Learning to Lose

by David Trueba

  Ariel got lost trying to navigate the outlying highways. He went back to the city center as if he could only find his way from there. In the Plaza de Colón he was stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. The policeman approached the driver’s side window. Ariel lowered it with his best smile. I got lost on my way to Las Rozas.

  I bet you’ve knocked back a few, haven’t you? I’ll let you go because we won, eh. He called his partner over, you’ll see, he’s a big fan. Ariel gave them a couple of signed photos that he had in the glove compartment. Then he received some confusing directions to the nearest highway entrance. The cop sent him on his way with an alrighty then, good luck, we’re gonna get back to hunting for drunks.

  The sun was already coming up as he got into bed. It took him a while to fall asleep. He was wiped. He woke up at three-thirty. He answered his e-mails. Marcelo wanted to get together with him during Christmas vacation, and told him that he was going to compose a song about an eighteen-year-old girl who killed a twenty-one-year-old kid in a suburban disco. It seems she didn’t want to dance with him, they got into an argument, he insulted her, she took a knife out of her sneaker and killed him. Fifteen years in the slammer. But what Marcelo liked was the girl had written that very night in her diary, “Today I really fucked up. I stabbed a guy and I’m really scared.” Someone has to write the great Argentinian song and it has to come out of things like that. Ariel wrote back, count me in for the Christmas barbecue.

  After a little, while he couldn’t find any excuse not to write Sylvia a message.

  “Hello. You want to get together tomorrow?”

  He picks her up at five. He finds her gorgeous when she approaches the car window. She’s a girl, he tells himself. It’s starting to rain and two Chinese guys are selling umbrellas by the stoplight. Sylvia’s face is freezing. It’s cold, she seems to justify, as she blushes. Her pink lips stand out against the paleness of her face. She’s wearing a thick wool sweater, and when she takes it off it lifts part of the shirt underneath with it, revealing the skin of her belly. Her jeans are black. They go to a downtown coffee shop, kind of swank, she says. There is a piano that no one plays. Let’s sit here, she points, but he prefers to be away from the large window. Oh, sure, says Sylvia.

  A pompous waiter comes over. She orders Coca-Cola, he a beer. I saw the game, congratulations, Sylvia says. He says thank you. Are you becoming a fan? It’s your fault, and she smiles above the glass.

  I felt terrible the other night, after I dropped you off, begins Ariel. Sylvia shrugs her shoulders. He continues. This is a little confusing for me … A mess, she says. But I wanted us to talk, Ariel goes on. Was this a good time for you to get together? Anything’s better than studying for my exams, she replies. I have three this week. Maybe today’s not a good day for you, he insists, awkwardly. Today’s perfect for me.

  Ariel looks around. He once again feels her strange authority. She always manages to gain control of the conversation, leaving him behind like a slow fullback. Sylvia sticks an ice cube in her mouth and then drops it back in the glass. She drank her Coke quickly. There is a moment of silence that Sylvia breaks with a smile.

  I don’t think we’re going to be able to kiss here, she says to Ariel.

  All of a sudden they’ve relaxed. Their knees are brushing against each other beneath the table. Sylvia extends her hand over the tabletop so he can put his above it. Ariel hesitates. When the waiter approaches, they avoid contact. He brings the check and asks Ariel for an autograph. For my son, I don’t like soccer. What’s his name? asks Ariel. Pedro Luis, but put Pololo, that’s what we call him.

  Ariel signs, trying to hold back his laughter, tears in his eyes. Sylvia covers her face when she sees his hand trembling. They leave and double over, bursting with laughter. In the car they are still joking about the terrible life of a boy who grows up with the name Pololo. With that name I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up throwing himself off a bridge or busting into a McDonald’s and killing thirty people, for revenge, says Sylvia.

  In the underground parking garage at the Plaza Santa Ana, they kiss. Ariel keeps a watch out when he hears any sound. This is where bosses come to fuck their secretaries in their cars, says Sylvia. He secretly feared someone would film them with a cell phone. It had happened to a teammate a few weeks ago. They kiss for so long, sunk into the seat, that the time runs out on Ariel’s garage ticket and he has to pay extra to the attendant, who is in a bad mood because someone took a shit in the nearby toilet and the smell is unbearable. What did that guy have in his guts? Damn, whatever it is, it’s rotten. When he gives Ariel the receipt, he recognizes him and says, let’s see if you’ve got enough time to get out now, because if you’re this slow on the field, we’re really in trouble.

  They get to his house as dusk falls. They make love leisurely, with extended preambles exploring skin, studying it as if their bodies were the subject of an upcoming test. They remain in an embrace, stroking each other. Ariel can’t remember ever being better, but he tells her, I’m scared shitless, you’re underage, I don’t know what I’m doing.

  Sylvia places herself on top of him. She wants to reassure him. Her breasts are half covered by her hair, which he pushes away. They are lovely, and she tenses her shoulders. I’m in love with you, she says to Ariel, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. You’re only four years older than me, you’re not my grandfather.

  Take me home early, she asks him shortly after. I don’t want another lecture from my father. Can I see you tomorrow? asks Ariel. Sure, but if you don’t mind I’ll bring my notes and look them over a little. I can’t help you out, I was a horrible student.

  In the car, parked at the beginning of Sylvia’s street, their mouths don’t seem to want to separate. They want to be together even as she gets out of the car. She has her hands hidden in the sleeves of her sweater, Japanese style. When Ariel goes back home, he has Sylvia’s fractured moan stuck in his ear.

  The fractured moan of someone losing their virginity.

  13

  Two weeks pass in a heartbeat. Sylvia says good-bye to Ariel. It is almost one. Christmas break from school has already started and that gives her freedom to stay out somewhat later. They are in the car, in front of a car repair shop. How long until I see you again? she had asked him a second earlier. Eight days. We have training on the second. Sylvia wanted to go with him to the airport the next day. Sure, he joked, so we can make the cover of the gossip magazines for the Christmas special.

  These constant references to the impossibility of their relationship make Sylvia uncomfortable. For Ariel it was something insurmountable. You’re sixteen years old, he would repeat as if it were a sentence, a definitive obstacle. Age is corrected by time, she would say to him.

  They went to the movies twice. In the darkness, they held hands and shared popcorn, but on the way out he distanced himself. Sometimes, annoyed, she would joke and approach him, asking in a loud voice, aren’t you that Argentinian soccer player? Alone on his way to the parking lot, he signed several autographs and listened to someone’s tactical advice for the next game. You have such patience, said Sylvia.

  His house was a refuge. They went in through the garage and found the house had been tidied by Emilia on her daily rounds. She’s on guard, Ariel confessed to Sylvia, this morning she told me that nights are for resting, that I’m still very young. Well, imagine if she met me, joked Sylvia.

  She no longer felt so inhibited at his place. The night they made love for the first time, she wanted to leave the second it was over. She found everything threatening. She was afraid she had stained the sheets with blood and when Ariel discreetly removed the condom, she heard it land on the wood tabletop with a comic, ridiculous sound. Love wasn’t an emotion, then; it was sticky fluids, smells, saliva.

  Sylvia warned Mai that her father could call someday to ask if they were together. Only then did Mai realize she had gone too long without asking Sylvia about her personal life. I met a guy, she had said, I’ll tell you about it
later. Mai, who wore dreadlocks as dried and frayed as seaweed, shrieked in the yard during recess, oh my God. But Sylvia had already revealed her secret to someone else before her.

  It was almost accidental. Dani found her in the hallway. This weekend I have tickets for a pretty good concert. Sylvia’s expression twisted. I don’t think I’m going to go out, I have to cram. Come on, you can study later … Dani insisted. I’m going out with somebody, Dani. Saying it made Sylvia feel relieved, secure. Her mirage could be real. She said it in a very soft voice so no one else would hear. Daniel nodded and smiled. I’m happy for you, he managed to murmur. Well, I’m happier for him, actually. They went down to the yard together, but there they separated.

  Telling Mai didn’t have the magic eloquence of the first time. She had decided against confessing to her father that one day when he came into her room, euphoric, and they had talked for a while about music. She didn’t tell her mother, either, in any of their phone calls where they spoke about exams and plans for Christmas. Or her grandmother on her Sunday visit, right before going to see the game. Going to the game because Ariel had invited her to the stadium.

  The game dragged. Her feet were cold and she kept them from freezing by stamping against the cement floor. It was strange to see Ariel on the field. He looked like someone else. A figure in the distance, different, older. She didn’t feel that he was hers when the entire stadium whistled at him or clapped at the capricious final result of a play. Near her seat were teammates not playing in that game and a few wives and girlfriends of players who preferred the cold of the stadium to watching the game from home or on the television in the players’ bar. They were all beautiful in the same way, somewhere between good genes and daily workouts in the gym. Like their husbands, they seemed older than they were; in the case of the women it was because of their pretentious, expensive way of dressing and their excessive makeup.

  Ariel’s team won handily. For Sylvia the stadium atmosphere was the most appealing. She missed the television replays and the close-ups that helped her follow the game. She couldn’t even figure out how the third goal, which Ariel scored, had come about. She did see Ariel, after the embrace of his teammates, run toward the central circle with a lock of hair between his teeth in an aside to Sylvia that only she could understand. She blushed there in her private box seat and looked around her. She was relieved that none of the eighty thousand spectators could possibly suspect the gesture was meant for her.

  The fans protested the referee’s decisions and applauded the offensive plays. They ate and drank nonstop; some had brought sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil from home. There were those who smoked cigars and an area where the youngest fans gathered to tirelessly sing and cheer their team on. Their noisy presence gave them their authority in the stadium.

  After the game, they were barely together an hour. In the car parked on a dark street. He had a dinner with his teammates that he couldn’t miss. It’s Christmas dinner. Are they fun? Sylvia asked him. Well, the president gives us a little speech and an expensive watch, then most people get drunk and end up throwing croquettes at the ceiling fans. Have you ever seen what happens when you throw a croquette at a fan? Is it funny? Oh yeah, everything gets all sticky.

  Sylvia’s nose ran from the cold and he lent her money for a taxi. When she left the car, he said, you didn’t congratulate me on my goal, but she walked a few steps without answering and then turned with a lock of hair in her mouth. That night the temperature dipped to freezing.

  They saw each other on Monday and early on Thursday they said good-bye in front of Sylvia’s door. The next morning, Ariel flew to Buenos Aires. I hate Christmas, this year more than ever, Sylvia says to him. The car that several weeks ago had run her down was now the car she didn’t want to get out of, whose appearance in the traffic around the Cibeles fountain she celebrated with a marked increase in her pulse.

  Ariel says good-bye with a flash of his headlights and waits for her to go inside the building.

  Sylvia lies down on her bed in silence. She has a bad feeling. The trip will separate them. She is terrified that Ariel’s doubts will grow without her beside him. Everything will conspire to make him forget her. They are a couple that no one else knows exists. It is a private relationship, one that can be made to disappear very easily. Such different lives will end up pulling them apart. Sylvia knows this. She wants to think that it won’t be that way, but she can’t manage to convince herself.

  There is no future for us, she says. We barely share anything, a bed and long conversations about a song, a movie, trivial things. This is the end.

  Christmas is death.

  14

  Leandro’s hand doesn’t shake. And that frightens him. It should be shaking. Otherwise what have I become? He looks at the veins of his hands to make sure blood still runs through them.

  He signs.

  His signature is a quick stroke, like the flight of a dragonfly. It’s the two initials of his first and last names, Leandro Roque. He liked it when he was young, when he imagined it was a name destined for fame. When he practiced his signature in Joaquín’s house, dipping the pen in the inkwell of his father’s office.

  At that point, the old military man was already retired and he fantasized all day about the possibility of writing his memoirs. When the sun warmed the street, he would go out for a stroll, showing off his manners, his war wound, his cordial greeting, his prodigious generosity with everyone. He paid for Leandro’s piano lessons; he helped Pedro on the third floor set up a sawmill with a few thousand pesetas; he got the son of the blind woman who sold lottery tickets at the market out of summer military service; he paid for sewing lessons and a Singer machine for the daughter of the guy who fried strips of dough; and he had taken care of the studies of Agustín, a young man who came to visit him some afternoons, who had been his charge since wartime and eventually became a high school Greek teacher.

  Once in a while, Leandro wondered if that neighborhood patronage was born of an innate decision or if it was the result of some guilty drive, a way to make up for all the damage caused. Because he never spoke about the war, about his mysterious adventure. In those years, few people talked about the war, except to mention it abstractly as an evil that had darkened everything and to tell, for the umpteenth time, some funny, or grotesque, anecdote almost always having to do with being cold or hungry. Cold and hunger being two enemies devoid of ideology in that recent, uncomfortable war.

  Now he was writing that same signature sixty years later. A signature designed for the end of musical scores or for fan autographs but that had only seen bills, irrelevant documents, and forgettable administrative operations.

  At the signing, he was surrounded by the bank’s branch director, the employee in charge of the matter, and a notary who didn’t meet his eye and arrived twenty minutes late. On the way there, Leandro had crossed through various states of being. Ups and downs, depression and euphoria. The morning of Osembe’s birthday, he had gone to the bank to start the loan process. We need several documents, the deeds to the house, your wife’s signature, medical certificates. The bank employee had written down a complete list of everything he would need, with the handwriting of a diligent university student.

  Tomorrow I can bring all the papers, Leandro had said to the director, who responded with an expression Leandro hadn’t liked. Icing on the cake. What did he mean by that? The director added that later everything would be in the hands of the risk department so they could okay the transaction.

  To Leandro the risk department was a sarcastic title. He was about to burst out laughing. It wasn’t that much of a risk, giving him money with their apartment as collateral. They called it a reverse mortgage, with that ability words have to obscure the truth. The reverse meant death. The day they died they would lose the apartment, no big deal, that same day they’d have lost everything anyway.

  He knew that branch on Calle Bravo Murillo from the days he first came to live in the neighborhood, as a newlywed. He h
ad seen it go through renovations, grow and change names according to the evolution of bank mergers. He had seen the staff retire and move on, young people arrive who would get old prematurely in their dark jobs filled with vacuous smiles and forced cordiality. The branch director, with his insectlike appearance, gave him explanations. Everything about him was fake. One could just as easily take him for a pervert, a standup family man, or a skeet shooter. The world seemed to end in his striped tie. As soon as you bring me the papers I’ll put the wheels in motion. The previous director, Velarde, had at least flanked his desk with family photos that gave him a real air. He was straightforward and coarse, a real chatterbox. The first time he noticed that Leandro’s profession was listed as musician, he commented, that must be very unstable, right? And later, over the years when the account stayed afloat with the always-punctual salary from the academy, he never missed the chance to say, you’re always surrounded by music, what luck, and, all I’ve got are numbers, nothing but numbers. Leandro must have heard him repeat that remark close to seven hundred times.