The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  She was not expecting a response, but Paco offered one which was so categorical it seemed obvious.

  ‘By going forward. Always move forward, you can’t retreat now, Raquel. Don’t think about defending yourself, think about your attack.’

  ‘Really?’ She managed to find her smile again. ‘But how?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Paco admitted, ‘but we’ll think of something. We’ve got three days, four actually, since we still have half of today and half of Monday.’

  Paco tried to pay the bill but Raquel insisted on paying, though she allowed him to drop her home in a taxi. When she was alone, she wondered where to begin. Though it had never been her method of working, she decided to adopt Paco’s technique and sat down at a desk with a stack of paper and a pen. But having quickly filled half a dozen sheets, she realised she did not know where to go next; she also found she could hardly keep her eyes open. She had had too much wine with lunch. As soon as she lay down, she fell asleep, and woke up almost an hour later, her brain befuddled and her throat dry. She splashed cold water on her face, picked up the sheets of paper she had scribbled on and brought them back to the bed.

  She had always done her best thinking lying down, something she was reminded of when she read through the notes, which were nothing more than a list of obvious points she knew by heart. It was obvious that a burial was an intimate ceremony, obvious that she needed to divert Carrión’s son as far as possible from her work; it was blindingly obvious that there was nothing to be gained by admitting the true nature of her interest until the right time, consequently she needed to concoct some personal relationship with the deceased or, better still, with one of his relations. She had already considered inventing some link to Carrión’s grandparents, his parents or his children; she had also considered some work connection, some complicated favour he had done, platonic friendship, intolerable jealousy, but everything she thought of was embarrassing: I was in love with your brother-in-law and I just came to say hello, he doesn’t even know me ... my grandfather knew your father when he was young ... we’re from Madrid but we used to spend the summer in Torrelodones and your father lent my grandfather some money, I just wanted to pay you back ... I was very fond your father, though I only met him once or twice, he used to magic sweets out of my ears ... I ended up at the wrong funeral, I was supposed to be at a funeral in Guadarrama but I got the names mixed up ...

  She could have gone on inventing pathetic excuses all night, but now that she was sober she remembered something else. She could not make up some vague, trivial excuse; Carrión’s son already knew where she worked, he had been to her office, had asked her already, and her only answer had been a nervous silence and a blush that was deeply unprofessional, and he would remember this. She had to think of a different means of attack, had to concentrate on Alvaro, think of something he would never expect. It was only now that she looked at the situation through his eyes that she felt composed again, that she imagined a very different scenario, something bold, something risky, something worthy of her.

  It was the best idea she had had all afternoon, and it was something that played to her strengths. After all, I used to be an actress, she thought as she pictured the scene; Alvaro waiting for her outside the bank, her taking him to a bar, sitting at a little table, looking into his eyes and saying: ‘I really can’t talk about it, and it’s best if you don’t know the details, but all I can say is that your father got himself into some deep trouble. Only two people know the details, I’m one of them, and I was afraid that the other person would show up at the cemetery and cause a scene. That’s the only reason I went to Torrelodones. When they didn’t show, I left without saying anything because I didn’t want to worry you needlessly. You probably shouldn’t mention this to anyone else, but if over the next few months a tax inspector tries to contact you about your father’s dealings with us, call me. If not, then just forget we ever had this conversation. I can’t tell you any more, I have to be discreet for the sake of the other clients involved. Goodbye, Señor Carrion, it’s been a pleasure ...’

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said aloud.

  Just then, the phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I’ve thought of something.’ It was Paco Molinero.

  ‘Me too.’ She felt a relief akin to euphoria. ‘Well, it might need a bit of work ...’

  ‘Come on then, tell me.’

  She rattled off the speech she had just made up and, as she did so, she was keenly aware of all the flaws she had not noticed earlier. But when she had finished, Paco whistled in appreciation.

  ‘Not bad, not bad at all ...’

  ‘You think?’ Raquel was no longer sure.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Paco agreed, ‘the plan I thought of is similar...’

  ‘Really?’ Raquel’s euphoria deflated like a burst balloon. ‘The thing is, as I was saying it just now, I didn’t believe it. I mean, it would get me out of a bind, but it’s a story without an ending ... What I mean is, he might be satisfied, but if he’s not...’

  ‘He’ll go on asking questions.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Look, right now it’s better than nothing, OK?’ Paco was still trying to sound upbeat. ‘Let’s go over it again tomorrow, OK?’

  After she hung up, Raquel lay stretched out on her back, arms folded across her chest like a corpse. This was her thinking position. Playing the mysterious woman was all very well, but this man was careful, circumspect ... Raquel pictured Alvaro Carrion, his eyes, the profile he had inherited from his hard-as-nails father, his own hardness towards her, his tone at first vague, even complacent, then bitter and uncompromising when he came back to her office. This was all she knew about him, and it was not enough to gauge how he would react to the scenario she had imagined. She had assumed that Carrion would simply accept what she told him without asking questions, but that was a big assumption to make. ‘Don’t talk to anyone, I’m saying this for your own good ...’ If her little speech didn’t frighten him and he did ask questions, she would have to come up with some sort of financial malfeasance. She could easily come up with something convincing, but as for providing proof... She had no idea how she was going to bring up the idea of money and she had to accept the fact that there was still Aguado to consider. If she had learned anything in her years at the bank, it was that in any financial scandal there were always too many people involved.

  And at that moment, a spotlight flickered on in her head and suddenly she could see the whole chessboard.

  ‘No ...’ she said aloud, trying to get her head around the idea. ‘No...’

  It had been a natural association of ideas. Financial scandals, almost by definition, involve several people; she had been looking for something more private, more intimate. Nothing was more intimate than sex. Sex would take Aguado out of the equation, and now she remembered something else: the girl who had been there before Aguado, a mousy little thing called Regla, didn’t work for the bank any more because she had been sleeping with a major shareholder from Union Fenosa who was old enough to be her grandfather. She was now married to him.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, prepared to give up on the idea, but now that her brain was running, she couldn’t make it stop. The ideas fell into place, the pieces moving forward in harmony. Sleeping with a client might be crass, but it was not a crime. Everyone did it, especially the women, since they had more opportunity. The relationship between a multimillionaire and the person who manages his finances is an intimate one and can very easily end up in a bed. Nobody was ever fired for sleeping with a client, mostly because by the time anyone found out, it was too late. Secrecy was as much a part of the game as the sex itself. Having to deal with so many zeros every day made financial professionals careful about such details. If nobody knew about a financial adviser sleeping with a living client, they were hardly likely to know whether she had slept with a dead one. Alvaro Carrion would have no way of finding out that she was lying to him; all she had to do was get the
key to the apartment on the Calle Jorge Juan.

  ‘No, I can’t do it.’

  She got up, went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror.

  Well, if my grandmother ever finds out, she thought eventually, the shock alone would kill her...’

  The idea seemed too risky, too complicated, but it would solve her problems once and for all. Álvaro Carrion would not be happy to find out that his father had had a mistress, he might even disapprove, but he could not discount the possibility. At the end of the day human beings were boring and predictable, and sex wasn’t the only thing they had in common. From the Bible to the latest romance novels, human beings were obsessed with conquering old age, with cheating death. Julio Carrion had been eighty-three years old, but he certainly did not look his age. He had been a strapping, virile, attractive man, an older version of the charmer he had been when he was young. Surely Alvaro knew that. He would probably not be thrilled to discover that his father had had a mistress young enough to be his daughter or indeed his granddaughter, but Alvaro was a man — she thought with an investment adviser’s unerring instinct — with an eye for the ladies himself. It was therefore reasonable to assume that while he might be annoyed, he might also feel complicit in his father’s last fling.

  This is madness, Raquel thought, it’s completely absurd. She went into the kitchen, made egg mayonnaise, then went into the living room and found an old black-and-white film on television.

  It was risky, it was complicated, but most of all it was perfect. She had been to Julio Carrión’s burial to see the family, to draw whatever conclusions she could, and she had done well. On that freezing, bright March morning she had noticed one of Carrión’s sons standing off to one side, away from the rest of the mourners, not wearing a formal grey suit or even a tie. When he had come to her office, she had noticed the jeans, the suede jacket, so out of keeping with the usual attire of a millionaire’s son. Even if there were some reactionary Catholic sects who dressed like trendy liberals, and even if Alvaro Carrion were a member, no amount of anger or indignation would allow him to hurt his father’s last lover. Whether he liked it or not, he would simply have to accept it, because along with the key to the Calle Jorge Juan apartment, he would find the documents detailing this overly generous, but perfectly legal, gift. Whatever had induced an old man to make such a gift shortly before his death did not change the fact that he had done so. Dead men don’t talk. It was unlikely that the Carrion family would create a scandal since the apartment represented a drop in the ocean compared to the money they would inherit, and even if they did, Raquel Fernández Perea’s superiors would never be able to challenge her version of events. She was certain that Julio Carrion had been very careful, and that Sebastián, following Carrión’s orders, had made sure there was no link between the Tetuán apartment and the one on the Calle Jorge Juan.

  When she finally went to bed, she thought she would have trouble getting to sleep, but she nodded off quickly. She had decided that the great advantage of this plan was that it resolved her current problems, while leaving the future entirely open. Now, everything depended on Álvaro’s reaction. If he was angry or offended, it might be more difficult to get to his mother, but if his clothes were any indication of his outlook on life, he would probably keep his father’s secret, and Angelica would once again take the position her son had usurped when he walked into Raquel’s office.

  And that was that. Later, when the lie began to snowball, when it began to grow and grow, to shift and change, to infect everything, Raquel was shocked to think that all this deception had been born between her bed and her bathroom. Later, when she felt as if she were a prisoner of this lie, she wondered where her reservations had been, her fears, when she had begun to enjoy this madness, or rather when she had stopped disliking it. Later, she would never be able to understand what had happened, but she would temper her judgement, reminding herself that she had not been motivated purely by ambition and greed. In fact, she had been motivated by fear, an intimately familiar, intensely Spanish emotion. And perhaps time, too, which had gone too quickly, leaving her no time to stop, to reconsider her actions.

  Her plan was not only risky, complicated; over breakfast, she realised it was also going to be hard work. The apartment on the Calle Jorge Juan was the key to her plan, the piece that would guarantee checkmate in the imaginary game of chess she had been playing against the Carrion family since the previous afternoon. The scene she set had to be convincing. She had to dress it up with things, plant landmines, leave a few red herrings and some genuine clues. Everything that would happen later stemmed from the fact that she did not have time to have second thoughts, but simply threw herself into this task — in fact it had been fun.

  ‘How are things?’ Paco was late into work that morning, but the first thing he did was call her.

  ‘Much, much better ... thanks to me everything is perfect.’

  ‘Really?’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘Everything. The Great Financial Swindle is set to go.’

  ‘Well, tell me ...’

  ‘Oh, it’s a long story. Are you doing anything this afternoon? If you like we could have a quick lunch and I’ll explain everything, then I need you to come with me somewhere...’

  ‘Somewhere?’ He sounded even more surprised. ‘I don’t understand, you’re starting to scare me, Raquel.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be scared of. And it won’t be dangerous. I just need you to come with me to a sex shop. I mean, I could go on my own...’

  ‘A sex shop?’

  ‘Look, I know it doesn’t make any sense to you, but you haven’t heard the best bit. You are talking to Julio Carrión’s mistress.’ She waited for a response but Paco was speechless. ‘Aren’t you the one who said attack is the best form of defence?’

  When they met up that afternoon, she stared at Paco for a long time before launching into her story. She knew him well, she knew they made a good team because their talents complemented each other. Raquel was more imaginative, more daring, Paco more shrewd, more realistic. Consequently Raquel was expecting questions, possibly even criticism, his usual reaction to her dangerous flights of fancy. But when she finished, Paco did not simply laugh, he clapped.

  ‘Fucking genius!’ He chuckled. ‘It’s absolutely brilliant...’

  Raquel was so excited by his enthusiasm than when she entered the huge sex shop on the Calle Atocha, she felt a giddy excitement, the same reckless, giggly thrill she had always felt playing pranks as a girl. The shop assistant must have noticed because he came straight over and asked whether he could help.

  ‘Um, well ... I need ...’ She stopped to think. ‘I’m not sure, eight or ten DVDs, pornos obviously, but tame. You know, boy — girl fucking. No transvestites, no animals, no S&M ... Above board, so to speak.’

  ‘Well, they’re all there,’ he said, gesturing, ‘right behind you in these two aisles.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t know much about this stuff so I’ll probably get it wrong. So I thought, I mean, if you don’t mind, you could pick them for me?’

  ‘OK ...’ He looked puzzled. ‘It’s usually down to personal taste, but if you want...’

  She followed him with a plastic basket as though she were shopping for a new cheese at a supermarket. She was on her own, as Paco had gone to have a look around.

  ‘Lesbians, yes or no? Threesomes? Group sex?’

  ‘OK, that’s all classic stuff. Just not too hard, because the guy they’re for is getting on a bit and ... well, I wouldn’t want him to give me a scare.’

  ‘We’ve got some special offers. They’re older films, but the quality is much the same.’

  ‘No, I’d rather spend a bit more. Ordinary stuff, but classy. You know, nothing tacky, young, beautiful people ...’

  Her basket was half full when Paco showed up with another basket.

  ‘Pick one.’ He showed her what was in the basket and she laughed. ‘I think Don Julio would like the metallic ones, but th
e coloured ones are prettier, they’d suit you ...’

  ‘Paco, honestly!’ She looked at the dildos. ‘Do you really think we need one?’

  ‘When your lover is eighty-three?’ He laughed. ‘Let’s just say, I don’t think it’s too much.’

  ‘Let’s take the purple, then, it’s more republican.’

  ‘I was thinking ...’ But the assistant, whose eyes had opened wide when he heard the age of his customer’s lover, did not say what he was thinking just yet.

  ‘What?’ Raquel asked, seeing his expression as he watched her put the dildo in her basket.

  ‘No, it’s nothing.’ The assistant shook his head. ‘I forgot what you said earlier — everything legal and above board, right?’

  ‘Well, actually ...’ she leaned over and whispered in his ear, ‘it was just a figure of speech.’

  ‘I’ve got a friend next door who sells Viagra,’ he said, looking at Raquel. ‘You can normally only get it on prescription. I mean, I have herbal stuff here, but it’s not really up to much. And I just thought maybe ...’

  ‘Yes, I’d be interested.’

  ‘How many do you want?’ he asked, taking out his mobile phone.

  Raquel thought for a minute. ‘Two would be fine for the moment ...’

  At this point, Raquel Fernández Perea realised that everything would be fine, that luck was on her side. Paco went with her to the bar where the dealer was waiting, but he left immediately afterwards.

  ‘I’m meeting a girl and I’m running late,’ he said, looking at the ground as though ashamed he had not mentioned it earlier. ‘I probably won’t be in Madrid this weekend, but if you need me you can get me on the mobile, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Raquel kissed him, ‘I’m very grateful, honestly, I can’t tell you ...’

  Just then the light turned green, and he dashed off to hail a taxi.

  He disappeared just as Raquel was about to give in, invite him for a drink, then dinner, and end up in bed.