Learning to Lose (22 page)

Nancy feared that they were holding her cousin at customs. Daniela reassured her. As time went on, they were more sincerely appreciative that Lorenzo had come with them. It’s nothing, it’s nothing, he said, but they insisted. They were afraid of
the Spanish taxi drivers, who often ripped off foreigners, and if Wilson came with a lot of luggage, going on the metro would be a drag. If you ask someone you know for a favor, said Daniela, they almost feel like they have something over you. Lorenzo didn’t say anything. He asked Nancy if she missed her daughter. I’m spoiling her, she answered, she’s got the best toys in the neighborhood. Daniela smiled with her cheeks and squinted her lovely indigenous almond-shaped eyes.

Wilson appeared, loaded down with a ton of poorly wrapped packages. He was well built, his face speckled with pockmarks, his hair black and wiry, and he had a wandering eye that observed his surroundings. He wasn’t yet thirty, but he hugged his cousin with paternal authority, with one hefty arm, while the other, suspicious, held on to the cart filled with boxes. Lorenzo noticed that Daniela’s greeting was somewhat more distant; she stepped forward to exchange a kiss on each cheek. They introduced Lorenzo as an acquaintance who brought us in his car.

Lorenzo went up to their apartment with them. It had a small living room attached to the entryway and a long hallway lined with bedrooms. It was old, with paint on the walls half peeling off, and enormous doors of sagging wood. Two windows in the living room opened onto the back of Atocha Station; the rest faced a dark inner courtyard. When the terrorist attack happened, the windows shook. It was horrible, explained Nancy. We were looking for a friend, for many hours we thought she was dead, but then she turned up in a hospital, with one leg destroyed. She was lucky, they’re going to give her papers.

Daniela and Nancy insisted Lorenzo stay for lunch, and they prepared a stew with rice and goat meat they called
seco
, accompanied by a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola. In spite of the large
iron radiators along the walls, there was a small butane heater in the room. While the girls bustled about in the kitchen, Lorenzo talked to Wilson on the sofa, which that night would transform into his bed. He was coming without work, with a tourist visa, but convinced that the next day he’d find something. Noticing Lorenzo’s interest in his situation, Wilson asks him, and what do you do? Lorenzo grew visibly worried before answering. Right now nothing, I’m unemployed. But Wilson took it as great news. Why don’t we do something together? Hauling, anything. In Ecuador, Wilson worked as a driver. From trucks to limos, for a little while I worked as a bodyguard, too, for a guy who had an enormous hacienda in San Borondón. But your license from there won’t be valid here, Lorenzo told him. Well, answered Wilson, and he added an open smile, I could use your license, we look a bit alike, don’t you think? Except for the crazy eye. Lorenzo laughed.

Wilson faded a bit after eating, subdued by the time difference. By then Lorenzo was already captivated by his outlook. He had listened to his offers. If you had a van, tomorrow we’d already be working as a little business, keep me in mind for whatever you need. What else do I have to do except stay here at home with these five chicks, and Wilson smiled as if they shared a secret. Lorenzo made excuses, I’m looking for a different type of work, but I’ll think about it. Then he went down with Nancy and Daniela and two of the other roommates to a nearby bar, an Ecuadorian bar. He was the only foreigner in the place, which was attached to a Dominican-owned business where immigrants could call home cheaply. The bar was called Bar Pichincha, spelled out in orange adhesive letters stuck on the plate-glass window. Its old sign, Los Amigos, was still
hanging in front of the building, above the door, unreachable it seemed, except for the rock that had broken it. It was a wide space with a tall bar, a terrazzo floor, and metal tables where many of the customers were still finishing their meals.

No one looked at Lorenzo as he approached the bar and the girls clustered around him, but he felt uncomfortable, foreign in that place belonging to another latitude. The music transported him to another country, as did the faces. Daniela wore a tight black shirt, with silver embroidered letters that read
MIAMI
, which were sometimes covered by a lock of her straight hair. People approached to talk to Nancy or Daniela and soon Lorenzo found himself alone with his iced coffee. Daniela realized and went back over to him. We come here a lot. Sure, of course, he said. They started a private conversation, on the side. He asked her about her job; she talked about the rest of the neighbors in the building. About the man in 2B who once, insolently, rubbed up against her in the elevator. It was gross, sometimes Spaniards think we’re all whores or something like that. Lorenzo smiles. The guy from 2B? He’s a retired military man. Retired? Maybe from the army, not from the other thing. She said “dother,” melding the two words. They both laughed, but she covered her mouth, as if she got a charge of shame from saying it.

Daniela told him that almost every Sunday morning she went to church, but she’d made an exception that day to accompany her friend. Are you religious? she asked him suddenly. Lorenzo shrugged his shoulders. Yes, well, I believe in God, but I’m not practicing … A lot of people in Spain are like that, she said. It’s like they don’t need God anymore. But if you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe in anything. Lorenzo didn’t
really know what to say. He looked around him. It didn’t seem like the right place for a mystical conversation. She continued, and to think it was the Spaniards who brought religion to the Americas. Yes, among other things, said Lorenzo. The dance music resonated.

A burly guy approached the bar to one side of Lorenzo. As he leaned onto the counter he pushed Lorenzo, on purpose. Lorenzo turned to look at him, but said nothing. The guy fixed his defiant, deep black eyes on him. He was thick, not very tall, with the physical decisiveness of a refrigerator. I’ve got to go, said Lorenzo. Don’t pay any attention to him, they drink too much and they get aggressive. No, no, it’s not because of that, said Lorenzo after moving toward her and away from the guy at the bar. My daughter is at home and her leg’s still in a cast.

He said good-bye to Nancy, who was chatting vivaciously with her friends, and Daniela felt the need to accompany him to the door, as if she were protecting him. Thanks again. It was nothing, said Lorenzo. Tell Wilson he should call me if he needs anything. Daniela seemed surprised, ah, okay, but I don’t have your phone number. Lorenzo searched his jacket for a pen. It’s okay, she said, I know where you live. They said good-bye with a kiss on each cheek. On the second one, Lorenzo’s nose brushed her hair. It smelled of chamomile.

Lorenzo met up with Sylvia, who had eaten at her grandparents’ house. He had called earlier, don’t wait for me, I’m out with some friends. He felt a bit embarrassed about lying to his father, but he found it hard to explain that he was having lunch with the girl who took care of the kid who lived upstairs. Sylvia was with her grandmother, in the bedroom. They were playing checkers on the bed with the board tilted and the pieces sliding.
Leandro walked through the hallway, restless. Lorenzo spoke to him about Aurora’s condition. Her spirits seem better. She likes seeing her granddaughter, said Leandro, with her she pretends she’s feeling good. I think I’m going to buy a van, he said to his father, I want to start something on my own, I’m tired of working for other people. Lorenzo didn’t get the enthusiasm he was hoping for out of Leandro. His father offered him money, although we aren’t doing too well right now. No, no, refused Lorenzo, I have some, I made some, but he chose to hide that it was from Sylvia’s settlement.

The first day that Sylvia got into the van it was on their way to the game. I was tired of the car, at least with this I can look for little jobs. It was chaotic approaching the stadium, but he wanted to leave Sylvia in a nearby bar so she wouldn’t have to walk too far. Lorenzo’s friends, Óscar and Lalo, met up with them. It was their usual meeting place. The bar filled up when there was still an hour until the game started. Seven draft beers, a call came out, another round over here. Checking Sylvia’s tickets, one of them let out a whistle. What good seats, if you stretch out your hand you can grab the players.

And it was almost true. Although Ariel rarely came close to that area. In the second half, Sylvia had to strain her eyes to see him from her seat. The game wasn’t going brilliantly. Lorenzo had to explain some plays to Sylvia, but she wasn’t paying attention. They’re making mincemeat out of number ten. Number ten was Ariel Burano. Right before the end of the game, it was that player who took advantage of a muddle in the penalty box to edge the ball into the net. Sylvia lifted two fists to celebrate the goal. Lorenzo held her tightly in his arms and they both let loose with untempered joy. It was number ten, she says.
Lorenzo feels his daughter’s body glued to his and savors the moment. When she was a little girl, he squeezed her in his arms or tickled her and gave her affectionate bites, but as she left childhood behind their regular contact was also lost.

He was always envious of Pilar because she shared Sylvia’s most intimate moments. He remembers the night Pilar told him that she had found her crying in bed. Why was she crying? Pilar smiled, but her eyes were damp. She says she doesn’t want to grow up, that it scares her. She doesn’t want to stop being the way she is. And what did you tell her? asked Lorenzo. Pilar had shrugged her shoulders. What do you want me to tell her, she’s right. And the next morning Lorenzo had gone to wake her up to take her to school and he tried to talk to her about it. She didn’t seem too interested in listening, as if the alleged trauma had vanished overnight. In spite of everything, Lorenzo told her, you’ll see, life always has good things, at any age. If I had stayed a child forever, I never would have met your mother and you never would have been born. Sylvia reflected for a moment at the school entrance. Yeah, but when you were little you didn’t know everything that was going to happen later, that’s the bad part. Sylvia couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old.

After freeing himself from the embrace of his teammates, who had buried him beneath their bodies beside the corner flag, Ariel Burano runs toward the middle of the field and celebrates the public’s applause. The goal is the work of number ten Ariel Burano Costa, announces a euphoric voice over the loudspeaker. An ugly goal, but it counts just as much as a pretty one, says Lorenzo. Let’s see if those assholes open up a bit now and there are more chances at goals. But it’s not going to happen.
The game cools off. The last few minutes go by with hardly any opportunities; both teams seem to accept the results. With five minutes in the game, Ariel is substituted. He walks toward the sideline in no rush. He is applauded, although some whistles are heard. Why are they whistling? asks Sylvia. After he made a goal. Lorenzo shrugs. There’s something about him people don’t like. Too artistic.

Ariel lets the hot water run over his body. But he still can’t get the chill out of his bones. When things go well, the condensed steam in the locker room, in the shower area, looks like heaven, the promised paradise. One guy whistles, another jokes, someone imitates a woman’s voice, another asks for the shampoo. There’s no trace of that thick silence, of the low gazes, the twisted expressions of when they lose. They call the Czech goalie Cannelloni for the size of his cock and that night he can’t escape Lastra’s joking, who screams, I’ll bring you the hand broom so you can scrub the foreskin. Last Sunday Ariel had scored the winning goal in their stadium and this Saturday the second one was earned as part of his play. In Valladolid, with a wind that shifted the ball in midair, they had to mark the lines of the goal area in red because the field froze. Ariel had the feeling he was playing on razor blades. Right on the end line, he eluded tackle by two fullbacks and he faced the goalie with barely any angle. He took a step back and passed it to a forward who barely had to blow on the ball to get it into the
net. They call it the “death pass,” because scoring is something like killing. When the team embrace broke up, Matuoko came over to Ariel in an aside and patted his cheek, that was your goal, man.

From that moment on, every time the Ghanaian touched the ball, the younger fans made monkey shrieks, ooh, ooh, ooh, to insult the player. They moved their hands like macaques and the voice over the loudspeaker begged them to stop with the racist insults because it could result in a fine for the local team. Last week, in his own stadium, Ariel also had to hear whistles from the fans, in the area reserved for an extreme right-wing group that goes by the name of Young Honor. The board of directors treats them with kid gloves because they are loyal and passionate, they travel with the team at ridiculous discounts, and their organization has their own office in the stadium. Last season they had taken the team’s bus by storm on the way back from a game that had ended in defeat. They threatened the players and insulted them with shouts of mercenary and slacker. He had made a date to meet them in their office on the first floor of the stadium. Ariel passed Husky on the way out of the locker room that morning. Are you going to give them an interview and take pictures with them? he asked, shocked. I know everybody does it, but come, look, and he showed him their Web site on his laptop. Nazi symbols, the usual threatening, bullying tone hidden behind the team colors. Most of the players on staff were posing in photographs with the scarves and insignias of the group in an exercise of submission. Ariel found an excuse and got out of his commitment through one of the press employees. So when he heard the whistles and shouts of Indian, spic, he didn’t feel too hurt. The atmosphere around soccer is the same everywhere.
Matuoko, for example, was fighting against an accepted fact: a black player had never succeeded on their team.

Ariel dresses quickly and tucks his long wet hair into a wool cap. The visiting locker room, sad, tiled in white like a public restroom, contrasts with their home locker room, which was renovated with no expense spared. Some credentialed journalists and recently showered players mill around. He wants to say hi to one they call “Python” Tancredi, a guy from Santa Fé who inherited the nickname from the legendary Ardiles, even though he had been such a slow center halfback that in
La Nación
someone wrote that “it would take more than ninety minutes and two overtimes for Tancredi to reach a free ball.” Journalists sometimes showed off their wit cruelly. They say that Python sent a gift to the newspaper’s staff, his stool in a glass jar. Tancredi has been in Spain for six years and he greets Ariel with a hug and a kiss on each cheek. You getting used to it? Dude, you see how chilly the reception is here.