Some nights, when she couldn’t sleep, Sara thought about what would happen if she and Juan Mari were girlfriend and boyfriend for years and years, until it was time to make serious plans for marriage. She knew she was still very young to worry about such things, but sleeplessness painted black shapes on the iridescent gloom of her childish bedroom, twisting the outlines of the white furniture that was built for a child, a defiant challenge to the passing of time.This was what worried her. She was starting to like Juan Mari very much, so much that she could now admit to herself that really she’d said yes to him simply because he was the first acceptable boy who’d declared his love to her. He was about to finish the first year of his industrial engineering course. Sara wanted to go to university as well. Although her favorite subject was math, she’d more or less decided to study French, like Maruchi, because any form of science didn’t seem appropriate for a girl. But she’d always been a good student, and time passes quickly, so quickly that she soon found, to her surprise, that her legs no longer fit under her desk when she sat there to do her homework.And if it wasn’t Juan Mari, it would be someone else, another boy from a good family in the Salamanca district who would have vaguely heard that Sara Gómez Morales had been orphaned when she was little more than a baby, and had been adopted by close friends of her parents, who had wanted her to keep her original surname.This was the story that Doña Sara always told, the story all Sara’s school friends knew, but it wasn’t the truth.The truth emerged of its own accord at a restaurant on the Calle Mayor one spring afternoon in the terrible year of 1963, at the wedding banquet of her sister Socorro. Sara was given a prominent place at the bride and groom’s table, sitting between her father, Arcadio Gómez Gómez, and her mother, Sebastiana Morales Pereira. Neither of them sensed the distraction of their youngest daughter as she remained transfixed by the expression of astonishment, shock and horror that would have graced her boyfriend’s face if some evil spirit had allowed him to witness the scene. Unless time stood still, unless the years stopped passing, Sara would one day have to tell a wealthy, elegant, polite future husband the truth. The mere thought of it made her legs freeze with fear.“You can’t lie to your husband,” she repeated to herself; a friend, an acquaintance, a schoolmate, yes, but not a husband.This was the nightmare tormenting Sara Gómez Morales just when she thought her future was secure, and when she thought there could be no greater obstacle to her happiness than the prospect of this confession.
Antonio Ochoa Gorostiza was the tallest and strongest of his mother’s children, and she was sure he would be saved. She had had many conversations with God and with the Virgin of El Carmen before embarking for the third time on the bitter adventure for which she had been so painfully prepared. Her eldest son, Francisco, had fallen ill at the age of three, when he didn’t yet have the words to describe what was happening to him, the strange, painless tingling that preceded the loss of control in the muscles of his right leg, then the muscles in his neck, then his hands, perfect and as useless as those of a doll. Her daughter Carmencita’s illness took a quite different course. When she was born she was as healthy as her older brother had been, and it wasn’t until she had just turned twelve, and was already taller than her mother, that her body broke down; her arms, legs, neck, hands and feet suddenly slackening like a large, beautiful balloon being punctured by a branch just as it begins to rise. Three years later, her mother had to arrange her eldest son’s funeral on the date she had hoped would be the coming-out of her only daughter, who attended the funeral in a wheelchair.The doctors had no idea why the illness had struck both her children so cruelly, but they strongly advised her against another pregnancy. Señora Ochoa asked if they were sure that the disease, which seemed to have attacked Carmencita less savagely than it had Francisco, would also affect a third child.The doctors couldn’t say for sure, so she decided to talk to God, and when she held her new baby in her arms, she believed that God had listened. Weighing over five kilos and looking like he was already three months old,Antonio was the chubbiest newborn baby the family had ever produced, and he grew to adulthood big, strong and healthy. He was a full-grown man, with qualifications and even a fiancée when, just before his twenty-fourth birthday, his mother noticed something odd about his back. His right shoulder blade looked sunken and it had nothing to do with the movements of his arm.That night, Señora Ochoa wept as she had not wept in many years, but she said nothing to her son. It wasn’t long before he realized what was happening himself, only a few weeks before his wedding to Sara Villamarín. He discussed the issue with his mother and she advised him not to mention it to anyone. “I had many conversations with God and with the Virgin of El Carmen when I was expecting you,” she said,“and They heard me, I’m sure of it.The shoulder blade is a useless part of the body, and it probably has nothing to do with your brother’s and sister’s illness. It always affected their arms or their legs first. Don’t even think of saying anything to Sara.What would be the point? You’d upset her for no reason, over something trivial.”
Though she had not dared raise the subject again since Don Antonio thought he had settled the matter with his one, furious glance, Sara was convinced that on the last Saturday in May she would be having a party to celebrate her sixteenth birthday.That certainty was born of habit—she had always, always got her own way, especially on special occasions like Christmas and birthdays. Spoiled and indulged beyond measure by a woman bound for life to an embittered husband, Sara was used to having more, newer, prettier, more fashionable and more expensive things than all her friends, and she never wondered why. Questions were superfluous when tears took care of the dirty work so effectively. Doña Sara took her god-daughter’s weeping as a sign of personal failure, and she would resort to any means within reach of her bank account to put things right. It was true that, in the last two years, since the disparity between the size of the furniture and the size of herself had begun to make her feel like she was in an illustration in Alice in Wonderland, Sara had found that her relationship with her godmother was changing. She didn’t attach too much importance to the matter because none of her friends got on well with their mothers either. All the mothers tried desperately to prolong their daughters’ childhoods—they all forbade them to wear make-up, or high heels, or go out with boys, and demanded they get home by nine o’clock, then nine thirty, then ten. All the daughters put up a fight, screaming, raging, bursting into tears, getting home late, secretly meeting boyfriends and locking themselves in their bedrooms.There was no reason why Sara should be any different, except that she, in the end, always got her own way. Sara believed this constant struggle to be the cause of the weariness that appeared on her godmother’s withered face every time they began to argue, and it never occurred to her to read anything else into Doña Sara’s reluctant resignation. And, in her god-daughter’s presence, Doña Sara herself never touched upon the hidden keys to their conflict—gratitude, ingratitude, childhood, middle age, compromise, intransigence—words she held back, although they were always on the tip of her tongue, rebuttals she never allowed herself to utter out of a strange combination of pride and modesty. So, in early April, taking advantage of a visit from Doña Sara’s other god-daughter,Amparito, the daughter of a cousin who lived in Oviedo and of whom her godmother was not very fond, Sara decided to begin her campaign, sighing for no reason, falling silent suddenly, staring into space with a sour expression. She was slightly too old for tears now, but she was confident that her sudden bout of melancholy over the Easter holidays would do the trick, particularly in contrast to Amparito’s insipid, provincial prissiness.
The birth of Doña Sara, who came into the world as Sara Villamarín Ruiz, was a surprise. Her mother had grown tired of repeating that God was mad—all those impecunious wretches without two pennies to rub together who kept sprouting children like there was no tomorrow, like her only sister, married to a pen-pusher from Asturias, having babies every other year—and there she was, her dream of holding a baby in her arms unfulfilled a
nd a dozen cot sheets yellowing in a drawer. Señor Villamarín, who would do anything rather than leave a penny to his wife’s nieces and nephews, had even begun to consider recognizing some of his illegitimate children, when his wife, at the age of forty-five and more astounded than delighted, announced that she wasn’t menopausal but pregnant. More than good news, this was a miracle, and in the autumn of 1915, the aged mother gave birth to a healthy, rosy baby girl. Her father, who had thought he would rather have a son until the moment he saw the little girl, swore that he would spare no expense and that no one and nothing would stand in the way of that baby growing up to be a happy woman. But not even the strongest love can slow the march of time and, as the daughter grew, so did her boredom; she was condemned to wandering alone through the rooms of a vast, gloomy apartment as an army of ailing servants persisted in the domestic rituals developed during a quarter of a century of life without children, indifferent to the needs of the little nuisance they respectfully addressed as “Señorita.” To alleviate her loneliness, Señora Villamarín would invite a niece to stay from time to time; but the girl, called Amparo though the youngest of her family, was still quite a lot older than Sara Villamarín and, although they were fond of each other, they didn’t have much fun together. For many years, with Amparo or without her, in the enormous apartment on the Calle Velázquez, Sara’s savior was Sebastiana. Sara would follow her everywhere, with the tenacious admiration ordinarily reserved for older brothers or sisters, appreciating her spirit and energy as a rare treasure. But she did not miss her when Sebastiana left to get married; by then Sara had been welcomed into the select social circles in which her parents moved. Shortly afterwards, she announced her own engagement to Antonio Ochoa Gorostiza, a handsome young man from a very good family and heir to a considerable if indisputably lesser fortune than the one she would soon inherit. Her parents were delighted by the news, certain that they had done everything in their power for their daughter. Afraid that they would not live long enough to see their grandchildren, they agreed with the mother of the groom that it would not be advisable to delay the wedding.They admired and welcomed the woman’s fortitude when she proceeded with the wedding despite the regrettable accident that had cost her daughter, Carmencita, her life. They were never told the precise details but they gathered that the unfortunate girl had managed to swallow, with nothing but her own saliva, almost an entire bottle of sleeping pills that she could only hold by pressing it against the palm of her other hand with her only functioning finger. When they found her, she was dead, her mouth full of a white paste speckled with pink and the remains of the last few pills that she had chewed with rage at not being able to swallow any more. Her funeral, a secret rather than private affair, did nothing to dim the brilliance of her brother Antonio’s wedding, which took place a week later, in the spring of 1935.The guests stopped remarking that the groom was better looking than the bride when Sara appeared in a magnificent white satin dress with an extraordinarily long veil of Belgian lace held in place by a spectacular pearl and diamond tiara. They also approved of the solemnity of the ceremony and opulence of the wedding reception, which turned the banqueting rooms of the Ritz into an oasis of comfort and tradition, balm to the spirit in a Madrid that was becoming increasingly hostile, strange and dangerous every day, full of workers who had ideas above their station and risible revolutionaries. They all wept, but the mother of the groom wept more than anyone, alternating her tears with a radiant smile.And with good reason. She had just lumbered one of the richest heiresses in the capital with an invalid.Antonio Ochoa Gorostiza had begun to complain of a strange, painless tingling that occasionally took over the right side of his back, but by then he was already married to Sara Villamarín Ruiz. For better, for worse, in sickness and in health, forever and ever, amen.
Monday was laundry and cleaning day. Mid-morning on Tuesdays, a woman came to iron and starch all the freshly laundered clothes. The young Sara hardly saw her because the woman spent all her time in the laundry room. On the other hand, she very much enjoyed the company of Pura, the woman who came on Wednesdays to do the sewing. Pura was sociable and liked to sit mending the clothes in a corner of the kitchen, chatting to the cook. She also dealt with all the basic sewing, making dishcloths, dusters, aprons, dustcovers for the furniture and other items that required no more skill than sound stitching.A couple of times a year, Doña Alicia, the dressmaker who made Sara’s clothes, came to the house and very occasionally she was also commissioned to make a dress for the mistress of the house.The dressmaker was delighted by these isolated signs of Doña Sara’s faith in her, because she knew that Señora Ochoa bought her own clothes from a prestigious fashion house near the Puerta de Alcalá.This was why the dressmaker took such care over her god-daughter’s clothes, making Sara have four or five fittings for every dress, with the result that Sara loathed her. Mid-morning on a Thursday, Encarna, the mistress’s hairdresser, would arrive. Doña Sara couldn’t bring herself to go to a salon, preferring to have her hair styled at home, as her mother had always done.The cycle came to an end on Friday afternoons with the visit of the manicurist, Encarnita, Encarna’s daughter. At the age of fifteen, Sara began attending these appointments with her godmother, though they became a source of weekly conflict as she always wanted her nails painted red and Doña Sara would forbid anything other than a coat of clear varnish. Apart from these ritual arguments, the life of Sara Gómez Morales was as well organized as the house she lived in. She rose every morning at eight o’clock on the dot, ate the breakfast set out for her on a tray, walked to school, came home for lunch, went back for her afternoon classes, dawdled on the journey home chatting to her friends, had tea, did her homework, went out for a walk or went shopping with her godmother, found her bath ready for her at eight fifteen, took her bath, donned her nightdress, had supper and, a little later, went to bed. The only change to this schedule was the introduction of Juan Mari, who phoned her every evening and sometimes came to fetch her in the afternoon, to take her out for a coffee or go for a walk. Sara loved his visits, but one afternoon in April, she had to cancel their meeting only moments after arranging it. Doña Sara had just told her that she wouldn’t be free that afternoon as she was taking her to the dressmaker’s. “What’s the matter with Doña Alicia?” she asked, surprised. “Is she ill?” “No,” Doña Sara smiled,“we’re not going to see Doña Alicia, we’re going to another dressmaker, my dressmaker. If you’re going to have a birthday party, you’ll need a new dress, something special.”
Arcadio Gómez Gómez thought he wasn’t interested in politics, but the first time he heard talk of class-consciousness, he realized there was a name for his anger. The discovery changed his life. His father, who believed in God and in the eternal division between rich and poor, told him not to talk nonsense. His fiancée, who seemed resigned to a poverty he could never accept, asked him not to get into trouble now they were so close to the wedding. But Arcadio didn’t lose heart. He loved his father, who had worked like a beast of burden to provide his family with its modest standard of living, and he was very much in love with Sebastiana, but he felt that there was plenty of room in his heart for others, and the more he thought about it, the more clearly he understood that he had a duty towards them too, towards this vast universal family of those who had nothing. So he joined the union and attended all its meetings. Eventually, he realized how he could make himself more useful, and he signed up for the literacy course organized by Don Mario, a young schoolmaster who, after a whole day spent struggling with children, taught workers to read and write in his own home for free. Sebastiana burst into tears the first time her husband was able to read the sign in a shop window. For that alone, and also because her future husband looked so handsome when he was trying to convince others he was right, she began to have sympathy for the cause. In just a few years, this man, who had been working since the age of seven and had never had time to go to school, was more eloquent than a priest, using strange words that his wife, stuck at home all
day washing nappies, could not understand.Arcadio explained them to her slowly, just as Don Mario explained them to him when they went for a glass of wine together after class.There was only one term he avoided, the obstacle upon which Arcadio had stumbled time and time again, the weak point in this essential theory that Sebastiana was assimilating so quickly and so vehemently. When Arcadio asked Don Mario what exactly was meant by the term “proletarian internationalism,” the schoolmaster looked at him with surprise. Arcadio explained quickly that he understood the word “internationalism” but not the other bit. Don Mario smiled and said that the word “proletarian” came from “proletariat,” and talked of the position of the workers, whose only valuable possessions were their children. Arcadio raised his eyebrows. He and Sebastiana had been married for just over three years and already had two kids, and so far they were poorer than they had ever been. “I don’t understand, Don Mario,” he said after a moment, “children are extra mouths to feed, they need new clothes all the time because they’re always growing, and medicines because they fall ill every five minutes.” “No, no, Arcadio,” insisted Don Mario,“think about it. Children are the only wealth the poor have.” “If you say so,” conceded Arcadio, but he didn’t change his mind. In secret he thought,“What rubbish.”
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