The Bad Girl (39 page)

of yourself and don't suffer too much, good boy."

I unpacked, brushed my teeth, lay down. And spent the rest of

the night in thought, my mind wandering. You've been expecting

this, fearing this, right? You knew it would happen sooner or later,

ever since you moved the bad girl to Rue Joseph Granier seven

months ago. Though out of cowardice you tried not to assume it, to

avoid it, deceive yourself, tell yourself that finally, after those

horrible experiences with Fukuda, she had renounced adventures,

dangers, and resigned herself to living with you. But you always

knew, in your heart of hearts, the illusion would last only as long as

her convalescence. You knew the mediocre, boring life she had with

you would weary her, and once she recovered her health and selfconfidence,

and remorse or her fear of Fukuda had vanished, she

would arrange to meet someone more interesting, richer, less a

creature of habit than you, and undertake a new escapade.

As soon as some light appeared in the skylight I got up, prepared

coffee, and opened the little security box where I always kept cash

for the month's expenses. She had taken it all, naturally. Well, in

reality, it wasn't very much. Who could the lucky man be this time?

When and how had she met him? During one of my business trips,

no doubt. Perhaps at the gym on Avenue Montaigne while she was

doing aerobics and swimming. Perhaps one of those playboys

without an ounce of fat on his body, and good muscles, one of those

who tan under ultraviolet lights and have their nails manicured and

their scalps massaged in barbershops. Had they made love yet, while

she, maintaining the pantomime of staying with me, prepared her

flight in secret? Of course. And no doubt her new lover would be less

careful than you, Ricardito, with her damaged vagina.

I looked through the apartment and there was no trace of her.

She had taken everything down to the last pin. One could say she

never had been here. I showered, dressed, and went out, fleeing

those two and a half small rooms where, just as I told her when I

said goodbye, I had been happier than anywhere else, and where

from now on—once again!—I would be immensely miserable. But,

isn't it what you deserved, Permian? Didn't you know, when you

wouldn't answer her calls, that if you did, if you succumbed again to

this stubborn passion, it would all end the way it has now? There

was nothing to be surprised at: what you always knew would

happen, had happened.

It was a nice day, with no clouds and a coldish sun, and spring

had filled the streets of Paris with green. The parks blazed with

flowers. I walked for hours, along the quays, through the Tuilleries

and the Luxembourg Gardens, going into a cafe for something when

I felt as if I would drop with fatigue. At dusk I had a sandwich and a

beer and then went into a movie without even knowing what film

they were showing. I fell asleep as soon as I sat down and woke only

when the lights went on. I don't remember a single image.

When I left night had fallen. I was filled with despair, afraid I

would begin to cry. You're not only capable of saying cheap,

sentimental things but of living them too, Ricardito. The truth, the

truth was that this time I wouldn't have the strength necessary to

pull myself together as I had the other times, to react and go on

pretending I had forgotten about the bad girl.

I walked along the quays on the Seine to the distant Pont

Mirabeau, trying to remember the first lines of the poem by

Apollinaire, repeating them in a murmur:

Sous le Pont Mirabeau

Coule la Seine

Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne

de nos amours

Ou apres lajoie

Venait toujours la peine?

I had decided coldly, unmelodramatically, that this was, after all,

a worthy way to die: jumping off the bridge, dignified by good

modernist poetry and the intense voice of Juliette Greco, into the

dirty waters of the Seine. Holding my breath or gulping down water,

I would lose consciousness quickly—perhaps lose it with the force of

my body hitting the water—and death would follow immediately. If

you couldn't have the only thing you wanted in life, which was her,

better to end it once and for all and do it this way, little pissant.

I reached the Pont Mirabeau literally soaked to the skin. I hadn't

even realized it was raining. There were no pedestrians or cars

anywhere nearby. I walked to the middle of the bridge and without

hesitating climbed to the metal ledge, where, as I stood on tiptoe to

jump—I swear I was going to do it—I felt a gust of wind in my face

and, at the same time, two large hands encircling my legs and with a

tug making me lose my balance and fall backward onto the asphalt

of the bridge.

"Faispas le con, imbecile!"

He was a clochard who smelled of wine and grime, half lost

inside a large plastic raincoat that covered his head. He had an

enormous beard that looked grayish, turning white. Without helping

me up, he placed his bottle of wine in my mouth and made me

swallow: something hot and strong that stirred up my intestines. A

turned wine becoming vinegar. I felt a wave of nausea but didn't

throw up.

"Fais pas le con, mon vieux," he repeated. And I saw him turn

and move away, staggering, his bottle of sour wine dancing in his

hand. I knew I would always remember his shapeless face, his

bulging bloodshot eyes, his hoarse human voice.

I walked back to Rue Joseph Granier, laughing at myself, filled

with gratitude and admiration for that drunken vagabond on the

Pont Mirabeau who saved my life. I was going to jump, I'd have

done it if he hadn't stopped me. I felt stupid, ridiculous, ashamed,

and had begun to sneeze. All this cheap clownishness would end in a

cold. The bones in my back ached because of my fall onto the

pavement, and I wanted to sleep, sleep the rest of the night, the rest

of my life.

As I was opening the door to my apartment I saw a thin line of

light inside. I crossed the living room in two strides. From the door

to the bedroom I saw the back of the bad girl, standing in front of

the bureau mirror and trying on the Arab dancer's outfit I bought

her in Cairo and didn't think she had put on before. She had to have

heard me but didn't turn to look at me, as if a ghost had entered the

room.

"What are you doing here?" I said, shouted, or roared, paralyzed

in the doorway, hearing how strange my voice sounded, like a man

being strangled.

Very calmly, as if nothing had happened and the entire scene was

the most trivial in the world, the dark, half-naked figure, wrapped in

veils, from whose waist hung strips that could have been leather or

chains, turned slightly and looked at me, smiling.

"I changed my mind and here I am back again." She spoke as if

she were telling me a bit of casual gossip. And, moving on to more

important things, she pointed at her dress and said, "It was a little

big but now I think it fits well. How do I look?"

She couldn't say anything else because I, I don't know how,

crossed the room in a single stride and slapped her with all my

strength. I saw a gleam of terror in her eyes, I saw her rock back,

lean against the bureau, fall to the floor, and I heard her say, maybe

shout, without losing any of her serenity, her theatrical calm,

"You're learning how to treat women, Ricardito."

I dropped to the floor next to her and took hold of her shoulders

and shook her, crazed, vomiting up my indignation, my fury, my

stupidity, my jealousy.

"It's a miracle I'm not at the bottom of the Seine because of you,

of you"—the words crowded together in my mouth, my tongue

became thick. "These last twenty-four hours you've made me die a

thousand times. What game are you playing with me, tell me, what

game? Is that why you called me, looked for me, when I finally had

freed myself of you? How long do you think I'll put up with it? I

have my limits too. I could kill you."

At that moment, in fact, I realized I could have killed her if I

went on shaking her. Frightened, I let her go. She was livid and

looked at me openmouthed, protecting herself with both arms

raised.

"I don't recognize you, you're not yourself," she murmured, and

her voice broke. She began to rub her cheek and right temple, which,

in the half-light, looked swollen.

"I was on the verge of killing myself over you," I repeated, my

voice saturated with rancor and hate. "I climbed onto the railing of

the bridge to throw myself in the river and a clochard saved me. A

suicide, the thing that was missing in your resume. Do you think

you can go on playing with me this way? It's clear I'll be free of you

forever only by killing myself or killing you."

"That's a lie, you don't want to kill yourself or kill me," she said,

crawling toward me. "You just want to ball me. Isn't that right? And

I want you to ball me too. Or if that language bothers you, to make

love to me."

It was the first time I heard her use that word, a Peruvianism I

hadn't heard for centuries.

She had risen partially to throw herself into my arms and

touched my clothing, horrified. "You're soaked, you'll catch a cold,

take off that wet clothing, idiot. If you like, you can kill me later, but

right now make love to me." She had recovered her serenity and was

mistress of the situation. My heart was in my mouth and I could

barely breathe. I thought how stupid it would be for me to have a

heart attack just at that moment. She helped me take off my jacket,

trousers, shoes, shirt—everything looked as if it had just come out of

the water—and as she helped me undress, she passed her hand over

my hair in that single, rare caress she sometimes deigned to give me.

"How your heart is pounding, you little fool," she said a moment

later, placing her ear on my chest. "Have I done that to you?" I had

begun to caress her too, even though I hadn't yet taken control of

my rage. But those feelings were mixing now with a growing desire

that she inflamed—she had pulled off the dancer's outfit and,

stretching out on top of me, dried me by moving her body along

mine, putting her tongue in my mouth, making me swallow her

saliva, grasping my sex, caressing it with both hands, and, finally,

curling around herself like an eel, placing it in her mouth. I kissed

her, caressed her, embraced her, without the delicacy of other times

but roughly, still wounded and hurt, and finally I forced her to take

my sex out of her mouth and lie under me. She spread her legs,

docilely, when she felt my hard sex forcing its way into her. I

entered her brutally and heard her howl with pain. But she didn't

push me away, and with her body tense, moaning, sobbing softly,

she waited for me to ejaculate. Her tears wet my face and I kissed

them away. She was pale, her eyes popping, her face distorted by

pain.

"It's better if you go, if you really leave me," I implored,

trembling from head to foot. "Today I was ready to kill myself and I

almost killed you. I don't want that. Go on, find someone else, a

man who'll make you live intensely, like Fukuda. A man who'll beat

you, lend you to his pals, make you swallow powders so you'll fart in

his filthy face. You're not the woman to live with a tiresome

hypocrite like me."

She put her arms around my neck and kissed my mouth as I

spoke. Her entire body moved to adjust to mine.

"I don't intend to leave now or ever," she whispered in my ear.

"Don't ask me why, because I won't tell you even when I'm dead. I'll

never tell you I love you even if I do love you."

At that moment I must have passed out, or fallen asleep

suddenly, though after her last words, I felt all my strength drain

away and everything begin to spin around me. I awoke much later,

in the darkened room, feeling a warm body entangled with mine. We

were lying under the sheets and blankets, and through the large

skylight I saw a star twinkling. It must have stopped raining a while

ago because the glass was no longer misted over. The bad girl was

pressed against me, her legs entwined with mine and her mouth

resting on my cheek. I could feel her heart; it was beating steadily

inside me. My anger had vanished and now I was filled with remorse

for having hit her and for making her suffer while I made love to

her. I kissed her tenderly, trying not to wake her, and whispered

soundlessly in her ear, "I love you, I love you, I love you." She wasn't

sleeping. She held me closer and spoke to me, placing her lips on

mine, while between words her tongue flickered against mine.

"You'll never live quietly with me, I warn you. Because I don't

want you to get tired of me, to get used to me. And even if we marry

to straighten out my papers, I'll never be your wife. I always want to

be your lover, your lapdog, your whore. Like tonight. Because then

I'll always keep you crazy about me."

She said these things kissing me without pause and trying to get