Free Learning to Lose by David Trueba

creditors of Lorenzo’s business had rung a bell with Pilar. It was a name she had heard Lorenzo repeating in his nightmares every night. We owe Sonor more than three million. The sale of their last building went entirely to paying that debt. This afternoon I looked into Sonor’s business registration, Pilar told him suddenly one night, after putting the girl to bed. Lorenzo didn’t really understand, but he raised his eyes and listened carefully. The onlypartners of Sonor are Paco and Teresa. She showed him the photocopies, the signatures on the company documentation. If Paco had ripped Lorenzo off, that changed things. If he had been capable of setting up the vague engineering to sink one company to the profit of another one, which he owned, then Lorenzo was a victim, not an unwitting accomplice. There must be some explanation, he said to Pilar, and he pretended in front of her that the news, so many months later, didn’t affect him very much. Pilar didn’t insist, she just left it at that; she regained her silence, a silence that Lorenzo sometimes considered insulting. He didn’t yet know that it was the civilized start of her demolition plan for their marriage. Termites work in silence, too.
    Lorenzo let the days pass, but that information was the catalyst for him seeing Paco once again. For the last time before the time he killed him. He went to see him at his house. My wife’s house, don’t you think it humiliates me to know that the only reason I’m not broke is because I’m married to her? Paco had shouted at him once when Lorenzo was blaming him for his misfortune. Lorenzo heard the dog bark, but when the gate opened the animal searched out his hand with his back for a pat. He’s trained just the opposite of how he should be, he barks and then is affectionate, instead of being affectionate and biting when you least expect it, said Paco.
    Lorenzo knew the house well. He had been there many times. When everything was running smoothly and then also when they were looking for solutions, ways to stop the final collapse. He had seen Paco take out a locked toolbox, hidden behind the shelves of brushes, rags, and cans of paint in the garage, and extract a wad of bills for emergencies. When my father-in-law has too much undeclared cash, I store a little bit of it here for him.
    That last time they didn’t get further than the yard. Paco came out to meet him, smiling, offering him a hug, but Lorenzo stopped him. You ripped me off, you cheated me. Paco didn’t change his expression; he waited for Lorenzo to continue. Sonor was yours, we owed you money. It was all a trap. Paco tried to curb his suspicions, told him it was a different company, one Paco had set up with Teresa using his father-in-law’s money and that the debt was real. I hid the fact it was mine from you, but the debt existed, I can prove it. You were in charge of the accounting, he then added, you know it’s true, I never took care of the books, I lost as much as you. Lorenzo felt like laughing, but he just answered, not as much.
    Not as much.
    It was painful to say. At that point perhaps he sensed everything he had lost. More than the money from the severance claim, his savings, and two years’ worth of work. Much more. He had lost his family’s respect, his position. He had lost his luck. Lorenzo looked at the two-story house, the cropped lawn, Paco’s suit, his blond wave, his relaxed appearance. All nourished by betrayal. He felt rage and an irrepressible desire to punch his old friend. Paco tried to calm him down, he invited him in, he offered to go over the books. We fucked up, Lorenzo, we fucked up together, don’t blame yourself, but don’t blame me either, said Paco. We’re equal in this. It sounded fake. Lorenzo would never be like Paco. Paco never lost.
    Perhaps in that instant, stopped in the middle of the yard, on a cold November morning, months before Pilar left Lorenzo, in that silence of spent explanations, the crime was