Disintegration and failed expectations shape the reader’s experience of Nada, suggesting the magnitude of change felt by Andrea’s family after the Spanish Civil War. Her family’s trauma’s goes back to inciting events and economic struggles that began during the war. For example, Román’s spying for the “Reds” has led to his black market smuggling. Much of her family’s present hardship comes from wartime struggles. For instance, her grandmother had to sell half the apartment so the family had money to live on after her husband’s death.

Because Andrea’s memories of Barcelona and Calle de Aribau come from childhood visits long before the war, she is uniquely capable of appreciating the difference between the early days when “the world was optimistic” (11) and the eerie, unkempt home environment she encounters upon her arrival. After her own romantic anticipation of what Barcelona will be like is dashed by the stark reality of her family’s life there, so Andrea imagines how much the Calle de Aribau apartment has changed since her grandmother first arrived with her grandfather, full of similar youthful hope and excitement. She notably links the landscape of Calle de Aribau, “which was just beginning to take shape,” with the “long, difficult history of their love […] perhaps something connected to the loss of a fortune” (11).