Learning To Lose Part 17

19.

Lorenzo waits for his father by the door. I'll stay with her, there's no rush, you can even stay out until after noon, Benita had told them. Aurora sleeps. She had greeted her son wordlessly, with a stroke of the hand. She is hot, although her cheeks have no color. Lorenzo readjusts her pillow and strokes her hair. She has lost a lot of weight. Can we go out for a walk? he suggests to his father. He doesn't want to say more, in spite of his seriously worried tone.

The first sign was the wound on his father's face. I fell in the stupidest way, Lorenzo told him. He had a cut through his eyebrow. I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to worry you, I must have slipped on the ice along the sidewalk. Did you go to a doctor? Yes, yes, there's nothing broken. When was it, after Sylvia left? No, that night, coming back from dinner. I didn't mention it to her so she would go to the station without worrying. Sylvia had gone to spend the weekend with Pilar. Your mother got scared when she saw me, but it's nothing, insisted Leandro.

On Monday Lorenzo worked with Wilson from early in the morning, a trip to the airport and moving an old refrigerator and a sofa from one Ecuadorian's house to another's. That night he received a call from Jacqueline. She introduced herself, I'm Joaquin's wife, I don't know if you remember him. Of course, said Lorenzo, but he couldn't hide his surprise. They agreed to meet the next morning, it's important, it's about your father, she said with a strong French accent.

Leandro puts on the coat hanging from the rack and follows Lorenzo out of the house. They go down the stairs, not saying anything until they reach the street. Let's go this way, toward the park, indicates Lorenzo. No, it's really dirty, there are benches in the plaza. The kids usually get together in the park on weekends and they aren't cleaned until Wednesday, they're filled with bottles and plastic cups, cigarette b.u.t.ts. Lorenzo doesn't really know where to begin. That same morning, he had met with Jacqueline in an apartment near Recoletos. She had him come in and, barely saying a word, she showed him the living room. The stabbed piano, everything upside down, the gutted sofas, the curtains on the floor. I arrived yesterday from Paris, the doorman called me, obviously I slept in a hotel last night. Lorenzo could only express a puzzled face. He didn't dare ask, why are you showing me all this? He sensed that nothing good could come from the bitter curl on the woman's lips. Joaquin chose not to come, to save himself from seeing this, even though it's all his fault.

Lorenzo remembers Joaquin. As a boy, he saw him often when he visited from Paris and his sporadic visits were always celebrated events. When he made his First Communion, Joaquin sent a Belgian bicycle with a backpedal brake. There wasn't another one like it in the neighborhood. It was Joaquin who asked me to talk to you instead of your father. My father? Jacqueline looked up and fixed her light eyes on Lorenzo's. What's behind all this? A fit of insanity, Leandro getting carried away with envy? Why would he do something like this?

She told him what she knew from Joaquin. Leandro had asked to borrow the apartment to bring a woman there Friday night. Then, on Monday morning, the doorman, Casiano, a completely trustworthy man, had the keys picked up from the mailbox, as agreed, and went up to have a look at the apartment, as a matter of course. And this is how he found it. Someone will have to take care of this disaster, clearly.

Look, all this is taking me a bit by surprise. Let me talk to my father and don't worry, there must be an explanation.

I don't want explanations, I'm not interested in that, I just want someone to take care of the repair costs, for everything to go back to the way it was. Besides, in addition to what you see, there are clothes missing, things broken.

The French accent, with those impossible r's, was risible, but Lorenzo didn't laugh. Perhaps stifling it was making him feel more and more resentment toward Jacqueline as she spoke. He just nodded, took down her phone number, and left without even showing any emotion. He was turning over in his head the idea of his father in the borrowed apartment on a date. Had he lost his mind?

When Lorenzo listens to his father, he has the feeling that everything he's telling him is a big lie. He can't believe it. They walk along the street and stop in the middle of some sentences, but without looking each other in the eye they continue in no particular direction. Leandro has adopted a neutral tone, he speaks in a liberating way, without dramatizing. He talks about Osembe without using her name; he refers to her as just a prost.i.tute, someone he called from a newspaper ad. I thought of using Joaquin's apartment for the meeting, you understand, I don't know, it was a stupid idea, and then everything happened so fast, it was so unexpected. I guess they took advantage of me and I was absolutely unaware of the risk I was taking.

Let me get this straight, Papa, they beat you up, they robbed you, they could have killed you. You have to report it.

Leandro shakes his head. He does so insistently, without saying anything, as if he wants to reject the idea with his head. We can't do anything. Tell me how much it costs and I'll pay it.

Lorenzo understands his father's silence. He realizes he's a victim. He imagines him beaten, treated badly, humiliated in that apartment. The image is more powerful than the one of his father as a mere client of a prost.i.tute, while his wife slowly dies in her bed. Well, I'll talk to the French lady and work it all out.

Should we go home? asks Leandro. Lorenzo feels pity for his father, a man he once feared for his strictness, his firm convictions, that he later ignored and even later learned to respect. His humbled father moves through the hallway and Lorenzo watches him go into his room. Who am I to judge him? If we could expose people's miseries, their errors, missteps, crimes, we'd find the most absolute dearth, true indignity. Luckily, thinks Lorenzo, we each carry our secret defeats well hidden, as far as possible from others' eyes. That's why he hadn't wanted to dig into his father's wound, to know all the details, humiliate him any more than he must have already been at having to tell his son the truth.

From the kitchen comes an intense smell of potatoes and onions frying, probably a frittata. You staying for lunch? asks his father. He understands how hard it can be for a father to show a child his most shameful, pitiful face. He can't even conceive of children judging their parents; they owe them too much. Lorenzo wants to console him, show his father that he's even worse. Papa, you should see me, what I've done.

Lorenzo says, no, I have work and then he brushes his father's elbow. Don't worry about anything, he whispers, I'll take care of it, you just take care of making sure Mama's comfortable, okay?

That's all you need to take care of now.

20.

Ariel holds the photos up to his eyes, feeling like he's looking at a stranger. He's not the one in the photos, and it's not him sitting in the club office having another conversation he never imagined. Yet in the photos he recognizes Sylvia and finds her beautiful, young, and exultant. It's her curly hair, her expansive smile, the cheerful way she hangs off his neck. He sees her in Munich, in a snowstorm, holding hands, and in Madrid, too, kissing on the street. They are foreign, dirty photos, devoid of beauty. They are stolen photos that don't capture the value of the moment; they are just evidence of who knows what crime.

It might bother people to know the girl is a minor, you know how everyone turns into a moralist when it comes to judging others. Ariel looks up toward the sports director. The manager is there, too, a guy he barely knows, with gray hair, a sky-blue tie, and an absent expression, as if only numbers excited him, not human pa.s.sions. Ariel is about to respond to Pujalte, to use the word blackmail, but he doesn't. He chooses to keep quiet. Beside him is the young agent they chose to negotiate with the club, thinking he would get Ariel out of any uncomfortable meetings. But that same morning he had called, alarmed, I think you'd better come with me.

Yesterday as Ariel left practice, the journalists looked for him with their microphones and their cameras. He lowered the car window and answered their questions for a moment. There were rumors of his possible transfer to another team. I'm committed to this club and its fans, so I'm going to give it my all. Soccer is played out on the field, not in offices. Give me a little time and I'll prove it was no mistake to bring me here.

Words fill the sports pages every day, saturated with sensational, emotional, pa.s.sionate declarations that no one pays much attention to anymore. Emphatic quotes are ashes the next day. Naive, Husky told him, as much as you insist on playing the role of the good boy, you're just naive. Ariel mentioned that in a few days he would be ready to compete again and he was already planning on defending himself on the field. That morning, after his statements, someone called into a radio sports chat show to defend him, he's the best on the team, he shouldn't leave, all the others should.

But in a sports paper from Barcelona, a journalist let slip the rumor that Ariel's Italian nationality was in question, along with some other players' origins, and that the public prosecutor was looking into the matter. If it was revealed to be a hoax, he could no longer occupy the spot of a European player and his departure from the team would be irremissible. No one is happy with the performance of a player they expected much more from. One after the other, the club knew how to deliver direct blows to convince him to obey their order. Accept what they decide. On the Web site of an Argentinian newspaper, there was already talk of the scandal over the trucho trucho pa.s.sports, as they called the forged birth certificates used to pa.s.s off Argentinian players as Europeans. Ariel's name appeared on a list with four or five other names. pa.s.sports, as they called the forged birth certificates used to pa.s.s off Argentinian players as Europeans. Ariel's name appeared on a list with four or five other names.

Now they forced him to sit at that table to contemplate what could turn out to be the final staging of real power.

As you will understand, no one is interested in this continuing, says Pujalte. There are a lot of things to hide on your side, more than on ours. Not to mention how your brother left the country. I think that in everything, and I mean everything, you have the team on your side. These are innocent photos, they were brought to us by an agency that wants us to have them, and you are lucky they want to maintain a good relationship with the club, they put us before their news interests. This happens every day. Last year we had some p.o.r.nographic photos of one of your teammates that some girl wanted to sell. What did the magazine do? They bought them for us. Well, they know that we both need each other. Without our umbrellas, you players would be prey, like partridges in the field, and, at the end of the day, who cares about one more or one less partridge in the bag? We are the only ones protecting you.

The sports director crossed and uncrossed his fingers as he spoke. Ariel slowly opens a bottle of water. He drinks a sip. Pujalte continues without letting Ariel's eyes meet his at any point.

What's happening is that you're trying to get the fans on your side. The executives, we're the bad guys, and you players are the good guys.

I only said I want to stay here, the same thing I said to you.

Look, if your Italian credentials are finally annulled, everything gets more complicated. I'll tell you one thing, without moving a finger, you'd lose your status as a member of the European Union, then forget about finding a team easily. It also works against us, but if you think we give a s.h.i.t...If that's what you want, I already told you the press only gums up the works.

Ariel wants to get up and leave that room where the walls are adorned with the exploits of the club's legendary players. The manager has barely said anything; he gathers the photos from the table and puts them away in his folder. Ariel's young agent tries to lighten the tone of the meeting. We are in favor of a sale, not a transfer. Perfect, Pujalte cuts him off, give us some a.s.shole willing to pay the termination clause, we're not going to give away a player. We can negotiate. That's what we've wanted from the first day, to encourage an elegant exit.

Ariel remembers Pujalte the day he gave him the club jersey to wear in the press conference announcing his signing. In just a few months, their relationship had changed. But Ariel is wrong to judge him and he knows it. Everyone plays their part: surely Pujalte is only trying to save his a.s.s and his salary after a bad year. The same things that today seem loathsome to him could have been charming if things had gone well.

Let us talk with your agent, you forget about the whole thing. You still have some games ahead of you, we have a lot at stake, and that's what you should be focusing on. I'll tell you one thing, that's what you should have been focused on from day one.

Ariel doesn't respond. The sports director talks to him about the possibility of going to the Italian, the French, the English league. Ariel asks, why not to another Spanish team? And he answers, no one likes to strengthen rival teams with their own players, I don't know why but they're always particularly motivated the day they play against you. People don't understand that kind of transfer.

Ariel wants to ask him if there is a possibility of going back to Buenos Aires, but he'd rather leave it all in the hands of his agent and Charlie. He knows that in Argentina no one would be able to pay his signing price. He sees himself in Russia, on a shady millionaire's team, like so many others.

He hasn't seen Sylvia in a few days. On the weekend, she went to see her mother. The day before, he traveled to La Coruna for an Argentinian friend's birthday. Players from all over the country were there. Those days had given him time to think about their relationship, distance himself again.

Several of them had met up in the lobby of a hotel on the outskirts of the city, many of them Argentinians scattered throughout the Spanish teams; three even came from Italy. They were picked up at the hotel and taken to a house in the countryside. Some didn't know one another, but they all had friends in common. Many had met on the field, had chatted during halftime or at the end of a game; others had exchanged a few words at the door to the locker rooms after a shower. A kind of school camaraderie quickly developed.

It was a big house with a huge yard right on the beach. They prepared an enormous barbecue and there were plenty of coolers filled with cans of beer and soda. They didn't sit down to eat until late in the afternoon. There were still some players arriving after their morning practice. The idea was that they would all leave early the next day, catching planes to different destinations, and let the party go through the night. The celebration was already almost a tradition. Yeah, like Thanksgiving, joked the host, Tiger Lavalle, a veteran player with a short beard.

The absence of women was absolute. Some players joked about it. The host's family lived in the city, and they used the beach house on various weekends. His kids were at school, already grown, I gave the world a couple of Spaniards, Tiger would complain. A fullback who played on an Andalusian team asked Ariel for his jersey, I have a kid who collects them from every Argentinian in Spain, he's wild about it, he doesn't have yours or that son of a b.i.t.c.h's, but I'm not gonna ask him, he said in a voice loud enough for the guy to hear and laugh at the comment.

There was constant music playing from the speakers aimed at the yard. The temperature was pleasant. Python Tancredi came out of the house with a guitar and started singing Vicentico songs. Others joined in, some pathetically off-key. The song was about a boat and it was sentimental and sad. There were three Spaniards as well, good friends of the host, and also two Uruguayans who ended up being the b.u.t.t of jokes. Ariel asked Python if he knew any Marcelo Polti songs. You like that guy? Gimme a break. But then he played part of "Cara de Nada," Marcelo's most famous song.

There was food left over and the entire table was filled with bottles of rum, whisky, and gin. One of the Spaniards, who was an executive on Tiger's team, insisted on bringing girls. He was funny, short, had an infectious smile, and smoked a short, stout cigar. He called up a former player and friend who after retiring had opened two enormous wh.o.r.ehouses not far from there. They all listened to him talk on his cell phone without knowing for sure whether it was a joke. Yeah, yeah, thirty girls is fine, but good-looking ones, don't just send me any old thing. Then he went out to give the minibus driver directions to a place on the highway he called Venus or Aphrodite or something similar.

An hour later, when pretty much everyone had forgotten about it, they heard the minibus approaching the gate. He promised me the best wh.o.r.es in the area, said the executive, he's a fantastic guy, he was a player on our team, came out of a little town in Orense.

Thirty-odd young ladies came in and joined the party. They divided up into groups. There were some Latin Americans, but most of them were Eastern Europeans. Thirty-three, someone counted. The men took care of serving them drinks, handing out chairs. There were people sitting on the steps of the terrace, those more sensitive to the cold were in the living room, scattered over the sofas, a few were even lying out on the gra.s.s although it had gotten cooler once the sun went down.

They brought out the birthday cake with candles, a surprise they had been saving for Tiger, and some went to get the presents they had left by the front door. Almost all of them were joke gifts. There was a blow-up doll, several bibs, two hats, a box of cigars, three c.o.c.ktail shakers, you guys think I'm an alcoholic, he shouted to applause, a jersey from the Argentinian national team, and a small Argentine flag. Ariel had brought him a book, which provoked widespread confusion, who was the a.s.swipe that brought this guy a book, he's famous for never reading anything. Ariel raised his hand and everyone cheered.

The night progressed and the sound of music and voices continued steadily. There were men who got intimate with women selected from the group. Others stayed on the sidelines; I'm happily married, f.u.c.k off. Some danced or changed the music every so often. Ariel found himself exchanging glances with a girl with a very delicate face and light eyes. When he found her on the staircase on the way to the bathroom, he sat down to chat with her.

Her name was Irina and she spoke good Spanish. She was twenty-three years old. In a corner of the living room, one of the girls was sucking off the executive as he reclined on the floor among cushions. The cigar had gone out between his lips, his head leaned against the wall. Ariel moved away with Irina.

They found an empty bedroom. The girl took condoms out of her purse. She was extremely thin and wore a very fine silver chain with a tiny heart around her waist. She had been working in Spain for almost four months, first on the Costa del Sol, but every month they switched her to a different place. She ended up in Galicia last week, she explained to Ariel as she spread a dilating cream on her v.a.g.i.n.a.

Ariel escaped from the party when he heard someone announce that a taxi was arriving. There were still people scattered through the yard and lounging between the living room sofa cushions. He hugged Tiger good-bye and shared the cab ride with two friends. On the way back, they talked about the party. Last year's was better, the girls took some of the charm out of it. It's awful, that a.s.shole f.u.c.king it up by bringing them. Well, did you sleep with one? How was it? Bah, fine. But you're young, you have to take advantage, life lasts as long as a fart in your hand.

Ariel had offered Irina money, but she said everything was already paid for. Even so he left a bill in her bag when they said good-bye. In the hotel, Ariel checked his cell phone. He had a message from Sylvia. She always managed to pop up, her simplicity, her purity like a smack in the face. "I love you," said the message, "I want to be with you."

When Pujalte sees him stand up, he asks, how's that ankle coming along? Fine, he answers. Those photos could hurt an innocent person, Ariel dares to say before leaving, don't think that...Forget about the photos, the manager interrupts, they don't even exist. Ariel nods, about to thank him, but luckily he stops himself.

Ariel leaves the office with his head bowed. He puts weight on his ankle without any problem. Tomorrow he'll have normal practice. He'll start hitting the ball around again. He missed it. When he was a kid, his father used to punish him by locking the ball in a bedroom closet. When the sanction was lifted, Ariel would get back the ball and spend hours kicking it against the brick facade where for years there was a message no one painted over: PERoN LIVES PERoN LIVES. If the ball is in motion, everything is easy.

21.

Sylvia turns in her test with indifference. She doesn't meet the teacher's eye as he divides the papers into stacks on the table. She goes back to her desk and gathers her things. She doesn't feel Don Octavio's gaze on her back, his surprise at getting a blank sheet. At the end of the hall, some cla.s.smates have congregated to discuss the questions. Sylvia joins them, but doesn't partic.i.p.ate in the conversation. After leaving school, they gather on the benches of a nearby park. Someone has bought some beers from the Chinese guy at the corner store. It's nice to just relax in the sun.

They talk about Easter break. One group wants to go camping, at least for a couple of days. Another student says his father is forcing him to go to his provincial town for the processions, I'll do it for him, for him and for my grandfather, but boy what a drag. I'd like to see you with your pointed hood on, someone kids. And are you going to continue the tradition by forcing your son to go, too? I guess it grows on you, it's a ritual, he says without much pa.s.sion.

Sylvia spent the weekend at her mother's house. She had a good time. It gave her a chance to distance herself from Ariel's problems, to not feel so dependent. She was comfortable with Santiago, Pilar laughed at his jokes, relaxed around him. During lunch downstairs at Casa Hermogenes, when Sylvia told them the school year wasn't going very well for her, he added that it must be that you're devoting your time to more interesting things. Must be, said Sylvia. Her mother tried to draw her out about the boy she was dating. Sylvia was evasive. She turned the tables, as Ariel had shown her how to do in soccer, when there's pressure on one side of the field, the best thing to do is shoot the ball to the opposite side, you force the defense to fan out in the other direction. Papa is the one with a girlfriend, said Sylvia. He already introduced her to Grandma and Grandpa. Sylvia tried to evaluate if that caused a reaction in Pilar, but if anything, all she noticed was a relaxed sigh.

The night before, she had slept over at her grandmother's. Aurora had insisted she lie down beside her. It's been a long time since I've had a warm body next to me, that warmth. Lying still, so as not to hurt her grandmother or make her uncomfortable, Sylvia remembered needing her mother's warmth as a girl. She ran to her mother's bedroom when she had nightmares, or sometimes Pilar curled up on one side of Sylvia's bed when she put her to sleep, their faces pushed close together, sharing a warmth that could be the same one her grandmother was referring to.

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon, they went for a walk by the bridges, near the river. They visited the Virgin of the Pillar and the Aljaferia Palace, then they had dinner in a nearby restaurant, Casa Emilio, where they were barely able to carry a conversation because in the attached dining room there was a literary gathering accompanied by constant shouting and banging on the table. The regulars, a group of drunks, shouted threats at the waiter about ordering a pizza. One of them sang a folk song, bemoaning, "they told me a thousand times but I never wanted to listen." The painfully discordant voice resonated throughout the restaurant. At first Sylvia and Pilar listened with a mocking smile, but the singer conveyed such impressive neglect and abandonment that in the end they were moved.

They walked home. Pilar hated the cl.u.s.ters of people who insisted on having fun as if it were their vocation, you can't imagine how downtown gets. They took refuge on the sofa and watched a celebrity gossip show where everyone lectured as if they were talking about something essential to humanity, even though the topic was the a.n.a.l fistula of some survival contestant on a Caribbean island. Pilar went to bed early. Sylvia stayed up a bit longer. On TV a blond woman appeared, insignificant beside her operated lips and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. After this brief break, she is going to reveal the long list of soccer players who have been in her bed, announced the host enthusiastically. So don't go away, we'll be back in three minutes.

Sylvia had a hunch that was confirmed after the commercials, when the woman on television let drop that among the famous soccer players she f.u.c.ked was an Argentinian player on a Madrid team who has the same name as a detergent brand. Sylvia sent Ariel a message on his cell phone. Turn on the TV, to Telecinco. Barely a few seconds later, Ariel called her. Did you really f.u.c.k that monstrosity? Ariel shivered, is that what she said? She gave clues. No s.h.i.t, I'm gonna sue her, this is incredible. It doesn't reflect the best taste, honestly, she said. But it's a lie, she hooked up with my brother Charlie, he brought her up to the hotel room, we had just gotten to Madrid. So you hadn't met me yet, right? Of course not, answered Ariel. Then Sylvia asked him, and since you met me have you f.u.c.ked a lot of girls? Don't be silly. No, no, I don't care, well, I'd prefer they didn't look like this pathetic ho bag, but...Can anybody just go on TV and say whatever runs through their head? protested Ariel. That's how people are, said Sylvia halfheartedly.

During their walk beside the river Ebro, Pilar told Sylvia that she had started an adoption process. Santiago wants to have a child, he says he envies me when he sees you. Sylvia wasn't expecting her mother to want to get involved in family life. And you want to be mixed up in that mess again? Pilar laughed heartily, that mess is now you and you're great, why wouldn't I want to experience that again? Doesn't it appeal to you? Sylvia only answered, I'm not the one who has to like it, you do.

And what if things don't work out with Santiago? Why wouldn't they? Because sometimes they don't. But when you're with someone you can't be thinking, maybe this isn't going to work out, you have to invest in everything going well, trust, otherwise...Pilar didn't finish the sentence.

Sylvia was envious of her mother's att.i.tude. In her relationship with Ariel, she always had an alternate plan ready in case of catastrophe, an escape plan, an evacuation route like the flight attendants pointing to exit rows. Although most times, when tragedy strikes, no one reaches the exit or it's blocked, locked tight as drum. In her relationship with Ariel, there was something that told her, all this that you are experiencing will be over tomorrow and you won't be able to cry about it or tell anyone about it. She had never deceived herself. That's why her mother, with one painful defeat on her record, was a model in the way she took on her new life. Having a little brother or sister could be good, she felt obliged to say, which got a smile out of Pilar.

Mai had suggested to Sylvia that they go on vacation together. Come with me to Barcelona, this way you can get to know the city. To the squat? No, no, we'll find a little hotel and if Mateo wants to go out with us one day that's fine, but there's no way I'm going to be tied down. In that case, why are you going to the city he's in? Let's go somewhere else. Yeah. Mai was left speechless. Then she said, well, you've never been to Barcelona, it's a trip, nothing like Madrid.

Sylvia and Ariel had made plans to go somewhere during the three days off over the Easter week. But it all depended on the situation with the club. His time off for the injury had been exhausting. When we don't play, we're like disabled, he had explained to Sylvia. Now I understand those retired pro players who come to watch us train, they want to chat with us, they need to maintain contact. They put together teams of former players and they still compete between themselves, as if nothing changed. They turn into regulars at coffee shops, recalling anecdotes. They still sign the occasional autograph and someone might ask them about the next game as if they knew the secrets better than anyone else. And, of course, they agree to partic.i.p.ate in chats and commentaries on the radio and television. Soccer players without soccer, Dragon used to call them, a dangerous breed, like singers without songs or businessmen without business. Stopped watches.

Sylvia found his confessed uselessness for civilian life moving. It also terrified her. She didn't want to be a victim of it, didn't want to become the shadow of someone like that. The shadow of a shadow. Perhaps that's why, when Ariel goes down to the gym, she chooses to stay with her notes and the novel Santiago gave her.

When the math teacher handed out the test questions, Sylvia understood the results of a bad school year, of the laziness, the lack of concentration. She felt terror at the thought of being left with nothing, without Ariel but also without herself. This is why she stretches out time on the street bench with her friends from school. She offers to go with her friends to buy more beers and more bags of pork rinds at the corner store. She suddenly enjoys paying the Chinese guy who furiously adds up the purchases and then distributes the bags among them. So when her cell phone buzzes in her backpack with a new incoming message, she doesn't rush to read it.

Only a while later, on the way home, does she look at it. "Should we do something together?" Everything, she wants to reply, but she doesn't because she knows it's not possible. Sometimes she says it jokingly, I'm jealous of the ball, that instead of thinking of me, my boyfriend has his head filled with thoughts of a leather ball with futuristic designs.

No one is home. She eats some slices of boiled ham that she finds at the back of the fridge. She's too lazy to cook. She lies down in her room and listens to music. Then she answers the message. In an hour, Ariel will come by to pick her up and she'll feel like another person again, far from that lazy teenager who now stares at the ceiling and whose voice repeats the chorus of a song she knows by heart.

22.

He tried calling Osembe's number twice in the last few days. Now he gets the same automated response, this phone has restricted incoming calls. His eyebrow looks better, the swelling has gone down and it scabbed up normally, dissipating his fear of not having gone to the emergency room. A trace of the bruise remains, more yellow than black and blue, around his eye socket. The pain in his right side could be from a cracked rib, but it only bothers him when he sleeps on it.

That night Leandro left Joaquin's apartment hurt and afraid. He had only gathered the bedsheets and put them in the washing machine and pushed aside the broken gla.s.s on the kitchen floor with his foot, piling it in a corner so no one would cut themselves. He ran his finger over the marks on the piano. He locked the door and left the keys in the doorman's box.

He didn't really know what would happen. He couldn't do anything about it, either. He would wait for Joaquin's reaction. He would explain to him what had happened.

He didn't have money for a cab, so he walked in the cold, which seemed to do him good at first, but later hurt his face. The pain in his abdomen made him think of Osembe. Did she hate me that much? In one of her trips to the living room, she must have left the door open, ready for the guy to come in. Was he her boyfriend? Maybe her pimp.

There were a lot of people on the street, at the entrances to bars, wandering from one place to another in search of fun. It was Friday night. He went into his apartment stealthily, not wanting to wake up Sylvia, who was sleeping beside Aurora. From her medicines, he chose a painkiller and lay down to sleep. It took him a while.

The next day he went downstairs for breakfast. In the bar, he had to explain to his neighbor that he was mugged for his wallet. Was it an Arab? No, he was black, said Leandro, African. These people, f.u.c.king h.e.l.l. In the police station, he reported his ID and cards stolen. Do you want to file a report for a.s.sault? asked the youngest of the policemen. No, no, that's okay. Do it, for f.u.c.k's sake, do it, said another from a distance, so that it shows up in the stats, no one around here wants to admit what a disaster we live in.

On Monday he waited for Joaquin's call. He tossed around the possibility of beating him to it and telling him everything. But once again cowardice won out. There was still the possibility that Joaquin wouldn't reproach him at all. He could solve it discreetly and in exchange they would never have to see each other again or talk about it. Always the most cowardly solution. On Sunday he had spent a long time calculating the possibilities of being run over if he hurled himself from the edge of the sidewalk into oncoming traffic. But he ruled out the possibility after imagining himself badly injured in the hospital when Aurora needed him most. He found suicide a pretty honorable way out of his situation. Yet he suffered from an atrocious physical fear.

Suicide didn't vanish from his thoughts until midday, as he fed Aurora with slow spoonfuls. He picked off the odd noodle that stuck to her chin and then cleaned her face with a napkin. He told her that he had hit himself against the kitchen table, after stooping to pick something up off the floor. A little while later, as Aurora slept, he took refuge in the bathroom and cried in front of the mirror, bitterly, unlike how babies cry, knowing they are going to be comforted. No, he cried with the deaf containment of someone who no longer expected to be consoled.

Aurora talked to him about Sylvia. She's at that horrible age and yet she's fabulous. She had left for the station early. Leandro avoided her, in spite of hearing her go out. She says that this year her studies aren't going well, how could we help her? Maybe you could give Lorenzo money to hire a tutor. Leandro nodded. I'll do that.

Chatting with his wife helped Leandro regain his composure. This is what my life has been like, coming home terrified and finding calmness here, the solution to fear, letting Aurora's love of life rub off onto me. She's been the engine driving me, this spineless vehicle. Leandro knew he wouldn't take his own life, he wouldn't do that to Aurora; maybe when she died, he'd gladly go with her, but not before. Surely she would blame herself for being sick, judging her entire life, her personal failure, based on that ending. Suicide is an incurable stab in the back to those who love you and survive you. Leandro realizes that his relationship with Osembe has something of a suicide about it, private suicide. At least he saw himself as dead.

All these feelings skyrocketed when his son Lorenzo came to see him. I called a prost.i.tute, he explained, I know it was stupid. He didn't want to give more details. Lorenzo offered to take care of it all with Jacqueline, those rich people don't know what money costs, we could talk to the police. Leandro feigned a last fit of pride, no, no, let it go, but he knew his son would never look at him the same way again. Are children capable of forgiving their parents when they discover that they didn't meet their expectations, either?

He had no problem writing out a check to Jacqueline for the amount she and Lorenzo agreed on. It bothered him that Joaquin had taken himself out of the equation. He also hid himself. Jacqueline settled for eighteen thousand euros, but she hadn't held her tongue in having the final word, you can't put a price on ruining a lifelong friendship.

They will polish the piano, paint the walls, put the curtains back up, change the sofa and the carpet, and among the other belongings that are now gone, old Leandro would also disappear from their lives and with him the last traces of a forgettable past.

Lorenzo worried about his father's finances. Are you sure you have it? That's a lot of money. Yes, yes, of course, answered Leandro before handing him the signed check.

Leandro hung up the phone. He wouldn't know what to say to Osembe anyway. Maybe she fears the police showing up and has even moved out of her apartment. Would all that be worth the euros she stole? Euros she would have gotten out of him in a much less violent way, or maybe the act itself was a settling of scores. That also mortified Leandro. She knew I would do nothing, that I wouldn't go through the shame of reporting her. Leandro just wanted to ask Osembe in whose name she gave him those cowardly kicks. In her own? Did he deserve them? Did she hate him that much? Or was it just an act in front of her boyfriend, to avoid misunderstandings? What did it matter? It would only help him to complete the map of human nature, something that fascinated Leandro and that he would never grasp entirely. People do things without really thinking about them. There isn't a motivation for every action, it's a mistake to think of it in those terms. Could someone imagine me? Explain me? Of course not.

He goes into Aurora's room with the bucket of water and the sponge. He helps her lift her arms and fixes the bedsheets. As he does it, his side hurts where he received one of the kicks, or was it from the fall? As if jumping from one train to another, he forgets Osembe and focuses on Aurora. She smiles, she wants to talk, but she doesn't have the strength. Leandro leans over and thinks that she wants to kiss him. He draws his cheek close to her lips, but Aurora speaks in a whisper.

It would be good if you called an ambulance, I'm not feeling well.

23.