always love her. Seeing her and feeling her breathe excited

me. I began to kiss her on the back, very* slowly, her pert little ass,

her neck and shoulders, and, turning her toward me, her breasts and

mouth. She pretended to sleep but was already awake, since she

arranged herself on her back to receive me. She was wet, and for the

first time I could enter her without difficulty, without feeling I was

making love to a virgin. I loved her, I loved her, I couldn't live

without her. I begged her to leave Monsieur Arnoux and come to

me, I'd earn a lot of money, I'd pamper her, I'd satisfy her every

whim, I'd...

"Well, you've redeemed yourself," and she burst into laughter,

"and you even held out longer than usual. I thought you'd become

impotent after last night's fiasco."

I proposed fixing breakfast, but she wanted us to go out, she was

longing for un croissant croustillant. We showered together, she let

me wash and dry- her and, as I sat on the bed, watch her dress, comb

her hair, and put on makeup. I slipped her shoes onto her feet, first

kissing her toes one by one. We walked hand in hand to a bistrot on

Avenue de la Bourdonnais where, in fact, the half-moons crunched

as if they had just come out of the oven.

"If instead of sending me to Cuba that time you had let me stay

with you here in Paris, how long would we have lasted, Ricardito?"

"All our lives. I'd have made you so happy you never would have

left me."

She stopped joking and looked at me, very serious, and

somewhat contemptuous.

"How naive you are, what a dreamer." She enunciated each

syllable, defying me with her eyes. "You don't know me. I'd only stay

forever with a man who was very, very rich and powerful, which

you'll never be, unfortunately."

"And what if money wasn't happiness, bad girl?"

"Happiness, I don't know and I don't care what it is, Ricardito.

What I am sure about is that it isn't the romantic, vulgar thing it is

for you. Money gives you security, it protects you, it lets you enjoy

life thoroughly and not worry* about tomorrow. It's the only

happiness you can touch."

She sat looking at me, wearing the cold expression that

intensified sometimes in a strange way and seemed to freeze the life

around her.

"You're very nice but you have a terrible defect: lack of ambition.

You're satisfied with what you have, aren't you? But it isn't

anything, good boy. That's why I couldn't be your wife. I'll never be

satisfied with what I have. I'll always want more."

I didn't know how to respond, because though it hurt me, she

had said something that was true. For me, happiness was having her

and living in Paris. Did that mean you were unredeemable* mediocre,

Ricardito? Yes, probably. Before we went back to the apartment,

Madame Robert Arnoux went to make a phone call. She came back

with a worried face.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go, good boy. Things have become

difficult."

She offered no explanations and wouldn't let me take her to her

house or wherever she had to go. We went up for her overnight bag

and I accompanied her to the taxi stand next to the Ecole Militaire

Metro station.

"In spite of everything it was a nice weekend," she said, brushing

my lips. "Ciao, mon amour"

When I returned home, surprised at her abrupt departure, I

discovered she had left her toothbrush in the bathroom. A beautiful

little brush that had the name of the manufacturer stamped on the

handle: Guerlain. Forgotten? Probably not. Probably a deliberate

oversight in order to leave me a memento of the sad night and happy

waking.

That week I couldn't see or talk to her, and the following week,

without being able to say goodbye—she didn't answer the phone no

matter what time I called—I left for Vienna to work for two weeks at

the International Atomic Energy Agency. I loved that baroque,

elegant, prosperous city, but a temp's work during those periods

when international organizations have congresses, general sessions,

or annual conferences—which is when they need extra translators

and interpreters—is so intense it didn't leave me time for museums,

concerts, or the Opera, except one afternoon when I made a fast visit

to the Albertina. At night I was exhausted and barely had the energy

to go into one of the old cafes, the Central, the Landtmann, the

Hawelka, the Frauenhuber, with their belleepoque decor, to have a

wiener schnitzel, the Austrian version of the breaded steak my aunt

Alberta used to make, and a glass of foaming beer. I was groggy

when I got into bed. I called the bad girl several times but nobody

answered, or the phone was busy. I didn't dare call Robert Arnoux at

UNESCO, afraid I'd arouse his suspicions. At the end of the two

weeks, Senor Charnes telegraphed me proposing a ten-day contract

in Rome for a seminar followed by a conference at the Food and

Agriculture Organization, so that I traveled to Italy without passing

through Paris. I couldn't reach her from Rome, either. I called her as

soon as I was back in France. Without success, of course. What was

going on? I began to have anguished thoughts of an accident, an

illness, a domestic tragedy.

My nerves were so on edge because I couldn't communicate with

Madame Arnoux that I had to read the most recent letter from Uncle

Ataulfo twice; I found it waiting for me in Paris. I couldn't

concentrate or get the Chilean girl out of my mind. Uncle Ataulfo

gave me long interpretations of the political situation in Peru. The

Tupac Amaru column of the MIR, led by Lobaton, hadn't been

captured yet, though army communiques reported constant clashes

in which the guerrillas always suffered losses. According to the

press, Lobaton and his people had gone deep into the forest and

made alliances among the Amazonian tribes, principally the

Ashaninka, dispersed throughout the region bounded by the Ene,

Perene, Satipo, and Anapati rivers. There were rumors that the

Ashaninka communities, seduced by Lobaton's personality,

identified him with a mythical hero, Itomi Pava, the atavistic

dispenser of justice who, according to legend, would come back one

day to restore the power of their nation. Military planes had bombed

forest villages on the suspicion they were hiding Miristas.

After more fruitless attempts to speak with Madame Arnoux, I

decided to go to UNESCO and see her husband, using the pretext of

inviting them to supper. I went first to say hello to Senor Charnes

and my colleagues in the Spanish office. Then I went up to the sixth

floor, the sanctum sanctorum, where the head offices were located.

From the door I could see Monsieur Arnoux's ravaged face and

brush mustache. He gave a strange start when he saw me and

seemed gruffer than ever, as if my presence displeased him. Was he

ill? He seemed to have aged ten years in the few weeks I hadn't seen

him. He extended a reluctant hand without saying a word and waited

for me to speak, giving me a penetrating stare with his rodent eyes.

"I've been working away from Paris this past month, in Vienna

and Rome. I'd like to invite the two of you to have supper one night

when you're free."

He kept looking at me, not answering. He was very pale now, his

expression desolate, and he pursed his lips as if it were difficult for

him to speak. My hands began to tremble. Was he going to tell me

that his wife had died?

"Then you haven't heard," he murmured drily. "Or are you