The Wind From the East (67 page)
Read The Wind From the East Online
Authors: Almudena Grandes
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Contemporary Women
“He’s a friend of ours and he’s a good man, he’d do anything for them,” Damián went on. “He might end up in prison through no fault of his own, so that’s why his colleagues at the clinic have written this letter to express their support, and we’d like you to sign it and pass it around your friends.We need all the signatures we can get.” In the end, the case was dismissed through lack of evidence, as often happens when the only witnesses—who in this case were also the victims—are mentally ill, their testimony discounted as a matter of course.The letter never became public. Juan wasn’t surprised. No doctor with any conscience would ever sign such a document. So in three or four years’ time Dr. Miguel would still be working in a clinic, maybe even the same one. He might be one of the doctors that Damián had mentioned who was in favor of operating on poor Alfonso. Juan knew that Damián had meant it.The world would be a much better place if his brother and his friends weren’t living in it.“Let me past, Juanito, for fuck’s sake. Let’s have a nice birthday party for Tamara. I’ve come back to have a shower and change my clothes, and then I’m going out again. Nicanor’s waiting for me with some girls.You’ve had your say, so let me past, Juan. Just get out of my way! Do you really want me to punch you? Shit! If you weren’t such a poof, I’d tell you to come with us, see if we could wipe that holier-than-thou look off your face.”When they were kids, they never fought. Later, when they were teenagers, they started fighting a lot, too much. In those days the younger Olmedo was no threat, but the older wasn’t capable of holding back for long. Dami was quicker and more experienced, but Juan, to everyone’s—including his own—surprise, could be much more violent than his brother. So they were more or less equal, though Damián would never admit it. El Canario didn’t know this either. One Saturday, Juan had caused a row between them, although he didn’t feel responsible. He’d put on one of Damián’s shirts that he really liked because he and his friends were going to a cinema in Madrid, as they called the center of town, as if they lived in a different city.The girls were coming too, but Damián wasn’t. He was grounded, because he’d had some bad marks at school, so it made no difference to him if Juan wore the shirt—it was just lying in a drawer. Juan had asked if he could borrow it and Damián had said no.Their mother had intervened, suggesting then ordering Damián to lend it to him. In the end, Juan had just grabbed it. He had already left the house when Damián appeared on the street, snorting like an angry bull, and Juan didn’t know what to do, because the others were waiting for him at the corner. His brother took advantage of his indecision. He headbutted him, knocking him to the ground, flung himself on top and raised his fist, but then suddenly disappeared. Juan, who had closed his eyes, opened them to see El Canario releasing Damián’s shirt collar, having dragged him off.“If you want to be a hard man, pick on people who are stronger than you are, idiot,” El Canario said to Damián.“Leave me alone, Canario,” Damián answered, “keep your nose out of my business.” El Canario laughed, made as if to punch him, and laughed again.“Don’t cross me, boy,” he added smiling,“just don’t cross me.”Then he turned to leave, but Juan jumped up, unbuttoned the shirt as quickly as he could and called after him: “Hey, Canario!” Naked from the waist up. Juan ran up to Damián, flung the filthy shirt at him and continued after El Canario. “I’m stronger than he is, Canario,” he said, “I’m stronger.” El Canario looked at him and smiled, but said nothing. In those days, Damián was taller than Juan. Everybody thought it would always be like that, but Juan grew more later on, until he was taller than Damián. The evening of Tamara’s birthday, as Juan stood at the top of the stairs, Damián seemed shorter than ever. He’d lost a lot of weight very quickly, but he still had a paunch, like a pregnant woman’s belly. He looked old, he was almost always drunk these days, and he was hard—so hard that sometimes Juan thought he could have stuck a pin in his arm and Damián wouldn’t have felt a thing. Damián ate cream cakes, drank malt whisky, and snorted over a gram of cocaine every day. Juan liked cocaine, but he didn’t like his brother. Damián didn’t like himself much either, although he didn’t realize it.There were many things he didn’t know about himself, above all that he’d always been a weak man, with a personality as soft and fragile as the cakes he devoured without savoring them. Whenever he saw Damián stuffing a cake into his mouth, it always struck Juan Olmedo that this was what Damián’s life had become—swallowing without chewing, missing out on the taste of things, the contrasts. Perhaps this intrinsic weakness was why Damián hadn’t been able to handle Charo—bittersweet and salty, bitter and acid, and sweeter afterwards if need be—while she was still alive, or to get over the supreme insult of her death. Juan had never managed to understand her, but in loving her and banging his head again and again against the arbitrary walls of her maze, he’d learned to anticipate her movements, and he’d never understood how Damián and Charo had ever managed to live together in the same house for so many years.That night, seven months after his sister-in-law’s death, he was left with two theories.The first, and best, was that Damián, deep down, didn’t care much about his wife’s fate.The second theory was that they were both so alike that nothing, except death, could ever separate them.The second theory was the correct one. Juan feared this when his brother picked the only argument that he, Juan, did not want to hear.
“Please don’t give me a sermon, Juanito, for God’s sake. I don’t care about my health, I’ve already told you. So I’m not well? I know I’m not, of course I know that. I told her clearly, from the beginning,‘If you ever cheat on me, I’ll kill you.’Well, she cheated on me but I didn’t kill her. In the end she killed herself, she killed herself while she was cheating on me, the bitch. How can I get over something like that?You don’t know what you’re talking about. I could have accepted anything between us, anything but that, shit, everything but that. She was a hell of a woman, Charito, she was unique.And she killed herself cheating on me.And I hate her for it, I hate her. I forgave her lots of times, you know, and she forgave me even more, but I just can’t forgive her for this. I’d kill her right now, kill her even though she’s already dead, that would be enough. How on earth could I be all right, Juanito, how?” After that Saturday afternoon, which ended up with no cinema, no girls, no shirt—the shirt Juan liked best perhaps only because it wasn’t his, because it was Damián’s—El Canario began to acknowledge him when they passed in the street. Juan would greet him back with a brief, sober wave of the hand, the way men are supposed to, and he was very conscious of how this almost incidental deference conferred a prestige upon him that he’d never enjoyed before. In the sixth year of the
bachillerato
, Juan Olmedo picked up a girl for the first time, and for one wonderful, magical term, he went out with one girl after another while El Orejas, El Rubio, El Chino, El Choto, El Toledano all learned his name and called out to him with a friendly grin from across the street. The older Olmedo, so serious, always so polite, such a nice boy, started pulling up a chair to El Canario’s table without being asked and having a beer with him, and this was where he learned about turning the handle of a knife when the blade’s already inside a body, and that it was good to hit someone with a battery in your hand, if you were stupid enough not to have with you a sugar cube that had been soaked in brandy and left to dry.“So that it crystallizes, of course,” said Juan the first time he heard this advice, understanding the trick and its advantages. El Canario had laughed. “So that it what?” He’d never heard the word “crystallize” before, he seemed almost proud of it, and patted Juan on the back.“You’ll go far, Juanito! Shit!You’ll go far!” El Canario might not have known the word “crystallize” but he knew lots of other things. Juan never got him to pass on a girlfriend, or get her phone number for him, or to give him advice on winning a girl over. El Canario did this for his other mates, but to Juan he always said the same thing:“Who, that one? No fucking way, she’s a slut, she’d be no good for you.Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. She’s OK for El Orejas, he couldn’t get anything better, but you, you’ll go far, Juan.” But then, one afternoon, he asked Juan if he’d like to go for a walk as far as the barracks. Juan thought he must want to buy some hash, and said yes, he’d go with him. They walked for quite a while, just the two of them, chatting about all sorts of stuff, official fights and street fights, referees and scores, champions, broken noses and broken dreams. Until they reached a fence,just a fence like any other.“Let’s sit down for a while?” El Canario suggested. Juan agreed, and thought they must be waiting for a dealer. He couldn’t understand why they’d come all this way to find one, maybe it wasn’t hash El Canario had come to get—this is what Juan was thinking when El Canario put a hand on his shoulder, pressed himself against him, and then started to stroke his back as he brushed Juan’s nose with his own. “Wouldn’t you like to come to the gym with me one day?” he said, his hand moving down Juan’s back, his lips brushing Juan’s face.“You’ve got such a good body.”“Don’t speak to me like this, Damián,” Juan thought, “don’t tell me all this, don’t make me feel sorry for you, you bastard.” He needed all his pity for himself by then; he had none left over for his brother. Damián had never spoken of love before, neither when Charo was alive nor later, when he’d collapsed with a single word on his lips, “whore,” as if he’d sworn never to call her by her name again. Juan had made the most of Damián’s weakness, his bitterness, the brutal magnitude of his stupidity, which confirmed Juan, once again, as the best, the most intelligent of the three. He couldn’t accept any other version, any other reality—it would be unbearable. Jealousy gnawed at his insides like a dog maddened by hunger, a dry, burning sensation that warped everything around him, just like before, when he’d asked God to do whatever he liked, as long as he gave Charo back to him.The time for jealousy and anger was past, but Damián’s hoarse lament had reminded Juan that he was still the third, now, still, always. The best, but always the third.“I was the one who had a unique relationship with her, you son of a bitch. It was me who forgave her anything, even the grotesque mockery of her death and her shattered body.”When his memory began to play tricks on him, Juan Olmedo finally moved aside to let Damián past. He moved down two steps and they were level.They could have passed each other for the last time that night if Juan had done what he should have done, if he’d left quickly, and gone home. But he was thirsty. He’d had a lot to drink but he was still thirsty. Maybe nothing had ever been true. Maybe Charo had told Damián everything she did with Juan, what she said to him and what he said to her, what she asked for, what he promised. Maybe they had laughed, the two of them, together in bed, after Charo had made Damián forgive her for her umpteenth marital infidelity in the only way she knew how.“So what, Juanito?” he asked himself.“What does any of this matter now?” But it mattered because it bothered him.
bachillerato
, Juan Olmedo picked up a girl for the first time, and for one wonderful, magical term, he went out with one girl after another while El Orejas, El Rubio, El Chino, El Choto, El Toledano all learned his name and called out to him with a friendly grin from across the street. The older Olmedo, so serious, always so polite, such a nice boy, started pulling up a chair to El Canario’s table without being asked and having a beer with him, and this was where he learned about turning the handle of a knife when the blade’s already inside a body, and that it was good to hit someone with a battery in your hand, if you were stupid enough not to have with you a sugar cube that had been soaked in brandy and left to dry.“So that it crystallizes, of course,” said Juan the first time he heard this advice, understanding the trick and its advantages. El Canario had laughed. “So that it what?” He’d never heard the word “crystallize” before, he seemed almost proud of it, and patted Juan on the back.“You’ll go far, Juanito! Shit!You’ll go far!” El Canario might not have known the word “crystallize” but he knew lots of other things. Juan never got him to pass on a girlfriend, or get her phone number for him, or to give him advice on winning a girl over. El Canario did this for his other mates, but to Juan he always said the same thing:“Who, that one? No fucking way, she’s a slut, she’d be no good for you.Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. She’s OK for El Orejas, he couldn’t get anything better, but you, you’ll go far, Juan.” But then, one afternoon, he asked Juan if he’d like to go for a walk as far as the barracks. Juan thought he must want to buy some hash, and said yes, he’d go with him. They walked for quite a while, just the two of them, chatting about all sorts of stuff, official fights and street fights, referees and scores, champions, broken noses and broken dreams. Until they reached a fence,just a fence like any other.“Let’s sit down for a while?” El Canario suggested. Juan agreed, and thought they must be waiting for a dealer. He couldn’t understand why they’d come all this way to find one, maybe it wasn’t hash El Canario had come to get—this is what Juan was thinking when El Canario put a hand on his shoulder, pressed himself against him, and then started to stroke his back as he brushed Juan’s nose with his own. “Wouldn’t you like to come to the gym with me one day?” he said, his hand moving down Juan’s back, his lips brushing Juan’s face.“You’ve got such a good body.”“Don’t speak to me like this, Damián,” Juan thought, “don’t tell me all this, don’t make me feel sorry for you, you bastard.” He needed all his pity for himself by then; he had none left over for his brother. Damián had never spoken of love before, neither when Charo was alive nor later, when he’d collapsed with a single word on his lips, “whore,” as if he’d sworn never to call her by her name again. Juan had made the most of Damián’s weakness, his bitterness, the brutal magnitude of his stupidity, which confirmed Juan, once again, as the best, the most intelligent of the three. He couldn’t accept any other version, any other reality—it would be unbearable. Jealousy gnawed at his insides like a dog maddened by hunger, a dry, burning sensation that warped everything around him, just like before, when he’d asked God to do whatever he liked, as long as he gave Charo back to him.The time for jealousy and anger was past, but Damián’s hoarse lament had reminded Juan that he was still the third, now, still, always. The best, but always the third.“I was the one who had a unique relationship with her, you son of a bitch. It was me who forgave her anything, even the grotesque mockery of her death and her shattered body.”When his memory began to play tricks on him, Juan Olmedo finally moved aside to let Damián past. He moved down two steps and they were level.They could have passed each other for the last time that night if Juan had done what he should have done, if he’d left quickly, and gone home. But he was thirsty. He’d had a lot to drink but he was still thirsty. Maybe nothing had ever been true. Maybe Charo had told Damián everything she did with Juan, what she said to him and what he said to her, what she asked for, what he promised. Maybe they had laughed, the two of them, together in bed, after Charo had made Damián forgive her for her umpteenth marital infidelity in the only way she knew how.“So what, Juanito?” he asked himself.“What does any of this matter now?” But it mattered because it bothered him.
He should have left, but he didn’t, because he could be much more violent than his brother.To everyone’s surprise, including his own, Juan was still the more violent of the two, and this violence had become part of his personality, his nature. Juan poured himself another drink, telling himself it would be his last, and slowly went back upstairs.When he got to the top, he heard the shower and told himself again that the world would have been a much better place if his brother hadn’t been in it.“Are you still here? Shit, you’ve really got it in for me tonight! Or are you just dead drunk and you can’t leave because you can’t see straight? Don’t worry, I can take you home.You really shouldn’t drink, Juanito, you can’t take it. And I’ll tell you something else, you’ve been drinking too much lately. Ha! What do you think of that? I know how to lecture too, it’s easy.You shouldn’t drink because you’re the good one.That’s your thing: being good.That’s why you spend your whole life pissing me off. Don’t look at me like that, Juanito, I’ve already told you. How about a line? It might clear your head.” El Canario was still stroking his back very slowly, as if he were in no hurry, as if he could wait all day for Juan to answer him. Juan was looking at him with his eyes wide open. He didn’t know what to say, how to refuse without offending him, how to reject him without losing him forever. He wasn’t scared of him. The last thing he wanted to do was go to a gym with him, but he wasn’t repelled or embarrassed—he admired him too much for that. He was stunned and totally confused, but he’d begun to understand a few things. El Canario smiled at him with parted lips, showing the tips of his teeth, not yet knowing, or perhaps guessing how Juan felt, and at that moment Juan would have given anything to turn back time, wind back the last half-hour of his life.“No, I don’t think I will,” Juan said at last, stumbling over his words. “Go to the gym. No, better not.” “OK, mate, that’s fine.” El Canario took his hand from Juan’s back after caressing it one last time, regretfully, like an abandoned lover.Then he smiled a strained, false smile. “Don’t try to be nice, Canario, shit,” Juan thought but didn’t say it. He said nothing as they walked back, more quickly than before, taking all the short cuts back towards the buildings and lights, to the street where the fighter’s friends and current girlfriend—a brunette with large breasts who drew a beauty spot just above her top lip—were waiting. Neither of them spoke, but El Canario was humming a rumba about birds and stray dogs, accompanying himself by clapping from time to time.“Do me a favor,” he said to Juan quietly when the bar’s neon sign came into view in the distance, “don’t tell anyone about what happened this evening, OK?” “No, of course not,” said Juan, “I swear I won’t, Canario.” Two minutes later, El Canario looked and sounded quite different.“No luck!” he announced, slapping his thigh, and the others, who had no idea what he’d gone looking for, laughed as he sat down, grabbed his girlfriend by the shoulder and squeezed her, “Shit, Canario, you’re hurting me,” and he kissed her on the mouth. “Have a beer, Juanito,” only after this display did he look at Juan again, “it’s on me.” Juan wanted to leave, he didn’t feel like staying there, but he stayed and had not one beer but two, because he’d sworn he’d never tell anyone what had happened and that was exactly what he was going to do. Afterwards, he got up and headed home like any other evening. He passed his house and kept on walking. Walking slowed down his heart but it brought tears to his eyes and he let them slide gently down his cheeks. He knew he wasn’t crying from sadness, but he didn’t really know why he was crying, perhaps because of the beating El Canario would go looking for the next day, or because the world was upside down, or because he was suddenly angry at everything. For once, Juan Olmedo thought his brother was right. It was true that he’d been drinking a lot lately, too much, but he couldn’t reconcile himself to his memories. He missed her—so much, so intensely, so desperately, that every night when he went to bed he heard her last question, the one he’d thought would be rhetorical:“What do you bet you’ll regret it?” He drank to rid himself of the obligation of replying, of admitting that he’d never forgive himself for having abandoned her.When he was sober, it was much worse, because then he could clearly distinguish truth from lies, the real lies from the merciful ones, Charo’s lies from his own. She would have killed herself even if he hadn’t left her a few months earlier.Things would have been just the same if he’d let her come back, let her ring the bell, drop her handbag on the floor, throw herself at him, bind him with the ties of her own pleasure, her own anxiety, her own miserable and irrevocable ruin. He’d always known that Charo was ruinous, but he had never been able to choose any other direction.There was no way out, and there never had been, either at the beginning or the end, and when he was sober it was worse. This was why he had been drinking so much lately, and the reason he fell into bed every night whimpering like a fool, with a futile belief in his own qualities, his nobility, his moral superiority. “I loved you, I would have done anything for you, because I loved you more than you knew, more than you deserved, I loved you.”What a fool.And yet, anything was better than accepting the truth, that Charo, in her cruel, incomprehensible way, had always been loyal to Damián, that he, Juan, had merely been one of her lovers—the most transgressive, secret, and enduring—but just one more, and that she had tired of him, and had allowed him to believe that he was leaving her.
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