The Frozen Heart

by Almudena Grandes

  At five past eight she came back into the bedroom in her business clothes — trouser suit, high heels, brown leather briefcase — but this time I didn’t pull her down on to the bed, creasing her clothes. Not that she had been expecting me to. She appeared with a piece of toast in her hand, popped it into her mouth and then sat down on the bed.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Today? I’m not sure ... I should go home, take a shower, get some clothes, though I don’t feel like it. Afterwards, I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘Well,’ she kissed me, ‘when I get out of work, I’ll be here ...’

  I simply nodded. She left and I found myself alone, surrounded by the stillness of things, the silence of the empty house.

  I realised the second part of my life had not begun in that strange, uninhabited room with Raquel’s confession. The second part of my life would begin when I got out of this bed where I had so often slept to face the routine which Raquel was lucky enough to have recovered already.

  We had slept next to each other, and made love silently, feverishly, at about four or five o’clock when our mutual insomnia coincided, but this was of no help when the alarm clock went off. I looked at it again and realised it was already 9.40 a.m. I couldn’t spend the whole day in bed, so I told myself the best thing to do would be to begin at the beginning.

  I should have phoned Mai. This was the first thing I should have done that day, but it was the last thing I did. I didn’t regret it. ‘You’re the only good guy in this sorry mess, Alvaro,’ Raquel had said to me. This was not exactly true. To my wife, to my son, I was the bad guy. This was why I should have phoned Mai, but I had a shower instead, rummaged in the wardrobe and the drawers until I found a blue T-shirt of Raquel’s that fitted me. Then I sat down to breakfast at the kitchen table and surrendered to the fantasy time-travel, reliving the tender scene a few short hours after I had left her that first afternoon, when nothing was at stake, almost nothing, only my freedom and her perfect skin, velvety as a rare peach.

  I should have phoned Mai, but I didn’t feel like it. I needed to phone Fernando but I couldn’t. If I can’t bring myself to believe it, how can I tell anyone else? The bitter echo of my own words floated over the flowers Raquel hadn’t bought; it wasn’t Saturday morning, even if the sun was streaming through the windows with an infuriating, almost cruel joy. I finished what, under normal circumstances, would be my one cup of coffee and poured a second one. There would be a third cup later.

  I was an ordinary, reasonable guy whose only quirk was a morbid aversion to funerals. My life was a little patch of garden, where there was nothing to trouble my eyes or my conscience. It’s a long story. A very long, very old story, and to live here, there are some things it’s better not to know. Things it’s better not to understand. If I wanted I could choose to do nothing. It’s always possible to do nothing, to learn to live with no questions, no answers, no anger, no pity. It’s always possible not to live but to pretend to live, at least it’s possible here in Spain, a country where the laws of gravity, the laws of cause and effect, did not apply, a country where no one had ever seen an apple fall from a tree, because the apples had always been on the ground, it was more practical that way, it was better for everyone, for as long as the hand was quicker than the eye, as long as the simplest illusions worked in favour of those who held the lens, as long as the good name of the little people who did what they had to in order to survive was held in contrast to the outmoded reputation of ‘honourable’ men and women, who were so ineffective in reality, so boring in the sterility of their sacrifice, because if they had done nothing, if they had simply surrendered, if they had not vainly risked their lives again and again, nothing would have happened anyway. They might not have been honourable, perhaps, but we would have understood them just the same.

  Little Spanish boy being born into this world, may God protect you. Because to live here, there are some things it’s better not to know. But I love you, I have faith in you, I know you will grow up to be a good man, an honourable man, brave enough to forgive your mother, who will always love you and who will never completely be able to forgive herself.

  Little Spanish girl coming into this world, may God protect you. You don’t even have the right to know who you are, because to live here, there are some things it’s better not to know. Best to leave everything as it is: the bare branches of the apple tree, the fruit carefully arranged, a clever trick by a set designer who likes to work when there are no witnesses, for those who remain are already dead from fright. Not even the right to know who I am because in those days it was difficult being the child of certain people, it could even be dangerous ... Through love or sheer calculation, so many years come down to this, one, two, three whole generations, almost a century of pain and pride. This is the point where the memories of the victors and of the vanquished meet, different viewpoints, but with only one result for the children, the grandchildren of everyone.

  Little Spanish boy born into this world, don’t count on God to protect you. Protect yourself from the questions, from the answers, from their reasons, or one of the two Spains will freeze your heart.3

  There was a third cup of coffee, then a fourth. I called my brother Julio. When I left the house, I felt like a stranger in my own body, as though I wasn’t sure that this was me, this man standing on a corner, raising his hand to hail a taxi. But this man was me, the same yet different, and I would never be anyone else. This was the one thing I knew for certain.

  Julio told me to meet him in a café near his office on the Paseo de la Habana. I arrived thinking there wasn’t much more that could go wrong, but a few hours later, as I crossed La Castellana, I was so angry that I decided to walk home. The walk did me good, but by the time I was halfway there, my knuckles and the side of my face started to hurt and the pain was so bad I had to stop. I went into a bar, had a drink, but afterwards I couldn’t find a taxi. I was too tired to go on walking, so I took the metro. I was so late back that Raquel didn’t have time to compose herself when she buzzed me through the front door and I found her standing waiting for me, tearful and with an indescribable expression on her face.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ she said, and I remember thinking it sounded as if she were talking to a soldier coming home from war.

  ‘But I did come back,’ I said, I was home from the war.

  She hugged me and I hugged her. I could feel her warmth, her pleasure, the pale echo of an ancient happiness.

  ‘What happened to you, Alvaro?’ Raquel looked at me and frowned. ‘Did you fall or something?’ She brought her fingers to my face and gently touched my eyelid. ‘Your eye is all red and swollen.’

  ‘It’s nothing, I just ... I talked to my brothers,’ I was laughing, though I didn’t know why, ‘I got into a punch-up with Rafa. It’s funny, you know, I haven’t been in a fight for twenty years and I thought he’d come off best, but in the end, he was the one who came off worst, I’m sure he’ll need stitches. I’ve had a lot to drink, but I could do with another. Do you fancy one?’

  She took my hands and looked at my grazed, swollen knuckles. ‘My God ... What did you do, Alvaro, tell me ...’ She was scared and my smile did little to reassure her. ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘A bit, it’s nothing serious. I’m just going to get myself a drink because I have to phone Mai. I’ll be right back.’

  I went into the kitchen with my mobile phone and slowly, deliberately, clumsily, I put a tray on the counter with a glass, some ice and a bottle of whisky. This isn’t going to help, I thought; it wasn’t going to help and I hadn’t had any lunch. But the first sip warmed me from inside and settled me.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Mai, it’s Álvaro ...’

  ‘I do still recognise your voice.’

  ‘How’s Miguel?’

  ‘He’s fine, he’s been asking for you.’

  ‘I’d like to see him.’

  ‘OK, we’ll talk about it...’


  ‘Of course, but I was thinking ...’

  Until then, everything was fine. Until then, I had managed to accomplish what I’d set out to do: to accept the harshness in her voice calmly, speak in short sentences, avoid any aggression or intimacy that might be misunderstood. Until then, everything had gone well, but I was a lot drunker than I thought I was, I got bogged down, and Mai took advantage of my hesitation.

  ‘Well, don’t think, Alvaro. You didn’t think when you walked out on us, so don’t start now. You’ll get to see Miguelito when the judge decides you can.’

  ‘I don’t think it needs to come to that, Mai ...’ I heard my voice, it was slurred and thick, so I made an effort to speak more clearly. ‘We should be able to deal with this like ...’

  ‘... like civilised people? Fuck you, Álvaro!’

  I thought she had hung up, but I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line, agitated at first, like an echo of her anger, her bitterness, and I nearly said I was sorry, and it would have been true. I was sorry I had hurt her, she was one more body I had to carry on my shoulders. I almost said I was sorry, but she exploded just in time, sparing me the insults my compassion would have deserved.

  ‘I don’t want to be civilised, do you hear me? You’ve destroyed me. You’re a bastard and a liar and I don’t deserve this, Alvaro, I don’t deserve this. I loved you, Alvaro. Now all I want is for you to die, I want you to rot in hell with that fucking b ...’ I heard her sobs begin, then end, silence. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve spent my whole life criticising women who ... I’m sorry, honestly. I’m in a bad way.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ I preferred the slight moral superiority conferred on me by her insults, but I made no attempt to take advantage of this ceasefire, I couldn’t do it, I was too drunk, and in too much pain. ‘I need to come over, Mai. I need to get some things.’

  ‘OK. But I’d rather not see you, so ... Tomorrow morning first thing, when Miguelito wakes up, we’re going to the mountains for the weekend. You can come by any time after eleven. The sooner you take away all your things the better.’

  ‘I’ll call you on Monday, to see how Miguelito is ...’

  ‘OK.’

  The conversation hadn’t lasted more than two or three minutes, but by the time I finished I was exhausted. I finished my drink, not thinking of the consequences, then went to the bathroom to splash water on my face. When I emerged I bumped into the wall, but that didn’t hurt nearly as much as the look I got from Raquel, who was sitting on an armchair, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees.

  The love of my life was looking at me like a convict hoping for parole. It pained me, Her anguish pained me, and I was struck by the discrepancy between this scene and the scene as Mai must have imagined it: violins and plump blonde cherubs with fake wings, flowers falling from the ceiling and a faint, coloured spotlight picking out a couple dancing and whirling and smiling and kissing. This was probably what Mai was imagining, and it was the dream I should have been living, the most saccharine, pathetic love story, the best moment of my life. I still remembered when I was happy, when the sun split the stones from pure pleasure when Raquel laughed, the smiles that were an intimation of some small private joy, the way she told me she was happy to be with me, of celebrating my presence in her life. She was still the same woman, but her presence was not enough any more for me to be that man.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ Raquel indicated her own eye and I made a vague face, as though I didn’t care. ‘Do you want to take something? I think I’ve got some ibuprofen somewhere.’

  ‘No.’ I almost told her I was grateful for the pain, because it kept me conscious.

  I collapsed on the sofa and tried to work out how long my hangover would last, the depth of the quagmire of silence we were trapped in. Raquel tiptoed around me with every word, every look, every caress. She had known things would turn out like this, she’d known from the very beginning.

  ‘Come over here, beside me ...’ I said.

  There were no violins, no flowers raining down from the ceiling, no chubby blonde cherubs fluttering around our heads. The only light came from three sixty-watt bulbs, but still Raquel came and sat beside me, took me in her arms, pressed her face into my neck, and I kissed her the way I usually kissed my son.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t feel up to it, Raquel, I don’t want to talk about it ... I’d rather wait and tell you everything together when it’s all over.’

  ‘What do you mean, Alvaro?’ There was a tremor in her voice.

  ‘It’s not you ...’ I said. ‘What I mean is ... I’m here, I’m with you, Raquel, I’ve had too much to drink and I just want a bit of peace. I’ve had it up to here with meaningful conversations, do you understand what I’m saying? I’m tired of secrets and guilt and tears. I can’t stand it any more, I can’t keep doing this ...’

  ‘All right,’ she said in a whisper.

  ‘Do you want to go out?’ she suggested after a long silence; all our silences seemed to be long now. ‘We could go to the cinema. It might take your mind off things.’

  ‘I’ve already been.’

  ‘Really?’ She looked at me, surprised. ‘When?’

  ‘Three o’clock, something like that, I’m not sure ... When I left Julio, I wasn’t hungry. It was hot out, I had two hours to kill before meeting Rafa and I didn’t know where to go, so I went to the cinema.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I don’t know ...’ This was true. ‘I don’t remember. I left before the end.’

  ‘You didn’t have any lunch?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, let me make you some dinner.’

  I could almost hear the bells ringing out, celebrating her relief, my relief, that one of us had finally found something to do. Raquel was a good cook, though she always made too much, but tonight I was glad of the excess. I needed to eat, more than that I needed the domestic warmth of this scene, needed to hear her talk about spinach, fish, potatoes.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if it was frozen, does it? The sea bass, I mean ...’ I nodded and went on eating. ‘It’s because of the mayonnaise, the mayonnaise you buy in supermarkets ruins everything, it gives everything this artificial flavour, like it somehow manages to transfer all the artificial flavourings and preservatives to the fish or the vegetables. It only takes a few minutes to make fresh mayonnaise and there’s no comparison. I can kind of understand instant mashed potato, because ...’ She fell silent, looked at me, and bit her lower lip. ‘I’m burbling ...’

  ‘No. Go on ... what were you going to say about instant mashed potato?’

  ‘Are you really interested?’

  ‘No, but I like listening to you.’

  ‘Like rain ...’

  ‘Yes, I love listening to the rain too ...’

  And it went on raining, it rained for a long time, it rained all night about mashed potato and artichokes, about tortillas with potatoes that were too hard and potatoes that were too soft, with or without onion, about the advantages and disadvantages of cook-books ancient and modern, the miraculous status of chocolate, the disaster that was Raquel Fernández Perea’s first dessert, when she was seventeen, and her Sachertorte, which was better than any you could buy in Vienna.

  Raquel’s voice trickled like warm, gentle rain, over truths and uncertainties. It rained all night, this strange night when all our secrets were used up, our guilt, and our tears, and all that remained was silence, the subtle but implacable force of its blade. I was drunk but Raquel went on talking, her voice raining over me, over the aspirin she brought me before collapsing into bed next to me, raining over my eyelids, my body, her body, it rained on into our long, deep sleep. It rained, and then a sunny Saturday dawned, a morning that seemed made for sex and indolence. The sheets were warm, the blinds half open, and Raquel was naked, her skin golden, soft, there were no flaws on the soft skin of her belly, her magnificent breasts, her hips that were capable of driving the pla
net from its orbit.

  ‘I have to go,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To see my mother.’

  ‘Don’t go, Alvaro.’

  She clutched my hand, squeezed it as though determined not to let go.

  ‘Don’t go,’ she said again, still gripping my hand. ‘What good will it do? You already know all there is to know, and it’s true, I swear, everything I told you is true. Leave it, Alvaro, please, I’ve already made enough mistakes for both of us ...’

  I shifted closer to her, kissed her on the lips, then freed my hand from hers, and started to get dressed.

  That morning I went to see my mother for me, but for her too, so I could buy her the sun of other Saturdays, so I could see her come through the door with shopping bags and flowers, so I could buy her crystal vases to put them in. So that she could live with me, I could live with her, and not just pretend to live.

  I walked to the Calle Hortaleza and got there at about 10.40 a.m., but I buzzed first to make sure no one was home. 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 put it back where it belonged and went inside, and saw the large suitcase on the bed.

  A closed suitcase can be as heartbreaking as a dream that has died, stripped of the hope it contains when it lies open on the bed. I opened the suitcase and looked at the impeccable geometry of my neatly folded shirts, incongruous in their perfection, Mai’s hands folding them, always the same way, a hundred times, Mai’s hands folding them last night or maybe even this morning, a single image with diametrically different meanings. I had prepared myself for this, I had steeled myself to face it because happiness is priceless. As is grief. And as I looked through them, carefully lifting each one so as not to disturb their perfect order, I realised that what I needed was not in here.