The fun ended when the restaurant television broadcast news of a fire in a nightclub in the capital where a lot of kids had died; the exact number wouldn't be known for days. It was a packed concert hall without security measures, where the bathrooms were used as a daycare so the post-teenage parents could enjoy the music. It burned down because of some fireworks lit inside while the emergency doors were closed and padlocked to keep people without tickets out.

That night he called Sylvia. She shouted from inside some dive. He tried to whisper in his room, right next to his parents'. I miss you, Ariel told her, but they could barely hear each other.

The next day, he went to spend the morning with Dragon. The country was shaken by the fire the night before. His wife fixed them a mate and they sat on the sofa, in front of the television. You don't know how good it is that you're getting far away from here. Everything is corrupt. If they start to investigate this nightclub thing, they won't find one person from the first to the last who did one thing right and clean. It makes me mad.

After a while, they turned off the television. How long are those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds going to keep squeezing people's pain to fill their segments? He asked about Spain, but Ariel confessed that he didn't much follow the current events there. After the train bombings, do they hate the North Africans? asked the coach. No, I don't think so, answered Ariel, doesn't look like it.

Dragon told him that he was considering the idea of retiring, I haven't got much steam left. He had a son barely two years older than Ariel who had had a bad year. Later he alluded to a drug problem. He wondered if he should leave the city, get a change of scenery, he liked the time he spent at his country house. In the unkempt yard, an old soccer goal made of squared wooden posts rose among the goosefoot. Dragon had rescued it from an abandoned school in the area. All my life trying to teach boys and it turns out I did the worst job with my own, he said bitterly.

Dragon told him that he had seen a few games on cable. You look tense, as if you have one eye on the stands. Just play, don't get weighed down with responsibility. You have to always remember the pleasure of the game, always. Yours is an absurd job, if you don't enjoy it, there's no point. You can't start thinking, you freeze up. The smart thing to do is to know how to manage your own anxiety. Look at what's going on in the world, if you stop to think, you'll shoot yourself, it's enough to make you start dodging and weaving when you remember those kids from the Cromanon nightclub.

He wanted Ariel to stay for lunch, but he had made plans with Charlie. They said good-bye in high spirits. Score goals, all the Spaniards want is goals. At the car window, Dragon leaned over to speak. The most important businesses are devoted to things you can't touch, intangible things. Look, the most profitable company in the world is the Catholic Church and then there's soccer. They both live off people with faith, and that's all. Isn't it crazy?

Charlie took him out to eat at an elegant restaurant in Puerto Madero and introduced him to a lovely woman who had become his regular lover. She worked at Channel Once, in production, and they wanted to interview Ariel before he went back to Madrid. That same afternoon, they recorded an insipid, stupid conversation strolling through the port. In the car, on the way home, Charlie said to his brother, don't judge me, I can tell you're judging me and you have no right. When you get to where I am you might be worse, much worse than me, so save your morality lectures. Ariel lifted his middle finger and they both laughed.

It was a sad Christmas. When you turned on the television all you saw were the relatives of those who died in the nightclub cl.u.s.tered together for three days at the morgue without any information. The brother of a player Ariel knew was among the missing. And several days before, a giant tsunami in Southeast Asia had left more than 400,000 people dead in its wake. The news aired coverage of the dramatic stories with fragments of video recorded by tourists, images interrupted when the tsunami reached them with a fatal slap.

His last evening in Buenos Aires, Ariel cut his walk short because the Casa Rosada was surrounded by riot police. They were expecting a protest. Walter invited him to the tenth barbecue in six days. There he ran into an old teammate from San Lorenzo, a midfielder who played for the Corinthians. Around his neck, he wore a gold necklace with a little soccer ball pendant. It's nice. I had it made by a jeweler in Rosario, a guy who makes one-of-a-kind stuff.

In the airport, Charlie and his older son saw him off. His mother had bought him two big bags of yerba mate at the last minute and he packed it in his hand luggage. On the plane, he doesn't sleep. He tosses around the idea of breaking up with Sylvia, of putting out that strange fire. He's decided to focus on his work, not get distracted by other things.

When he gets off the plane, he says good-bye to Humberto. He woke up with his mouth dry and his eyes foggy. When do we play against each other? But neither of them remembers the game schedule. Well, we'll definitely see each other at Tiger Lavalle's birthday, that you can't miss.

At customs a kid with a small backpack on his shoulder asks him for help. The police are detaining him, he doesn't have enough cash and no particular address to go to. He is very nervous, worked up. I didn't bring enough dough, just for that they want to screw me. Ariel talks to the policeman at the window. There's nothing we can do. Ariel wants to help, he turns to another policeman, who recognizes him instantly. I don't know, is there something that can be done? The policeman smiles at him, don't get into trouble, that's my advice. Ariel thinks it over, gives the little money he has in his wallet to the kid, and pa.s.ses through customs.

When he goes out with his suitcases, he still feels uncomfortable, disturbed by the situation. He has to stop and sign a couple of autographs for two boys. He looks up and, behind the line of people waiting for the recent arrivals, he sees Sylvia. She smiles at him but doesn't approach. He walks toward her, but Sylvia evades him. She walks behind him as he heads toward the parking lot and they maintain the distance through the entire path of moving sidewalks. He turns every once in a while and they smile at each other. They don't say anything, but it's as if they are embracing from afar. As if they are making love, each from their own s.p.a.ce, she ten feet behind.

The parking lot is ice-cold. It had dipped below freezing that night. Ariel finds his car. They kiss inside it. They only separate when she tries to put on the heat, turning the b.u.t.tons on the dashboard to the maximum. I'm gonna freeze. She pulls on the sleeves of her sweater.

He slips his fingers underneath Sylvia's curls and caresses her neck. Happy New Year, she says.

part three

IS THIS ME?.

1.

Sylvia leads a double life. In one she sits at the back of a cla.s.sroom, at a green desk with chipped edges that touches her cla.s.smate Alba's desk. During the morning, different teachers try to leave a small mark on her and the other kids. Sometimes in the form of notes in a notebook, other times as a fact they'll remember until the day after the test, and rarely as a piece of knowledge that will be with them all their lives. The math teacher is setting up a vectors problem on the blackboard. He had a strong start to the semester, his pa.s.sion still intact after years of teaching. Everything is mathematics, he told them. Math applies to when you buy, when you sell, when you grow, when you get old, when you leave home, when you find a job, when you fall in love, when you listen to a new song. Everything is mathematics. Life is mathematics, adding and subtracting, division, multiplication, if you understand math you'll understand life a little better. And when he saw them laugh, he added, tell me something that isn't math, come on. My a.s.s, muttered "the Tank" Palazon, and they all laughed harder. G.o.d, said Nico Veron, is G.o.d math? Don Octavio stopped for a second, but he didn't seem surprised. G.o.d is the solution to an equation that has no solution. But today the cla.s.s wasn't paying attention to Don Octavio.

When the morning ends, Sylvia will walk home. Maybe with Mai, maybe with other schoolmates, who will scatter at each intersection. She'll make lunch for her father and herself or eat something he's prepared. She'll lock herself in her room to listen to music, study for a test, answer some text messages, or search the Web to find the lyrics to some song, chat, or just surf. She will count the seconds until the time comes to switch to her other life.

Her second life takes place at Ariel's big house, where they watch some movie on the plasma screen, chat with a beer and music in the background, challenge each other in a video game. Then they'll eat the stew Emilia left for him, or pick up thin-crust pizzas from an Italian restaurant where they make a fuss over Ariel, or order in j.a.panese or Argentinian from a deli that delivers to their area. They undo the bed to make love. It's nothing like the thin cold sheets Sylvia returns to later, where love is just a memory and a worn teddy bear with soft fur, a survivor from her childhood. The two lives develop on different planets or on different stages, with Sylvia playing two almost opposite roles. Sometimes the planets brush past each other, sending off a spark. Like one day when they were buying music and movies in the Fnac store on Callao. From a distance, they showed each other the covers, she some popular British group, he a band that sings in Spanish. In the checkout line, they stand one behind the other and then Mai appears, surprised to see Sylvia, didn't you say you were going to your grandmother's house? And Sylvia lies, I slipped out for a while. She's already gotten used to lying and she does it quite naturally. And when Mai insists on having a drink together, Sylvia is evasive, and when Mai points to Ariel, who is paying in front of them at the register, she says, isn't that the soccer player, the Argentinan one? I have no idea. Well, he is super-cute. Yeah. And Sylvia gets rid of Mai in spite of the uncomfortable suspicion. I know you're not telling me the whole truth, you're going to see your boyfriend. I wonder when you're going to introduce me to him, or is it that you're keeping him hidden for a reason, he's a hunchback, he's a count, I don't know? And they laugh. Later Sylvia manages to meet up with Ariel in the parking garage.

It happens again when Ariel b.u.mps into a teammate at a red light. They talk from their cars, through the windows, joking until the guy points at Sylvia with his eyes. She's a friend's daughter, Ariel couldn't think of anything better to say, and Sylvia spends the afternoon making jokes about the incident. And does your friend know what you do with his daughter? It's in those accidental moments when the two lives seem, more than ever, irreconcilable.

On other occasions, Sylvia finds the contrast of fleeing one life for another entertaining. Today she left English cla.s.s in a hurry. Her explanation to the teacher seemed to drag on forever, while he pulled on the hairs of his sideburns in a nervous tic. She took the metro to a meeting with a real estate agent to see an apartment near the Bilbao traffic circle. Are we waiting for anyone else? asks the agent, when she finds herself with a client carrying a school backpack. No, in the end my father's not going to be able to make it, explains Sylvia as the elevator ascends to the penthouse. She amuses herself by playing the role of a millionaire's daughter. My father doesn't have time for these things, he lets me choose. The agent abandons her reluctance and opens the door to the apartment after searching in her purse for the keys.

Sylvia walks through the apartment while, from a distance, the agent tells her about the benefits of its recent renovation. High ceilings, wood-framed windows, a striking terrace with views of the rooftops. I love it, but my father said not to pay more than a million euros, that's his limit. That's going to be difficult, reasons the agent, but, of course, if a large part of it is under the table we can negotiate. Of course, says Sylvia, most of it will be under the table.

It's been a few weeks since Ariel decided to move to the city. He's tired of being isolated in a housing complex where the most exciting encounter is with a neighbor who's decided to jog in the mornings after a mild attack of angina. This way we could see each other easily, without so much driving, it's ridiculous, Sylvia told him one day when Ariel was yawning with exhaustion along the highway to drop her off at her house. Ariel a.s.signed his financial adviser to draw up a list of possible apartments. They ruled out several from the photos online and the place that Sylvia is now visiting, allowing her a fun stint as a millionaire, is the one they liked best.

A little while later, Ariel picks her up in front of the Roxy movie theater. Sylvia gets into the car. I loved it. I would knock down a wall to make the living room bigger, what do you want three bedrooms for? She told me if you pay for part of it in cash under the table, they'll let you have it for a million euros. Ariel has no problem with that; a substantial part of his contract is paid into an account in Gibraltar. Sylvia is surprised he never pays with cards or takes out money from the ATM. He always has large amounts of cash on him. He calls his financial adviser from the car. He closes the deal. That neighborhood is a good investment, the guy tells him. Sylvia smiles and rests her foot on the dashboard.

That night they joke around in the gym installed in the bas.e.m.e.nt of Ariel's house. He lifts weights with his legs while she walks on the treadmill. She gets tired easily. He tells her, you're gonna get a fat a.s.s if you don't do a little exercise and she reproaches him, I don't want to be the typical stuck-up rich girlfriend of a soccer player who spends the morning in the gym and the afternoon shopping and at the salon. They aren't all like that, Amilcar's wife is really great. The exception, Sylvia tells him, but all the rest...What's the deal, do they kick you off the team if you hook up with someone different? Can't a soccer player have an ugly but smart girlfriend? Ariel smiles without stopping his exercise, well, I'm going to be the first. Sylvia threatens to drop a five-pound weight on his crotch.

Gyms depress me. They're like torture chambers, she says. In my neighborhood, there's one that fills up in the afternoon with crazy wannabe boxers who end up in skinhead gangs, kicking the c.r.a.p out of immigrants. One day I went with a friend of mine and there was a guy in one corner, with his hand stuck in the pocket of his sweatpants jerking off, I swear, while he watched the chicks on stationary bikes.

Ariel's cell phone rings and Sylvia hands it to him. She can't help looking at the name on the screen. Husky. Ariel chides her for her curiosity and answers. What's up, how are you? Oh yeah? No, I haven't read it. It says that? Of course, because he's perfect, he never makes mistakes. What a son of a b.i.t.c.h. And where is this interview? No, no, whatever, I don't want to read it.

Sylvia listens to him talk. She smiles at the thought of how soccer has become a priority in her life. She plans her nights out with friends and her studying around the league calendar. Something that no one close to her would have suspected. And she's up-to-date on all the soccer scene commentary and back-stabbing. My father would be proud, she thinks.

By the way, I bought an apartment downtown, Ariel tells Husky. What do you mean a soccer player can't live downtown? And where do we have to live? In the locker room? Go screw yourself. Yeah, sure, I'm crazy, and that's coming from you, the sanest guy on the planet.

Who's Husky? asks Sylvia when Ariel hangs up. He says an interview with my coach came out where he explains how some of the newly signed players aren't producing the way they hoped, he's talking about me, of course. What a d.i.c.k. He never takes responsibility. If I play well, he was right to bring me over, if I play badly, I'm of no use to him. Dragon always told me, never trust stupid-looking people.

Who's Dragon? A coach from back home that I had as a kid. And what did Husky say about the apartment? Nothing, that I won't be able to live downtown because of all the people, the whole autograph thing...His name is Raul, but everybody calls him Husky. He's a journalist. And you can be friends with a journalist? Sylvia asks him. Why not? And if one day he has to talk about you? Well, then he'll talk about me. Yes, insists Sylvia, but if he has to say bad things about you...Well, then he will, I understand...Ah, so you take criticism well, like the comment your coach made, and Sylvia smiles. It's different, that's the typical son of a b.i.t.c.h trying to shift the responsibility for his mistakes onto everyone else. There are a lot of those, most of them are like that. They don't say anything to your face, but then they insinuate in the press like it was nothing. Was I the one who signed an injured French midfielder who hasn't been able to train with us all year? Or two f.u.c.king Brazilians who just sit around scratching their b.a.l.l.s?

Ariel stops exercising. I'm gonna take a shower. Sylvia watches him leave the bas.e.m.e.nt. Maybe he's mad, she thinks. She knows how tense his work makes him. The good thing about winning on a Sunday is that you know that week the press will leave you alone, he told her one day, they'll mess with the team that lost. If I were jealous, thinks Sylvia, I would be jealous of his job, of f.u.c.king soccer. Sometimes she uses that expression. It's her way of establishing the rivalry. It's her and f.u.c.king soccer fighting over Ariel's life. But she is aware that it's essential to him. I would be nothing without soccer, he had confessed to her. Hey, what would I be without soccer? An uneducated employee, an everyman? I can't allow myself the luxury of not appreciating what makes me special. And sometimes she sees him lose himself in the game on television, isolate himself from the world, as if he were playing with his eyes. Should we order some dinner? she asks, and he answers, if they'd pull their lines together they'd be harder to attack.

Other times he gets calls on his cell phone and talks for a long time. Always about the same thing. f.u.c.king soccer. About the play, a rival's game, what they told him about the Argentinian championship, about someone's statements, an article criticizing them, a comment made by the president's wife. Don't be a baby, he says sometimes when he hangs up and she says, if I knew you were going to spend the evening talking on your cell I would have stayed home.

Sylvia knows when Ariel needs to withdraw from reality in order to dedicate himself entirely to his work. At those times she feels vertigo. As if she were falling from way up high with nothing to grab on to. Alone, like she is in her relationship with Ariel, hanging in the air, beside the trail he has left in his wake. She feels like the special guest on a distant, gravity-free planet, which she'll disappear from as soon as Ariel loosens his hold on her, when he no longer takes her fingers between his as he drives.

Often she finds herself overcome by sadness, her eyes damp. She knows that dependence is love's worst enemy. But there is little she can do; she can't settle into Ariel's life, into her other life, and stop being who she really is. She enjoys when they get out of the car and walk down the street with other people. When they sit in a movie theater and a couple arriving late makes themselves comfortable nearby and when they take refuge in a cafe and someone comes over to greet Ariel. Then she feels like everybody else.

The month of February came with fifteen spring days. People sit outside in the Plaza Santa Ana. A few afternoons they lay out in Ariel's garden, carefully trimmed each week by Luciano, with a view of the branches silhouetted against the sky. They felt like all the other young people.

Sylvia goes straight from the bas.e.m.e.nt to the garden through the garage door. She sits on the edge of the pool where leaves float on the greenish water. She leans her hands on the gra.s.s and lets herself fall backward. She feels how her hair hangs down her back and is rustled by the breeze. She stays there until he finds her. Ariel walks on the gra.s.s, his hair wet. He is wearing the sandals she hates and as he approaches they slap with each step. He sits behind her and holds her by the shoulders.

What are you thinking?

It takes Sylvia a little while to tell him that she'd like to go out, to meet people, to do something together. Ariel moves his face from one side to the other so that it brushes against her hair. Should I make some pasta and we can watch a movie? he suggests. Sylvia nods. She is cold and he wraps her up in his arms. During the movie, Sylvia falls asleep, overcome by tiredness. She rests her head on the arm of the sofa. Ariel carries her up to his room. He undresses her delicately and she, although smiling, pretends to be asleep. When he takes off her pants and drops them onto the floor, Ariel brings his face to her s.e.x. She picks up one knee and leaves her leg bent like a mountain towering over him.

They both seem to be more relaxed knowing their time is limited. In less than an hour, they will have to comply with her strict curfew.

But that night, Ariel's caresses put Sylvia to sleep. She will wake up disoriented and surprised, with the light of a sunny dawn in that early spring. Ariel will be sleeping beside her, facedown, with one arm tangled in the pillow. Slight noises can be heard from the floor downstairs, some footsteps, a chair scratching along the kitchen floor, a faucet running. Sylvia, panicked, will elbow Ariel hard in the ribs, twice. She is trying to wake him up.

Ari, Ari, it's daylight. It's the morning. f.u.c.k. It's the morning.

2.

How strange to encounter your reflection all of a sudden and have it be alien to you. Recognize yourself in it, know that it's you, but at the same time feel like someone else. Leandro had dampened his gray hair to comb it back into place, tight against his skull. Who is it that looks back at him from the mirror? He washes up before leaving for the chalet, where he will once again meet Osembe. Spotless, like a decent old man on his way to Ma.s.s or some conference, with a sweater beneath his jacket, because today he'll skip the coat, it's so nice out. Often, when he combs his hair in front of the mirror in the chalet, which is so similar to the one at home, Osembe comes over and musses it with a childish naughtiness that somehow feels absurdly normal. As if a moment later they were going to stroll arm in arm down the street, stopping in front of a store window or maybe going into the supermarket to buy some fish for dinner. He looks at his watch. It's time to go.

In the last few weeks, Aurora hasn't been able to get up. She doesn't trust her strength and, even though several times she's sat at the edge of the mattress, she hasn't dared to get out of bed. For her, terra firma no longer exists. Leandro even has a hard time getting her comfortable in the wheelchair. In the mornings, he fills up a large bowl of water and places it on her thighs. Aurora spends a long time washing her face and dampening her hair and neck. Her skin gets easily chapped and she asks for the lotion to moisturize her arms and face. Leandro sometimes does her legs while Aurora lifts her nightgown to reveal her fragile, pale extremities. Leandro, leaning over her, looks at the fabric pulled halfway up her thighs. On other occasions he washes her feet with hot water. While they are still damp, Leandro trims her nails, resting the sole against his thighs. You don't have to do that, it's okay, she would say. Benita can do it. No, no, it's no problem. And Leandro continued, wanting to see his actions as some sort of penance, kneeling before his wife.

On New Year's Day, Aurora felt almost constant pains and the emergency doctor sent an ambulance. She spent two days in the hospital and they discharged her with a daily dose of sedatives that made her doze most of the day. Any time she felt better, Aurora avoided taking them. Leandro would insist, you don't have to withstand the pain, there's no point. I'm better today, I don't need them, she would say. Lorenzo was shocked one afternoon when he visited and saw his mother's sedated state. Leandro took him to the kitchen. I spoke to the doctor, she only has months to live. Lorenzo dropped his head into his hands. It's better not to tell Sylvia anything, continued Leandro.

Benita changed the sheets every day, and spoke with Aurora in a big, cheerful voice. I'm handicapped, not deaf, Aurora reminded her when Benita would repeat the same thing three times increasingly louder. She talks to her the way people talk to the sick or the foreign, thought Leandro. Twice a week, a Colombian ma.s.seuse came to help Aurora loosen up her muscles. She gives her a slap on the thigh at the end and always says the same thing, well, now you've done your two- or two-and-a-half-mile walk, since that's the pa.s.sive exercise equivalent.

Leandro spends his mornings taking walks, buying things off Benita's lists, and reading the newspaper to Aurora. Sometimes he skips over the delicate paragraphs. Every week a precarious boat filled with immigrants crashes into the rocks on the coast and the sea spits out twenty-odd corpses onto the southern beaches. Almost every day a driver or a group of friends or an entire family loses their lives in cars. A prisoner glues his hand to his girlfriend's with industrial-strength glue during their conjugal visit to demand a switch to open prison. There are deaths in the Middle East, meetings of international leaders, constant political arguments, cultural prizes, detailed information about the soccer championship, news on the economy and television programs. Reading the newspaper is a routine Leandro doesn't dare break. It would feel like the world is ending. Once in a while he'll read her an interview and she'll say that's very good, a simple comment that inspires Leandro to continue.

Together they watched the Christmas reports on the tsunami that devoured the virgin beaches of Thailand and Indonesia. They looked at the cold images, almost something out of fiction, without saying anything to each other, and they, too, felt overwhelmed by nature.

Once a week, two women from the neighborhood visit. On those afternoons, Leandro disappears. Sometimes to the chalet. Since New Year's he never went more than once a week, he had established that limit, and when he feels the urge and is about to break his promise to himself he locks himself in his room and puts music on the record player at a deafening volume until six o'clock pa.s.ses. Sometimes he m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.es looking at old photos in a book of nudes.

On New Year's Eve, they ate the traditional twelve grapes in Aurora's bedroom. Lorenzo and Sylvia were there, even though they both left shortly after. Leandro stayed with Aurora to watch the New Year's concert on television. Two days later, he asked Osembe if she was going on vacation. These days there's a lot of work, she answered. They had added some more Russian and Bulgarian girls at the chalet, who laughed with strident peals in the adjacent rooms. f.u.c.king Russians, Leandro heard her mutter one day. What did you say? Nothing, nothing. But Leandro wanted to understand what bothered her about the recent arrivals.

One afternoon in mid-January, Aurora received her friends at home. She was so weak that she had barely been able to greet them when they came in. Leandro left them alone. A little while later, he was lying in bed at the brothel with Osembe. My wife is dying, he said suddenly. Osembe dropped down by his side and stroked his face with her fingertips. She's dying and it makes me feel so bad spending the afternoon here. Why? she asked. You have to forget.

But I don't forget, was the only thing Leandro managed to say. I don't make you forget? For a little while? she asked him as if feigning hurt pride.

Leandro didn't respond. Osembe wanted to know more. It's her bones, he answered. You have to rub cloves of garlic all over her body, on her legs and arms. Raw, quartered cloves of garlic, rub her with them good and hard. Leandro smiled as he listened. Don't laugh, it is very good to do.

These conversations ended up arousing Leandro. Especially when he noticed Osembe relaxing, no longer a wh.o.r.e for those brief moments of trivial chatting. That turned him on more than all the lovey-dovey erotic foreplay. He lay on top of her then, as if all of a sudden he was overcome with s.e.x. And it took her a few minutes to understand his fit of l.u.s.t.

That evening he went back home in time to say good-bye to Aurora's friends and thank them for their visit. She was dozing in the room and Leandro approached to kiss her. Aurora opened her eyes. Are you here already? He didn't respond, just sat on the bed.

Are you using a different shower gel? she asked suddenly. You smell different. I used a sample that came with the newspaper. He remembered how she used to pull off the sample packets of cosmetics in the Sunday newspaper supplement. It's a bit strong, she said, but Leandro felt he hadn't managed to a.s.suage his wife's suspicions and he lied more. I rinsed off when I came home, I was sweaty from my walk.

He had showered after making love with Osembe, he had felt invaded by the scent of her body. He wouldn't do it again. Most days he just soaped up his crotch, he was put off by the idea of sharing the bathroom with all kinds of clients. To combat the smell of woman and strange perfumes that impregnated his skin, he walked quickly along the street, making himself sweat in a unwarranted race.

The unexpected good weather in February tempted Leandro into extending his walks. In the morning hours, when Benita's cleaning was most annoying, he went down and trolled the neighborhood. There was always frenetic activity. Delivery trucks, people shopping, nannies taking kids for walks in strollers loaded down with plastic bags. One morning Leandro had followed a pet.i.te young woman who looked like she was Latin American, her hair loose down her back and wearing a short denim skirt, all the way to Calle Teruel. She was pushing a baby carriage that couldn't be hers; she wasn't more than twenty years old, and phenomenally proportioned. She stopped leisurely in front of the windows of shoe shops and clothing stores, with the baby asleep. Leandro kept a prudent distance but accompanied her on her walk. When she turned to one side, he observed her lovely features. It was rare to find that delicateness in a neighborhood where vulgarity reigned, filled with coa.r.s.e faces, leathery skins. Leandro appreciated the girl as a strange pearl, dropped there thanks to the generous capriciousness of beauty's allocation. Following her took him almost an hour. When she arrived at what seemed to be her door, she stopped and waited. Leandro, afraid of disturbing her, walked past. She didn't pay him much attention. She had vivacious black eyes that found Leandro invisible. She opened the gla.s.s door and disappeared inside the entryway.

Retirees sat on benches along the street, talking about soccer and politics with cliched ideas that were almost always wrong, in Leandro's opinion. Their ideas were limited to what they'd heard on the radio. Some of them returned home with bags of groceries lifted high, as if they were doing exercise, and others strolled with a young grandchild by the hand or used a cane rather than give up their daily walk, their gaze lost in the distance, sometimes talking to themselves beneath their visors. Leandro made an effort to distance himself from that group of dying urban birds.

Leandro preferred to walk at a good clip. The main obstacles were vendors or the disabled elderly who leaned on the arms of Latin American caretakers. Sometimes he got as far as the wide sidewalks of Santa Engracia, where the neighborhood grew posher and more boring. There doormen controlled their dominions, their eyes following girls from the Catholic school nearby or shooting a hostile look at a pa.s.sing Moroccan. Young Central Americans handed out advertising flyers at the entrance to the metro, the area sprinkled with pedestrians' lack of interest in their course offerings or neighborhood restaurants. The sound of traffic was constant, but Leandro was upset when he heard the grating sound of jackhammers, a welding workshop, and a tile saw. The closest park on Calle Tenerife was far and dirty with dog s.h.i.t and trash and Leandro felt more comfortable in the hustle of people racing about than those who just sat and watched the morning go by.

Leandro walked toward the chalet, relaxing his pace so as not to arrive early. The door opens for him after he rings the bell. Mari Luz comes out to receive him, ah, it's you, come in, come on in. She leads him to the little receiving room. Excuse me for a second. She disappears and Leandro is left alone for a few minutes, sitting on the sofa like someone waiting for the dentist. When Mari Luz returns she says, well, I'll have the girls come through, okay?

No, no, is Valentina free? Leandro reserves Osembe's real name for himself. If not, I'll wait, he says with obvious command of the situation. But he isn't prepared for the response from the madam, who turns her made-up mask to one side before answering. Ah, didn't I tell you? Sorry, but Valentina doesn't work here anymore. What?

You heard me, the black girl doesn't work here anymore.

3.

If someone is watching me from a distance, at this point they must be completely confused. When nothing I do makes sense to me, the most logical thing to think is that it must be even more inscrutable to someone observing from the outside.

This is what Lorenzo thinks as he attends the procession of the Ecuadorian saint Marianita de Jesus through the nearby streets of the Plaza de la Remonta. He barely knows anything about her, her tears of blood shed a hundred years earlier, her life of affliction and martyrdom to become, through suffering, sainted by G.o.d. For weeks now, after that strange face-off he'd had with Detective Baldasano, and after he had gotten over his fear of being arrested at any moment, Lorenzo has been convinced that someone is following him, spying on his calls, watching his every movement. This feeling, which at first made him feel panicky, only intrigues him now. It sometimes forces him into an exercise of identifying with his pursuer, trying to share his perspective. One Lorenzo separates from the other Lorenzo, as if he had to draw up a full report on his own activities and the result is only a confused jumble of actions without any particular connection. What is he doing? Where is he trying to go? What is he looking for? The game becomes fun when he himself doesn't even know why he is where he is. Daniela had said, let's go see the procession, my mother would like it if I sent her photos.

The members of Daniela's church aren't there. Neither is the pastor with the sweet voice and the nose so hooked that it looks like a padlock on his face. Daniela had bought a disposable camera, wrapped in yellow cardboard. Lorenzo takes a picture and turns the little wheel, advancing the film with a ratchet noise. Daniela is in the foreground and behind her is the saint's image raised aloft. Smile a little, he says, and she does, her mouth taking on the shape of a double-edged blade. Lorenzo looks around him for a moment. Yes, it is definitely hard to explain what he is doing there. There are few Spaniards. A couple of discreet men, one with gray hair and the other stocky, who accompany their Ecuadorian girlfriends. Before, when he saw one of those couples, he looked at the Spanish men with suspicion, a certain disdain even. Is that me now? he wonders.

Lorenzo spends long hours at his parents' house, at his mother's side. He knows she has only months to live and what at first was infrequent anguish and pain is now almost routine. Week after week, Aurora's hours of consciousness decrease. Her dying shows at the height of her cheekbones and in her emaciated mouth. As if her skeleton were gaining final authority inch by inch. He understands that she wants to hide the gravity of her condition from everyone; she never liked being the center of attention. She always accepted a supporting role beside her husband. What was important was his career, his peace of mind, his s.p.a.ce. Kids, don't make too much noise, Papa is listening to music or preparing his cla.s.s, she would say to Lorenzo and his friends. Let's go take a walk so your father can be alone for a little while, she would say at other times. Let your Papa read in peace, your father isn't feeling well lately-phrases Lorenzo remembered well. Later she also a.s.sumed a supporting role with regard to him, as her son. His education, his life, his fun were important to her, but she was never possessive or scheming. Now she made a great effort to keep her illness a personal struggle that didn't affect others. She seemed to be saying, relax, don't worry that I'm quietly dying little by little, go on with your things, don't change your plans for me.

Lorenzo liked to stand beside his mother's bed, organize her night table, where her gla.s.ses and some books were jumbled among the medicine boxes and the gla.s.s of water. What would his pursuer say? Here we see a son watching his mother die without a big display of pain, a son sorrowfully witnessing the ritual of letting go of the person who gave him life, unable to do anything to repay her.

It would be interesting to know what those eyes were thinking when they watched him make some ridiculous purchase at the supermarket. Some cans of sardines, eggs, beers, canned goods, the yogurts Sylvia liked. What would they think of a man sleeping alone for months now, left by his wife, who doesn't pull down the covers on her side, who just folds the corner of his bedspread and gets into the bed without touching the pillow that was hers, as if there were a gla.s.s barrier that kept him from taking complete possession of what was still a marriage bed in spite of the definitive absence of the other half? That inhospitable house that's like a cave when Sylvia's not there, and she's there increasingly less and less. On some days when she left the house, she was resplendent, as if she had become a mature, beautiful, independent woman. Other days she was the same old lazy girl, curled up like a cat on her pillow in the childish warmth of her room with some reddish, ardent pimple on her forehead or chin.

He related to her in the same vacillating way. Days of monosyllables and evasive responses, and then afternoons filled with jokes, sharing the kitchen table or watching a soccer game on TV and arguing because she defended, for example, the quick Argentinian winger he criticized for his lack of connection to the team and his futile feints. He was a father with a teenage daughter he knew almost nothing about, who would be the last in knowing what all her close friends, and maybe even her mother, surely knew. But he hadn't told her about his relationship with Daniela, either.

It was undoubtedly the most confusing chapter in his life up to that point. If they were dating, it was a very strange relationship. They walked separately down the street, they said good night at the door with a kiss on each cheek. The evenings they went out, they took long walks, Daniela strolling, almost dragging her feet. They would go in some cafe or a store where she'd try on shoes or a skirt, and then they'd leave without buying anything, either because of the price or her stubborn insistence that everything looked bad on her, I have fat legs, my feet are too small. Although sometimes a conversation would provoke her splendid smile, it was difficult to breach the distance, to bring down the invisible wall that separated them. One would have thought they were just friends if not for the languid expression Lorenzo adopted as he watched her leave and his sadness on the way home.

On weekends they spent hours together, sometimes with her friends. Then more time was spent looking at store windows or trying on a pair of pants or a shirt. She only let him treat her once in a while. They would troll through the bazaars, eat at cheap restaurants. On Sunday mornings, they went to her church and chatted with the other attendees while the kids ran between chairs. Afterward they organized the bags of food, like little ration sacks they handed out to those who came to pick them up, some with honorable expressions attached to accepting charity.

On other days, they walked alone through the paths of Retiro Park and she stopped to greet some Ecuadorian acquaintance who looked at Lorenzo as if he were judging a usurper. If he mentioned something about the cutting stares her fellow countrymen gave him, she only said, pay no mind, they're men.

It took me a long time to be able to tolerate those dominating looks from men, Daniela explained to him one day. You think I don't feel those eyes that grope you in front and in back? Making you feel like a dirty wh.o.r.e they have the right to enjoy. Men are always very aggressive.

Lorenzo felt forced to defend them. He said that violence wasn't always behind those looks; sometimes they can be admiring.

If a man wants to flatter you, she explained, he only has to gaze into your eyes, he doesn't have to linger on your b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips and hound you. The same men that give you challenging looks when you're with me would rape me with their eyes if they found me alone.

Daniela's att.i.tude, sensitive to any kind of s.e.xual approach, in spite of the sensuality she exuded almost effortlessly, forced Lorenzo to apologize if his arm brushed hers or if their knees b.u.mped under the table or if he touched her thigh when going to switch gears in the van. In the bazaar, when she tried on a necklace or some earrings, he would tell her, they look good on you, but when they parted he only dared to say, sleep well. In her way, Daniela's most affectionate gesture toward Lorenzo had been one afternoon, when coming through the door and walking toward him, she had shown him her cell phone and said, did you know I included you in the four numbers I can call for free?

Work wasn't much easier to define. Wilson had a small entourage of three or four Ecuadorians that he directed authoritatively during moves and pickups. Lorenzo had made a business card with his name and cell phone number beneath a succinct definition of the word transport transport. Often, though, his work was just taking Wilson to the airport and picking up a group of newly arrived Ecuadorians in the van. It was some kind of profitable collective taxi. Lorenzo drove around the terminal to avoid police surveillance and Wilson rang his cell phone as a signal when the pa.s.sengers were ready. They dropped them off around the city and made sixty or seventy euros off the books. Wilson smiled at Lorenzo with his mismatched eyes and explained, when you come to a strange land, you always trust a fellow countryman.

Lorenzo would have liked to know if Detective Baldasano was aware of his activities and if they increased his suspicions or perhaps convinced him that Lorenzo should be taken off the list of suspects in Paco's murder. Seeing him exhausting himself over a few euros, working a full day for negligible pay, should surprise him. In case he had positioned someone to follow him around, Lorenzo made sure his days were very complicated, with no set hours or predictable routines, filled with patchy little jobs. It was surprising for someone who not long before had always held down stable jobs. If you are watching me, thought Lorenzo, welcome to the lowest rung of the labor ladder. He was amazed to see himself surrounded by Ecuadorians, with his shirt sweaty, working on sidewalks around the city.

Daniela sometimes took him to the Casa de Campo Park on Sat.u.r.day afternoons. There they'd meet up with Wilson and her friends, buy something to drink in the makeshift stands, and snack on humitas, arepas humitas, arepas, or empanaditas empanaditas cooked in smoking oil. As the sun set, they'd sit and listen to the dance music that came out of some nearby car with the doors open. Wilson hadn't been in the country long, but he was already recognized by the entire community. Lorenzo was a sort of local partner for his entrepreneurial abilities, his aggressive need to make money. That's why I'm here, my friend, to rake it in, was all he would say. cooked in smoking oil. As the sun set, they'd sit and listen to the dance music that came out of some nearby car with the doors open. Wilson hadn't been in the country long, but he was already recognized by the entire community. Lorenzo was a sort of local partner for his entrepreneurial abilities, his aggressive need to make money. That's why I'm here, my friend, to rake it in, was all he would say.

There it wasn't uncommon to find someone had drank too much or had left the soccer game on the sandy field near the lake with a grudge. Sometimes rivalries were unleashed amid races that lifted clouds of dust. If someone got violent, the others held him back. But the alcohol took its toll. One of those afternoons, it was Wilson who was involved. Daniela and her friends, among them Wilson's cousin Nancy, pulled him out of a fight and took him home, stinking drunk, in the van. At the door, Lorenzo wanted to help them, but Wilson said he could get upstairs on his own. The next day, Daniela told Lorenzo that he had drank even more at home and he'd attacked them when they asked him to stop drinking. The girls all took shelter in Daniela's room, but they heard him destroying the furniture with punches and kicks until he collapsed. The next day, they were unyielding, even though he apologized a million times, and that very day he moved out.

Wilson then convinced Lorenzo to rent an apartment. Lorenzo would be the face that dealt with the owner; people don't want to rent to us, and they won't have any problem with you. They found an old apartment without an elevator on Calle Artistas. Lorenzo signed a contract with a trusting elderly woman whose legs were so swollen that she didn't go with him to look at the apartment. She just gave him the keys and waited in the entryway. In just a few days, Wilson had set himself up in the best room and rented out the rest of the apartment to five other Ecuadorians. Two of them were married, but with no kids. It was a perfect deal for him. He had free housing and he even made some money to split with Lorenzo. A deal is a deal and a partner is a partner, he said as he handed him the first payment.

By the second week, Wilson had put a mattress in a walk-in closet and was renting it out by the night. Sometimes he closed a deal with one of the new arrivals they picked up at the airport. It's only fifteen euros, brother, he announced, until you find something better. Lorenzo had to sort out a call from the owner, who had been informed by a neighbor that the apartment was a nest of spics, as she herself put it. No, no, Lorenzo rea.s.sured her, they're doing some work for me, but as soon as they're done they'll leave and me and my family will move in. And three days before the month ended, Lorenzo rea.s.sured her again with a punctual rent payment accompanied by a small tray of cakes, a detail Wilson had suggested. I have two sons, the woman explained to him, one is a soldier in San Fernando and the other works in construction, in Valencia, but they go months without coming to see me, they were the ones who convinced me to rent. And you are doing the right thing, ma'am, you enjoy the rent money, Lorenzo told her, and don't let the neighbors breed bad blood.

Wilson was enterprising. He had convinced Lorenzo to become a moneylender to three families. We are their guardian angels, not opportunists, he explained. They fronted them the money needed to rent an apartment and pay the deposit, which was always excessive because of the landlords' distrust, and Wilson took care of collecting the installments with their mandatory interest. You think the banks are better than us? They wouldn't even let these poor people wipe their feet on the welcome mat. The amount he had lent out was up to three thousand euros. Are they gonna pay? asked Lorenzo.