The Bad Girl (48 page)

behind me in a thin voice, trying to be placating, "By the way, I won't

ask for any of what I'm entitled to as your wife. Not a cent."

"You're very kind," I thought, closing the apartment door very

slowly. "But the only thing you could get from me would be debts

and the mortgage on this apartment, which, at the rate we're going,

will be foreclosed soon." When I was outside, it began to rain. I

hadn't brought an umbrella, so I took refuge in the cafe on the

corner, where I sat a long time, sipping a cup of tea that grew cold

until it was tasteless. The truth was there was something in her

impossible not to admire, for the reasons that lead us to appreciate

well-made works even when they're perverse. She had made a

conquest, and done it with calculation, so she could again achieve

the social and economic status that would give her greater security

and take her out of the two confining little rooms on Rue Joseph

Granier. And now, without blinking, she had made her move, tossing

me into the trash. Who could her lover be this time? Someone she

had met through her work with Martine, at one of those congresses,

conferences, celebrations they organized. A good job of seduction,

no doubt. She looked very good, but after all, she was over fifty.

Chapeau! An old man, no doubt, whom she might kill with pleasure

to get his inheritance, like the heroine in Balzac's La Rabouilleuse?

When it cleared, I took a walk around Ecole Militaire, killing time.

I got back about eleven and she had gone, leaving the keys in the

living room. She took all her clothes in the two suitcases we had,

and tossed into garbage bags what was old or what she had too much

of: slippers, slips, a housecoat, stockings and blouses, and many jars

of creams and makeup. She hadn't touched the francs we kept in a

small strongbox in a closet in the living room.

Maybe someone she met at the gym on Avenue Montaigne? It

was an expensive place, prosperous old men went there to reduce

their bellies, men who could guarantee her a more amusing and

comfortable life. I knew the worst thing I could do was to keep

shuffling through these kinds of hypotheses, and for the sake of my

mental health I had to forget about her right away. Because this

time the separation was definitive, the end of the love story. Could

this farce more than thirty years old be called a love story, Ricardito?

I succeeded in not thinking too much about her in the days,

weeks, and months that followed, when, feeling like a bag of

soulless bones, skin, and muscles, I spent the whole day looking for

work. It was urgent because I needed to confront my debts and daily

expenses, and because I knew the best way to get through this

period was to give myself over wholeheartedly to an obligation.

For a few months I had only badly paid translations. Finally, one

day they called me to be a replacement at an international

conference on authors' rights sponsored by UNESCO. For a few days

I'd had constant attacks of neuralgia, which I attributed to low

spirits and lack of sleep. I fought them with analgesics prescribed by

the pharmacist on the corner. My replacing the UNESCO interpreter

was a disaster. The attacks of neuralgia kept me from doing my work

well, and after two days I had to give up and explain to the head

interpreter what was happening to me. The doctor at Social Welfare

diagnosed a case of otitis and sent me to a specialist. I had to wait

hours at the Hopital de la Salpetriere and come back several times

before I could enter the consulting room of Dr. Pennau, an ear, nose,

and throat specialist. He confirmed I had a slight ear infection and

cured me in a week. But when the attacks of neuralgia and dizziness

didn't stop, I went to a new internist at the same hospital. After

examining me, he had me take all kinds of tests, including an MRI. I

have an ugly memory of the thirty or forty minutes I spent inside

that metal tube, buried alive, as motionless as a mummy, my ears

tormented by waves of stupefying noises.

The MRI established that I had suffered a slight stroke. That was

the real reason for the neuralgia and dizziness. Nothing very serious;

the danger had passed. From now on I had to take care of myself,

exercise, have a balanced diet, control my blood pressure, drink very

little alcohol, lead a quiet life. "A retired person's life," the doctor

prescribed. My work might be reduced, and I could expect a

diminution in concentration and memory.

Fortunately for me, the Gravoskis came to spend a month in

Paris, this time with Yilal. He had grown a great deal and was a

complete gringo in the way he spoke and dressed. When I told him

the bad girl and I had separated, he put on a sorrowful face, "That's

why she hasn't answered my letters for so long," he whispered.

The company of these friends was very opportune. Talking to

them, joking, going out for supper and to the movies, brought back

some of my joy in life. One night, when we were having a beer on

the terrace of a bistrot on Boulevard Raspail, Elena suddenly said,

"That madwoman was about to kill you, Ricardo. And I liked her so

much even with all her madness. But this I won't forgive. I forbid

you to be friends with her again."

"Never again," I promised. "I've learned my lesson. Besides, since

I'm a human wreck now, there's no danger she'll come back into my

life."

"So you think the sorrows of love cause cerebral hemorrhages?"

said Simon. "Romanticism once again?"

"In this case yes, you heartless Belgian," Elena replied. "Ricardo

isn't like you. He's a romantic, a sensitive man. She could have

killed him with her last little pleasantry. I'll never forgive her, I

swear. And I hope that you, Ricardo, won't be enough of a shithead

to follow after like a dog when she calls you to get her out of some

new entanglement."

"It's clear you love me more than the bad girl does, my friend." I

kissed her hand. "As for the rest, 'shithead' is a word that suits me

perfectly."

"We all agree about that," Simon declared.

"What's a shithead?" asked the little gringo.

On the urging of the Gravoskis I went to see a neurosurgeon at a

private clinic in Passy. My friends insisted that, no matter how small

it had been, a cerebral hemorrhage could have consequences and I

ought to know what to expect. Without too much hope, I had asked

my bank for another loan so I could face the interest payments on

the mortgage and the two earlier loans, and to my surprise, they

gave it to me. I put myself in the hands of Dr. Pierre Joudret, a

charming man and, as far as I could judge, a competent professional.

He subjected me again to all kinds of tests and prescribed a

treatment to control my blood pressure and maintain good

circulation. This was when I met Marcella one afternoon in his

office.

That night, in Nanterre, after the performance of The Bourgeois

Gentleman, when we went to have a glass of wine at a bistrot, the

Italian designer seemed very amiable, and the passion and

conviction with which she spoke about her work were fascinating.

She told me about her life, the arguments and reconciliations with

her parents, the stage sets she had designed for small theaters in

Spain and Italy. The set in Nanterre was one of the first she had

done in France. At a certain moment, among a thousand other

things, she assured me that the best theatrical sets she had seen in

Paris were not on stages but in the display windows of stores. Would

I like to see them with her and lose the skeptical face I had as I

listened to her?

We said goodbye at the Metro station with kisses on the cheeks

and agreed to see each other the following Saturday. I enjoyed the

excursion very much, not only because of the windows she took me

to see but because of her explanations and interpretations. She

showed me, for example, that the sandy ground and palm trees

under white light at La Samaritaine would be marvelous for

Beckett's Oh les beaux, jours!, the canopy of flaming reds at an Arab

restaurant in Montparnasse as the backdrop for Orpheus in Hell,

and the window of a popular shoemaker's shop near the Church of

Saint Paul in Le Marais for Geppetto's house in a dramatic

adaptation of Pinocchio. Everything she said was ingenious,

unexpected, and her enthusiasm and joy kept me amused and

happy. During supper at La Petite Perigourdine, a restaurant on Rue

des Ecoles, I said I liked her, and I kissed her. She confessed that

ever since the day we spoke in the waiting room at the clinic in

Passy she had known "something happened between us." She told

me she had lived for two years with an actor and they recently broke

up, though they were still good friends.

We went to the little apartment on Joseph Granier and made

love. She had a slim body, with small, delicate breasts, and she was

tender, ardent, and uncomplicated. She examined my books and

reprimanded me for having only poetry, novels, some essays, but not

a single book on the theater. She would take care of helping me fill

that void. "You've come right into my life, caro," she added. She had

a broad smile that seemed to come not only from her eyes and

mouth but also from her forehead, nose, and ears.

Marcella had to go back to Italy a few days later for a possible job

in Milan, and I accompanied her to the station because she traveled

by train (she was afraid of planes). We spoke several times on the

phone, and when she returned to Paris she came to my house

instead of going to the little hotel in the Latin Quarter where she

had been living. She brought a bag with a few pairs of trousers, some

blouses, sweaters, and wrinkled jackets, and a trunk that held books,

magazines, figurines, and maquettes of her stage sets.

Marcella's entrance into my life was so rapid that I almost didn't

have time to reflect, to ask myself if I wasn't being reckless.

Wouldn't it have been more sensible to wait a little, get to know

each other better, see if the relationship would work? After all, she

was a kid and I could be her father. But the relationship did work,

thanks to her way of being so adaptable, so simple in her tastes, so

disposed to putting a good face on any setback. I couldn't have said I

loved her, in any case not the way I had loved the bad girl, but I felt

so good with her, and so grateful she was with me and even loved

me. She rejuvenated me and helped me bury my memories.

From time to time Marcella came up with assignments for stage

sets in neighborhood theaters subsidized by town councils. Then she

would dedicate herself to her work with so much frenzy that she

forgot about my existence. I had more and more difficulty obtaining

translations. I had given up interpreting, I didn't feel capable of

doing the work with my former certainty. Perhaps because word had

gotten around the profession about my health problems, I was

entrusted with fewer and fewer texts to translate. And those I did

get—late, rarely, or never—took me a long time, because after an

hour or an hour and a half of work, the dizziness and headaches

returned. In the first few months of living with Marcella, my income

was reduced to almost nothing, and I found myself very worried

again about the mortgage and interest payments on the loans.

The branch manager at the Societe Generate, to whom I

explained the problem, said the solution was to sell the apartment.

It had increased in value, and I could obtain a price that, after paying

off the mortgage and the loans, would leave me with a sum that,

managed prudently, would allow me to live in comfort for a long

time. I talked it over with Marcella, and she also encouraged me to

sell. To relieve my mind of the worry about the payments every

month that kept me awake. "Don't worry about the future, caro. I'll

have good commissions soon. If we're left without a cent, we'll go to

my parents in Rome. We'll live in the attic where I put on conjuring

and magic shows for my friends when I was little, and where I keep

all kinds of odds and ends. You'll get on very well with my father,

he's almost your age." What a prospect, Ricardito.

Selling the apartment took some time. It was true, its price had

tripled, but the prospective buyers brought in by real estate agents

found defects, asked for discounts or certain compromises, and

matters stretched out for close to three months. Finally, I came to

an agreement with a functionary from the Armed Forces Ministry,

an elegant gentleman who wore a monocle. Then the tiresome

transactions with notaries and lawyers began, as well as the sale of

the furniture. On the day we signed the contract and made the

transfer of property, as I left the notary's office at a cross street of

Avenue de Suffren, a woman stopped short when she saw* me and

stood staring. I didn't recognize her but greeted her with a nod.

"I'm Martine," she said drily, not offering her hand. "Don't you