Learning to Lose (40 page)

It would be interesting to know what those eyes were thinking when they watched him make some ridiculous purchase at the supermarket. Some cans of sardines, eggs, beers, canned goods, the yogurts Sylvia liked. What would they think of a man sleeping alone for months now, left by his wife, who doesn’t pull down the covers on her side, who just folds the corner of his bedspread and gets into the bed without touching the pillow
that was hers, as if there were a glass barrier that kept him from taking complete possession of what was still a marriage bed in spite of the definitive absence of the other half? That inhospitable house that’s like a cave when Sylvia’s not there, and she’s there increasingly less and less. On some days when she left the house, she was resplendent, as if she had become a mature, beautiful, independent woman. Other days she was the same old lazy girl, curled up like a cat on her pillow in the childish warmth of her room with some reddish, ardent pimple on her forehead or chin.

He related to her in the same vacillating way. Days of monosyllables and evasive responses, and then afternoons filled with jokes, sharing the kitchen table or watching a soccer game on TV and arguing because she defended, for example, the quick Argentinian winger he criticized for his lack of connection to the team and his futile feints. He was a father with a teenage daughter he knew almost nothing about, who would be the last in knowing what all her close friends, and maybe even her mother, surely knew. But he hadn’t told her about his relationship with Daniela, either.

It was undoubtedly the most confusing chapter in his life up to that point. If they were dating, it was a very strange relationship. They walked separately down the street, they said good night at the door with a kiss on each cheek. The evenings they went out, they took long walks, Daniela strolling, almost dragging her feet. They would go in some café or a store where she’d try on shoes or a skirt, and then they’d leave without buying anything, either because of the price or her stubborn insistence that everything looked bad on her, I have fat legs, my feet are too small. Although sometimes a conversation would
provoke her splendid smile, it was difficult to breach the distance, to bring down the invisible wall that separated them. One would have thought they were just friends if not for the languid expression Lorenzo adopted as he watched her leave and his sadness on the way home.

On weekends they spent hours together, sometimes with her friends. Then more time was spent looking at store windows or trying on a pair of pants or a shirt. She only let him treat her once in a while. They would troll through the bazaars, eat at cheap restaurants. On Sunday mornings, they went to her church and chatted with the other attendees while the kids ran between chairs. Afterward they organized the bags of food, like little ration sacks they handed out to those who came to pick them up, some with honorable expressions attached to accepting charity.

On other days, they walked alone through the paths of Retiro Park and she stopped to greet some Ecuadorian acquaintance who looked at Lorenzo as if he were judging a usurper. If he mentioned something about the cutting stares her fellow countrymen gave him, she only said, pay no mind, they’re men.

It took me a long time to be able to tolerate those dominating looks from men, Daniela explained to him one day. You think I don’t feel those eyes that grope you in front and in back? Making you feel like a dirty whore they have the right to enjoy. Men are always very aggressive.

Lorenzo felt forced to defend them. He said that violence wasn’t always behind those looks; sometimes they can be admiring.

If a man wants to flatter you, she explained, he only has to gaze into your eyes, he doesn’t have to linger on your breasts
and hips and hound you. The same men that give you challenging looks when you’re with me would rape me with their eyes if they found me alone.

Daniela’s attitude, sensitive to any kind of sexual approach, in spite of the sensuality she exuded almost effortlessly, forced Lorenzo to apologize if his arm brushed hers or if their knees bumped under the table or if he touched her thigh when going to switch gears in the van. In the bazaar, when she tried on a necklace or some earrings, he would tell her, they look good on you, but when they parted he only dared to say, sleep well. In her way, Daniela’s most affectionate gesture toward Lorenzo had been one afternoon, when coming through the door and walking toward him, she had shown him her cell phone and said, did you know I included you in the four numbers I can call for free?

Work wasn’t much easier to define. Wilson had a small entourage of three or four Ecuadorians that he directed authoritatively during moves and pickups. Lorenzo had made a business card with his name and cell phone number beneath a succinct definition of the word
transport
. Often, though, his work was just taking Wilson to the airport and picking up a group of newly arrived Ecuadorians in the van. It was some kind of profitable collective taxi. Lorenzo drove around the terminal to avoid police surveillance and Wilson rang his cell phone as a signal when the passengers were ready. They dropped them off around the city and made sixty or seventy euros off the books. Wilson smiled at Lorenzo with his mismatched eyes and explained, when you come to a strange land, you always trust a fellow countryman.

Lorenzo would have liked to know if Detective Baldasano was aware of his activities and if they increased his suspicions
or perhaps convinced him that Lorenzo should be taken off the list of suspects in Paco’s murder. Seeing him exhausting himself over a few euros, working a full day for negligible pay, should surprise him. In case he had positioned someone to follow him around, Lorenzo made sure his days were very complicated, with no set hours or predictable routines, filled with patchy little jobs. It was surprising for someone who not long before had always held down stable jobs. If you are watching me, thought Lorenzo, welcome to the lowest rung of the labor ladder. He was amazed to see himself surrounded by Ecuadorians, with his shirt sweaty, working on sidewalks around the city.

Daniela sometimes took him to the Casa de Campo Park on Saturday afternoons. There they’d meet up with Wilson and her friends, buy something to drink in the makeshift stands, and snack on
humitas, arepas
, or
empanaditas
cooked in smoking oil. As the sun set, they’d sit and listen to the dance music that came out of some nearby car with the doors open. Wilson hadn’t been in the country long, but he was already recognized by the entire community. Lorenzo was a sort of local partner for his entrepreneurial abilities, his aggressive need to make money. That’s why I’m here, my friend, to rake it in, was all he would say.

There it wasn’t uncommon to find someone had drank too much or had left the soccer game on the sandy field near the lake with a grudge. Sometimes rivalries were unleashed amid races that lifted clouds of dust. If someone got violent, the others held him back. But the alcohol took its toll. One of those afternoons, it was Wilson who was involved. Daniela and her friends, among them Wilson’s cousin Nancy, pulled him out of a fight and took him home, stinking drunk, in the van. At the door, Lorenzo wanted to help them, but Wilson said he could
get upstairs on his own. The next day, Daniela told Lorenzo that he had drank even more at home and he’d attacked them when they asked him to stop drinking. The girls all took shelter in Daniela’s room, but they heard him destroying the furniture with punches and kicks until he collapsed. The next day, they were unyielding, even though he apologized a million times, and that very day he moved out.

Wilson then convinced Lorenzo to rent an apartment. Lorenzo would be the face that dealt with the owner; people don’t want to rent to us, and they won’t have any problem with you. They found an old apartment without an elevator on Calle Artistas. Lorenzo signed a contract with a trusting elderly woman whose legs were so swollen that she didn’t go with him to look at the apartment. She just gave him the keys and waited in the entryway. In just a few days, Wilson had set himself up in the best room and rented out the rest of the apartment to five other Ecuadorians. Two of them were married, but with no kids. It was a perfect deal for him. He had free housing and he even made some money to split with Lorenzo. A deal is a deal and a partner is a partner, he said as he handed him the first payment.

By the second week, Wilson had put a mattress in a walk-in closet and was renting it out by the night. Sometimes he closed a deal with one of the new arrivals they picked up at the airport. It’s only fifteen euros, brother, he announced, until you find something better. Lorenzo had to sort out a call from the owner, who had been informed by a neighbor that the apartment was a nest of spics, as she herself put it. No, no, Lorenzo reassured her, they’re doing some work for me, but as soon as they’re done they’ll leave and me and my family will move in.
And three days before the month ended, Lorenzo reassured her again with a punctual rent payment accompanied by a small tray of cakes, a detail Wilson had suggested. I have two sons, the woman explained to him, one is a soldier in San Fernando and the other works in construction, in Valencia, but they go months without coming to see me, they were the ones who convinced me to rent. And you are doing the right thing, ma’am, you enjoy the rent money, Lorenzo told her, and don’t let the neighbors breed bad blood.

Wilson was enterprising. He had convinced Lorenzo to become a moneylender to three families. We are their guardian angels, not opportunists, he explained. They fronted them the money needed to rent an apartment and pay the deposit, which was always excessive because of the landlords’ distrust, and Wilson took care of collecting the installments with their mandatory interest. You think the banks are better than us? They wouldn’t even let these poor people wipe their feet on the welcome mat. The amount he had lent out was up to three thousand euros. Are they gonna pay? asked Lorenzo.

Do you know any poor person who doesn’t pay their debts? They know we’re doing them a good deed, helping others, Wilson convinced him.

Lorenzo could never have imagined when he picked Wilson up at the airport, silent, nostalgic, out of place, that he would become a daily presence in Lorenzo’s life. But he admired Wilson’s ability to remake himself, to find yet another formula for multiplying a euro. You are my lucky charm, Wilson would say to him. To thrive here, you need a local partner.

Daniela was the only one who didn’t seem seduced by Wilson. He drinks too much. Even though after his violent outburst
he’d promised to quit alcohol, she still avoided him. Lorenzo didn’t talk to her about his stable partnership with Wilson; he knew that she didn’t trust him. Drink emboldens, Daniela would say. I suffered through that with my papá. A man who drinks is a weak man.

Wilson justified himself to Lorenzo. That Indian girl is very uptight. What’s the harm in a few drinks after work? Lorenzo tried to get more information out of him about Daniela, but Wilson was evasive. Over there I didn’t know her very well, either. Or he got more mysterious, saying, I think that Indian girl is a saint. You may be right, conceded Lorenzo. Looking into Daniela’s eyes is quite an experience. It’s as if they wash you clean. Wilson burst out laughing.

Lorenzo feels like someone hovering over a well-protected treasure, without daring to touch it for fear it might vanish. He remains cautiously close to Daniela’s fortress, searching for the way to make his decisive siege. He doesn’t know if someone is observing his shy advances or if Daniela herself mocks his attentions. They could be seen as just the innocent maneuverings of a man in love, or at least that’s how he sees it when he views himself from a distance.

The game you dream of is always better than the actual game. The stands of old Highbury Stadium embrace the fans’ constant chanting. It is some sort of pagan praying maintained in a murmur and only broken during the difficult plays. Then it
rises to a roar. When they get to the grounds, he’s surprised at how close the surrounding houses are, as if the stadium were an intrinsic part of the neighborhood. Dragon always told them, if you want to quiet the rival supporters, hold on to the ball. The first ten minutes, don’t even worry about scoring, but keep passing the ball, one- or two-touch, right and left, in fifteen minutes the crowd will be deflated and already whistling at their own players. Trust me, hold on to the ball, the crowd is like a petty, demanding wife who’s only loyal when you’re playing well.

They lose because of two goals on free kicks at the very start of the game. Even though Ariel’s team put on the pressure, no space opened up. The other team sent quick passes to a striker who received them in the goal area, brought the ball down to the ground, and guarded it while he waited for a foul or the arrival of a player from the midfield.

Dragon said that soccer was a game of memory where all the situations had been seen before, but there were infinite ways to resolve them. As kids he would tell them, if you’re bored on the bus, imagine what you would do in the face of a particular play, maybe one day it will save the game.

Ariel had become more integrated with the team. He dared to whistle to ask for the ball, and he noticed that during difficult plays his teammates started looking for him. His left leg was the only guarantee of escaping the defenders, a can opener against the fullbacks. That was soccer, ten against ten until someone breaks the dead heat. You lack concentration, the coach told them at halftime. We lack a system, he thought. There was no practiced model to use against the rival team. Their attack was structured like a chaotic lottery.

Coach Requero immersed himself in his notebooks. He had the Amisco system, which studied a particular player with eight cameras, then broke down the movements, analyzed the highs and lows of his success, and with that information the coach seemed satisfied, as if the discoverer of the theory of relativity were, in comparison with him, uninformed.

The routine: travel, concentration, game, press conference, obsessive opinions based on the most recent results, the invocation of abstract concepts like streaks, luck, crisis. In Spain they talked so much about soccer that it was impossible to emerge unscathed from the rain of words. Seventy thousand pairs of eyes fell on him when he received the ball. And there was frustration in every pair when the imagined play failed to match up to the real one.