Learning to Lose

by David Trueba

  No, it doesn’t seem that way to me.

  19

  Lorenzo decides to wait on the street. He walks down the police station stairs, scanning the sidewalk. They’ll be ten minutes, they had told him. Lorenzo was following an impulse. It had seemed logical for him to stop by the station and check in on the detective, ask if he had made any progress. He’d gone to an interview near there, for a job as a bread deliveryman, but the schedule was dreadful. Starting the day at five in the morning. I have to think it over, he had said. And, with a certain superiority, the man had smiled at him. Don’t think it over too long, I’ve got a line of people waiting. The previous afternoon, at the kitchen table, he had gone over his accounts. He drew up an amount for set monthly expenses, and added a cushion for unexpected ones. He had stopped receiving unemployment compensation two months earlier and managing his money was going to be essential in the coming months. He couldn’t remember ever having so little in his bank account.

  The first time he opened an account he was still a minor. During the summer, he had worked at a sample trade fair. His father had gone with him to open up a joint account. When Lorenzo deposited his thirty thousand pesetas, Leandro had surprised him. Here, he said, so you’ll have something more to get you started. And he gave him a check for 250,000 pesetas. It was some sort of secret gift. Don’t say anything to your mother, the last thing she wants is for you to quit school to work, she doesn’t want me to encourage you. But, gradually, Lorenzo’s life imposed the need for him to make his own money, to be independent. He soon acknowledged his failure at school, his lack of concentration. Óscar told him that his father was hiring at the photosetting company, and he took the job as a salesman. He worked with publishing houses, stores, printers. From the looks on their faces when he told them the news, it was obvious his parents didn’t understand his choice. What’s the rush? Lorenzo assured them that he would keep studying. And he did, for almost two years. More to keep them happy than out of interest in his studies. He met Pilar when he was seventeen. She was still in college. One day, Lorenzo found himself three years into a serious, tranquil, devoted relationship, and with a job that guaranteed him a stable, fixed income. Then he took the last step, said good-bye to his parents’ house, to his youth. He became self-sufficient.

  When he discovered there was so little in his bank account, he felt a shiver. He circled four job listings and started calling. In one of them, they were looking for younger people, under thirty. Another one was in Arganda, too far from home. Another was for a real estate agent, a job Lorenzo looked down upon, nothing sadder than showing homes on commission. The fourth was the bread delivery job.

  His crime had had a paralyzing effect on him. It was as if he were waiting to be arrested, as if he were waiting every morning for his door to be kicked down and the police to say, come with us. Then he would say good-bye to Sylvia with a devastatingly remorseful, sad look. That’s why it didn’t seem like such a bad idea to show up at the detective’s office. I could always collapse, confess everything, cry over my guilt. At least that’d get me out of this gray area, where I don’t know if I’m a real suspect or just a sidetrack in the investigation.

  But now he regrets coming. He’s out on the street, he didn’t leave his name with anyone, the detective hadn’t seen him, and he decides it’s best not to go back up. What’s he going to do? Ask awkward questions? Isn’t excessive interest a sign of guilt? Better to stay on the margins. He hasn’t returned to the scene of the crime as the clichés dictate. But the scene of the crime has returned to him, hundreds of times.

  Lorenzo knew that every Thursday, for many years, Paco and Teresa would dine at Teresa’s parents’ house. Teresa’s uncles and aunts and a couple of old friends were also invited. Paco would join the weekly card game. They would go down to the basement, where there was a bar and a game table, where the heating pipes were exposed and on the walls hung some ad posters from the business. They smoked cigars and drank expensive whisky. They joked around, and sometimes one of them would get wound up, but nobody really talked about anything of importance. Teresa’s father, whom Lorenzo had seen only on one fleeting occasion, was a distrustful person, with a cutting sense of humor. Paco sometimes admired him and sometimes despised him, but if he could merge those two emotions the result would have formed an obvious complex. Teresa’s father was a confident man who would repeat to anyone listening, I wish I had married my daughter so I could have myself as a father-in-law.

  The money was the first reason to attack Paco’s house. Lorenzo knew he would find the toolbox in the garage. Maybe Paco didn’t even remember that he had seen him take a wad of cash out of there one day. Paco bragged that he got money back each year on his taxes. He wasn’t afraid of under-the-table money, just ’cause it’s dirty doesn’t mean it stains your hands. And if Lorenzo raised any objection, he defended his position. Everybody’s the same, lawyers, notary publics, plumbers, don’t come to me with your scruples, here the only people who pay all their taxes are people with fixed monthly salaries. Lorenzo knew that the house alarm didn’t cover the garage, that the job could be quick. Their Thursday evening outings left him more than three hours to find the toolbox.

  He saw Paco’s car leave the house. A new, shiny car, a Swedish make. Inside he saw both silhouettes. Teresa was looking at herself in the visor mirror, finishing her hair. When he got close to the gate, the dog started barking, so it was better not to waste time. He jumped over the fence easily, in two attempts. The dog ran to have his back petted. He broke the lock on the side door to get into the garage. He was carrying a saber saw in a sports bag. He put it together and in six turns had gotten the frame off the lock. The dog barked at the noise, but then calmed down again.

  Inside the garage he turned on the light. He was wearing latex gloves and put the sports bag down on the ground. He moved tools and cans of paint around on the shelf. But the box he was looking for wasn’t behind them. Paco must have changed his hiding place. It had to be around here somewhere. Lorenzo started to search desperately, turning everything over. He was sweating beneath his coveralls.

  As he wiped the sweat out of his eyes, he heard Paco’s car approaching and the garage door start to rise.

  He stopped everything and hid behind the barbecue grill. It was wrapped in a green cover and he wouldn’t be seen crouching behind it. The mechanical garage door went up. He dragged the sports bag toward him, but he noticed the saw left on the floor. In that moment, the headlights blinded the garage and the car stopped inside. He didn’t understand why Paco was returning. He must have forgotten something. His in-laws’ house wasn’t far away, he must have left Teresa there and come back. He couldn’t ask him why. Now Lorenzo knew that he had come back to die.

  Paco left the car door open, which caused the car alarm to sound insistently. He took four steps and stood in front of the messy wall, touched the reshuffled shelves with his fingertips. He turned his head. Lorenzo couldn’t see him, but he took the machete out of the bottom of the sports bag. Paco’s feet approached and his hand touched the canvas cover on the barbecue grill. Lorenzo jumped up aggressively, leaped onto him, and dealt him two machete blows to the belly. Deep, angry, fierce. The next part was more complicated. Using the blade again wasn’t so easy. The two first blows had something of panic, of self-defense. Then they struggled. Paco’s eyes discovered Lorenzo’s. He didn’t scream. But his hands clamped onto Lorenzo’s forearms. Lorenzo only stabbed him once more and he did it like a coward, without conviction. Blood was pouring onto the floor, soaking his clothes and covering Lorenzo’s hand up to the elbow. Seeing himself like that disoriented Lorenzo, paralyzed him for a second. Enough for Paco to force him to let go of the machete, which fell to the floor. Paco lunged to grab it. Before he could get up, Lorenzo got the saw and, without looking, cut into Paco’s back, opening up his suit, which then started oozing blood.

  Paco took his time dying. To make sure he wasn’t breathing, Lorenzo turned the body over with his foot. He rea
ched for the hose and cleaned off his hands and then his boots and let the water flow freely beside his friend.

  It took Lorenzo almost five minutes to move. The car still gave off the monotonous alarm that the door was open. Its persistence was insulting. Lorenzo kicked it closed. He wasn’t sure if Paco was dead, but he couldn’t kneel beside him, take his pulse, look into his eyes. He had to trust that he was. He put his things away in the bag and decided to forget about the money. He couldn’t think. Nothing made any sense. He was sleepwalking, a man without resolve or clear ideas, without a getaway plan. The hose moved like a crazed serpent on the puddle-filled floor.

  Lorenzo dragged Paco’s body into the car. He laid it down on the backseat. He thought about leaving in the car, but it seemed stupid to drive around with his friend’s corpse. Finally he took the hose and stuck it through a slight opening in the window. The car slowly began to fill with water. Lorenzo watched it from the outside, standing in the middle of the garage. The inside turned into a flooded fish tank, drowning Paco’s body. The water reached the steering wheel, covered the upholstery, the dashboard, began to rise up the windows. When it began to overflow through the window, Lorenzo decided he needed to leave. How much time had passed? Would someone be on their way to look for Paco, wondering what was taking him so long?

  Lorenzo lowered the garage door and trusted that the place would become a swimming pool, that the water would erase any trace of their struggle. He took off his bloodstained coveralls and gloves, while the dog rubbed against him, inviting him to play. He threw everything into the sports bag. He crossed the yard and left as naturally as he could muster.

  Inside his car, Lorenzo took off his boots and changed his clothes. He was parked three streets past Paco’s house, in front of another single-family home. Driving away, he stopped to throw the saw blade into a dumpster. He threw the body into a different one, a few miles away. The saw had cost him more than seven hundred euros, but it was dangerous to hold on to it. Then he drove to a clearing and poured gasoline over the sports bag and lit it up inside a garbage can, convinced that someone was watching him, that none of what he was doing made much sense.

  In front of the police station, he struggles to go back in time, to jump back to the day before Paco’s murder. He is unable to get himself moving, to look forward, while suspicion still hangs over him. What was the point of looking for work if he was guilty of a crime? Wasn’t it better to just start paying his debt to society now? Or could he forget all about it? Leave it behind without punishment? The guilt was uncomfortable, but the uncertainty was so much more. He thinks about it from every angle and decides not to go back into the police station.

  He walks along the street. A man violently argues with a woman; they appear to be on drugs. People stare from a distance, but no one intervenes. At the bus stop is a poster of a model in lingerie. Someone has written on it, above her stomach, in blue marker: “Blowjobs 10 euros.” Three students walk noisily down the sidewalk. A man hails a cab. At the stoplight, a girl cleans car windshields while the drivers try to evade her. In his little shelter, a blind lottery-ticket salesman listens to the radio. Two women stroll along, walking together but each having a conversation on her cell phone. Lorenzo feels protected, comforted.

  He takes a walk over to his parents’ house. He wonders if he should ask to borrow some money from his father, but decides it would be a mistake. It would worry the old man even more. He moves the living room television into his mother’s room and while he is doing something, organizing others’ lives, he feels better. He realizes that his mood is a question of energy. If you stop, you’re sunk. The balance is a question of movement, like those plates spinning on the tip of a cane.

  He uses his parents’ phone to make a call. It takes him two tries to get the person he’s looking for. Hello, I’m Lorenzo, Sylvia’s father, the girl who got run over. The man on the other end of the line changes his tone immediately. He becomes cordial, like when they met at the clinic. When Lorenzo tells him why he’s calling, the man doesn’t seem to have any trouble understanding him. Getting the insurance settlement means waiting and Lorenzo isn’t so sure how generous the system is going to be with a girl jaywalking in the middle of the night. He is willing to negotiate an amount and forget about the bureaucracy. He doesn’t want to sound anxious or scheming. Have you thought about the amount? Lorenzo would have preferred not to say anything, he didn’t want to seem too self-interested or shortchange the amount. Six thousand euros? he asks. Okay, we can discuss it.

  He heads home. The walk tires him out and makes him feel anonymous, free. The sidewalk is sown with dry yellow leaves: the mimosas and plane trees are almost bare. He gets out of the elevator on his landing, but before entering his apartment he takes the stairs up to the fifth floor and knocks on Daniela’s door. She opens it, surprised. The boy is playing in the living room. I can take you to El Escorial this Sunday. Daniela looks at him, somewhere between amused and distrusting. No, I can’t, she says. Lorenzo is silent. This Sunday I can’t. My friend’s cousin is coming from Ecuador and we have to go pick him up at the airport, we have to be there to receive him. Lorenzo nods. Do you have a car? I can take you both in my car. Daniela searches for something threatening in Lorenzo. Really? Of course, I’d love to help you out. I don’t know, it’s very kind of you. She hesitates. On the landing they set up a time for Sunday. Lorenzo offers to pick them up at the entrance to the metro that’s two blocks away, at ten in the morning. Okay, that’s fine … Daniela closes the door when the little boy calls her from inside. She barely says good-bye to Lorenzo. She avoids flirting.

  20

  The meeting turns out to be humiliating. The sport director’s administrative office is in the stadium’s wing. Ariel goes up in the private elevator with an old club employee who barely speaks, his mouth sunken and his head bowed. The elevator passes the floor that leads to the box seats. They say that sometimes, when games ended in fights or handkerchief waving and the stands demanded someone be held responsible, the executives would take the elevator and lock themselves in the conference room. There, as the fans’ disappointment resounded, they would try to hold on to their jobs by firing a coach. That’s soccer, thinks Ariel. Power means having other heads that can roll before yours does. Pujalte, Coach Requero, and two other executives he barely knows are waiting for him in the conference room. A secretary has brought them a pitcher of water and three glasses.

  The coach speaks first, making a speech devoid of enthusiasm and dominated by the customary clichés: what’s best for the team, putting the interests of the group above those of the individual, we understand what it means, but you have to understand the fans. Everything had started a couple of days earlier, when Ariel got a call from Hugo Tocalli, the Argentinian national under-twenty coach asking him to play in the classified round for the World Cup for young players. Ariel had been in the previous game and twice went national with the under-seventeen team. He knew that playing in the World Cup in Holland in June would be a unique opportunity. The Argentinian national team had just won the Olympic Gold in Athens and in the last under-twenty World Cup, in the United Arab Emirates, they had lost in the semifinals to Brazil in a game that left him crying in front of the television. You’re talking to me about a juvenile tournament, for boys, a hobby, begins Pujalte. We can’t have you miss four essential games. Or send you to Colombia for a qualifying round so you can shine among the up-and-coming. For Ariel it’s a commitment he doesn’t want to miss, an international championship, a confirmation of his long-term career plan, an indispensable step up. Most of the days I’ll be missing are during my Christmas vacation. But Pujalte shakes his head. You are going to have to choose between professionalism and pleasure here. You have to forget about your country already, you’re not Feather Burano anymore, okay? It’s time to grow up, you came to Spain to grow up, goddamn it, to come into your own as an adult, not to play with kids. Think about the injuries, is the only thing that Coach Requero adds, his head down as
he plays with a pen between his fingers. An injury now would be disastrous.

  Ariel misses Charlie. Someone who speaks with authority, who slams his fist on the table. Who fearlessly defends Ariel’s personal interests, at least what was agreed to in the contract, the permission to play in national championships if you were selected, even in the lower categories. Ariel insists on its importance, in his motivation. But the club isn’t giving in. The national team is going to demand I play, and they have every right, the Federation forces clubs to lend their players, Ariel tries to explain. Pujalte interrupts him, of course they force us, that’s what we’re talking about, you have to voluntarily renounce it. The fan base will appreciate the gesture, your sacrifice. It could be the way you win over fans, wipe away their misgivings. The chosen word, misgivings, mortifies Ariel. He doesn’t respond, he knows he’s lost the battle, but he is surprised that Pujalte finds, in that moment, an opportunity to remind him of the public’s criticisms, the whistles when he’s pulled out of games, the general lack of enthusiasm around his signing. He continues to listen to a string of superficial justifications. He knows it’s just a question of power, that if he were at the height of acclaimed success, he would be able to make demands. But he’s not there now. He has to accept that.