Learning to Lose (59 page)

Ariel found out about the photos from Arturo Caspe. Don’t think that I had anything to do with it, the agent said arrogantly. These girls are models and there are always photographers following them around. It’s part of being famous. And it’s not going to hurt you, soccer fans like their players to be virile ladies’ men. Ariel wasn’t in the mood to argue or stay on the phone very long. I just want you to tell me what agency the photographer works for, that’s it, was all he said. Half an hour later, Caspe called to give him a name. In the car, before Husky went up to the agency, Ariel signed a blank check. You’re crazy, I could run off to Brazil with this.

Why did he do it? The photos weren’t compromising. They weren’t going to do him or Reyes any damage. But right now, with the negotiation of his future hanging in the balance, he didn’t want the club to use his nightlife against him. They always did that when things were going badly. That beach party in La Coruña, after the local team had two losses, was used by the club’s president to suggest that the players weren’t taking the end of the competitive season seriously, and the executive who had brought in the girls leaked it to a radio commentator. And then there was a deeper reason, one he didn’t admit to Husky: Sylvia. Ariel didn’t want this issue to poison them. First the stupid woman who went on TV to brag about screwing soccer players. They were even kidding about it on the team. Husky told him, you good-looking guys can’t afford to get involved with scum like that, you have to raise the bar, it’s a moral and aesthetic obligation to the world. Sylvia had also found out about Marcelo’s concert in Madrid and asked him, did you go? Yes, but with Argentinian friends, Ariel told her, and she was annoyed because he hadn’t invited her. I didn’t
think you liked him. You’ve got me hooked, you play it all the time. Once again he was dirtying what in her was clean, free of deceit.

Husky had taken a while in the agency. He explained how they worked. Apart from professional photos, they dealt with couples who were at odds, looking to exploit each other. It was a rare week when someone didn’t show up to negotiate over some photos of a model, an actress, a TV hostess naked on the beach or on the terrace of her house, or, as Husky told him, sticking her toothbrush up her cunt, pictures taken in the intimacy of a relationship that weeks, months, or years later were only good for scamming some money or sullying the reputation of the person who dumped you. Husky told him, when the prince got married, the agencies were anxious to buy photos of his wife from old schoolmates, ex-boyfriends, they were selling her medical records, her gynecological files, her school papers, a painter even showed up selling paintings she had posed nude for. Then they use them to negotiate, exchange favors. This country gobbles up tons of celebrity gossip every day. Like every other country, corrected Ariel, you think mine is any better?

When he appeared after the long negotiation and got into Ariel’s car, Husky was in a teasing mood. I was expecting something erotic, spicy, a full-scale scandal. You want to buy some crappy photos of two good-looking kids in a taxi? What’s going on? She snagged a millionaire and doesn’t want the photos to fuck things up? Or he’s marrying the president’s daughter for her money and this could ruin his career? That’s what the guy in the agency asked me and, honestly, I didn’t know what to tell him. Ariel didn’t say anything, he just listened with a smile, waiting in the wings. Are you going to tell me, are you going to
say what the hell is going on and why we had to give two thousand euros to those sons of bitches?

I’ll just introduce you to Sylvia, said Ariel. And he starts the car.

Don’t mention any of this to her, warns Ariel later. They’re on the way to pick Sylvia up at her house. But right at that moment Ariel gets a message from her. “My grandmother is in the hospital, I’ll meet you in two hours.” Change of plans, we have two hours to kill. Well, after dealing with those skunks my body demands alcohol. What are you in the mood for? Husky directs Ariel to a place he swears serves the best gin and tonics in the city. They’re artists. Gin at five in the afternoon? Can you think of a better time?

They drive to a place near the Castellana. It’s a bar that has seen better days; it’s half empty and the walls are covered with deep-red fabric. There are a couple of women at the back tables. It’s a classic joint to bring dates. Husky greets the barman and they sit at a table. This is what’s known as a piano bar. An Asturian midfielder who used to play on your team arranged to meet me here for one of my first interviews, while he made out with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Those were other times, I was just starting in the business, and he was on his way out. I got a fabulous interview, which they never published.

Ariel and Husky talk over a drink. The lemon slice floats among the ice cubes and the tonic’s tiny bubbles. Ariel had gone back to practice that morning. He barely exchanged a word with Coach Requero. I didn’t think this was so complicated, he confesses to his friend. Here winning over the fans is a matter of one nice play, sometimes luck, Husky explains to him. There have been mediocre players they’ve loved to death and
geniuses they never understood. Then there’s the populist type, who always goes over well, who runs with all his heart toward an unreachable ball, the one who asks the crowd to cheer him on, the one who gets pissed off at his teammates when they’re losing. There should be a penalty for the players who sweat the most in games. Sweating is overrated. And I’ll tell you something else, in Madrid foreign players with light eyes have never been successful. No, this is a distrustful sport, and people always find light eyes suspect. Here breaking legs is appreciated more than dodging and weaving. And it’s the same in journalism, they want leg breakers. People believe that the journalist who insults is freer, more independent, but they don’t see that they always insult the powerless. They spit downward. I swear it would take you twenty seasons to even begin to understand how insane everything is around here.

It’s the same over there, believe me. It’s the same everywhere.

Yeah, maybe you’re right. You know what your problem is, Ariel? You think. You think too much. And a soccer player can’t think. A soccer player can’t have an inner life, for fuck’s sake. It destroys him. It beats you down, it paralyzes you. Shit, you’ll have time to think when you’re retired. Don’t keep running things over in your head, play. Just play and see where the swell takes you. Should we order another gin and tonic?

Ariel talks to him about Sylvia. I’ve been trying not to fall in love with this girl ever since I met her. Maybe the alcohol or Ariel’s passion when he talks about her leads Husky to confess. You know I was only in college for a year? Then I got an internship and said, fuck it, to my mother’s dismay. I met a girl there. She was a really special chick, she wrote poetry. You get the idea, right? And she was pretty, you can’t even imagine. We
were born to never cross paths. In those days I was into the Who, I had seen
Quadrophenia
a hundred and three times and had sideburns as long as table legs, but I fell for her like a drooling fool.

Husky pauses, such a long pause Ariel starts to wonder if that was the end of the story and so he asks, and? We went out, for a month or so. Then we broke up. Maybe we were too young, I don’t know, or it was the absurd feeling that if you meet the love of your life at twenty years old the best thing to do is run away. You should meet someone like that at forty, and even then it seems too early. At sixty. Two years ago, I ran into her on the street. She has a kid, she’s married, she’s in charge of media relations in I don’t know which ministry of those jackass things politicians spend their lives doing, Justice or External Affairs. It was weird because I asked her, do you still write poetry? And she turned beet red. I was super-embarrassed, because she didn’t want to talk about it, can you believe it? Well, they were horrible poems, of course, like all poems.

Don’t be an ass, how can you say that?

It’s the truth. When you’ve worked the Regional Third and every fucking soccer field all over Spain, after meeting the real people out there, I can assure you that if they put Lorca or Bécquer or Machado in front of me, I know what I’d tell them. Imagine they went out to recite their masterpieces in the middle of a soccer field, how long would it be before people jumped in to stomp on their entrails? No, dude, no, poetry is a lie that we invented to make ourselves believe we can sometimes be tender and civilized. Well, when I saw her blush, I realized I knew her secret, more than that, she had been as in love with me as I was with her, something I always doubted, even though she wrote me a poem once.

You? She wrote a poem about you?

Is it that strange? There are people who have written poems about Stalin or about a blind cow. Yes, about me. And I still have it memorized. Do you want to hear it? Ariel nodded enthusiastically. Husky began to recite with heartfelt pauses: “You aren’t handsome, you aren’t perfect, and that red hair, what’s to be done about it, you’re afraid of thinking, you’re afraid of caressing, you’d rather be called an idiot than to be told I love you, which is why I now write you: you’re an idiot, you’re an idiot, my love, you’re an idiot.” Isn’t that the most beautiful declaration of love you’ve ever heard in your life?

Ariel burst out laughing, mostly because of the importance with which Husky recited the verses. The girl knew you well, you are an idiot. You didn’t get it, “you’d rather be called an idiot than to be told I love you,” and she says I love you by calling me an idiot, what ignorance.

Ariel can’t stop laughing. A little while ago, he wouldn’t have thought that someone would be able to make him forget what he was going through. Now he wipes away the tears with a paper napkin while Husky insists, you brute, idiot means my love in the poem, it’s not literal, it’s a metaphor or whatever … Do you even know what a metaphor is? Right, how would a fucking soccer player know what a metaphor is?

They pick up Sylvia at the hospital’s side door. She greets Husky, who forces her to get into the backseat. Sorry, but I’m not getting into that hole, my feet don’t fit, he apologizes. Besides I’ve always found sports cars disgusting. Me, too, she says. I’m going to switch it, I swear, I’m going to switch it, says Ariel.

Husky chose the restaurant. To get there, they had to leave Madrid, cross a high plateau filled with offices, malls, and knots
of highway. It’s far, but it’s awesome, and we won’t run into anyone there.

It’s a Galician restaurant. The owner’s wife comes out of the kitchen to kiss Husky and say, my boy, my boy, you’re so thin. The fact that this restaurant is open, he explains when they sit down, is proof that this country hasn’t totally gone to shit. Now you’ll see how things really taste, it’ll blow your mind.

Husky goes to the bathroom. On the way, he shows them a slice of a large round loaf of bread in its wicker basket, look, look at this bread, please, there is still something authentic left in this world. Ariel brushes Sylvia’s hand. How is your grandmother? Terrible. Sylvia is silent. If you want, we can forget about the trip. Have you thought of somewhere? she asks. Ariel nods with a smile, we men in love are like that. Sylvia looks into his eyes. You guys are both drunk.

Husky comes out of the bathroom and returns to the table. Sylvia, when this crappy loser is playing in the Siberian Third Division, please, don’t stop calling me to go out, okay, keep calling me.

Maybe I will.

Venice is tinged with the burnt sienna of its houses. There isn’t much to do except look at this place, says Sylvia. Be amazed that someone could actually live here. They had sat in a cobblestoned square. They went into a store that sells handmade bracelets and necklaces. There were two cats lying beneath a magnolia tree. During the gondola ride, he hugs her. Sylvia curls her head into his shoulder. Music plays in a nearby house. From the canals they see the roofs of apartments, they pass postcard-perfect tourists, they hear the whistles of the gondoliers before taking the curves. Sylvia feels Ariel’s hand on her shoulder throughout the whole ride. It won’t be easy for her to forget. As they pass beneath a bridge, a group of Spaniards recognize Ariel and start taking photos of him and shouting. We’re the best, oé, oé. The gondolier frees them from the onslaught by veering into the canal.

They visited a museum and looked at store windows with luxury designer names. They ate ice cream in the Piazza San Marco, watched the children opening their arms and letting the pigeons cover them as they landed. The night before they’d had the last drink at Harry’s Bar and Ariel didn’t let her look at the bill. It’ll depress you. Across the table, Ariel handed her a gift. Inside a small case were two necklaces. Is it gold? He nodded. You’re crazy. There are two small chains that each hold one broken half of a soccer ball. When you put them together, they make one complete ball. He’s just a boy, thought Sylvia. It’s lovely, she said. A jeweler from Rosario made it for me,
ha tardado un huevo
, it took him forever. Sylvia smiled. It amused her
when he used Spanish expressions, they sounded strange coming out of his mouth. Sylvia put one of the chains on him and he helped with the clasp on hers. They were staying in a hotel on Lido Island, and they walked until they found an old taxi driver who offered them a drink from his bottle of vodka while he drove the boat. When they woke up the next morning, they pulled back the curtains to see the ocean, with the rental shacks on the beach.

Ariel had picked Sylvia up on her corner, and they drove to the airport. Above the check-in counter she read
VENICE
and that marked the end of the secret. I can’t believe it. They talked me into it at the travel agency, I thought it was a little corny. Corny? You have no idea. They boarded together. Am I your sister on this flight or have we just met?

At the airport, a driver was waiting for them with a sign that had Sylvia’s name on it. He took them to the wharf, and from there to the island in a boat. How can all this survive? It’s magic. What a smell, right? As they go through the city in a vaporetto, they see the façades covered with scaffolding, restoration jobs. They go down to the market and stop in the middle of a bridge to look at the canal. Noisy conversations in Spanish pass closely by. Ariel wears sunglasses and a golf hat. You’re disguised as an undercover famous person, everyone will look at you, Sylvia tells him. He doesn’t stop signing autographs until he takes off the glasses and hat. An Argentinian family with a boy wearing a San Lorenzo jersey keeps them under the Bridge of Sighs for almost twenty minutes; the father is an economist and tirelessly explains his theory about globalization and the state deficit. At a stand selling soccer jerseys, Sylvia asks for Ariel’s, the vendor checks with two or three younger employees, yes, Ariel Burano, but the vendor
shakes his head. Sylvia turns toward Ariel to gloat over the humiliation.