Free The Frozen Heart by Almudena Grandes Page A

was married to one of her cousins, invited me to another party.
    ‘I’ve got a bad feeling,’ he said to me as I arrived. ‘But careful, this whole thing smells like a hunt to me, and I think they’ve got you down as the fox . . .’
    I burst out laughing.
    ‘What is it? Are you OK with this?’ he said.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘You tell me, you’re the expert on this family.’
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen worse,’ and he raised his right hand, making the sign of the cross, giving me his blessing. ‘But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
    ‘What happened to your fiancé?’ I asked Mai when I saw her, though I had already worked it out from her appearance; she looked more sophisticated, more stylish than the last time. ‘Nothing, ’ she said. ‘That’s just the problem, nothing happened.’ She was stunning, wearing a short, brown, low-cut dress, with bronze highlights in her hair and the wild brilliance that blazes in a woman’s eyes when she is on the hunt. ‘I’m glad,’ I told her, ‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot.’ This would not have been totally true ten minutes earlier before Professor Cisneros had taken me into his office to offer me the benefit of his wisdom, but it had been true ever since, as she tilted her head slightly to give me a sidelong smile, brazen, alluring, perfect. And I had no doubts. Not that night, nor the next morning, nor in the months that followed, when she let slip that she was thinking of moving in with me because she never slept at her place any more.
    The one moment of hesitation occurred some time later, when I had finally used up every excuse imaginable for not taking her to meet my curious family. It was July and sweltering hot. As we drove through the gates, somewhat imposing in themselves, of my father’s property in one of the most expensive parts of La Moraleja, she seemed so overwhelmed that, for a moment, I thought our relationship might not make it through the paella. ‘Jesus Christ,’ she said as I parked in the one space left by my brothers. Everyone was sitting on the porch, gathered around my father like magistrates at a tribunal. As we started up the steps, my father got to his feet, and bestowed on us a particularly captivating version of his famous radiant smile. At that moment, I thought my girlfriend, who was highly intelligent, might find this impeccable display of affection suspicious. But I was wrong.
    In time, Mai became my father’s favourite daughter-in-law, the only one worthy of receiving his constant, ambiguous attention to the end, an utterly paternal affection mingled with a sort of wistful flirtatiousness, the easy charm Julio Carrión always used to win over his sons’ wives, so different from the manly complicity, the unspoken macho bond he used with his sons-in-law. I was amused by the banter between my father and my wife, and even more amused to see that my mother was jealous, even my brothers were jealous, furious at the unexpected advantage this common girl - whom they had never thought of as a good match - gave me over them. In my family, we all competed for my father’s attention, it had always been this way, and Mai had no problem with that. Rafa’s wife was slightly ugly, fairly spiteful, and very, very slow - too slow to keep up with her father-in-law’s constant punning and wordplay. Papá would sometimes lose his patience and in a jokey tone, which did nothing to mask his irritation, say, ‘Come on, Isabel, you’re not stupid.’ He preferred Julio’s first wife, Asun, who was cute, clever and gentle, but she was gone. In 1999, a few weeks before their tenth wedding anniversary, my brother dumped her for another woman, who, as far as my father was concerned, would always be the other woman.
    ‘What? Have you actually met her?’ he said to me once, when I dared to defend her as we watched Julio’s car move down the driveway.
    ‘Yes, Papá,’ I said, and started to giggle, which did