Dr. Juan Moisés De La Serna
Fatima: The Final Secret

“Where’s Manu going? And how do you know that?” asked Chelito.

“Wherever they send him, like everyone else, but the son of a friend of mine from work was sent there and when he got home he said that they’d had a great time, that they went down to the town on weekends to dance and that they did marches or something through the pine forests, singing that little song that’s become popular, called ‘Margarita,’ you know, young folk stuff, so I don’t think it’s going to be so bad.”

And with that, the conversation was over, seeing that my mother was starting to pout. Cautiously, he approached her to give her a kiss and to calm her down.

“Yes, of course, everything is very easy for you,” she told him. “You don’t even realize that they’re slowly growing up and we’ll be more and more alone every day, and before we realize it, we’ll be at home on our own, just you and me.”

We all laughed and my father scolded us:

“Don’t treat it like a joke when your mother is suffering.”

And turning to her, he said:

“But honey, what are you saying? They’re practically still babies, we still have to put up with them for a long time yet, you’ll see how before you know it they’ll all have completed their military service, or the militias as it’s called now, that they’ll go off and do whatever it is that they do and you’ll have them back here again in no time.”

“I’ll ask them to let me do them here in Santiago, so I don’t have to leave home,” Tono said.

“Yes,” said Carlitos, “and you can also ask them to let you do your duties lying on the sitting room sofa, so you’re more comfortable.”

My mother, seeing that we were all more relaxed, was more content.

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I’m anxious to see what they’ve assigned to us, the guy who acts as the coordinator told us that, like the last time, we did such a good job that this time it’s going to be a bit more complicated, but we’ll surely have a good time. During the year, I’ve gone to see the elderly couple on two occasions, on each of their name days, when we celebrate with all those named after a particular saint, and I took a little something special for them, something small. I saved a little of what they give me at home for my meager expenses, and I bought them two chocolate candies on both occasions, which I know they both liked very much.

I also met with some of my workmates there, and we had a fun time recalling the variety of incidents that happened to us while we fixed up their house.

The old man, Rafael, reminded us of the fresh novice faces we had on the first day, afraid that they wouldn’t give us their approval, but how could they not agree with some people who were going to help them? He did not imagine for a second that those inexperienced students, who were surely doing what they were doing because someone would have punished them if they didn’t, and who wouldn’t return when they ran into their first difficulty and leave everything worse than it was before, if that were possible, would fix it up and leave it as they had when they were finished.

The old man apologized for having thought that about us, but that was indeed what he’d thought after seeing our faces. It was our hands, pretty much children’s hands, with clean fingernails, hands that had never done anything. At best, they had held the enormous weight of a book, but how were they going to make cement? That was unthinkable and he was close to telling us to leave, that they were not a joke and they would not be putting up with anyone who came to mock their needs in their own home.

But he’d restrained himself and thought, “I’ll give them one day, I’ll watch them and see what they do, and when they leave, I’ll tell them not to come back here again,” but seeing how eagerly we started and the interest we put into what we were doing, he was convinced that we were good people, and he gave us another day.

“Yes, because today, as there’s no trust, they’ll be behaving themselves, but let’s see who returns tomorrow. They’ll be destroyed from the effort and their muscles will be sore,” he told us he had thought.

And he continued, “Because when you left, I saw you were all so tired that I said:

‘When they fall into bed, these boys will tell themselves it’s over, that summer is for resting and having a good time,’ but I was wrong. The next day you arrived on time, I would even say early, and although I saw different hands on some of you, what I really noticed was on your faces, they were happy faces. That surprised me and I said to myself, ‘Rafael you were wrong, they’re committed.’”

We all laughed when we heard that, and then his wife Rosa, who was listening, said:

“So exaggerated! But I must admit that I was also fearful when I saw you arrive, four strong young people. What if they came to harm us?”

“Don Simón had already told us that you would come, but we didn’t expect you to be so old, you’re all so tall, and I was fearful all day.”

“‘If one of you were to push us, we’d go flying, because we’re very small next to you all,’ I thought, then I told myself, ‘but what are they going to want from us? We have nothing.’ What’s more, they would have done it when they arrived. Why would they have stayed here if that was the case? My fear began to subside, and when you left and Don Simón came to ask me how the day went…”

“Is that why you started to cry?” Simón interrupted her at that point.

“Aah! Are you Don Simón?” we asked surprised. “We hadn’t realized.”

“Nana,” said Simón, “I’ve already told you many times not to call me that, it makes me seem much older than I am.”

“Alright son, sorry. I couldn’t contain myself today, you saw that I’ve managed on the other days they were here, and at no point did I call you that,” she was saying.

He got up and approached her and giving her a hug he said:

“Yes, you did very well, relax.”

I suddenly remembered those ladies, Antonio’s grandmother and her friend, who gave them so many things and I asked them, “So do those ladies still visit you?”

“Of course, they never miss a week,” answered Rafael, “they bring us food and everything. We don’t have to worry anymore; we always have a hot meal on the table. Well, they don’t come themselves, two gentlemen come on their behalf. They have come again, but just to visit. They do always bring something with them, they don’t know how to come with empty hands, but they told us that their job is to take care of other things, and they’re always very busy and they were the ones who brought those two gentlemen to us that I told you about.”

“Two gentlemen?” I asked, surprised. “Who are they?”

“They told us they were from the Conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul and that they would help us in everything we needed, in fact, this winter I felt a little unwell and it coincided with the day they came, and without any fuss they took me to the doctor so he could see me.”

“Yes, they took him in their car and everything,” Rosa added.

“You see Papa, there are still people who care about you,” Jorge told them.

“Yes,” he said, lowering his head, “there are still good people, thanks be to God.”

As we didn’t want that day to be sad, we started to make jokes about the problem we had when we installed the tiles, that there was no way they would stay in their place. Thank goodness he was an expert and he was telling us the steps we had to take and I’m certain that if he hadn’t, we would still be doing it, and we wouldn’t have finished yet.

Then they told us that the first day it had started to rain, they were watching to see whether or not the roof would leak, but they saw with joy that everything was perfectly set, and not a single drop had come through, and they said:

“What good bricklayers who have fixed everything for us, they could earn good wages working like this.”

We all laughed at that comment:

“No Papa, that work is really hard, we aren’t the kind of people who like to work like that, because we know how difficult it is. I’m sure we’ll look for another simpler trade,” we told them.

We spent the rest of the afternoon with them, remembering all those hours of work spent there, and how they gradually came to see the effort we put in and to understand that young people could also be useful, and that we didn’t just think about partying, which was what they had thought at first.

CHAPTER 3.

It was a glorious day, the sun seemed to want to encourage us. We were looking forward to seeing the new place they had assigned to us. Even though we tried to form a team with the same people as last summer, we had a change, Antonio would not be with us this year. He had left Santiago de Compostela with his family, and they put another friend in his place. His name was Santiago, he told us, Santi to his friends. It was his first time, but surely within a few days he would be just as much of an expert as we were, because he was very excited.

These works are not performed during the academic year. Everyone is dedicated to their studies and because we’re all from different courses, each of us has our own circle of friends, and when we have seen each other, we’ve only greeted each other, with warmth yes, we don’t share so many ups and downs in vain. We were jokingly asking each other, “So, have the scratches healed? How about the calluses on your hands?” and other unimportant things along those lines.

We were a team of bricklayers on the way to the construction site. Well, we may have been saying that, but we knew that it would just be for the summer, then it would be back to the books. What we did get out of that experience was to realize that we had “The best job in the world,” as I’d already heard from my grandfather countless times when I complained about everything I had to study, and that we didn’t appreciate being seated and studying comfortably, whether it was cold or hot, no matter how hard it rained. That encouraged us to improve our grades. We were discussing it when we arrived at the new place, along the path that Simón was showing us.

We saw a child playing on the floor. When he saw us approaching, he got up and looking up at us as if we were giants, he said to us with his baby talk:

“Where you go? You play with me?”

“Leave the gentlemen be, little dear. Are you looking for something?” we heard a woman, who must have been his mother, say as she appeared just then through the doorway, probably after hearing her little one.

The four of us said in unison:

“Good morning, we’ve come…”

We all laughed at the coincidence and also with a smile she said:

“Ah, so you are the ones,” and that was our formal introduction. “Come in, come in,” she said as she turned around, disappearing inside the house.

We followed her and when we entered, we saw a sad, almost tearful man, on a rickety bed, who as he saw us enter, looked down with deep sadness and said:

“I don’t know how we’re going to be able to pay for it!”

We stood, not knowing what to do. Suddenly I reacted and said:

“But you don’t have to pay us anything, haven’t you been told?”

“But I, I can’t even help,” he said, embarrassed.

“Come on, you fool!” the woman said in a loving tone. “Don’t worry, I’ll help, and you’ll see how good everything will be.”

He returned her look full of love and said:

“Thank you sweetheart! I know.”

“Well, where do we start the work?” asked Simón, who had been in charge of connecting with them a few days ago.

“My name is Encarnación, I’m here for whatever you need. Come! I’ll show you everything,” said the woman. “Honey, I’ll leave you with the baby for a little bit, so we can talk quietly, otherwise he won’t leave us be.”

“Come to Dad, little one!” said the man to the little boy who was holding his mother’s hand.

The woman led him to the side of the bed. The boy sat on the floor with a broken toy truck that he was dragging along in his hand. He started playing there straight away and he stayed quiet.

She took us to the other side of the house. Surrounding it, we saw a yard demarcated with some chicken wire and wooden sticks, and she told us:

“This is where we want to be, well, where we thought work could be done,” and she looked at us as if she was embarrassed and lowered her head.

“Don’t worry,” said Simón, “you’ll see how nice we’re going to leave it, and can we make use of all the land?” he asked, with the certainty of knowing what he wanted to do, although we had no idea what the two of them were talking about.

“Yes, whatever you want, no problem,” she answered.

“And what about the chickens? What are you going to do with them? They’re going to get in the way here,” Simón asked again.

“Well, they’re free range. They’re used to it and even though they’re not cooped up, they don’t go very far, they spend the day pecking around over there,” she added. “I’ll leave you be, I don’t want to leave the child for too long, he’s a little rascal and I want to know what he’s up to,” and off she went.

“Guys, we have a job! You’ve already seen everything that needs to be done,” Simón told us.

“And what is there to do?” we asked intrigued, because he had not put anything forward.

“Well, look here, we can build one room here,” he said quietly, as if waiting for us to protest.

“Why not two?” I asked.

“Would you be brave enough to build two?” Simón asked.

“It was an idea that came to me, I don’t know, all of a sudden,” and I asked the others.

“Sure, if we can build one, we can build two. I think it would be good, but first we have to make some plans and adapt them to the space we have,” Jorge told us. It seemed that he was on board with my idea.

“Yes, but what about the doors? Where could we put them? We’ve already seen that they only have that one room that they use for everything; sitting room, dining room and bedroom, where the bed is. With this space we can build two rooms, a larger one for the Mom and Dad and a smaller one for the little one,” Simón was telling us.

“The little one will grow up and he’ll need a place, and perhaps in time they’ll also have another one. This should really be taken into account, and if the room is too small, he wouldn’t really fit,” Santi told us, who until now had been very quiet, but we noticed from the tone of his voice how much he had embraced the idea.

“I don’t imagine they’d have another kid, you’ve already seen that he doesn’t seem to be very well, but if they did, they could put in some bunk beds.”

“My brothers sleep in them and they’re very practical, because there’s no need for any extra space in the room, they occupy the same floor space as a single bed.”

We all agreed and we decided that it was best to make only one connecting door, so as not to weaken the load-bearing wall too much and the two bedrooms would be connected.

Seeing that we’d all liked the idea, Simón opened a notebook that he’d been holding in his hand the whole time and we saw that he’d prepared some sketches. Then, with great skill, he plotted some lines, making a new sketch. When he finished, he showed it to us:

“What do you think?”

We all looked at it, and although we didn’t really understand much of what we were looking at, it seemed to us that it would turn out well, and we gave it our approval.

“Okay, we’ll tell them, let’s see if they agree,” Jorge said, “because their opinion is the one that matters, it’s their house and they have to live here.”

Happy with the idea, we went to tell them about it. When we went to knock on the door to enter, we heard that the man was sobbing and we didn’t think we should interrupt, but we heard:

“Yes, come in, come in.” As we’d all been talking, I’m sure they’d heard us as we approached.

“What’s wrong mister?” I asked him without thinking as soon as I saw him. I instantly regretted it, but it was too late.

“I don’t know how we’re going to be able to pay for it,” he answered tearfully.

“Look, honestly, we’ve told you before, this isn’t going to cost you anything, we’ll take care of everything,” said Jorge.

“But, that takes a lot of material and your labor on top of that, why would you do that?” the man went on, asking but still crying.

“Well!” said Simón, who was more confident with them. “We do it to stave off boredom during vacation time.”

“Really?” said the woman. “Such good-looking boys bored? You’ll get a girlfriend and then you’ll know when you start ‘Courting’ that time is precious, to spend it together.”

“Well, some of us have one already,” Santi said jumping up. “No one said we didn’t, but they’re very supportive, and they let us be free to do what we want.”

“Yes, of course and also, perhaps, she’s gone to the beach to spend her vacation with her parents, and she’s ditched you,” I told Santi who knew that this was what had happened to him.

“Shut up foghorn!” he said at once, and turned red.

“Alright, let’s change the subject,” said Simón. “I’ve brought some sketches that I’ve made, and I want you to take a look at them to see what you think, and if we can do it.”

“Son, we don’t know anything about all that, just do whatever you think is best,” the woman was saying somewhat nervously.

“Well, take a look at them to see if you like them,” and he took the notebook he had brought over to the bed.

We saw that the man didn’t take his hands out from under the sheet, that it was the woman who took it and showed it to him.

“The blue lines represent what’s standing now, and the red lines are what we can do in the yard, and those pencil marks, I just drew there behind, we’ve all agreed that if we expand this just a little, instead of one, you could have two extra rooms,” Simón was saying, excited about the idea.

The man could no longer contain himself and began to cry inconsolably, so we decided to go out and leave them in peace. I took the child in my arms and said:

“Let’s play! I can teach you a game that I’m sure you won’t know: Hide-and-Seek.”

Because he didn’t understand what I was talking about, the little one, looking at me with a face full of surprise, looked back:

“Dad, Dad,” he was screaming, but as soon as we had left the house, he immediately saw a hen, and he began to struggle in my arms, because he wanted to get down. The instant I put him down on the ground, he ran off after it.

The four of us stayed outside for a while, a little serious because of the situation. The woman came out with eyes red from crying, and said:

“Forgive him, he’s always been such a hard worker and he could never be still, and now he can’t bear anyone having to do things for him.”

Simón came forward and, resting a hand on her shoulder, said:

“It’s alright, just tell us where to start.”

She used her apron to wipe away some of the tears that had escaped from her eyes and ran down her cheeks, and then she said:

“This is everything we have, I can’t offer you anything else.” She showed us some tools, which were piled up in one corner and covered with an old sack.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find out everything we’ll need and bring it here ourselves,” Jorge said, taking a hoe in his hands. Lifting it into the air, he continued: “This works for me.”

“But I don’t know how we’re going to pay for it,” she said in a sad voice. “We barely have enough to eat, and the little one needs so much…”

“I think we can also solve that, you’ll see, trust us,” I said immediately.

She was staring at me and I saw that her eyes were once again filled with tears. Turning around she went into the house saying:

“What strange things these young men are saying!”

Out there alone and all in agreement, we said:

“We should start immediately so that this family eats every day. We have to, without fail, get in touch with those ladies who help the needy.”

Then we started to make a list of the materials we needed, the tools, and basically everything we thought we would need to get on with the work at hand.

“First of all, we have to take down that roof,” Santi said. “It’s in a very bad state and as soon as we begin to make a start here, I’m sure it’ll fall. That being said, you guys know more about this than I do,” and he added, “Sorry.”

We all agreed:

“But what do we do with the sick man’s bed in the meantime? It’ll take us several days” Jorge asked.

“We’ll deal with the problems as they arise. First of all, let’s remove the chicken wire from the yard and clean everything up to start with the foundations,” Simón suggested.

“Okay,” we said in unison, “let’s get the ball rolling.”

We headed to the back of the house. When the little one saw us, he came up behind us. We had to call on his mother to take him, because it wasn’t safe for him to be around where we had to work.

His mother, who, like all mothers, always had resources for every situation, brought out a big cardboard box, which had been flattened in a corner, reassembled it a little away from where we had to work, but from where the kid could see us properly, and she put the child inside it, and said:

“See, now you can watch those gentlemen playing from here inside your little house.”

He sat down quietly, and there he sat for I don’t know how long, watching us as we moved about from here to there doing things and he stayed so calm and quiet, so much so that at some point he must have gotten bored and fallen asleep. When we noticed, we called on his mother to take him and she told us:

“No, he’s all right here,” and with that she left, but came straight back with an old towel and covered him.

The box served as a crib, perhaps it was his crib, because we hadn’t seen one inside. None of us batted an eyelid at the time, but it seems that it did leave more than one of us a little concerned, because in the afternoon, when we finished the work, we commented on it on the way back.

“We’ll learn more about the things they need,” Simón said. “Now, the first order of business, we have to get a move on so that tomorrow we can begin to change these people’s lives, so that they don’t miss a meal. We have to make a move now to try to fix that.”

As we already had contacts, Jorge and Santi, who would pass closer to them, paid them a visit before going home. They explained the problems and the urgency of the case.

The lady who received them told them not to worry, that the next day they would go to the place and that they would see what their needs were themselves.

“And if you can, bring them some food!” Jorge told them, “they really need it.”

And that’s how it went. We were working again. We had already eaten the sandwiches that we’d brought for lunch, and today we all wanted to share them with the couple, but none of us remembered to bring any for the kid. The four of us had brought two sandwiches each without making any sort of agreement. When it was time to eat, we all took them out and gave them to the lady. Of course, since we had one extra per head, they got two each, but what about the little one? It was only at that point that we realized.

“Don’t worry,” she said with a smile, “he only takes porridge and then the breast, he’s still too small for sandwiches,” and thanking us for what we’d given her, she continued, “we already have enough food for today and tomorrow.”

“No, tomorrow we’ll bring you more,” I said promptly.

“No, there’s no need, with these we have enough, they’re very big and certainly very rich, thank you very much,” she said looking at us gratefully.

After resting a little, we’d gone back to continue with our digging, so we could finish the ditch where we would pour the cement for the wall, when we saw some confused ladies coming from the distance.

Simón, being the most alert, approached them and said:

“It’s over here, come, come.”

“We weren’t sure about the location, it’s a little complicated,” they said smiling.

“Madam, can you come out? You have a visitor,” I said, approaching the door of the house.

Without coming out, she said:

“Visitor? Surely not!” Lifting the curtain, she saw the two women who had already arrived and Simón behind them with some bags that he’d taken from their hands to help them.

“What can I do for you? Who are you?” she asked in surprise.

They introduced themselves and talked about why they’d come. We left them to it and continued with our task, because we set a goal for ourselves each day and we had to finish it, so we got back to the old grindstone as they say in construction slang. We finished the whole ditch that day, pleased and upbeat. We were even singing on the way home because of how happy we were.

We commented that they wouldn’t go hungry anymore, that was the first goal fulfilled, they would bring them food. Now we had to do our part so that they would be living in a decent place, and they wouldn’t get wet at the very least, because in this part of the country, with so many rainy days, that was very important, but as we told ourselves, that was our thing and we would leave it in fantastic condition, we were already experts after all.

How time flies. The summer passed and everything reached completion. The assignment was done and the two whitewashed rooms looked as though they’d been built by professionals. We even put in windows, well mini-windows, they might not have been very large, but they were big enough to let the light in and properly ventilate the place.

We did as we’d intended on that seemingly distant day at the start of the summer. The two rooms were connected, but there was no way of putting in doors, no matter how hard we tried, so one day when we were discussing it with the woman, she immediately told us:

“Don’t worry, they can be separated with a curtain and that’ll do very nicely.”

The ladies who came from time to time would tell us:

“Look, this’ll come in handy for you,” and they brought us a little something.

One of them appeared one day with a very beautiful painting, with views of the sea. When Encarnación saw it, she immediately asked us, “Why don’t we put it on the wall? That way it would make the place look more beautiful.”

On another occasion, they brought some blue curtains, which one of the ladies had been keeping in a drawer. She said that since she’d changed them for new ones, she wasn’t going to need them anymore and they were only getting in her way. She hadn’t wanted to throw them away because they were still good.

Those were the curtains that we subsequently put up to separate the two rooms and everything looked ten times better than we had ever imagined.

They also brought a vase, which, although it didn’t seem useful to us, Encarnación was very excited about. Santi immediately went around the field and picked some bunches of flowers and put them into that vase and in truth, what he created was pretty original.

One of the days that the ladies came, one of them brought a small picture frame.

“When the little one gets older, I’ll take a photograph and put it in here,” the mother said, thanking them.

Santi, who had inadvertently overheard her, having passed by at just that moment to get some water, told us. I instantly had an idea and I told them:

“Let’s give them a surprise, you’ll all see, let’s take that photograph ourselves and give it to them.”

“How?” Simón asked. “That really is beyond our abilities.”

“No, listen, my father has a device for that, I’ll try to get it from him,” I was telling him, but I was already questioning it as I heard myself say it, it would be very difficult. Surely he would tell me, without even thinking about it, that he wouldn’t dream of letting me take that device.

I was thinking about it for several days, but I just couldn’t decide upon the right moment, and one afternoon while we were returning Jorge asked me:

“What about that photo you talked to us about?”

I didn’t want to tell him that I hadn’t yet dared to ask my father for it and I answered:

“I’m on it,” and as I headed home afterwards, after having said goodbye to the others, I told myself: “If it doesn’t happen today, if he says no, well, at least I tried.”

I summoned up my courage and asked my father for the camera. Of course I had to tell him what it was for. He thought about it for a few moments. I was afraid that he would say no, so I insisted:

“Dad, they’d be very excited to have a photograph of their young son.”

“Yes, you’re right son, I’d also have liked to have one of you all when you were little and that way you would all have some to remember your childhood whenever you saw them, but Manu, you have to be careful not to damage it,” he said in an apprehensive tone, “these things are very fragile.”

Then, after giving me some instructions so that the photo would turn out well, he left it in my care. I handled it with the utmost care because I did not want anything to happen to it. My father would be so dismayed if anything did, he’d only acquired it recently and he took great care of it.

With that, we took a photo of the little one. We placed him in a seated position, sitting well-behaved on the floor next to a hen, which he tried to catch and I took it right at that moment. It came out pretty nice. When my father finished up the film and the photographs were developed, even the photographer where he’d taken the film congratulated him on the photo. He said:

“Look at that, it’s difficult to get a chicken to stand still, how did you manage it?”

“I don’t know,” said my father, “my son took it, and I don’t know the child.”

“Well, congratulate your son, he has a future as a photographer,” the man said.

He smiled and told me that he’d answered:

“Well, it’s the only photograph he’s ever taken in his life.”

I believe the gentleman told him: