Learning to Lose

by David Trueba

  Ariel was slow to bring her to the apartment on purpose. Wait until they decorate it, they recommended someone who did the places of several guys on the team, he told her a few days ago. Typical, you buy an apartment and you have it decorated by some snobby bitch who specializes in soccer players’ houses. But Ariel didn’t want Sylvia to think of his buying the apartment as a commitment between them. He knew it was unfair, but it was one way to avoid misunderstandings.

  Last weekend he was glad to be playing out of town, to travel to Valencia. He scored the tying goal against the local team and that gave them the push they needed to win the game in the last few minutes. Ariel didn’t celebrate the goal by chewing on a lock of hair, and he didn’t find a message from Sylvia on his cell phone when the match was over. They gave them the night off in the city and he went out with his teammates. They ate paella in the private room of a restaurant on the beach and then they were taken to a well-known nightclub. There they sat in a private booth that looked out over the full dance floor, but where no one could bother them. The owner of the place offered them girls, but Amílcar warned his closest buddies, be careful, they record everything here. If you want whores, take them to the hotel with you.

  In spite of the warnings, ten minutes later the private room was filled with dissonant laughter. The girls divided up into groups. They are really nice, said the owner, making it clear that they weren’t professionals. Ariel talked to one who said her name was Mamen and after a very brief conversation about nothing she let drop, you know what? I’m having an awesome time. Her only worry seemed to be maintaining her blond curl behind her ear and showing off her excessive, uniform tan. I thought Argentinians were more talkative, she said at some point. He smiled. Only with our analysts. When you come from a small country, you must flip over how superpassionate we are about soccer here, right? Ariel felt himself shiver. Amílcar rescued him with a trip to the bathroom. There the right fullback was finishing taking a piss. How’s yours? he asked. Too stupid, answered Ariel. Stupid girls turn me on, you’re not into them?

  Look, for me to fuck one of these sluts I’d have to be incredibly drunk, said Amílcar. Well, your wife is lovely, answered Ariel. That’s what you need to do. Find a decent girl who keeps you on a short leash. Now with the money we make you’re always gonna have one flitting around, but it’s a waste of time. I’ve been playing fifteen years, if I didn’t have the life I’ve had I’d be in jail somewhere, or retired.

  When he went back to the private room, Ariel was glad the girl was talking to some other teammate. Some of them had gone downstairs to dance reggaetón. He sat next to Amílcar and they made sarcastic cracks about their teammates. One of them had been caught by his wife in bed with the nanny. She threw him out of the house.

  The next day, they went back by train, most of them dozing, hung over. At the station’s exit was a group of people waiting to ask for autographs. It took them almost half an hour to get onto the bus. On the way to the stadium, Ariel looked at the line on a Sunday morning in front of the Prado. I’ve been in Madrid six months and I still haven’t visited the museum, he said to himself. He decided to do it that same week.

  He spent the evening at home. Husky stopped by. They watched the last game of the day on television. Husky put on the radio while they watched it on mute. I used to work on the radio, rebroadcasting games. But with this voice, shit, people called in to complain all the time, get rid of that guy who lost his voice. I still think I could have been successful, the Tom Waits of sports newscasting, but the plebs like a commentator to sing out the goals with a trill. I say the plebs because my boss at the station always called the listeners that, the guy used to say to us, now pass me another call from the plebs, or, the plebs are gonna love this bit, we owe it to the plebs, we can’t let the plebs down, the plebs want entertainment.

  After the Argentinian league game, Ariel took Husky into the city. It made you all nostalgic, Husky said, seeing him so quiet, you shouldn’t watch games from your country. The truth is sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. Money, man, making a lot of money, isn’t that enough? More money than you could even imagine when you were a pibito in Río de la Plata. Ariel is amused by the ludicrous Argentinian accent Husky puts on.

  Turn, turn down this street, wait till you see. Ariel obeyed and drove alongside a sidewalk filled with North African women in lingerie offering themselves up. Go slower, I can’t get a good look at them, said Husky. Incredible, right? Some of the women approached the car or gestured at them; the more daring ones went out to meet them and stood in front of the headlights. Stop, stop, shouted Husky, that one is gorgeous. No way, you’re shitting me. Dude, they’ll give us a quick blowjob for twenty euros. Ariel started to think that he wasn’t kidding around.

  Most of the girls wore impossibly high heels that clacked against the asphalt. Your disdain for hookers can only mean one thing, said Husky when they had already left the area, that you’re in love. What are you talking about, said Ariel evasively. You’re in a strange moment of a man’s life when his heart has more say than his cock, I don’t think it’s ever happened to me. How is it? Is it nice? Ariel smiled at Husky’s jokes. You fucking idiot, shut up for once.

  On the way home, Ariel remembered that it had also been a Sunday, driving alone through the city, when he ran over Sylvia. He convinced himself he’d be able to resist calling Sylvia for a few days, letting their relationship cool off until she realized herself that it was impossible. She’s strong, he told himself, she’ll understand.

  On Monday Arturo Caspe called to drag him to a dinner, they’re giving out awards from some magazine, they need famous people. They sat him at a table with a successful writer and a television host who was trying to seduce a young model. The girl smiled, amused, and shot “save me” looks at Ariel. He played the role of shy and silent. He presented a prize to a tall swimmer whom he enjoyed chatting with for a while afterward. When the dinner was over, he went out with Caspe and his group, mostly actors and television people. They went into a bar behind Callao and met up with the young model there again. They were leaning against the bar. She was nice and smoked incessantly. Her name was Reyes. Ariel took it up a notch. The girl knew Buenos Aires and had friends there. Ariel asked her if she wanted to go somewhere quieter, just you and me. She smiled, exhaling cigarette smoke and told him, you’re not going to believe this, but I have a boyfriend I really like and I don’t want to go around cheating on him, not even with guys like you, with really cute beauty marks like that. Ariel accepted defeat, they joked around for a minute, and then she left him alone to ponder his failure with a drink before saying good-bye to Caspe’s group. He was in a bad mood, embarrassed to have been turned down. It was an appropriate response to his clumsiness and inelegance. Ariel thought about his inability to reach any other kind of girl besides nocturnal predators. Sylvia might have been the only normal girl he’d come in contact with since he arrived in Madrid.

  On Wednesday they played a Champions’ League game. And even though it was in Madrid, the coach chose to have them spend the night before in a hotel. It was the first game of the qualifying rounds and the German team had a lot of experience in the competition. On Monday he didn’t call Sylvia, or on Tuesday. On Wednesday she sent him a message, “good luck tonight.” What she didn’t say was more telling than what she did, as was usually the case. “Thanks, I’ve been really busy, I’ll call you,” he replied.

  Ariel played badly. It was nearly impossible for him to break through the German defenders. They played behind the ball, leaving very little space to work between the lines, convinced that a scoreless tie was an excellent result for an away game. A dry cold had settled over the field, I wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed, said a veteran when their bus arrived at the stadium. They took Ariel out when there were still twenty minutes left and the stadium whistled as he trotted to the touchline. Good luck, he whispered to the player replacing him. But he didn’t have any. The Germans packed their goal area, allowing t
hem to counter with a fast attacker, who overwhelmed the only center back left in a defensive position and scored a goal before Ariel’s team had time to react.

  Ariel got a hard blow to the knee near the end of the game. The next day he barely practiced. He lay down on a gurney and the top masseur on the team smeared the affected area with magic ointments. He rubbed him with hard hands. Ariel had always been treated by the masseur’s assistants up until then, even though Amílcar always told him, don’t let any of the young guys touch you, the old man is a wizard.

  He talked a lot, but it was relaxing to listen to him. He had stories from every period. He had been with the club for almost thirty years, he was an institution. In his youth he studied with a Galician masseur who made his own concoctions of herbs, oils, and roots. He still used some of them. Life treating you well? he asked Ariel suddenly. That’s the most important thing, the game doesn’t work if life’s not working. Are you happy here? Have you adapted well? Does it hurt when I press here? He didn’t seem to be expecting answers to his questions. You have good ankles, that’s important, forwards’ ankles take a lot of abuse. Have you ever calculated, for example, the number of kicks in the ankles you can get in a ten-year career? About twenty thousand. Now imagine you got them all at once, twenty thousand kicks in the ankles. A lot of trampoline work, that’s what you have to do, but the man is scared you’ll get injured jumping and the press would have a field day. Do you have a girl? Are you with a Spanish girl?

  Bah, I don’t know, evaded Ariel. There is somebody but we’re giving it a rest, we’re taking it slow.

  Women are trouble. But you need someone who loves you, who can talk to you, help you bear the loneliness. It’s strange, but when you have sixty thousand people watching you every evening, it’s really easy to feel alone, ignored. Shit, it’s like poison. You have to be strong. Fuck, I’ve heard some stories here on this gurney, let me tell you. I’ve seen kids grow up and become men here and lose their way, too, there are plenty who lose their way and some of them from good stock. Those boos and whistles you got yesterday, they hurt, they cause damage, too, I can tell you that. Don’t be afraid to admit it, that’d fuck anybody up, but that’s the law. You gotta keep your head held high, defiantly, don’t let it get you down now.

  Yeah, it fucking hurts, yeah.

  Look, this soccer stuff is like riding a train. You got a great seat by the window, all comfy, watching the landscape go by and you never get bored. Until you get to the station, they take you off, and put somebody else in your seat. It all goes real quick. Have you been to the bullfights yet? You have to go see the bulls. You can learn a lot about soccer there. It’s just the same. We’ve had a number of Argentinians here. I don’t remember their names, I’m not good with names. They ask me, what was so-and-so like? And I don’t remember. Because I do my work here, but I don’t deal with soccer players, I deal with people.

  Ariel left with his knee loosened up by the massage. He felt consoled, wrapped in the torrent of words. It had been a while since anyone had talked to him for such a long time, in that curt Spanish tone. He called Sylvia from the car, but she didn’t answer. It was during school. I’m sure she’s mad. If I left Spain right now, he thought, all I would have is the memory of her. Sylvia sitting on her side of the car, driving back into the city some night. That tired, clean smile.

  He ate at Amílcar’s house. He found the conversation in that filleted Portuguese-accented Spanish sweet, with the strong r’s and j’s taken out. He told himself that Amílcar had been lucky to find Fernanda and he forced them to tell him how they met. He had called her insistently after getting her number from a friend, but she was resistant. I invited her out to dinner, to lunch, to the movies, to concerts, but she never wanted to come. I was about to throw in the towel, explained Amílcar. Until one day I called her and I said, listen, take my number down and let’s just do it this way, I’m never going to call you again, but when you feel like it you can call me. I don’t care if it’s tomorrow, next month, next year, or thirty years from now, I swear I’ll be waiting. It sounded nice, said Fernanda, interrupting him. I should have waited thirty years to see if it was true. Unfortunately, I called him a week later. A week. Can you believe it? I was going nuts, he admitted. She smiled flirtatiously. He tricked me, Fernanda said in her defense, like you all do, putting on your best face. He showed me his good side and then, boy, what it takes to find it again. Sometimes you even think you’re with a different person, that they pulled the old switcheroo.

  That night, alone at home, amid music and movies, he couldn’t concentrate. Ariel knew he would call Sylvia. He did it even though it was late and she answered with a sleepy voice. Tomorrow I’m going to the Prado. I have school, she answered. Damn. What’s up, you turned into an intellectual since I saw you last? No, I haven’t seen you in a while and I need to look at some art. The things you say always come out so pretty, she said without smiling.

  Leaving practice the next day, he confessed to Osorio that he was going to the Prado. Where? You Argentinians are some big flaming faggots. Ariel laughed as he got into the car.

  Ariel strolled aimlessly through the rooms of the museum. He spent a long time studying The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Bosch, at the end of the main corridor. Then he approached a school group to listen to the docent. The “faithful likeness” was the epitome of the portrait in that period. Most of the great painters worked on salary for their lords and had to make portraits of the nobility and the ladies of the court with their best technique. But Velázquez went beyond that to give free rein to his incredible talent. For example, look at this portrait of the jester Pablo de Valladolid. He led the children to a nearby painting, Ariel following a few steps behind. Spanish art, in all its aspects, heard Ariel, stands out for its ability to depict the disabled, the crazy, the eccentric. The representation of a country based on its darkest, most disastrous side is a deeply Spanish invention.

  In the Goya room, Ariel finally saw the originals of paintings he had seen so many times in reproduction. Saturn Devours His Son, Fight with Cudgels, and Dog Buried in Sand. Then he discovered a painting called Witches’ Coven and he spent a long time looking at it, as if it were a Guernica painted more than a hundred years earlier. He doesn’t know why, but it’s similar to the way he sometimes sees the stands, it reminds him of the crowd. The group of students surround him again, accompanied by the guide’s explanations, and now we arrive at the most accurate perspective on our country, nourished on Velázquez and El Greco, at the hands of the Aragonese painter Francisco de Goya.

  The students began to lose interest. A group of them noticed Ariel and encircled him with their notebooks open. There were students with pimples, others obese, some with their smiles and faces deformed by growth spurts. What are you doing here? Don’t you have practice today? The teacher approached them and got them to disperse efficiently, but without clout. That’s enough, can’t you see this is a private place? When are you going to learn to respect people? I’m sorry. Ariel thanked him with a nod of the head. It’s understandable, it’s a bit absurd to run into a soccer player in a museum.

  Ariel was about to ask if he could accompany them on the rest of their tour, but the henlike laughter of the kids grew and he decided to head off the other way. In front of the curls of Our Lady of Santa Cruz, before her naked white flesh, caressed by the light and transported to the canvas by desire, before her thighs outlined in marvelous harmony beneath the gauzy fabric, Ariel thought of Sylvia.

  Suddenly there was a commotion. The kids seemed to be running wild. Ariel peeked into the adjacent room. One of the girls had fainted; several of the others were putting her on one of the benches. The teacher was repeating, give her room, give her room. A woman who identified herself as a doctor approached. Seeing that Ariel had taken an interest, a couple of boys came over to him. No, it’s nothing, she’s just anorexic.

  When he left, he called Sylvia again. He made a date to pick her up three hours later near her house. A
long the wide avenue, the slight wind pushed his hair back as he walked and seemed to be pleasantly caressing him. He had to avoid the gaze of people who recognized him because once you give one autograph you have to give more. The first one was essential to avoiding the rest.

  He bought the Argentinian newspaper Clarín at a stand near Cibeles. He went up to a restaurant near the Retiro and ate alone at his table. A young Argentinian player on an English team had been robbed at his house in a posh London neighborhood at gunpoint, and they had threatened his family. A cartoonist referred to it in a strip: “Can you believe I come all this way for this … when in my own country the robbers are first-rate.” Ariel smiled. Then he read the depressing op-eds about the state of the country. When he went to pay, they refused to charge him, it’s on the house, it’s an honor, come back whenever you like. He walked back to the parking garage. He reclined the seat and in the darkness tried to take a short nap with the music playing softly.

  He picked up Sylvia at the spot they had agreed on. At first it was a bit chilly between them, and they didn’t greet each other with a kiss. My father could come out at any minute. She smiled and he started the car. They talked for a while about his trip to the museum. He told her about the girl fainting. Sylvia shrugged, at school Mai and I always go to the boys’ bathroom because the girls’ is full of vomit, there are a ton of anorexics and bulimics, it’s a plague. Ariel drives aimlessly. I think we’ve been past this street already, she said. Where do you want to go? asked Ariel. That was when he suggested going to the apartment. She hid any trace of enthusiasm. The traffic was slow and dense at that hour.

  Even though it was cold and the wood floor doubled the freezing atmosphere of the empty house, Sylvia’s bare skin was scalding hot. She undressed messily. Her curls brushed Ariel’s chest. They made love among the coats and other clothes piled up. It was like baptizing the new house. Their naked legs intertwined. Sylvia puts on his sweater. Now they embrace and the lack of a home around them doesn’t seem to matter much. They’ve created their own nest. In a little while, they’ll feel the cold again.