The Frozen Heart by Almudena Grandes Page B

family.
    ‘Well . . . she was different. I love your grandmother, she is short, but she is a pretty little thing, like a perfect miniature. My sister was more of a woman, taller, more . . .’ He paused for a moment, trying to find the words to explain himself. ‘Maybe it’s just that the rest of the family were nothing much to look at, that’s why Paloma stood out. My brother Mateo . . . well, his ears didn’t stick out and he had extraordinary blue eyes, but the poor man had a face that would stop a clock. I suppose he looked all right, but María and I were quite ugly.’
    ‘You’re not ugly, Grandpa.’
    ‘Really?’ He looked at his granddaughter in mock amazement, making her giggle. ‘With my big jug ears and my stubby little nose and my neck like a stork’s?’
    ‘You’re not that bad . . .’ Raquel protested. ‘You’re tall and you have a good body . . . I wouldn’t mind being your girlfriend.’
    ‘Thank you,’ he kissed her on the forehead, ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
    ‘What about Paloma’s husband ?’
    ‘He wasn’t what you would call handsome either, but he was attractive, dark skinned, very intelligent . . . He had character. He was madly in love with his wife and it showed. My mother used to say they looked like a couple of film stars.’
    ‘No, I meant what happened to him.’
    ‘He was executed by firing squad after the war. Paloma was a widow at the age of twenty-four.’
    ‘No, I didn’t mean that either.’ Raquel grew impatient. ‘I know they shot him - they shot your brother Mateo too, didn’t they? You’ve told me that before. I want to know what happened that night, the night you were talking about . . .’
    ‘Oh!’ He paused and looked at her. ‘You really want me to tell you?’ She nodded so vehemently that her grandfather suddenly remembered he was talking to a seven-year-old girl. ‘You wouldn’t understand . . .’
    ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    He smiled. ‘Well, it’s up to you . . . That night, we were all at home, and even that was quite rare because Carlos and Mateo had already been fighting for three months. My brother-in-law had a two-day furlough - you can think of it as a holiday. My brother had been fighting in the mountains all summer, but his regiment had had orders to come back and fight for Madrid right here in Madrid, because the fascists were already at the gates - just at the other end of Calle Princesa . . . He’d been given permission to see his family, but he had to go back to the barracks at night. So, what happened was that Carlos, who was a socialist too . . .’ He stopped, cupped his chin and stared into space as though seeking inspiration. ‘How can I explain it? Carlos was one of my best friends, he was more than that, he was my hero. He was also my civil law professor during my first year at university. It wasn’t really his subject, but he’d just started teaching so he was prepared to take anything, because he was very young - I mean, he was seven years older than I was, but for a professor he was very young, very clever and a bit of a drinker. I started to hang around with him, and we would go out drinking together, then I introduced him to my sister and they started courting, they got married almost immediately and we had been friends ever since. That night . . . I was moved when I saw him, when I heard him speak, because he was normally a quiet man. He had a great sense of humour, and was writing a book that he would never publish, but that night he flew into a temper - I’ve fought in two wars since then and I’ve never seen anyone as enraged as Carlos was that night, not even your Grandpa Aurelio, who was famous for his rages all over the south of France - especially the night we captured the German tank . . .’
    Raquel burst out laughing. This was something she could easily imagine, she had often heard the story of how her Grandpa Aurelio had furiously grabbed the French soldier who tried to destroy the tank, how he