The Bad Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

looked like a fifteen-year-old. She
    was exhausted because on the long flight she hadn't slept a wink and
    had vomited a few times because of turbulence. Comrade Arlette
    had an attractive shape, a slim waist, pale skin, and though she
    dressed, like the others, with great simplicity—coarse skirts and
    sweaters, percale blouses, flat shoes, and the kind of hairpins sold in
    markets—there was something very feminine in her manner of
    walking and moving and, above all, in the way she pursed her full
    lips as she asked about the streets the taxi was driving along. In her
    dark, expressive eyes, something eager was twinkling as she
    contemplated the tree-lined boulevards, the symmetrical buildings,
    the crowd of young people of both sexes carrying bags, books, and
    notebooks as they prowled the streets and bistrots in the area
    around the Sorbonne, while we approached the little hotel on Rue
    Gay Lussac. They were given a room with no bath and no windows,
    and two beds for the three of them. When I left, I repeated Paul's
    instructions: they weren't to move from here until he came to see
    them, sometime in the afternoon, and explained the plan for their
    work in Paris.
    I was in the doorway of the hotel, lighting a cigarette before I
    walked away, when somebody touched my shoulder.
    "That room gives me claustrophobia," Comrade Arlette said with
    a smile. "And besides, a person doesn't come to Paris every day,
    caramba."
    Then I recognized her. She had changed a great deal, of course,
    especially in the way she spoke, but the mischievousness I
    remembered so well still poured out of her, something bold,
    spontaneous, provocative, that was revealed in her defiant posture,
    her small breasts and face thrust forward, one foot set slightly back,
    her ass high, and a mocking glance that left her interlocutor not
    knowing if she was speaking seriously or joking. She was short, with
    small feet and hands, and her hair, black now instead of light, and
    tied back with a ribbon, fell to her shoulders. And she had that dark
    honey in her eyes.
    I let her know that what we were going to do was categorically
    forbidden and for that reason Comrade Jean (Paul) would be angry
    with us, then I took her for a walk past the Pantheon, the Sorbonne,
    the Odeon, the Luxembourg Gardens, and finally—far too expensive
    for my budget!—to have lunch at L'Acropole, a little Greek
    restaurant on Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie. In those three hours of
    conversation she told me, in violation of all the rules regarding
    revolutionary secrecy, that she had studied letters and law at
    Catholic University, had been a member of the clandestine Young
    Communists for years, and, like other comrades, had moved to the
    MIR because it was a real revolutionary movement as opposed to
    the YC, a sclerotic and anachronistic party in the present day. She
    told me these things somewhat mechanically, without too much
    conviction. I recounted my ongoing efforts to find work so I could
    stay in Paris and told her that now I had all my hopes focused on an
    examination for Spanish translators, sponsored by UNESCO, that
    would be given the following day.
    "Cross your fingers and knock the table three times, like this, so
    you'll pass," Comrade Arlette said, very seriously, as she stared at
    me.
    To provoke her, I asked if these kinds of superstition were
    compatible with the scientific doctrine of Marxism-Leninism.
    "To get what you want, anything goes," she replied immediately,
    very resolute. But then she shrugged and said with a smile, "I'll also
    say a rosary for you to pass, even though I'm not a believer. Will you
    denounce me to the party for being superstitious? I don't think so.
    You look like a nice guy..."
    She gave a little laugh, and when she did, the same dimples she'd
    had as a girl formed on her cheeks. I walked her back to the hotel. If
    she agreed, I'd ask Comrade Jean's permission to take her to see
    other places in Paris before she continued her