Learning to Lose (51 page)

Love on the clock, thought Leandro. Because Osembe could go from licking his stomach to lifting the alarm clock to check the time without changing expressions. When the time was up, she became slinky and sweet again and she said, stay another hour, and if Leandro handed over the money, another 150 euros, then she went back to killing time indolently and chatting a bit and she got up to talk or send messages on her cell. Leandro was aware that she stretched out the time to make more money. She didn’t want to spend a second with him if it wasn’t in exchange for cash. He didn’t deceive himself about that. But he didn’t do anything to avoid it. She, for example, would lick and dampen his ear, something that bugged him and made him worry about getting an ear infection like he had in the past, but he couldn’t
find a way to say, stop, it bothers me. He let her do it, like a puppet on a string. He hadn’t seen her for weeks and now he focuses on her skin again, her hands, the calf muscles of her legs when she leans over him.

A noise is heard in the apartment. A roommate coming back. Do they have the same job as you? asks Leandro. No, no, and they couldn’t even imagine that I do this, but Leandro knows she’s lying. Only with special clients like you, she had said a little earlier, and then she had smiled. She kept the money in a drawer of the night table. The same place where she hides the condoms. On the table are a fashion magazine and scattered clothes. Also perfumes and lotions. And a large bottle of body oil that she rubs over her skin and which Leandro suspects she uses to interject a film of distance between their bodies. Photos are stuck into the frame of the mirror on the wall, of her with friends and maybe her boyfriend, a young smiling guy sitting with her on the outside table of a bar. In spite of the lowered blinds, the unbearable noise of the street comes in. There is construction nearby that causes an annoying rumble. When the sexual activity quiets, Leandro is cold, but she doesn’t invite him to get beneath the sheets. There is a thick, worn blanket on top of the bed. The place is dirty and Leandro finds it unpleasant.

Days earlier his friend Manolo Almendros showed up at his apartment with his wife. It was almost lunchtime. They convinced Leandro to go out to eat with Manolo while she stayed behind. They strolled to a restaurant on Raimundo Fernández Villaverde. From there they could see the black skeleton of the Windsor Tower, which had burned on the night of February 12, with immense tongues of flame. There were still speculations about it. Someone had recorded images of shadows inside the
building during the fire; there was talk of ghosts, later of firemen ransacking the safes of the many companies in the skyscraper. The workers took apart the remains in a fenced-in area.

During lunch Leandro was about to confess to his friend about his dates with Osembe. They had known each other for a long time. Unlike him, Almendros was still enviably vibrant, able to get excited about a book or a new discovery. It’s strange, he told Leandro that day over the meal, we lived through the café period, when we were young and the only way to discover the truth about things was to put your ear to the bar. You remember? Now all that has disappeared. There’s a giant virtual café and it’s called the Internet. Now young people have a peek in there, and it’s not like, let’s see what Ortega or Ramón is saying, no, everything is anarchic and over the top, but that’s just the way things are. You know, in this country nobody wants to be part of an association or a group, but everybody wants to be right. That is the old café. And then you can find a lot of information, but that’s all chaotic, too. I already told you I’m writing a piece in praise of and in answer to Unamuno, right? Well, I go to find some new information and when you type in Unamuno the first page that comes up is about Unamuno, but all jokes about his name, rude jokes, some of them fun, all making light of his name. Imagine. Leandro was familiar with Manolo’s passion for Unamuno. Manolo used to quote entire paragraphs of his tragic perspective on life, shared his passion for origami, but also made jokes at his expense and speculated about the phimosis operation he had when he was already an old man. Has anyone wondered if there is a before and after in his painful view of the world? Spain hurt him and maybe what was hurting him was something else.

Then the conversation about the Web turned to pornography. Almendros had been completely taken aback by the things one could find with just the click of a mouse. It’s like a huge erotic bazaar devoted to masturbation in all its forms. There are girls being spied on, exhibitionist couples, perversions, humiliations, aberrations. Sometimes I think it’s better that we’re going to miss out on what’s coming next. People will live in cubicles and never step out onto the street, we will be a planet of onanists and voyeurs.

Maybe, answered Leandro, but street prostitution hasn’t decreased, it’s gone up. People still need to touch each other. Well, we’ll see. I think humans are going to touch each other less and less, until one day we don’t touch each other at all. Those women who put in plastic tits and plastic lips. You tell me, they don’t want them to be kissed or touched, they just want them to be looked at.

And you, you never?

Almendros lifted his shoulders. I find that world depressing. Who would be so stupid as to pay for something faked? And give money to the mafias that traffic in women. No, it disgusts me. I think anyone who contributes to that market is swine. Then, during that second, while a Polish waitress brought their first course, Leandro didn’t confess to his friend out of shame, out of fear of not being able to explain himself and not having enough of a justifiable reason. Did he have one? There wasn’t even love, which justifies everything. I fell stupidly in love with a girl, but it wasn’t true. That wasn’t it.

He didn’t tell him that he had spent three mornings walking aimlessly around Coimbra Park in Móstoles. Curiously watching the people who passed, those who stepped out onto their
balconies, anyone driving by in a car. He stopped to carefully observe the African women walking by with their grocery bags. On a few occasions, when one of them was alone and in spite of the frightened expressions his approach provoked, he dared to ask them about Osembe. Do you know a Nigerian girl named Osembe? And they shrugged their shoulders, suspicious, and said no.

He didn’t tell his friend Almendros that the third morning, sitting near the park, as he read the newspaper, he saw a black girl get off a bus. Her hair was different, shorter, but it was her, no doubt about it. She was walking with two other women and wore a very striking red leather jacket and high-heeled shoes at the end of her jeans. He followed them for a while, to see if they parted at any point. He couldn’t hear their conversation except when they erupted into laughter or an exaggeratedly loud sentence, and in the end, screwing up his courage, he dared to raise his voice and call her, Osembe, Osembe, and after the second time she turned and saw him. She showed a sarcastic, but dazzling, smile.

Osembe separated from the group and walked toward him. Well, well, my little old man. Leandro explained he had been looking for her in the neighborhood for several days. Ah, but I don’t do that work anymore, no, no. Not anymore. Leandro looked at her with interest. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Chat with you for a minute? No, I’m with my friends, not now, really. She must have sensed Leandro’s devastation because she said, call me, call me on my cell. And she dictated a phone number that Leandro didn’t need to write down. He memorized it. It was filled with even numbers and that made it easier for him. Even numbers had always seemed friendly to him, ever since
he was a boy; he found odd numbers, on the other hand, objectionable, awkward. Her number floated in his head as Osembe returned to her friends, who received her with giggles. What would she tell them? That’s the old guy who can’t get enough of me, the one I told you about?

He let a few days pass before calling her. Osembe’s absence had made him feel better. Getting her out of his sight was the end of a nightmare. One afternoon he dialed the number from home. Aurora was being visited by her sister and Leandro spoke in a soft voice. She laughed, as if their meeting put her in a good mood, gave her power. And then she said, but, honey, why don’t you come see me?

Osembe shows off her muscles for him. It amuses her to tense and relax areas of her body. She laughs like a teenager. She’s vain. That afternoon she won’t agree to take off her bra. The only thing she doesn’t like about her body, she had told him many times, are the lines on her breasts. Stretch marks, Leandro tells her. They look like an old lady’s, she says. Leandro tries to take off her bra, but she won’t let him, she laughs, they struggle. She has small nipples and white lines that run along where her breasts meet her chest. He tries to kiss them, but she says it tickles and she pushes him away again and again, as if she wanted to be the only one in charge of the game.

Leandro likes her dawdling. He doesn’t mind her gaze constantly shifting to the alarm clock. When they talk, they tell each other simple things. He asks what she spends all her money on, she says that’s my business, I like to be pretty for you, and other lies so obvious the conversation grows grotesque.

I don’t want to see you here again, Leandro tells her. I don’t like coming here. It’s very far, it’s dirty. I don’t want to bump
into your roommates. Nobody’s going to say anything to you, we’re comfortable here, no one orders us around, she says. The next time I’ll find someplace else, says Leandro, ending the conversation. He doesn’t shower there. He is repulsed by the plastic covers on the toilet, the rusty little tub, the worn bathmat and the pistachio-colored tiles.

The street is jam-packed with people. There are children playing ball. Almost all of them the children of immigrants. The trip home takes Leandro almost an hour. Aurora’s sister, Esther, is still beside her bed. They kid around and try to remember, with absurd doggedness, the name of the chocolate shop where their father used to take them for fried dough strips after Mass when they were girls. They say names at random and Esther laughs with her dynamic, horsey smile.

In the hallway, before leaving, Aurora’s sister starts to cry in front of Leandro. She’s dying, Leandro, she’s dying. Leandro tries to calm her down. Come on, come on, now we have to be strong for her. Esther speaks in a bereaved whisper, but she’s so good, my sister has always been so good. There’s nobody like that anymore.

Leandro waits for Aurora to fall asleep and then dials Joaquín’s number. Jacqueline answers. They speak for barely a second. He can’t come to the phone right now, but call back in twenty minutes. When they finally speak, Leandro tells him that he’s made a date with the biographer for next week. Ah, perfect, he’s a charming kid, don’t you think? And Leandro tells him the reason for his call. I wanted to ask you about your apartment. If I could use it one of these nights. Joaquín’s silence is thick and tense. Only if it’s not a problem, of course. Of course, when do you need it? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, maybe Friday. Sure, sure,
tomorrow I’ll talk to Casiano and you can come by and pick up the keys, before eight, okay, the doorman goes home at eight. Perfect. You want to impress someone? Joaquín asks him with a laugh. Well … At this point, what can we do. But please, do leave the sheets in the washing machine. There’s a woman who comes by to clean on Mondays. Yeah, sure, says Leandro, it’ll just be this once, eh. That’s good, because if Jacqueline finds out …

I found the letters, the letters you sent me from Paris and Vienna, they might be interesting for the book. Leandro knew Aurora had kept them, surely he could find them. Joaquín’s voice regains its enthusiasm, fantastic, that’d be fantastic, although they must be infantile, well, it will be amusing. Of course.

Leandro feels a stab of cowardice again. Why am I doing all this? Why do I dirty everything around me? He asks himself questions he can’t answer. He knows the weakness of others almost as well as his own. And yet that’s no consolation, and doesn’t stop him.

He had gotten up so early that he was exhausted by nine. His stomach was growling and he suggested stopping somewhere. They were in the middle of a move and they had filled the van with boxes and furniture. Wilson brought his two usual friends to lend a hand. Chincho, a young man whose neck was wide enough for four heads, and Junior, a strong, thin man with slanty eyes. Lorenzo elbows up to the bar. He orders the coffees and a slab of freshly made potato frittata. The others have a look at a
sports newspaper. They seem familiar with Spanish soccer teams and had chosen to root for rival teams, so they joked around and argued. Junior was from Guayaquil and had switched the Barcelona there for the Barcelona here. I like the team colors, the blue represents the ideal and the red the struggle. You have to show your affection for Madrid, that’s the city you live in, says Wilson. He had become a fan of Lorenzo’s team. Even though they’re having a bad year, he says. When they get to talking about players, about Ariel, Wilson says, a lot of
guaragua
but that’s it. A lot of swerving and bobbing, he explains, even though he’s the best at it. In Ecuador he was a fan of the Deportivo Cuenca, this year we won the national title, with an Argentinian coach, Asad “the Turk,” and this is the first time we’ve won it. Over there we call the team the Southern Express. You have to see Cuenca, it’s beautiful, the cathedral is incredible, and the university. The two friends start messing with him, Wilson knows the cathedral and the university really well, but only from the outside. They also bring up some acquaintance who last week won the competition for best Jabugo slicer in Spain, it’s incredible, fifteen months ago he had never even seen a leg of cured ham.

Lorenzo had opened up a local paper and he flips through the pages without paying much attention. He sees a photo of Paco in a small box beside the image of a chalet. There is only vague information about a band of robbers arrested by police. They were described as extremely violent and the police believe they were the ones responsible for the murder of the Madrid businessman Francisco Garrido, several months earlier.