Fatima: The Final Secret

“It seems that you were asleep before and you’ve finally woken up and you’ve begun to take an interest in the classes and as the saying goes, ‘Better late than never,’ at least that way you’ll leave a little more prepared.”

I had finished sixth in my class, with the best grades for that year. Even the teachers had congratulated me. That made the final examination easy for me to take, and in truth I was quite pleased with myself. When I’d suggested it, I had succeeded. The pre-university course, the “Preu,” was very easy for me and that also raised my morale. Everyone in my circle was very afraid of failing at such an important point in our student lives, but none of us had any problems.

It was Carmen, and her example, that made me change. Since she had lived away from home, when she came by, she seemed like someone else, more mature, more interesting. She always had something different to tell us, she shared her ideas with my parents, something that was unheard of before. She seemed like a different person altogether.

My father used to say that, if he had known, he would have sent her away from home earlier. It was a joke of course, just tongue in cheek, because being the eldest, she was “His little girl.” Well, Chelito too, being the youngest, she was “His little one.” Everyone could see that the girls were his favorites, although that didn’t stop him from being demanding with them like he was with us. They didn’t get any bad grades, of course they never brought them to him if they did, but whenever they had an exam, he managed to help them out and explain things to them properly until they understood. That said, he also helped the three of us, I can’t complain about that, it was always very important to him for all of us to study, and that “we worked toward a good future for ourselves,” as he used to tell us, even though we were small and we didn’t know what those words meant.

<<<<< >>>>>

Upon entering that place, where there were so many books all over the place, in an order that I’m sure the gentleman knew, but which at first glance just seemed like they were all over the place, with books piled up everywhere, I remembered once when I was little, when I went to my grandparents’ house and they were cleaning. I think it was because there had been a leak and the builders had to fix it, and then paint the room. I was so young that I still hadn’t started school and neither the twins nor the little one had been born.

My mother took me to my grandparents’ house, because she had to “help Grandma with all that clutter,” as she put it. Well, that was what came to mind now, because it was the only time I’d seen so many bits and pieces accumulated, there were boxes everywhere.

What struck me the most though was that my grandfather’s books, which were always so well positioned in their place, were now in heaps on the floor, yes, on the floor. How could that be? And there were so many of them…, so many, why would he want so many? Would he have read them all? Well, I don’t know if I had that thought at the time, or if it had come to me later, when I was a little older.

Every time I entered his office I would ask:

“Grandpa, have you read all these books? All of them? Every one?” There were books almost as far up as the ceiling and I was sure he couldn’t even reach up there.

“Yes, young Manu, and many more,” he replied cheerfully, “and I’m sure you’ll do so too when you’re older, because I’m going to let you read all of them if you want to.”

I was elated just looking at them, such colors, so thick, so many of them, and all placed there on their shelves. What patience he must have had to be able to have everything in order. He never let me touch them when I wanted to take one to see the pictures.

“Little one,” he told me, “that’s not to be touched. When you’re older, if you behave yourself, I’ll let you see them.”

Now, looking distractedly at all these piles in front of me, I thought about how difficult it must have been for my grandfather to place his books on the shelves again, and to leave them all in place following that cleaning of the room. Yet my grandfather continued with his order and his readings, which years later he shared with Carmen, who was interested in the same subject, because she studied law just as he did.

<<<<< >>>>>

The owner of the bookstore had moved slowly, because he could barely walk. He assisted himself with an old cane, and still talking to us, he moved between the tables full of stacks of books to one in particular. With a trembling hand he pulled out two or three books from a stack and told me:

“Here is everything you need young man, but I have to warn you about something.” Using a mysterious voice, he asked me softly, his piercing eyes fixed on mine, “So, if you’re not a believer, what are you?”

“I’m an atheist,” I said very quietly, fearing his reaction, because I didn’t know how else I could answer.

“But, a real atheist? Or one of those who’s just saying so because it’s fashionable?” he asked me.

“A real one, what do you think? That it’s like a sweater that I can put on or take off when it gets stained?” I said a little seriously, because his observation had not gone down too well with me.

“Alright, an atheist. You won’t like hearing this, but I don’t believe you are,” he said seriously.

“I really am, I’m not deceiving you,” I told him softly, although I don’t know why we were talking quietly, only the librarian was there and she could hear us anyway.

“Look young man, an atheist as I understand it, is someone who doesn’t want to know anything about anything,” he said very seriously, “and even less so when it comes to these matters. I’m not fooled, I’m already too old and I’ve seen many things, I can identify those people as soon as they open their mouths.”

“Yes, you’re not wrong sir,” I said, “but we’re not all the same, I’m not searching for anything else, only the answers, scientific ones if possible, to some events that happened in one place, nothing more.”

As the conversation appeared very tense, the librarian, Pilar, as I had heard her being called earlier, subtly asked:

“Do you have anything new that would interest me?”

“I always have something new, you know that, you’re the one who doesn’t want to visit me.”

While they went on talking, I took a look at the books he had suggested to me. There were several, and I said to myself: “Why so many on the same topic? I think one will be enough.” Of course I didn’t realize that the subject was important enough to warrant so much being written about it, and I wasn’t aware that I was delving deeper and deeper into it.

Pilar approached me, because the old man had gone to the door as the postman had arrived and from there we heard him say:

“Hello, did you bring me something today?” he asked in a jolly tone.

“Some document or other, it’s in here somewhere,” the postman answered.

“It’s a good thing that at least someone remembers I exist, because if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t talk to anyone for days on end,” the old man told the postman from the doorway of the bookstore.

“That being said, I see you have lots of company today. I’ll leave you to it, it seems that everyone’s decided to write today and I have a lot of work to be getting on with,” said the postman leaving.

When he was alone, the gentleman slowly approached us again, while Pilar had begun to leaf through one of the books piled up in front of us.

“I don’t know this one,” she said surprised, “when did it arrive?”

“Exactly, I told you I had new material,” the man answered smiling, “because it’s been here, waiting for you to remember… yes, I think a few months back.”

I took a look at the book she had in her hands, it was in English, and it surprised me that she knew it, given how difficult it was. That language was my torment, French had been easy, but one day my father asked me:

“Son, why don’t you study English?” just like that when he came into the house.

“What for? I’m never going to England,” I said with wide eyes.

“Well, you don’t know that, and it’s always good to learn new things,” he replied.

“But Dad, I already have enough to deal with in my study books,” I protested to get out of it, “and I don’t have much spare time, do you really want to complicate my life further?”

“Look, no more talk, I’ve seen an academy where they’re going to start teaching classes in that language and I thought it was interesting. I’ve been thinking about it on the way home and I think it would be good for you,” he responded, answering the question definitively in that way he did when he didn’t want to continue talking about something.

My grandparents were eating at our house that day, and my grandfather intervened immediately, agreeing with my father saying:

“These boys never want to make any effort, with the beauty of studying and a language is always interesting.”

“Grandpa,” said Chelito, “beauty, beauty, sometimes it’s very difficult and boring what you have to read, and then there’s all the work they give you, why is it needed? I don’t get it.”

“Listen child, I’m sure that, even though you don’t understand it right now, when you grow up you’ll understand, and you’ll thank your parents who have made you study.”

“But why don’t you study as a grown-up? That’s when you need it,” she insisted.

“Look, what would you think if your Mom only gave you food when you were older? How would you grow?” Grandpa asked her.

“But it’s not the same Grandpa, otherwise I would get very hungry and I would surely even die,” said Chelito very seriously.

“Well, it’s the same thing with your studies, you have to start them when you’re young and build upon them as you grow up. Look, young Manu,” he said looking at me.

“Grandpa, I’m older now, please call me Manuel,” I said, half angrily.

“But why do you want me to call you that? Then what do you have to call me?” he said in a surprised tone.

Everyone at the table laughed and he went on.

“Okay Manuel, because you’re so old you have to learn new things, so I think what your father says is right. English is interesting, I would have loved to have learned it, because sometimes I couldn’t read a book because I didn’t know it, and I had to settle for not knowing the content.”

Tono, who had been eating quietly, which is rare for him, but since today there was a Russian salad, which was his favorite dish, said to Grandma, as he did whenever she made it:

“Nana, you’re the best cook in the world.”

Since it made Mom look a bit sad whenever he said such things, he would always thoughtfully say:

“Well, you too Mom, don’t get upset, you do other things well, you know that.”

“There can only be one who’s the best, who is it?” they asked him in jest.

“It depends on what food you make Mom,” he said softly, “when you make lentils they don’t turn out very well, admit it.”

It was true that he’d never liked them, and whenever she prepared them, he had to force himself to eat them, because Mom said that he couldn’t leave them; his body needed iron and that’s what lentils were full of.

“I’m not a nail Mom, why do I want iron?” he would protest so he wouldn’t have to eat them.

“Look Tono, you have to eat everything, your body needs it,” she answered and neither his protests nor his grumbles would work. He ended up eating the lentils like the rest of us.

“And what about you Nana, because you don’t study it, you always say that ‘You can never know too much,’ because even if you have so many books, surely one more won’t matter,” Tono, who had stopped chewing, was saying.

When he heard it, Grandpa took stock for a moment, looking at him.

“Be quiet and keep eating, this does not involve you,” my father said.

But it seems that he had made a good point, because my grandfather, although he had already turned 70, started studying English after that, and with all the enthusiasm of a little kid. When I went to his house, or when he came to ours, he was always speaking to me in English, as he said, “For practice.”

The rest of the family found it amusing to hear us speaking something they didn’t understand. Chelito sat on Grandpa’s knees and asked him, “What are you saying? How do you say hello? And bread? And cookies? And cat?”

“Girl, leave your Grandpa in peace, you’re pestering him,” Grandma scolded her.

He ran his hand through my sister’s hair, saying:

“Little one, know that that’s a good thing.”

I know that my grandfather spent long hours studying, because as my grandmother used to tell me, “He was not a young man anymore and it was hard for him to remember those difficult words.”

That suited him though, because he had a vision, to be able to talk to me with the new words he had learned and thus to make me apply myself more, because I had to know them in order to respond to the phrases he was directing toward me when we saw each other, either at his house, when I went to visit them or on Sundays, when they came to eat at ours.

By so doing, I was putting in more and more effort, because I’ve never liked losing, and being told something that I didn’t understand bothered me. So what we started doing was giving ourselves a task with ten new words, which we both wrote down on a scrap of paper, and the next time we saw each other, we had to have made a sentence with each word. That little trick has served me well in life. Those small daily tasks have forced me to strive every day, and to get more out of what I’ve had to do.

CHAPTER 2.

Lots of memories come to mind when I’m nervous, it must be an internal mechanism, something I’ve always had to relieve the tension of the moment. The same thing used to happen to me when I had an exam. During the first few moments, when I would be sitting with the paper in front of me, I would recall, for example, those games with my siblings on the street on sunny days, or that game with the new toy I had just unwrapped on the morning of the feast of the Epiphany. Those memories would relax me so much that I could then take the exam calmly. It was as if my mind would transport me to some other pleasant place and there it would tell me, “You see? There’s no problem, everything is fine.”

I was doing the same thing now, recalling those long ago moments, seated here waiting to enter the room where I had to present the book, the book that had caused me so much hardship to write, until I’d finally finished it. Years of research, going through a thousand and one ups and downs to find those answers I needed. So many incomprehensible situations, which could only be navigated by those who had enough interest in knowing the truth. So many stumbling blocks, and even those moments of danger that I had to get through to deliver myself from certain death. Oh man! I just can’t believe it myself, why someone could want to maintain the status quo, for everything to remain hidden, what incentives do they have? Above all though, who are they?

To my mind, who would get me into that mess? I had a quiet student life, without any problems and with almost no responsibilities. Well, a normal student life, going to class, having a good time on vacation, studying a little, my sports and stuff like that. The outdoor activities were only possible weather permitting, because the rain where I’m from only affords us a few days to enjoy. I think that was what made me decide to change my interests, so that at least I was doing something to distract myself, something different, and then as time went by I also saw that it served a purpose.

Of course, what started as a game, as a young university student, became increasingly serious. Such a long time ago, that first day when we went to that place they assigned us, with our faces painted with surprise over what we were going to start, something unknown at the time, but that we were about to discover. I remember we were commenting on the street:

“We can try it, and if we don’t like it or it’s too boring, we can leave it and we won’t come back tomorrow. We can say we’re not well.”

Our “Expert colleague,” as we called him, because he had been doing it last year, and it was he who was in charge, who took us to the place and who would teach us everything that we had to do, told us:

“You won’t know what to say, you’ll be hooked on this, and when vacation is over and everything is finished, you’ll miss it. That’s what’s happened to all of us, and I’m sure it’ll happen to you too.”

“Well, that may be the case for you, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get annoyed on the first nice day we get and I won’t come to work,” I answered laughing, and added softly, “I’ll go off and play soccer as always.”

“We’ll see,” he said, “give it time and then we’ll talk.”

“Tell us, where are you taking us?” we asked him several times, but he wouldn’t tell us anything other than:

“Have some patience, we’re almost there,” and we continued walking in silence.

We left the streets of Santiago behind, and surprised by our departure, we asked him again, but nothing, he insisted on not clarifying where he was taking us.

Following our guide in single file, we directed our steps along a lonely path. We continued on toward the place that only that colleague knew. Coming out of a bend, we saw some ruins in the distance of what must once have been a house, but now it was already half-crumbled.

“Here it is, we’ve arrived, let’s see how you behave,” Simón told us with a broad smile.

“You’re kidding,” we said in surprise, “what are we going to do with those ruins, rebuild something?”

“Of course, otherwise why else do you think we’d come here? We’ll try to repair this place as best we can, so it doesn’t collapse and they can spend the winter here without getting wet.”

He was saying this to us very seriously and we all stared first at him and then at what was left of that building.

“Wait, what are you saying? If we don’t have a clue what we’re doing, what are you expecting from us?” we’d stopped to tell him, because we were astonished.

“Well, that’s what I’m here for, to show you whatever you need,” he said smiling to reassure us. “You’ll see how nice we leave it. Have a little faith. Come on, let’s continue.”

Just as we were arriving at the place, a very old lady, all dressed in black, came out from the half-crumbled ruins of the house, and seeing our companion, she threw her arms around him.

“Son, what a joy, I thought it was a joke when you told us the other day that you would come with friends of yours to lend a hand,” and she started crying.

“Don’t worry Mam, everything will be fine, you’ll see how beautiful we leave the house, and Sir? How is he today?” and without waiting for a reply, he went inside the house.

“Thank you boys, we can’t pay you, but God will surely do that, He knows how much we need these repairs,” the old woman was telling us, standing there in front of her door.

Wiping the tears from her face with the corner of her apron, she turned around and said:

“Come in, come in.”

She went into the house, and we all followed.

“I can’t offer you anything,” she said, and there was concern in her tone of voice.

“Don’t worry, we’ve had a good breakfast before coming, besides, we’re here to help you,” I said putting my hand on her shoulder trying to reassure her.

I looked at those half-crumbling walls and thought, “How can there be people living in these conditions? Is there not a more decent place where they can be moved to?”

As if reading my thoughts, she answered me with a tone of deep sadness:

“No son, there is nothing we can do, only hold on while the body endures, between these four walls, and thanks be to God that we have them. Others are worse off than we are and don’t even have a roof to shelter under when it rains or when the cold comes.”

I looked up at it and then I stared at the ceiling, or rather, the place where it should be, because now the sky was visible through parts of it, and other parts only consisted of very old planks, which in their better days would have held something that now no longer exists, possibly some kind of roofing tile.

Addressing the youth who was closest, she asked:

“Where are you going to start? How can I help you? Tell me what I have to do.”

“Nana, take it easy and you’ll see how nicely we leave everything,” said Jorge with a smile, “you just get on with your things, as if we weren’t here. We’ll try not to disturb you too much.”

I didn’t know how he could say that, I mean, what could we do there? Where would we get the material we needed? And most surprisingly, having never done it before, how would we students place a single brick without it falling on us?

Well, we only had to wait a short time to see the results, which at that moment seemed so difficult to achieve.

We were there all summer. I think it was the best spent vacation time of my entire life. Working, with calloused hands, hauling earth, bricks, cement and the material that we were accumulating and using piece by piece until we rebuilt that little house with our own hands.

When we saw it finished, none of us could believe it. We had put all our enthusiasm into it, and we were truly proud of what we’d achieved.

It seemed that as the work progressed, it was taking years off the two people who lived there. They helped us with the eagerness of a pair of youngsters. We had to reprimand them so they wouldn’t carry so much. They apologized to us, telling us that they couldn’t stand by idle, watching us rebuild their beloved little house. A house that, back in their day, they had built themselves, so many years ago that they almost couldn’t remember how many, but that the passage of time had been responsible for ruining, one little flaw at a time.

<<<<< >>>>>

It was Sunday, the last day of vacation, and we wanted to gather all our friends together to say goodbye. Classes would begin tomorrow and each of us had to dedicate ourselves to our own path, so it would be difficult for us to see each other again, since each of us studied different things. As it was raining that morning, it was not possible to go out, so resigned, I looked for something to do. In the end, I dedicated the morning to fixing those bookshelves I had and the notes that had accumulated on the drawers and I said to myself: “I’m going to clean up to make room for the new materials for the new academic year that will start soon.”

How quickly time had gone by, it seemed like only yesterday when I came home saying:

“Family, I’m finished.”

“But you’re so thin, what’s happened to you?” my mother asked as she gave me a hug.

“You know buddy, eating during exam time doesn’t take up much time,” my father said smiling, “now it’s up to you to regain your strength.”

And giving me a hug, he asked me:

“What about your grades? Do we have any surprises?”

“In any case, let him get some rest, he’ll tell us everything,” she protested.

“Relax, I passed everything,” I answered my father smiling.

“Passed?” he asked me. “Only passed?”

“No, relax Dad, I didn’t lose the scholarship,” I said to him in a satisfied tone.

He gave a strong sigh of relief and said:

“Son, you know how important it is that they keep giving it to you.”

“Yes, calm down, everything went well. Well, I’d say better than well,” I added smiling.

“I’m so proud of you,” he said softly.

Chelito came out of her room just then and running, she pounced on me and wrapping her arms around my neck, said:

“Brother, I really wanted you to come home. This way we can be two against two, because the twins are always messing with me. Now they’re in for it,” she said, laughing happily.

I kissed her, and smiling, said:

“Yes, now they’ll see, we’ll beat them, together they won’t be able to win.”

“Manu, you haven’t changed a bit,” Mom said, “you’re still a big kid.”