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

person by the hand on each side, and she couldn’t wait for it to be seven o’clock, but she was dreading it, and she breathed a sigh of relief when it was time to head for Sol metro station, but she didn’t want to arrive at the station, and she hugged her mother with all her might and with tears in her eyes when she said goodbye to her at the foot of the stairs, but she was relieved at not having to see her again until the following Sunday, and she felt regret with every passing station, but she counted the remaining stations with excitement, and her father looked darker than ever when she saw him again on the pavement in the Calle Velázquez, but she never felt so sure that she loved him as she did then, and she couldn’t have wanted to get home more, but she couldn’t have wanted to get home less, and as she glimpsed the bars of the entrance to the house she realized with blinding clarity that the Gómez Morales family were strangers to her, but the bars at the entrance insisted on shouting with deafening clarity that she was a Gómez Morales just like them, and she was upset when Arcadio left, but she was pleased when Arcadio left, and the marble lions at the front steps in the Calle Velázquez looked at her like old friends, but she didn’t recognize the marble lions, and she kept going, she kept going, letting go of her father’s hand to take the hand of the maid waiting for her, not looking back, always looking ahead, because she would never have known which home to return to.
     
    “Children always live in the moment,” her godmother would say when Sara got back, seeing traces of sadness and confusion on her face, the fissure dividing her self.
     
    And for a time, Sara managed to convince herself that her godmother was right, because for the rest of the week she barely thought of Arcadio or Sebastiana or her brothers and sisters. Doña Sara would take her to the bathroom and undress her in silence beside the bath, as if she knew that the companionable warmth of the water and foam would warm up her heart until it was the same temperature as her skin, and this was indeed what happened. By the time her godmother came back to help her into her nightdress and comb her hair and cover her in too much eau de cologne, which she always loved, they could talk and joke about any old thing, back in the comforting intimacy they had always shared. Later, on the kitchen table, she always found a plate of freshly cooked croquettes, or a large slice of potato omelet, or a bowl of cocido soup with noodles and picadillo , her favorite dishes. On Sunday evenings she never had to eat green beans in tomato sauce, or vegetable stew, or garlic soup, things she hated.
     
    But not even the supper on Sunday nights could entirely erase the effects of that single moment of shock that paralyzed her on the doorstep of the only place she could consider as home, when the door opened to reveal the figure of Doña Sara, slim, smartly dressed, with a double string of pearls at the neck of a pale angora sweater, her hair done up in a bun and backcombed so that it resembled a cloud of candyfloss, looking as she always did, yet suddenly unfamiliar. Her shock lasted only a second but had as its source the stranger at the door and the form of her husband, whom Sara could make out through the living-room door, sitting in his wheelchair, impeccably dressed in a suit and tie, a permanent sneer of contempt on his lips and a glass of brandy warming in his hand.Then, just for a moment, she wondered who they were, and felt a bitter, impossible pang of regret for another family, another house, another life, one that she had never lived.
     
    It was something she could never forget, either on school days or holidays, when she was happy or when she was sad, alone in her bedroom or surrounded by dozens of guests. However hard she tried, she never quite managed to escape the fleeting shadow of melancholy, and yet, when her godmother, who acted as if Sunday