The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  ‘Could I get a ticket for the fifteen thirty screening?’

  ‘Which screen?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, I don’t know, Screen Two ...’

  Love cannot abolish itself for as long as it exists. No matter how inconvenient, how unwelcome, however terrible it is. It had been hot out in the street, in the cinema it was cold, but my father’s smile lit up the screen and I could hear his comforting voice: You’re very brave, Álvaro, my own voice hoarse with emotion, I really love you, Papá, and his voice again, Me too, hijo. Nothing that had happened, nothing that would ever happen in the future, could blot out that face, or silence that voice. My leg was hurting so much that I had curled into a ball, my eyes were stinging with all the tears I had choked back since that summer, since that night when I had felt happy, proud to be the son of Julio Carrion González. Almost thirty years had passed and I had never stopped being proud, it was one of the few things that would never change, though recently, as the whole world collapsed around me, I had managed to forget that I loved him. And here, in an air-conditioned cinema showing some film I would never remember, I realised the meaning of this love that had conquered everything, withstood everything, which would not give in to head or heart, because it was part of me, like Raquel, like my body, like my name.

  ‘Excuse me, I was supposed to meet my brother Rafa, but he’s not in his office ...’

  ‘That’s not his office, he’s taken over Don Julio’s office, I mean your father’s office.’

  ‘I see ... and Julio?’

  I had had to learn to love Raquel in spite of my father’s love and now I would have to go on loving my father alongside my love for Raquel. And nothing would be as difficult and strange as adapting to this love I did not want but could not stop myself from feeling, no matter how much I despised this man, no matter how ashamed I was of him, no matter how much his life, his greed, humiliated me. He did not deserve the love of a son like me, but he was my father and that explained everything, ruined everything. He was my father. I realised it at that moment, just as I was about to squeeze the trigger, light the fuse, push the detonator that would explode Julio Carrion González once and for all. The most charming man in the world, the inveterate seducer, the snake-charmer, the wizard, the brilliant autodidact, the undefeated champion was about to vanish from his family’s life, at least for a few hours, and even the wilful blindness of his children would not bring him back safe and sound, unsullied, the man on the piece of gilded card his wife had pasted alongside our smiling faces.

  ‘Julio is still in his old office. Well, you know yourself, he’s not bothered about things like that ... would you like me to show you through?’

  ‘No, that’s all right, thanks.’

  Julio had warned me not to call Rafa, and I knew why. That was why I’d called him. If I hadn’t arranged to meet Rafa and Angelica nothing would have happened. Julio would never have mentioned we’d had the conversation, and after a while he’d probably forget since it was the sort of thing that didn’t really interest him. In that respect, he was a lot like Clara, but not like me, not like Rafa. But I knew what I intended to do and why. Rafa and Angelica would later question my reasons. They would think I was trying to get back at Papá through them, that I had suddenly gone mad, that I was lashing out, that I had been motivated by hatred or some fanatical ideology, or driven to it by this sexual obsession that was going to ruin my life. They would think all these things, but I was completely calm, I knew what I was doing and I knew why I was doing it. I wanted to talk, I wanted to listen. Just that, nothing more. I wanted to tell aloud this story that no one had ever told me and hear them say aloud what I had never heard. I wanted them to know what I thought, how I felt, and wanted to know what they thought, how they felt, when they had discovered these things about the man who had been their father. It didn’t seem like much, but it was a lot, because a lot of time had passed and the silence intended to cover up the truth had, over time, displaced it. I was about to break that silence.

  ‘Hi, I have a meeting with my brother Rafa ...’

  ‘Of course. Go on in, he’s expecting you.’

  ‘What about Angelica? Is she here?’

  Rafa’s secretary nodded, and as I pushed open the door I remembered my birthday, it must have been my seventh or eight birthday. I had asked my parents for a table football game, but none of the toyshops had one in stock so when I got home from school that afternoon I got a consolation prize, a magic set, a predictable present all of my siblings had received at least once. I was so disappointed that I started whining even before I’d finished taking off the paper and my mother became angry with me. My father said nothing, but the next morning he showed up with a huge box. ‘One magician in the family is more than enough,’ I heard him say as he opened it. Then, years later, he gave me the table football game again, though I hadn’t even realised he’d kept it. It was just after Miguelito was born, he showed up at the hospital with it. ‘I thought ... seeing as it’s a boy,’ he muttered as we kissed him.

  ‘Hi.’

  Rafa, sitting in Papá’s chair, made no attempt to get up, nor did Angelica, who was sitting in one of the two chairs reserved for guests, but I insisted on greeting them, Rafa first, then Angelica, and they both kissed me, but with a stiffness, a coldness, that made me think they already knew why I had asked to meet them.

  Rafa immediately confirmed the fact, toying with a slim, elegant mechanical pencil identical to the one Papá used.

  ‘Listen, Alvaro ... I know you’ve had a lot of serious stuff going on in your life, so it’s hardly surprising you’re worked up ... But when you said you’d already spoken to Julio that surprised me, so I had a chat with him ... The first thing he told me was that he’d warned you not to call me, and, to be honest, you should have listened to him ...’

  He paused and looked at Angelica, but she said nothing. He went on in the same slow, considerate tone, though it already held more than a trace of disdain.

  ‘There’s nothing you can tell us that we don’t already know. What happened is ancient history, and after all this time it has no importance whatsoever. We shouldn’t judge, because we can’t. Not you, or me, or anyone who didn’t live through those times, anyone who didn’t have to make decisions in circumstances that were so appalling we can’t even begin to imagine them. So before you start, let me tell you two things. The first is: nothing you can say will change the way I feel about Papá. And the second ...’ he gave me a sardonic smile ‘ ... Julio told me the whole thing about finding the phone number on some note in a folder, but I don’t believe a word of it, Alvaro. Let me tell you right now, there’s something not right about this girl. I’m sure she was the one who came looking for you and I’m even more sure that all she’s out for is your money.’

  He spoke with such assurance, such gravitas, that I laughed.

  ‘Would you like to tell me what you’re laughing at?’ Rafa asked, irritated by my reaction.

  I didn’t want to rush him so I asked him a question. ‘Tell me, since you know everything, did you know that Papá’s mother Teresa died of pneumonia on 14 June 1941 while imprisoned in the detention centre in Ocaña?’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Angelica finally spoke.

  ‘Grandma Teresa died during the war,’ Rafa said, ‘the summer of’ 37, I think, and she didn’t die of pneumonia, she died of tuberculosis. You know that perfectly well, Alvaro, we all do.’

  ‘No, Rafa. All we know is what Papá told us, what he wanted us to believe, but it’s not the truth. In June 1937, Grandma Teresa walked out on her husband, but she was very much alive. She wrote a goodbye letter to her son, because he refused to go with her. I have the letter. It was in his office at La Moraleja, in the blue folder you seem to think I’ve made up. I applied for a copy of her death certificate, I can show it to you whenever you like. Grandma Teresa died in Ocaña, a prisoner. She was tried in 1939 and sentenced to death for aiding and abetting the revolution, but the sentence was later comm
uted to thirty years.’

  My brother did not flinch but his face was white. Angelica had no political nous and simply got angry.

  ‘I don’t understand ... What do you mean, prison?’ she asked, shifting nervously in her chair. ‘What did she do?’

  ‘Do? She didn’t do anything. They put her in prison for what she was. A socialist. And a republican, obviously.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about, Alvaro?’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘That’s impossible ... Grandma, a socialist?’

  ‘Yes, socialist.’ I smiled to see that the working-class left-wing values my sister had acquired through marriage were so weak you did not even have to scratch the surface to watch them disappear. ‘She was a militant activist in the Socialist Workers’ Party, the Torrelodones chapel. Like your husband’s grandfather, the one they shot and dumped in a well in the Canaries, because he was a socialist too, wasn’t he?’

  She refused to admit this, but I didn’t care, because I knew. I turned to my brother and noted that his colour had returned, and his cheeks were flushed.

  ‘What right do you have to go snooping around, taking things out of Papá’s study?’ He leaned over the desk, fists clenched.

  But he didn’t scare me, and he knew it.

  ‘The same right as you have, Rafa. When I got there, there were a lot of gaps on the walls. Lisette told me you’d taken some of the pictures, and Julio had taking the photo of Mamá and Papá in the silver frame. I thought it was a free-for-all.’

  ‘That’s not the same.’

  ‘You’re right, it’s not the same. You didn’t have the simple curiosity to look for anything, and I did. That’s why I was the one who found the folder, though as you can see, I never planned on keeping the contents to myself. I’ll tell you everything that was in it, I’ll even make photocopies of the documents if you like. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in there.’

  ‘Don’t go to any trouble on my account.’ Rafa sat back in his chair, trying once more to seek refuge in arrogance. ‘So, Grandma Teresa was a socialist? Big deal. It happens in the best of families, everyone knows that. So they put her in prison after the war? Hardly surprising — I mean, that was why they won the war. If it had been the other way round the Reds would have done the same. What else?’

  ‘Oh, there’s lots more, but I’d rather take things slowly. You have to admit that I’ve already told you at least one thing you didn’t know. Two, actually. First: who our grandmother was. Second: who Papá was. A man capable of denying his own mother, burying her alive, lying about her to his own children ...’

  ‘No!’ Angelica interrupted me with sudden vehemence. ‘That’s not true, Alvaro, it can’t be true. Papá must have had his reasons. Why are you siding with her against him? We knew Papá, we didn’t know her. We don’t know the first thing about her, we have no idea what sort of person she was ...’ She turned away from me, seeking consolation in Rafa. ‘Back then, everyone did horrible things, even women ... Maybe she was ... I don’t know. If they sentenced her to death, she must have murdered someone, or turned someone in.’

  I looked at my sister, at my brother, and I took a deep breath.

  ‘Grandma Teresa was a teacher. She taught infants in Torrelodones. She was very militant, and was a senior figure in the local branch of the Communist Party. She was also a liberated woman, and very brave. She spoke at meetings, chaired committees, helped refugees ... Franco and his cronies sentenced lots of people like her to death, leaders of left-wing parties who had done nothing, and they always used the same excuse: incitement to rebellion, although obviously they were the ones who had rebelled. They presided over a systematic, ordered reign of terror which had nothing to do with actual crimes committed in the republican areas. I’m sorry, Angelica,’ I smiled at my sister, ‘but your grandmother never murdered, never tortured, never informed on anybody. Everyone in the village loved her.’

  Rafa was not prepared to put up with my smile.

  ‘You don’t know the first thing. This is all just fantasy ...’

  ‘No,’ I cut him off, ‘I’m telling the truth. There are still people in Torrelodones who remember her — Encarnita, who runs the chemist shop, for example. You remember her, she came to Papá’s funeral. I went to see her and she told me about Grandma Teresa — “she was a dyed-in-the-wool Red, but she was a good woman”, that’s what she said. She knew her quite well, she went to the school Teresa taught in and she was great friends with Teresita. They were the same age.’

  ‘Teresita?’ My brother’s composure deserted him again.

  ‘Oh, shit! Of course, that’s something else you don’t know ... I paused to savour the moment. ’You see, Papá wasn’t an only child. He had a younger sister, Teresa Carrion González, born in 1925. I’ve got a copy of her birth certificate, if you’re interested, I got it from the register office in Torrelodones. And I have a photo of the two of them together, her and Grandma and the other kids from the school in Torrelodones. Encarnita has kept it all these years, her daughter made three copies for me, Teresita would have been ... I don’t know, about twelve at the time. There’s no mention of her in Papá’s papers, no photographs, no letters, nothing. I don’t know whether she died during the war or afterwards, she might even still be alive. But Papá certainly never tried to track her down, nor did his father. He doesn’t even mention her name in the letters he wrote home from Russia ...’

  ‘But...’ Angelica was now completely lost. ‘That can’t be right, because that little girl ... well, she must have lived with him, mustn’t she? I mean, she was ...’

  ‘... part of his family?’ My sister looked at me and nodded. ‘Of course. They lived under the same roof until Grandma Teresa left her husband in June 1937. Teresita went with her, but Papá didn’t. Encarnita said she never really understood why, because Papá was very fond of Manuel, that was the name of Grandma Teresa’s lover, the man she went off with. He was a teacher too, a socialist and an amateur magician. He was the one who taught Papá to do magic tricks.’

  ‘So ...’ Rafa smiled, ‘as well as being a teacher, a socialist and a republican, Grandma Teresa was a slut?’

  ‘No more than your sister,’ I smiled too, ‘who’s sitting right here.’

  ‘Can you stop talking about that, Alvaro?’ My sister did not see the funny side. ‘Anyway, it’s not the same.’

  Rafa came to her rescue. ‘Things were different back then. There must have been a terrible scandal. I mean, imagine it, a married woman committing adultery, abandoning her son ... It must have been humiliating! I’m not surprised Papá didn’t want to have anything more to do with her.’

  ‘I am. Because she didn’t abandon him, he was the one who chose not to go with her ...’

  I forced myself to stop, because my brother’s little smiles were beginning to infuriate me and I didn’t want to get angry until I was ready. ‘Back then, what Grandma Teresa did was no more or less serious than it is nowadays. Even then, divorce existed in Spain, Rafa, and so did civil marriage. Divorced women were entitled to live on their own or even remarry without losing custody of their children ...’ I turned to my sister. ‘That’s why I compared it to your situation, Angelica. I wasn’t trying to criticise you, honestly, I mean, how could I given the position I’m in right now ...’ I paused again, turned back to Rafa and stared at him. ‘It’s not like things changed with the republic. And I’m sure Grandpa Benigno was thrilled that Franco won, because he was a complete fascist and a sanctimonious prig. You only have to read the letters he wrote when Papá was in Russia. He couldn’t get enough of the executions or religious processions, and maybe, as far as he was concerned, his wife was nothing but a slut and a communist, maybe he thought he was well rid of her ... But it couldn’t have been just that, I mean, he wasn’t like that with his son ...’ Fuck you, Rafa, I thought, before saying, ‘Because Papá enrolled in the Socialist Youth Movement a month and a half after his mother walked out.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Rafa got to hi
s feet and came towards me, his hands quivering with rage like those of a bad actor playing a Spanish nobleman of the Golden Age whose honour has been besmirched. ‘You’re a liar, Alvaro! I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Come on, Rafa, sit down. It’s not a lie, it’s the truth. I know because I found his membership card. I’ll make a colour photocopy for you. One side is red with a five-pointed star and JSU in capital letters, and on the other side there’s a photo of Papá when he was fifteen, his full name, date of birth, all the usual stuff ...’

  My brother did not move. He had never been a nice person but now, ridiculous as it seemed, I pitied him.

  ‘What exactly was the JSU?’ Angelica saved the situation, her voice sounding like a frightened puppy.

  ‘It was an amalgamation of the Socialist Party and Communist Party youth groups. They merged shortly before the war.’

  ‘And Papá was a member?’ She sounded as though she was no longer sure of anything.

  ‘Yes. He was also a member of the Falange Española de las JONS. There was another identity card, issued in 1941. Late June, to be precise, he obviously liked joining things in the summer ...’ I smiled, but my brother and sister were stony faced. ‘Papá became a Falangist when he joined the Blue Division. They obviously knew nothing about his past, I suppose the JSU must have burned their archives to protect their members before the fascists marched into Madrid. There’s something else you didn’t know.’