Santander

Santander is Bea’s hometown and the destination of her return by train when the life she had built has become chaotic. The city offers familiarity and the prospect of family refuge, but its pull also unsettles her: arriving home feels at once like coming back to safety and like being drawn into a past from which she has never fully escaped.

Arrival and the Journey Home

Before reaching Santander, Bea waits for a train restroom, where an elderly woman emerges holding Semana, with Bea and others on its cover. The encounter intensifies Bea’s sense that her life has become a public spectacle and that everyone is conspiring to make her feel unsteady. In the mirror, she sees dark circles but thinks that a little concealer and lipstick would let her pass as composed. Her makeup is in her suitcase, and her family does not know that she is coming home in search of shelter.

The return is presented as a visit for her mother’s birthday, a credible excuse because Bea often comes home around that time when work allows. She intends to stay longer, until she can decide what to do with the disorder in her life, but has not yet told her family that this is what she needs. The birthday visit is therefore both a real occasion and cover for a more vulnerable purpose.

The Familiar City and the Pull of Home

At Santander, the humid air carries the characteristic smell of a Cantabrian city. Bea recognizes it as the atmosphere of home, yet the familiarity brings mixed feelings rather than uncomplicated relief. She is glad to return to her place of origin, see her family, and perhaps meet the few friends she still has; she also doubts that she has many friends left, noting that she has never been particularly inclined toward friendship when her sisters seemed enough.

The city’s pull makes her wonder whether she has truly moved forward. Homecoming feels as if a great magnet has brought her back, reviving the adolescent who needed affection, esteem, and appreciation. Bea had thought she was returning because her sisters saw her as strong; she recognizes that she may instead need to give way to the younger self she associates with a northern village: sometimes apathetic, sometimes dreamy, and always angry. Santander thus holds two meanings at once: a place of belonging and a reminder of the dependence and uncertainty she hoped adulthood had left behind.

The Station and Its Encounters

Her arrival is physically difficult. No one on the train helps her lower her twenty-kilogram suitcase from the overhead rack. Bea insists to herself that she can manage it, but feels her back crack, intense pain, and numbness in her right hand. Once she drags the case onto the platform, one of its wheels breaks. The indignity and discomfort sharpen her sense of being regarded as an unwelcome presence.

Juan, her brother-in-law, eventually helps. Too tired and sore to pretend otherwise, Bea lets him take the suitcase and put it into his Ford Mondeo. Nearby, the red-haired man she had noticed on the train leaves another carriage carrying a little girl and two small backpacks. His old, canvas-covered, pink Mercedes stands out against the rainy northern city; after settling the child in the back, he looks toward Bea and greets her with a gesture. The brief recognition contrasts with the indifference she had felt during the journey, while Juan’s practical assistance gives the homecoming its first direct act of welcome. Santander’s significance lies less in a description of the city than in this arrival: its familiar air draws Bea home, but the station makes plain how exhausted and exposed she feels when she gets there.