The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  ‘Eat, Raquel.’ I heard the sound of my voice and I was astonished to find that my tongue still obeyed me.

  ‘Really, I’m not hungry . . .’

  ‘Eat!’ I never cry, I hardly ever cry, but I could feel my tears about to well, and I was not going to let them fall, not here, not in front of Raquel, even if I had to carry her too, even if my shoulders ached from the weight of all these bodies. ‘Go on!’

  ‘You’re very bossy all of a sudden, Álvaro.’ She cut a piece of the toast, piled some ham on to it, brought it to her mouth.

  ‘That was a stupid thing to say.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I wasn’t hungry either, but I forced myself to eat, and felt better for doing so. ‘I like it when you say stupid things. Say something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know, it doesn’t matter.’ She was disconcerted, she seemed afraid and I didn’t like to see her afraid. ‘Just talk, Raquel, tell me something, anything you like.’

  ‘But I don’t know what . . .’

  ‘Talk.’ She sat, racking her brain, her toast suspended in midair, but I couldn’t wait, I couldn’t bear the clamour of this silence any more. ‘Tell me what the Wise Men brought you at Christmas when you were little, what your favourite toys were, the teachers you didn’t like, anything, it doesn’t matter . . .’

  ‘The Three Wise Men did bring me presents at Christmas - well, not just me, all of us - because even though we were living in France, my parents celebrated on 6 January and we didn’t do Santa Claus . . . I’m really scared, Álvaro.’

  ‘It’s OK, just keep going.’

  ‘It was really important to us, you know, keeping up the traditions while we lived in France, like the twelve grapes, we always had grapes on New Year’s Eve. Grandma Anita always complained, “It’s so difficult to get them here and they’re terribly expensive.” Then I’d see a single tear in her eye, but she’d brush it away quickly and go back to eating her grapes. My grandparents had a clock that chimed the hour, it was in the living room, and after dinner, we’d all pile in there with our twelve grapes to wait for midnight. One year, my Grandfather Ignacio phoned Aurelio, my other grandfather, who was living in Spain then, in Torre del Mar, and listened to the chimes from the steeple at Puerta del Sol over the phone, but he hung up after the fourth or fifth bong, and we all kicked up a fuss so he never did it again . . .’ Raquel brought her hand to her mouth and bit her lower lip. ‘I’m so stupid, maybe it’s hard for you, talking about this kind of thing, maybe it would be better if I talked about school . . .’

  ‘No.’ Her irrational fear, her need to feel guilty, brought a genuine smile to my face. ‘I’m enjoying it.’

  ‘Really? Well, anyway, all my friends in Paris thought the thing with the twelve grapes was weird, and the thing about the Wise Men ...’

  By the time I asked for the bill, we’d got to a little plastic stall on wheels with a striped awning and a cash register with fake money and coins, her favourite toy when she was seven, which might have gone on being her favourite had it not been broken when they moved house.

  ‘It’s amazing, it was the only thing that got broken. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been that horrible lamp with the crocheted lampshade Grandma Rafaela sent my mother. One of her friends had crocheted the lampshade, but Mamá always hated it . . . Anyway, I was upset, I couldn’t understand how it happened, because it was solid plastic, you know? How does a solid piece of plastic just crack down the middle? Shall we go . . .?

  ‘Yes.’ I’d paid the bill and was already on my feet. ‘Let’s take a taxi.’

  ‘OK.’

  I gave the taxi driver the address and she didn’t say anything. The radio in the car was tuned to a station playing hits from the 1980s so we didn’t feel the need to talk. Raquel slumped against me, took my hand and started singing along softly. Then a new song came on about terror in the supermarket/panic in the grocery store/my girlfriend has disappeared/and no one can tell me where she’s gone. At the end of the chorus my girlfriend looked at me and we both burst out laughing. It was the first time we’d laughed since finding each other again, and yet, for me, the laughter left a sad taste in my mouth. The taxi turned into the Calle Conde-Duque. Raquel took her purse out of her bag and insisted on paying. ‘I’ve got all this change,’ she said.

  ‘OK, well ...’ We stood there on the pavement, not saying anything, and I saw her lips tremble, but she was not going to cry again, she was simply so nervous she was shifting from one foot to another. ‘Well . . . I’m going upstairs, obviously, and you’re . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m staying with you,’ I added quickly, ‘I mean, if you don’t mind ...’

  ‘No, of course not.’ She pulled me into the doorway. ‘Of course I don’t mind, I want you to stay. I just thought . . . you might want to be alone.’

  ‘I’m already alone, Raquel.’

  ‘You’re with me.’ But she didn’t dare look at me.

  ‘I’m with you and I’m alone.’

  ‘OK, then ...’ she said as she opened the door. ‘Let’s say I’m with you too.’

  It was a silly play on words, but it felt good to hear it, it felt good to step into the cool, dark foyer I had watched so often from across the street. And yet, as we waited for the lift to arrive, I was keenly aware of the booming silence as the motor groaned into life, the ordered grinding of the gears, the hiss of the doors as it reached the ground floor. The lift was long and narrow. Side by side, we would have been pressed against each other, so we went in Indian file, me behind, Raquel in front, and watching her guarded movements, the care she took not to brush against me, the sudden gracelessness of her arms, I felt a terrible, wrenching pain.

  We arrived at the fourth floor stiff, silent, as detached from each other as men and women often are before their first time together. But this was not our first time. When she opened the door to her apartment, she went in and stepped aside to let me pass. I knew that I should kiss her. You should kiss her, Álvaro, I thought, but I did nothing. I stepped into the hall, walked past her, and Raquel looked at me as though I held her life in my hands, and I knew that this was true, and so, awkwardly, clumsily, I moved towards her just as she came towards me and our shoulders collided.

  She lifted her face to mine just as I bent my face to hers and we collided again. But then her mouth found mine and, standing there, arms wrapped around each other, we kissed for a very long time, as long as it took for my body to make a decision for me. Before, I could lose myself in her, entrust myself to her with no limits, no conditions, merge my will with her, negate my being until it was reduced to its strict organic dimensions, to flesh and bone. But that was then; ‘now’ seemed to begin again in this apartment, and as I looked at her as though we were distinct, as though we were not one thing, my body liberated itself from me and my hands began to undress this woman, my feet to move through the apartment, leading her down the corridor, instinctively remembering the steps, never bumping into the furniture. I was me but it was not me, because I could see with my eyes closed, all my attention was focused on Raquel’s mouth, her skin, the lithe, golden splendour of her naked body sprawled across the mattress.

  Nothing was the same now, nothing was innocent, we were a little older, perhaps a little wiser, but the earth still remembered its orbit and still surrendered to the gravity of Raquel’s hips, and I surrendered too, like a river overflowing its bed. My body recognised Raquel’s body, and I recognised myself in Raquel’s body, it still worked, the miracle of cancelling time, but sex had become a trap, a dangerous weapon, an exhausting exercise that could somehow still soothe me, could even transport me to a place beyond pleasure, a place vaguely akin to happiness. Then, for two or three hours, I slept soundly, deeply, and when I woke I found Raquel’s eyes staring into mine.

  ‘I made coffee,’ she said, running her fingers through my hair. ‘You want some?’

  I nodded. She got up and I watched as she walked out of the ro
om naked, and I tried to remember how many times I’d seen her do this. The television had never been turned on before but now it projected a grey glow against the wall. While I’d been sleeping, Raquel had watched an old black-and-white film with the sound turned down so low you could barely hear the dialogue. I thought of Mai, then remembered that she had been watching a film when I had gone into the bedroom to get a clean shirt less than twenty-four hours ago. And then there was Miguelito.

  I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at the alarm clock. It was 6.50 p.m. Miguelito would be in front of the television now, watching cartoons. I had prepared myself for this. I had imagined these scenes a hundred times, the offices and lawyers, rough drafts, the finished documents, strangers coming and going in a corridor like shadows detached from their own bodies, words of encouragement, cold stares, silence. Joy had made me strong, because Raquel had taught me that there is no task, no problem, no lawsuit, no mistake that cannot be overcome when the ultimate goal is happiness. I had steeled myself for this, for these moments when I would think about my son; lying in this bed with the television on, and having made it this far, it all seemed so hard, so unfair, so cruel for me, for everyone that I suddenly wanted to give up, to disappear, to go away and never come back, alone, as though I could somehow stop being my father’s son, my mother’s son, Raquel’s lover, Mai’s husband, Miguel’s father. As though I were not Teresa’s grandson - as though I were a coward.

  Raquel reappeared with a tray and I realised I hadn’t thought about my Grandmother Teresa for a long time. Her gentle presence hovering over me like a good fairy had played no part in the complicated negotiations I had been having with myself since the night before.

  ‘I brought some biscuits,’ Raquel said, balancing the packet on my knees. ‘Chocolate chip - you like them, don’t you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Can I ask you something, Álvaro?’ Raquel curled into a ball and her voice trailed off into a whisper.

  ‘Don’t talk in that little voice, Raquel, anyone would think you were scared of me.’

  ‘I am scared of you - well, not you, but . . .’ She sat up again and looked at me.

  ‘When are you going home?’

  ‘I’m not going home.’

  Very slowly, I ate one of the biscuits. Her body was tense, her fists clenched, but still she said nothing.

  ‘I can’t go home,’ I said, biting into another biscuit. ‘Last night, Mai said that if I left I needn’t bother coming back. She stood at the front door and asked me if I’d heard what she said, asked if I was leaving anyway, and I said yes. Then I left.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Raquel tried to collect herself, but she couldn’t get over what I’d said. ‘You know people say these things, but they don’t mean them. Mai only said that to try to stop you from leaving. I’m sure she’d take you back.’

  ‘I’m not going back, Raquel, I can’t.’ I looked at her and she suddenly seemed so sad that I was confused. ‘Especially not now. There’s nowhere I can go, I don’t have anywhere, I don’t have anything, I’m alone, I told you that. My whole life has been blown apart, and the pieces are so small that there’s no way of putting them back together . . . I can’t go home and tell Mai that I’m coming back because my father was a bastard, a thief who destroyed the life of a widow who was no better than he was - maybe worse, since she turned in her cousin’s husband and had him shot, just so she could rob the family of everything they possessed, and that that same woman went on to be my grandmother, and her daughter betrayed her, married her worst enemy and became my mother. Don’t you understand? If I can’t even bring myself to believe it, how can I tell anyone else? But mostly . . . mostly, I don’t want to go back, Raquel. Last night, I walked out on my family with the intention of never going back, and I didn’t know anything, the only thing I knew was why I was leaving . . .’ I looked at her again, but she had buried her face in her hands. ‘But, if it bothers you, I can go to a hotel.’

  ‘It’s not that, Álvaro, I don’t want you to leave . . . It’s just . . . it’s all so fucked up, everything is so completely fucked up . . .’

  She hugged me and I couldn’t see her face any more, but in her voice I could hear my own defeat.

  ‘I knew it would turn out like this, and it’s all my fault . . . but I love you, Álvaro, I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you ... I nearly went out of my mind, I was thinking, I don’t know, I imagined what it would be like if everyone else was dead, your mother, your wife, and it was just the two of us, that you’d had an accident and lost your memory . . . It sounds stupid, doesn’t it? I thought about us meeting in a different country, imagined we weren’t related, I pictured us meeting at some dinner or at a party, because sooner or later things were bound to turn out like this . . . But I couldn’t, I couldn’t bring myself to imagine this . . . all this pain. That’s why I imagined everyone was dead, that it was just you and me, living in this apartment, with the sun streaming in through the windows on Saturday morning, me bringing back flowers from the market, the two of us laughing because we were happy, because I’d never gone insane, because I’d never filled a box full of things, gone round to the Calle Jorge Juan, bought two dozen candles in the little Chinese shop next door, never arranged them around the Jacuzzi, never lit them and blown them out one by one, as if it were my birthday . . .’

  This sadness, as much mine as hers, coursed through me like some deadly, merciful drug I was powerless to resist.

  ‘And I imagined us being happy because you trusted me, Álvaro, because I’d never lied to you. That’s how I pictured it, not this . . . not this fucked-up mess, even though I knew it would turn out like this, that it would never be just the two of us, Álvaro, that it would never be just you and me. There would always be too many people with us, the living and the dead, ruining everything . . . I knew it would turn out this way, but it’s just so unfair, so horrible . . .’

  I never cry, I hardly ever cry, but I was crying now.

  She wiped away my tears, pulled me to her and buried her face in my neck.

  ‘Can you get through this, Álvaro?’

  ‘I don’t know, Raquel.’ My brief, meek, silent tears had stopped. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  III

  The Frozen Heart

  The old folks say that in this country

  There once was a war,

  That there are two Spains now that nurture

  Old grudges and old doubts

  [...] But all I have seen are people

  who suffer in silence, pain and fear

  people with just one desire

  their bread, their wife, their peace.

  [...] The old folks say

  that we do what we please

  and that this means it’s impossible

  for a government to govern anything

  [...] But all I have seen are people

  who are obedient even in their beds

  people who ask only

  to live their lives, with no more lies, in peace.

  Freedom, freedom without anger

  Keep your fear, your anger to yourself

  Because there’s freedom without anger, freedom

  (And if there’s not, there will be).

  José Luis Armenteros Sánchez, Rafael Baladés Rocafull

  and Pablo Herrero Ibarz

  Libertad sin ira, (1976)

  In the last days of summer indolence, I was twice reminded of a poem by Antonio Machado which I had not thought about for some time: the sonnet To Líster, Chief of the armies of the Ebro [...] Any poetry written for specific circumstances can be terrible, but this reservation aside, all poetry is specific. Jorge Manrique’s Lines on the Death of his Father is specific, and so is García Lorca’s Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejias and Antonio Machado’s poem about the assassination of Lorca. [...] Why then was this particular sonnet so badly received? Why, nowadays, does anyone who wants to praise its beauty have to find some excuse ...? [...] Later, during the second wor
ld war, Líster, true to his vocation, found on the battlefields of Europe, now, so many years later, his loyalty may seem anachronistic; these days, the sonnet Machado dedicated to him inspires a feeling of vague disquiet. We are so discreet these days! We’re so much above such things!

  Francisco Ayala (1988)

  Mai had tidied the house before she left, but as I stepped into the bedroom, I tripped on a little yellow cement mixer with plastic wheels hidden in the doorway. I picked it up and put it back where it belonged, between the fire engine and the red Ferrari on the shelf where my son kept his fleet of cars. Everything about the room pained me, its smell, the duvet cover that matched the curtains, even the web that Spiderman was climbing. I left the room quickly, soundlessly, as if it were night-time, a different time, but Miguelito wasn’t in his bed sleeping, and I didn’t feel any better. As I moved down the corridor towards what was now my ex-wife’s bedroom, I could almost see him, see his mother, hear her voice, the laughter, the footsteps, the echoes of my former life. I could remember every word of the conversation we had had the night before.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Mai, it’s Álvaro ...’

  ‘Yes, I do still recognise your voice.’

  A conversation that brought to an end one of the cruellest, most brutal, most unpleasant days of my life, although I’d lost count of the contenders for that title. ‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ Raquel said when she opened the door at 8 p.m. on that fateful day, 30 September. It was a Friday, a day that had begun when the alarm rang at 7 a.m.

  ‘I have to go to work,’ she announced. ‘I took the day off yesterday because I imagined I’d need it, but today ... I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ She waited for a minute to see whether I had anything else to say, but I could think of nothing.

  Watching her get up and leave without turning back, I remembered her words, the brilliant, terrifying prognosis of what awaited me. I knew things would turn out this way, they were bound to turn out this way, but I didn’t want it to be like this, I imagined that it was always Saturday morning, always sunny. I didn’t get up to have breakfast with her. I should have, but I was too tired. I hadn’t slept any better at the Plaza de los Guardias de Corps than I had at the Calle Jorge Juan.