The Bad Girl (27 page)

were smiling and holding hands.

"Nothing like arguments to keep love alive," Salomon said with

the smile of a satisfied man, winking at me. "But the man has to

discipline the woman occasionally to keep her in her place."

When we left there were two taxis waiting for us again, and as he

had earlier, Mr. Fukuda decided with a gesture that I would get into

one of them with Kuriko. He left with Salomon and Mitsuko. I

began to like the hated Japanese because of the privileges he

granted me.

"At least let me have the shoe for the foot you've been touching

me with all night. I'll go to bed with it, since I can't do that with you.

And I'll keep it next to the Guerlain toothbrush."

But to my surprise, when we reached Fukuda's building, Kuriko,

instead of saying good night, took me by the hand and invited me to

go up with her to have "one for the road" in her apartment. In the

elevator I kissed her desperately. As I kissed her I said I would never

forgive her for looking so beautiful on this night in particular, when

I had discovered that her ears were miraculous minimalist creations.

I adored them and would like to cut them off, embalm them, and

carry them around the world in the jacket pocket closest to my

heart.

"Go on, go on with your cheap, sentimental things, you

sentimental man." She looked pleased, smiling, very much in

control.

Fukuda wasn't in the living room. "I'll see if he's back," she

murmured, after pouring me a glass of whiskey on the rocks. She

returned right away, her face afire with a provocative expression.

"He hasn't come back. You have what you wanted, good boy, that

means he won't come back at all. He'll sleep somewhere else."

She didn't seem very sorry that her sickness, her vice, had

abandoned her. On the contrary, it seemed to make her happy. She

explained that Fukuda would disappear suddenly like this after a

supper or going to the movies, not saying anything to her. And the

next day, when he came back, he wouldn't explain anything.

"Do you mean he's going to spend the night with another

woman? Having the most beautiful woman in the world in his

house, the imbecile is capable of spending the night with someone

else?"

"Not all men have your good taste," said Kuriko, dropping onto

my knees and throwing her arms around my neck.

As I embraced her and caressed her and kissed her on the neck,

the shoulders, the ears, she said it wasn't possible that fate, or the

gods, or whatever, had been so generous with me, chasing away the

Yakuza boss and granting me so much happiness.

"Are you sure he won't come back?" I asked after a moment, in a

sudden attack of lucidity.

"No, I know him, if he hasn't come back it's because he won't

spend the night here. Why, Ricardito? Are you afraid?"

"No, not afraid. If you asked me today to kill him, I'd kill him.

I've never been so happy in my life, Japanese girl. And you've never

been as beautiful as you are tonight."

"Come, come."

I followed her, resisting my vertigo. The objects in the living

room moved around me in slow motion. I felt so happy as I passed

the picture window through which you could see the city, that I

thought if I went through one of the panes and threw myself into

the void, I'd float like a feather over the interminable blanket of

lights. A hallway in the semidarkness had erotic prints on the walls.

A room in shadows, carpeted, where I stumbled and fell onto a large,

soft bed with a number of pillows. Without my asking, Kuriko began

to take off her clothes. And when she had finished, she helped me to

strip.

"What are you waiting for, silly?"

"Are you sure he won't come back?"

Instead of answering, she pressed her body to mine, wrapped

herself around me, searched for my mouth, and filled it with her

saliva. Never had I felt so excited, so moved, so fortunate. Was all

this really happening? The bad girl never had been so ardent, so

enthusiastic, never had taken so many initiatives in bed. She always

had adopted a passive, almost indifferent attitude, seeming to resign

herself to being kissed, caressed, loved, with no contribution on her

part. Now she was the one kissing and nibbling my entire body,

responding to my caresses instantly, with a resolution that

astonished me. "Don't you want me to do what you like?" I

murmured. "First me," she replied, pushing me with affectionate

hands so I'd lie down on my back and spread my legs. She squatted

between my knees, and for the first time since we made love in that

chambre de bonne in the Hotel du Senat, she did what I had begged

her to do so many times and she had always refused: to put my sex

in her mouth and suck it. I heard myself moan, overwhelmed by the

immeasurable pleasure that was disintegrating me piece by piece,

atom by atom, transforming me into pure sensation, into music, into

crackling flame. Then, in one of those seconds or minutes of

miraculous suspension, when I felt my entire being concentrated in

that piece of grateful flesh the bad girl was licking, kissing, sucking,

swallowing, while her fingers caressed my testicles, I saw Fukuda.

He was half hidden in the shadows beside a large television set,

as if he were separated by the darkness in that corner of the

bedroom, two or three meters at the most from the bed where

Kuriko and I were making love, sitting on a chair or a bench, as

motionless and mute as a sphinx, with his eternal movie gangster's

dark glasses and both hands in his fly.

Grabbing her by the hair, I obliged the bad girl to let go of the sex

she had in her mouth—I heard her complain about my pulling her

hair—and completely shaken by surprise, fear, and confusion, I

stupidly said in her ear, in a very quiet voice: "But, he's there,

Fukuda's there." Instead of jumping out of the bed, putting on a

horrified expression, starting to run, going mad, screaming, after a

second's vacillation during which she began to turn her head toward

the corner but thought better of it, I saw her do the only thing I

never would have suspected or wanted her to do: put her arms

around me, press against me with all her strength to keep me in the

bed, seek out my mouth, bite me, pass me her saliva mixed with my

semen, and say desperately, hurriedly, in anguish, "And what do you

care if he's here or not, silly? Aren't you enjoying it, aren't I making

you enjoy it? Don't look at him, forget about him."

Paralyzed by astonishment, I understood everything: Fukuda

hadn't surprised us, he was there with the complicity of the bad girl,

enjoying a show prepared by the two of them. I had fallen into a

trap. The surprising things that had happened were clarified, they

had been carefully planned by the Japanese and executed by her,

submissive to his orders and desires. I understood the reason for

how effusive Kuriko had been with me these two days and, above all,

tonight. She hadn't done it for me, or for herself, but for him. To

please her lord. For the enjoyment of her master. My heart pounded

as if it would burst, and I could hardly breathe. I was no longer

dizzy, and I felt my penis go flaccid, slipping away, shrinking, as if it

were ashamed. I shoved her away and partially sat up, restrained by

her, as I shouted, "I'll kill you, you son of a bitch! Damn you!"

But Fukuda was no longer in the corner, or in the room, and now

the bad girl's mood had changed and she insulted me, her voice and

face distorted by rage.

"What's wrong with you, you idiot? Why are you making a

scene?" She hit me on the face, the chest, wherever she could, with

both hands. "Don't be ridiculous, don't be provincial. You always

have been and always will be a sorry bastard, what else could I

expect from you, little pissant."

In the semidarkness, as I tried to move her away, I looked for my

clothes on the floor. I don't know how I found them, or got dressed,

or put on my shoes, or how long the farcical scene lasted. Kuriko

had stopped hitting me, but she sat on the bed and screeched,

hysterical, mixing sobs and insults.

"Did you think I'd do this for you, you pauper, you failure, you

imbecile? But who are you, who did you think you were? Ah, you'd

die if you knew how much I despise you, how much I hate you, you

coward."

At last I finished dressing and almost ran down the hall with the

erotic prints, wanting Fukuda to be waiting for me in the living room

with a revolver in his hand and two bodyguards armed with clubs,

because then I'd rush him, try to pull off those hateful glasses, spit

in his face so they would kill me right away. But nobody was in the

living room or the elevator. Downstairs, in the doorway of the

building, trembling with cold and rage, I had to wait a long time for

the taxi that the uniformed doorman called for me.

In my hotel room I lay on my bed, fully dressed. I felt exhausted,

distressed, offended, and I didn't even have the energy to take off

my clothes. I was awake for hours, my mind a blank, feeling like

human junk saturated with a stupid innocence, a naive imbecility. I

kept repeating, like a mantra: "It's your fault, Ricardo. You knew

her. You knew what she was capable of. She never loved you, she

always despised you. What are you crying about, little pissant? What

are you complaining about, what are you grieving for, dimwit, prick,

imbecile? That's what you are, everything she called you and more.

You ought to be happy, and like assholes and modern, intelligent

people do, tell yourself you got what you wanted. Didn't you fuck

her? Didn't she suck your dick? Didn't you come in her mouth?

What else do you want? What do you care if that midget, that

Yakuza was there, watching you fuck his whore? What do you care

about what happened? Who told you to fall in love with her? You're

to blame for everything, Ricardito, you and no one else."

When day broke I shaved, showered, packed my bag, and called

Japan Airlines to move up my return to Paris, which I was obliged to

do by way of Korea. I managed to arrange a seat on the noon plane

to Seoul, so I had just enough time to get to Narita Airport. I called

the Dragoman to say goodbye, telling him it was urgent I return to

Paris because I had just been offered a good contract. He insisted on

seeing me off even though I did everything I could to talk him out of

it.

When I was at reception, paying the bill, I received a phone call.

As soon as I heard the voice of the bad girl saying "Hello, hello," I

hung up. I went out to the street to wait for the Dragoman. We took

a bus that picked up passengers from different hotels, so it took

more than an hour to reach Narita. On the way, my friend asked if

I'd had some problem with Kuriko or with Fukuda, and I assured

him I hadn't, that my impetuous departure was due to the excellent

contract Senor Charnes had offered me by fax. He didn't believe me

but didn't insist.

And then, turning to his own affairs, he began to talk to me about

Mitsuko. He had always been allergic to matrimony, he considered it

a surrender for any free person like himself. But, since Mitsuko was

so insistent on their marrying, and had turned out to be such a nice

girl, and had treated him so well, he was thinking about sacrificing

his liberty, giving her that pleasure, and marrying. "In the Shinto

rite, if necessary, dear friend."

I didn't dare even to suggest it probably would be a good idea for

him to wait a while before taking so transcendental a step. As he

talked to me, I felt sorry down to the marrow of my bones, thinking

about how much he was going to suffer when, one of these days,

Mitsuko found the courage to tell him she wanted to break it off

because she didn't love him and even had grown to detest him.

At Narita, as I gave the Dragoman a hug when they announced

my flight to Seoul, I felt, absurdly enough, my eyes fill with tears

when I heard him say, "Would you agree to be a witness at my

wedding, dear friend?"

"Of course, old man, it would be an honor."

Two days later I arrived in Paris, a physical and moral ruin. I

hadn't closed my eyes or had a bite of food in forty-eight hours. But

I arrived, also decided—I had reflected on this resolution during the

entire trip—not to allow myself to be completely disheartened, to

overcome the depression that was undermining me. I knew the

recipe. This could be cured by working and filling my free time with

occupations that would at least be absorbing if they couldn't be

creative or useful. Feeling that my will was dragging my body behind

it, I asked Senor Charnes to find me a good number of contracts

because I needed to pay off an important debt. He did, with the

benevolence he had always shown for as long as I had known him.

In the months that followed, I was not in Paris very often. I worked

at all kinds of conferences and meetings in London, Vienna, Italy,

the Scandinavian countries, and a couple of times in Africa, in Cape