The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  She led me into the living room, sat me down at the dining table and unfolded brochures and more brochures, floor plans and more floor plans. ‘I really like the layouts where you have a central island, but obviously that pushes up the price . . .’ April went by like this, May began: ‘Look at this one, it looks like a kitchen out of the 1940s, doesn’t it?’ May sidled into June and now Raquel’s face stared out at me from every extractor hood, every vegetable basket, every built-in wine-rack. ‘What about this one? Mix-and-match solid wood and glass doors. I know, everyone does it,’ as Raquel’s pussy stayed on my fingers, my hands, imprinted on the skin of memory, began to appear on my face. But Mai didn’t see it as I agreed with everything she said, except when she wanted me to disagree: ‘No, no, definitely not that one.’

  ‘OK, well, that’s all of them. So what do you think?’

  ‘Whichever one you like best.’

  ‘Well, I like this one best, obviously.’ She gestured to a group of photographs as incomprehensible, as irrelevant, as all the others. ‘But it’s the most expensive.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you like it.’ And I looked at her, smiled at her.

  And she came over and stood behind my chair, put her arms round my neck and kissed me over and over, and I felt less and less guilty.

  ‘I’m going to call Isa right now and tell her ! I have to say it feels good to be rich all of a sudden.’ Just as she was about to leave the room, she remembered something and turned. ‘What about your book? How’s it going?’

  ‘Good, good . . . But I’m taking it slowly, I’ve only just started really ...’

  In mid-May I’d told my wife I was going to write a book on the educational value of interactive science museums. I had already published a few things: my master’s and my doctoral theses, a collection of articles in various magazines, a four-hundred-page essay on the theoretical repercussions of the discovery of quarks, for which I won a very prestigious but financially worthless prize, and a lot of other material I was supposed to be co-writing with Professor Cisneros but wound up writing by myself for a History of Spanish Physics to be edited by José Ignacio Carmona. He was the one who had given me the idea, one night when we were out together.

  ‘That professorship is waiting for you, Álvaro, you need to shut yourself away and do some writing,’ he had announced suddenly, without warning.

  At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but looking at my mentor, I wondered whether it might be something more, a sign of complicity, or solidarity. In the end, as José Ignacio started insisting on impossible deadlines and Fernando started pretending to panic - ‘November, Jesus fuck, November, you poor bastard’ - I laughed, realising that they were winding me up, offering me the prospect of a professorship at the one point in my life when I could do nothing about it. But I didn’t care, I knew that my professorship would still be waiting for me in two years’ time; I had some proofs to correct for a book of articles due to be published at Christmas, and two months would be more than enough time to write the passionate defence of The Educational Value of Interactive Scientific Museums that José Ignacio had asked me to publish for the good of our heroic and much maligned discipline. That night, when I came home, I simply reported the conversation to Mai.

  ‘Did you hear what I said ? I’ll have to do some writing . . .’

  ‘Of course.’ She nodded. We had spent all evening discussing her plans for redecorating the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll have to shut myself up in the university library every bloody afternoon,’ I said, trying to sound frustrated, ‘and I’ll have to go to the Consejo library too. I might even have to work through the summer. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go on holiday.’

  ‘That’s terrible. It’s all getting a bit much. Poor Álvaro! First your papá dies, then all this work on the house, and now this thing with the professorship . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded, quite genuinely, ‘it’s all getting a bit too much.’

  The following day, before my first lecture, I went to see José Ignacio - to whom I had said nothing, although I was sure Fernando had told him everything - and thanked him. ‘You dog!’ was all he said when I told him why I was grateful. His informant was much more forthcoming.

  ‘Jesus, Álvaro, what are you like?’

  ‘To quote you: not only am I obsessed with “this girl’s cunt”, I’m also a “prick”.’

  ‘Yeah, how right I was.’

  I laughed, but I realised that he was right. Not only was I obsessed, I was fixated, stunned, stupefied, the way little kids can fixate when they’re playing, just staring at the leaves on a tree, or their fingertips, or the moon. I was a prick, something I had never been. I understood my predicament better than anyone, this precarious, increasingly dangerous situation, and I understood my innocence, a term I wrapped around my usual virtue, shielding me, as all unfaithful husbands shield themselves, with repeated lies and excuses. I had never been a cheating husband, I had been the Midas of the curriculum, the queen bee of the research programme, a conscientious theoretician. Mai was not a factor in the problem, at least it did not seem so, not yet, and yet there was a problem that concerned her. One day the problem would have to be reformulated and on that day, I would have the solution. Or not. Just thinking about it made me feel sick, and I could see the precise colour of fear, feel it in the pit of my stomach. It was easier not to think about it. I was obsessed, I was a prick, and I knew that the worst mistake I could make would be to give up Raquel Fernández Perea. This conviction persuaded me not to do anything other than laugh at Fernando’s off-colour remarks. Until one day, he said something different:

  ‘So, I think the least you could do is introduce me.’

  ‘Introduce you to who?’ I was only half listening.

  ‘The Empress of China. Who do you think? Term’s over, I’ve already marked half my exam papers, at this rate I’ll be off to Comillas without meeting her . . .’

  I looked at him, speechless - first because it had never occurred to me to introduce him to Raquel, second because I didn’t want to. It was 1 July, and three months had slipped by since my life began to be ruled by the chaos pendulum, and yet nothing happened outside of Raquel’s bedroom, the measureless, cosmic bed, the link to the molten core of the planet. This, I realised, was why we had barely set foot outside her bedroom.

  Now that José Ignacio’s request meant that science was giving back to me all the time I had selflessly invested in it, I could go to meet Raquel at the bank and we would have a quick lunch - tapas, sitting at the bar. It was summer now and the mild spring felt so remote it was as if it had happened in another lifetime, as though I had been a different man: conscious of his limitations, a man who had mastered the art of deferring to a new and indescribable pleasure. That man was gone now, he had disappeared, together with his dubious array of high and low concepts, with useless virtues like discretion, caution, with the mathematical precision which he had trusted all his life.

  I’d go to meet Raquel at the bank, I’d see her coming through the glass doors, I’d kiss her as teenagers kiss outside the school gates, and I could never get enough. I wasn’t hungry any more, but she always insisted we go for something to eat, she always decided where, ordered the wine, ate quickly, ate my portion. And I would watch her eat and drink and I couldn’t control the saliva that flooded my mouth as I ground my teeth. We could have walked back to hers: Opéra, Santo Domingo, San Bernardo, it was almost a straight line, but we always took a taxi because I could never get enough.

  Afterwards was another concept that had ceased to exist. Afterwards, we could go out for a beer, we’d say, but we never did go out. ‘Everyone says it’s a great movie, I’d love to see it.’ ‘Me too.’ But we never did go to the cinema. We talked about our friends: ‘You’ll like him, he’s hilarious’, ‘She’s so funny’, ‘He’s so clever’, ‘We should all get together one of these days’, but we never did. We never saw anyone, never went anywhere, never got ou
t of her bed, because I could never get enough.

  Three months had passed since Raquel offered me sanity and I had refused her. I was no longer a sane person, I no longer knew the meaning of the word ‘afterwards’, and maybe that’s why that morning, when Fernando Cisneros asked if he could meet her, I said yes.

  ‘OK, but it’ll have to be after the fourth.’

  ‘Why?’ He looked at me, eyebrows raised in astonishment. ‘Have we started celebrating the Fourth of July?’

  ‘No,’ I smiled, ‘it’s because that’s the day the builders arrive to take out the old kitchen and fit the new one. Mai is taking Miguelito to my mother’s at La Moraleja, because it’s impossible to do any work on the house with him there . . . She’ll come into town with my sister Angélica every day and they’ll go home together - they both work eight a.m. to three p.m., with no lunch break. They’ll take turns driving . . .’ Fernando laughed; he could see where I was going. ‘I’m not going there this year. I’ll go for Sunday lunch, maybe spend Saturday night there sometimes. I said I’d oversee the builders because . . .’ I paused for effect. ‘Since my tenure is coming up, I have to get a load of papers published, I can’t afford the time, much less the time I’d spend stuck in tailbacks on the Carretera de Burgos . . . I’m not even sure I can take time out to go to the beach in August . . .’

  ‘You’ve turned into a sly fucker, Álvarito! I might have to take lessons from you . . .’ He patted me on the back.

  But after 4 July - on the 6th to be precise - I realised that I wasn’t the sly fucker I thought I was.

  ‘Dear heart,’ I said to Raquel in the deep theatrical voice she had taught me. It was the morning of 5 July and I had just woken up in her bed. ‘I’m awfully afraid we may have to devote some of our time to cultivating our social circle.’

  She propped herself up on one elbow.

  ‘You brother Julio?’

  ‘No,’ I said, though she was near the mark - he would be next, as soon as he found out about her. ‘But I thought we might schedule a rendezvous with my old chum Fernando, the one I took to the theatre to watch the musical comedy inspired by the works of Hans Christian Andersen, do you remember?’ She nodded, laughing. ‘I’m afraid he’s something of a muckraker and can’t bear to wait any longer.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, then looked at her watch and gave a little cry. ‘Shit, I’m going to be late for work . . .’

  She washed and dressed and had a slice of toast before heading out. When I called her mid-morning to tell her that Fernando had rejected my initial invitation for a quick drink and countered by inviting us to dinner that evening, she did not change her mind.

  ‘What should I wear ?’ she asked. I found her nervousness touching. When I hung up, having suggested she wear the same dress and high heels she’d worn when we went to the Japanese restaurant, I began to wonder whether ‘prick’ accurately described me, although maybe I needed something stronger.

  ‘How do I look?’ she asked when I came to pick her up.

  ‘So beautiful I think we should skip dinner,’ I said.

  ‘But we’re not going to skip dinner, because I’m a bit of a muckraker myself . . .’

  Seeing her step through the door of the restaurant in front of me, Fernando made a silent gesture that spoke volumes. He had chosen an Asturian place where the food was incredibly good and the volume incredibly noisy - the small tables with checked tablecloths were wedged so close together you could barely hear yourself think. It was the last place I would have chosen, but Raquel liked it and strode confidently across the room, though her daring dress was too sophisticated, too elegant, for a taberna where the customers did not bother to dress up. She did not mind; she knew why people were staring at her.

  I had agreed to the dinner on one condition. ‘Don’t you go telling her the story of your grandfather Máximo, because if you do, I’ll get up and walk out,’ I warned Fernando.

  He laughed. ‘Fuck, I never realised I scared you so much, Álvarito!’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I said, which was only half true, because I was scared of anything that might drive a wedge between Raquel and me. ‘It’s because her grandparents are even bigger heroes than yours and I don’t want you to make a fool of yourself.’

  ‘We’ll see - how many years did they spend in prison?’ he said.

  ‘None,’ I answered, ‘but they emigrated to France and fought in the Second World . . .’

  ‘Aw,’ he cut me short, ‘her poor grandparents had to emigrate ...’

  ‘Look, she’s my girlfriend and they’re my rules - either you agree to them, or dinner’s off.’

  He agreed to my conditions, he didn’t even regale us with one of the long conspiracy theories about academic politics he loved so much. I steered the conversation and as we both wheeled out tried and tested stories to make Raquel laugh, I noticed that she was drinking more she usually did.

  That night, Raquel got drunk. Having delicately suggested who should pay - ‘This is on you, isn’t it, you old bastard ?’ - Fernando suggested we have a drink on the terrace of the first bar we found and she agreed with an enthusiasm that marked everything she did that evening: knocking back her first whisky, slowly sipping the second, complaining to Fernando about women who hoovered during IQ tests; recounting her frustrating experiences in the theatre, kissing me, holding my hand, suggesting she manage our finances and make both of us millionaires, explaining the details of a fabulous scam she’d planned with a colleague called Paco Molinero who was her best friend and my worst fear, ordering another whisky, realising she’d had too much to drink, telling Fernando that it was all his fault because seeing us give each other sidelong glances made her nervous, insisting on paying and agreeing when Professor Cisneros refused to let her. ‘It’s the least I can do, given that it’s my fault you’re in this state,’ he explained. ‘I think you should take me home,’ she said to me finally.

  ‘Don’t leave me . . . the room is moving.’ Lying on her bed back at her apartment, she flung her arm out vaguely in my direction.

  ‘I’ll be right back . . .’ I promised. ‘Have you got any Alka-Seltzer ?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so, in the kitchen or maybe . . . I don’t know.’

  I found it straight away, dissolved two tablets in a large glass of water and made her drink it.

  ‘Would you like to take my clothes off?’ she asked when the glass was empty.

  ‘I’d like that very much.’

  ‘Can you pull the duvet over me and come to bed, is that OK?’

  ‘That’s very OK.’

  ‘I won’t be able to fuck,’ she said when she’d finally found a comfortable position, her head in the crook of my neck, her right arm and leg flung across me, clinging like a castaway to the only timber floating on the ocean. ‘I don’t feel very well.’

  ‘Really? I hadn’t noticed . . .’

  ‘Yes . . .’ She managed to laugh. ‘I did think about it - fucking, I mean - but I can’t move, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for.’

  ‘But you’ve got a hard-on.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you don’t mind?’

  ‘No, go to sleep.’

  ‘I love you, Álvaro.’

  She’d never told me that she loved me before. I could feel the heavy rhythm of her breathing against my chest; my fingers rested lightly on her waist, her arm and her leg anchored me to the bed. A feeling of deep peace compelled me to stay awake so I could appreciate the experience, capture every second of this disconcerting gentleness. Eventually I did fall asleep and, four hours later, when the alarm went off, I could still feel that low-grade fever. ‘I love you, Álvaro.’ Raquel opened her eyes, and the words she said were different, different and yet somehow the same.

  ‘You know what? Despite everything I had to drink last night, I feel great. No hangover, just a bit tired. I think getting drunk with you is good for me, Álvaro.’

  She took a shower, dressed and had breakfast, th
en came back into the bedroom in executive mode: white trouser suit, flat, sensible shoes, leather briefcase.

  ‘I’ve made some coffee.’ She sat on the edge of the bed and kissed me on the lips. ‘If you’re not having lunch with that muckraker Fernando, we could meet up back here for a siesta.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, slipping my arms around her waist and pulling her - still clutching her briefcase - on to the bed. ‘I’ll tell Fernando we’ll meet for a drink later.’

  She let me hug her, not complaining that I was creasing her suit. I dressed and got back to my house just as the Polish builders were arriving. Fernando called at 10 a.m. and refused to meet me any later than 1 p.m. on the dot. When I met him at the Argüelles, he wasn’t sitting at his usual place by the bar, but at a table: clearly there was a lot he wanted to say.

  ‘So?’ I asked, taking a seat opposite him.

  ‘Astonishing!’ he said, and began to tell me how much he liked Raquel.

  His reaction didn’t surprise me, I’d been expecting it, but ‘Astonishing’ was a curious word to begin with and it hovered over everything else he said, watching, lying in wait for the next phrase.

  ‘All in all,’ he said, ‘I think she’s the best thing you’ve pulled in your life.’

  ‘But . . .?’

  ‘... but it’s weird ...’ Seeing me frown, he shook his head and quickly rephrased. ‘Not that she’s weird - like I said, she’s great. That’s what’s weird.’ He shook his head again. ‘No, that’s not it either, it’s like there’s something weird about her.’

  ‘What’s weird is that she’s not weird ?’ I suggested jokingly, and he didn’t seem offended.

  ‘That’s it!’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what it is. The weird thing is she seems completely normal - by normal I mean like you and me.’