The Wind From the East (2 page)
Read The Wind From the East Online
Authors: Almudena Grandes
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Contemporary Women
On August 13, 2000, Sara Gómez was only beginning to learn about the nature of the local winds. Peering from her bedroom window, she watched as the shutters of number thirty-seven were opened one by one—all of them green, newly painted and identical.The wind caught hold of them, crashing them violently against the walls of the house, banging them repeatedly over and over again, until a member of the rather odd family returned in alarm and fastened them to the wall. Sara watched the Olmedos not only because she was worried at the thought of living opposite a house that was rented out for weeks at a time, or because the weather was unsuitable for going to the beach, or because the shops were shut. She watched them because she couldn’t fathom who they were, how they were linked, or why they lived together. Like many children who spent a great deal of time alone, Sara Gómez had enjoyed playing a game in which she invented lives for the strangers she encountered. Now she began to imagine a story in which this tall, dark, forty-something man was the father of the little girl walking a few paces behind him, trying to take shelter from the wind. From afar, they looked very much alike. Dark and tall like him, slender and long-boned, the child must have been about ten or eleven. Sara, who could not know that the only thing she had guessed right was their ages, wondered what the girl’s mother must look like. She must have stayed behind in the car, searching for something, or perhaps she had gone for a quick walk around the development; surely she was the person the husband went to find among the swirl of newspaper pages, floating in the air like big yellow parentheses in a cloud of bougainvillea petals. Up to this point, the scene was so predictable it was boring. But then the child stopped and waited by the open front door, not even attempting to enter the house. Leaning against the wall, hugging some books and a blond doll tightly to her chest, she stood frozen, motionless, her eyes large and alert as if she really didn’t want to be there and distrusted everything around her.The stranger observing her wondered what kind of child could resist the urge to rush into a new house, and she began to suspect that no mother was going to appear. In fact she was now fairly sure that the father must be separated, on holiday here with or without his new partner, accompanied by his child, who no doubt had a lengthy list of daughterly resentments, some of them justified. But then Sara caught sight of the tall dark man again, walking very slowly, with his arm around a second man; this was a possibility she hadn’t considered.The other man was walking like a badly coordinated puppet, tilting his head to look at the sky with his mouth hanging open, meekly leaning against the companion who was guiding him confidently, obviously used to taking care of someone who couldn’t take care of himself.Although he was fat rather than stocky, and almost completely bald, Sara guessed correctly when she estimated that the man must be about thirty. She quickly realized that she had been wrong about everything else, however, when she saw the smile that lit up the child’s face as soon as they approached.The tall dark man put his left arm around her and hugged her to him, his right arm still encircling the other man, and he kissed them both several times on the head and face, before gently pushing them inside the house. He closed the door, and it occurred to his new neighbor that he seemed rather sad.
Very soon all the windows of house number thirty-seven were open, all the shutters secured, and Sara Gómez moved away from her bedroom window feeling vaguely guilty, as if she’d committed a sin by witnessing the new arrivals’ grief, their paltry joy. Sitting on the sofa in her vacant living room, a series of empty spaces crying out for the furniture that had already been ordered in half a dozen shops, Sara listened to the shrieking of the wind. Without the flap of the loose awnings, its howling seemed even more ferocious, like the soundtrack of a reality unfolding ceaselessly beyond her garden.With nothing to keep her company save the deafening roar of the wind and a packet of cigarettes, she began to doubt her own anxiety, to question whether the furtive, almost clandestine air she’d detected in every one of her new neighbors’ movements had really existed. She was, after all, learning what the wind had to teach. She already suspected that on a quiet day, a peaceful, sunny day good for the beach, her new neighbors would not have seemed so strange.
A spectacular band of deep orange lay on the horizon between the sea and the sky. The sun was about to set, but even before he got to the beach, Juan Olmedo could see the silhouettes of some of the strange encampments that had so surprised him that morning. The cars of the Sunday day-trippers, most of them from Seville, had filled both sides of the road right from the entrance of the estate to the first sand dune, like a corridor of fans applauding anyone shrewd enough to have chosen a house so close to the sea. Juan had congratulated himself and remarked out loud, to mollify Tamara, that today,August 14, a Monday as splendid and sunny as a post card, was the day before a public holiday and therefore a holiday too, indeed the most popular holiday of the season. But the little girl seemed so pleased that the wind had finally died down that she wasn’t even listening. Nothing could spoil her mood. Even Alfonso, who was walking between them holding their hands, looked happy.
The beach had been as crowded as they expected it to be.What Juan had not anticipated, however, were the peculiar habits of these weekend nomads. Entire families, including decrepit pensioners and tiny babies, would occupy an area of beach from first thing in the morning, before it was even hot, investing hours laboriously setting up a new version of home with tents, canvas windbreaks and portable furniture, until the beach looked like an extraordinary makeshift shanty town. As they looked for a place closer to the water’s edge where they could lay their humble mats, Juan saw an elderly woman having her breakfast of coffee and
churros
using a plastic plate and cup and a patterned fabric napkin. It made him smile.The spectacle of other people’s strange habits took his mind off his own litany of misfortune. In addition, he realized that the crowds at the water’s edge were having the same useful effect as they did in big cities—the bathers were so busy searching for a place to enter or exit the water, or chasing their little white ball amongst the dozens of other identical balls bouncing up and down the damp sand, or keeping an eye on their children’s buckets and spades, or anointing each other with sun-tan lotion, that they had neither the time nor the inclination to stare at Alfonso, who looked more conspicuous and helpless than ever in the stripy Bermuda shorts that Tamara had chosen for him. Juan couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been anxious about his younger brother and by now he was completely immune to the curiosity of others, but Tamara had inherited her mother’s steely intransigence, and could not bear the sympathy of strangers. That morning, however, all three were able to swim and play in the waves without Tamara having to shout, “Hey, what are you staring at, idiot?” at unwelcome spectators. In the afternoon, they had eaten grilled sardines at the only bar nearby, and had another swim before going home, exhausted from all the sun and sea. Everything had gone so well that a couple of hours later, when Alfonso fell asleep on the sofa, Juan was able to go out for another walk. He felt like being on his own for a while, so he headed back to the beach.
churros
using a plastic plate and cup and a patterned fabric napkin. It made him smile.The spectacle of other people’s strange habits took his mind off his own litany of misfortune. In addition, he realized that the crowds at the water’s edge were having the same useful effect as they did in big cities—the bathers were so busy searching for a place to enter or exit the water, or chasing their little white ball amongst the dozens of other identical balls bouncing up and down the damp sand, or keeping an eye on their children’s buckets and spades, or anointing each other with sun-tan lotion, that they had neither the time nor the inclination to stare at Alfonso, who looked more conspicuous and helpless than ever in the stripy Bermuda shorts that Tamara had chosen for him. Juan couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been anxious about his younger brother and by now he was completely immune to the curiosity of others, but Tamara had inherited her mother’s steely intransigence, and could not bear the sympathy of strangers. That morning, however, all three were able to swim and play in the waves without Tamara having to shout, “Hey, what are you staring at, idiot?” at unwelcome spectators. In the afternoon, they had eaten grilled sardines at the only bar nearby, and had another swim before going home, exhausted from all the sun and sea. Everything had gone so well that a couple of hours later, when Alfonso fell asleep on the sofa, Juan was able to go out for another walk. He felt like being on his own for a while, so he headed back to the beach.
He had thought that the setting sun would induce everyone to go home, but he was only partly right.There was no longer anybody in the water, but semi-naked bodies still lay beneath parasols and sunshades, and there were children playing soccer, groups of adults on plastic sun-loungers chatting, while others slowly, despondently, gathered all the chairs, mats and tents that they had set out so energetically that morning. Juan Olmedo gave them a wide berth on his way to the water’s edge. He wasn’t sure whether they really were all staring at him, or whether the uncomfortable sensation of being watched was an inevitable consequence of feeling that he looked ridiculous. He walked faster. He had lived on the coast for a few years before, but in a city like Cadiz it had been very different. There, he wouldn’t have stood out in his immaculate white trousers, long-sleeved navy-blue T-shirt and lightweight moccasins, but here, over a mile from the town’s seafront, everyone walking along the beach was wearing shorts and trainers. Juan realized he’d have to dress the same if he didn’t want to become known as “the pretentious poser from Madrid,” and set off towards a section of the beach that was studded with fishing rods.
He felt as if the east wind had dissipated only on the surface, but was still battering him mercilessly inside. He felt anxious, but more than that, confused, uncertain, weighed down by responsibility. He had never had to make so many decisions in such a short space of time, never had such a narrow margin in which to ponder the wisdom of each choice he made. When he realized that Madrid was no longer a good place for them to live, he chose what had, at the time, seemed the best option. Making the most of the general confusion that prevailed at the start of the holidays, they had slipped away discreetly. After all, no one would notice their absence with all the summer migrations.The plan was simple. During his time in Cadiz, Juan had become very good friends with Miguel Barroso, who was now head of the orthopedic department at Jerez Hospital, and Juan had felt sure that Miguel would support his application for a job. It was the main reason he’d moved to this region rather than any other part of Spain, although he already knew he’d like many things about the area—the climate, the light, the people—the same factors that had influenced his choice the first time he moved away. His parents came from a village in the wilderness of Extremadura, but he had only ever visited the area a couple of times, before Alfonso was born, and he had no links there other than a few old songs, odd words slipping quietly from his memory. Juan Olmedo was from Madrid and he knew he would miss it, but his own nostalgia, which had already destroyed his life once, was less of a concern to him than the thought that Tamara might not get used to living so far from home, or the even more worrying possibility that his brother’s mental state might suffer as a result of the inevitable isolation of the first few months and of having to deal with unfamiliar teachers and pupils at a new daycare center. Now that there was no going back, Juan felt that perhaps his choices had been too hasty. Perhaps they needn’t have left Madrid. Perhaps it would have been enough simply to change minor details—a new house, new part of town, new hospital, new school. Perhaps there was no real reason to be so afraid.
The fishing rods weren’t as far away, or as close together as they’d seemed. As he walked past them one by one, he also realized that the rocks he’d had to walk around for some time now were not a natural formation, especially on this beach where the sand was so fine. Molded into smooth, grey, slippery blocks by the imperceptible tenacity of the waves, they formed a perpendicular line into the sea where they met another line of rocks that ran more or less parallel to the beach, interrupting the path of the waves and forming a barrier in the water. Juan recalled that someone had mentioned there was a trap-net site in the area near the housing development, and he now understood why fishermen brought their tackle all this way, so far from the center of town. He watched some children armed with nets and plastic buckets as they jumped from rock to rock and, in the dim light of the dying sun, searched unsuccessfully for crabs and crayfish trapped in the pools closest to the shore. They were ignoring the insistent calls of a woman, assuring them, unconvincingly, that this was the last time they’d be allowed on the beach if they didn’t come out of the water right now, this minute. Juan stopped for a moment and saw that the children hadn’t the least intention of leaving. He walked on, comforted by the familiar elements of this little holiday scene.
The small town the Olmedo family had just moved to was the only aspect of their new life that Juan was certain he had got right. He had decided from the start not to live in Jerez, not only because it was quite a distance from the coast, but because there was no point in leaving one big city to move to a smaller version, an embryo of the same thing.This was why he had also decided against El Puerto de Santa Maria; still too big, too urban, too formal for what he wanted. He’d tried to convince Tamara that the move was an inevitable consequence of his job, a decision taken for him by faceless strangers, a risk that all doctors working in the national health service ran, but he had a feeling she knew this wasn’t true, even though she was only ten.The child’s happiness was so important to him that he had done everything he could to ensure it, providing her with a completely different life from the one she had known so far—a house by the beach, on a private development with swimming pools, gardens, tennis courts, and lots of other children, a school that she could cycle to when the weather was good, and a small, pretty town that was quiet in winter, busy in summer, its population of some thirty thousand inhabitants swelling to over a hundred thousand during the months of July and August; a place small enough that she wouldn’t keep comparing it to Madrid, but big enough that she wouldn’t feel stifled by the size of the streets.
He could have found a cheaper house, but he didn’t even consider it. He could have looked at other towns around the bay, but he didn’t have the time or the inclination. His new boss had recommended this development, and it fulfilled everything he had envisaged for Tamara when he first began thinking about moving. He’d put his top-floor flat in the Calle Martin de los Heros up for sale in mid-April, a few months after having made the last payment on a mortgage he’d taken twelve years to pay off, and by the end of June he’d found a buyer who didn’t need the flat until September. He hoped that the price difference between a square foot of land in the center of Madrid and a housing development on the outskirts of a provincial town would mean he could easily afford a large and attractive house. He was right, and it took him even less time to buy the house than it had to sell the flat. On his first day off in July, he took an early-morning flight to Jerez, where he met Miguel at the hospital, visited the center where he planned to send Alfonso in September and, that afternoon, selected house number thirty-seven from the plans for the development. He’d only viewed the show home, but that was enough.The estate agent was astonished when Juan handed him a check and left quickly, saying he couldn’t afford to miss his plane back to Madrid. In the few minutes it took for Juan to get out his checkbook, note down the amount he was paying as a deposit, and fill in the rest of the check, he told the estate agent he wanted plain tiles in the bathrooms, that he’d rather have all the kitchen units along a single wall, and that he’d be very grateful if, before the decorators set to work, the electricians could be informed that he didn’t want spotlights in the ceilings, just a single light fitting. He assumed, of course, that the house would be finished by the beginning of August.The estate agent, who’d never met anyone who could think of so many things simultaneously, nodded. A little later, when he stopped off at a bar for a glass of
anis
, as he did every evening on his way home for supper, he recounted the story to all his cronies and none of them had ever heard anything like it.
anis
, as he did every evening on his way home for supper, he recounted the story to all his cronies and none of them had ever heard anything like it.
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