The Wind From the East (20 page)
Read The Wind From the East Online
Authors: Almudena Grandes
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Contemporary Women
“Look, Maribel.” She didn’t give Maribel a chance to speak first, as she usually did, or to answer. “Sit down here. Come on, I want to ask you something. Now, let’s see. How much do you save?”
“Me?” said Maribel, confused. “How much do I what?”
“How much do you save? How much of what you earn do you have left over each month?”
“Me?” she repeated, pointing at herself even though there was nobody else there. “Well, nothing. I don’t have a penny left over.”
But Sara had never been one to give up easily, and she’d been expecting this answer.
“But before this summer,” she insisted,“you lived on less money.And you still managed to pay your rent and do your shopping, and you bought Andrés whatever he needed, didn’t you?” Maribel nodded, still looking a little puzzled. “So why do you still spend every last peseta now?”
“Because I bought a TV.”
“Yes, I know. With your July wages. And a deep-fat fryer with your August wages.And a games console, or whatever they’re called, with your September wages.And you’re paying for it all in installments, aren’t you?”
“Not the fryer,” said Maribel, her eyes wide. She was bemused by this interrogation, and her tone was cautious, defensive, as if she wanted to protect herself from Sara.“I bought that in one go because it didn’t cost much.”
“It doesn’t matter. The thing is, you bought it, didn’t you?” Maribel nodded. “But that’s not the point. Buying fewer things, using the ones you’ve already got while they’re still working, not spending money foolishly, keeping the money from the inheritance and adding the money you’ve got left over—that’s saving.”
“What do I want to save for?”
“To buy yourself a flat.”
Maribel was so surprised that her eyebrows practically flew off her face. She stared, open-mouthed, her lips forming a perfect parabola framing her even, white teeth.
“A flat!” she said, almost shouted, at last.“Me? A flat?”
“Yes,” insisted Sara, “you, a flat.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Maribel suddenly seemed to relax and burst out laughing, as if she’d just been told a joke.“With four million pesetas? Do you know how much flats cost around here, with all the holidaymakers who’ll pay anything? I don’t even have enough for a deposit. It’s ridiculous. I’ll go and get changed—I’d better start work.”
“Absolutely not,” said Sara, her firm tone stopping Maribel in her tracks.“You’re going to put on the coffee and get out the coffee cups, then you’re going to sit down here and you’re going to listen to me. Look, Maribel, there are lots of things I don’t understand, but I do know about this. Money’s cheap at the moment. It means that paying a mortgage is easier than ever, because of the interest rate. Do you understand? Interest rates are low right now.Things might change in the future, but you can get fixed-rate mortgages that . . .Anyway, that’s something we’d have to look into.You’ve got four million, and that’s almost half the amount you need, because you wouldn’t need to buy a very big place.Thanks to those four million, you’ll be able to move to a new flat and pay if off every month for not much more than the rent you’re paying now.Think about it.Andrés might say that going to Disneyland is the thing he wants most in the whole world, and he might have got it into his head that he wants a jet ski. Last week he said he wanted a little boat to go out fishing, even though he doesn’t know anything about fishing and doesn’t have the time.Think about him.What would be best for him—to inherit a flat or a couple of photos of Mickey Mouse? And what about you? What would be best for you?You’ve been waxing your legs for fifteen years. Do you really want to spend a fortune on electrolysis? Think, Maribel.You might never get another inheritance, and houses don’t lose their value, quite the opposite, they go up over time.They’re a safer investment than a savings account, and they last forever.And if you don’t have any money left over to buy furniture, well, you can make do with what you have now. And when you finish paying this mortgage, you can get another one. It’s all much easier than it seems, and after all, you’re only thirty, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.You’ve been lucky for once, very lucky. Make the most of it. Listen to me—save the money and buy a flat.Think about it, Maribel. Think carefully.”
Maribel sat down again. For a few seconds, she didn’t move, staring down at her skirt.Then she looked up very slowly. Since she’d known her, Sara had been sure that despite her appearance, her lack of education, her loud voice and laugh, and her unpredictable logic, Maribel was intelligent, and she didn’t disappoint her that morning.
“But I don’t have a regular wage,” she said simply.“Banks won’t give you a mortgage if you don’t have a regular wage.”
“Yes, they will, because you’ve got four million pesetas, and that’s a guarantee. If you stopped paying the mortgage, the bank would get your money, you see. It makes you worthwhile as a customer. Anyway, I can write you a certificate of earnings, and we could have a word with Juan Olmedo. I’ll be seeing him on Saturday at Tamara’s birthday party. She’s invited Andrés, hasn’t she? I’m sure Dr. Olmedo would be happy to write you one too.”
“No, no way!” Maribel sat back suddenly, stirring her coffee so violently that she spilt some of it on the tablecloth.“Believe me, you can’t trust that man.”
“Why not? He seems like a good person, he’s responsible and very generous. I don’t think there are too many men out there who’d be prepared to take on—”
“Yes, I know what you’re going to say,” interrupted Maribel.“I know, and it’s probably true, I’m not saying it isn’t, but there are other things too.”
“Like what?”
“Like some things I know.”
“OK,” Sara snorted.“What things do you know?”
“Look, I don’t like to bad-mouth people because I don’t like it when people say bad things about me and I’ve never hurt anyone. But the other day, that bastard Andrés, my ex, you know? Well, he was making fun of me. I don’t know how he does it, I hardly ever see him but when I do, he always finds some way of needling me.The other day he told me he saw ‘that doctor you work for,’ as he calls him, in Sanlúcar, in a prostitutes’ bar.What do you say to that? That’s how Dr. Olmedo spends his money, all generous and responsible that he is! I mean, really, men are all the same.What are you laughing at? I don’t think it’s funny.”
Sara wasn’t really laughing, but she couldn’t help smiling. She had just realized that Maribel had been thinking, or was still thinking, of seducing Juan Olmedo. It was the only explanation for both her ex-husband’s taunts and Maribel’s acute indignation, an explanation that, above all, provided her with yet more proof that her neighbor was the type of man you could trust. But she resorted to other arguments to justify her reaction.
“Why shouldn’t I laugh, Maribel? Well, really! What did you expect? He’s a young man and he has a difficult life, looking after a mentally disabled person and a little girl all the time, and working too. Besides, he’s new to the area, he doesn’t know anyone, and I imagine he can scarcely find the time to have a beer in peace, let alone to go and meet women. It doesn’t seem all that bad to me.”
“Oh, doesn’t it?” Maribel was unable to formulate a more complex answer, so she expressed her disapproval by going to the sink and attacking the washing-up as if the fate of the universe depended on it.
“Well, no, it doesn’t. I don’t mean that I’m in favor of men going to prostitutes, but life is complicated, you know that.”
Maribel didn’t answer. In the silence that followed, Sara Gómez, who had thought many times that it was very odd that a doctor should give up a permanent post in a Madrid hospital and move to one in Jerez, now began to wonder what had made Juan Olmedo take this step, as if Maribel’s revelation might somehow be the key to the mystery.The fact was, she did find it difficult to imagine her neighbor in a bar with prostitutes, but she didn’t judge him too harshly for it.As she was absorbed in these thoughts, Maribel turned round from the sink and looked at her for a moment before exclaiming:
“It’s a shame you never got married.You would have made your husband so happy! I mean, you know everything. It’s amazing—everything! You can tell you’ve been lucky in life, you can really tell.”
‘What’s your name?”
‘You know it’s Elia.”
“No, I mean your real name.”
“Ah!” She burst out laughing, showing ugly teeth like a cat’s, a cluster of narrow yellow incisors between two pointed eye teeth. “Well, it’s nearly the same: Aurelia.”
“Good.” Juan Olmedo nodded, thinking to himself that it would be better if this pretty girl didn’t smile during her working hours. “That makes it easier to call you Elia.”
She closed her mouth, but a mischievous smile still played on her lips. While he dressed slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed, Juan looked at her closely, as if he’d never seen her before. Close up, and with the lights on, she didn’t look much like Charo, but her face had a similar disturbing beauty—full, dark and stormy—a strange perfection in features that might have seemed ugly in another woman.The angle of her jaw, the shape of her chin, her cheekbones, the line of her nose, had all the harmony of a Renaissance painting, the balanced geometry of a marble sculpture, punctuated by deep black eyes that burned dangerously. She would never have been cast as the ingénue in a film; she would, on the other hand, have made a perfect villain, a
femme fatale
, for any man too inexperienced to fully understand the complex depths such a role entailed. For Juan knew that, despite everything, in spite of the fatal aura that surrounded everything she did, Charo had always been a good person. Elia probably was too, though her face lacked the strategic fleshiness—full lips and a slight plumpness of the cheeks—that had given his sister-in-law her mysterious combination of perversity and sweetness. But Elia’s body was like a copy of the one he had lost, an earlier, younger version, showing the same lack of proportion that had characterized Charo’s body before she had a child: her breasts and hips had seemed too big for her slim arms and narrow waist, the sharp edges of her shoulders and collarbones jutting out beneath taut, smooth, glossy skin. Elia, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three, was observing him now as she lay stretched out on the bed. Juan tried to imagine her in ten or fifteen years’ time, when her body had undergone the changes that had balanced out Charo’s body, making it rounder and more solid, thickening her waist, her arms, and her thighs, but pleasing him no less. He found Charo attractive whatever she looked like. Sometimes, while she was still alive, when she still had a future, Juan liked to imagine her at fifty—well preserved, carefully made up, her hair always immaculate, wearing tight, fitted dresses that showed her body still had curves, a kind of rebellious and disconcerted Liz Taylor, because that’s how it would have been, and he would still have found her attractive.
femme fatale
, for any man too inexperienced to fully understand the complex depths such a role entailed. For Juan knew that, despite everything, in spite of the fatal aura that surrounded everything she did, Charo had always been a good person. Elia probably was too, though her face lacked the strategic fleshiness—full lips and a slight plumpness of the cheeks—that had given his sister-in-law her mysterious combination of perversity and sweetness. But Elia’s body was like a copy of the one he had lost, an earlier, younger version, showing the same lack of proportion that had characterized Charo’s body before she had a child: her breasts and hips had seemed too big for her slim arms and narrow waist, the sharp edges of her shoulders and collarbones jutting out beneath taut, smooth, glossy skin. Elia, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three, was observing him now as she lay stretched out on the bed. Juan tried to imagine her in ten or fifteen years’ time, when her body had undergone the changes that had balanced out Charo’s body, making it rounder and more solid, thickening her waist, her arms, and her thighs, but pleasing him no less. He found Charo attractive whatever she looked like. Sometimes, while she was still alive, when she still had a future, Juan liked to imagine her at fifty—well preserved, carefully made up, her hair always immaculate, wearing tight, fitted dresses that showed her body still had curves, a kind of rebellious and disconcerted Liz Taylor, because that’s how it would have been, and he would still have found her attractive.
He had almost finished buttoning his shirt when he felt a sudden, surprisingly intense desire to take off his clothes, lie down and pull Elia on top of him again. He turned slightly and placed a hand on her belly. She seemed to straighten suddenly and look at him differently, half-closing her eyes to soften her shrewd expression, a kind of pleased, pleasing alertness that convinced Juan Olmedo that she had guessed what was going through his mind. “What is it?” she asked him. “No, nothing,” he answered, and though this momentary show of insight had truly moved him, he managed to get up a fraction of a second before she came towards him to make him change his mind. Elia withdrew instantly and began to play with her hair, showing him that she was not bothered by his decision. Juan smiled to himself, because this unspoken struggle, this quiet power play, had restored Charo to him much more vividly than his forensic deconstruction of her body. He knew this kind of combat well, except that Charo would have won, she always did, ever since she’d learned to control him by pulling the elusive strings of his desire. Now he was pleased he had resisted. He had never intended to dance on anyone’s grave, and he wasn’t prepared to hate her; he didn’t need or want to, and he certainly wouldn’t allow himself to. He suspected that the memory of his lost love would inevitably fade one day; Charo’s features, her voice, her words slowly receding until everything was buried beneath the fine, cold sand of the passing hours and days, the weeks and months. He was determined to experience this moment; to become this serene figure, untroubled by emotion, watching the last of the man he’d been slip away with the last memory of the woman he’d loved. The image made him feel dizzy, a vague combination of anxiety and expectation, although he knew that the sands of time would eventually bury him as well. He had always been the most intelligent of the three.Though Charo had discovered it too late, and Damián had never realized it, Juan had always been the most intelligent of the three; and that was why, that night, in that comfortably anonymous room, with its red plush wallpaper and simple double bed, he hurriedly finished dressing.
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