Learning to Lose (54 page)

Time? Amílcar let out a mocking laugh. Time? We’re talking about soccer. Here the sports newspapers come out every morning. You want time? From here to the next game is more or less an eternity. Ariel kept quiet. He knew Amílcar was right. He drove an enormous car.

Why so serious? asked Fernanda, Amílcar’s wife, during lunch. Problems with the club, he didn’t make the cut for next year. She had a serene beauty she tried to envelop Ariel in. Well, they’re still thinking about it, he said. And don’t you have a three-year contract? Five-year. So what? interjected Amílcar. Come on, sweetie, if a player wants to leave he does, if a club wants to get rid of you, they get rid of you, the contract is just a piece of paper. A piece of paper that means a lot of money, she said. The money is the least of it. They’ll pay him, they’ll sell him, they’ll transfer him. Contracts are broken as easily as they’re signed. It was easy for Amílcar to talk like that, thought Ariel. How many years have you been here, Amílcar? I didn’t come in as a star.

Amílcar’s harsh tone hurt Ariel for a second. He focuses on the plate in front of him. Amílcar’s wife shakes her head, incredulous at her husband, and she scolds him with a look. It’s the fucking truth. No one paid me millions or put me on magazine covers or sent me out on the field to win a game in the final minutes. You wanna switch places with me? Amílcar, please, you’re talking to a twenty-year-old boy, don’t take on that cynical attitude, insisted Fernanda. No, no, I understand him perfectly, murmured Ariel. I think he came to you looking for help, not so you could tell him all the shit that this business sweeps under the rug … Amílcar’s expression soured. All right, sweetie, that’s enough. This is serious, not a chat over coffee, okay? When someone makes what he’s making, he can put up with being treated like merchandise. Well, I don’t agree. Just because they pay you a fortune doesn’t give them the right to treat you like shit, she said.

Okay, okay, don’t start arguing now because of me.

No, don’t worry. We love arguing, said Fernanda. She likes it more than I do. Amílcar’s wife smiled and then brushed her husband’s hand.
Meu anjo das pernas tortas
, she whispered to him, and he wagged his head, won over by her sweetness.

They ate leisurely. They only touched on the subject again briefly and they didn’t delve into it. When it was time to go pick the kids up from school, Amílcar stood. You relax, I’ll be back in half an hour, he said to Ariel. He disappeared shaking the car keys, his legs bowed like parentheses.

Ariel stayed with his teammate’s wife. She served coffee. Do you nap after lunch? Since I’ve been in Spain I’ve gotten used to taking a siesta, she explained. I sleep barely three minutes, but it makes me relaxed all afternoon. A blond lock fell over one eye and Fernanda blew it out of the way, a childlike gesture that made Ariel smile. She was very lovely. When you finish your coffee, come up if you feel like it. She smiled warmly. My room is the first door on the right, at the top of the stairs.

She turned and went up the steps. When she got to the last one, she looked at him with her clear blue eyes. Ariel coughed. He almost knocked over the coffee mugs. The maid, a short, smug Moroccan woman, appeared to take away the tray. Ariel sat there alone. He wanted to flee. But also to take Amílcar’s wife in his arms, to enjoy her beauty, which seemed to promise an icy surface, with fire inside.

Going up the stairs was torturous for Ariel. It all seemed perverse. He barely knew her, but ever since that first day he felt a mutual attraction floating in the air. Would he be able to go through with it just for a postlunch craving? Without taking anything else into consideration? Maybe it was all just a perverse game Amílcar was in on. He was about to run back
downstairs. The veteran player who brings new team acquisitions to his wife. Too messy.

He knocked on the door. I won’t do anything. Everything that happens will be her fault. I won’t lift a finger, Ariel said to himself as he opened the door after she invited him in. He noticed his erection beneath his pants.

The electricity of the moment seemed to come from her perfect, straight hair, layered around her face. Fernanda was lying in the bed, still dressed; she had only taken off her shoes. She placed a hand on the mattress, inviting him to come closer. From the first moment I saw you, I felt a positive vibe, I know you have things in you that you haven’t yet found ways to express. Ariel thought it was the moment to kiss her and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her lips. But she leaned to reach the drawer on the bedside table and grab the handle. She’s going to take out some condoms, thought Ariel. She extracted a thick book from the drawer. She flipped through its pages, deeply focused. When she found what she was looking for, she handed the book to Ariel. Read, read out loud, she asked.

Ariel read: “In sorrow, God is the only consolation. Nothing quenches your thirst, tiredness, doubt, and pain forever. Only the voice of God. He is the answer to all questions, the medicine for all ailments … ” Ariel stopped reading.

She took the book from him delicately. She read slowly, with her sugary Brazilian accent. The energy she put into uttering the phrases revealed the importance she gave each word. Ariel felt his cheeks burn, but he didn’t move. He heard individual words that held no meaning. Coexistence, truth, devotion. He understood what a fool he had been. He was glad in the end that he hadn’t thrown himself onto her or whipped out his cock
right as he crossed the doorway. He laughed at his own idea. He imagined Fernanda defending herself from the attack of his erect penis, her hitting him with that hardcover Bible-type book. She stopped reading for a second. The bizarre situation unfolding in Ariel’s head didn’t seem to affect her emotional intensity.

Take the book. You can give it back to me later. Take it with you. But I want you to know we would love to be able to help you.

Was it a sect? A delusion? Was Amílcar involved in this? He obviously was. He had left him alone with her for the recruitment ceremony. He stood up with the book under his arm. He could have cried or laughed right then. She spoke again; her face was lovely, not tense in the least. Don’t be ashamed, we’ve all come from places that would shock you, you are no worse than I am. The man who came up the stairs a moment ago was just a normal man, perhaps the one who goes down them now is a better one.

Ariel nodded his head and backed out of the room. Before he closed the door, she folded her legs and Ariel could catch a glimpse of her tanned, attractive inner thigh through the slit in her dress.

When Amílcar arrived, he was sitting on the sofa leafing through the book. He had asked the maid for two more coffees and was about to start climbing the walls from caffeine. They didn’t talk about the book. Was Amílcar some weird athlete of God or like that Chilean center halfback in San Lorenzo who recommended a psycho-wizard to his teammates, one who read your future in your asshole? The same one who told a player who was losing his hair from the stress of the competition to rub
his own feces on his head, which didn’t bring any results? He and Amílcar smiled, each for a different reason. They joked a minute with the kids and then Ariel called a taxi. He had a date with Sylvia at the café. He uses the waiting time to look at the DVDs they rent on the lower floor. He knows he won’t break up with her in spite of his efforts to distance himself. Outside everything is strange. He is so lonely without her. Why is it always like that?

Sylvia sensed his need to talk and she let him get things off his chest. So Ariel abandoned his usual hermeticism. Beneath his hair and behind his light eyes, he kept his thoughts locked in a safe. Would you come to Buenos Aires with me? Would you come with me?

What would I do there? Ariel lent her some thick wool socks. She has her feet up on the sofa.

On Friday she brought a backpack with some clothes. Three pairs of panties. Sportswear from Ariel. Every week he gets huge bags from the brand he endorses. They spent the weekend holed up at his house. Another fake trip with Mai, but her father didn’t give her a hard time about it. She seemed happy. For Sylvia it was a pleasure to wile away the evening together, wake up beside each other. When Ariel went out to buy the newspapers, Sylvia feared the worst. He had gotten a call from his friend Husky a little while earlier.

One of the sports papers had written a harsh, relentless article about him. It listed his failures, his inability to adapt, his
lack of commitment, and the inopportune injury that had left him, to top it all off, out of commission for the three decisive games of the season. The harshness was unusual. Too young to lead a team that needs wins. The end was enlightening: “The president would do good in finding him a team where he could get toughened up, and find a substitute who’s not a potential but a reality. It’s always better if the promising player is still promising in a couple of years, instead of just adding to the long list of failures.” It seemed to already be fated. Ariel threw the newspaper down.

Barely a minute later, Sylvia heard the murmur of Husky’s voice on the telephone trying to calm him down. Come on, that guy is on the club payroll, he’s just another employee. They call it journalism but it’s just a branch office. Ariel told Husky about his conversation with the sports director. Sylvia heard the story for the first time, even though it was being explained to a third party. Seeing her interest in the conversation, Ariel put it on speakerphone, and she listened to Husky say, they showed you their sophisticated working style, but they could also show their other face and throw you into the river with cement shoes.

Look, last year the president forced a sports newspaper to change both journalists who covered the team. In exchange he made sure to filter them the signings, the important news, before any other media outlet, what do you think, that the journalists aren’t part of the game? Husky let out a sardonic laugh. Here everybody has to sell what they have. They need each other, fuck, I can’t believe I have to explain this business to you.

Ariel tossed and turned in the armchair. Sylvia tried to calm him down after he hung up. He confessed all his frustrations about the team to her. That evening Sylvia heard him talking to
his brother in Buenos Aires and noticed Charlie was able to pacify him. In their conversation, his original accent came back, the old expressions that little by little he had set aside because they were strange to Spaniards. He read paragraphs of the article and Ariel seemed to take pleasure in the things written against him, as if it were some sort of masochistic exercise.

The day before, he had run into the sports director again during practice and they had talked about some French team’s interest in him. Monaco is a perfect place, don’t you think? Pujalte said. Ariel had then showed his defiant side. I want to stay and I’m going to fight to stay. It seemed obvious that the article was an emphatic response to Ariel. The fight is going to be unevenly matched, get ready. A message aimed straight at his jugular.

Sylvia didn’t really understand the sports reasons or the contractual difficulties. She was only thinking about one thing. If Ariel left the city, it would surely mean the end of their relationship. However, he denied that possibility. When she heard him talk, reflect on the problem out loud, Sylvia wanted to ask him, and what about me? What’s going to happen with me?

Sylvia heard him say things to his brother in Buenos Aires like, the money is the least of it, it’s a question of dignity. When he tamed his rage after talking with friends and his agent, Ariel lay down on the sofa, beside her. He seemed like a different person. Talking calmed him down, he lost the tone in his voice he’d had during the calls, like a caged beast. He now used a more broken, fragile tone, which was tender and made Sylvia feel useful, closer.

Now she listens with a pillow hugged tight against her belly. He says, I’m no good, I wasn’t good enough, I can get as mad as I want, but that’s not going to cover up the truth. No one
will come out to defend me because I haven’t done anything outstanding, they always have to find a guilty party, everybody was expecting something from me that I wasn’t able to give them. This is a game, if you play it well, you give the orders; if not, then they have control of the situation. It happens all the time, there are players with promise, but things don’t go right, and five years later they’re a pathetic shadow on third-tier teams and you ask yourself, wasn’t that guy going to be the new Maradona? And you feel sorry for him, or you don’t even care. Well, now I’m gonna turn into someone like that. Sylvia is afraid to interrupt and say something well-intentioned but stupid, so she just looks at him with enormous eyes and tries to understand him.

Which is why she is so surprised when he changes his tone and asks, would you come to Buenos Aires with me? She doesn’t answer right away. She doubts he has stopped to think, for even a second, about how all this affects her. Sylvia sees herself as the companion to a soccer player, the partner with the suitcases always packed. She looks at her backpack with the changes of underwear placed at the foot of the coffee table. The two distant, foreign, incompatible worlds come back to her, but she doesn’t say anything, she knows it’s not the right moment. It’s time to console him, it’s selfish for her to think of herself. They are talking about his career, his profession, not his feelings. That’s why all she says is, and what would I do there?

Damn people. I’m not leaving here, I’m not leaving you. Sylvia knows he isn’t thinking about what he’s saying. In a little while, his team’s game will start on television. They sit down to watch. Sylvia hopes they lose by a scandalous margin. That they make fools of themselves, that the fickle, cruel public will miss the injured player. Don’t say that, we have to win, he says
to her, this game is really important. Sylvia now thinks their relationship may end with the season, that he’ll vanish and she’ll go back to being the same gray high school student she was before she met him. She feels a fear she can’t wipe away.

As soon as I’m playing again, I’m going to bring them to their knees.