Fatima: The Final Secret

How could she have retired? It couldn’t be true surely, this person must be mistaken. Something suddenly hit me. Of course! She was older than I was, but not by that much, I had been all over the place lately!

“Alright,” I said to the girl, “I won’t bother you any further. Oh, and could you tell me where she lives?”

But before she had time to answer, I heard someone talking behind me.

“Don Manuel, I see you’re as punctual as ever, and as I’d imagined, you’ve come through here first to see if there was anything new.”

I didn’t even have time to react. I saw her approaching the girl, walking as quickly as ever, going around the counter and after giving her two kisses, she asked her with a smile:

“How are you? Are you bored? Be patient, rainy days you know, people are warmer at home.”

“Look, before we leave, I want you to see something,” she said to me.

She had come to my side, then walked decisively down one of the corridors and I followed, but not without saying goodbye to the lady at the counter who must have taken me for a bit of a fool.

“What do you want to show me Pilar?” I asked as I followed her.

“I see you haven’t forgotten my name, despite how long it’s been since we last saw one another,” she said turning her face and smiling.

I had the impulse to tell her that the young lady had just reminded me, but I restrained myself. No, she’s not going to believe that I have memory lapses already, and I said:

“So Pilar, what’s going on in your life? They just told me that you’ve retired.”

“Well, the truth is that I didn’t like it anymore, even though I was trying to… how can I put it? Re-engage, but it was impossible. They wanted new people, especially people who knew how to use the new technologies that were coming out, because as you can see, everything has really changed since the computers arrived, it’s not the same anymore. People prefer to find the answers easily, rather than spend hours going over tomes to find what they need.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s always good to move forward, but now I don’t know what’s happening, it seems we’re all in such an almighty hurry, even if we don’t have much to do, we’re almost running, what times we live in!”

“Yes,” she said, “to then waste time watching television.”

“Well, I don’t watch it much, but I do like to watch the news.”

“Of course, and that’ll have made you stop reading the newspaper every day as you always used to.”

“No, I still have that habit and I don’t think anyone can take that away from me. I’ve been doing it for so many years, but yes, it is true that it’s more comfortable to sit and watch something and have someone telling you, rather than to be reading. On top of that, my eyes are not what they used to be.”

“Of course, you won’t give up the habit because it’s fallen out of fashion, but young people, what do you think? Watching television without making any effort to find out about things and they’ll gradually stop working harder and harder and they’ll stop reading altogether,” she was saying to me a little sadly.

“Don’t exaggerate, there have always been distractions and reading has endured,” I added to cheer her up.

“Yes, but hear me well, isn’t it true that people in your younger days read more than they do today? You have to admit that we liked reading more than the younger folk of today.”

“Well, you’re right about that,” I was saying, when I saw her stop.

“All the information you want, you have it here.”

We had reached where she wanted, she stopped there and showed me a device.

“What?” I asked right away. “What are you talking about?”

“Yep, everything is stored on here and all you have to do is select a date and the information comes out for you, straight away.”

“What are you telling me? That the newspapers are all archived in there? Because that would be great for me, a what-do-you-call-it like this, because I have material from all these years of research, which I can’t fit anywhere at home. When one of my nephews comes to pay me a visit, not that it’s often, but when they pass by where I live, they ring the bell downstairs and if I answer them, they say:

‘Hello uncle Manu!’ and they come in to see me for a while. That’s because their parents always tell them that since I’m a loner, I must get bored a lot, and because they hear it so much, they come to keep me company for a while. Well, he asks me why I don’t throw away all those old papers.”

“And what do they think of all your work?” Pilar asked me.

“Well, the truth is that no one in my family has ever understood, although as they know, I’m very stubborn and I was never gonna let it go, and they’ve never asked me to give up.”

I keyed in a date where she told me, and immediately the newspaper I wanted appeared on the screen, of course I just searched for something I already knew, to see if it worked.

“How much time and money this invention would have saved me before,” I said looking at her.

“Yes, she said and miles, I know you’ve had to make many trips to collect all that information.”

Well, what have you dedicated yourself to since you don’t have to go to work every day? How have you been spending your time? I was asking her curiously.

Blushing like a schoolgirl who had been caught hiding something, she said:

“I’ve dedicated myself to writing.”

“Writing?” I asked surprised. “Writing what?”

“Well, memories, experiences, in short, part of my life between these four walls, my views on many things,” she was telling me and had lowered her voice, it was clear that she didn’t want anyone to find out.

“Tell me! Tell me! I’m sure it’s very interesting,” I interrupted her with curiosity.

“Look,” she said, looking at the clock, “let’s go, or we’re going to be too late for coffee, and we’ll get there at dinner time, but I promise I’ll tell you.”

We shut down that device and headed down the corridor to the exit, where we said goodbye to the lady. Pilar gave her another two kisses as she had when she arrived and said:

“Keep holding down the fort for me!”

As a farewell, I said to her:

“I’ll be back some day when I have more time to take a look at that little gadget you have, bye!”

Looking at me with an expression on her face that told me she had no idea what I was referring to, she said:

“Well, I’ll be here, come back whenever you want.”

I left behind Pilar, and started walking quickly, because I didn’t want her to leave me behind, but it was hard for me to stay by her side.

I noticed that time had not sapped away that energy that she always had, and that although now she would not have to walk so much through the corridors of the library, her legs were as agile as ever. Suddenly she stopped there in the middle of the street, and she started thinking.

“Look, seeing as we’re together, we don’t need to go to our coffee shop, I’m thinking of something I’d like to show you,” she was telling me with a smile.

Without asking any questions, because I thought, “She always has first-hand information,” I said: