The Wind Knows My Name

THE WIND KNOWS MY NAME BY THE SAME AUTHOR FICTION The House of the Spirits Of Love and Shadows Eva Luna The Stories of Eva Luna The Infinite Plan Daughter of Fortune Portrait in Sepia Zorro Inés of My Soul Island Beneath the Sea Maya’s Notebook Ripper The Japanese Lover In the Midst of Winter A Long Petal of the Sea Violeta The Wind Knows My Name FOR YOUNG ADULTS City of the Beasts Kingdom of the Golden Dragon Forest of the Pygmies NON-FICTION Paula Aphrodite My Invented Country The Sum of Our Days The Soul of a Woman To Lori Barra, Sarah Hillesheim, and so many others working for a more compassionate world CONTENTS COVER HALF-TITLE PAGE DEDICATION PAGE TITLE PAGE CONTENTS THE ADLERS VIENNA, NOVEMBER 1938 THE VIOLINIST VIENNA, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1938 SAMUEL LONDON, 1938–1958 LETICIA El MOZOTE & BERKELEY, 1981–2000 SELENA SAN FRANCISCO & NOGALES, 2019 ANITA NOGALES, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2019 SAMUEL NEW ORLEANS, LONDON, & BERKELEY, 1958–1970 ANITA NOGALES, FEBRUARY 2020 SELENA LOS ANGELES & EL SALVADOR, FEBRUARY 2020 ANITA TUCSON, MARCH 2020 LETICIA BERKELEY, MARCH–JUNE 2020 ANITA TUCSON, APRIL–JUNE 2020 MR. BOGART BERKELEY, JUNE–SEPTEMBER 2020 ANITA BERKELEY, SEPTEMBER 2020 SELENA AND SAMUEL BERKELEY & SAN SALVADOR, SEPTEMBER 2020 EPILOGUE BERKELEY, JANUARY 2022 AUTHOR’S NOTE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR COPYRIGHT PAGE THE ADLERS VIENNA, NOVEMBER 1938 THE VIOLINIST VIENNA, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1938 SAMUEL LONDON, 1938–1958 LETICIA El MOZOTE & BERKELEY, 1981–2000 SELENA SAN FRANCISCO & NOGALES, 2019 ANITA NOGALES, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2019 SAMUEL NEW ORLEANS, LONDON, & BERKELEY, 1958–1970 ANITA NOGALES, FEBRUARY 2020 SELENA LOS ANGELES & EL SALVADOR, FEBRUARY 2020 ANITA TUCSON, MARCH 2020 LETICIA BERKELEY, MARCH–JUNE 2020 ANITA TUCSON, APRIL–JUNE 2020 MR. BOGART BERKELEY, JUNE–SEPTEMBER 2020 ANITA BERKELEY, SEPTEMBER 2020 SELENA AND SAMUEL BERKELEY & SAN SALVADOR, SEPTEMBER 2020 EPILOGUE BERKELEY, JANUARY 2022 AUTHOR’S NOTE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR i ii v iii vii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. — The Little Prince, ANTOINE DE SAINT - EXUPÉRY There’s a star where the people and the animals all live happily, and it’s even better than heaven, because you don’t have to die to go there. — ANITA DÍAZ THE ADLERS VIENNA, NOVEMBER 1938 A sense of misfortune hung in the air. From the early morning hours, a menacing breeze had swept through the streets, whistling between the buildings, forcing its way in through the cracks under doors and windows. “Just winter settling in,” Rudolph Adler murmured to himself in an attempt to lighten his mood. But he couldn’t blame the weather for the tightness in his chest, which he’d felt for several months now. The stench of fear, like rust and rotting garbage, clung to his nostrils; neither his pipe tobacco nor his citrus-scented aftershave lotion could mask it. That afternoon, the stink of dread stirred up by the wind was suffocating, making him feel dizzy and nauseous. He decided to turn away the patients left in his waiting room and close up early. Surprised, his assistant asked if he was ill. She’d worked with the doctor for eleven years and had never known him to shirk his duties; he was a punctual, methodical man. “Nothing serious, only a cold, Frau Goldberg. I’ll go home and rest,” he answered. They tidied the office and disinfected the instruments, then said goodbye at the door as they did every evening, neither suspecting that they’d never see each other again. Frau Goldberg headed to the streetcar stop and Rudolph Adler walked the few blocks to the pharmacy at his usual brisk pace, hat in one hand and doctor’s bag in the other, his shoulders hunched. The sidewalk was damp and the sky cloudy; it had been drizzly and he predicted they’d soon see one of those autumn rainstorms that always caught him unawares, without an umbrella. He’d walked those streets a thousand times and knew them by memory, but he never stopped admiring his city, one of the prettiest places in the world with its Baroque and Art Nouveau buildings coexisting harmoniously, the majestic trees that had begun dropping their leaves, the equestrian statue in the neighborhood square, the bakery’s window display with its spread of delicate pastries, and the antiques shop crammed with curiosities. But that afternoon he barely raised his eyes from the pavement. He had the weight of the world