The Frozen Heart (104 page)

‘What do you think?’ she asked him when she had finished

‘Well, it doesn’t sound good.’ He attempted to temper his verdict. ‘At least on the face of it.’

‘I know, but I have a plan.’

If they were incompatible in bed, over a desk, with a problem to be solved, they were all but invincible. Raquel was the more imaginative, the more daring, Paco more shrewd, more realistic. They enjoyed working together precisely because when they pooled these talents, they could come up with innovative solutions. The one they came up with that day —
resistance is victory —
was hardly brilliant, but at least it seemed like a solution.

‘So?’ Nati appeared that evening just as Raquel stepped out of the lift. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it? They going to throw us out on the street.’

‘Of course not!’ But looking at her, Raquel suddenly felt such a surge of pity that she put her arms around her, and hugged her harder than usual. ‘No way! I’ve taken steps ... I’ve spoken to my brother, who’s a lawyer, and to Paco, and I’m about to go up and talk to the surveyor on the top floor, because I thought he was good at the meeting last night, didn’t you?’

Until the chairman had asked him several times to calm down, Raquel had not even known the man’s name. Sergio was short, skinny, almost insignificant and younger than Raquel, but she had the impression that she could count on him. Something he immediately confirmed.

‘We can’t appeal the ruling,’ he said as he opened the door.

‘I know. But we have to do something,’ she said, dispensing with formalities.

‘Of course,’ he emphasised his words with a vigorous nod, ‘by any means necessary.’

It took them two hours and a six-pack of beer to come up with a detailed three-point plan: storm the bastions of power, bureaucratic wrangling, dogged resistance.

Sergio had also found the chairman’s willingness to capitulate, his rush to negotiate an overall price for all the apartments, suspicious. ‘I’m sure someone’s greased his palm.’ Raquel nodded, taking her notebook out of her bag. They decided that he would be their first target. She jotted down some notes:
inform neighbours, mount secret campaign to unseat chair, form administrative council, contest chairmanship, trigger election, stand as a team — Sergio chair, me vice-chair. Other way round. Sergio prefers me as chair, him vice-chair. Once elected: never file documents on time, ignore formal demands, never talk to developers, keep paying community charges etc, get independent valuation on every apartment, add 10%, eventually settle for 20% less, keep our heads down, contact media, go on TV, stand our ground even if they cut off the electricity. They can’t demolish the place with us inside, they can’t do anything while we’re still inside.
When they had finished, Raquel underlined this last sentence, then got up and said goodnight to her disciple.

‘Let’s take twenty-four hours, think about it,’ he said, walking her to the door, ‘we can meet back here tomorrow at the same time.’

‘See you tomorrow, then.’ Raquel smiled and kissed him on both cheeks. ‘And remember: resistance is victory.’

Resistance is victory, she repeated to herself, resistance is victory. Jesus, it has to work some time ...

And for a long time, she was convinced it would work, because their plan got off to a good start. They had the support of all their neighbours with the exception of the former chair and a woman who rented out her apartment and was never there, and the week after they were elected, someone called from Promociones del Noreste, SA, to invite them to lunch.

‘No way!’ Raquel said. ‘If you want to see us, then you can come and meet us at my apartment. But it can’t be this week, or next, because the vice-chair is on holiday at the moment ...’

They made them wait a month and showed up to the meeting with two lawyers, Mateo Fernández Perea, whose righteous anger his sister found terribly amusing, and Sergio’s girlfriend, who had just finished her studies and was scared to death. The developer’s spokesperson was a thirty-year-old lawyer in an Armani suit with John Lennon glasses, hair cropped short to hide the fact that he was prematurely balding. His name was Sebastián López Parra, and he handed each of them a business card before they sat down. He began by reeling off the mutual benefits of collaboration for all parties concerned, his tone polite, almost smarmy, but it became hard edged as he attempted to persuade them that they had no legal recourse. He did not dare explicitly offer them money, but his every word obliquely hinted at the lustre of corruption. When he had finished, he surveyed them and stopped when he came to Raquel, as though he realised that she was the principal stumbling block.

‘Well, if you’ve finished, I’d like to say a word or two ...’ She gave him her most charming smile before putting forward a figure to which he responded with an even broader smile.

‘Señora, please ... I thought this was a serious negotiation!’

‘Oh, I’m deadly serious, believe me.’ She paused and her smile faded. ‘I’m an investments adviser working in asset management, I’ve been in this business for years and I know a lot of people. I’ve consulted a number of them and — as I’m sure you already know — their estimate is a lot closer to our figure than it is to yours. If you’re not prepared to take this offer seriously, we can stop now and start looking for another buyer. I’m sure yours is not the only company interested. The fact that you already own the building on either side is your problem rather than ours. We may be forced to sell our apartments, but we’re not compelled to sell them to Promociones del Noreste.’

Sebastián López Parra smiled again, took off his glasses, cleaned them with his tie, then put them back on and looked at Raquel.

‘You do realise,’ he said serenely, ‘that if you fail to negotiate a deal with us or with some other company before the ruling is passed, your property will be expropriated, at which point you will lose considerably more ...’

‘Of course,’ Raquel was as calm as he was, ‘but, as I’m sure you’re aware, this is not Prohibition Chicago, so I am not aware of any legal recourse you have to prevent us from selling to another buyer. And if we should lose, as you say, then in all probability your company will lose considerably more.’

‘Very well.’ Sebastián López Parra’s glasses were shining, but he cleaned them again with the same care and attention before getting to his feet. ‘We will, of course, have to give the matter some thought.’

‘Of course.’Raquel stood up.

‘I’m still inclined to think that the price you are asking is excessive, and does not reflect the current state of the market, but I would ask that you do not talk to other potential buyers while we consider a new offer. I believe it is in all our interests to reach an agreement.’ He shook hands with Mateo, Sergio and Sergio’s girlfriend, and walked with Raquel to the door.

‘Goodbye,’ he said simply, giving her an ambiguous smile tinged with surprise and something which, in other circumstances, Raquel might have interpreted as complicity.

‘See you soon,’ Madame Chair replied, thinking that at least they had sent someone intelligent.

‘Girl, you were amazing!’ Sergio’s girlfriend rushed over and hugged Raquel.

‘But why did you hike up the price? That’s not what we agreed,’ Sergio said.

‘I know, but suddenly ... I don’t know ... I got the impression that they weren’t going to cut off the water and the electricity. I’ll bet you anything they’ll want to settle long before it comes to that. That’s why I jacked up the price, because if I’m right, we’ve got a decent margin to play with.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

This was what she thought, but she did not think it would be easy. It wasn’t easy, but resistance still seemed to be the surest path to victory. There were other meetings, with lawyers and without, with experts and without, both sides bluffed when they needed to, and sometimes the game seemed to go one way and sometimes the other. Spring ended, summer passed, autumn came and it began to grow cold.

Until this point, Sebastián López Parra, who had begun negotiating with the owners individually the day after he met the new chair of the residents’ committee, had managed to persuade only the pensioners on the first floor, who were terrified and who immediately moved to their house in Guadalajara to avoid any trouble. The others preferred to trust Raquel when she assured them that, if they stood their ground, victory was theirs. It was a simple calculation and she was convinced that they would win out. They had to: 2004 was about to end and the ruling was due to come into force early in the new year. Resist, resist, resist. On 10 January 2005, Sebastián López Parra made his final proposal. It was four per cent below the figure which Sergio and Raquel had decided was their bottom line a year earlier, but they treated it as if it were a victory. Which it was. Resistance is victory, and they had been victorious.

‘Don’t even think about baking a cake today, Nati.’ Three days later, a courier delivered purchase and sale agreements to each apartment, and when Nati called to tell Raquel she had received hers, Raquel decided they should celebrate. ‘I’m going to buy cakes and some of that Majorcan chorizo you really like. And a bottle of Baileys.’

‘
Olé!
’ Nati somehow managed to applaud into the telephone.

‘You go and invite Maruja, I’ll talk to Sergio.’

In fact, it was no big deal. Raquel smiled as she hung up. But at least they weren’t going to be thrown out on the street. What they stood to make for each apartment would not be enough to buy a similar apartment in the new building, but it would be enough for a large deposit, leaving them with a small mortgage. When Raquel looked at it like that, it seemed a pyrrhic victory, but they had negotiated a much better deal than any of their neighbours in Tetuán, all those who had given up without a fight.

The strangest thing was that none of them intended to live in this place they had so staunchly defended. Nati had decided she would just take the money, and if she didn’t like living in Tenerife, it would give her the freedom to come back. She now talked excitedly about the move because it no longer seemed like a surrender but a change of scenery. Sergio was moving to Aluche to live with his fiancée. They had already put her apartment up for sale and planned to use their combined resources to buy somewhere else in Madrid. Raquel was almost certain that her grandmother would sell her the apartment on the Plaza de los Guardias de Corps, which had been standing empty for a year, since Anita had decided she couldn’t bear to live there now that her husband was dead.

Anita had moved to Canillejas to live with her daughter Olga, who had come back from Paris, unable to go on living there after the traffic accident that had left her a widow. Everyone, including Raquel, had tried to persuade Anita to rent out the apartment. ‘Maybe later,’ she would say, ‘maybe later,’ but the truth was she could not bear the thought of a stranger living there. This was why Raquel was convinced that she would sell to her, even though at first her grandmother refused.

Anita was nervous whenever Raquel mentioned the subject. ‘You’re family, how can I do business with you? I can’t sell you the apartment,
hija.
I’d happily give it to you if I could ...’

‘But you’ve only got one apartment and you have two children, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren and it wouldn’t be fair on them. Am I right?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded without much conviction.

‘Then sell it to me, Grandma! I’ll buy it, you can keep the money, and give it to whoever you like.’

‘But you’re family, how can I do business with you?’ Anita would say, and it would start all over again, until the day when Ignacio Fernández Salgado decided he was tired of listening to the same thing.

‘It’s easy, Mamá, you just sign a contract.’ He faced down his mother’s shocked glare. ‘Don’t you see, it’s better for everyone. Nobody wants the apartment except her, and she’s about to be chucked out of her place ... Do you really want Raquel to live somewhere she won’t be happy and have a stranger buy your apartment?’ After her father intervened on her behalf, Raquel knew it was just a matter of time before her grandmother agreed to sell. That afternoon, as she arrived home laden with trays, she was more excited at the prospect that she would soon be moving to the apartment where as a girl she had spent every Saturday with her Grandfather Ignacio than she was at having negotiated an agreement with the developers. For her, this was the happy end to her relationship with Sebastián López Parra, his tie and his John Lennon glasses. She kissed Nati, Sergio, his girlfriend and Maruja, the single mother from the third floor, set the trays down on the kitchen table, poured drinks for everyone, and began to read aloud:

‘Madrid, 17 January 2005, We the undersigned Doña ...’

‘But today is on the thirteenth,’ Nati protested.

‘We’ll go and see the lawyer on Monday,’ Sergio said. ‘Let her finish reading, we can ask questions afterwards.’

‘We the undersigned Dona Natividad Melero Domínguez, vendor, and Don Julio Carrion González, purchaser ...’ Raquel paused. It’s impossible, it can’t be him, it’s too much of a coincidence.

‘What is it?’ Nati asked

‘Nothing, it’s just ...’ Raquel quickly recovered her composure, telling herself that it couldn’t be him, the world was full of people named Julio, named Carrion, there was even a vineyard called Bodegas Marqués de Carrion, it had to be a coincidence. ‘I just thought I recognised the name ... Anyway, Don Julio Carrion González, purchaser, hereby agree ...’ She read the contract to its conclusion and smiled and clapped with the others, but although Nati, Sergio and Maruja signed their contracts, having checked that each copy mentioned the same amount, Raquel did not sign in the space reserved above her printed name. For two hours, she looked after her guests, she laughed, she talked, she listened, she topped up their glasses, but never for one single moment did she stop thinking about the name Julio Carrion González.