The Bad Girl (47 page)

and for which she conceived a set that didn't go beyond a drawing

and a maquette. She never discussed fees when she was hired, and

could turn down an important contract if she thought the director or

the producer was a pharisee, uninterested in esthetics and attentive

only to the commercial side of things. On the other hand, when she

accepted a contract—generally from avant-garde groups with no

access to established theaters—she devoted herself to it body and

soul. She not only had a great desire to do her work well but

collaborated in everything else, helping her colleagues to find

support, locate a theater, obtain donations and loans of furniture

and costumes, and she worked shoulder to shoulder with carpenters

and electricians and, if necessary, swept the stage, sold tickets, and

seated the audience. It always amazed me to see her so involved in

her work that I would have to remind her, during those feverish

periods, that a human being doesn't live by theatrical sets alone but

also by eating, sleeping, and showing a little interest in the other

things in life.

I never understood why Marcella was with me, what I added to

her life. In what interested her most in the world, her work, I could

help her very little. Everything I knew about theatrical set design

she taught me, and the opinions I could offer were superfluous,

because like every authentic creator, she knew very well what she

wanted to do without any need for advice. All I could be for her was

an attentive ear if she needed to express aloud the rush of images,

possibilities, alternatives, and doubts that would assail her when she

began a project. I listened to her with envy for as long as I had to. I

went with her to consult prints and books in the Biblioteca Nacional,

to visit artisans and antiquarians, and on the never-failing Sunday

excursion to the Rastro. I did this not only out of affection but

because what she said was always novel, surprising, at times

inspired. I learned something new with her each day. I never would

have guessed, without knowing her, how a theatrical story can be

influenced so decisively, though always subtly, by the set design, the

lighting, the presence or absence of the most ordinary object, a

broom or a simple vase.

The twenty-year difference in our ages didn't seem to trouble

her. It did trouble me. I always told myself that our good

relationship would diminish when I was in my sixties and she was

still a young woman. Then she would fall in love with someone her

own age. And leave. She was attractive in spite of how little time she

spent on her appearance, and on the street men followed her with

their eyes. One day when we were making love she asked, "Would

you care if we had a baby?" No. If she wanted one, I'd be delighted.

But then I was immediately attacked by distress. Why did I have that

reaction? Perhaps because, in my fifties, and given my prolonged

adventures and misadventures with the bad girl, it was impossible

for me to believe in the longevity of any pairing that worked

smoothly, including ours. Wasn't that doubt absurd? We got along

so well that in our two and a half years together we hadn't had a

single fight. At most, minor arguments and passing annoyances. But

never anything that resembled a break. "I'm glad you don't care,"

Marcella said then. "I didn't ask so we could have a bambino now,

but when we've done some important things." She spoke for herself,

someone who undoubtedly would do things in the future worthy of

that description. I'd be happy if, in the next few years, Mario

Muchnik could get me a Russian book that would require a good

deal of effort and enthusiasm to translate, something more creative

than light novels that disappeared from memory at the same speed

with which I rewrote them in Spanish.

No doubt she was with me because she loved me; she had no

other reason. To some extent I was even an economic burden for

her. How could she have fallen in love with me, since for her I was

an old man, not at all good-looking, without a vocation, somewhat

diminished in my intellectual faculties, whose only aim in life had

been, since boyhood, to spend the rest of my days in Paris? When I

told Marcella that this had been my only vocation, she began to

laugh. "Well, caro, you achieved it. You must be happy, you've lived

in Paris your whole life." She said this affectionately, but her words

sounded somewhat sinister to me.

Marcella was more concerned about me than I was: I had to take

my blood-pressure pills, walk every day for at least half an hour, and

never have more than two or three glasses of wine a day. And she

always said that when she got a good commission, we would spend

the money on a trip to Peru. Before she saw Cuzco and Machu

Picchu, she wanted to visit the Lima neighborhood of Miraflores I

talked about so much. I went along with her, though deep down I

knew we never would make that trip, because I'd take care to

postpone it into eternity. I didn't intend to return to Peru. Since the

death of Uncle Ataulfo, my country had disappeared for me like

mirages on sandy ground. I didn't have relatives or friends there,

and even the memories of my youth were growing dim.

I learned of Uncle Ataulfo's death several weeks after the fact, in

a letter from Alberto Lamiel, when I had been living in Madrid for

six months. Marcella brought it to me at the Barbieri, and though I

knew it could happen at any moment, the news had a tremendous

impact on me. I stopped working and went to walk, like a

somnambulist, along the paths in the Retire Since my last trip to

Peru, at the end of 1984, my uncle and I had written to each other

every month, and in his trembling hand, which I had to decipher like

a paleographer, I had followed, step by step, the economic disasters

caused in Peru by Alan Garcia's policies: inflation, nationalizations,

the rupture with credit entities, control of prices and exchange rates,

falling employment and standards of living. Uncle Ataulfo's letters

revealed the bitterness with which he awaited death. He passed in

his sleep. Alberto Lamiel added that he was making arrangements to

go to Boston, where, thanks to the parents of his North American

wife, he had possibilities for work. He told me he had been an

imbecile to believe in the promises of Alan Garcia, for whom he

voted in the 1985 elections, like so many other gullible

professionals. Trusting in the president's word that he wouldn't

touch them, Alberto had held on to the certificates in dollars where

he kept all his savings. When the new leader decreed the forced

conversion of foreign currency certificates into Permian soles,

Alberto's patrimony vanished. It was only the beginning of a chain

of reverses. The best he could do was "to follow your example, Uncle

Ricardo, and leave to find better horizons, because in this country

it's no longer possible to work if you're not employed by the

government."

This was the last news I'd had of things in Peru. Then, since I

saw practically no Peruvians in Madrid, I learned what was

happening there only on the rare occasion when some report found

its way into the Madrid newspapers, usually the birth of quintuplets,

an earthquake, or a bus driving over a cliff in the Andes, with

approximately thirty deaths.

I never told Uncle Ataulfo my marriage had failed, and so in his

letters, until the end, he would send regards to "my niece," and I, in

mine, sent hers to him. I don't know why I hid it from my uncle.

Perhaps because I would have to explain what had happened, and

any explanation would have seemed absurd and incomprehensible

to him, as it did to me.

Our separation occurred in an unexpected and brutal way, just as

the bad girl's disappearances had always happened. Though this

time it wasn't really a flight but an urbane separation, which we

discussed. That was exactly why, unlike the other separations, I

knew this one was definitive.

Our honeymoon after I returned to Paris from Lima, terrified she

had left me because she hadn't answered the phone for three or four

days, lasted a few months. In the beginning she was as affectionate

as she had been on the afternoon she greeted me with displays of

love. I obtained a monthlong contract at UNESCO, and when I came

home she already had returned from her office and prepared supper.

One night she waited for me with the living-room light turned off

and the table lit by romantic candles. Then she had to make two

trips for Martine, a few days each time, to the Cote d'Azur, and she

called every night. What more could I desire? I had the impression

that the bad girl had reached the age of reason, that our marriage

had become unbreakable. Then, at a moment my memory can't

recall specifically, her mood and behavior began to change. It was a

subtle change, one she tried to hide, perhaps because she still had

doubts, and I became aware of it only after the fact. It didn't surprise

me when the passionate attitude of the first few weeks slowly gave

way to a more distant attitude because she always had been like

that, and the unusual thing for her was to be effusive. I noticed she

was distracted and became lost in thoughts that made her frown and

seemed to take her beyond my reach. She would come back from

these fugue states in alarm and give a start when I returned her to

reality with a joke: "What troubles the fair princess with the mouth

of berry red? Why is she so pensive? Can the princess be in love?"

She would blush and respond with a forced little laugh.

One afternoon, when I returned from Senor Charnes's old

office—he had retired to spend his old age in the south of

Spain—where for the third or fourth time I was told they had no

work for me at the moment, I opened the door to the apartment on

Rue Joseph Granier and saw her sitting in the living room with the

suitcase she always took on her trips, wearing her brown tailored

suit, and I understood something serious was going on. She was

ashen.

"What is it?"

She sighed, gathering her strength—she had blue circles under

her eyes, which were shining—and without beating around the bush,

she came out with the sentence she undoubtedly had prepared well

in advance.

"I didn't want to go without talking to you, so you don't think I'm

running away." She said it in one breath, in the icy voice she

generally used for sentimental statements. "For the sake of what

you love most, I beg you not to make a scene or threaten to kill

yourself. Both of us are too old for that kind of thing. Forgive me for

speaking so harshly, but I think it's for the best."

I dropped into the armchair, facing her. I felt infinitely weary. I

had the feeling that I was hearing a record that kept repeating, each

time with more distortion, the same musical phrase. She always was

very pale, but now her expression was irritated, as if having to sit

there giving me explanations filled her with resentment toward me.

"It must be obvious that I've tried to adapt to this kind of life, to

please you, to repay you for helping me when I was sick." Her

coldness now seemed to be boiling with rage. "I can't stand it

anymore. This isn't the life for me. If I stay with you out of

compassion, I'll end up hating you. I don't want to hate you. Try to

understand, if you can."

She stopped speaking, waiting for me to say something, but I felt

so tired I didn't have the energy or desire to tell her anything.

"I'm suffocating here," she added, looking around her. "These

two little rooms are a prison and I can't bear them anymore. I know

my limit. This routine, this mediocrity, is killing me. I don't want the

rest of my life to be like this. You don't care, you're happy, better for

you. But I'm not like you, I don't know how to be resigned. I've tried,

you've seen that I've tried. I can't. I'm not going to spend the rest of

my life with you out of compassion. Forgive me for speaking so

frankly. It's better if you know and accept the truth, Ricardo."

"Who is he?" I asked when she fell silent again. "May I at least

know who it is you're leaving with?"

"Are you going to make a jealous scene?" was her indignant

response. And she reminded me, sarcastically: "I'm a free woman,

Ricardito. Our marriage was only to obtain papers for me. So don't

demand an accounting from me about anything."

She was challenging me, as enraged as a fighting cock. Now a

feeling of being ridiculous was added to my exhaustion. She was

right: we were too old for these scenes.

"I see you've decided everything and there's not much to say," I

interrupted, getting to my feet. "I'm going to take a walk so you can

pack your bags in peace."

"They're packed," she replied in the same exasperated tone.

I was sorry she hadn't gone the way she had other times, leaving

me a few scrawled lines. As I walked to the door, I heard her say