The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  ‘Aw!’ Huertas laughed. ‘How romantic!’

  ‘Yes, actually,’ Julio smiled with him, ‘. . . it was romantic. Paloma Fernández Muñoz, I believe you know her?’

  ‘The beautiful Paloma . . .’ The commander nodded slowly. ‘Of course I know her, who doesn’t? Tell me, Carrión, just out of curiosity, have you fucked her ?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ Julio shook his head, looking pathetic, and Huertas laughed harder.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, son, because I have to say that would really bring you up in my estimation . . . Even my men who’ve infiltrated her group have tried their luck, but nothing. The Red Widow, that’s what they call her. I’d like to go and proposition her myself some day, because I must be the only Spaniard in Paris she hasn’t turned down.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Julio paused and took a deep breath. ‘Your accent . . . you’re from Andalucía, Commander?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From where exactly, if you don’t mind me asking . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t mind. I’m from Córdoba.’

  ‘From Córdoba . . .?’ Julio frowned, twisting his mouth in an expression of annoyance. ‘Pity . . .’ Then he said, as though to himself, ‘I was just thinking . . . Paloma’s mother is Andalusian too, she owns a lot of land, acres and acres of olive groves, worth a fortune. And she hasn’t lost a single tree, because one of her nieces has contacts high up in the administration, and she’s been watching over it. But in Spain property is everything, obviously, and she wouldn’t want anything happening to it. That’s why, when she heard I wanted to go back, Don Mateo gave me power of attorney so I could oversee the sale - on his behalf obviously . . .’ Julio looked up and was dazzled by the greed he saw in the man’s eyes. ‘Since you’re from Córdoba, and Paloma’s mother’s lands are in Jaén, but then it looks like I won’t be going back . . .’

  A week later, after Ernesto Huertas had checked to make sure that Julio Carrión was not simply selling smoke and mirrors, Julio was told that he could apply for a passport. Two days later, Huertas himself appended a flattering report concerning the Falangist, a member of the Blue Division with an irreproachable record who had been living in Paris for personal reasons, he added parenthetically with no further explanation, but who had always made himself available to the embassy. The passport arrived a month later and Huertas personally gave it to Julio together with two pieces of advice. It was the last contact between the two men, but on the morning he left, Julio Carrión sent Huertas a letter: ‘Paris, 3 April 1947. I screwed her, you son of a bitch, I screwed her.’ He signed it, reread what he had written, then laughed and tore it up. He would have liked to have sent it, but he didn’t dare.

  ‘Ruin her, destroy her, and when you’re done, tell her I sent you.’ Paloma Fernández Muñoz had looked at him and Julio had shuddered at the ferocity he saw in her eyes, dark with rage.

  ‘Promise me.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘At first I thought of asking you to kill her, but I’d rather she lived. I want her to remember me, I want her to see my face when she gets up and when she goes to bed every fucking day of her fucking life. Do this for me, Julio, then come back for the rest, because there is nothing in the world, and I mean nothing, that I would not do to repay you.’

  What a pity, Paloma, Julio thought, what a pity, as he dressed, feasting his eyes on the woman who was getting out of the other side of the bed. As he left the house, as they walked along the street, as he kissed her for the last time, a fierce, desperate, hopeful kiss, ‘What a pity, Paloma.’ This was his plan, one that he had conceived and carefully worked out on his own, although he had allowed Ignacio Fernández Muñoz to think that it was all his idea, not expecting this gift, this dazzling night, when he had discovered what a woman was capable of. He suddenly felt blessed, and for the first and last time on his path to glory he felt guilty, a traitor.

  ‘Hello.’ A tall blond man, a distant acquaintance, had greeted him with the frank, honest smile Spanish exiles accorded their own in the short, deceptive spring that followed the Allied victory. ‘You’re Teresa’s son, aren’t you, the schoolteacher from Torrelodones?’

  Since The Lawyer had recognised him in a café heaving with other expatriates, Julio Carrión had been dropping in so regularly on the Fernández family it was as though he was one of them. He had known about them before that, had seen their large, comfortable villa with its vast garden, the pine trees so tall they could be seen from the road. And yet he had almost no memories of them, for he had been a child when they stopped coming on holiday to Torrelodones. Ignacio was the only one he had seen since, when the front line on the road between La Coruña and Torrelodones had become a loyalist stronghold. At first, he thought this was the only reason that The Lawyer had heard of his mother, but he quickly discovered that the summer before, Ignacio had gone with his brother Mateo to the meetings at the Casa del Pueblo and that, sometimes, Carlos - Paloma’s future husband - went with them. In Paris, in 1945, a Spanish expatriate needed no other qualifications to find himself welcomed with open arms. ‘We’re all in the same boat,’ María Muñoz would say, ‘we help you out, maybe tomorrow you’ll be helping us out.’ ‘And besides, he’s charming, he’s funny,’ said Paloma. Anita liked him too, he did magic tricks, and played with the children . . . They adored Julio, who would make sweets appear magically from their ears, make a whole host of things disappear under a napkin.

  He allowed himself to be loved, he did not have to work at it, and he became quite fond of the children, he even stayed over sometimes on Saturdays to look after them when Ignacio’s parents went out. But everyone knew he was not there for them; he was there for Paloma. She had found a job at a newspaper and came home late.

  ‘Go on, Julio, go out and enjoy yourself,’ she would say when she opened the door and found him standing, waiting for her, in the hallway. ‘I’ll look after the kids . . .’

  She knew that he didn’t want to go, and would allow him to stay, to sit opposite her at the kitchen table while she ate her dinner, then sit next to her on the sofa, worshipping her like a goddess. This was the one true thing that Julio would tell Commander Huertas, even if it was only a half-truth. He had been head over heels in love with Paloma but she had never driven him mad. No woman would ever drive Julio Carrión González mad, he was too attached to his own idea of sanity. And yet in his own way he did love Paloma Fernández Muñoz. To him, Paloma was both the quintessence of harmony, grace and beauty and a torture willingly borne, a pleasurable, inexorable suffering, but one that caused him no pain, since Paloma belonged to everyone and yet no one, she was loved by armies of living, breathing men but was a faithful wife to her dead husband.

  ‘Live on without me, Paloma, find a companion worthy of you, I only pray that he loves you even one tenth as much as I have loved you, my darling . . .’ This was the favour Carlos Rodríguez Arce had asked of his wife before he died, but it was one that she still was not willing to grant him. It was a decision that did not please her parents or her brother, still less her sister, but no argument could sway her.

  Until the penultimate night of 1946, when Julio Carrión González stood in her living room and announced that he was going back, that he had no choice. Before he’d even had time to explain that his sister had written to say she was marrying an older man who was disinclined to spend his life looking after his new father-in-law, and that unless Julio came back to take care of him they intended to commit the old man to an asylum, he saw Paloma’s eyes shine. ‘I have no illusions, obviously, I don’t want to go, but my father is very ill. My sister’s turned into a harpy but she says my future brother-in-law is prepared to stand as guarantor for me.’ At that moment, nothing more was said. Then, The Lawyer thought he had an idea. ‘Listen, Julio, can you do something for me . . .?’ ‘Of course, whatever you need me to do, you know that. I’ll go and see your cousin as soon as I can. I’ll find out what the situation is and write to you.’ Julio said no more, thereby ensuring that Ign
acio would go on brooding about the problem.

  ‘I want to give you power of attorney, Julio,’ Ignacio’s father said the following day. ‘Ignacio and I have been talking about it and he doesn’t think you’ll be able to do anything unless you have documentary proof that you’re acting on my behalf.’ ‘Do you really think that’s necessary?’ Julio ventured. ‘Of course it is,’ said Don Mateo, ‘otherwise, anyone could have taken the property away from us already.’ ‘True,’ Julio conceded, and as he did, he saw that something had changed in the way that Paloma looked at him, she was staring at him almost in awe. The afternoon before his departure he went to the house for the last time to say goodbye.

  ‘Do you have any plans for this evening, Julio?’

  Paloma came out to meet him at the door, and her arrival suspended reality.

  ‘It’s just that it’s been a long time since I’ve gone out, but . . .’

  Carlos Rodríguez Arce’s widow was wearing a tight, low-cut black dress in a soft fabric that clung to her body with terrifying obedience. The dress left bare the beautiful arms, the beautiful legs which until now Julio had had to be content to divine beneath the modest, almost monastic clothes that concealed her body. Now, however, she had put herself on display for him. Her hair had been curled and she was wearing dark red lipstick.

  ‘So . . .?’ she said and came up to him. ‘What do you say? Will you take me out?’

  ‘Of course . . .’ Julio was choked with excitement. ‘Of course I will . . .’

  Paloma took his arm and, in the doorway, turned to look at her family, all of whom seemed bewildered except her mother, who had brought her hands to her face and was silently shaking her head, her eyes wet with tears.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mamá?’ Paloma’s voice was dispassionate, but her expression seemed to dissolve as she looked at her mother’s face. ‘Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me I should go out more?’

  At that moment, Julio, afraid that their evening together might never begin, took her elbow and gently led her outside. Paloma allowed herself to be led, closed the door behind her, and there in the hallway she showed him that he had nothing to fear.

  ‘We’re going to have fun tonight, you and me,’ she said, after she had kissed him passionately with a hunger that was not calculated, ‘you’ll see . . .’

  Julio realised Paloma’s intentions at the same time her mother did, but he was surprised by the passion, by the recklessness of this woman who was prepared to stake everything she had to ensure her revenge, prepared to give herself completely to a man who was not her tool, but her knight, the champion who would conquer in her name.

  This was what Julio Carrión felt, this was what made him hesitate, as the most coveted Spanish woman in all of Paris, the woman who always said no, walked arm in arm with him; this extraordinary, magnificent, impossibly beautiful woman who could stop traffic, hush conversations, was stepping out with him. Julio Carrión felt the nudges, heard the whispered comments, saw the astonished stares, la bella Paloma stepping out with a man, laughing with him, kissing him, the Red Widow, in a low-cut dress, her arms, her legs, exposed, resting her head against the chest of this boy as a passing photographer took a snap. Julio had understood Paloma’s intentions, but he had not expected this abandon, the genuine, boundless passion of a lady choosing her knight.

  ‘Well, what do you know, I’ll even get to fuck you for free, my little Paloma.’ Julio had expected a clean, uncomplicated negotiation. ‘You toss my bitch of a cousin out on the street and I’ll pay you in advance.’ ‘Fine,’ he’d said to himself, ‘but pay me now and afterwards, we’ll see . . .’ But it had not just been a fuck, and it had not been free. Paloma Fernández Muñoz would never know it, but Julio Carrión González would spend the rest of his life trying to obliterate that night from his memory. For the rest of his life, he would compare every woman to Paloma, and where other men have a heart, Julio would have a hard, dry scar that could still soften, still throb on long wet afternoons. But even the most intelligent people can be fools when confronted with someone more intelligent than they are. And Paloma was more intelligent than he was.

  ‘You can’t imagine how much I loved him,’ and what sounded like an end was the beginning of something new.

  She was naked, exhausted, sprawled across his bed, and the dim light of his tiny room in his cheap boarding house shimmered, gilding her body with the light of a hundred candles. She gazed up at him, her face still flushed, pushing away the sheets, shameless and conscious of her beauty. He could not resist the power in her eyes, could do nothing but gaze at her, listen to her, inhale the perfume of her sex, which pervaded the whole room, and begin to commit her to memory. And just as he thought that she had no more to give him, his skin weary of responding to the limitless offer of a woman prepared to show him everything she was capable of, Paloma said: ‘You can’t imagine how much I loved him,’ and it all began again.

  ‘Carlos loved me so much, gave me so much . . .’ Her eyes glittered, but her voice was calm, gentle, sweet. ‘He was so much in love with me that no one noticed how much I loved him. Now they do, now they finally understand. He was a better person than me. He would not have nursed a grudge, or constantly waited for revenge. But he’s dead, and I’m alive. I’m dead but I’m alive. Every day for seven years I have been a living corpse, until tonight.’ She shifted slightly, pressed her body against Julio. ‘I am not as good a person as Carlos was, but I survived, and the only thing that gets me through the day is the love I have for him and the hatred for those who took him away from me. I am not as good as my husband was because I want revenge. I don’t care that it’s immoral, or pointless, I want revenge. It’s the only thing that matters to me. Avenge me, Julio, and you’ll never regret it. I won’t lie to you. I don’t think I could ever love anyone the way I loved Carlos, but if you avenge me, I can begin to forget and maybe I can start to live again.’

  This is what she said, then she straddled him, claimed him with unspoken words that only he could hear, words that he would never forget, that seemed to say: ‘This is me, Julio Carrión, and you are my champion. This is me and all this will be yours if you champion my cause, if you fight for me, because you are the only man who can bring me back to life, the only man who can make me happy.’

  ‘I won’t lie to you,’ she had said to him, and she did not lie. Julio knew that, knew she was not putting on an act to draw him in. Paloma had treated him as she had every other man, with the same cordial detachment, until he had set himself apart, had subtly offered himself to her. Only then had the beautiful, grief-stricken widow noticed him, only then had she decided to bring him into her plans and offer herself so completely. ‘Do you like that? Wait, don’t be so impatient, let me . . .’

  What a pity, he thought afterwards, what a pity, Paloma. And yet, their last embrace moved him, bound him to her more than he could know when he left her standing in the entrance. That last, fierce, desperate, hopeful kiss did not stop him from writing to Huertas the letter he would never send - ‘I screwed her, you son of a bitch’ - but it travelled with him on the journey back as though stitched to his lips.

  Afterwards, though he could hardly believe it, he did have doubts, he even went so far as to make a decision only to change his mind and change it back again. There was still time. The passport that permitted him to cross the border at Irún as though the past three years of his life had never happened had cost him little compared to what he had to gain. Paloma’s father would not frown on him if he came back to Paris with Don Mateo’s fortune to claim his prize, to worship his goddess, to win the heart of his fair lady. There were moments when Paloma seemed more important to him than his greed, than the thought of the sheep that had been his father’s whole life and which he had vowed would not be his. But he had plotted his future, he had promised himself that never again would Julio Carrión González be on the losing side, and that promise freed him from all other considerations. He wasted no time wondering who was worse an
d who was better, who was right and who was wrong, he cared only about winning, and yet, afterwards, though he could hardly believe it, there were moments during his long journey back when winning meant Paloma Fernández Muñoz, when his prize would mean a different life.

  Until he arrived in Madrid. On 4 April 1947, Julio Carrión González stepped off a train in the Estación del Norte to a warm, bright spring day. He glanced around him, gave thanks for the sun’s warmth, breathed in a familiar scent and reminded himself that the world was full of women; other women. There were several of them right here on the station platform, and one of them, in a red dress, was walking slowly, swaying on her heels. As he watched her, he could feel Paloma stinging his eyes, a parched dryness in his throat, pins and needles in his sides. He decided to ignore it, and remembered that one night in Paris he had participated in a frivolous but entertaining discussion between those who defended Freud’s theory that sex makes the world go round and the Marxists, who maintained that money makes the world go round. He smiled. Maybe, he thought, I’m a Marxist after all.

  He chose a good hotel on the Gran Vía, he appreciated the burnished furniture, the roses in a cut-glass vase, the vast, soft bed. This is the life for me, he thought. At that moment, the pain faded away, but when he brought his hands up to his face, still, above the scent of soap and water, he could smell Paloma. To shake her off, he went out for a walk, strolled along the boulevards, glanced into the shop windows, went into a tailor’s and bought a new suit, sat on a café terrace and watched the world pass by, listening to fragments of conversation; he realised that what the Spanish expatriates in Paris had said was true: Madrid was utterly different and yet completely the same.