The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  ‘Why do you do it?’ the French officer asked him later in a genial, almost friendly tone. ‘Why do you come and see me over and over, when you know I’m going to say no.’

  ‘Because they have the right to be heard,’ Ignacio replied. ‘Because they’re not criminals or murderers. All they did was fight for their country, they did nothing to deserve being locked up like this.’ He thought about turning on his heel, but realised that the time had come to say something more. ‘I didn’t do anything either, but I’ll tell you now, I wish I had burned down a church. If I’d known that things were going to turn out like this, I would have done, believe me.’

  ‘You’re the one from Madrid, the one who speaks French, the one they call The Lawyer ?’ ‘That’s me.’ And the next time he saw him, the officer in charge of the camp took his hand, shook it and said goodbye.

  In Bacarès, everyone knew Ignacio Fernández Muñoz, but the only people who addressed him by name were Roque and Lieutenant Huguet, with whom he had a glass of wine every night. And, one Sunday in October, when he heard a woman’s voice say his name, he realised that his efforts had been rewarded. It had taken three months for his family to find him through Donato, a prisoner who was working in Perpignan and came back to the camp every night, and who put out the word to the network of republican exiles in the south of France for anyone who asked. Finding a familiar face among the sea of French people in their Sunday best who came every week to gawp at the communists in their cages was not easy, especially because on that particular Sunday there were a number of foreign photographers, Americans mostly, perched on ladders trying to get an aerial shot of the prisoners - an image that was clearly popular in the Western newspapers since they kept coming, week after week.

  This was the one thing the West had done for them: take photos. Thousands of photos, portraits and group shots of Spanish people locked in cages like monkeys in a zoo. The men in Barcarès despised the photographers and yet they continued to indulge them. When one of them spotted a camera, he would yell ‘Photo!’ and everyone would get to their feet, raise their fists, tilt their chins in salute. From outside, it might have seemed a vain, futile gesture, but for the men it was a fervent affirmation of their identity, of their determination, it told the world that they were still alive, they were still the same men they had been. So, although they despised the photographers, they all got to their feet that Sunday, stared into the lenses, and among those on the far side of the fence saluting with them he saw his little sister and called out her name.

  ‘Ignacio, Ignacio . . . You don’t know . . .’ María babbled, starting sentences she could not finish, as they reached through the fence to touch each other. ‘You can’t possibly know . . . When we found out . . . Paloma wasn’t there that day, but one of my friends was with me . . . I was in a café and then . . . Ignacio . . .’

  ‘María . . .’ He cupped his sister’s face as best he could. ‘Slow down, María. I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’

  ‘It’s true.’ She withdrew a fraction and closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I’m just nervous. We thought you were dead too, I . . . I thought I’d never see you again. That’s what I was trying to say, and then this man came into the boulangerie where Paloma and I work. They put Paloma out front serving. I work at the back at the ovens. I don’t mind, but . . .’

  At that moment, a Senegalese soldier stepped up and reminded Ignacio that communicating with the outside world was forbidden. Ignacio nodded and, in French, told the man that he was just saying goodbye.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ he whispered in Spanish. ‘Move down the fence to where all those people are standing, find a space and wait for me.’ It was a respite which they both needed, an interlude in which they had time to take in the fact that they had found each other, that they could once more talk and touch, even if it was through the barbed wire.

  ‘Anyway . . .’ She picked up where she had left off. ‘This man came into the boulangerie and Paloma had finished her shift, but there was another girl there, her name is Anita, she lives with us now, and she took the message - it was a note to arrange a meeting, it said it was about you - so she gave it to me, she knows how things have been at home, ever since Mateo and then what happened to Carlos . . .’

  ‘What happened to Carlos?’ His voice sounded alien and hoarse in his ears.

  ‘Yes,’ María looked down at the ground, then back at Ignacio, ‘Carlos is in prison. He’s been sentenced to death, for military insurrection. It’s so ridiculous it would be laughable, if it wasn’t so tragic. But the worst of it is, it was The Toad who turned him in.’

  ‘The Toad?’ Ignacio remembered the hard, cold glow, patient and pitiless, in Mariana’s eyes as they followed him.

  ‘The Toad,’ his sister confirmed, ‘that bitch. It was different for Mateo, there was nothing we could do, someone in the camp at Alicante recognised him. He never found out who, but it was someone who knew him well, who knew the whole family. Mateo was killed not just for being who he was, but for being Papá’s son, Mamá’s son, for being your brother, Ignacio, for being Carlos’s brother-in-law. Just imagine it: a little rich boy, a philosophy student and a socialist, the son of a republican engineer, the grandson of a count and an Andalusian landowner, his brother a communist promoted to captain and his brother-in-law an officer. He was the perfect scapegoat, he represented everything they despised: philosophy, law, university. They must have been thrilled, those murdering bastards . . . Anyway, Mateo got angry, called them every name under the sun, and they didn’t dare beat him up. They were too worried that he might die ahead of time.’

  ‘Of course . . . they wanted him executed in Madrid . . .’ Ignacio remembered the rumours he had heard in Albatera, the whispered stories that at the time had seemed outlandish in their cruelty rather than real and tragic.

  ‘And that’s what happened. He was shot by firing squad on 29 May. They published his name and our names in the papers the following day.’

  ‘Nice of them.’ Ignacio thought about Casilda, his sister-in-law.

  ‘Charming.’ María tried to smile and failed. ‘Of course, now we’re the cancer of Spain . . . you know, the people who destroyed our country, the soulless liberal mob, the traitors who sold the country to Stalin . . .’ She paused, then shook her head. ‘They’re bastards but I still can’t believe that they could be so brutish, so stupid. And they’re the ones who are ruling Spain now. It breaks my heart . . . Anyway, before they shot him, on the journey to Madrid, Mateo was able to tell one of the other prisoners everything. He’s still in prison, but he told his wife, who found Casilda when she went back.’

  ‘How is she?’ For a second, he felt his throat close. ‘Is she in prison?’

  ‘No, she’s free . . .’ Her smile reassured him. ‘Though she went through hell, too. She was locked up in a convent in Cartagena after the war, so she never got the chance to go and see Mateo. By the time they let her go, he was dead. At least now she’s at home, and she has her baby. She named him after Mateo, but he has his mother’s surname, because after the war civil marriages were declared null and void. But you know, although the baby was premature, they’re both fine, they’re thin, but they’re healthy. So you’re an uncle.’

  Ignacio remembered his brother’s wedding, a quick, impersonal ceremony so brief that he did not even arrive in time to be a witness, or to see the civil servant who had taken his place. He had been so surprised that Mateo had decided to get married, it seemed so absurd, so unseemly in the icy autumn of 1938, that he had paid scant attention to his brother’s reasons. At the time, he had thought it was some whim of his sister-in-law, and now that it was too late to regret it, he shuddered to think that, far from protecting Casilda, the marriage had made her life more difficult.

  ‘It was Casilda who told us that Mateo had seen you in the camp in Alicante, that you were alive.’ María looked at him, tried to smile and this time she succeeded. ‘But we didn’t hold out much hope. We found out that ordina
ry soldiers had been released as long as they had never belonged to a political party, but officers . . . Papá was devastated, he kept saying that the one thing he regretted was telling Mamá that at least you and Mateo and Carlos had finished your studies, so you’d move up the ranks quickly, that you were destined to be officers not cannon fodder. Now he thinks it’s a miracle that they didn’t make the connection between you and Mateo.’

  ‘And he’s right.’ Ignacio smiled at her.

  ‘When I went home and told him you were here . . . it was like he came back to life, honestly, and Mamá, well . . . you can imagine.’ Then tears welled in the eyes of María Fernández Muñoz, the youngest, the most resilient, the strongest of them all. ‘They wanted to come, but I wouldn’t let them, it’s a long way, and they need to look after Paloma . . . We all need to look after Paloma, she’s beside herself . . . She keeps saying she should never have come, that she always knew she should have stayed behind in Madrid, that it’s our fault, we forced her to leave Carlos behind, that she could have hidden him, helped him escape . . . It’s stupid. We’ve told her that the minute he was arrested she would have been put in prison too, but she won’t listen . . .’

  Ignacio had never recovered from the shock of realising what Mateo’s studied indifference had meant that morning in Alicante, when Mateo’s eyes met his, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly: ‘Don’t look at me, don’t speak to me, don’t say goodbye, don’t tell anyone that you’re my brother, save yourself.’ Now Ignacio Fernández Muñoz was reeling from the shock of what had happened, a fate that might just as easily have been his. He was thinking of José María Heredero, too, about that night in March, when there was still time to save the only man he had ever killed. José María Heredero, a professor of criminal law, the son and grandson of right-wing lawyers, the black sheep of the family, was safe, he could have hidden him, he would have known what to do . . . Ignacio was still thinking that the best thing to do would be to find him when he reached Vistillas, even when he was looking for a truck, watching the driver. If he hadn’t done this, it was not because he was afraid of the fascists, but because he was afraid of his own people. But he was fit and healthy, he had had two legs that would carry him wherever he wanted to go. Carlos didn’t.

  ‘Casilda found out he was in prison and went to see him, she pretended to be his wife. She took him a parcel and smuggled out a letter for Paloma in her bra. Since she was heavily pregnant at the time, and had milk stains on her dress, they didn’t really search her when she was leaving. She forwarded the letter to us, I don’t know how she did it because it had a French stamp, but she promised Carlos she would get it to us, and she did, even though it took two months. That’s why we don’t know if he’s still alive . . . He was all on his own in Madrid when it happened, nobody warned him, but he hadn’t been involved in the coup so maybe . . . Well, I hardly need to tell you.’ María looked at him bitterly. ‘He remembered José María Heredero, he thought if anyone could help him, he could. They’d been best friends ever since university . . . He went to his apartment on the Calle Torrijos but there was no one there. He set off for Aranjuez on foot, the poor thing, limping, with his gammy leg, God knows how long it took or what state he was in when he arrived. But he knew José’s parents had a house there, and he found it, and there was José, spending the spring in the country, wearing tennis whites and carrying a racket, the bastard - this is the same man who used to argue with Carlos because he wore a hat, the guy who bought workman’s overalls in the summer of ’36 and didn’t even take them off when he went to bed . . .’

  Don’t say any more, María, Ignacio wanted to beg her, please, don’t tell me any more, I don’t want to know . . . This was what Ignacio thought, and what he could not bring himself to say because the most important thing was not what he wanted but what he needed, and he needed to know the truth, he needed to grieve for Carlos Rodríguez Arce, his teacher, his brother-in-law, his saviour, his friend.

  ‘“Carlitos, what brings you here?” José said when he saw him, the . . . I can’t think of a name for him. Anyway, he invited him into the kitchen, gave him coffee and biscuits, and told him to stay there. Carlos didn’t know what to do, so . . . You know who helped him in the end ? José María’s sister.’

  ‘She was always in love with him.’ Ignacio remembered the brash, shameless girl who used to wait for his brother-in-law outside the classroom door even after he and Paloma were engaged.

  ‘No, not her.’ María smiled. ‘Not Mercedes, she ended up marrying one of them. No, it was Isabelita, the youngest, you remember, the one who was always so holier-than-thou . . . Anyway, she came into the kitchen and said, “Get out of here, Rodríguez, it’s not safe.” “But I’m waiting for your brother,” Carlos said. “I know, that’s why I’m saying you should go, as quickly as possible . . . ” She even gave him money for the train back to Madrid. You see, Mamá was right, you never know who to trust, your friends or your enemies. So Carlos went back to Madrid, but where could he go? He could go home, obviously, but he had a key to our place and he was exhausted, so he waited until it was dark and headed for our apartment on the Glorieta de Bilbao. And who do you think he ran into?’

  ‘The Toad, of course,’ said Ignacio.

  ‘Of course. And what do you think she told him?’ María raised her eyebrows, waiting for the answer Ignacio did not dare give. ‘She told him he had no right to be there. Can you believe it? It’s . . .’ María pressed her lips together, her face a rictus of anger. ‘The nerve of that cow! Papá took her in when she was about to be thrown out on the street . . . So, when she said that, Carlos laughed, you know what he was like. “I’ve got more right to be here than you, Mariana, but let’s not argue,” he said, “I need somewhere to spend the night, I need to sleep, and I need something to eat. After that, I’ll be on my way, don’t worry. I’ve no intention of staying in this shitty country.” “All right,” The Toad said, “on one condition. I get to sleep in my uncle and aunt’s room.” ’

  Now it was Ignacio’s turn to clench his fists, press his lips together, a fleeting, hopeless look of anger that flashed across his face at his sister’s words.

  ‘We should have killed her, I mean it, I thought about it more than once, when she used to come up from Dorita’s apartment, we should have grabbed her and . . . Carlos would still be here with us now.’

  Ignacio felt tears sting his eyes and let them trickle down; María too was weeping.

  ‘Anyway,’ she dried her eyes with two deft swipes, ‘she gave him some bread and a bit of cheese and Papá’s bottle of brandy . . . Carlos slept in Paloma’s room. He’d already decided to leave the next morning, he didn’t trust The Toad, but he was exhausted. At eight o’clock, a Falangist brigade dragged him out of bed. She stood there, calmly watching the whole thing, she even waved the soldiers goodbye. “Your cousin was right,” Carlos spat at her, “You’re nothing but a toad.” She slapped him, on top of everything else . . .’

  They went on crying, on either side of the barbed-wire fence, united by heartache and by everything they had lost.

  María was the first to break the silence.

  ‘I’ve brought you cigarettes, some croissants, some chocolate and some pencils so you can write to us . . . Stand back, I’ll see if I can throw the packet over the fence.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s easier to push it under the fence, it’s only sand, you dig on your side and I’ll dig on mine. Oh, one more thing . . . I was going to ask the camp commander, but it’s better if I ask you . . . Can you see if you can get copies of the French civil and penal codes, and a copy of the asylum laws, that’s the most important thing. Do you have any way of getting in touch with the man who came to see you? All right, well, give the books to him and he’ll try to get them to Donato, the guy from Lugo, remember his name.’

  After María’s visit, Ignacio Fernández Muñoz’s life at the Barcarès camp changed. The grubby, well-thumbed books arrived, notes scribbled in the margins of every
page, and he began to study, happy to have something to do to relieve the crippling boredom of the days. The books allowed him to prepare for the difficult times ahead. The autumn of 1939 was hard and the winter of 1940 harder still. The last days of summer took with them the innocent joy of those who believed they were no longer destined to be victims and the first rains washed away the last traces of optimistic excitement with the knowledge that only their location had changed. They were no longer in a Spanish prison, but a French prison camp. They could no longer lie in the sun, play football, go swimming without catching pneumonia or even pose for the photographers, who no longer came. The rain filtered through the roofs of the huts, the tides rose higher, the beach shrank, everything was wet and miserable, every night colder, every day shorter.

  All the while, Ignacio Fernández Muñoz studied. Ignacio, who, as a soldier, had despised the pedantic nitpicking of the republican authorities, now took a refined, almost morbid pleasure in enumerating for Lieutenant Huguet every article, principle, doctrine and provision of French law which was breached by his incarceration.

  ‘What do you want me to do, Ignacio? You think I want to be here?’ Huguet said defensively.

  Ignacio did not answer, but went on studying. Every morning, he reopened his books so he would not have to see, so he would not have to hear, and yet he knew, just as he had in Alicante when he had stared out to sea. Men as tall as towers wept like children, waded into the sea until they disappeared from view. There were those who took off their clothes and lay on the freezing sand; those who ceased to speak, eat, move, and those who would get up all of a sudden and say: ‘Goodbye. I’m going home now.’ Some madder than others, but for the most part they did go back, because they were too young, too strong, had too much life left ahead of them to remain here, incarcerated for no reason, with their bellies full of sand.

  Sometimes, the whole day long, loudspeakers would repeat: ‘People of Spain, go back to your own country. Your families, your people, your homes are waiting for you. Your country needs you if it is to recover. Those of you who have committed no crime have nothing to fear from Franco. No one believes the wild stories about repression any more . . .’ Huguet introduced Ignacio to the owner of one of these voices one afternoon, though he did not mention the man’s name, nor Ignacio’s.