The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa Read Free Book Online Page A

came to Paris, where he married
    a French girl, Jacqueline, who was also a revolutionary activist. In
    Paris he met Paul, his old friend from San Marcos, and became
    affiliated with the MIR. He had received guerrilla training in Cuba
    and was counting the hours until he could return to Peru and move
    into action. During the time of the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of
    Pigs, I saw him everywhere, attending every demonstration of
    solidarity with Cuba and speaking at several of them, in good French
    and with devastating rhetoric.
    He was a tall, slim boy, with light ebony skin and a smile that
    displayed magnificent teeth. Just as he could argue for hours, with
    great intellectual substance, about political subjects, he was also
    capable of becoming involved in impassioned dialogues on
    literature, art, or sports, especially soccer and the feats of his team,
    the Alianza Lima. There was something in his being that
    communicated his enthusiasm, his idealism, his generosity, and the
    steely sense of justice that guided his life, something I don't believe
    I had seen—especially in so genuine a way—in any of the
    revolutionaries who passed through Paris during the sixties. That he
    had agreed to be an ordinary member of the MIR, where there
    wasn't anyone with his talent and charisma, spoke very clearly to the
    purity of his revolutionary vocation. On the three or four occasions I
    talked to him, I was convinced, despite my skepticism, that if
    someone as lucid and energetic as Lobaton were at the head of the
    revolutionaries, Peru could be the second Cuba in Latin America.
    It was at least six months after she left that I had news of Comrade
    Arlette, through Paul. Since my contract as a temp left me with a
    good amount of free time, I began to study Russian, thinking that if
    I could also translate from that language—one of the four official
    languages of the United Nations and its subsidiary agencies at the
    time—my work as a translator would be more secure. I was also
    taking a course in simultaneous interpretation. The work of
    interpreters was more intense and difficult than that of translators,
    but for this reason they were more in demand. One day, as I left my
    Russian class at the Berlitz School on Boulevard des Capucines, I
    found fat Paul waiting for me at the entrance to the building.
    "News about the girl, finally," he said by way of greeting, wearing
    a long face. "I'm sorry*, but it isn't good, mon vieux"
    I invited him to one of the bistrots near the Opera for a drink to
    help me digest the bad news. We sat outside, on the terrace. It was a
    warm spring twilight, with early stars, and all of Paris seemed to
    have poured out onto the street to enjoy the good weather. We
    ordered two beers.
    "I suppose that after so much time you're not still in love with
    her," Paul said to prepare me.
    "I suppose not," I replied. "Tell me once and for all and don't fuck
    around, Paul."
    He had just spent a few days in Havana, and Comrade Arlette
    was the talk of all the young Peruvians in the MIR because,
    according to excited rumors, she was having a passionate love affair
    with Comandante Chacon, second-in-command to Osmani
    Cienfuegos, the younger brother of Camilo, the great hero of the
    Cuban Revolution who had disappeared. Comandante Osmani
    Cienfuegos was head of the organization that lent assistance to all
    revolutionary movements and related parties, and the man who
    coordinated rebel actions in every corner of the world. Comandante
    Chacon, veteran of the Sierra Maestra, was his right arm.
    "Can you imagine, that tremendous piece of news was the first
    thing I heard." Paul scratched his head. "That skinny thing, that
    absolutely ordinary girl, having an affair with one of the historic
    comandantes! Comandante Chacon, no less!"
    "Couldn't it just be gossip, Paul?"
    He shook his head remorsefully, and patted my arm in
    encouragement.
    "I was with them myself at a meeting in Casa de las Americas.
    They're living