Fatima: The Final Secret

CHAPTER 1.-5

“If you miss one Sunday, it’ll be harder for you to come back,” my father told her, “so, even if you’re ill or if you have to study here, I want to see you. Well, if you get ill, then come whatever day it is. That way we can take care of you; just because you leave doesn’t mean you stop being a member of the family, nor that we’re going to stop loving you the same way.”

My sister promised very seriously to come home every Sunday and said that we should also call her if anything ever happened and we needed her, that she was not going to stop being our daughter and sister just because she didn’t sleep at home.

She was two years my senior, and that was how those two years passed. As I said, the time flew by, and I think it was my good grades that decided my future.

When Carmen left, I asked myself a question, although I didn’t share it with anyone. I also wanted to go and live away from home, but I knew it was impossible, that Dad had a secure job and that his salary was good, at least that was what he told us. I never knew how many pesetas he earned, but it would never allow him to have two independent children, since he still had three others at home with their own needs, so I told myself, “If I push myself and I get a scholarship, I’m sure he won’t oppose what I ask him.” That’s how the last two school years passed. In addition to attending class like I was part of the furniture, as I had done for a long time, just to listen and take notes, I started to take on extra work and the teachers noticed the change in me straight away, because some of them made comments to me about it in jest.

“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.