The Wind From the East (23 page)
Read The Wind From the East Online
Authors: Almudena Grandes
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Contemporary Women
“Hey, you, Juanito, come here!” Damián would call from the living room, from the street, from the schoolyard.“Bet you can’t do this!”
And he’d fit the final piece into a complicated structure of little sticks which would fall to pieces shortly after; or he’d write out four numbers that looked like a bearded man when he turned the piece of paper upside down; or he’d launch into a long list of calculations to which he could always guess the answer; or he’d strike a match on the sole of his boot, or imitate the sound of a banjo by doing strange things with his mouth. Juan would shake his head and smile admiringly, before admitting the obvious:
“No, I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can’t!” his brother would shoot back, laughing his head off.“You can’t do anything!”
Juan had admired Damián sincerely, faithfully, for as long as he had things to learn from him. Everyone admired Damián—their parents, their younger sisters, their school friends, the kids in the street. Dami was as flexible as an acrobat, as surprising as a magician, as fast as an athlete, as shrewd as an adult, a good friend, as unpredictable as his tricks, as hilarious as his jokes, always full of good ideas for making a wet Sunday afternoon fly by.A great brother, thought Juan, who loved him without jealousy or resentment, and without feeling the need to be like him.The two of them were a team, an unbalanced but efficient pair. And, after Alfonso’s last hospital visit, when their parents received a typewritten letter bringing with it a dark despair that seeped slowly, gradually into the furniture and the walls, the eyes and the skin, Juan and Damián became the backbone of the family. In good moments, Dami seemed to be a catalyst for joy, reaping loud laughter and kisses that almost seemed to color the air around them; in bad moments, only he could dispel tension, counteract sadness, crush despondency with a joke or prank that made everyone at the dining table smile. But there wouldn’t have been as many good times if Juan hadn’t always been ready to anticipate the bad ones, whisking the little ones out of the way a moment before their mother started shouting, rushing downstairs for cold beer when he saw his father standing cursing in front of the open fridge, taking the girls to the park or cinema when Alfonso was ill, spending a whole night going through a school book with Damián when he admitted that he hadn’t even glanced at the chapter headings and had a test the following day.
For many years, Juan had unquestionably been the older brother, the only one to whom important tasks could be entrusted, the guardian of the little ones, almost foolishly kind. He was also nearly always the clever one, while Damián was the funny one, the incorrigible one who made you want to hug him even when you were reprimanding him, sharp as a tack and sometimes clever too. Back then everything was as it should be—they loved each other, needed each other, and were on a level when it came to what they did and didn’t know. Damián taught Juan to smoke, and to masturbate. He’d borrow money from him and lend him dirty magazines in return. Juan taught Damián to solve polynomial equations and physics problems. He’d cover for him when he got home late and lend him novels with passages underlined that were more exciting than the photos in the magazines.That was until the day they decided they knew it all and their paths diverged; the day the removal van arrived and their parents closed the door of the rented flat in Villaverde Alto for the last time. They were moving to what would, after twenty years of monthly mortgage payments, be the first place they had ever owned—a large sunny third-floor apartment, in an old but not too ancient building with views, on one side, of the Dehesa de la Villa park, and on the other, of the end of Francos Rodriguez, the widest street in the district of Estrecho.
Their father, delighted to be moving as he would now be able to get to work by metro (six stops with a change at Bilbao, virtually a stone’s throw away), asked them, at breakfast, if they would be so kind as to not piss him off today. So Juan kept his mouth shut, and worked without a rest all morning, filling and taping up boxes, marking their contents on the outside then carrying them downstairs. For him, the move was a disaster. The beginning of term was barely a week away, and he’d been refused a transfer of his grant because there were no places available in the university entrance subjects he was studying at any school in the district they were moving to. This meant he’d have to travel back to Villaverde every day, and he wouldn’t be able to go home for lunch. In this working-class suburb there weren’t too many students preparing for university. Many of his friends had left school at sixteen and started vocational training or been apprenticed in some trade, and even among those who had stayed on, fewer than half had signed up for the university entrance exams. Of these, only two shared Juan’s ambition to go to the best university in Madrid, the one that rejected the most applicants.This was why they had to study their core science subjects in the morning and return to class mid-afternoon for their optional subjects. It wouldn’t have been a big deal had the Olmedos stayed in Villaverde for another year—just one more year—but now Juan would have to spend all day in the school library, with only a sandwich for lunch, and would arrive home after eleven o’clock at night.
He didn’t dare complain, or suggest they postpone the move to make his life easier.The rest of the family was too delighted at the prospect of the new flat to pay attention to anything else, and when he explained his problem to them, their lack of understanding plunged him into a resentful stupor with eruptions of injured pride. It was this that was secretly driving his frenetic activity. He worked harder, better and faster than anyone else all morning, and yet he was the only one who felt that there was no reward for all this effort.
“Leave the boxes from the kitchen till last,” said his mother when the removal man asked where they should start.“Then I can tidy everything up while you load the furniture.”
Juan looked around him and saw a pile of unmarked boxes on the pavement alongside Damián, who was singing and doing such a convincing impersonation of the kitsch singer Raphael that the removal men were staring at him, amazed.
“Who packed up the kitchen?” asked Juan, although he’d heard the same singing coming from the kitchen all morning. His brother, still holding an imaginary microphone in his right hand, raised his other hand in response.
“Which boxes are they?”
Damián turned round, interrupting his performance and holding out his hands, to find Juan corning towards him with a felt-tip pen.
“Shit!” Damián said.
His mother reprimanded him quietly, “Mind your language, Dami,” as she wiped Alfonso’s nose.
“Well, I was putting them here, but then I went to the girls’ room, and Papa handed me boxes from the living room.”
“So that means you’ve got no bloody idea.”
“Mind your language, Juanito,” muttered their mother, quite oblivious to the rising tension.
“All you had to do was pick up a pen and write K-I-T-C-H-E-N on them.”
“Yes, I know,” Damián said.“But nobody told me to.”
“You shouldn’t have to be told, dickhead.”
Frightened, their mother said nothing this time.
“For Christ’s sake, it’s obvious. Only a fucking moron like you would do this. It’s not rocket science, you idiot.”
“Look, the only idiot here is you.” Damián came towards him, riled by the fact that the removal men had been nodding in agreement with Juan. Their father came between them just as they were about to start fighting.
“Stop that, Dami, your brother’s right. He may not have told you what to do with the kitchen stuff, but I did. And you listen to me too, Juan,” he said to his eldest son, not letting go of Damián.“I’m fed up with that tone of yours, d’you hear me? If you’ve got something to say, say it without wrinkling up your nose, because none of us smells like shit here. I’ve done my best for all of you even if I didn’t get much of an education, understood?”
“Yeah, well it shows.”
The words came out unbidden, as if a mischievous demon-self had slipped them into his mouth, and the world suddenly shrank. His father turned abruptly and took two huge, furious strides towards him. Juan saw him, he must have seen him, but he would always remember the scene in slow motion—his mother hunched, tilting her head to one side, lips drawn in fear, looking like a frightened child before an approaching storm, and Damián’s mouth slowly opening, eyes full of surprise fixed on Juan, and Paquita gaping, frozen. It must all have happened very quickly, in an instant, but that’s not how he remembered it. In his memory, a deep, hollow echo would always surround his father’s disbelieving question and the utter foolishness of his own reply.
“What did you say?”
“I said it shows, that you didn’t get an education.”
The hand made a sound of its own as it flew through the air—ffmmmmmm! —before striking his left cheek. Juan reeled from the slap, staggering as if he were drunk, and while reality suddenly recovered its normal speed and color, the fingers of his father’s hand left a shameful, and as yet pale, imprint on his face. But the worst thing was the pain he felt inside, the first urgent tears that he failed to hold back, and the loneliness that engulfed him, treacherously, suddenly, on that stretch of pavement crowded with people, his own family, a forest of empty eyes all desperately looking at anything but him.
“A good wallop, yes, sir.” Damián was the only one who dared come near him, whispering triumphantly and patting Juan on the back. “A good old wallop. But you deserved it, Juan, you really did.”
Then he left too. Juan stood there a little longer, motionless, feet together, arms hanging by his sides, with a swollen cheek and a vague burning sensation in his ear, jaw, and throat. He was trying to understand, wondering how on earth he could have said such a stupid thing, made such a brutal challenge so calmly, inviting his father’s blow and his own shame. It had been silly, unfair, even cruel of him; it certainly wasn’t what he really thought, and he didn’t know why he had said it. His father shouldn’t have picked on him when he was telling Damián off, he shouldn’t have, because Juan didn’t deserve it—he’d worked solidly all morning, without skiving or complaining. His father’s insistence on balance irritated Juan. He always told the two brothers off together, with a peculiar understanding of justice that made him the most capricious and arbitrary of judges.This wasn’t the first time it had happened, and Juan knew as well as Damián that joint punishments were more ephemeral for being shared, more bearable than those handed out singly.Their father was quick to anger, but had a bad memory. If you rode out the initial storm, harmony returned within ten minutes as if nothing had ever happened.
The day of the move, something changed, although Juan Olmedo didn’t fully realize it at the time. Four years later, as night fell between Quevedo and Bilbao metro stations, he knew that his uncontrolled burst of arrogance, his furious defense of his own merits, always destined to be overshadowed by a Raphael impersonation or the latest joke about General Franco’s funeral, had been the end of his fervent admiration for Damián. He hadn’t felt proud of himself at the time, and he was still ashamed when he thought of it now, but although he should never have been rude to his father, although he had made a poor decision and it had turned out badly for him, the events of the day had been a revelation. For the very first time, Juan had a sense of his own will, his ability to make his own way in life, and it freed him of the temptation to bemoan his fate, to blame his troubles on destiny or on being in Damián’s shadow. From then on, he learned to do without the support of others. And ever since then, he’d been alone.
“Don’t worry about the old man,” his brother had said that night, as they collapsed, exhausted, onto their new beds, surrounded by piles of unopened boxes.“He’s forgotten it already.”
“I know,” answered Juan. A few hours earlier, he’d helped his father carry the wardrobe up to his bedroom, the last item of furniture leaning, dismantled, against the wall of the apartment building.They got one of the doors safely into the lift, but when they tried to get the other one in, the mirrored panel cracked from top to bottom, although it didn’t shatter completely. It was the only serious mishap of the day, but his father’s tired and sweaty face suddenly looked so defeated that Juan started apologizing: “I’m so sorry about what I said before, Papa, I’m such an idiot. It’s not what I think, really, I don’t know what came over me.”“I’m the one who’s sorry, son, I’m sorry,” said his father.They carried the rest of the wardrobe upstairs without mentioning the subject again.
“Now he’s pissed off with me,” Damián said just before falling asleep. “I told him I want to leave school, and he said there was no way, I’d have to do my exams and then we’d talk about it again.”
When at last he reached Bilbao metro station, where he planned to turn round, Juan’s legs suddenly felt tired and he searched his pockets without conviction. He didn’t find much—a few pesetas, a box of matches from Mingo’s Bar and a crumpled cinema ticket.The thousand-peseta note he’d thrown down on the bar at Conchi’s with the swagger of a cowboy in a spaghetti western was all the money he’d had.
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