The Frozen Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

sooner or later. Nobody ever said where they were going back to - they did not need to. Raquel, who was born in 1969 and grew up hearing sentences composed of every tense, mood and interpretation of the verb ‘to go back’, never asked why. That was simply how things were. The French moved, or went away, or stayed. Not the Spanish. The Spanish either went back or did not go back in the same way that they spoke a different language, sang different songs, celebrated different holidays and ate grapes on New Year’s Eve.
    Her maternal grandparents had gone back, and so, after her third birthday, Raquel was sent every summer to stay with them in the bright, cool house, which had a large terrace with a vine, where her grandfather would sit and stare out at the sea. She would climb on to his knees and sit there quietly, kissing her grandfather, who was very ill, though he did not seem ill, and every time he would say the same thing; it’s nice here, isn’t it, it’s nice here. Later, in August, her parents would arrive and they would drive to Fuengirola for a picnic on the beach or to Mijas for a donkey ride, or to Ronda to see the bulls. On the last day of summer everyone would be sad, so much so that Raquel felt they were not ‘going back’, but they were leaving - leaving behind the scent of the bougainvilleas and the rosebays, the orange trees and the olive groves, the smell of the sea and the boats in the harbour, the whitewashed walls, the flowering window-boxes and shade of the vines, leaving behind the golden oil, the silver sheen of sardines, the subtle mysteries of saffron and cinnamon, leaving behind her own language, because to them, to go back did not mean to go home, one could only ‘go back’ to Spain.
    And so, when Raquel’s family arrived in Paris, Papá’s parents - the ones who had not gone back - would invite them to dinner, and Grandmother Anita would ask them lots of questions - tell me everything, where did you go, what did you have to eat, what did people say, what music did you listen to, was it very hot, were there many tourists, did you bring me the things I asked for ? They had brought them - a huge box of sweet pepper and another of spicy, cans of tuna, anchovies, purple garlic, Manchego cheese, a whole ham, chorizo from Salamanca, morcilla from Burgos, haricot beans, chickpeas, salt pork, and two huge bottles of olive oil they always bought in the village of Jaén on the way back. That’s good, Anita would say then, that’s good, and her eyes would fill with tears, and you remembered the aubergines, I’m glad, you can’t get them here, they don’t know how to cook them . . . Of course they know, Anita, Grandfather Ignacio would interrupt her, they just don’t make them the way you like them. I suppose you’re right, she would say, and then, a little fearfully because they both loved him, they would look at Mamá and say, ‘And your father, how is your father?’ Oh, he’s fine, she would answer, it’s incredible but going back has done him a world of good, maybe it’s the weather or . . . well, you know. Grandmother Anita would quickly nod and say, that must be it, because her husband was looking at her again as though he had been pricked with a long, sharp needle. It’s just foolishness, Anita, and don’t say it again, because I don’t want to hear it.
    Afterwards, Grandmother would shut herself up in the kitchen and spend three days cooking, preparing a feast for the second weekend in September. Every year she and her husband held a dinner for their Spanish friends and a few French friends who loved Spanish food - apart from her son-in-law, Hervé, Aunt Olga’s husband, who was charming, a kind man, very forward thinking, but he was from Normandy and claimed that olive oil didn’t agree with him. Grandmother was terribly offended, though she always prepared something special for him, an endive and walnut salad, or meat cooked in butter, an alternative menu that grew with