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 Cafe 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 Lavapies, all the cafes 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 cafe."
"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 Ecole 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," she 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
Sete, 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 aw*ay, terrified of feeling the skeleton her
body had become, a w*aist, 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.
"Why are you so thin?" I asked in her ear.
"Tell me first you love me. That you don't love this hippie, that
you began to live with her only out of spite, because I left you. Since
I found out you were with her, I've been dying slowly of jealousy."
Now I felt her little heart beating against mine. I searched for her
mouth and gave her a long kiss. I felt her tongue entwined with
mine, and I swallowed her saliva. When I slipped my hand under her
blouse and caressed her back, I felt all her ribs and her spine as if
they weren't separated from my fingers by even the slightest film of
flesh. She had no breasts; her diminutive nipples were flat against
her skin.
"Why are you so thin?" I asked again. "Have you been sick? What
did you have?"
"I can't make love to you, don't touch me there. They operated on
me, they took out everything. I don't want you to see me naked. My
body's covered with scars. I don't want you to be disgusted by me."
She cried in despair and I couldn't calm her. Then I sat her on my
knees and caressed her for a long time, the way I did in Paris when
she had her attacks of fear. Her bottom too had melted away, and
her thighs were as thin as her arms. She looked like one of those
living corpses shown in photographs of concentration camps. I
caressed her, kissed her, told her I loved her and would take care of
her, and, at the same time, I felt an indescribable horror because I
was absolutely certain she hadn't been gravely ill but was gravely ill
now and would die soon. No one could be so thin and recover.
"You still haven't told me you love me more than the hippie,
good boy."
"Of course I love you more than her and more than anybody, bad
girl. You're the only woman in the world I ever loved, the only one I
love now. And though you've done bad things to me, you've also
given me wonderful happiness. Come, I want to have you naked in
my arms and make love to you."
I carried her to the bed, lay her down, and undressed her. With
her eyes closed, she let herself be undressed, turning to the side,
showing me as little of her body as possible. But, caressing and
kissing her, I made her straighten and open out. They hadn't
operated on her, they had destroyed her. Her breasts had been
removed and the nipples crudely replaced, leaving thick, circular
scars like two red corollas. But the worst scar started at her vagina
and meandered up to her navel, a crust between brown and pink that
seemed recent. The impact it had on me was so huge that, without
realizing what I was doing, I covered it with the sheet. And I knew
I'd never be able to make love to her again.
"I didn't want you to see me like this and feel repelled by your
wife," she said. "But-"
"But I love you and now I'll take care of you until you're
completely healed. Why didn't you call me so I could be with you?"
"I couldn't find you anywhere. I've been looking for you for
months. It's what made me most desperate: dying without seeing
you again."
They had operated on her the second time barely three weeks
ago, in a hospital in Montpellier. The doctors had been very frank.
The tumor in her vagina had been detected too late, and though they
removed it, the postoperative examination indicated that metastasis
had begun, and there was almost nothing they could do.