The Wind From the East

by Almudena Grandes

  “Look, I . . .” she said and stopped. She sighed, shut her eyes tight a moment, as if she were forcing herself to continue.When she went on, she used a different tone from the one she normally used with him.“On the twenty-sixth of March I’m going to be thirty-one. I’m quite old enough. I know what I want, and what I don’t want, and I know what life has in store for me, even though I might not want it. I know that my life is shit, I know that too, and that I’m not going to get a boyfriend who’s any good as long as I live in this town, which is where I’m going to have to live until I die. I have a twelve-year-old son and I’ve somehow got to help him do well, and that’s the most important thing. I know all this.And I know I’m not going to get you, you don’t have to worry about that, the idea didn’t even occur to me, I know full well you’d never marry me—men like you don’t marry girls like me, they never do. Look at all the things I know, loads of things. But if I had to live with everything I know, I’d die.That’s my problem.” At this, he thought he saw a tremble in her eyes and sensed she was about to break down, but she shook her head a couple of times and seemed to recover. Her voice, when she went on, was hard. “Because just as I know you sleep with prostitutes, you must know I’ve got a bad reputation. I’m sure you know. Well, I don’t deserve it, and do you know why? Because I’m not a tart, no matter what they say. So don’t give me your spiel. I know exactly what I am.And you’re not going to ruin my reputation at this stage. So you can stop worrying about that too. I really didn’t expect you to be such a chauvinist.”

  “A chauvinist?” Juan Olmedo flung himself back in his chair, placing his hand on his chest, as if a hole had opened up just under his collarbone, and burst out laughing. “I’m a chauvinist?” he said again, reflecting how ironic it was that she’d picked this to reproach him with, he who couldn’t even tell his friends about it each time he screwed a woman. “No, Maribel, I . . .” Of course he was a chauvinist, he had no choice, he’d been born one, but he tried to hide it. He was sure it was the last word the women he worked with would have chosen to describe him. As for the others, that was different, a tacit agreement, a private pact, an alliance that was beneficial to both parties. Even so, nobody had ever accused him out loud of being a chauvinist.“I’m not a chauvinist, Maribel. On the contrary.All I’m trying to do is make sure you don’t get hurt. I want to protect you—from me.”

  “Right. But I know what hurts me and what doesn’t. And I don’t need you to protect me. I don’t need anyone to protect me. I just want you to sleep with me. And when it’s over, it’s over and that’s that.”

  Juan Olmedo couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He felt all his blood rush to his head and, realizing he couldn’t sit still a moment longer, he suddenly got up and started pacing the room.

  “Fine, Maribel, fine,” he repeated several times like an automaton, as if he could find nothing better to say. “Well, OK, great. If that’s what you want. Fine, yes, that’s fine.”

  He turned and looked at her, and saw that she was staring at him, smiling. But it wasn’t his face that had caught her attention—Juan Olmedo suddenly realized that he had an erection, and that it was clearly visible beneath his pajamas. He smiled too, and sat down.

  “Fine, Maribel, fine,” he said for the last time, feeling suddenly euphoric, and resigned to this new twist of fate.“If that’s what you want, then I’ll sleep with you. I’d be delighted to. It’d be a pleasure. And I’ll do it to the best of my ability, because I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, you can be sure of that. But let’s agree on one thing. So that I don’t feel bad, so that I don’t feel like I’m being a patronizing male chauvinist, you take the lead, OK? At least for now, until I get used to . . . all this. When you feel like going to bed with me, tell me, or just jump me. I’ll try to keep up.”

  “What is this, some kind of deal?” she asked, looking amused.

  “Yes, something like that.”

  “And what if you don’t feel like it?”

  The thought entered his head for the last time that he wasn’t attracted to the woman, then he heard her cry out, and saw the trail of saliva stretching from her mouth, down her chin, onto the sheet, and he was on the verge of screwing her there and then, on the table in the middle of the plates and glasses and the dish of tripe stew without chickpeas.

  “Trust me, I’ll feel like it, Maribel.”

  “Always?”

  “If you don’t take advantage of me too often.”

  “Now, for instance?”

  “Yes, now.”

  The following morning, as he left for work, Juan Olmedo felt a familiar pressure on his chest, the well-known, almost comforting presence of a secret.

  Sara Gómez didn’t usually shop at such a cheap supermarket. It stocked strange, unfamiliar brands and the cashiers didn’t have plastic bags, even for customers who were willing to pay, but it was the only shop in the town that sold the chocolates the children liked.That was the only thing she was intending to buy that Saturday afternoon, when a man suddenly spoke to her. He was a rather healthy-looking older man, with close-cropped grey hair, and a face with irregular features that might have been interesting had not a rather foolish, placid smile ruined the overall effect.

  “I think the coffee ones are the best,” he said in perfectly correct Spanish, but with a strong American accent.

  “Yes, I’ve tried them,” she answered out of politeness, as she chose two boxes of orange-flavored chocolates and two of the mint ones. “They’re very nice, but the children don’t like them.”

  She had no wish to prolong the conversation, but as she was heading to the checkout, he said something that made her stop dead in the aisle.

  “Yes, I’ve seen you with the children. In the car, and around town a few times.” Then he managed to frown while still smiling, which left Sara even more confused.“Are they yours?”

  “No,” she said and smiled, falling, without realizing it, for the implied compliment.

  “They can’t be your grandchildren,” he went on, continuing his flattery unashamedly. “You’re much too young to have grandchildren that age.”

  “No, they’re not my grandchildren either. They’re . . . friends’ children, and I’m expecting them for tea, so I’d really better get home.”

  He must have noticed the change of tone, her curt, hurried attempt to bring things to an end, but he showed no sign of discouragement.

  “Well, see you around,” he said. He took a step forward to shake her hand energetically, and she had no choice but to accept. “My name’s William, but everyone calls me Bill. I live in the pink houses, the development next to yours.”

  “Oh, yes, of course! Well, then, see you soon,” she said, but as she was walking away she realized she’d forgotten something:“My name’s Sara.”

  Back in the car, she thought briefly about the man—his appearance, his manner, his casual omission, on introducing himself, of any mention of his nationality, as if he’d assumed she’d realize immediately that he was American. By the time she got home she had forgotten all about him.The following Tuesday afternoon, she didn’t notice him in the line of people waiting in the fish shop, but he soon came to say hello.

  “Are you in a hurry?” he asked, in a solicitous, chivalrous tone.“You can take my place in the line, if you like. I don’t mind waiting.”

  “No, no,” said Sara, glancing discreetly at the fish and realizing they would probably have run out of sole by the time it was her turn. But she didn’t feel like being in this man’s debt.“I don’t have anything urgent to do either.”

  He began a trivial conversation about the fish available in the area, making sure to pronounce the names of local varieties as fluently as an expert—urta, corvina, almendritas, huevos de choco.

  “That’s one of the things I like most about living here—the fish. Where I come from, we never eat fish at all.”

  “Where are you from?” asked Sara, out of politeness rather than curiosity. His smile grew ev
en wider, pleased by what he must have interpreted as the first sign of interest from this woman, whom he’d met by chance and more or less forced into conversation.

  “From the south. A small town in the state of Virginia, not too far from Richmond. Have you ever been to the United States?”

  “To New York,” she said, and an old, happy, painful memory returned: Vicente looking frozen, his nose bright red, twice his usual size with all the warm clothes he was wearing, the gloves, scarf and hat Sara had made him put on. He was fooling around, standing on one leg in the middle of Brooklyn Bridge, a thick, white, muffling layer of snow lying all around.“Only New York.”

  “Right, like most people. New York is great, but you should visit the south. It’s different, you know? It’s . . .” He punched the air enthusiastically, reminding Sara of the gung-ho cheeriness of Coca-Cola ads, so that she had to stop herself from laughing.“It’s authentic.”

  “The real thing,” said Sara in English.

  “That’s right. So you speak English.”

  “Yes, but not as well as you speak Spanish.”

  It was his turn to be served, then he waited for her when her turn came. Carrying their respective plastic bags, they were about to go their separate ways when Bill suggested they have a beer. Sara said she couldn’t, all that waiting in the fish shop had made her late. But on the following Saturday, she couldn’t refuse when he asked again.This man, who seemed to have nothing better to do than patrol the town in the vague hope of bumping into her, called out to her in the busy pedestrian precinct where she often went for a walk. She was on her way to the ironmonger’s, in a square that offered the temptation of a café terrace, surprising yet welcoming on a warm, sunny morning in February with the east wind blowing.When she sat down, the back of the chair felt icy, however, and Sara was berating herself for succumbing so easily to the illusion created by the sun, when Bill took off his jumper. Underneath, he was wearing a tight black T-shirt that contrasted with the blond hairs on his arms, the firm, tanned skin revealing every line, every shadow, every muscle of a spectacular, younger man’s body, a body that had been worked and trained. Sara Gómez had to admit to herself that she was impressed. As she assessed his splendid physique, his pectorals almost offensively obvious beneath the tight T-shirt, she reflected that twenty years ago she would have felt contempt for his macho exhibitionism. But now she was twenty years older and her head was slightly less full of nonsense. She smiled. Aware of exactly what was happening, he smiled back.

  “How old are you?” she asked, in a warmer tone than before.

  “Fifty-nine.”

  “You’d never know it.You’re in very good shape.”

  “Yes,” he said, and let out exactly the kind of silly laugh that a thirty-three-year-old Sara Gómez would have expected from the owner of such a body. “Well, in my line of work, you don’t have much choice.”

  Right, she thought, though she simply nodded, because deep down she knew it, she’d known it from the start if she’d stopped to think about it.What else could an American his age be doing in a town like this? A member of the armed forces, of course. An officer in the United States Navy. Terrific. Still, it was a pleasure to look at him.

  From then on, as if the gift of a body glimpsed beneath a simple black T-shirt had inspired a kind of loyalty, Sara stopped resisting the courtship of that Southern gentleman, such a gentleman and such a Southerner that his naive, inoffensive, almost indolent manner came to be more troubling than reassuring. He continued to bump into her all over town that winter, apparently without any other aim than to walk beside her. He kept her company, told her about himself, insisted on paying when she, who tried to alternate between rejecting and conceding to his proposals, let him convince her to go for a drink.While he talked about his ranch, his happy childhood as the son of a well-to-do farmer, his dogs and his horses, his three failed marriages, he awoke in Sara’s spirit a forest of dark shapes, uncomfortable memories that had nothing to do with him. She didn’t feel attracted to the man. She wouldn’t even have noticed him if he hadn’t insisted on striking up a conversation, though sometimes, with a glass of brandy in her hand, she thought it would be nice to find a man like him in her bed in the mornings. A man like him, but not him. But it was William Jefferson Baker—his full name always in her mind since she’d seen him one afternoon in his dazzling, white, annoyingly flattering uniform—who was walking around this town, and there might be no one else. He might be the last one.

  It was quite a while since Sara had felt so aware of her age, quite a while since she’d disliked the fact of it so much. She was used to living alone, and hadn’t had many opportunities to change this. In fact, she’d had only one, and she had destroyed that herself. She didn’t need company, a man in her life, warmth in winter, the shelter of another body on stormy nights, twisted illusions, drunken fantasies, cheap glitter, the worn, threadbare velvet of a theatre set made up of emotional props. She wasn’t like that, she wasn’t one of those women, she’d never have allowed herself to be. She’d given up everything so that she wouldn’t need anyone; that was her goal, her project, the dream of a rifle, the life she’d yearned for. But the innocuous proximity of the man, his calm, quiet strategy, his excessively relaxed approach, more suited to a nineteenth-century courtship between youngsters than to the reasonable aspirations of adults with little time left—she liked it, yet she didn’t like it, she felt flattered rather than desired and, in an obscure, unpleasant way, she felt rejected in advance. From time to time, she surrendered to this strange mix of emotions, like a little girl who’s just been given a toy she doesn’t like but then realizes another child is coveting it, a little girl who doesn’t even know why she suddenly feels an insuperable need to cling to the gift as if it were something she’d always yearned for. On these occasions, Sara Gómez Morales realized that nothing and no one was competing with her for this man, nothing but the passage of time and her own memory. But she also felt tired and upset by this surprising complication that was interrupting the smooth flow of her uneventful life. By mid-March, after two months of casual encounters, cafés and walks, Bill dared to make a proposal—ingeniously discreet, cautious, restrained, but still a proposal—and Sara realized she didn’t know what to do.

  This was a situation she wasn’t used to. She usually reasoned everything out meticulously, patiently, because she had faith in her ability to reach precise solutions, round numbers that fit into the column to which she’d assigned them. If, this time, the numbers balked, defied her with impossible decimals, it wasn’t because of the way the problem was set out—it was an easy calculation—but a result of the persistent shadow of the difficulties that had overcome her in the past. Or perhaps it was simply that life had gone by, her life, all the years she’d spent learning how to move the pieces on a board instead of others moving them for her, and now she’d drawn a line in the sand and begun a new game. This was what she’d wanted to do.

  “It’s not him, you know. He’s not bad. But, according to him, he’s been seeing me around for months whereas I wouldn’t even have noticed him if he hadn’t insisted on talking to me. I mean, I like him physically, he’s a very attractive man, but when he smiles he sometimes looks rather foolish—don’t laugh, it’s true. But he really does have a very good body, very athletic. He seems much younger, more handsome if you only look at his arms and not his face. Don’t look at me like that, you’re twenty years younger than me, you still have plenty of time to start working out.”

  Walking along the beach beside her, looking amused rather than shocked, Juan Olmedo burst out laughing.

  “I wasn’t thinking about myself, Sara, I was thinking of you. I don’t really understand what’s the matter. Go out with him. If you like him, carry on. If you don’t, stop.”

  “Yes, I know, I’ve thought that myself. But the thing is, I don’t really understand what’s wrong. I suppose I’m scared, scared before anything has even happened, which is the silliest way of being scared. I’m
afraid of liking him, because deep down I don’t want to like him, and I’m afraid of not liking him, because then I’ll leave him, and maybe there’ll never be anybody else. It’s not that I need a man, or that I’ve been looking for one. Quite the contrary. It was the last thing on my mind when I came to live here, but—I don’t know.You know what I’d really like to do? Erase him. Press a key and make him disappear. Or better still, have never had him appear in the first place.The truth is, this sort of thing has never gone well for me. My . . .” She stopped and thought for a moment, searching for the right word, and pursed her lips before going on: “My love life, let’s call it that, has always been a disaster.”

  “I’ll swap you,” he said, smiling.

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “I am sure.”

  They’d reached Punta Candor, and she was surprised by how short the walk had seemed. She’d left the house around five to get some fresh air, hoping that the breeze and the sunlight, the slanting rays reluctantly leaving the sky in the late afternoon, would dispel her doubts, or perhaps suggest a solution.Then she saw Juan Olmedo on his porch, snoozing on a lounger, covered with a blanket, and she felt the urge to call out to him, to ask if he’d like to come for a walk, and tell him everything. He was so near, it seemed so easy, that she didn’t even realize it had been many years since she’d allowed herself the luxury of giving in to an urge. Juan was dozing, but he woke up immediately and accepted her offer, as if he somehow knew that he was the only person at that time, in that place, to whom Sara could turn. He hadn’t said much so far, but he was listening carefully and she realized it was doing her good to talk. Now he took the initiative, leading her by the arm up the steps to the bar. It was a small place with large windows, almost always deserted out of season, and without all the noise and semi-naked tourists, there was something melancholy about it, yet welcoming, like beaches in winter.