The Bad Girl

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  Two days later, as I was working in the afternoon in my favorite spot at the back of the Café Barbieri, an elegant female form suddenly sat down at the table, facing me.

  “I won’t ask if you’re still in love with me because I already know you’re not,” said the bad girl. “Cradle snatcher.”

  My surprise was so enormous that I somehow knocked the half-full bottle of mineral water to the floor, and it broke and spattered a boy with spiked hair and tattoos at the next table. While the Andalusian waitress hurried to pick up the pieces of glass, I examined the lady who, after three years, had abruptly been resurrected in the most unpredictable way at the most unexpected time and place in the world: the Café Barbieri in Lavapiés.

  Though it was late May and warm, she wore a light blue mid-weight jacket over an open white blouse, and a fine gold chain encircled her neck. The careful makeup couldn’t hide her drawn face, the prominent cheekbones, the small bags under her eyes. Only three years had passed, but ten had fallen on her. She was old. While the Andalusian waitress cleaned the floor, she drummed on the table with one hand, the nails carefully tended and polished, as if she had just come from the manicurist. Her fingers seemed longer and thinner. She looked at me without blinking, without humor, and—absolutely the final straw!—she called me to account for my bad behavior:

  “I never would have believed you’d live with a kid still wet behind the ears who could be your daughter,” she repeated indignantly. “And a hippie besides, who surely never bathes. How low you’ve fallen, Ricardo Somocurcio.”

  I wanted to throttle her and laugh out loud. No, it wasn’t a joke: she was making a jealous scene over me! She, over me!

  “You’re fifty-three or fifty-four now, aren’t you?” she went on, still drumming on the table. “And how old is this Lolita? Twenty?”

  “Thirty-three,” I said. “She looks younger, it’s true. Because she’s a happy girl, and happiness makes people young. But you don’t look very happy.”

  “Does she ever bathe?” she asked in exasperation. “Or has old age given you a taste for that, for dirt?”

  “I learned from Yakuza Fukuda,” I said. “I discovered that filth also has its charm in bed.”

  “In case you’re interested, at this moment I hate you with all my heart and wish you were dead,” she said in a muffled voice. She hadn’t taken her eyes off me or blinked once.

  “Someone who didn’t know you might say you’re jealous.”

  “In case you’re interested, I am. But above all, I’m disappointed in you.”

  I grasped her hand and forced her to move a little closer to ask her, out of earshot of our spike-haired, tattooed neighbor: “What’s the meaning of this farce? What are you doing here?”

  She dug her nails into my hand before answering me. And lowered her voice, too.

  “You don’t know how sorry I am that I looked for you all this time. But now I know this hippie will make you suffer the torments of the damned, she’ll put horns on you and throw you away like a dirty rag. And you don’t know how happy that makes me.”

  “I have the perfect training for it, bad girl. In matters of horns and being abandoned, I know all there is to know and even a little more.”

  I released her hand, but as I did, she grasped mine again.

  “I swore to myself I wouldn’t say anything to you about the hippie,” she said, softening her voice and expression. “But when I saw you, I couldn’t control myself. I still feel like scratching you. Be a little more gallant and order me a cup of tea.”

  I called over the Andalusian waitress and tried to let go of the bad girl’s hand, but she still clutched at mine.

  “Do you love this disgusting hippie?” she asked. “Do you love her more than you loved me?”

  “I don’t think I ever loved you,” I assured her. “You’re for me what Fukuda was for you: a sickness. Now I’m cured, thanks to Marcella.”

  She scrutinized me for a while and, without releasing my hand, smiled ironically for the first time and said, “If you didn’t love me you wouldn’t have turned so pale and your voice wouldn’t be breaking. Aren’t you going to cry, Ricardito? Because you’re something of a weeper, if I remember correctly.”

  “I promise you I won’t. You have the damn habit of turning up suddenly, like a nightmare, at the most unexpected times. It doesn’t amuse me anymore. The truth is, I never expected to see you again. What is it you want? What are you doing in Madrid?”

  When they brought the cup of tea, I could examine her a little as she put in a lump of sugar, stirred the liquid, and examined the spoon, saucer, and cup, turning up her nose. She wore a white skirt and open white shoes that exposed her small feet, the toenails painted with transparent polish. Once again her ankles were two stalks of bamboo. Had she been sick? Only during the time of the clinic in Petit Clamart had I seen her so thin. She wore her hair pulled back on each side and held by clips at her ears, which, as always, looked elegant. It occurred to me that without the rinse to which it probably owed its black color, her hair must be gray by now, perhaps white, like mine.

  “Everything looks dirty here,” she said abruptly, looking around and exaggerating her expression of disgust. “The people, the place, cobwebs and dust everywhere. Even you look dirty.”

  “This morning I showered and soaped myself from top to bottom, word of honor.”

  “But you’re dressed like a beggar,” she said, grasping my hand again.

  “And you, like a queen,” I said. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll mug you and rob you in a place like this filled with starving people?”

  “At this new stage in my life, I’m prepared to risk any danger for you,” she said with a laugh. “Besides, you’re a gentleman, you’d defend me to the death, wouldn’t you? Or did you stop being a little Miraflores gentleman when you got together with the hippies?”

  Her rage of a moment ago had passed and now, pressing my hand firmly, she was laughing. In her eyes was a distant reminiscence of that dark honey, a little gleam that lit her thin, aged face.

  “How did you find me?”

  “It was very hard. It took months. A thousand inquiries, everywhere. And a lot of money. I was scared to death, I even thought you had committed suicide. This time for real.”

  “That kind of absurdity you attempt only once, when love for some woman has made you feebleminded. Happily, that doesn’t apply to me anymore.”

  “Trying to find you, I fought with the Gravoskis,” she said suddenly, getting angry again. “Elena treated me very badly. She refused to give me your address or tell me anything about you. And she began to lecture me. That I made you miserable, that I almost killed you, that it was my fault you had a stroke, that I’ve been the tragedy of your life.”

  “Elena said the absolute truth. You have been the misfortune of my life.”

  “I told her to go to hell. I don’t intend to speak to her or see her ever again. I’m sorry on account of Yilal, because I don’t think I’ll see him again either. Who did that idiot think she was to lecture me? I think she’s in love with you herself.”

  She shifted in her chair, and I thought she suddenly turned pale.

  “May I ask why you were looking for me?”

  “I wanted to see you and talk to you,” she said, smiling again. “I missed you. And you missed me too, just a little?”

  “You always turn up and look for me between lovers,” I said, trying to pull my hand away from hers. This time I succeeded. “Did Martine’s husband throw you out? Did you come for an interlude in my arms until you catch another old man in your nets?”

  “Not anymore,” she interrupted, grasping my hand again and adopting her old, mocking tone. “I’ve decided to put an end to my madness. I’m going to spend my final years with my husband. And be a model wife.”

  I started to laugh and she laughed too. She scratched my hand with her fingers and I felt more and more like tearing her eyes out.

  “You, you have a husband? May I ask who he
is?”

  “I’m still your wife and I can prove it, I have the certificate,” she said, becoming serious. “You’re my husband. Don’t you remember we got married in the mairie of the fifth arrondissement?”

  “It was a farce, to get you papers,” I reminded her. “You’ve never really been my wife. You’ve been with me for periods of time, when you had problems, for as long as you couldn’t get anything better. Are you going to tell me why you were looking for me? This time, if you’re having problems, I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. I don’t have a cent and I’m living with a girl whom I love and who loves me.”

  “A grimy hippie who’ll leave you just like that,” she said, getting angry again. “Who doesn’t care about you at all, judging by the way you walk around. But from now on, I’ll take care of you. I’ll worry about you twenty-four hours a day. Like a model wife. That’s why 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 Café 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 Lavapiés, all the cafés 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 café.”

  “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 École 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,” s
he 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 Sète, 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 away, terrified of feeling the skeleton her body had become, a waist, 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.