The Wind From the East by Almudena Grandes Read Free Book Online Page A

always kissing her before taking her coat and giving her an old smock to put on over her dress, following instructions from Sebastiana that made Arcadio furious. Socorrito made no effort to hide her interest and she liked touching her sister’s things—the hats that always matched her coats, the gloves, the patent shoes, the purse, and a white leather missal with gilded edges and a pair of angels on the title page that Sara almost always forgot to hand to her godmother when they got back from church. Doña Sara made sure to send her god-daughter to the Calle Concepción Jerónima in the plainest outfit possible, and would make her wear a dress from the previous year even though the skirt was too short or the armholes a little tight.This was why Sari, as they called her at her parents’ house, had no choice but to disappoint her sister Socorro, week after week.
     
    “Have you brought your Mariquita Pérez doll?” she’d whisper in Sara’s ear as she led her to the kitchen. When Sara shook her head Socorro stamped and frowned and glared at her, screwing her eyes up into two furious slits.“You really are horrible!”
     
    “But they won’t let me,” Sara would mumble defensively.
     
    “You’re mean, and nasty and . . . God! It’s not as if I’m going to eat your silly doll, or break her. I was looking forward to seeing her. I bet she’s got a coat just like yours, hasn’t she, with the same kind of fur collar, and a hat.”
     
    Sara managed to smuggle her possessions out of the house on the CalleVelázquez only three or four times during her childhood, the most popular being the famous doll with straight dark hair and big round eyes that was dressed like a real little girl. But though her sister Socorro’s joy—the sincere hugs and kisses with which she rewarded Sara—was much greater than she’d expected, she couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt at the thought of her godmother, who was in bed with a temperature, missing her, not suspecting how her god-daughter had made the most of her illness or how quick she’d been to betray her.This was why, after a while and although she’d always had too many toys to grow fond of any one in particular, she ended up snatching the doll from Socorrito and carrying it around all day. She didn’t feel happy until she’d placed it back on the little chair beside the trunk where she kept all her clothes, near the head of her bed, which is where it stayed for the next two or three weeks, until one afternoon she thought of playing with it again.
     
    The emotional chaos churning inside Sara squashed her spirit as if it were a ball of bread, something soft and breakable that could come apart in your fingers, or else harden, becoming dry and unyielding. She almost never knew what she wanted, and she felt guilty about being so indecisive, but she kept going, always kept going, and so on Saturday nights she always slept badly, then on Sundays she felt the warmth of her father’s embrace, and tears trembled in her mother’s eyes as they did in her own, but she was disgusted by the chicken and rice that her mother always served for lunch, though she ate it and said how delicious it was, and she liked it when Sebastiana made her come and sit on her lap after lunch, and she found it revolting seeing a loaf of bread just sitting directly on the table, but she broke off a piece just like everyone else, and she thought her two brothers,Arcadio and Pablo, were oafs, a pair of dirty rude idiots, but she tried very hard to be nice to them, and her sister Sebastiana was ugly and already as fat as her mother, but Sara was pleased when she let her come into the bathroom and watch her apply her turquoise eye shadow, and she knew that she was going to be bored when they all set out for a walk dressed in their Sunday best, but she’d lay her head on her father’s arm and fall asleep on the sofa, and she got tired walking around the Plaza Mayor, but she liked holding a different