Learning to Lose (36 page)

Sylvia knew the kind of music her father liked. Bands with legendary names, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. When Pilar left him, like a teenager, he listened to the same Queen song over and over, with that singer’s extreme voice. Sylvia would sometimes stop in the stairwell, before opening the door to the apartment, so as not to interrupt his exorcism. She heard him sing loudly over the recording. Too much love will kill you. Then he stopped, got over it. Just like you can have a love song, you can have a breakup song.

I remember one day when your grandfather asked me to put on some of my music for him to listen to, Lorenzo told her. I chose something by the Stones. I think it was “Honky Tonk Women” or something like that. He sat down and listened to it on the record player, paying full attention. And then he said, it’s
good. In my opinion, the harmony is very predictable, but you know that taste is a form of memory, so you only appreciate what you know. I’d have to hear it more. And then he looked sad, like your grandfather does sometimes. Parents and kids have never understood each other’s music.

I like some of your stuff, Sylvia reassured him. She named Bob Dylan. Recently she had heard him at Ariel’s house. It seems his friend Marcelo Polti was obsessed with Dylan and he had turned Ariel on to him.

Lorenzo picked up his CD. This chick was so hot, he said, pointing to the singer on the cover. She was virile, strong and stringy, but we loved her. I’ll lend it to you if you want. Okay, Sylvia said, but it sounded more like a consolation than real interest. She was pleased to find her father talkative, expansive, more animated than she’d seen him the last few days. So much so that Lorenzo dared to ask, Well, you never tell me anything about your life these days. Have you got a boyfriend? Because with these hours you’re keeping … I’m on vacation, Papá. So if you did have one you’d tell me? I don’t know, it depends, if it was something serious … And what do you call something serious? Everything is serious, he said. No, everything is not serious, maintained Sylvia, convinced.

A few months ago, a friend of Lalo’s told us over dinner that one day she found her daughter, who must be about your age, necking with a girl, this wildly passionate thing on a street bench, near where they live, smoking a joint, I don’t even know what else, and the lady was super-pissed at her daughter because she hadn’t told her anything, even though they have a really good relationship. I told her that kids don’t ever tell their parents anything. Right? I never told mine.

The conversation bored Sylvia. But she appreciated her father’s effort, possibly contrived, to access a part of her private life.

One day, when I still lived with your grandparents, I came home for dinner and my father tells me, that girl called a little while ago, your girlfriend. And I hadn’t told them anything, they hadn’t even met Pilar, but my father said your girlfriend so naturally that it killed me. They asked me what her name was, I said Pilar, and your grandmother said, I wonder if she’ll come up to the house one day so we can meet her. And one day she came up to the house and I introduced her. I don’t know, it just seems normal to me, no big confessions, “Papá, I have something important to tell you,” he said in falsetto.

Sylvia shrugged her shoulders. I don’t know, are you trying to get something out of me or what? she asked her father. No, no, not at all, I just felt like telling you, we’re talking, right?

Lorenzo left the room. His burst of energy drove him to cook something beyond his skills, even with the help of one of the cookbooks that adorned a nearby shelf. Sylvia headed out a bit later. Lorenzo didn’t hear her come back until late at night. After one.

The liturgy began with group singing. The pastor took center stage. He greets those present and talks to them with a syrupy accent Lorenzo can’t quite place. He tells them it’s Sunday and on this day we give the Lord our reflection, our thoughts, and our joy in this shared space of church. He speaks straightforwardly and makes eye contact with the parishioners. He’s wearing a white shirt buttoned all the way up. In the first row sits a stocky guy, his rear end spilling over both sides of the folding chair, holding a guitar in his big mitts. He plays a song Lorenzo thinks
he’s heard before. Someone told me that life is quite short, and that fate mocks us, and someone told me life is filled with duties, and sometimes it will fill us with pain, but someone also told me that God still loves us, he still loves us. God still loves us.

The door opens and Lorenzo turns to see Daniela come in. She is surprised to see him there, but she doesn’t walk toward him. She moves along the side wall and joins the people in the first rows. Lorenzo can just make out when she discreetly greets them and joins the ceremony. He doesn’t take his eyes off her. Daniela barely turns a couple of times to check that he’s still there. On one occasion, she does it while singing, along with everyone else, a song about God’s mercy for the poor.

The pastor talks about everyday life, of God’s presence in the most trivial things, of his definitive presence in daily events. At the bottom of the wastepaper basket where you throw the remains of the day, he is there; in the stairs of the metro and in the elevator he watches to see how you react with strangers; forget those endless discussions about the soul and faith, imagine him in every corner of your lives. But he isn’t judging, he already knows you, he is accompanying you so that you don’t ever forget him. Do you see those security cameras they put in certain buildings? Well, God has those cameras installed inside us. Every once in a while, the parishioners answer him out loud, as if they were striking up a conversation. And then they break out again in songs and clapping.

Any believer is a pastor of souls. You are pastors, in the street, at work, in your family. You can see the light that illuminates the invisible. That is our mission. To save ourselves and save as many of the people around us as possible. We are neighborhood missionaries.

When the service ends, the group moves the chairs and chats for a while in a circle before escaping into the street. Some of them bring packages of rice, beans, or eggs and leave them in plastic bags on the pastor’s table. We will hand it out, of course, he tells them. Daniela approaches Lorenzo with the pastor and introduces them. Welcome, the man says, I hope to see you back here often. Thank you, replies Lorenzo.

He goes out to the street with Daniela. He suggests they take a walk. But she says that she has to stay to prepare the bags of food for the needy, to help the pastor hand them out among the poor. If I had known, I would have brought something. No, it’s not required, explains Daniela. They remain standing for a moment on the sidewalk.

I didn’t want the other night to end badly. Maybe I went too fast, Lorenzo starts to apologize. But it’s important to me that we don’t let that come between us. I want to get to know you better. For you to get to know me, too. Lorenzo hears himself, he sounds ridiculous, influenced by the pastor’s way of speaking. It might seem weird to you, but I don’t want to let you get away, like something passing through my life I didn’t really get to know. That’s why I’m here, I wanted to tell you that. Wilson told me this was your church. Wilson knows the way? Daniela smiles. I thought he only knew how to get to the bars.

Lorenzo ignores the comment and stares into Daniela’s eyes, as if he were waiting for something that hadn’t arrived.

You’re very lonely, aren’t you? she asks him. You’re very lonely.

Ariel extends the seat back and tries to sleep. In first class, there is a lot of space, and beside him a man in a suit reads a business newspaper as he sips on a sherry. Like on the flight out, the plane is filled with Argentinian families that live in Spain, on their way back from Christmas holidays. In line to get onto the airplane were advertising executives, university professors, the solidly middle-class, mixing with more humble travelers holding big bags and showing tense expressions when they had to show their passports. January 2, the beginning of the year, always creates some sort of wide-ranging hope, like a blank page.

In the last row of first class, stretched out to full length, with a mask over his eyes, amid thunderous snores, sleeps Humberto Hernán Panzeroni, the goalie of an Andalusian team. He had come over earlier to greet Ariel effusively when he saw they were on the same flight.

Humberto is big, a veteran of the Spanish league, where he’s spent almost six years. He was chosen as the third goalie of the Argentinian national team in the last few World Cups. He sat on the arm of Ariel’s seat to talk to him and every time a flight attendant passed by he turned; it wasn’t clear if it was to let her pass or to flirt. I hate traveling in first class, they send the experienced flight attendants up here, the tender young things are in coach, the world’s upside down. He had one incisor a different shade of white than the rest of his teeth and Ariel remembered that he’d lost a tooth in a collision with one of his fullbacks. Ariel had seen it on television.

I have my wife back there with the three kids, in first class they charge an arm and a leg. For the baby who doesn’t even
have his own seat they charge a thousand euros. They talked for a while about the latest in their profession, the state of the country, and then Humberto announced that he was starting to feel the effects of the pills and he stretched out to sleep.

The days in Buenos Aires had been intense and they reminded Ariel of everything he missed. He thought about Sylvia; they even spoke on the phone. It was four in the morning in Buenos Aires and Sylvia answered the call with a mix of euphoria and nervousness.

In Ezeiza, when he arrived, his brother Charlie was waiting for him at the entrance to the breezeway, chatting with the ground flight attendant. He leaped onto Ariel and squeezed him tightly in his arms, blocking the exit for the rest of the passengers. He took Ariel’s carry-on and put it over his shoulder. You’ve changed, he said, now you look like the older brother. When they passed a girl dressed as Santa Claus with tight short shorts handing out flyers, Charlie elbowed him. He took him in a new car to his parents’ house. I’m testing it out, if I like it I’ll keep it. You know now I go around as the brother of Arielito Burano, the Feather who scores goals in Spain, Charlie felt obligated to explain. Here Madrid goals get noticed, not everybody scores those.

On the way home, Charlie brought him up to date on family affairs. Their mother was in a delicate state again, with some depression, taking iron pills or copper or I don’t know what, and the old man is fine, spending his free time locked up in the little workshop as if it were his life’s business. He mentioned the new names in local politics, he told him about the hardships of close friends, so-and-so’s mother died, they kidnapped so-and-so’s son, so-and-so’s store closed, the so-and-sos went to Spain … If there’s nothing bad to talk about here, people get mad.

Ariel was listening to his brother, but he didn’t take his eyes off the city emerging beside the highway. He had missed it, the way the houses are arranged, the serrated profile of the buildings, the different colors, the familiar advertisements, the streetlights high up above the streets, the elevated railroad, the stores along the avenue. In the neighborhood, a few days’ worth of trash was accumulated beside the trees, because of the strike, Charlie explained, and they had changed the door to a metal one with a video alarm system. Things aren’t as bad as people are going to tell you they are, predicted Charlie. And take off your sweater, it’s eighty-six degrees, boiling.

At home they received him with tears. His nephews had grown and Ariel told them, I don’t know if the T-shirts I brought you will fit. He gave his father a bag filled with nougat candy, sloe gin, and vacuum-sealed Jabugo ham and his sister-in-law the magazine
Hola
. Did you win the Apertura? his father asked, and everyone laughed. Ariel told them the league championship in Spain didn’t end until June. And who cares anyway, said his father. You know the painter Dalí said soccer wouldn’t improve until the ball was hexagonal. Maybe that would suit me even better, said Ariel. His mother had gained too much weight. Ariel found her old and tired.

Do they stop you on the street, do people recognize you? asked his sister-in-law. Oh man, explained Charlie, in Spain they ask you for autographs everywhere, on a napkin, a bus ticket, on their T-shirts. You remember the little kid who asked you to sign his report card?

On the street, Ariel enjoyed people watching, the good weather. Soon the heat would really set in. A lot of his friends had gone out of town to the beaches for the summer. They
invited him to Villa Gesell, the beach house of some close friends, but he wanted to stay in Buenos Aires. As he was sitting at an outside café table on a corner near Recoleta, they would yell at him every once in a while from the opposite sidewalk, you’re brilliant! Or someone would give him the thumbs-up from a car window or ask him, are the Spaniards treatin’ you right?

He wanted to use his week’s vacation to get together with friends. What are we doing for New Year’s? Something at home, mellow, suggested Charlie. He talked to his brother about his adjustment to Spain, the team’s playing, about his needs. They told me you have a girlfriend, he said suddenly. Who told you? I have my informants. Ariel didn’t really know how much his brother knew and all he said was, yeah, well, there’s a girl, but nothing … Later he guessed that maybe Charlie was talking to Emilia.

He went back to his apartment in Belgrano. Walter had it better decorated than when he lived there. He even used the roof, which Ariel had barely taken advantage of. He had put in a hammock up there. They scaled seven metal steps on a shaky ladder and settled in with a thermos of maté. The building, near Monumental Stadium, rubbed elbows with the the highest ones in the area. All with acrylic super-balconies, expensive lounge chairs, and privileged views of the river that looked like the sea. It’s so great up here, said Ariel, in Madrid I live in a really different kind of place.

Marcelo invited him to a barbecue with friends, all of them
cuervos
, he warned.
Cuervo
meaning a San Lorenzo fan. He played Ariel his latest tracks from the studio, told him that he might be traveling to Madrid on his new tour: Express
Kidnapping. I got together a fabulous band, I’m pleased. He looked happy, sure of himself. The record just came out, and it’s already pirated in every corner of the Web, and what’s more you have to make nice and thank all those fucking people who rob you, but, well, as they used to say, it’s better to get robbed than killed. Ariel wanted to leave early, but Marcelo insisted, today the unemployed are going to be protesting, stay, there’s nothing to do out on the street. It’s organized by the Bloque Piquetero Nacional, the Corrientes Clasista y Combativa, the Frente Darío Santillán, the PTS, the MAS. Ariel was refamiliarizing himself with local politics.