Learning to Lose

by David Trueba

  They talked about the neighborhood, of the widespread fixation on Colombian gangs, the payback deaths that were never resolved. Until the detective, as if declaring the end of a ceasefire, went back to Lorenzo’s personal life. I was surprised you were free this morning. Are you working? I do some little jobs, but I don’t have steady work. Mr. Garrido’s wife told me you have a little girl. Not so little anymore, she’s fifteen, sixteen already … At that age they’re only girls in their heads, the rest is a woman.

  The comment made Lorenzo uncomfortable. He comes to hunt me, to provoke me. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense for him to waste his time like this.

  I’m going to be honest with you, because I can see you’re worried. There is only one thing that surprises me about you. You are going through a bad patch, financially, I mean, I don’t know if in other ways, too. My experience tells me these situations occur when someone suddenly, cornered by problems, reacts unexpectedly. Somehow you could blame Mr. Garrido, Paco, for your current state. You don’t have a family that can help you, you’re not in an easy situation … How old are you? Forty-five, answered Lorenzo. That’s still quite young.

  Look, detective, I know that you think I might have been able to do something like that, Lorenzo spoke confidently, but you don’t know me. Violence terrifies me, paralyzes me. I see a street fight and I’m sick for two days. I’m going to tell you something. A while ago, years now, from my car I saw some young men, one of those bands of young kids, run and chase another kid. And they threw him to the ground and they kicked him furiously, you can’t imagine it, it was a terrible thing. Kicking him in the head, the ribs. I couldn’t do anything to stop it, they left him there on the ground, like an old rag. It made me sick. It’s something I still can’t forget. That violence.

  Lorenzo was telling him about a real episode. It had happened years ago. Sylvia was a baby then and maybe her being so young had made him feel the aggression as something personal and terrifying. The detective observed him carefully and sat up in his metal chair. Yet Mr. Garrido’s wife told us that, once, you almost hit her husband. That’s not true. It was an argument. I didn’t even touch him. But you were about to. She saw you. I know you know what I’m referring to.

  Lorenzo shrugged his shoulders. He was surprised at the insistence of Paco’s wife in pointing to him as a suspect. Her intuition was so dead-on that it hurt.

  Look, the detective told him, if I thought you were guilty or a suspect I would have stuck you in the can for a few days, I would have hounded you with some incriminating leads, and I wouldn’t be here having a coffee with you. The only thing I’m saying is that it intrigues me how the crime coincides with your bad patch.

  Once again the cop’s veiled insinuations. He thinks I’m guilty, but he doesn’t have anything on me. He’s digging around like a dog, but he can’t find what he’s looking for. He’s hoping I give myself away, that something will sink me, that I’ll lower my guard.

  The detective spoke again. I’ve seen it all, husbands reporting their wife’s disappearance and fifteen minutes later collapsing, swearing they killed her by accident, lifelong friendships ending in a fraction of a second, a junkie son who kills his parents with an ax. I’m not distrusting by nature, but life has shown me that I can’t close any door. I don’t want to make you waste more time, but I’m going to tell you the truth. I’d like to take you off my list of suspects, but I can’t manage to eliminate your name. There is always something that tells me it could be you. Do you know what’s probably the biggest strike against you? Deep down you think Mr. Garrido deserved to die. I can see it a mile away. Friendship is like love in that way, a double-edged sword, wonderful on one side and deadly on the other. Those are emotions with a horrible flip side.

  He lit another cigarillo after offering one to Lorenzo, who turned it down. You bought a van. You’re planning on starting over, huh? Lorenzo shrugged. I wish you luck. We still haven’t managed to find the guy who bought your old car, because you switched cars right around the time of the murder, right? Yeah, I think so. I might have to take some more of your time later on, there are some DNA tests pending, you know, these modern things. You can’t imagine how much we hate those fucking television dramas, now people show up at the police stations and they basically think you’re useless if you don’t come out of the laboratory with the guilty party’s name. Boy, would I like to give them a tour around the lab so they can see the crappy shit we’ve got to work with. Everything in this country has gotten so modern, except us … Well, I won’t take up any more of your time. Don’t worry, I’ll pay.

  Lorenzo realized that was his way of saying good-bye. He got up slowly, they shook hands, and Lorenzo left the bar.

  He felt constant fear during the following days. He barely slept. He was hounded by memories of the murder and the detective’s presence at every turn. He heard a distant echo when he spoke on the telephone; he was convinced someone was always following him, keeping their steps in time with his so they wouldn’t be discovered.

  He heard Sylvia come home at dawn and he could make out the sound of a car engine heading off when the gate closed with a metal clang. Maybe someone was watching the door.

  He had trouble answering his friends’ messages. He didn’t go near Daniela because he thought the detective was shamelessly watching his advances, that he enjoyed stalking him. He heard her move around the apartment upstairs, take the boy out for a walk, but he didn’t try to bump into her in the stairwell. He even went so far as to think that ten or twelve years in prison wouldn’t be worse than what he was living through those days.

  Wilson got him two or three moving jobs and they worked together with the van. In a corner in the back, there was still that cardboard suitcase from the apartment they had emptied out. One day around noon, he drove along the airport highway toward the senior citizens’ home. At the reception desk, which was covered with papers, he explained that he had come to deliver some belongings to a resident. When he mentioned the man’s name, Don Jaime, the woman seemed to show more interest. It was obvious he didn’t get many visitors. I took care of emptying out his apartment, and I wanted to return some things to him. The woman jotted down Lorenzo’s name and the number of his ID on a file card and gave him the room number on the third floor.

  The place was more ugly than sordid. He knocked on the door. Even though nobody answered, he opened it. He found the man sitting on the mattress, watching television. He hadn’t imagined him like that. Stout, immaculately clean, with a dreamy gaze on his kind face, not dangerous in the least. His face was shaved in irregular patches. At first glance, there was no trace of insanity or eccentricity. Lorenzo explained why he had come and placed the suitcase beside him. The man looked at him and seemed to understand, but he made no gestures of acquiescence nor did he open his mouth to say anything.

  Inside the suitcase were the watches, the clippings, some records, but Lorenzo didn’t open it to show him the contents.

  You can keep it all, said the man suddenly. I don’t need anything, thanks. I’d rather you have it, Lorenzo tried to explain. I also found this. Lorenzo still had the piece of paper with the telephone number in his wallet. It was on the door of your refrigerator, maybe it was important to you, he said to the man.

  That’s Gloria’s phone number, was all he said. As if it explained everything. Lorenzo nodded. I called her, but she told me she didn’t know you. That’s true, nodded the man. Lorenzo left the piece of paper on the bedside table, giving it an importance that perhaps it didn’t have. The man spoke again. Someone called my house one day. It was a young woman, in a hurry. I could barely talk to her. She told me, I’m Gloria, take down my number in case you need anything. I wrote it on that paper. But you never met her? Never. It must have been a mistake. She dialed the wrong number and thought she was talking to someone she knew. So why’d you keep the paper with her number?

  The man sighed deeply, as if he had no easy answer to the question. It kept me company, he said finally.
Sometimes I would call her, but I never dared to speak. I listened to the woman, to Gloria, answer and wait and then hang up on me.

  Lorenzo, without really knowing why, used the long silence to sit delicately on the bed beside the man. Without brushing against him. He stayed there a good long while. The man watched television and when a gossip program ended he said, now comes the news, and he turned off the television with a remote control that he had in the pocket of his pajama top.

  They spent a few minutes more in silence. Lorenzo asked him if he needed anything, if he was feeling okay. The man nodded. I’m fine.

  Lorenzo stood up. He heard the nearby highway as if it were running through the middle of the home’s tiny yard. And every two minutes an airplane made the walls tremble. They were very close to the airport, near the old Ciudad Pegaso.

  Maybe I’ll come back some other day.

  There was no one at the entrance desk. It was lunchtime. An old woman was sitting in a wheelchair on the path in the garden. From behind, her badly combed white hair looked like a resting dog.

  At home Sylvia was locked in her room. Music flooded the house. Lorenzo knocked on her door and she invited him in.

  Did you eat? he asked Sylvia. No, but I’ll fix myself something. Lorenzo waited a second before turning around. He paid attention to the music. Saturated guitars. A woman’s voice, powerful, strident, imitating the singer from the Pretenders. What’s this band?

  Sylvia showed him the CD cover. A brunette, wearing a white shirt without shoulder pads. Lorenzo left her room for a moment and came back with a CD. Put on number six, he told Sylvia. She, somewhat lazily, stood up and did as she was asked. See how they’re similar? Do you know this band?

  Sylvia shook her head. They both remained there, listening to the song together.

  All the music today only makes sense when you know what came before, explained Lorenzo. Now it’s a little softer, a little more conventional, and all cut from the same pattern. They don’t make bands like they used to.

  Sylvia knew the kind of music her father liked. Bands with legendary names, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. When Pilar left him, like a teenager, he listened to the same Queen song over and over, with that singer’s extreme voice. Sylvia would sometimes stop in the stairwell, before opening the door to the apartment, so as not to interrupt his exorcism. She heard him sing loudly over the recording. Too much love will kill you. Then he stopped, got over it. Just like you can have a love song, you can have a breakup song.

  I remember one day when your grandfather asked me to put on some of my music for him to listen to, Lorenzo told her. I chose something by the Stones. I think it was “Honky Tonk Women” or something like that. He sat down and listened to it on the record player, paying full attention. And then he said, it’s good. In my opinion, the harmony is very predictable, but you know that taste is a form of memory, so you only appreciate what you know. I’d have to hear it more. And then he looked sad, like your grandfather does sometimes. Parents and kids have never understood each other’s music.

  I like some of your stuff, Sylvia reassured him. She named Bob Dylan. Recently she had heard him at Ariel’s house. It seems his friend Marcelo Polti was obsessed with Dylan and he had turned Ariel on to him.

  Lorenzo picked up his CD. This chick was so hot, he said, pointing to the singer on the cover. She was virile, strong and stringy, but we loved her. I’ll lend it to you if you want. Okay, Sylvia said, but it sounded more like a consolation than real interest. She was pleased to find her father talkative, expansive, more animated than she’d seen him the last few days. So much so that Lorenzo dared to ask, Well, you never tell me anything about your life these days. Have you got a boyfriend? Because with these hours you’re keeping … I’m on vacation, Papá. So if you did have one you’d tell me? I don’t know, it depends, if it was something serious … And what do you call something serious? Everything is serious, he said. No, everything is not serious, maintained Sylvia, convinced.

  A few months ago, a friend of Lalo’s told us over dinner that one day she found her daughter, who must be about your age, necking with a girl, this wildly passionate thing on a street bench, near where they live, smoking a joint, I don’t even know what else, and the lady was super-pissed at her daughter because she hadn’t told her anything, even though they have a really good relationship. I told her that kids don’t ever tell their parents anything. Right? I never told mine.

  The conversation bored Sylvia. But she appreciated her father’s effort, possibly contrived, to access a part of her private life.

  One day, when I still lived with your grandparents, I came home for dinner and my father tells me, that girl called a little while ago, your girlfriend. And I hadn’t told them anything, they hadn’t even met Pilar, but my father said your girlfriend so naturally that it killed me. They asked me what her name was, I said Pilar, and your grandmother said, I wonder if she’ll come up to the house one day so we can meet her. And one day she came up to the house and I introduced her. I don’t know, it just seems normal to me, no big confessions, “Papá, I have something important to tell you,” he said in falsetto.

  Sylvia shrugged her shoulders. I don’t know, are you trying to get something out of me or what? she asked her father. No, no, not at all, I just felt like telling you, we’re talking, right?

  Lorenzo left the room. His burst of energy drove him to cook something beyond his skills, even with the help of one of the cookbooks that adorned a nearby shelf. Sylvia headed out a bit later. Lorenzo didn’t hear her come back until late at night. After one.

  The liturgy began with group singing. The pastor took center stage. He greets those present and talks to them with a syrupy accent Lorenzo can’t quite place. He tells them it’s Sunday and on this day we give the Lord our reflection, our thoughts, and our joy in this shared space of church. He speaks straightforwardly and makes eye contact with the parishioners. He’s wearing a white shirt buttoned all the way up. In the first row sits a stocky guy, his rear end spilling over both sides of the folding chair, holding a guitar in his big mitts. He plays a song Lorenzo thinks he’s heard before. Someone told me that life is quite short, and that fate mocks us, and someone told me life is filled with duties, and sometimes it will fill us with pain, but someone also told me that God still loves us, he still loves us. God still loves us.

  The door opens and Lorenzo turns to see Daniela come in. She is surprised to see him there, but she doesn’t walk toward him. She moves along the side wall and joins the people in the first rows. Lorenzo can just make out when she discreetly greets them and joins the ceremony. He doesn’t take his eyes off her. Daniela barely turns a couple of times to check that he’s still there. On one occasion, she does it while singing, along with everyone else, a song about God’s mercy for the poor.

  The pastor talks about everyday life, of God’s presence in the most trivial things, of his definitive presence in daily events. At the bottom of the wastepaper basket where you throw the remains of the day, he is there; in the stairs of the metro and in the elevator he watches to see how you react with strangers; forget those endless discussions about the soul and faith, imagine him in every corner of your lives. But he isn’t judging, he already knows you, he is accompanying you so that you don’t ever forget him. Do you see those security cameras they put in certain buildings? Well, God has those cameras installed inside us. Every once in a while, the parishioners answer him out loud, as if they were striking up a conversation. And then they break out again in songs and clapping.

  Any believer is a pastor of souls. You are pastors, in the street, at work, in your family. You can see the light that illuminates the invisible. That is our mission. To save ourselves and save as many of the people around us as possible. We are neighborhood missionaries.

  When the service ends, the group moves the chairs and chats for a while in a circle before escaping into the street. Some of them bring packages of rice, beans, or eggs and leave them in
plastic bags on the pastor’s table. We will hand it out, of course, he tells them. Daniela approaches Lorenzo with the pastor and introduces them. Welcome, the man says, I hope to see you back here often. Thank you, replies Lorenzo.

  He goes out to the street with Daniela. He suggests they take a walk. But she says that she has to stay to prepare the bags of food for the needy, to help the pastor hand them out among the poor. If I had known, I would have brought something. No, it’s not required, explains Daniela. They remain standing for a moment on the sidewalk.

  I didn’t want the other night to end badly. Maybe I went too fast, Lorenzo starts to apologize. But it’s important to me that we don’t let that come between us. I want to get to know you better. For you to get to know me, too. Lorenzo hears himself, he sounds ridiculous, influenced by the pastor’s way of speaking. It might seem weird to you, but I don’t want to let you get away, like something passing through my life I didn’t really get to know. That’s why I’m here, I wanted to tell you that. Wilson told me this was your church. Wilson knows the way? Daniela smiles. I thought he only knew how to get to the bars.

  Lorenzo ignores the comment and stares into Daniela’s eyes, as if he were waiting for something that hadn’t arrived.

  You’re very lonely, aren’t you? she asks him. You’re very lonely.

  16

  Ariel extends the seat back and tries to sleep. In first class, there is a lot of space, and beside him a man in a suit reads a business newspaper as he sips on a sherry. Like on the flight out, the plane is filled with Argentinian families that live in Spain, on their way back from Christmas holidays. In line to get onto the airplane were advertising executives, university professors, the solidly middle-class, mixing with more humble travelers holding big bags and showing tense expressions when they had to show their passports. January 2, the beginning of the year, always creates some sort of wide-ranging hope, like a blank page.