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

“Manu, it’s time for sandwiches, come on, you can get back to it afterwards, it’s time to rest for a while.”

Fearing that he would come into the room where I was, I tried to quickly store what I had just found in the back pocket of my pants, but seeing that it wouldn’t fit no matter how much I pushed it, I unfastened two of my buttons, carefully placed it under my shirt and put on my sweater, which I’d brought with me and sat down there on the floor in one corner. That was how I went out to join the others, have my sandwiches and chat for a while. And so we rested and talked about how each of us were doing in the tasks we had been assigned.

“What’s up Manu?” the others asked when they saw me appear.

“Well, I’ve been peeling the wall and removing all the bits that are coming loose, but I think we’re going to have to repair the whole thing, it’s in a really sorry state,” I said, taking a bite out of the mouth-watering sandwich I had in my hands, which Simón had just given me.

“You’re so lucky!” Blas told me. “Today I have to repair the roof, that’s much more difficult.”

“Do you need any help?” I asked him, but I was hoping he would answer me that he didn’t, I just said it in the spirit of compromise. I’ve never liked heights, but I thought it would be nice to offer my assistance.

“No, I can do it on my own for now, but I’ll call you if I need you,” he answered me.

When we were finishing up with our sandwiches, a few drops of rain began to fall, and when I saw that, I said to Blas:

“Looks like your work is done for the day, you’ll not be able to get up onto the roof, it seems you won’t need my help after all.”

“Yeah, nobody’s getting up there now” he answered looking up at the sky, then he added, “Well, you know what? Now I’m gonna be the one who comes to help you, what do you say?”

And without waiting for an answer, he went with great strides into the room where I was halfway through my work and put himself to work on another wall, removing the loose pieces. He looked at me and said:

“Of course I don’t know how you always manage to land the simplest jobs, you’re so the favorite! I’m sure it’ll be because you’re always willing to do any job and you never complain about it, so they reward you by giving you the less strenuous jobs,” and laughing, he added, “I’m only kidding by the way, don’t get annoyed. Look at how heavy the rain is now, especially given how lovely a day it was earlier! It was so nice that I said to myself when I was up there, ‘If the wind blows those clouds away, I’ll have time to inspect that row of tiles and replace the broken ones,’ but clearly it’s not a day to be changing tiles, they’ll have to wait a little longer. To be fair, I’m sure they’re not too bothered, because I have no idea how long they’ll have been like this, but it’s certainly been a good few years since anyone has lifted them off.”

Impatient because the day was ending, and because I had to remove my sweater so I could get on with the work, I tried not to move much, because I feared that Blas, who was now there with me, would notice the bulge under my shirt, which felt massive to me, even though he was working on the wall behind me.

Suddenly, perhaps due to the rain, the temperature changed, and using that excuse I quickly put on my sweater again.

“You’re gonna get it caked in dust!” Blas told me when he saw that I’d put it back on.

“It’s just that I’m cold, but I’ll be careful not to get it stained,” I replied.

“Cold? Are you for real? Take it off and you’ll see how much faster the work goes,” he said laughing. “Goodness, you get cold easily!” He got on with his work and we didn’t talk any further.

With that “Little package” already well hidden, I felt calmer, but I was wishing that the day would end so I could leave. I don’t ever remember that having happened to me, because I was usually the one who always finished last.

“Let’s keep going for a while longer, there’s still a lot of work to be done here,” I would tell the others in the evening when it was time to pack up and leave.

“Leave something for tomorrow! Don’t you see that even the sun has gone to rest?” they would protest at me, already looking tired and happy to leave it behind and go home.

I would drop whatever I was doing, but reluctantly, and on the way home I would always say:

“We could have stayed a little longer, we still have a lot to get through, and if we don’t hurry, the summer will be over and we won’t have finished everything.”

“Fine, we’ll stay longer tomorrow,” they would answer me, but they never did. Normally, as soon as the sun went down, we would leave, but today I was the first to say it:

“Guys, what if we leave it until tomorrow?”

“Earlier you were cold and now you want to go? Hmm! That sounds fishy to me, you’re not getting sick are you? Those symptoms sound like you might be coming down with the flu, or something worse,” Blas said surprised.

“Get outta here, don’t exaggerate, it’s not like we can wait for the sun to set today, because it hasn’t even come out,” I said trying to justify myself.

“Well, let’s gather everything up and we’ll continue tomorrow,” he said.

The others also agreed, because even though we’d not yet finished the task we’d set ourselves, as we do every day, today we all seemed a little more tired than usual. It would be because of the change in the weather, and picking everything up, we left.

The rain started falling even heavier than before and wore my raincoat. In Santiago de Compostela you always have to be prepared, and when you get into the habit, you always carry it wherever you go.

That prevented the rain from wetting my sweater, and with it, the object that I was hiding with such zeal, but my legs were soaking wet, because the rain had been accompanied by an unpleasant wind, so the water that fell came from all directions, and it was impossible to stop it from soaking me all over.

I took a warm shower when I arrived, but quickly, because I was impatient, and I think even nervous. That was something unusual for me, my classmates had always told me:

“Manu, you’re the calmest person we know. We never see you getting nervous, you don’t seem to get bothered by anything.”

Well, I would say that I did get nervous, but I didn’t show it. Now I was really starting to notice it, instead of hitting the hot tap, I hit the cold, so when that jet of icy water sprayed out, I wasn’t expecting it and I jumped back, then in the kitchen, I went to heat up a glass of milk, to invigorate myself, and instead of milk I poured water into the saucepan. “You see!” I thought. “Boy, you’re more nervous than Jell-O, be careful.”

Just then, Mrs. Petra, the owner of the boarding house, came into the kitchen and asked me if I needed anything. She had told us from the first day that everything was at our disposal, that we were the only ones in the whole place, well, besides them of course, but that when we needed anything, there was no need to ask her, we could just take it because we already knew where everything was.

Of course, she showed it to us by opening all the drawers, so that if we needed anything, like sugar at breakfast, or water or whatever, we confidently went into the kitchen and took it for ourselves, that’s why I was here trying to prepare the milk for myself.

I answered that I was a little out of sorts and was going to prepare a glass of milk.

“Hold on, I’ll prepare it for you and I’ll even throw in a little honey, you’ll see how well your body takes to it and you’ll have recovered in no time,” and she immediately set herself to warming it up.

Already more relaxed after taking that little glass of warm milk, which went down so well, I returned to my room and sat down, carefully picking up the little package that I had left there when I came in. “What might it contain?” I asked myself. “Who could have put this there?” I also asked myself. “Hold your horses Manuel, you’re about to find out what it is,” and with trembling hands, something that I could see perfectly clearly, I started to unwrap it.

First I removed the rag, which back in its day must surely have been white, but now it was a color somewhere between brown and blackish due to the moisture it had absorbed. It was that object that I had already handled when I pulled it out from the wall, but which I had then put back where I’d found it. It seems I hadn’t put it back so carefully though, because I remember that when I had originally taken out the little package from the hole left by the brick when it had been removed, the small package was well wrapped and the wrapping was uncrinkled. Now though, as I’d rewrapped it hurriedly for fear that my companion would come in and see me with it, a part of the fabric had torn slightly.

I had already noticed myself doing it when I’d tried to unwrap it there the first time, but my haste had made me so inattentive. Now I was treating it with great care, although there was nothing I could do about the damage.

I left the pieces of cloth there on the table and continued removing the rest of the fabric very carefully. I did not want anything to go wrong, because if the fabric was the packaging, what was important was what I was about to see, what I had here in my hands, “Come on!” I thought at that moment.

Before continuing, some questions popped into my mind, “What should I do with what I have here? Who will own it? And how can I justify that I’ve seen it?”

A lot of doubts were jostling around in my mind, when I decided to cast them aside and continue with the task of finding out what it was, what it contained and I continued slowly, very slowly unfolding that fabric.

With every fold I unwrapped, I imagined the hands that had wrapped it, surely they were feminine, a man wouldn’t have been so careful.

<<<<< >>>>>

I was alone in the room. I had closed the door. I did not want any surprises, someone who needed something and came at that inopportune moment to ask me, or any of the guys wanting to ask me about something.

I don’t know why, but I had suddenly become afraid and that was what made me not only turn the key to lock the door, but also to place a chair to jam the door, something that I was surprised to find myself doing, because it was a reflex, like I was protecting myself, but I wasn’t sure what from.

At that moment, I saw myself doing it and I had no logical explanation for it. It seemed that I was anticipating the problems I would have in the future, but now I had no reason to be so cautious.

I took the object slowly with my hands. I’d left it on the bed when going to lock the door, because a moment ago when I was finally on the verge of seeing it, I realized that anyone could come in and catch me with it in my hand, so I left it very carefully on the bedspread. Now back, I took it between my fingers as carefully as if it were a delicate crystal.

I noticed the calluses I had on the palms of both hands, anyone who saw them wouldn’t doubt for a moment that they were the hands of a laborer, perhaps a full-time bricklayer. I had already gotten used to them, but Mom said that “I had to take care of them, that my hands were going to spoil me forever and that no girl would want me to caress her, because I would scratch her.”

Chelito had found that very amusing and said:

“You’re going to stay single, nobody will ever love you.”

“You shut up snot nose, they’re hardly gonna be knocking down your door either with those freckles you have, who’s going to notice you? And if they do it’ll only be to try to wash your face, to see if they can get those spots off you,” I said jokingly, but it always ended up making her angry, although that wasn’t what I’d intended, because my little sister was the one I loved the most.

When my mother heard me, she scolded me:

“Manu, you’re too old to treat your little sister like that, don’t you see what you’ve done?”

“Mom,” said Chelito, “but don’t you see that the poor thing has no other way of messing with me? He always says the same thing to me. It’s because men are ‘so dense’ that on some rare occasion, when something occurs to them, they use it all the time. Manu’s problem is that he envies me, you’ve not noticed it, he knows I’m smarter than he is,” and with a laugh from my mother, the discussion was over:

“It’ll be as you say darling, Manu would like to have freckles like you,” and off she went to get on with her tasks.

<<<<< >>>>>

I stopped looking at my hands and being careful not to damage what I had between them right then, I went ahead. I carefully removed the papers from the wrapper, I had already seen how fragile they all were when they’d been covered, and how they’d been damaged as soon as they were touched. Now I saw that yellowish paper and I took it out with great care. I was surprised; inside was “a little book.”

I sat on the bed, a chill ran through my body, what was I doing with that it my hands?

I looked around the room, as if wanting to make sure nobody saw me. “What nonsense!” I told myself.

Nobody can get in here and there’s nowhere to hide, since the room was very small. A bed, which was indeed very comfortable; a nightstand with a drawer; the chair which I had placed at the door earlier; a small closet, which of course would only be capable of hiding someone very thin, and the table placed in front of the window; that window through which the light entered and you could see the small courtyard down below, a white wall opposite and nothing else.

That made me feel calmer. I was sure that nobody was watching me. Sitting on the bed, I shifted as if wanting to reassure myself. I corrected my posture, because I had a nervous itch that ran down my back.

I realized, what if someone had slipped into the bathroom? And as if propelled by a spring, I jumped up and moving around the bed I abruptly opened the door.

At that moment, again I thought, “What nonsense!” It was naturally empty.

As my nerves were making my hands all sweaty, I rinsed them in the sink since I was already there, and taking the towel, I dried them. When I tried to put it back where it’d been hanging, I missed and it fell to the floor. I bent down to pick it up. As I put it back on the towel rack, I saw myself in the mirror and I said to myself, “Manu, why are you so nervous? This is very strange for you, calm down.”

I turned around and went back into the bedroom, I went around the bed, and sitting down again carefully, I took that little book that was there waiting to be looked through.

“BREVIARIUM,” yes, that’s what it said on the cover, which left me thoughtful for a few moments. Who would have left their prayer book in there? Why would they have hidden it in the first place? What fears led them to hide it so carefully? How would they have managed to find the right place? It’s not easy to take a brick out of those pilasters, which are solid and usually strongly secured.

The questions were crowding my mind, without giving me time to find any logical answers that could clarify anything. I opened that “Little book” that I had in my hands with great curiosity, with those black covers made of a strong cardboard, but which were very worn.

It was clear that it had been used a great deal, but why had the owner left it there hidden despite clearly having loved it so much? Maybe the plan had been to retrieve it at a later date?

I don’t know how many mysteries were surging through my mind, but what I was sure of was that it belonged to a woman. Why? That was simple, the place was a convent for nuns, as far as I was aware. That was the reason it had been built and it had never had any other tenants aside from them.

I looked at it carefully and thought, “Surely it had to belong to one of them,” but why would she have put it in such an unusual place? And if she’s living there, why hadn’t she taken it out when she’d learned that we were going to repair the walls?

It might be that the owner is no longer there, perhaps she’s already passed away, or she’s gone somewhere else. Then, why wouldn’t she have taken it with her? Maybe she forgot about it, it all seemed so strange to me!

Reflecting on these questions, I stopped and closed the “Little book” again. What if it was personal? What if she had something written down? What right did I have to read something personal that someone had written in there?

I started to feel like an intruder who was going to violate someone’s privacy, who was going to break that veil of mystery that the person had wanted to cover up there, so well-hidden, and who did I think I was to clumsily handle the discovery of that secret that she wanted to keep?

I really didn’t believe that anyone would put it there as a joke, if they were hiding it there for a prank and someone had taken it from its owner and hidden it there for her to find, why would it still be hidden there? Who would it belong to?

Of course, what was certainly beyond any doubt, is that it had been there for a long time because of the fragility of the fabric that it had been wrapped in, or could it be that the fabric was part of the joke? and it was already old and fragile when she put it there. Surely not! If so, whoever it was would have wrapped it up with more care.

I was pondering these questions when I heard a knock on the door that scared me. I stayed very still. I think I even held my breath, when again I heard the knocking and someone saying:

“Manu, have you fallen asleep? We’re waiting for you to have dinner.”

Those words brought me back to reality. Suddenly I saw my room, I was sitting on the bed, and I awkwardly said:

“I’m coming now!” with a faltering voice.

“Wake up sleepy! If you don’t, we’re gonna eat your share,” he was saying from the hallway.

“I’m coming!” I said a little louder this time, “go on ahead.”

I listened to my friend’s footsteps as he was walking down the hallway. I took a quick look around the whole room, I had to find a hiding place for the “Little book,” somewhere where nobody would find it if they came into the room while I was not there.

At that moment I thought, “Who exactly will come in if they’ve already cleaned it today?” However, I decided to first wrap it up in a handkerchief of mine that I took from the drawer of the nightstand.

I carefully wrapped it up and then, climbing onto the chair, placed it on top of the closet, as far back as I could. Surely the cleaning girl wouldn’t be able to reach it there, because she was shorter than me. If she had the intention of searching on top of the closet to see if I had put anything there, surely she wouldn’t reach the place where I had left it.

What was certain was that as long as she didn’t bring a ladder to look on top of it, it would be impossible for her to find it, and I dare say, why would she bring a ladder? Alright, perhaps to change the bulb if it blew, but it was glowing perfectly brightly.

I was also sure that they only came into the rooms to clean up just once a day and as I had checked when I got back from the convent, the bed had been made and the towels had been changed in the bathroom. She wouldn’t be back here again today.

Another small detail; if it was dinner time, the girl would be serving the tables, so I was sure that no one would enter in my absence.

Putting on my sweater and feeling more relaxed, I went over to the door, opened it and closed it behind me. Heading down the long corridor as I went to the dining room, I thought, “And where will I leave it tomorrow when I have to go to work?”

“Manu,” I answered myself for some reassurance, “just leave it there in the same place, I’m sure there’s no way anyone will find it, and besides, who would think to look for it? Nobody knows you have it,” and more calmly, I opened the door to the dining room and sat there were my companions.

“At last! sleepy! Look who we had to go find to get dinner, when you’re normally the first to arrive saying you’re about to pass out from hunger, and you start snacking on bread while they bring us the food. Are you coming down with something?” they asked me.

“What are you talking about? I’m just tired, something that can be remedied with some sleep,” I replied to reassure them.

Dinner passed without any major upheavals. I tasted what I’d been given without much enthusiasm, and I must have made some strange expression, because they told me laughing:

“They haven’t quite hit the mark with your preferences today. Boy, that means your situation is more serious than we thought, because you normally always praise everything they serve us. We’ve never heard you say, ‘I don’t like this!’ You’re always the first to clear your plate and wipe it clean saying, ‘The sauce is the best part, and it’s a shame to waste it,’ and today it seems you’re even having difficulties chewing. Have you got tonsillitis?”

“No,” I answered reluctantly, “I’ve already had my tonsils removed, I still remember how bad those days were after the operation when I couldn’t eat anything,” I told them so they would leave me alone.

“Tell us, tell us,” they said, “you never told us that, that there was a time when you’d gone without food and you didn’t die,” Jorge was saying, ever the jester.

Everyone laughed at the remark.

“Don’t laugh!” I said, becoming serious, “I had a really hard time.”

“We’re tired of hearing you say, ‘I’m so hungry that if I don’t have something to eat, I’ll die,’ so tell us about that. Come on! How could you put up with a day without eating?”

Reluctantly, because what I wanted was to go back to my room so I could finally open that little book in peace, the book that had been so zealously hidden, I started telling them about it, saying:

“Alright, well, like I said… when you have them removed, you can’t eat.”

“Wait,” said Jorge, who was always the loudest voice in the room, and who always came up with ideas, “and to celebrate this secret that you’re about to share with us, shall we have a little something?”

When I heard the word “Secret,” I was petrified, what was he saying? Could he know something about what was going on?

When he saw my face, he continued saying:

“Boy, I didn’t know it would be so difficult for you to talk about something that I don’t think is that serious.”

As words were failing me at that moment, he started saying:

“Well, when I was little, they operated on me…”

“You too?” the others asked.

“Nah, I’m just trying to help him get started,” Jorge said between laughs.

At that point, I realized what they wanted, and I said:

“Yes, when I was little…”

“What age?” they asked me.

“Don’t interrupt him, or he won’t tell us,” Jorge insisted.

“Alright, I’ll continue, I was eight years old, I remember it perfectly, I got really sick one day. My mother sent Carmen, who as you know is two years older than me, she sent her running for the doctor. He lived on the same street as we did, so it didn’t take her long to get there, although as he said, he didn’t like visiting anyone outside of his practice hours, because he had to rest too. What if he fell ill? Who would tend to him?”

“The thing is, I must have had a high fever, I still remember that my father picked me up and carried me to the car. Wait no, it was my mother who took me…”

“Can you make up your mind?” Santi said impatiently.

“Yes, the doctor must have said something to them, because I remember very clearly that my mother started crying and my Dad scolded her, and I found that surprising, ‘We have to move quickly, this is no time for tears,’ I heard him say. Even with the amount of time that’s passed, I’ve not forgotten that, because I’d never heard my father speak to her like that before.”

“Then I remember that he took me and carried me out of the house in his arms, as if I were a little kid. Then in the car, he was driving and my mother was in the back seat. She held me almost lying down, I remember having seen the street lamps shining from back there,” I said a little thoughtfully.

“So what are you saying? Are you gonna keep telling us your story or not? What do the street lamps have to do with anything?” Jorge asked me again.

“Look, it’s because I’d never been out at night in the car, I’d seen the street lamps lit now and then on the street, but not from that angle, with my head on my mother’s legs. I saw the lights go by in such a strange way, that I remember it perfectly well, as if it were happening right now. I remember making an effort and I got up a little to look out the window, and I saw how dark everything was. You could only see the row of street lamps lighting the place. I couldn’t make out where it was. It felt to me like it took a long time. I don’t remember anything else, until I found myself lying on a bed with a huge light above my face and someone, I think a man, but I’m not sure, was watching me with his mouth covered.”

“‘Just relax, everything will be alright, do you know how to count?’ asked that stranger with an unfamiliar voice, and I said yes.”

“‘Well, can you count to ten for me?’ he said, and covered my mouth with something strange. I remember hearing myself saying three, four, and then nothing else.”

“I don’t know what happened, just that I wanted to continue counting at five when I woke up, and my voice wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t hear myself count, and my mother by the bed said:

“‘He’s waking up.’”

“And I saw how my father, gave me a kiss with a worried face. That really surprised me, because he wasn’t the kissing type. Maybe he would give me one at Christmas, or on my birthday, but nothing more, and at the time I remembered that it was neither of those days. What might have happened for him to have kissed me? So I thought I had to ask him what was wrong.”

I stopped to take a breath, and Jorge impatiently took the floor.

“But boy, you still haven’t told us how you felt without eating,” he was telling me.

“Wait for me to continue then. I remember that I was very hungry. I was in bed, I had visited a doctor whom I didn’t know, that was not the norm, then I learned he was a specialist who had operated on me, an otolaryngologist,” I was saying, when I was interrupted again.

“You remember a name like that so well given how difficult it is,” the boys told me.

“Yes, because when I asked what he was called, and they told me, my father wrote it down for me so I wouldn’t forget it, and I read it so many times that I learned it by heart and that’s why I still remember it. Because I couldn’t talk, well I tried but nothing would come out, I communicated by writing in a notebook with a pencil, which the nurse gave me. I’m sure she knew what had happened because she gave it to me the first time she came to see me.”

“‘As you’re old enough and because I’m sure you know how to write very well, when you want something, just write it here,’ and taking the two items out of her pocket she told me, ‘Take them, do you like them?’”

“The first thing I wrote said:

‘Is it for me? Thank you, yes, I like them a lot.’”

“‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I bought them for you,’ she was saying there next to my bed.”

“‘And can I take them home with me?’ I wrote again there in the notebook.”

“She picked it up again to read what I had written, she answered laughing:

‘Of course, I told you they’re for you, as they say, ‘You can’t take back a gift you’ve given, that way you won’t get into heaven.’’”

“I was amazed because I’d never heard anyone say that before and I asked my mother, or rather I wrote in that notebook:

‘Mom! What is this missus talking about?’”

“The nurse, who thought that what I was writing was also for her said:

‘Missus? How old do you think I am young man?’ and laughing, she left the room.

“I didn’t understand what she meant, but my mother told me:

‘Rest up, you still have to recover.’”

“I picked up the little notebook again and wrote:

‘And when can I eat here Mom?’ I was already noticing that my stomach was grumbling having not eaten anything for a while.”

“‘I’m afraid you can’t do that yet Manu, they’ve had to remove your tonsils,’ she said, looking at me.”

“‘What does that mean Mom?’ I wrote, and I put my hand to my throat as if I wanted to look for a scar, but I didn’t notice anything, but in spite of it I couldn’t speak, even though I wanted to.”

“My father took my hand with a lot of affection, and sitting on the bed he said:

‘Manu, tonsils are the little lumps that hang down at the back of the mouth, and if they get bad, they have to be removed.’”

“‘Right,’ I wrote in my notebook, ‘Well, if they have already been taken out, when can I eat something? I’m starving.’”

“Oh, so when you were a kid you also said that you were dying of hunger?” interrupted Jorge.

Getting up from the table, I said:

“I’m done, I’m not telling you anymore, I’m going to sleep.” But at that moment, the girl entered the dining room and came over to our table, with slices of cake piled onto a tray, one for each one of us.

“Go on then! Get outta here! It’s your loss, all the more for us, we’ll divide up your slice among us,” Santi was already saying, “since you’re so tired, I bet you’d rather be in bed than eating this.”

I looked at that tasty treat, chocolate cake, I could hardly miss out on that and I sat back down again. We distributed the slices, tossing each onto the little plates that they had set down for us. They gave me the biggest piece, saying:

“You’ve earned it for sharing your secret, but don’t take a bite until you finish telling us everything.”

“Well, there’s not much left to tell. I was there, admitted to that place, which I later learned was a hospital in La Coruña, which my parents had had to take me to in a hurry that night. Like I said, I was admitted and I wasn’t even allowed to take any water at first. I was allowed after a while, but just water. I don’t know how long that took, to me it seemed like a month or more.”