The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  That night, he had a date with a girl, but he did not even take the trouble to cancel it. He wandered the streets for a long time, trying to think. ‘Money, I could offer her money. No, I could fire her, I could talk to Emilio, tell him she’s a slut, tell him she’s seeing someone else, I don’t know, I can get witnesses, I can threaten her, I can say she stole from me, put a wad of notes in her handbag, threaten her with prison . . .’

  Four months later, as he was walking with her down the Calle Marqués de Urquijo and realised that he was going to marry her, Julio Carrión González remembered all this, and he remembered what had happened on the morning after that dark night of fear, that long sleepless night that left him with his nerves on edge. When he ordered her into his office, he completely forgot what he had intended to say, the harsh tone he had planned to adopt.

  ‘So?’ Angélica put her weight on one hip, held her chin a little too high, and looked down at him behind the desk. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

  ‘Yes.’ That was all he managed to say before he got to his feet and strode over to her, gripped both of her hands in his left hand, and held her chin with his right, his fingers digging into her cheeks, forcing her mouth into the caricature of a kiss.

  ‘You’re a piece of shit, Angélica, do you hear me? That’s all you are, a piece of shit.’ She stared at him, but made no attempt to struggle free of his grasp. ‘You’re an insect, I can crush you any time I feel like it, do you understand me? You think you’re so clever, Angélica, but you don’t know who I am, you don’t know what kind of friends I have, you haven’t the slightest fucking idea of what could happen to you if I decided to pick up that phone, is that clear?’ He waited for her to nod, for her to weakly mumble ‘yes’, to see a flash of fear in her eyes, but she didn’t move. ‘Is that clear?’

  And, at that moment, Angélica Otero Fernández brought her mouth close to the mouth that was raining abuse on her, and without knowing how, without knowing why, Julio Carrión González kissed her, and went on kissing her, he let go of her arms because he needed his to embrace her, needed his hands to touch her. He ran his hands over her body and felt a strange tingling in his fingertips as though he already knew this skin, this flesh he was tasting for the first time with growing passion, which she frustrated at just the right moment.

  ‘Enough.’ Angélica guided the uninvited hand from her bra and took a step back. She looked Julio Carrión in the eye, grasped the hands that had recently imprisoned her own and placed them on her waist. ‘I have to go . . . I’ve got a lot of work to do.’

  ‘Angélica . . .’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes?’ Her voice was serene, charming.

  He could think of nothing to say and she opened the door to leave, but before she did so she looked at him, and her eyes bore that same look of triumph they used to have when he agreed to do the Russian trick.

  ‘I’ve split up with Emilio,’ she announced a week later. ‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

  Julio simply smiled, but some time later he found her and invited her to dinner. She told him she couldn’t come. ‘I’m busy,’ she said, without elaborating, but she suggested another date. Over dinner, Julio Carrión confirmed what he already suspected: Angélica was not going to create any problems for him as long as he was prepared to resolve the main issue.

  ‘Let’s see if I’ve got this right, Julio . . .’ Angélica interrupted his long-winded explanations. ‘You’re suggesting I take the place of Rosi, and order two dozen roses - red roses, I think - for myself once in a while?’

  ‘No, that’s not it at all, Angélica.’ He found it difficult to stay calm, and had to resort to cliché to mask his true intentions. ‘You know perfectly well what kind of woman you are, and what kind of man I am.’

  ‘That’s exactly why I said it . . .’ As she spoke she shook her head from time to time. ‘It’s unbelievable, really! You’re a very intelligent man, Julio, but you never seem to understand anything.’

  ‘OK.’ The offended party fixed his eyes on the tablecloth. ‘Forget I said anything.’

  But he knew what he had said, and Angélica - who flung her arms around his neck as they left the restaurant and kissed him with the wild abandon she had, until now, reserved for his office - also knew. All summer, things ebbed and flowed - from passion to indifference, bravado and more bravado, then indifference, then passion - until their relationship entered its most delicate stage in September, by which time they could swing from boiling point to tepid in a heartbeat. Angélica knew precisely the right moment to invite him for a drink on the terrace of the Café Rosales, where she launched into the carefully rehearsed speech that began ‘Listen, Julio, you may be rich, but you’re not respectable’.

  ‘Shall we get the bill?’ she said, when she tired of looking at herself in the mirror of his silence.

  ‘You get the bill. You invited me, remember?’

  ‘You’re right.’

  He had said it only to make her blush and, having obtained this meagre satisfaction, he got up, found the waiter, paid the bill, then went back and took her in his arms.

  ‘Are you walking home?’ For the first time in months he was in complete control and he decided to use the situation to his advantage. ‘It’s such a beautiful night . . .’

  ‘Why are you asking me that?’

  ‘I was going to suggest I walk with you. If you don’t mind, that is.’

  ‘No, of course I don’t mind.’

  As they walked along the Calle Marqués de Urquijo, Julio already knew that he would marry her. It had nothing to do with Angélica’s impeccably marshalled arguments. He had already known he would marry her sooner or later, and why not sooner? These were the rules of the game, and he had already rebuffed too many pushy mothers, too many daddy’s girls. Romualdo, who was a lecher and had already fathered three children, had warned him that people were starting to talk. There were gossips who insinuated that he was homosexual, or had some incurable social disease, that his tastes ran to the perverse. Weddings bring peace, his father had always said. Angélica still wanted to marry him, she had always wanted to marry him, and her boldness in saying it to his face was not only admirable, it also cleared up of a number of obstacles. If he chose Angélica, he would be spared the trouble of a courtship. If he chose Angélica, he would be marrying into the aristocracy - the family might be destitute and full of undesirable elements, but it was unarguably aristocratic. No one would raise the slightest objection to the marriage, and he found Angélica attractive, had always found her attractive, he had always understood her and she was a lot like him. He knew that now.

  By the time they arrived at the Calle Princesa, he had already decided to marry her, but he did not tell her until they reached the Glorieta de San Bernardo. As they stood, waiting for the traffic lights to change, he gently put his hand on her shoulder and asked:

  ‘What will your mother say?’

  Angélica gave him a wary, uncertain look.

  ‘What will my mother say about what?’

  ‘What will she say when she finds out you’re marrying me?’

  She smiled, a smile that blossomed slowly into something so exquisite that it was overpowering.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘are we getting married ?’

  ‘Of course,’ Julio smiled, ‘I thought you knew that.’

  ‘No. You haven’t even asked me.’

  Pedestrians had begun to cross the street, but neither of them moved. ‘Angélica, will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes.’ The traffic light had changed to amber, to red, then to green again by the time they had stopped kissing. ‘I expect my mother will pretend to be happy. You’re a good catch.’

  On 5 May 1956, Don Julio Carrión González married Señorita Angélica Otero Fernández at the church of Santa Bárbara in Madrid; Doña Mariana Fernández Viu was maid of honour. Neither then, nor at any time later, did she dare say a word about this wedding, every detail of which was planned, arranged and controlled by the bride
, who not only chose a wild silk dress designed by Cristóbal Balenciaga, but also chose the date, the flowers, the music, the guests, the menu for the reception, the bridegroom’s suit, her own engagement ring and, of course, the conditions of the marriage contract.

  ‘Maybe we should go back to my place for a siesta,’ Julio would suggest from time to time, after they had lunched with Eugenio, or in Torrelodones with his father. He had already introduced her to the wives of a number of government ministers, and, having seen the diamond on the fourth finger of Angélica’s right hand, everyone at Carrión Construction knew they were engaged.

  ‘Absolutely not, Julio!’ She shook her head. ‘We couldn’t possibly! You go and have a nap at your place and I’ll go to mine. You know it’s for your own good. Can’t you wait four little months?’

  ‘No, I can’t wait . . .’ In the taxi, he would fondle her, squeeze her, paw her, and she would let him, right up until the moment when she would stop, always perfectly calculating the time, the risks and the benefits.

  He could not wait, but he waited all the same. What he needed was to marry a pretty little virgin from a good family and that was precisely what awaited him at the altar. It would also be good for him to give her two or three children, but Angélica knew what was good for her, and waited almost a year before she got pregnant. By the time she told him the news, she had become something of an expert in the contraceptive properties of certain sins that are never confessed and her husband, who had by now spent almost twelve months far from his subterranean pleasures, smiled when she asked him whether it had been worth the wait. At the time, the only thing beyond Angélica’s control was the reason for that smile, because she could never have imagined that what Julio loved most about her in bed was precisely what he loved most about her anywhere else in the house. Through his long, steep, dangerous ascent to glory, Julio Carrión González had considered everything except whether he had someone to love him. It was when he realised how much his wife loved him that he appreciated that fact. And he grew accustomed to Angélica’s love, her passionate, unconditional devotion. Her love became vital to him, later it would be indispensable, until he missed it in every woman with whom he cheated on her, while he, in turn, learned to love her after his fashion.

  In 1958, Rafael, their first child, was born; he was blond and pale with blue eyes like his mother. A year later, Angélica arrived, with green eyes and a complexion of translucent pink, utterly unlike her father. Finally, in 1961, he had a son who seemed to look like him, and they christened him Julio, after his father. But although Julio had dark eyes and resembled his father in his gestures, as time went by his hair grew lighter and his skin paler. Then, in 1965, Angélica became pregnant for the fourth time.

  In November, she gave birth to another son. He had black hair, olive skin and, beyond the usual ambiguity of all babies, he had something about him that made all those who came to see him at the hospital exclaim, ‘He’s the spitting image of you, Julio, honestly, I’ve never seen a baby who looks so like his father . . .’

  Julio would simply smile, but he felt a particular satisfaction when he held his fourth child, Álvaro Carrión Otero, who would, in time, become his favourite son.

  ‘I never slept with your father, Álvaro.’

  Suddenly I felt a terrible urge to laugh and a terrible urge to cry, but I did neither. I sat motionless, unable to think, to speak, to feel anything at all. I was here, and I had heard. Raquel was here and she had spoken. This was all that I knew, all I could grasp. Then, seeing her curled into a ball on the far edge of the bed with her back to me, like a lost, abandoned girl, I knew I had to do something.

  I moved towards her, put a hand on her shoulder and turned her towards me, and she let me, not helping, not resisting, as though her body were uncoupled from her spirit. Raquel Fernández Perea, the love of my life, belonged to me and me alone, she belonged to me not to my father, she was mine more than she had ever been. I hugged her hard, pressed her to me, I held her for a long time, but I could not save her from this stillness as absolute as that of sleep or death. I watched her breathe, felt her breath against my neck, savoured the peace of this embrace, but I could still see the eyes of the man who had shadowed her through the streets, in doorways, by telephone, as though searching for his own life. The man who at this very moment should be kissing this woman, wanted to kiss her, yet couldn’t.

  I had to do something, but my mind was teeming with memories, some static, some moving, whole scenes and fragments of scenes, whole sentences and isolated words. I’m sorry, I was expecting your mother ... Álvaro, for a physicist, you have a vivid imagination ... Aren’t you scared? ... When he smiled, your father looked like a child’s drawing of the sun ... What must you think of me? ... She is right for you, Álvaro, you’re right for each other. But you’re nothing like your father. The person she’s wrong for - I mean absolutely wrong for - is him. Don’t tell me it hadn’t occurred to you . . .

  Somewhere beyond my consciousness, beyond the shock, the urge to lash out, the blind fury of a bull that, having realised the cape is just a decoy, now longs for revenge, I could feel the faint throb of my pride, this useless but persistent relic of the honest, ordinary guy I used to be. I didn’t want to think, but I could remember the sequence of my intuitions, and I remembered the moment when I realised that the worst thing that could happen would be for me to know the true nature of Raquel’s relationship with my father. Now, on the brink of that abyss, I was overjoyed to know that I had never shared this woman with Julio Carrión González, and that joy terrified me, it threatened the future I had been prepared to live out in the unbearable shadow of a repugnant passion.

  Without wanting to, I thought about all these things as I held Raquel in my arms. I could tell she was more terrified than I was, because she knew everything, she had known from the start, known everything except maybe that she would fall in love with me, and that I would fall in love with her. It was then that I realised the true extent of my misfortune, the pitiless cruelty of a defeat I had not even begun to suffer because love, my love, would never be enough to slay the dragon, because all my love, all my ordinary words, would never be enough to fill the silence it was born in, the silence in which it had grown strong. And I was guilty of not wanting to know, of not asking, of evading those questions which had only one answer. It would have been easy: When did you first meet my father, Raquel ? Where? How did you end up having an affair with him? How long did it last? It would have been easy, but I had chosen an easier path.

  For a moment, I thought that maybe I could choose to do nothing. I pictured the scenario: ‘It doesn’t matter, nothing matters, I don’t need to know, all that matters is that I love you, Raquel, so let’s get up, get dressed, and let’s go home, let’s go and sleep in your apartment on the Plaza de los Guardias de Corps, and we’ll never mention this again . . .’

  It’s not easy to bury the dead, to watch the gravediggers, the predictable, hypocritical expression of condolence they put on when their eyes accidentally meet those of the bereaved, the sound of the shovels, the grating of the coffin against the sides of the grave, the quiet whisper of the ropes being paid out. It’s not easy to bury the dead, but it is easy to put them in a tomb deeper than the earth, deeper than any cemetery. Your grandmother was a schoolteacher, she was a good woman, she loved her husband, she loved to play the piano. I could do the same thing, I could take my head from Raquel’s shoulder, kiss her with all the care that such a kiss requires, then, asking no questions, I could lay my head on her shoulder again, in the warm security my love had built for her.

  I could choose to do nothing, I could pretend to do nothing, behave as though I had forgotten her dishonesty, convince myself that I had not colluded in her lies, and go on living in the convivial silence of those who prefer not to act, not to know, not to ask. But I loved this woman. Loved her so much that, sometimes, the love I felt for her confused and overwhelmed me. I loved her so much that I could not disregard the reason
she had run away, her secret, nor could I condemn her to some half-life, a fantasy content in what it did not know.

  ‘Talk to me, Raquel.’ I lifted my head from her. ‘Say something, please ...’

  ‘I don’t know where to start . . .’

  I leaned back against the pillows, lit a cigarette and waited.

  Raquel is hurting more than you are, Berta had told me, and I hadn’t believed her, I couldn’t imagine anything could hurt more than the uncertainty I felt, but now, as I watched her suffer, watched her grow paler, and more distraught, as frightened as a lab rat in a cage, I did not like it.

  ‘It doesn’t matter where you start. I’m on your side.’

  ‘You don’t know that yet, Álvaro.’

  ‘I do know,’ she was right, I didn’t know, but I could compensate for this lie with a greater truth, ‘because I don’t want you to leave me again.’

  She closed her eyes and nodded several times, like a little girl accepting her punishment.

  ‘The first thing my grandfather Ignacio did after he slept with my grandmother Anita was to teach her to read and write.’ She spoke calmly, with no hesitation, with no trace of shame, or tears. ‘She was eighteen years old, but she was illiterate because she’d grown up in the mountains, miles from the nearest village. Her father was a forester, and he couldn’t afford to send her to school. Ignacio was six years older than she was, he was a law student, but he gave up his degree in his third year in order to enlist. They met in Toulouse, during the Second World War, my grandmother had no papers and my great-grandmother had taken her in, and he was hiding there, because he had just escaped from a labour camp. He escaped a lot of times from a lot of different places. Since they didn’t have any Spanish reading books, my grandfather sent Anita out to buy two exercise books and then he made one for her. He’d taught a lot of soldiers to read and write, so he knew the books by heart. The first sentence my grandmother ever read by herself was: Anita is a little apple. He wrote it to make her laugh.’