The Wind From the East (68 page)
Read The Wind From the East Online
Authors: Almudena Grandes
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Contemporary Women
But he wasn’t sure of this either. He wasn’t sure of anything, except that he was thirsty. He recognized his thirst and he drank. “Well, yes, I’m going to do a line here, so what? This is my house, and I’ll do what I want, wherever I want, whenever I want. Look, Juan, just leave me alone for two minutes, that’s all I ask. Well, because I can’t fucking be bothered to go to the bathroom to do it there! OK, OK, I’ll stop shouting. I know this isn’t just about the line. I bet you didn’t give Charito such a hard time over it. She couldn’t get enough of it, the bitch.Well, do you want one or what? No, of course you don’t, not today. Today you’re in Mother Teresa mode, I could tell as soon as you walked in, I could see it in your face. Bet you didn’t look like that when you went crying to my wife, did you? When you sniveled down the phone to see if you could soften her up and make her feel sorry for you, because that’s the only way you’d get to screw her again.” Juan never told anyone, not even when what was bound to happen sooner or later did happen. Twenty years later, when Juan saw him again in the Plaza de la Princesa, he was still faithful to the promise that had created a strange and exclusive bond between them. Since that evening neither of them had ever mentioned the gym again, but they had spent a lot of time together, alone, in silence, going for walks or sitting where no one they knew would see them—on a fence, a bench, in a bar in any district but Villaverde. El Canario often had a bruised face and an absent look. He’d throw stones into the distance but didn’t laugh when he hit a billboard or wall or dustbin. “Do you know what I’d like to do, Juanito?” he’d say sometimes. “Set off a bomb—a fucking huge bomb—set it off, cover my ears and run away, and blow the whole fucking place up.” Juan nodded and waited for him to get over it. Then his friend gave him a tap on the back and said,“Come on,” and was his normal self again. He looked the same but older, more smartly dressed and with short hair, when Dr. Olmedo saw him coming out of a cinema with a very young boy, tall, dark, shy-looking but with something fierce in his eyes. Juan had insisted on taking Charo to the Vips café before driving her home, because that evening she’d seemed particularly eager, and he liked to keep her in that state. All his attention was directed at Charo, her movements, her hunger, but he still recognized El Canario when their eyes met by chance in the crowd that spring evening. “Canario!” El Canario looked at Juan in surprise as if he wasn’t sure whether to answer to the name any more, but then his face lit up and he strode over, arms open.“Olmedo!”They hugged, patting each other on the back and laughing without knowing why. “Shit, Juanito, you’re all grown up!”“How’s it going?What are you up to these days, Canario? It’s been ages.” “Yes, ages.” “‘Canario?’” asked the boy, beside them now, looking at them curiously. He seemed annoyed when they ignored him so he tried again: “What did you call him?” “No one calls me that any more,” said El Canario quickly, “everyone calls me Amador now.” “So you don’t need to have balls now?” said Juan, and El Canario laughed. He put his arm around Juan and walked off, taking no notice of his companion, or Juan’s.“You always had balls, Juanito. Not much else, but you had balls.”They went into the nearest bar for a drink, ignoring the reluctant looks of their companions, and filled each other in on their lives, while the boy yawned, and Charo alternated between utter boredom and sudden fits of passion, pressing against Juan and whispering in his ear that she wanted to leave. But the two friends ignored them. They had another drink, and another, and Juan found out that El Canario had done his military service with the paratroopers, then re-enlisted and ended up as a mechanic. He now ran a garage in Villaverde, very near to where the Olmedos used to live.“I never see you round there.”“No, we moved to Estrecho just before you left, don’t you remember?” “Right! And now you’re a doctor, a real doctor. Shit, Juanito, I knew you’d go far!”And he jerked his chin in Charo’s direction, as she headed to the ladies for the third or fourth time.“She’s not my wife,” confessed Juan, and he smiled before leaning in to confide:“Actually, she’s my brother Damián’s wife.” “Fucking hell!” El Canario laughed,“I always said you were something else! It’s so great to see you, Juanito, really great.” And Juan was pleased to see him, to see him looking and doing so well, and he told him so. El Canario was a few years older than Juan, so he must have been about forty, but he looked great, his skin was firm and his eyes bright, with no sign of the tension and sadness they used to contain.They exchanged phone numbers before parting, although they both knew they’d probably never call.“Look after yourself, Juan,” said El Canario and kissed him on both cheeks. Juan kissed him back, and they hugged: “Be seeing you.” “He looks like you, you know,” said Charo as they headed back to her house at last.“Who? El Canario?” asked Juan surprised.“No, not him, the other one. He looks a lot like you did when I first met you.”“Really?” She nodded, and he smiled. “You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?” Juan nodded—it was true, he was.“You’ve never mentioned him.” Hearing a hint of suspicion in her voice, he looked at her, realized what she was getting at, and laughed.“I’ve never slept with him, if that’s what you’re thinking.” “Well, in that case, I can’t think why you’d be friends with that fag.” “He’s not a fag, he’s a good man. He always was and he always will be. That’s why I’m fond of him.” “A good man but he’s still a fag,” she insisted.“Leave it, will you, Charo?” said Juan.“Or I’ll get a taxi and you can go home right now.” She realized he was angry and didn’t mention it again until he’d calmed down.“Won’t you tell me about him?”“About who? El Canario?” Juan was caressing her. “No, I’m not telling you.” “Why not?”“Because you wouldn’t understand.”And he went on caressing her, wondering how he could be so much in love with a woman and not be able to share the story with her. His memory played tricks on him, deceived him, and together with the elastic blankness caused by alcohol, created a false, selective awareness.As Damián leaned over the little table on the landing, Juan Olmedo said to himself that it wasn’t just the line.The problem was Damián’s weakness, his habit of talking endlessly, of challenging Juan, of being superfluous in a world that would have been much better without him.The problem was Damián, it had always been Damián, as he spoke of a woman Juan didn’t recognize but who must be the real, the true Charo, Damián’s Charo, not Juan’s. Since the last night they’d spent together, Juan Olmedo, who’d always stopped himself from thinking about his brother when he slept with his wife, had wondered many times what Damián would have felt if he’d heard Charo’s confession, what he would have thought and how it would have affected him.
Yet Juan was sure that such a scene had never taken place, that Charo had never told her husband anything, that she had lied to him. Damián had never shown any sign of knowing what was going on between Charo and Juan, neither while Charo was alive nor after the dreadful morning of her death—until tonight, when he mentioned the subject almost casually. Juan Olmedo had had a lot to drink, too much, and Damián’s words—“you sniveled down the phone to see if you could make her feel sorry for you, because that’s the only way you’d get to screw her again”—bored right into Juan’s brain, fermenting there and making him even more drunk.When Damián straightened up, still sniffing, Juan began to shake. He wasn’t cold, he didn’t feel sick, he had no other physical symptoms to explain it, but he was shaking. Charo was his life, had always been his life.The world would be a better place without Damián. Juan Olmedo had had too much to drink, far too much. He’d never felt such fury as he did then, and he felt the black, anguished silence inside himself, the profound sense of failure at his core, the terror at being betrayed by his memories. He had never before seen the true face of anger, but at that moment he could touch it, feel it burning in his eyes. But he didn’t push his brother. His lips, his hands, his voice shook. But he didn’t push his brother. “What? Did you think I didn’t know? I’ve always known. She told me about all the times you went crying to her, and what a pain in the ass you were, and how you took advantage of the time when she told you I was having an affair with one of my shop assistants.You talked her into it.You’re a son of bitch, you know that, a real son of a bitch.You didn’t stop until you’d screwed her, that’s what she told me, and you were always getting her to compare yourself to me, wanting to know how I did it to her, always wanting her to tell you that you were the best, that you had the biggest prick.You’re a bloody fool! I even felt sorry for you. That’s the truth, Juanito, you’re pitiful.You’re even worse than Alfonso. I mean, he’s got no choice, but you—all that studying, and for what? For nothing! That’s why I never said anything to you about it, and that’s why I don’t hold it against you, because you’re fucking pitiful. So, now you know. I’ve always known, always.” When what was bound to happen finally did happen, the Olmedos had already moved to Estrecho. Juan was the only member of the family who still went toVillaverde, because of his classes, but he had never told anyone about El Canario.Then, one Saturday, Damián’s friend Pirri called and was on the phone for almost half an hour. He told him the story in minute detail.When Damián hung up, he went straight to find Juan. “Hey, El Canario’s been caught with someone’s prick in his mouth!” Juan closed his eyes and said nothing, but Damián told him the whole story anyway. “It was on some waste ground,” he said, “near the barracks. The other guy was really young, underage, almost a kid, it was kind of a rape.” None of this was true, only that El Canario had had a prick in his mouth. But the story was so shocking that on Monday at school, no one talked about anything else, although everyone knew by then that his lover had been older than him and was married. Juan didn’t see El Canario that day or the next or the day after that, but on Thursday, as he was on his way to the bus stop, he heard a loud scream and laughter. “Canaria!” Juan saw El Canario hurrying away, head down, hands in his pockets.A group of kids was following him, taunting him. “Hey! Canario, wait!” He must have recognized Juan’s voice because he stopped. “What’s going on?” Juan rushed across the street, put a hand on El Canario’s shoulder:“Where are you going?”
But El Canario didn’t answer, only looked at him with his left eye—he couldn’t open his right. His face was bruised, he had stitches in one eyebrow, and his lip was split. Juan wondered what he’d had to do this time to get beaten up so badly. He must have crossed the river, picked a fight in the center of Madrid, where they didn’t know him and hadn’t heard the news. The group chanting taunts was getting closer, so El Canario walked on and Juan followed.“You shouldn’t be seen with me, Juanito,” El Canario said after a while.“Why not?” asked Juan.“Because of those idiots? I couldn’t give a shit.”And then he told him what he’d wanted to say: “Listen to me, Canario.” He made him stop, looked him straight in the eye, framed his bruised and swollen face with his hands.“You’re my brother, OK? Whatever happens, whatever you need, you’re my brother, and that’ll never change. Remember that.We’ll always be brothers.”The group taunting El Canario was getting bored, but didn’t go away. El Canario wiped a tear from his face and looked at Juan with his good eye. Then Juan, without thinking about what he was doing, leaned towards his friend and kissed him on the lips. “Well, you’re right, Juan,” said El Canario at last, and his voice sounded clear and steady in the absolute silence around them. “You are stronger than Damián, you are going to turn out to be the strongest of the lot.” Juan Olmedo didn’t push his brother. He was absolutely sure he didn’t push him; he didn’t even touch him. Damián fell on his own, as he turned to look at Juan. Juan was leaning against the wall after moving out of his way, Damián went down a step, turned round and asked him if he thought he didn’t know about him and Charo.And as he was telling him he’d always known, confident that he was going to place his foot on the second step, he lost his footing and fell down the stairs, never gaining much speed, bumping against every step, against twenty-seven of the twenty-eight steps of a long, straight staircase, the ideal staircase on which to kill yourself. “I didn’t push him.” Juan watched him fall, heard his body breaking against the steps, but all he could think was:“I didn’t push him.” He hadn’t pushed him but as Damián’s body reached the bottom, his head coming to rest on the last step, curled up like a sleeping child, Juan heard the sound of bone breaking. Before rushing downstairs, Juan had two thoughts. The world would be a much better place without Damián.And if his brother had hit the back of his head after such a fall, Juan would bet anything they now had a tetraplegic in the family. His drunkenness disappeared instantly. Juan felt sober, focused and alert, as he joined Damián at the bottom of the stairs.This was something he would never be able to deny later, although he was sure he hadn’t pushed him. But he would never be able to explain the sudden frenetic activity of his memory, the swift, powerful process that filled his mind with images as he rushed down the stairs. Dami sitting on the curb, outside the house in Villaverde Alto, looking up from the gadget he was fixing and smiling at him like the best brother in the world. Charo dancing in front of the cracked mirror, in shoes that were too big for her despite the thick socks she was wearing on the hottest day of the summer. His father about to slap him, while Damián stood there, pretending to hold a microphone, doing his Rafael impersonation. Juan throwing his biology exam into the umbrella stand in the hall of his parents’ flat. The taste of strawberries turning bitter as Charo told him she was leaving him because he was too good for her.The black body stocking worn by the locksmith’s wife at Conchi’s bar so she could earn some extra money. Damián laughing at him and asking if he’d fucked Charo yet, when she was begging for it. Charo and Damián sitting together at Mingo’s Bar, he fondling her breast, she smiling as he did so. Charo tied to a chair in the school basement, sweating, exhausted, looking up at Juan, trying to show with her eyes that she understood. Damián striding around the dining-room table holding a newspaper and bellowing about creating wealth, new jobs, economic prosperity. Charo sitting at that same table, in the same dining room, and him staring into his plate of soup and saying silently, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” not daring to look up at his brother’s girlfriend. The Bay of Cadiz, the light, the comforting immensity of the ocean, and the impossible ghost that controlled his days and his nights. His mother weeping, Paca’s voice, his father’s death, seeing Charo in every tree, every cloud, every house, every corner of the carriage as the train took him back to Madrid, and he didn’t know whether he wanted to go back or not, but he knew he still loved her. A lipstick that was a strange color, dark and dangerous, almost brown. Elena, who was a pediatrician, and had red hair and the best backside in the hospital, and spoke German, and played the cello, and who wanted to marry him and have kids, one with red hair, the other with black hair like his father.The smell of Charo’s hair, the happiness in the air around her.The princess of Estrecho, with sadness in her eyes, on the verge of tears in the Gran Vía.The urge to press on the accelerator, to leave Madrid and drive, two hundred, three hundred kilometers, until they found a hotel; the split second that urge had lasted. Charo’s head on the pillow, as she told him it was his fault she’d married Damián. An orange dress, her pregnant belly, and Charo winning her most difficult bet. A newborn baby girl, dark-haired and fragile, her tiny round head peeping out from the sheet swaddling her, lying in a transparent hospital crib.The mother of this child, who was his, not Damián’s, comforting him with the naked, bitter truth, because she loved him more than anyone but didn’t love him enough.A different Charo, who lied and was always late, but was even more desirable, more spectacular, saying she was sorry before humiliating him, humiliating herself, trying to make him believe she no longer slept with her husband.The violence and cynicism and utter degradation, breaking up with her, insulting, hitting her, and the fear of having unintentionally become something he had never wanted to be. His love surviving, forever. A body covered in a thick grey blanket on the hard shoulder of the old Galapagar road, the gap where her legs used to be, the absence of her caramel-colored thighs. Damián’s version of the story, that hateful but feasible version he’d mentioned so casually. And El Canario.As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Juan Olmedo thought of El Canario, who was the only brother he would have wanted, and he pictured the tear rolling down his face as he told him that he was right, he was stronger than Damián, Juan was the stronger of the two. He knelt down beside his brother’s body and observed him, not touching him. The world would be a much better place if Damián were dead. He, Juan, was the stronger of the two, and Charo knew it, she’d always known it.
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