The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  ‘I still don’t know. Or, to be more precise, I’d prefer not to know.’ The waiter set down another glass in front of him, and he knocked back half of it in a single swig before continuing. ‘But I’ll tell you something. Papá was a great man, a self-made man who started out with nothing and got to be where he was without any help. OK I’ll give you that. And he was charming and likeable and interesting and intelligent, I’ll give you that too. But Papá could be a hard-faced bastard too. Listen to what I’m saying, because I’m not like you, Álvaro, I don’t think like you. I’m not just saying Papá was conservative or old fashioned, I’m saying he was a bastard, an out-and-out bastard.’

  ‘Verónica,’ I said aloud, because it was something I had never forgotten either.

  ‘No,’ my brother shook his head, ‘or not just that. That was the first time, and anyway, he could be forgiven for that, he was an old man and the world he grew up in was very different . . . When I told him I was leaving Asun, he was really angry. “Don’t you get on?” he asked me, and I said yes, because it was true, it’s still true, I’ve always got on well with Asun, but it’s nothing like what I had with Verónica, what can I say?’ He smiled and looked at me with a candour I envied, then said something astonishing. ‘But then Vero is the love of my life and Asun isn’t, and that’s nobody’s fault. “It’s not that, Papá,” I told him, “I’ve fallen in love with someone else . . .” “What?” he said, and gave me a little smile that felt like a kick in the balls. “I’m in love with someone else,” I said again, and then he laughed. “In love, in love,” he said, mimicking me, “and what has that to do with anything?” ’

  ‘But . . .’ I interrupted, not really knowing what I was going to say next.

  ‘No buts, Álvaro. Make no mistake, Papá had no problem with me having an affair with Verónica. What he found stupid was that I would leave Asun for her. But, well, that seemed normal to me, that’s why I forgave him . . . The other time came later, and it’s something I’ve never forgiven him for.’

  There was a long pause, and I realised he felt awkward.

  ‘I may be a bad husband, Álvaro, but I’m a good father. I’m a fucking good father. And I’m not saying that because I think I deserve a medal, because it’s easy, that’s the truth . . . I love my kids. I love being with them, I have fun when I’m with them, and if I don’t spend more time with them it’s because their mother doesn’t want me to . . . That’s why I never go anywhere on Saturdays, I never go away for the weekend unless it’s with them. Vero knew that from the start, before we even got together, back when our relationship was just three-star adultery in five-star hotels. Me and the kids, we come as a package, and if we’re going to live together, then I can only take you for dinner in Paris on Tuesdays.’

  ‘And she agreed,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Yes, she agreed,’ he nodded, ‘but she also accepted everything that went with it, and she really loves the twins, that was what worried me most. I couldn’t have lived with her if she didn’t love my kids. Anyway, on Saturdays - especially now that Asun has a boyfriend and she lets me have them for the whole weekend - on Saturdays, at nine o’clock, after they’ve had their bath and they’re in their pyjamas, the five of us sit on the sofa, me in the middle, the boys on my left, the girls on my right, with a couple of pizzas, and we watch a movie on the Disney Channel - you can’t imagine the garbage I’ve sat through . . .’

  ‘Of course I can . . .’

  ‘Well, anyway . . . Lucía always falls asleep in my arms when she’s having her bottle and then Julia, who’s the oldest twin by a couple of minutes, likes to pretend she’s in love with me and leans her head on my shoulder and puts her hand in mine. The next one to nod off is Pablo, who falls asleep on top of Enrique, his older brother, who then slowly edges over to me, and I put my arm around him. By the time the movie is over, I have one twin’s head on each shoulder, Lucía asleep across my left leg, Enrique sprawled almost upside down across the other, and Verónica on the armchair. She always says the same thing, “It sounds strange, Julio, but if anyone else saw you like this, they wouldn’t believe it.” And she’s right, but at that moment, I’m the happiest man alive, I swear . . .’

  ‘I believe it, Julio.’

  I believed him. Because I had often seen him with his children. I’d seen my brother - the most feckless, sex-obsessed man I’d ever met and a hard-nosed businessman almost as ruthless and unscrupulous as Rafa - feeding his kids, helping them with their homework, playing with them patiently, never losing his nerve, his energy, his willingness to take another penalty. ‘Just one more, Papá.’ It was amazing to watch, but it was real and it was moving.

  ‘Well then, you’ll understand the rest . . . When Asun and I separated, I made it clear that I wanted us still to get on. She was devastated, of course, and it was my fault, but there was nothing I could do about that, so when the lawyer said we had to take her pain and suffering into account I said fine, whatever she wants, anything except the kids. I’d fucked her over and now she wanted to fuck me over, that seemed fair, but I said let’s keep the children out of this . . . I didn’t want to go to court, I wanted us to sort things out amicably, go before the judge with a settlement he couldn’t find fault with, and I managed it. It was hard work, believe me, I spent more than a month negotiating because I wanted us to agree on joint custody and split the weekends in half, rather than having Julia and Enrique every other weekend. “That won’t be possible,” the lawyer told me. “Oh. Really?” I said. “How much?” I gave her my best grin. “How much what?” she said. “How much will it cost me to make it possible?” . . . She stared at me as if she was offended. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she said. I said, “I’m a lawyer too, so let’s cut the bullshit . . . ” ’

  ‘I didn’t know any of this, Julio,’ I interrupted him, ‘you never said.’

  ‘No,’ he smiled, ‘I didn’t tell anyone. Why? Because in the end I got what I wanted, even if it bankrupted me . . . Asun, who conducted herself brilliantly at the time, much better than her lawyer ever did, told me that she didn’t want monthly alimony payments, just a reasonable settlement up front. I was thinking of selling a business at the time and this struck me as a great idea, completely sensible. I ended up giving her half of what she had asked for, but that was double what I had originally offered, and even that was generous. She knew I couldn’t give her any more, she knew how much money we had, but I didn’t care. After all, what is money?’

  He was staring at me, as though waiting for an answer.

  ‘What do I know . . .’ I ventured after a moment. ‘Power?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing. When you haven’t got it, money is everything, but when you’ve got it, it’s nothing, you understand? It doesn’t create anything, doesn’t do anything, it’s just frittered away buying nice things and having fun, but it was going to do a lot more for me. After all, I was lucky enough to have a rich father,’ I realised then what he was trying to say, and realised that he was right, ‘a father who gave me a couple of million pesetas every year for no reason at all, a father who’d spent his life lending my older brother money to invest in whatever moronic idea he came up with - Portuguese hydroelectrics, petrol stations in Toledo, shares in cement works - so when Asun and I had agreed, I signed the papers. I signed first, then I went to see Papá.’

  ‘You should at least have done it the other way round,’ I laughed, because I still didn’t realise what we were talking about, ‘if you were going to ask him for money . . .’

  ‘I know that. I’m too impulsive, I don’t think things through, you’re right. But everything seemed so obvious, so clear to me, that I signed the papers and then went to see him. And I told him the whole story. He didn’t open a drawer, he didn’t take out his chequebook, he didn’t look at me and say “How much do you need, hijo?” No, when I had finished, he just sat there with his arms folded. “I don’t understand, Julio,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t understand how you coul
d do something so stupid - ruining your life for the sake of the twins . . . You love children? Fine, have more kids! You’re with a younger woman now.” ’

  Julio had said all this very quickly, barely pausing for breath. When he finally looked at me, looked up from the glass he had been staring into as he told me about his conversation with Papá, he smiled, and I realised that he had already left all this behind. He could not know how I felt when these last words ripped a hole through my body.

  ‘You’re joking,’ I said, and I could feel the hollowness in my voice.

  ‘I swear to you, Álvaro.’ His voice was firm. ‘I couldn’t believe it either. I swear, I didn’t believe it. I’d never felt so bad, so humiliated. I just sat there, nailed to the chair, waiting for something to happen, for the roof to fall in, for him to tell me it was a joke.’

  ‘And what happened?’ I said, because it couldn’t end like this, my father had to make things right, had to do something . . .

  ‘Nothing,’ my brother quickly dashed my hopes, ‘he didn’t say another word. “OK,” I said to him, I didn’t say the rest, that he was happy to give Rafa money for his businesses but when it came to my kids, nothing. “OK, Papá,” I said again, and I got up and left. Fuck him, I thought, fuck him for ever. My wife got everything I had, except for a jeep we’d just had delivered to a garage because we were getting some extras fitted, and a little apartment in Miraflores de la Sierra we’d bought to rent out during the summer. I’ll just sell it, I thought, and I’ll sell the jeep, and in the meantime, I’ll get an overdraft, and while I’m waiting to get the overdraft approved, I’ll ask Rafa to lend me twenty thousand to keep me going . . . And that’s what I did . . . That, and I talked to Mamá, who phoned me at all hours of the day and night to tell me that I was wrong, that I must have misheard, that Papá was exhausted, that he loved my kids, and he would never have said what I thought he’d said . . .’

  ‘It’s probably true, Julio.’ I reluctantly pleaded my father’s case one last time. ‘You must have caught him at a bad moment, maybe he was worried or depressed about something, maybe something had gone wrong with the business, or he thought that it wasn’t fair to do something for you he wouldn’t do for the rest of us . . .’ I realised I was talking shit, but I went on, in spite of my brother’s patient expression. ‘He was an old man, he didn’t like Verónica, maybe that’s why . . . What do I know? I just find it hard to believe that . . .’

  ‘I know.’ Julio’s smile had not faded, nor his conviction. ‘I know what he said, and the way he said it, Álvaro. I was sitting as close to him as I am to you now. And I didn’t give in. I didn’t go to La Moraleja that Saturday. It was tough on the twins, especially after the separation, but I didn’t go. And the following week I called Mamá. “I’m taking the kids to the circus,” I said to her, “do you want me to get you a ticket?” You get the idea . . . It was coming up to Christmas, and she started crying down the phone. The next Saturday she was still crying and she pleaded with me, she begged me . . . But I couldn’t give in, Álvaro. I’m too proud, and he’d gone too far.’

  ‘But . . .’ I thought about my father, about my brother, about my family gathered round him when he was ill, when he was dying, at his funeral. ‘But you made up in the end, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but only because he finally came to see me. The Monday after I took the kids to the circus he came to see me at the office and slapped a fat wad of cash on my desk, twice what I’d asked him for. And then he did something that moved me even more, he said, “Forgive me, hijo, don’t humiliate me,” that’s what he said, “don’t humiliate me any more.” He was clever. He’d chosen his words carefully, because if he’d said it any other way, I might not have forgiven him, but he picked that word, and I knew him, he was as proud as I was, maybe more so, and when I looked at him he seemed so old, so broken . . . I loved him, Álvaro, how could I not love him? He was my father. So I got up and hugged him and it was as if it had never happened. I sold the apartment, I sold the jeep, I moved into a rented flat and within a couple of years I’d paid him back every penny. We never talked about it again, but I haven’t forgotten. That’s why I think all this stuff about Papá is weird. And if you want the truth, I don’t really know what kind of man he was . . .’

  He finished his drink and asked for the bill.

  ‘I don’t know,’ my brother added, ‘and I don’t care.’

  June 24 1941 was hot, an arid, ungodly heat which set a haze shimmering over the pavements. It was noon but already it seemed as though the long sweltering torment of the day would never end, the stifling heat turning the night into an endless tossing and turning. It was noon, Madrid felt like a foretaste of hell, but Julio Carrión González changed his clothes anyway.

  ‘You’re a fool, lad . . .’

  His boss, the proprietor, was sick and tired of earning money, and shook his head with paternal irony when he saw the boy reappear, freshly washed, his hair combed, wearing the same shirt and trousers he had shown up in at the garage that morning. Señor Turégano was wearing what he called his ‘summer overalls’, which were a couple of sizes bigger than those he wore in winter - to leave enough room for the air to circulate, he said - with the name of his garage emblazoned on the pocket and the zip open to his navel. He didn’t care who saw him dressed like this. No one fucks with you because you’re the boss, thought Julio, listening to him, but he said nothing. He did not want to get on the wrong side of this man, and not simply because he was drawing a weekly salary, but because the man’s warped concept of work and idleness suited him, the boss’s obsession with supervising every last detail, never leaving the garage even for a moment, which made it possible for his favourite employee to escape from the filthy pit where he did oil changes and go for a walk around town every now and then. And Julio did care whether people saw him in his oil-stained overalls, which were more black than blue and shiny with grease, even though he did not know anybody in the area, any of these well-dressed men walking arm in arm with elegant ladies who strutted along, stamping their high heels as if trying to crack the pavements of the Calle Alcalá or La Gran Vía. Sometimes, it felt as though the women really did break them, he had felt the ground tremble under their feet, had stood aside to let them pass, and had stood there watching them, placing little bets with himself that this one or that would turn and look back at him. No one ever had, but some day, he thought, one of them would turn and she would not see him standing there in a mechanic’s overalls. This was why - because he trusted to his determination rather than his luck - whenever the boss sent him on an errand, he always changed his clothes before he left.

  ‘The sun’s splitting the stones out there, Julio, you must really like to sweat . . .’

  It was true that the garage, in the basement of one of the old buildings that had survived the bombing, was as cool and dark as a cave, but it stank, it was filthy and it was far removed from the real world, the world of elegant streets and opulent shop windows, of beautiful women and money, as though the ramp that separated them from the Calle de la Montera was a symbolic barrier between what Julio Carrión possessed and what he desired. Nor was he alone in feeling this sordid, illusory exile. While his boss was explaining to him what he had to do that morning, Julio could feel the envious stares of his co-workers burning into the back of his neck, the three who were older than he was, the three who had been working here longer, though not one of them competed for his position as Señor Turégano’s favourite, Señor Turégano who had hired him a year earlier, when no one in Madrid trusted anyone, though he did not know the boy from Adam.

  ‘I’m looking for work, señor,’ he had said, or something like that . . . ‘How old are you, son?’ the older man had asked. Señor Turégano was fat and bald and over fifty, he had three daughters and was secretly annoyed that he did not have a son. ‘I’m eighteen, sir,’ he said, and smiled the way only he knew how to smile, with his eyes and lips, showing his perfect white teeth. ‘Truth is, I’m not really looki
ng for anyone right now . . .’ but then the boss wavered. ‘Where are you from?’ Julio took a deep breath and told some lies and some truths. ‘Torrelodones, but I came to Madrid with my father before the war, it was just one of those things, you know, my mother was ill, tuberculosis, she was admitted to hospital here on 18 July, and after that, what with one thing and another . . . Anyway, they went back to Torrelodones last year and they got back everything, the house, the land. My father is a very religious man, he’s good friends with the parish priest and everyone knows him, but me . . . now I’ve had a taste of life here, sir, I stuck it out through the war and the food shortages and everything, and I’ve got a taste for it. And to be honest, I’ve always hated sheep.’ The man burst out laughing. ‘I’m from Segovia,’ he said, ‘and I don’t much care for sheep either.’

  At that moment, Julio Carrión González knew he was in luck - other people are born rich or handsome or intelligent, he had been born likeable and he knew it and had learned how to make the most of his gift. ‘What I really want is to be a magician,’ he said, ‘I know loads of tricks.’ ‘Show me something,’ Señor Turégano said, and Julio did, he showed him the coin trick and the card trick and the one with the handkerchiefs. ‘You’re pretty good,’ Señor Turégano said finally. ‘I am good,’ Julio replied without a trace of arrogance, ‘but I can’t make a living doing magic, at least not yet, I need a job, any job, to start me off . . .’ ‘I can’t offer you much,’ Señor Turégano responded, capitulating. ‘I don’t mind,’ said Julio, ‘anything will do me,’ but before the garage owner could firm up the deal, Julio told him the joke about the Mexicans and the dog, doing all the voices brilliantly, and he watched as the man laughed until he cried. Since that day Julio Carrión had not only worked in the garage, he had become Señor Turégano’s right-hand man, and the boss gave him all sorts of jobs aside from his real work, some of which were quite enjoyable, including collecting and returning the cars for customers who did not have time to do so themselves, or taking one of his daughters to the cinema.