SYNOPSIS
(EXTENDED VERSION)
Back to: Part 5
Part 6
Monica
Central protagonist: Pablo
After the incident in the park, Andrew understands that the leak of their relationship will indeed cost Pablo the career of his lifetime. He also believes that if he moves to Barcelona, there'll be no way to keep it in secret indefinitely. Without being with Pablo, though, emigration to Spain loses its existential meaning. He doesn't allow the possibility that he can find someone else there. Career motivation alone doesn't feel sufficient anymore. Accepting the deadlock, he decides to settle for what he has in Russia and focus on raising his child.
He loses his primary job at the hospital due to the massive layoff, and his financial condition worsens, contributing to his misery. At the same time, he sees that Pablo is becoming distant and cold in their correspondence. Instead of seeing that Pablo's behavior is driven by internalized homophobia, he takes it personally and perceives it as the sign that he is unlovable.
In the meantime, during his trip to Italy for another game, Pablo meets Monica, a young fashion model, who looks like a picture-perfect match for him. Hustling to prove his heterosexuality to the public and dispel the gossip hurting his image, he decides to pursue a relationship with her, and Monica passionately responds. Pablo thinks she's actually in love with him, even though the realization of his own sexuality doesn't go away. His parents, although long concerned about him being single, aren't happy with his choice. They intuit Monica's mercenary motives and are disappointed with her disrespectful gestures towards them, as well as her shallow personality. Seeing their son propose to her, they believe that Pablo is just crazily in love. His real motives don't remotely occur to them.
Andrew gets the news of his upcoming wedding in Pablo's email in February, 2009, one year after their dreamlike reunion in Barcelona. Pablo invites him to come meet his fianceé because their friendship is important to him. Andrew starts questioning his own sanity and buying into the idea that their love had never existed.
Instead of Pablo, his father picks up Andrew at the airport and shares his and his wife's misgivings about Pablo's choice as they're driving home. The very fact that Monica didn't move in with them and instead lives in a luxury hotel at Pablo's expense is a big sign: Andrew remembers that Pablo bought the townhouse with a strategic vision to always live as one big family with his elders, and there's more than enough space. Meeting Monica at a dinner, he recognizes her arrogance and opportunistic motives, while Pablo indeed appears to be under a spell. After they take Monica to her hotel, Andrew insists they talk face-to-face. He leads Pablo to the same spot in the Montjuic park where he'd come out a few years ago, hoping that the place will bring Pablo back in touch with reality.
Pablo's shame, although not obvious on the surface, drives his behavior. He works it out on Andrew, first saying that his negative impression of Monica is false and distorted by jealousy. When Andrew reminds him of their time in Greece and all the love professed over the years in their correspondence, Pablo becomes enraged. He insults Andrew by suggesting that he moves to Barcelona on his own and spends his money on having sex with prostitutes in the city's gay neighborhood, because, as he says, satisfying his "dirty lust" is what his dreams of emigration are really about. Unable to believe his words, Andrew punches him in the face and runs away. His dreams about a better, brighter life in Spain are now smoking ruins. Catching a bus to the house he once manifested to be his new home, he hurriedly packs his belongings in front of Pablo's parents and leaves for the airport, incapable of telling them anything sensible.
Pablo doesn't explain to his confused parents what happened between him and Andrew. He carries on with his wedding plan nevertheless. The event takes place in April, 2009, and receives extensive media coverage. But as the celebrity fuss goes down and the couple goes to spend a honeymoon in the U.S., the first surprise of Pablo's bargain emerges — his wife isn't planning to have kids in the near future, because pregnancy-induced changes in her body will hurt her modeling career. Having kids has always been one of Pablo's existential goals, and one of the reasons he believed his relationship with Andrew "wasn't right", but he never talked about it to Monica before marriage, sticking to a patriarchal presumption instead.
Instead of moving in with Pablo's parents, she insists that they live separately and convinces Pablo to rent an expensive apartment in the downtown. He agrees, although it makes his daily commute to the training ground much longer. As their daily life together begins, he increasingly realizes there's no emotional connection or real trust between them even as friends. He then notices that despite her stated intentions, she doesn't seem to be looking for a job in Barcelona. Her professional life remains a mystery to him, with her phone talks with alleged agents remaining in Italian and French — the languages he doesn't understand. He also notices the inconsistencies between her words and behavior that for now seem innocuous but leave no space for trust anyway. This marriage has fulfilled its publicity mission, and now Pablo realizes how meaningless it all was. The shame for betraying Andrew, and betraying himself, is growing in his mind, and but he can't bring himself to contact Andrew and apologize.
In the summer of 2009, his team starts grueling preperations for a national league game. González, his head coach, picks on Pablo for no apparent reason, making him physically exhausted in ways that largely exceed what his real-game performance requires. Seeing Pablo's distressed condition over the weeks, Monica suggests that he tries a ginseng-based Chinese drug she'd earlier used as a stimulant during sleepless shooting sessions. It's given intramuscularly, and Monica claims she knows how to give the shots. Without consulting the team's doctor, Pablo agrees. The drug quickly improves his stamina within a few days. At the same time, he accidentally finds out that his wife maintains communication with the sister of his team's head coach, who both look to promote his nephew Julio into the primary squad. Clues emerge in his mind. He remembers that Monica's grandma back in Italy said her previous boyfriend was also a footballer, and that Julio and his mother lived in Italy for a long time, while she was trying to make career in fashion. He's worried about how his wife knows them and if there's a benign reason behind their connection.
His suspicion turns into evidence when one week before the game, Pablo brings the sample of Monica's drug into a chemical lab, and the testing reveals it to be erythropoetin, a widely known dope, universally prohibited in the athletic world. He is devastated realizing that medical clearance test before the match are going to reveal his usage of the drug and disqualify him from professional sports for a few years, while his spot in the primary squad will be vacated for the head coach's nephew.
Realizing this catastrophic outcome of his marriage, and possibly his entire career, Pablo goes psychotic. He smashes the furniture in their apartment and hits Monica when she shows up, then rushing to his parents' house. He sees this entire situation as God's revenge for the pain he caused to Andrew. Amidst ongoing fury, he tells his parents briefly what happened, but doesn't tell the truth about his sexuality and their connection with Andrew. As they try to calm him down and find a way to deal with the situation, he says they'll never understand him, breaks his phone in front of them, and, before they can stop him, drives away shouting that his life is over.
Next: Part 7