The Bad Girl (32 page)

down and help me.

The three of us got her up to my apartment and laid her on my

bed. My friends asked nothing but looked at the bad girl with avid

curiosity, as if she had risen from the dead. Elena lent her a

nightgown and took her temperature and blood pressure. She had no

fever, but her pressure was very low. When she was fully conscious

again, Elena had her sip a cup of very hot tea, with two pills that, she

said, were a simple restorative. When she said goodbye, she assured

me she didn't see any imminent danger, but if, in the course of the

night, the bad girl felt ill, I should wake her. Elena herself would call

the Hopital Cochin and have them send an ambulance. In view of

her fainting spells, a complete medical examination was

indispensable. She would arrange everything, but it would take a

couple of days at least.

When I returned to the bedroom, I found her with eyes open

wide.

"You must be cursing the hour you picked up the phone," she

said. "I've done nothing but make problems for you."

"Ever since I've known you, you've done nothing but make

problems for me. It's my destiny. And there's nothing you can do to

fight destiny. Look, here it is in case you need it. It's yours. But you

have to return it to me."

And I took the Guerlain toothbrush out of the night table. She

examined it, amused.

"Do you mean you still have it? It's your second gallantry of the

evening. What luxury. Where are you going to sleep, if you don't

mind my asking?"

"The sofa in the living room is a sofa bed, so don't get your hopes

up. There's no chance at all that I'll sleep with you."

She laughed again. But that small effort fatigued her, and curling

up under the sheets, she closed her eyes. I covered her with the

blankets and put my bathrobe at her feet. I went to brush my teeth,

put on my pajamas, and pull out the sofa bed in the living room.

When I returned to the bedroom, she was asleep, breathing

normally. The light from the street that filtered through the skylight

illuminated her face: still very pale, with its pointed nose and,

through her hair, glimpses of her beautiful ears. Her mouth was half

open, the sides of her nose palpitating, and her expression was

languid, totally abandoned. When I brushed her hair with my lips I

felt her breath on my face. I went to lie down. I fell asleep almost

immediately but awoke a couple of times in the night, and both

times I tiptoed in to see her. She was asleep, breathing evenly. The

skin on her face was drawn tight and her bones stood out. As she

breathed, her chest lightly moved the blankets up and down. I

imagined her small heart, thought of it beating wearily.

The next morning, I was preparing breakfast when I heard her

get up. I was brewing coffee when she appeared in the kitchen,

wrapped in my robe. It was enormous on her, and she looked like a

clown. Her bare feet were like a little girl's.

"I slept almost eight hours," she said in astonishment. "That

hasn't happened for ages. Last night I fainted, didn't I?"

"Nothing but an act so I'd bring you home. And, as you can see, I

did. And you even got into my bed. You know all the tricks from

soup to nuts, bad girl."

"I ruined your night, didn't I, Ricardito?"

"And you'll ruin my day too. Because you're going to stay here, in

bed, while Elena arranges things at the Hopital Cochin so they can

give you a complete checkup. No arguments allowed. The time has

come for me to impose my authority over you, bad girl."

"Wow, what progress. You talk as if you were my lover."

But this time I didn't make her smile. She looked at me, her face

contorted, her eyes gloomy. She looked very comical this way, with

her hair disheveled and the robe dragging on the floor. I approached

and embraced her. She was trembling and felt very fragile. I thought

that if I tightened the embrace a little she would break, like a baby

bird.

"You're not going to die," I whispered in her ear, just kissing her

hair. "They'll do the exam, and if something's wrong, they'll treat it.

And you'll be attractive again, and we'll see if you can get me to fall

in love with you again. And now come, let's have breakfast, I don't

want to get to UNESCO late."

As we were having coffee and toast, Elena stopped in on her way

to work. She took the bad girl's temperature again, and her blood

pressure, and found her better than the night before. But she told

her to stay in bed all day and eat light things. She would try to

arrange everything at the hospital so she could be admitted

tomorrow. Elena asked what she needed, and the bad girl requested

a hairbrush.

Before I left, I showed her the food in the refrigerator and the

cupboard, more than enough for her to fix some chicken or buttered

noodles in the afternoon. I'd take care of supper when I got back. If

she felt sick, she had to call me immediately at UNESCO. She

nodded without saying anything, looking at everything with a lost

expression, as if she hadn't really understood what was happening to

her.

I called early in the afternoon. She felt well. A bubble bath in my

tub had made her happy, because for at least six months she had

taken only showers in public bathhouses, always in a rush. In the

evening, when I returned, I found her and Yilal absorbed in a Laurel

and Hardy movie that sounded absurd dubbed into French. But they

seemed to be enjoying themselves and celebrated the clowning of

the fat man and the thin man. She had put on a pair of my pajamas,

and on top of that the bathrobe in which she seemed lost. Her hair

was combed, and her face was fresh and smiling.

On his slate, Yilal asked, pointing at the bad girl: "Are you going

to marry her, Uncle Ricardo?"

"Not a chance," I told him, putting on a horrified face. "That's

what she'd like. She's been trying to seduce me for years. But I don't

pay attention to her."

"Pay attention," Yilal replied, writing quickly on his slate. "She's

nice and she'll be a good wife."

"What have you done to buy off this child, guerrilla fighter?"

"I told him things about Japan and Africa. He's very good in

geography. He knows the capitals better than I do."

During the three days the bad girl stayed in my house, before

Elena found a place for her at the Hopital Cochin, my guest and Yilal

became intimate friends. They played checkers and laughed and

joked as if they were the same age. They had such a good time

together that although they kept the television on for the sake of

appearances, in reality* they didn't even look at the screen as they

concentrated on JanKenPo, a hand game I hadn't seen played since

my childhood in Miraflores: the rock breaks the scissors, the paper

encloses the rock, the scissors cuts the paper. Sometimes she began

reading Yilal the stories of Jules Verne, but after a few lines she

abandoned the text and began to tell a nonsensical version of the

story until Yilal pulled the book from her hands, shaking with

laughter. On all three nights we had supper at the Gravoskis' house.

The bad girl helped Elena cook and wash the dishes, while they

chatted and told jokes. It was as if the four of us were two couples

who had been friends all our lives.

On the second night, she insisted on sleeping on the sofa bed and

giving my bedroom back to me. I had to do as she asked, because she

threatened to leave if I didn't. Those first two days she was in good

spirits; at least, she seemed to be at nightfall, when I returned from

UNESCO and found her playing on equal terms with Yilal. On the

third day, I awoke while it was still dark, certain I heard someone

crying. I listened and had no doubt: it was quiet, intermittent

weeping, with parentheses of silence. I went to the living room and

found her curled up in the sofa bed, covering her mouth, drenched

in tears. She was trembling from head to toe. I wiped her face,

smoothed her hair, brought her a glass of water.

"Do you feel sick? Do you want me to wake Elena?"

"I'm going to die," she said very quietly, whimpering. "They

infected me with something in Lagos, and nobody knows what it is.

They say it isn't AIDS, but then, what is it? I hardly have strength for

anything. Not for eating, or walking, or lifting my arm. The same

thing happened to Juan Barreto in Newmarket, don't you

remember? And I always have a discharge down there that looks like

pus. It isn't only the pain. It's that I feel so much disgust for my

body and everything else since Lagos."

She sobbed for a long time, complaining of cold even though she

was wrapped up. I dried her eyes and gave her some water,

disheartened by a feeling of powerlessness. What should I give her,

what should I say to her to take her out of this state? Until, at last, I

felt her fall asleep. I went back to the bedroom with fear in my heart.

Yes, she was very sick, perhaps with AIDS, and probably would end

up like poor Juan Barreto.

That afternoon, when I got home from work, she was ready to go

to the Hopital Cochin the following morning. She had gone in a cab

for her things and had a suitcase and an overnight bag in the closet.

I berated her. Why hadn't she waited for me to go with her to pick

up her luggage? She replied quickly that she was embarrassed to let

me see the hole where she had been living.

The next morning, carrying only the small overnight bag, she left

with Elena; When she said goodbye, she murmured in my ear

something that made me happy.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me, good boy."

The two days the medical examination was supposed to take

lengthened into four, and I couldn't see her on any of them. The

hospital was very strict about their schedule, and it was too late for

visitors by the time I left UNESCO. And I couldn't talk to her on the

phone. At night, Elena told me what she had been able to find out.

The bad girl was enduring the examinations, analyses, questions,

and needles with fortitude: Elena worked in another pavilion but

had arranged to stop in and see her a couple of times a day.

Furthermore, Professor Bourrichon, an internist, one of the

luminaries at the hospital, had taken her case because of his interest

in it. In the afternoons, when I saw Yilal in front of the television

set, I would find this question on his slate: "When will she be back?"

On the night of the fourth day, after feeding Yilal and putting

him to bed, Elena came to my house to give me news. Though they

were still waiting for the results of a couple of tests, that afternoon

Professor Bourrichon had told her a few conclusions in advance. The

bad girl was suffering from extreme malnutrition and acute

depressive dejection, a loss of the vital impulse. She required

immediate psychological treatment to help her recover "hopefulness

in life" without it any program of physical recuperation would be

useless. The story- about the rape was probably true; she showed

signs of lacerations and scars in her vagina as well as her rectum,

and had a suppurating wound produced by a metal or wooden

instrument—she didn't remember which—introduced by force,

which had torn one of the vaginal walls very close to her womb. It

was surprising that this badly treated lesion had not caused

septicemia. A surgical intervention was necessary to clean the

abscess and suture the wound. But the most delicate part of her

clinical picture was the intense stress that, as a result of her

experience in Lagos and the uncertainty of her current situation,

made her depressed, insecure, lacking in appetite, and subject to

attacks of terror. Her fainting spells were a consequence of that

trauma. Heart, brain, and stomach were functioning normally.

"They'll perform a small surgical procedure on her womb early

tomorrow," Elena added. "Dr. Pineau, the surgeon, is a friend and

won't charge anything. Only the anesthetist and the medicines will

have to be paid for. About three thousand francs, more or less."

"No problem, Elena."

"After all, the news isn't too bad, is it?" she said encouragingly.

"It could have been much worse, keeping in mind the butchery

performed on the poor woman by those savages. Professor

Bourrichon recommends that she have absolute rest in a clinic

where they have good psychologists. She mustn't fall into the hands

of one of those Lacanians who could trap her in a labyrinth and

make things more complicated for her than they already are. The

problem is that those kinds of clinics tend to be very expensive."

"I'll take care of getting her what she needs. The important thing

is to find her a good specialist who'll get her out of this so she can be

what she was, not the corpse she's turned into."

"We'll find one, I promise," Elena said with a smile, patting my

arm. "She's the great love of your life, isn't she, Ricardo?"

"The only one, Elena. The only woman I've loved, ever since she