The Wind From the East (79 page)
Read The Wind From the East Online
Authors: Almudena Grandes
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Contemporary Women
“He . . . I . . . He said he missed me, that everything was going to be different.”
When his grandmother had finally stopped going on about how well he was doing at school, his father took out his wallet and started searching through it. Andrés thought he must be looking for money, and he was surprised because his father had never given him a penny, but what he showed him was even more of a revelation. It was a photograph. Not a very good one—maybe the flash hadn’t gone off, or it simply hadn’t illuminated the corner where his father was posing, a white bundle in his arms. “Bet you’ve never seen this before, have you?” Andrés shook his head. He’d never seen it and didn’t even recognize the place where it had been taken, the furniture, his father’s wide smile, the clothes his mother was wearing as she stood beside her husband, looking happy, fat and very young. “That’s you,” said his father pointing at the white bundle, “you were a week old.What do you think of that?”Andrés held the photo and took it to the window as if he wanted to see it more clearly.“I’ve always been very proud of you, you know,” his father went on. “And I didn’t even know how well you were doing at school.Your mother never calls, she never tells me anything. I have more of these,” he added as Andrés handed the photo back to him without a word. “If you like, I can bring them another day, so you can take a look. In one of them, you and me are on the beach, playing soccer. You must have been about two. And in another one, I’m taking you on my horse around the fair. That’s my favorite. Would you like to see them?” Andrés nodded, without really knowing why. Maybe he was just being polite, or maybe he really did want to see them, to see if what his mother had told him was true—that at first, when he still lived in town, his father used to take him out, buy him presents, and play with him.Andrés couldn’t remember any of it, all he could remember was absence, eyes that looked past him without recognizing him. He still felt very uncomfortable with his father; he needed to see the photos to know more about him.“I’ve got to go,” he said after a while,“my friends are waiting.” “OK,” said his father,“but let’s arrange to meet another day? And I think you deserve a present for getting such good marks at school.”
“He gave me a new bike, a really brilliant one. He’d never given me anything new before. He talked a lot about when he and my mother were going out, and about when I was small, when we all lived together. Mama’s never talked about that, and it was nice to hear about it.”Andrés glanced up. Juan Olmedo was still looking at him as calmly as ever.“He was my father, wasn’t he? He is my father.”
It was such a lovely bike, really light, and it shone in the sun as if it was made of silver. “Do you like it?” his father asked, and laughed when he saw how emphatically his son nodded. “Actually, it’s my bike too. My girlfriend bought it for my birthday last week, and I’ve hardly used it. I really wanted a motorbike, but she said she didn’t trust me, I’d kill myself on a motorbike and anyway, they’re much more expensive. But I’m glad she gave it to me, because now I can swap it for your old one, OK?” It was such a lovely bike, really light, and fast too.Andrés was so happy that he leaned the bike against a tree and hugged his father. “Thanks, Papa,” he’d said. His mother had told him that “Papa” was the first word he had ever said, but Andrés didn’t think of this as he hugged his father, and he didn’t realize it was the first time he’d called him that since he’d been old enough to remember.The bike was so beautiful and light and fast and silver that Andrés couldn’t think of anything else.They took turns riding it around a square in town that was deserted during the siesta, and timed themselves against the clock.Andrés had fun in a way he never had with his mother—not exactly more fun, just different, the type of fun only fathers and sons share. But just before they parted, his father said something else:“I wish I could have bought you a new bike myself,” he’d said. “I wish we’d gone to a shop to choose it together and all that, but I’m broke. I’ve done everything wrong, and I’m sorry. I’ve ruined everything—my family, my wife, my son—and now I’ve got nothing.Anyway, that’s life, I suppose.” He looked at Andrés, smiled, gave him a kiss and rode away on his heavy old bike. His words echoed in Andrés’s ears as he watched him leave.
“He said he was sorry about everything, about having left us and not taking an interest in me. He said he’d tried to put things right once, but my mother had made it too difficult. I believed him, I thought he was telling the truth. After all, he’s my father, isn’t he? I’d never had a father, and it was nice to have one. It was fun to go out with him and joke around and play soccer.”
“Do you have a soccer ball?” his father had asked one afternoon. Andrés fetched his ball and they’d practiced taking penalties at the sports ground Andrés had cycled round with Tamara only three months earlier, when he didn’t know his father and would never have imagined they could get to know each other so quickly. It was the beginning of July and his father had said how lucky it was that the holidays had come and Andrés could go out whenever he pleased without having to tell his mother where he was off to.“When you go back to school, we won’t be able to see each other so often,” his father said, slipping a little anxiety into his son’s mind. He never spent very long with Andrés—maybe only an hour or two—but as the summer wore on, he saw him more frequently. It suited them both, Andrés’s absences were short enough that no one, except Tamara, really noticed, and when she asked where he’d been, he always said he’d been out on his new bike, and Tamara seemed satisfied with his answer. His father often told him that he couldn’t stay long “because of that bitch,” meaning his girlfriend.“She’s a pain in the ass. I work all day long but she still doesn’t stop nagging me. She doesn’t even pay me, because she says the bar belongs to both of us, and that if I want to live there, I have to work there too, but then she goes and keeps my tips. Only gives me a thousand pesetas from time to time, as if I was a little kid. I can’t stand her, you know, I really can’t stand her.”“Why don’t you leave her?” Andrés asked. “Where would I go?” his father replied helplessly, suddenly looking very small. “I’ve got nothing, no qualifications, no training, and the way things are nowadays, what work would I get?” He sounded so forlorn that it didn’t occur to the boy to think that his father was only thirty-three, he was young and healthy, and that other people’s fathers took whatever work they could find without complaining about it.“If only your mother would listen to me,” he said at last,“it would be different. I could come back to live with you, take my time looking for a job, or start a business with all that money she got. How much is it, by the way? Where does she keep it—at home? Oh, in the bank, right. Well, well.”
“Then he kept on saying he wanted to come back, he’d really like to live with us again, so we could be together as a family. He was always talking about the money Mama got from her grandfather’s land. He said it didn’t sound like much, but it would be enough for him to start a business. He could get a loan for the rest, or find a partner or something.”
“What would you like best—one of those shops where they develop photos, or a stall selling roast chicken? They’d both be pretty cheap to set up, especially the roast chicken stall, because all you have to get is the roasting machine, and you could just hire that, you wouldn’t even have to buy one. If we did the photo place, I could go halves with my brother-in-law—he knows all about it because he worked in one of those shops for years. He’s always saying that if he had the money he’d set one up.” Andrés listened, enthralled, the way he used to listen to fairy stories when he was younger, knowing that ogres didn’t exist but still believing in them a little, knowing that magical princesses weren’t real either, but dreaming of the most delicate maiden with golden hair.“Of course, the roast chickens would be a good business in summer, with all the tourists who don’t feel like cooking, but in winter, well, I don’t know. Another thing I thought we could do is set up a little shop, one that’s part of a chain. The problem is, all the cheap ones sell clothes or sweets or perfume, and you’d be less interested in that, wouldn’t you?” Andrés nodded. “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and it’s important you like whatever we choose, because it’s obvious—if your parents own a shop, you’ll end up running it when you grow up.”They spent a long time like this—the father talking, the son listening—viewing their magnificent castle in the air, opening all the doors and windows, exploring all the nooks and crannies, looking out from the balconies and seeing a different world: a house, a family.“I’m your dad, aren’t I? And you’re my son.That’ll never change.” The fantasy acquired color and depth, and seemed so real that Andrés felt as if he could climb inside and live there forever. And then his father asked for his help: “Could you do me a favor and tell Mama about our plans? We can’t do any of it without her.”
“I even tried to convince my mother that he was right, I don’t know if she told you.” Juan shook his head. Andrés went on, his cheeks burning: “It all sounded so great—we’d live together, they’d have the shop, and everyone would be happy. First of all, I said to Mama that she could set up a business with the money from her inheritance instead of buying a flat. She said I was crazy and asked what kind of business I thought you could set up with four million pesetas. I told her that some people thought you could, and she said maybe, but they must be the sort with plenty of money who could afford to take a risk.‘What if I set up a business and it didn’t do well?’ she asked, so then I told her I’d seen my dad and he had lots of ideas, and he said he was sorry about us.Well, she went straight to the phone and started yelling.”
Andrés could hear her from the kitchen.“Haven’t you done enough to me already, you bastard? And now you go filling your son’s head with nonsense.There’s no way I’m going to agree to meet you, I’m not interested in anything you have to say. I don’t believe a word, do you hear me? I never want to see you again, and I want you to stay away from Andrés. Just go to hell!” And she hung up and went in search of Andrés. She found him in a corner, crouched by the fridge.“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded, still furious but with tears in her eyes. “Have you forgotten what your father’s like? He’s never taken the slightest interest in you, never given us a penny, never even called you on your birthday! I don’t understand you, Andrés, I really don’t understand, sweetheart. How could you believe all his lies? Don’t you realize the only thing he cares about is the money? He’s trying to find a way of taking it from us.” But Andrés withstood the torrent without flinching. He was prepared for every word she spat out, every tear that slid down her cheek. His father had predicted the scene; he’d given his son both the poison and the antidote. “She won’t want to listen at first,” he’d told him,“because she’s got a thing for that bloke, the doctor.They’re seeing each other, aren’t they? I knew it. She’s a fool, I bet she’s getting her hopes up. As if he’d marry her! Stupid woman, she’s crazy—even her mother says so and she loves her more than anyone, because who’s going to love her more than her own mother? He’s taking advantage of her. He’ll mess around with her until he’s bored and then he’ll be off. He’s a pig, I’m telling you, sleeping with a poor woman who’s only working there to earn her living. I bet he gets her to go down on her knees to scrub the floors, doesn’t he?” He stopped and looked at Andrés, whose face was burning.“I’m your dad, Andrés,” he went on, putting an arm around him and hugging him,“I’m your dad and you’re my son and that’ll never change.”
“I told him I was sorry, I hadn’t been able to do anything, and he said I wasn’t to worry, we had plenty of time. I just had to keep talking to Mama and telling her that I wanted him to come back. He said that sooner or later she’d give in, she’d always been crazy about him, everybody said so. He thought she was still looking at apartments and hadn’t decided which one to buy, so I . . .”Andrés stopped. He wasn’t sure if Juan was looking as calm as before because everything seemed blurred.“I told him. I told him everything.”
His father had suddenly become very jumpy, very on edge. He’d called the waiter, paid for their drinks, patted Andrés on the shoulder and left without even waiting for his son. “No, no, it’s OK, don’t worry,” he said when Andrés finally caught up with him,“I just suddenly realized I had to go. I forgot I had to be back in Chipiona by now. See you the day after tomorrow, OK? Come to the bus stop with me, I haven’t got the bike today.” His father’s tone was back to normal and he was smiling again. “Well, this apartment makes things a bit more difficult, doesn’t it? Because of course when Mama signs the contract . . . I suppose she could sell it later on, but . . . It’s a shame. I think I should go and have a word with her myself. What do you think?” Suddenly Andrés’s whole world seemed to have collapsed around him. Everything seemed vague, unreal, a sham. He’d been living in a dream for over a year now, enjoying the benefits of a life that would never be his. He hadn’t understood this until his father appeared, and began talking about concrete things—a photo lab, a machine for roasting chickens, a little shop, a business, real things that were within his reach; a life without pools or gardens, without the posh accent of the capital. His father stood on solid ground, he knew the texture of the earth and the stones, not like Andrés—he was treading on sand, walking along a fickle beach that gave way beneath his feet. He’d been as stupid and naive as his mother. He could no longer believe in Sara, or in Tamara. It bothered him when they took an interest in him, asking him things—what film to watch or what pudding to have. “What do you care?” he thought to himself as he chose the film or said he’d rather have ice cream than cake.“What do you think you’re going to get from me?” Juan Olmedo, who was so polite, such a good person, got his mother to scrub the floor on her knees, and his father knew it—he’d said so. Suddenly everything was turned upside down. How could he have been so stupid? Why did he believe that the arrival of Sara and the Olmedos had really changed his life? How had he let himself be deceived by their easy friendship and affection? He wasn’t like them, he never would be, and one day they’d grow bored of him,Tamara would start going out with one of the idiots in their class, and Sara would find another little boy to keep her amused. “When did you say your mother’s signing the contract? What time does she finish work? Where does she normally leave the development—it has a few entrances, doesn’t it? Does she normally walk home along the road?”“No,”Andrés answered,“she usually goes past the fish farm, round the back of that bar—the one that’s been closed for years.”
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