Fatima: The Final Secret

“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: