The Wind Knows My Name is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Translation copyright © 2023 by Isabel Allende

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Ballantine is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing, London.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Allende, Isabel, author. | Riddle, Frances, translator.

  Title: The wind knows my name : a novel / Isabel Allende ; [translated by Frances Riddle].

  Other titles: Wind knows my name. English

  Description: New York : Ballantine Group, [2023] |

  Translated from Spanish into English.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2022037551 (print) | LCCN 2022037552 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593598108 (hardcover; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780593598115 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Emigration and immigration—Fiction. | LCGFT: Novels.

  Classification: LCC PQ8098.1.L54 W5613 2023 (print) | LCC PQ8098.1.L54 (ebook) | DDC 863/.64—dc23/eng/20221003

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022037551

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022037552

  International edition ISBN 9780593722657

  Ebook ISBN 9780593598115

  randomhousebooks.com

  Translated by Frances Riddle

  Book design by Jo Anne Metsch, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Elena Giavaldi

  Cover illustration: Pierre Mornet

  ep_prh_6.1_143736956_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  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

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Isabel Allende

  About the Author

  _143736956_

  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 on his shoulders.

  * * *

  —

  The troubling rumors had begun that morning with news of an assault in Paris: a German diplomat shot five times and killed by a young man, a Polish Jew. Spokespersons for the Third Reich called for revenge.

  Since that March, when Germany had annexed Austria and the Nazi Wehrmacht paraded its military pomp and circumstance through the heart of Vienna to a cheering, jubilant crowd, Rudolph Adler had been plagued with fear. His worries had begun a few years prior and only worsened as Nazi power was consolidated through increased financing and a growing stockpile of weapons. Hitler used terror as a political tactic, taking advantage of discontent over economic woes after the humiliating defeat in the Great War and the Great Depression in 1929. In 1934, Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated in a failed government coup, and since then eight hundred others had been killed in various attacks. The Nazis intimidated their detractors, provoked disturbance, and pushed Austria to the brink of civil war. At the start of 1938, internal violence was so untenable that Germany, from the other side of the border, exerted pressure to annex the troubled country as one of its provinces. Despite the concessions that the Austrian government had made to German demands, Hitler ordered an invasion. The Nazi party had laid the groundwork for the invading force to be met with open arms by the majority of the population. The Austrian government surrendered and two days later Hitler himself entered Vienna, triumphant. The Nazis quickly seized total control. Opposition was declared illegal. German laws and SS and Gestapo oppression, as well as antisemitic policies, went into immediate effect.

  Rudolph’s wife, Rachel, who had always been rational and practical, without the slightest tendency toward catastrophic thinking, was now almost paralyzed with anxiety and only functioned with the help of medication. They both tried to keep their son, Samuel, in the dark about what was happening, to protect his innocence, but the boy, who was about to turn six, had the maturity of an adult; he observed, listened, and understood without asking questions. Rudolph had initially prescribed his wife the tranquilizers he used to treat anxious patients, but when they seemed to have no effect, he turned to other, more powerful drops, which he obtained in opaque unmarked bottles. He could’ve used the sedatives as much as his wife, but he would not risk jeopardizing his professional acumen.

  The drops were provided to him in secret by Peter Steiner, a pharmacist and friend of many years. Adler was the only doctor Steiner trusted with his own family’s health, and no government decree forbidding interaction between Aryans and Jews could change the respect they had for each other. In recent months, however, Steiner had been forced to avoid Adler in public, since he couldn’t afford any trouble with the neighborhood Nazi committee. In the past, they’d played thousands of games of poker and chess, exchanged books and newspapers, and taken regular hiking and fishing trips together to escape their wives, as they said jokingly, and in Steiner’s case to flee from his horde of children. Now Adler no longer participated in the poker games in the back room of Steiner’s pharmacy. The pharmacist met Adler at the back door of his shop and provided the medication for Rachel without registering it on the books.

  Before the annexation, Peter Steiner had never questioned Adler’s roots and considered the doctor to be just as Austrian as he was. He knew the family was Jewish, as were 190,000 other Austrian citizens, but that meant nothing to him. He was agnostic; the Christianity he’d been raised with seemed to him as irrational as all other religions, and he knew that Rudolph Adler felt the same way, though he upheld some Jewish customs out of respect for his wife. Rachel felt it was important that their son be raised in the Jewish community and traditions. On Friday evenings, the Steiners were often invited to Shabbat at the Adler home. Rachel
and Leah, her sister-in-law, spared no detail: the best table linens, new candles, the fish recipe that had been passed down from a grandmother, fresh loaves of bread, and abundant wine. Rachel was close to Leah, who had been widowed young and had no children. Leah was devoted to her brother Rudolph’s small family, and although Rachel begged the woman to move in with them, she insisted on living alone, visiting often. Leah was sociable and participated in various programs at the synagogue to help the neediest members of the community. Rudolph was the only brother she had left, since the youngest had emigrated to a kibbutz in Palestine, and Samuel was her only nephew. Rudolph presided over the Shabbat prayer, as was expected of him as head of household. With his hands on Samuel’s head, he asked God to bless and protect him, to grant him grace and peace. On more than one occasion Rachel caught a wink exchanged between her husband and Peter Steiner after the prayer, but she let it slide, knowing it wasn’t meant in mockery but merely a gesture of complicity between two nonbelievers.

  The Adlers belonged to the secular and educated middle class that characterized Viennese society in general and Jewish society in particular. Rudolph had explained to Peter that for centuries his people had been discriminated against, persecuted, and expelled from many lands, which was why they valued education over material wealth. They could be robbed of their belongings, as had occurred repeatedly throughout history, but no one could take away their intellectual assets. The title of doctor was more highly prized than a fortune in the bank. Rudolph came from a family of craftsmen, proud to count a physician among them. The profession afforded him prestige and authority, though in his case it indeed did not translate to material wealth. Rudolph Adler was not a sought-after surgeon or a professor at the storied University of Vienna, but a family physician, hardworking and generous, who treated more than half of his patients for free.

  * * *

  —

  The friendship between Adler and Steiner centered around mutual affinities and deeply held values. Both men had the same voracious curiosity for science, were lovers of classical music, inveterate readers, and clandestine sympathizers of the Communist Party, which had been outlawed in 1933. They also shared a visceral repulsion to Nazism. Ever since Adolf Hitler had moved from chancellor to proclaiming himself absolute dictator, they would meet in the back room of the pharmacy to lament the state of the world and the century they’d been born into. They consoled themselves over glasses of brandy so strong it could’ve corroded metal, which the pharmacist distilled in the basement, an underground cavern neatly organized with everything needed to prepare and bottle many of the medications sold in the pharmacy above. Sometimes Adler would bring Samuel to the basement to “work” with Steiner. The boy could entertain himself for hours mixing and bottling leftover powders and liquids of all different colors, which the pharmacist gave him to play with. None of the pharmacist’s own children was granted such a privilege.

  Steiner was deeply pained over each new law aimed at destroying his friend’s dignity. He’d purchased the doctor’s apartment and office, in name only, to keep them from being confiscated. The office was very well located on the ground floor of a stately building, and Adler lived above with his family. The doctor’s life savings were invested in those properties; transferring them into someone else’s name, even if it was his friend Peter, was an extreme measure that he took without consulting his wife. Rachel would’ve never agreed to it.

  Rudolph Adler had long tried to convince himself that the antisemitic fervor would soon die down. This vulgarity had no place in Vienna, the most refined city in Europe, birthplace of the world’s greatest musicians, philosophers, and scientists, many of them Jewish. Hitler’s incendiary rhetoric, which had become increasingly extremist in recent years, was yet another expression of the racism that his ancestors had suffered, but it had not kept them from living together and prospering. Still, as a precaution, he’d removed his name from the sign outside his office, only a minor inconvenience since he’d been treating patients there for many years and was well known in the neighborhood. He’d lost his Aryan patients, who’d had to stop seeing him, but he was certain they’d return once the political climate shifted. Adler was confident in his professional abilities and his well-earned reputation. Nevertheless, as the days passed and things grew ever more tense, he began to weigh the notion of emigrating to wait out the tempest unleashed by the Nazis.

  * * *

  —

  Rachel Adler dropped a pill into her mouth and swallowed it without water as she waited for her change at the bakery. She was dressed fashionably in beige and burgundy tones, with a jacket that cinched at the waist, hat perched on one side of her head, silk stockings, and high heels. She was not yet thirty and very pretty, but her grave expression made her look mature beyond her years. She tried to hide her trembling hands in her sleeves and respond lightly to the baker’s comments about the attack in Paris.

  “What was that boy thinking, killing a diplomat? Stupid Pole!” the man exclaimed.

  She’d just come from the final class with her best student, a fifteen-year-old boy to whom she’d taught piano since age seven, one of the few who took music seriously. “Sorry, Frau Adler…you must understand,” the boy’s mother had said when she let Rachel go. The woman paid Rachel three times what was owed for the class and leaned in for a hug before seeming to think better of it. Yes, Rachel understood. She was thankful that the woman had employed her for several months more than she should have. She swallowed her tears and walked away with her head high; she was fond of the boy and didn’t judge him for proudly donning the black shorts and brown shirt bearing the slogan “blood and honor” of the Hitler Youth. All the young men belonged to the movement; it was practically obligatory.

  “Look at the danger that Polish boy has put us all in! Have you heard what they’re saying on the radio, Frau Adler?” the baker continued pontificating.

  “Let’s hope they’re only empty threats,” she said.

  “You should get home quickly. Groups of boys are causing a ruckus on the streets. You shouldn’t be out alone. It’ll be dark soon.”

  “Good evening. See you tomorrow,” Rachel muttered, placing the bread in her bag and depositing the change in her coin purse.

  Once outside she filled her lungs with cold air and tried to shake off the sense of foreboding that had plagued her since dawn, well before turning on the radio or hearing the alarming rumors circulating through the neighborhood. She looked up at the black clouds that threatened rain and tried to recall the errands she had left. She still needed to buy wine and candles for Friday, when her sister-in-law would be coming over for Shabbat, as she did every week, along with the Steiners and their children. But she worried that despite the medication she’d just taken, her nerves might betray her—she needed her drops—so she decided to leave the shopping for another day. Two blocks farther she arrived at their building, one of the first built in the pure Art Nouveau style at the end of the nineteenth century. When Rudolph Adler first purchased the office on the street level for his practice and the apartment for his family above, the organic lines, curved windows and balconies, and delicate stained-glass flowers had been considered bad taste to polite Viennese society, accustomed to Baroque elegance. But Art Nouveau soon caught on and the building quickly became something of a landmark.

  Rachel was tempted to stop into the office to confer with her husband but immediately discarded the notion. Rudolph had enough worries of his own without her loading him down with her troubles as well. Also, it was time to pick Samuel up from his aunt’s house. Leah was a teacher and had begun giving classes to a group of Jewish children who could no longer attend school. Samuel was a few years younger than the others but was easily able to keep up. So many children had been badly mistreated in school that the mothers of the community had arranged to have the younger ones instructed privately at home, while the older students received an education at the synagogue. It was a temporary emergency measure, they were certain. Rachel continued on her way without noticing that her husband’s office was closed up at that unusual hour. Rudolph generally treated patients until six o’clock in the evening, except for Fridays, when he went up for dinner before sunset.