Learning to Lose (7 page)

He thinks about his life, in the days when he knew for certain that he would never be a great pianist, that he would always remain on this side of the beauty, among those that observe it, admire it, enjoy it, but who never create it, never possess it, never master it. Although he feels rage, the music imposes its purity, distancing him from himself. Perhaps he is traveling far away from himself, neither happy nor miserable. Strange.

Lorenzo is sitting with his friends Lalo and Óscar. They follow their team’s fullback with their eyes as he races to the goal line. The center isn’t very good and the stadium responds to the missed opportunity with a general sigh. Lalo whistles, sticking two fingers under his tongue. Don’t whistle at Lastra, at least he gets his jersey sweaty, says Óscar. Lorenzo nods vaguely.
The game finally opens up toward the end, escaping the useless combat that dominated the rest of the match, the ball dizzy from being kicked from one side to the other. Lorenzo has sat for years in the northern area of the stands, near the goal that his team attacks in the first half. So he is used to spending the end of the game in the distance, with his players like ants trying to break the lock on the rival’s goal. The crowd is impatient, scoreless games create a shared frustration, they exaggerate the subsequent void. They follow the final plays with greater concentration, as if that would help their team. But not Lorenzo.

Lorenzo turns back; he has been unable to get into the game. When his eyes meet someone’s gaze, he looks away. He tries to recognize the fans who usually sit in the seats around him. Later he regrets his fits of anxiety, his worries that keep him from relaxing and enjoying. Like when on Friday he finally listened to his father’s phone messages and realized his mother had had an accident, he felt ridiculous for having hidden all morning. When he leaves the stadium, he will also be sorry he didn’t take better advantage of the opportunity for distraction.

On Saturday the newspaper announced the news. The television news programs did, too, announcing it along with two other crimes. A businessman, they said, had been stabbed to death in the garage of his own home, the only motive apparently robbery. An image of the entrance to the house, the fence, the number, the street sign. Filler tactics for a news item that may end up in the limbo of unsolved cases. Lorenzo could have filled in the details. He could write that the killer and the victim had met seven years earlier, when they worked together as middle management in a large multinational company devoted to
cellular phones. They had both profited from the opportunities offered by an expanding market. The division where Lorenzo worked had been absorbed and Paco was a proficient and decisive executive, the kind who needed to get the best yield from a flourishing business.

It was a fast friendship that grew quickly. They ate together beside their desks. One day they both bought the same car thanks to the special offer they got from someone Paco knew at Opel. Both red, both turbocharged. Paco was married to a quiet, very thin woman. They didn’t have kids. Teresa was the daughter of a building contractor who had created a great company from nothing. The shadiness of his beginnings had long since been smoothed over by the expensive ties that affluence allowed him to wear. When my father-in-law dies, joked Paco, I’ll cry with one eye and with the other I’ll start shopping for a yacht. Paco taught Lorenzo how to live. Meat is eaten rare, Paco told him; ham must be painstakingly cured so that the fat melts into the meat; disregard bread; you have to squeeze your Cuban cigar with your fingertips and feel the texture of the tobacco leaf, and when you flick the ash the tip of the cigar should maintain the shape of a cunt; your tie should match your ambitions, not your suit; it’s better to have just one pair of super-expensive shoes than six cheap ones. With Paco he subscribed to a wine club and each month they sent him a box of bottles and a pamphlet to get him started in gourmet wine tasting. When, by then partners, they were working late, Paco would uncork a nice wine and while they resolved the paperwork they discussed the flavor of a Burgundy or a Rioja and they ordered in Japanese food. And on the way out Paco would insist on showing him an apartment where erotic massages were given by Asian women who
were the height of submissiveness, but the only time Lorenzo agreed to accompany him he was attended to by a retarded little Chinese woman who laughed too much, so he paid quickly and went home without even waiting for his friend.

Every Thursday night, since he married Teresa in the Jerónimos Church, in the official celebration of definitive pussywhipping, Paco went to his father-in-law’s house and played poker with him and two old friends. When we’re bluffing, when we up the ante to trick the other team, Paco explained to Lorenzo, when we pretend to have a hand we don’t have, I think that’s the only moment since we met when we tell each other the truth.

Pilar never liked Paco. She didn’t appreciate his influence on Lorenzo. He smacked of nouveau riche, of tacky, of arrogant. You don’t understand him, Lorenzo corrected, all that attitude is a joke, he has a great sense of humor about it. Pilar didn’t become close with Teresa either. She doesn’t talk, and I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t have anything to say or because if she spoke she’d say too much, concluded Pilar after six or seven uncomfortable dinners between the two couples. Pilar never confessed to Lorenzo that one of the things that distanced her from Paco was the way he looked at her. It was challenging. He not only aspired to seduce her, as was his natural way, but he also considered Pilar a rival. Lorenzo was the prey, the object in dispute.

When the business stopped growing, the time came for cutbacks, for firings, restructurings. These companies are like an orange: once the juice is squeezed out, what do you want the peel for? Paco convinced Lorenzo to negotiate a reasonable layoff settlement with the company, with severance pay that would allow him to strike out on his own. There is nothing sadder than
a labor claim, Paco told him, it’s like crying to the woman who just left you. Paco had his own ideas: the pie had been divvied up, it was better to eat the piece they give us than get stuck with the empty tray. Around that time, the workers were protesting every day in front of the multinational company’s imposing building and had been recognized by the general population. Solidarity is only the first step toward guiltless indifference, warned Paco. He pointed to a vociferous colleague. Admit that it’s pathetic to shout at a building, at an acronym, throw eggs or paint, I prefer to put all my energy into being the one who lines their pockets next time.

Lorenzo let himself be convinced. He knew that he wasn’t made of the same stuff as Paco. Lorenzo came from a family that never valued money. He noticed how his parents grew bored when he went into details about the company he founded with Paco. After having their daughter, Sylvia, Pilar had been slow to find work, but when she did she always had Grandma Aurora available to take care of the girl. Pilar’s parents had died years before in a car accident and Lorenzo’s mother did everything she could in her role as sole grandmother. Although he never heard a complaint, Lorenzo hated depending on his parents. If he managed to get ahead, if things went well for him, Lorenzo would finally be able to show them his success.

Lorenzo and Paco bought two buildings and set up a store that sold cell phone accessories. Paco had a magic touch that gave everything the illusion of profitability. He might be late with payment to a supplier, but they never refused him a few beers, a couple of jokes, or a new shipment on account. He never went over the numbers; for him a diagram drawn on a sheet of paper was enough to justify a new investment. He was
decisive, brave; he bet big and he landed on his feet. We’ll balance the books tomorrow, today just tell me I can order a Ribera with dinner and a Partagás with coffee—this was one of his lines. Lorenzo let himself get swept up. He didn’t go to all the dinners and parties, he took refuge in Pilar, at home with Sylvia, he kept his old friends, Lalo, Óscar, but then he had to listen to Paco tell him friends are only good for filling the time one doesn’t know how to fill alone. Paco recited the catechism of an individualist and a winner. And if something sounded bad to Lorenzo’s ears, it was always burnished with just enough irony to be taken as a joke. No one could lose by his side. But Lorenzo lost everything.

Something that bothered him about Pilar was the silent accusation, the “I told you so.” That part of the defeat felt even worse than the defeat itself. It was so easy to come to the superficial idea that Paco was an illusion, a fraud, a player who laid waste to those around him. Lorenzo resisted it for months. In fact, during the collapse, the losses, the disastrous debacle of the business, their friendship seemed closer than ever. Paco talked about projects. Sure, Gruyère has holes, but doesn’t it taste good? he used to say. But the hole grew until it ate the cheese. The creditors were endless and Lorenzo lacked Paco’s ability to evade them, to trick them, to put off their indignation for four more days. The buildings were sold at a loss, the payout of the business was piddling, and the two years of work and the severance money had gone up in smoke. When Pilar forced him to see the company’s end, Lorenzo went through the bitter experience of asking his parents for money to settle the accounts.

Paco embarked on another adventure and Lorenzo didn’t want to get involved. That was where the distance was forged.
They barely saw each other. Lorenzo took refuge in his lair. He came up with a theory. Paco was a vulture, some kind of parasite, someone who sucks other people’s energy. He remembered how Paco used to arrive mid-morning with coffee the way Lorenzo took it, with just the right amount of sugar. How he always had some witticism, how he made fun of their coworkers and sowed temptation like music in Hamelin. He stole my luck, Lorenzo would tell himself. He came into my life and stole my luck. Because Lorenzo without Paco was a man forced to start from zero but now without luck, the doors didn’t open for him like before. All the good cards had already been dealt. Pilar had gotten established at her job; she liked it, she felt useful, and she advanced rapidly. That’s where Santiago came in, of course, Lorenzo said to himself. He came through the cracks of Lorenzo’s stability, smelling of power. Lorenzo barely lasted months in three new jobs. Sometimes the most exciting part of his day was picking Sylvia up after school, helping her with her homework. It was obvious Paco had shown him a much more attractive, fun, and passionate way of living than the one that now seemed to be his destiny.

Pilar came home from her office one day with wounding news. It was Lorenzo’s final, devastating humiliation. If only she had kept it to herself. The name of one of the creditors of Lorenzo’s business had rung a bell with Pilar. It was a name she had heard Lorenzo repeating in his nightmares every night. We owe Sonor more than three million. The sale of their last building went entirely to paying that debt. This afternoon I looked into Sonor’s business registration, Pilar told him suddenly one night, after putting the girl to bed. Lorenzo didn’t really understand, but he raised his eyes and listened carefully. The only
partners of Sonor are Paco and Teresa. She showed him the photocopies, the signatures on the company documentation. If Paco had ripped Lorenzo off, that changed things. If he had been capable of setting up the vague engineering to sink one company to the profit of another one, which he owned, then Lorenzo was a victim, not an unwitting accomplice. There must be some explanation, he said to Pilar, and he pretended in front of her that the news, so many months later, didn’t affect him very much. Pilar didn’t insist, she just left it at that; she regained her silence, a silence that Lorenzo sometimes considered insulting. He didn’t yet know that it was the civilized start of her demolition plan for their marriage. Termites work in silence, too.

Lorenzo let the days pass, but that information was the catalyst for him seeing Paco once again. For the last time before the time he killed him. He went to see him at his house. My wife’s house, don’t you think it humiliates me to know that the only reason I’m not broke is because I’m married to her? Paco had shouted at him once when Lorenzo was blaming him for his misfortune. Lorenzo heard the dog bark, but when the gate opened the animal searched out his hand with his back for a pat. He’s trained just the opposite of how he should be, he barks and then is affectionate, instead of being affectionate and biting when you least expect it, said Paco.

Lorenzo knew the house well. He had been there many times. When everything was running smoothly and then also when they were looking for solutions, ways to stop the final collapse. He had seen Paco take out a locked toolbox, hidden behind the shelves of brushes, rags, and cans of paint in the garage, and extract a wad of bills for emergencies. When my father-in-law has too much undeclared cash, I store a little bit of it here for him.

That last time they didn’t get further than the yard. Paco came out to meet him, smiling, offering him a hug, but Lorenzo stopped him. You ripped me off, you cheated me. Paco didn’t change his expression; he waited for Lorenzo to continue. Sonor was yours, we owed you money. It was all a trap. Paco tried to curb his suspicions, told him it was a different company, one Paco had set up with Teresa using his father-in-law’s money and that the debt was real. I hid the fact it was mine from you, but the debt existed, I can prove it. You were in charge of the accounting, he then added, you know it’s true, I never took care of the books, I lost as much as you. Lorenzo felt like laughing, but he just answered, not as much.

Not as much.

It was painful to say. At that point perhaps he sensed everything he had lost. More than the money from the severance claim, his savings, and two years’ worth of work. Much more. He had lost his family’s respect, his position. He had lost his luck. Lorenzo looked at the two-story house, the cropped lawn, Paco’s suit, his blond wave, his relaxed appearance. All nourished by betrayal. He felt rage and an irrepressible desire to punch his old friend. Paco tried to calm him down, he invited him in, he offered to go over the books. We fucked up, Lorenzo, we fucked up together, don’t blame yourself, but don’t blame me either, said Paco. We’re equal in this. It sounded fake. Lorenzo would never be like Paco. Paco never lost.