The Frozen Heart (102 page)

‘In the kitchen, I suppose. You and Clara still ate in the kitchen back then. You certainly weren’t with us. I remember everything because ... Well, that night, Angelica came into our bedroom.’

‘I suppose I was already asleep?’ Fate was a poor ally, I thought again, astonished that I had been systematically missing during this episode which would later prove much more important to me than to either of my brothers.

‘Yes, you were asleep, I was nearly asleep myself, but they woke me. Rafa and Angelica said they had something to tell me, something really important. We went into the playroom and they wouldn’t let me turn on the light. We sat on the floor, we could hardly see a thing. The bedroom door was open, and there was a glow from your nightlight. Then Rafa started talking, telling me this strange story, and at first I didn’t understand ...’

Julio had been toying with the ice in his glass for some time, but now he put it down. I looked at him, astonished that my brother, who was never really interested in anything, could remember the details so precisely, could recreate — without the slightest hesitation or doubt — everything that had happened that night so long ago.

‘“We’re in an extremely serious situation,” Rafa told me, like a complete jerk. “You need to be informed because the whole family is in danger, especially Papá, but he did it for us ...” This is how he talked, and I nearly laughed because he was talking like a character in a B movie. “Papá did what he did for us, because he was very poor and he didn’t want us to be poor ...”’ Julio started to act out the scene, talking in a whisper, waving his hands around as he played the part of Rafa that night. “‘He wanted us to have the best in life, and anyway the other people were the bad guys. They burned churches, and then they ran away because they were all criminals, so whatever they had didn’t really belong to anyone ...”’ Julio reverted to his normal voice. “‘I don’t understand, Rafa,” I said, “what did Papá do? Who were these other people?” Angelica said, “Let me tell him.” She was much calmer than Rafa, less nervous. She got up, opened the door quietly and went out into the hall, and a minute later she came back on tiptoe carrying this big book. “Here, look,” she said. The book was called
Spain in Flames.
Have you seen it?’

‘Never even heard of it. We had it at home?’

‘Of course ... Anyway, it’s all very well complaining that you were too young to know anything about it, but you were lucky because it was a catalogue of atrocities. Corpses and more corpses and children with their throats cut, men being shot, women crying ... And fires, there were lots of fires, burning crosses, statues of the Virgin knocked down ... You get the picture. Rafa wanted to go on telling his story but Angelica wouldn’t let him. She wanted me to look at every photo. “What is all this?” I asked, and she explained it to me better, more clearly than Rafa. “This is what the Reds did during the war. Today, this man came, he’s Mamá’s uncle, and he was a Red. He came to tell Papá that he had come back to live in Spain, and that he knew that it was Papá who ended up with everything ...” “What do you mean, ended up with everything?” I asked. “It’s like Rafa said, the Reds ran away and they left everything behind,” she said calmly. “And Papá took all their stuff?” “Not exactly,” she explained, “it was all auctioned and it went to lots of different people and then Papá ... it was Mamá’s family too.” “Oh,” I said, I felt a lot better about it now, “as long as it was Mamá’s too ...”’

‘I think I need another drink,’ I announced.

‘You’re going to get drunk, Alvaro.’

‘I don’t care ... Anyway, that’s not the worst of it because ...’

‘Yes.’ He reached across the table, put a hand on my arm and squeezed it. ‘I’m sure it’s not. The bottom line is they told me it all belonged to Mamá anyway, but I didn’t believe them. I knew that couldn’t be true, because if it was, why would that man have come? And why was everyone so on edge? I asked them but they didn’t tell me. They couldn’t, of course, and I only found out later.‘

“‘The most important thing is not to talk to anyone about this, especially not the little ones, but you need to tell me if anyone asks you questions, because Papá could be in serious trouble. Now that Franco is dead the Reds think they can do what they like ...”’

The waiter set down the first glass over the limit I would drink that day. Julio, who had ordered a tonic water, waited until he’d left before continuing.

‘I was shitting myself, Alvaro, I’m telling you,’ and then, as though he felt he needed to justify his reaction, ‘I wasn’t even sixteen. When I went back to bed, I still had all those photos going round in my head. Back then ... everything was political. There were posters all over the streets for this side and that side, people were always talking about politics, even the priests used to talk to us about it in school. And our side ... I don’t know, but Mamá and Papá and their friends were really worried, they were scared to death half the time. They didn’t like what was going on, the Communist Party had just been legalised, it was as if it was the end of the world. I couldn’t get back to sleep that night, and you know why?’ I shook my head. ‘On account of that little girl.’

‘What little girl?’

‘Your girlfriend. Raquel, isn’t it? The little girl who’d come round ...’

‘I don’t get it, Julio ...’

‘It’s simple ... Of course, I’d seen the photos, the blood, the dead bodies, but before all that I’d seen her. It’s funny you don’t remember, because I remember it as if it was yesterday. She was wearing a white dress with small dark red flowers, a jacket the same colour as the flowers and her hair was in braids tied with ribbons. She looked just like Clara, she dressed like her, even talked like her ... I only saw her for a second, and she never even spoke to me, but that night, lying in bed, all I could think about was her and Clara playing with the dolls, and ... I don’t know how to explain it, but I couldn’t connect her with all the stuff Rafa and Angelica had told me. I never saw her grandfather, but she ... She was so normal, so little, so innocent, she was just like us ... Do you understand? ’

‘Yes.’ I did understand, but I could find no other words to thank him for siding with that little girl, a girl I still couldn’t remember even now he’d described what she was wearing that day.

‘Well ... I thought that all the stuff we had really belonged to her. She didn’t look like she was poor but ... I couldn’t help thinking that her grandparents had been left with nothing, that her parents had grown up with nothing, in a strange country, while all of us — Mamá and Papá and all the people we knew — had been living like kings in Spain. Seeing that little girl made me sad, made me feel ashamed, even though it wasn’t my fault. I thought it was unfair. So I said to Rafa - he wasn’t asleep either — “Is Papá a thief?” And he was really angry. “Of course Papá’s not a thief. You’re an idiot, a stupid little idiot.” That’s what he said, and I didn’t argue, because you know what he’s like. Nobody was going to change his mind, not me, not anyone.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know, the next day, afterwards ...’

‘Nothing. What could I do? There was nothing anyone could do. The next day was Sunday and Papá drove us all to Torrelodones for lunch. While we were walking around the village, everyone stopped to say hello to Papá, and I looked at him and he was smiling and I thought: they know. They had to know. Mamá knew and the woman in the tobacconist, the guy who owned the restaurant on the square, all those people who said hello to us, everyone knew but nobody had ever said anything. I remember feeling like that for days afterwards. If I met someone in the street, or in the metro or in a shop, I’d wonder if they knew too, if everyone knew that my father was a thief ...’

‘What about Rafa? And Angelica and Mamá? They never talked to you about it?’

‘No, no one ever said. Until you mentioned it just now, no one has ever talked to me about it ...’ He smiled. ‘It’s not as if I forgot, because I never forgot, but ... I learned to live with it, just like everyone else, to act as if it didn’t matter to me. But I failed my try-out for the Madrid junior squad.’

‘That’s right ...’ This unexpected conclusion made me smile. ‘I lost all my bets.’

‘I mean, I was nervous and everything, but, to be honest, I didn’t want them to sign me. I didn’t know exactly what Papá had done, but that didn’t matter, because I knew it was something bad. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint, I’m not even sure that I’m a good person ... But after that, I didn’t look up to him any more, I didn’t care if he was proud of me.’

‘But ...’ I didn’t dare say any more, but he knew what I meant.

‘But I’m here?’ I nodded and he smiled. ‘I got where I am without having to sweat, without having to say anything, and I’m happy. I’m not like you, Alvaro, you know that. Although I’m not the one sleeping with the girl in the flowery dress — actually, you should introduce me, I’d be interested to see what she’s like - but, essentially, I don’t really care. It’s not my life, Alvaro, and it’s not yours. Papá was not a good man, I’ve told you that before, but that has nothing to do with you or me. There’s nothing we can do. Anyway, what difference does it make now ...?’

My brother Julio was the first person to tell me it was useless. Then I thought of Teresa González Puerto, her life, her death, her smiling face pasted into the family tree, the legacy I shared with this smiling, fair-haired man who looked at his watch and asked for the bill.

Julio was her grandson too, even if her letter would have meant little to him. Maybe it’s best if it’s just you and me, Grandma, I thought, maybe it’s better if I spare you the indifference and the resentment of my brothers and sisters. But he was her grandson too. Perhaps the best of those who were left.

He’d already closed his mobile phone and slipped it into his pocket and was patting his jacket to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. ‘There’s something else, Julio. The day I found the blue folder, there was a letter in it from Grandma Teresa, Papá’s mother. It was the letter she wrote the day she left, because she didn’t die in 1937, she died four years later, in 1941, in a prison in Ocaña.’

‘Jesus!’

‘And that’s not all ...’ I was about to go on, but he held up his hand.

He glanced around him again, as though he was afraid. ‘Some other time, Alvaro. Please don’t be angry, but I really can’t stay. I’m having dinner with someone, it’s important ...’ He paused, saw me smile. ‘OK, yes, it’s a woman ... I’m not going to sleep with her or anything like that, honestly, but I like her company, and I don’t want to be rude ... I’ll call you later, because I’m interested, honestly, but I have to go.’

‘Whatever you want.’

‘You’re not angry?’

‘I’m not angry with you.’

‘OK, but before I go, let me give you a bit of advice ... two bits, actually ... The first is the most important. Listen to me, Alvaro, you need to get away from here. Just leave — tonight, tomorrow — and take your girlfriend with you. Go somewhere nice, somewhere beautiful, lock yourself in a hotel room and fuck her. Screw her until you can’t get it up, then screw her some more, fuck her until you don’t feel anything. Forget about who her grandfather was, how she knew Papá, forget that she’s your cousin. And when you feel like your cock is about to fall off, then decide. Stay with her, or go home, go back on bended knee, put you head in Mai’s lap and beg her to forgive you. I’ve tried both, and they both work. Listen to me, Álvaro, I know what I’m talking about. Deal with your own life, think about yourself. Don’t think about Papá. Now I really have to go ...’

He got to his feet, put his arms around me and kissed me on the cheek.

‘What about the second thing?’ I reminded him. ‘You said you had two pieces of advice.’

‘The second thing is don’t talk to Rafa about this.’ He was suddenly deadly serious. ‘Don’t even think about it, Alvaro.’

But I’m not like you Julio, I thought, as I watched him dash out of the bar, I’m not like you, you said it yourself.

T
he letters began to arrive in the last week of April 2004, but Raquel Fernández Perea, who had spent the May bank holiday in Istanbul with Berta, already knew what they said before she opened hers.

She was still fumbling in her pocket for her key when Nati came out to talk to her, as though she had spent all afternoon waiting for Raquel to get back. ‘Have you heard? What a nightmare, I don’t know what we’re going to do ...’

Raquel paid little attention to Nati since theatrical, almost hysterical outbursts were part and parcel of her neighbour’s character; she was an elderly woman, who was in good health despite suffering from some chronic condition.

Nati lived on her own. She had been married and widowed by the age of forty and had had two children, but her son had died in a motorcycle accident. By that time, her daughter was living in Tenerife, where she had found a job as a chambermaid, then she had met a boy, married him and now lived there permanently. She visited her mother whenever she could and had often suggested that Nati come and live with her, but Nati did not want to leave her apartment. ‘As long as I can still cook and clean for myself, I’ve no intention of going anywhere,’ she would say. But her loneliness meant that she lived in exile, in a fantasy world borrowed from so-called reality TV.

Raquel opened her door, set down her suitcase and turned to hug Nati. ‘What’s the matter, Nati? It can’t be that bad.’

‘You don’t think so?’ Her neighbour clapped her hands to her face and closed her eyes. She looked as if she were about to cry, but Raquel knew she was only mimicking something she had seen on television. ‘They’re throwing us out on the street, that’s what they’re doing.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’ll see ...’

When they had moved in eight years before, Raquel had been married for only three years and still got on well with her husband. The apartment was to be the subject of their first real argument. He had not wanted to buy the place at first, because he did not think it was a good deal. In the end, he realised that it was too good an opportunity to miss, but he was never happy living there. She, on the other hand, loved the apartment and immediately added it to the long list of favours she owed Paco Molinero, her best friend at work. He managed a different department, and in dealing with a couple who were about to default on their mortgage had suggested that, before foreclosing, he would try to find a buyer. The building — neither new nor old — was unremarkable and there was no lift. The second-floor apartment, seventy square metres with ceilings that were very low and two small bedrooms that overlooked a gloomy courtyard, was not much better. But the price more than made up for its flaws. Raquel did not plan to live there for long, she intended to sell it in three or four years’ time and use the profit to buy an apartment she really liked, but when the time came, she found she felt at home here. Since the summer of 1999, she had had the place to herself. That was the year she and Josechu had decided they needed time to think, and took separate holidays. Both got what they wanted: Josechu never came back, and Raquel was delighted.