Fatima: The Final Secret

“What? Next Sunday?” I asked him. “Today, this can’t wait.”

“Whaaat?” he said in surprise. “What’s the hurry? How am I going to do that?”

“Look, if she comes and sees the situation, and she helps us, well, better for it to be as soon as possible, right?”

“What would I say? What excuse would I use?” Antonio asked, worried about the step he had to take.

“Look,” I said, “didn’t you tell us that you left almost without saying goodbye? That you didn’t want to say anything else? Well, you go and tell her that you’ve thought about it and that it seemed to you that the way you left was wrong, you’re going to ask for her forgiveness. I think that would please her, don’t you think?”

“Well, I’m sure she’d like that,” he said, although it was obvious that he wasn’t very convinced.

“And at the same time you tell her that a friend of yours likes donuts a whole lot. Let’s see if she makes you an extra one and you can bring it to me,” I whispered quietly, but everyone heard, which prompted unanimous laughter:

“You’re a greedy guy,” they told me, “you’ve always got eating on your mind.”

“That’s a good thing,” said the old lady, “eat now while you can. Over the years you lose your appetite, or even worse your teeth and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Come on, leave this for now,” said the husband, “let’s get to work, there’s not much time left and surely you’ll want to get away from us boring old folk.”

“Whaaat?” we all said, “but it’s been the best summer we’ve ever had.”

“You’re such jokers,” said the old lady, “you’re just saying that so we don’t feel bad. Think of all the fun you could have had with your friends, or with some girl.”

“Girls?” we said. “As if! None of them want to pay us any attention, they go out with boys in their final year, or with those who’ve already graduated, they don’t even look at us.”

With that the chat was over, we had to work, we still had something to do.

The following day, we were in for a surprise. Antonio had left early the previous afternoon because between all of us we ended up convincing him to spend some more time with his grandmother, and we encouraged him to arrive smiling and to be nice.

He went to her house, and happened to catch her as she was about to leave. She had arranged to meet a friend for a hot cocoa and to take a walk. When she saw him arrive, she said:

“Young Antonio, son, I wasn’t expecting to see you, is anything wrong?”

He told her what he had prepared, he was going to apologize for the rude way he had left.

“Ah youth, I already know, don’t you worry. Come on, since you’re here, come with me and we’ll chat a little bit. You can clarify everything you told me, I’ve been turning it over in my mind and I just don’t understand. Tell me where you’re going with your friends, it’s not true is it? Is it that you’ve got a girlfriend and you don’t want to tell me?” his grandmother asked him as they walked.

“No Grammy, really, I’m with them all the time, I’d never lie to you,” he answered, “I’ve already told you what we’ve done this summer, it’s all true, I can assure you.”

She was coaxing it out as only grandmothers know how to do, and before he knew it he was telling her everything about our secret. Well it’s not like it’s a bad thing, but as he told us later, he told her everything, or almost everything we’d done, because he didn’t know how to stop.

Distracted by their conversation, they arrived at the coffee shop where she had arranged to meet her friend. They saw from the door that she was already sitting waiting inside, because she had arrived earlier.

Leaving her there, Antonio tried to say goodbye by giving her a kiss, but his grandmother, taking him by the arm, said:

“Now, don’t you want a little cocoa? I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, warm like you’ve always liked it, and you can take it with you if you’re in a hurry, I won’t keep you any longer than necessary.”

“Well, if I’m not bothering you,” Antonio answered, “but then I have to go.”

“Son, how could you bother us?” said the friend who had been listening to him, “Let the young girls get jealous when they see us two old women accompanied by such a handsome young man,” and the three of them laughed.

When they had their cups of steaming hot cocoa, staring at her across the table, as if thinking aloud, Antonio said:

“How lucky some of us are.”

“Why?” said his grandmother curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Because you can afford these little treats,” he replied.

“Treats?” said his grandmother’s friend. “Son, this is just a hot cocoa to invigorate the body, and some days it even serves as dinner, and that way we don’t have to make anything at home.”

“Yes,” he said, “but it’s just that others can’t afford it, whether it’s this or anything like it, even if they’re dying of cold, or of hunger.”

Now in a serious tone, his grandmother told him:

“Listen son, I’m going to tell my friend what you’ve told me, I think she needs to know, to see if we can do something.”

“No Grammy, no please,” he protested, “I’ve only told you for you, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Yes, please let me, you can tell me not to continue, to stop, whenever you want, but I think I should do it.”

And before he could convince her not to say anything, she began to tell her friend about everything, or almost everything, that her grandson had confided to her.

To his surprise, looking at him, her friend said:

“Son, tomorrow we’re going to see the situation those people are in, to see how we can help them out.”

“What for?” he asked, with a very serious tone, because all of this was going down very badly with him.

“Well, what else? To help them in whatever way we can,” the lady replied.

When he was telling us earlier that day, the elderly couple said:

“They’re going to come here? But we don’t have anything to give them.”

“Nana, Papa, that’s not why they’re coming,” I told them and they relaxed a little.

Then, when we saw them appear mid-morning, we were all shaking. “What would happen?” I wondered.

It was a very interesting visit. Antonio’s grandmother and her friend told us that they’d had some trouble getting there, that they had almost lost their way, but hey, they made it in the end. What’s more, they did not come empty-handed, they brought some donuts that tasted heavenly to all of us, and the elderly couple brought them some food.

After resting for a little while, sitting there on those logs that we were also quite used to by that point, they told us to leave them alone with the elderly couple. We went off to finish doing four things that we still had to finish, so we let them talk quietly.

They had come to help and boy did they help. They provided them with a new bed and a new mattress. Well, it was all second-hand, but it was almost new. In addition, they looked to see what else those people needed, and as a result they brought them some chairs and clothes, especially coats, some blankets and I think some kitchen utensil too.

They told us that they belonged to an organization that helped the needy, and through them they were also provided with food, which they brought for them once a week, even though we almost lost contact with them, because upon starting the academic year we had to dedicate ourselves to our student assignments.

We tried to help those people as much as we could that summer, and even if a million years passed, I don’t think any of us “Bricklayers” will ever forget that wonderful experience. There were other summers, yes, but that was the first, at least for me.