The Wind From the East

by Almudena Grandes

  She went home at lunchtime, tired and happy, though on the last hill she had to force her feet forward as they seemed to have forgotten the way. She was hungry, but more importantly she needed to rest. Having negotiated the treacherous obstacle of the stairs, she pulled down the blinds, lay down on the bed, and closed her eyes. In the cool darkness of the bedroom, she realized that the first swim of the season would become her own private ritual, something she would do every year.The repetition of such a simple act seemed like a guarantee of stability in a life that was no longer new, but felt more like it was her own than it had a year earlier. It was a good time to take stock, and Sara felt that all in all, her time in the town had been satisfactory. Afterwards she fell asleep. She finally had her lunch in the late afternoon, and as she ate, she decided she would go back to the beach the following morning, taking a chair, a sunshade, and a book. She wanted to try out all her beach paraphernalia in preparation for the season, a time of small pleasures, heat, and constant movement.

  The start of the school holidays intensified this feeling of freedom, as if her friendship with the children gave her the right to feel as if she too were on holiday. Tamara’s end-of-year results would have seemed very good, had not Andrés’s been even better, but she celebrated them with the same enthusiasm.The children had more than three months of holiday ahead of them, and during the first few days they seemed so bewildered, so incapable of handling all this free time that they even occasionally complained that they were bored. Sara, who took them with her to the beach every morning, teased them when she found them hanging listlessly around the development in the afternoons. She knew that sooner or later they would find things to do on their own, and she was right, but the children didn’t stop including her in their plans. She didn’t see as much of them as she had the previous summer, and yet her relationship with them improved, because apart from coming to her when they needed her help, they now also invited her out when they didn’t need her, establishing a dynamic that ended up including Juan as well, and even Maribel, in a pleasant whirl of visits to the outdoor cinema, games of volleyball on the beach, and improvised theatrical performances in the garden.

  June was good, and July was much better than Sara had dared hope—indeed it was better than most months she could recall. At the center of this oddball family who had adopted each other purely out of a desire to spend time together, Sara became the weight that balanced the scales, the judge who settled conflicts of interest, the organizer of outings and projects. And whether they were at the beach, the swimming pool, the cinema, standing by the barbecue, or at the games arcade where Andrés and Tamara met their deaths over and over again in their perpetual struggle against aliens, or sitting chatting with Juan after dinner, a drink in her hand, Sara Gomez thoroughly enjoyed herself. Life seemed easy, and was easy, in that pliant timetable of spontaneous arrangements and unexpected plans, in the gestures of affection and happy conversations. Sometimes Sara thought she sensed something more—a hidden, cohesive force, a shadow spreading and floating above their heads, marking them out with the sign of a common past; almost as if this were a shared convalescence in which the generosity they all radiated towards one other sprang from a fierce determination to escape their own loneliness and help heal each other’s wounds.When Sara caught herself thinking like this, she told herself she must be wrong, that she had no reason to attribute to her neighbors the conclusions prompted by her own past. But then, in the first week of August, something happened that chilled her to the marrow.

  The town had become impossibly crowded, and there were endless lines in all the bars and shops and petrol stations, but it didn’t manage to spoil her mood. Nor did the east wind, which hadn’t yet unleashed its full potential, but announced its arrival with a few, stifling blasts of hot air. This was why she greeted Ramón Martínez, the estate agent with whom she’d struck up a strange friendship one year previously, with a sincere smile, even though he’d picked the siesta, the worst time he could have chosen, to pay her a visit on such a hot day.

  “Hello, Ramón!” she exclaimed as she opened the door.“You’ve chosen a good day to come for a beer.”

  “Yes,” he said. He looked hunched and nervous, and didn’t return Sara’s smile.“I’d better stick to coffee.”

  “Of course,” said Sara. She realized straight away that his visit was neither spontaneous nor informal. “You’re in luck, I’ve just made some. Come in, sit down.”

  While she prepared a tray in the kitchen, Sara wondered why Ramón had dropped by and why he looked so serious.Whenever they bumped into each other, less frequently than one might have imagined given that his office was only a hundred meters from the entrance to the development, they both insisted that they must see each other more often, go for a drink and have a chat. But he couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, he had an exhausting work schedule and a wife and two small children who hardly ever saw him, so he was always in a hurry, always trying to make his next sale. Well aware of this, Sara never pressed him.That afternoon, however, as she put the tray on the table and sat down opposite him, he looked at her as if he had nothing more important to do than talk to her.

  “What’s up, Ramón?”

  “Well,” he began, shifting in his seat, sitting forward, leaning back, looking for somewhere to put his hands.“The thing is, something’s happened and I’m not sure if it’s important or not. It’s to do with your neighbor opposite, the doctor. Olmedo’s his name, isn’t it? But as I hardly know him . . .You’re quite good friends with him, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, we’ve become good friends.”

  “That’s why I thought I’d tell you. He seems nice—he’s polite, and seems like a good person, but I don’t know. Anyway, I trust you, and if this turns out to be something important, well . . . it’s better if you decide whether or not to tell him.” He stopped as if he expected Sara to start asking questions, but she didn’t say anything. “OK, I’ll try to get this in the right order. Last Friday, I think it was . . . yes, the last Friday in July, wasn’t it?” Sara nodded. “Right, well I had a visit from Jesús, the security guard we’ve just employed. I’m sure you’ve seen him around.” Sara nodded again.“So you’ll have noticed that he’s fairly young. It’s his first job, and he’s still a bit green, which is probably a good thing in view of what happened later. He was worried because he had noticed a man hanging around the entrance to the development, and when Jesús went to see what he wanted, he started asking some pretty strange questions about someone called Olmedo.The boy didn’t even know who he was talking about, so he came to get me. The guy must have been about forty-five, tall, a bit on the fat side and bald. He was wearing sunglasses and he looked like all you lot from Madrid look when you first come here. You too. No offence.”

  “You mean,” said Sara smiling,“he was dressed in white.”

  “Well, yes. In a pair of those crumpled drawstring trousers, a maroon T-shirt, and a jacket as crumpled as the trousers. He was even wearing white espadrilles. But he was acting tough, cocky.Well, all you Madrileños sound a bit like that, but . . .”

  “Right, I know what you mean.”

  “Well, he asked me if Dr. Olmedo lived here and I said yes, but because I didn’t much like the look of him, I asked why he was looking for him. He said he was a friend of his—I think he said a friend of the family, to be precise—and that he was spending a week’s holiday in Chipiona, so he thought he’d drop by. I gave him the number of Dr. Olmedo’s house and explained how the entry phone works. I said Dr. Olmedo was probably at work, but that he usually got home early, around six. I suggested he could maybe go and get something to eat while he waited for him.That’s when he started acting strangely, because he asked me if there was somewhere private we could go to talk. I took him to my office, and he told me he was a policeman. A friend of the family, but also a policeman.And suddenly, without me asking, he took out his identity card and badge and waved it at me, like this.” He made the gesture a couple of times.“
Like the police on TV. His name is really weird. Like Nicholas . . . Nicomedes, Nico something. Shit! I’ve forgotten. Can you believe it?”

  While Ramón Martínez searched his memory, Sara herself came up with the answer.“Nicanor.”

  “That’s right! Nicanor. How did you know?”

  “Because Tamara and Alfonso have mentioned him.” She spoke slowly, instinctively cautious. “It’s true, he is a policeman, and he is a friend of the family. He was a close friend of Juan’s brother—Tamara’s father.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t think so. That he’s a friend, I mean. Quite the opposite. He looked very shifty and kept bombarding me with questions. The thing is, I didn’t have a clue about half the things he wanted to know. He mainly asked me about the one who’s a bit dim—Alfonso, his name is, isn’t it? Did he go to a daycare center, and where, and did his brother take him or did he go by bus, was it state-run or private, did he come home at weekends, did someone look after him here.Well, I don’t know, I told him, because I don’t. I told him he goes somewhere, to a school or something, because I’ve seen him waiting for the bus, but as for the rest, I don’t know a thing. He kept noting everything down in a little notebook, and when he finished, I looked at him and thought to myself, this one’s a nasty piece of work.Well, it’s as if he could read my mind, because then he gave me this whole speech, saying he couldn’t tell me anything specific, but our conversation might become part of an official investigation. He said I shouldn’t worry, but he wanted to remind me that ‘it was my civic duty to co-operate,’ and so on, banging on about responsibilities and duties and obligations and police procedure, and Christ knows what else.Anyway, he told me not to tell anyone he’d been here or that I’d spoken to him, but he said it all as if he was being really friendly and that’s what annoyed me the most.The thing is, he really put the wind up me at first, but then I thought about it for a few days and . . .”

  “You came to tell me.”

  “Well, yes. Because, I don’t know . . . It’s not as if I’m the suspicious type, you know that, but it was all very odd. I wasn’t even sure he really was a policeman. I mean, it could have been a story, couldn’t it? A trick, so that he could get in and rob the doctor’s house or something.And even if it was true, it doesn’t mean anything, him being a policeman, because there are good ones and bad ones.The fact is, I didn’t like that Nicanor bloke one bit.And it pisses me off that someone like him can go around sticking his nose in people’s business just because he’s a policeman. If something’s up, he should say what it is.That’s what I think, anyway.”

  The coffee had gone cold in their cups, but they drank it anyway, in silence. Sara Gómez Morales felt a new, oppressive weight on her shoulders.

  “He didn’t do anything else?” she asked, assuming a responsibility she hadn’t sought.“He didn’t go into the house, or leave a note for Juan? He didn’t ask about Tamara, or look for her?”

  “No. I think he just came here to track down Dr. Olmedo, or rather his brother, but he didn’t want them to know he’d found them. I don’t know why.That’s why I said I wasn’t sure whether this might be something important or not. He might never come back, who knows. Maybe all he wanted was the address, to write them a letter or tell them about a fine or something. I mean, what else would the police want with poor Alfonso? Could be an inheritance or something, I suppose. And if Nicanor’s always that cocky, maybe he just doesn’t know how to deal with people any other way. I wouldn’t be surprised, because they’re all a bit like that in the police. Now, what I don’t understand is, if he really does know them, why doesn’t he just go and see them, and tell them in person whatever it is he has to tell them? I don’t know, I’ve gone over it a lot in my mind and I still can’t make any sense of it. Anyway, when he left, I saw him out. He’d parked his car on this side of the street, a little way down, and he drove past me to get out onto the main road.There was a woman in the car, young, with dyed blond hair, in one of those faded sundresses. Her face was all pink from the sun, so I think it is true that they were on holiday nearby. I don’t know Dr. Olmedo well enough to tell him something like this, but I thought it’d be a good idea to warn him, even if it turns out to be nothing. Maybe he already knows that someone’s after him.Anyway, that’s why I thought it’d be best to tell you, because you know him better than I do, and you’ll know what to do.”

  This last phrase echoed in Sara’s ears like a prophecy, and it was accurate. She was so stunned by the impact of what he’d just told her that when Ramón stood up, she had trouble reacting. Perhaps this was why she didn’t realize that he still looked uneasy, as if he’d found his own words a little forced, even suspect. She only understood this when Ramón, already at the door, turned back as if he were reluctant to leave.

  “I was born here, in this town, you know, but my mother was born in Benalup, the same as the rest of her family. Benalup de Sidonia. Does it ring a bell?” Sara shook her head, wondering where all this was going. “It used to be called CasasViejas.That’s probably more familiar, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” And then she began to understand. “Of course I know that name.”

  “They changed the name of the village, because they were so ashamed of what happened there, but they couldn’t change my family’s name, even though they’d left only the women alive. It isn’t that I’m traumatized or that I’ve made some sort of vow. I don’t dream of revenge or anything like that, but there’s no bloody way I’m going to collaborate with all these law and order types. I just don’t want to. I might be wrong, but there’s no way I’m co-operating with them.”

  Sara Gómez Morales looked at Ramón Martínez. She smiled, took both his hands, and squeezed them gratefully. When he had gone, she half filled a glass with the best brandy she had in the house, and sat back down in her armchair. In the following hour and a half, she got up only once, to refill her glass.When she went out, she realized it was still too hot to go for a walk along the beach, but she needed to move, so she went back inside to get her car keys. She’d had quite a bit to drink, but she didn’t feel in the least bit drunk. Doubts, and a sudden anxiety, very like fear, kept her alert and focused. She drove to El Puerto, turned round and then drove to Sanlúcar, but could find no way forward however many miles she covered.

  She would have to tell Juan everything, in as neutral a way as possible, and at the first opportunity. It was the logical thing to do, the most sensible and probably the best option. In theory, there was no reason why this man’s visit should represent a threat to anyone. Sara went over Ramón Martínez’s chain of reasoning again and again, but she was absolutely certain that there was more to the visit of this sinister policeman than a simple question of an inheritance or an unpaid fine. She was sure of it, but had nothing to back up her certainty, just a few scattered clues that didn’t even amount to suspicions, held together by the insubstantial mortar of her imagination. She knew that Damián Olmedo had died after falling down a flight of stairs. She knew that his brother Alfonso succumbed instantly to sheer panic at the sight of any bald, fat policeman in a uniform. She knew that Tamara had learned that certain compassionate lies were better for everyone than the truth. And Sara also knew that she had been terribly bored during the endless afternoons of a long, damp autumn, the season of brandy and idle speculation.

  But things had changed a great deal since then. They’d changed so much that she was no longer even tempted to solve the puzzle, to give it form and weight. Sara Gómez Morales found herself thinking that she wasn’t interested in any episodes from the Olmedos’ past, in anything that had happened before fate had caused them to become part of her own life. After all, she too was an expert in moving from place to place, she’d spent her life going from one home to another, constantly changing her goals, always looking for somewhere she could finally call home. And the Olmedos were as much a part of this stable future as she was herself. If they moved, Sara didn’t feel she would be able to stay, although she would always be on the other side
of the line she had drawn for herself in the sand.This was the worry at the root of her fear and the reason she felt a strong urge to say nothing to Juan, to forget Ramón Martínez’s warnings, to pretend that no stranger had come to disturb the profound, sunny peace of that summer.

  But there, at the center of it all, was Alfonso. Clumsy, defenseless, and always alone in his poor, small, empty world. Alfonso, who would never harm a soul, who was barely capable of harming himself, but who suffered just like everyone else, and when he cried he told them,“Look at me, look how my tears are falling, it’s because I’m crying, look, look at me.” Sara didn’t know this man called Nicanor, but the thought of him coming face to face with Alfonso scared her. She couldn’t forget the terror that had paralyzed him in that hamburger bar in El Puerto. And she couldn’t imagine what the police could want with a child like Alfonso, a thirty-three-year-old child who couldn’t even wash his own shirts.The image of Alfonso alone, in a strange place as a stranger bombarded him with questions,Alfonso furiously tugging at his own hair until he pulled it out, as he did when he felt lost in certain situations, when he sensed he should understand what was going on but couldn’t, filled Sara’s eyes with tears.They make me do tests, he’d told her, I hate tests, I hate them. This was the most worrying aspect of Ramón Martínez’s account, and the key to the quandary Sara now found herself in. Juan Olmedo was protected by life, by his knowledge, his position, his experience, his ability to make decisions, but his brother Alfonso was condemned to wander the world defenseless and alone, lost in the vast desert of a loneliness so absolute it stretched like a thick, impenetrable jungle around him, a loneliness like a moonless night on a bleak plateau, a loneliness like hunger, like pain, like the gaze of a torturer. Alfonso was always alone, even when they were all around him, listening to him, spoiling him.Alone and in the company of sounds that only he could hear, shadows that only he could see, unable to understand the keys to a world that was real, yet terrifyingly alien.