Читать книгу Fatima: The Final Secret - Juan Moisés De La Serna, Dr. Juan Moisés De La Serna, Paul Valent - Страница 8

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:

“Have some patience, we’re almost there,” and we continued walking in silence.

We left the streets of Santiago behind, and surprised by our departure, we asked him again, but nothing, he insisted on not clarifying where he was taking us.

Following our guide in single file, we directed our steps along a lonely path. We continued on toward the place that only that colleague knew. Coming out of a bend, we saw some ruins in the distance of what must once have been a house, but now it was already half-crumbled.

“Here it is, we’ve arrived, let’s see how you behave,” Simón told us with a broad smile.

“You’re kidding,” we said in surprise, “what are we going to do with those ruins, rebuild something?”

“Of course, otherwise why else do you think we’d come here? We’ll try to repair this place as best we can, so it doesn’t collapse and they can spend the winter here without getting wet.”

He was saying this to us very seriously and we all stared first at him and then at what was left of that building.

“Wait, what are you saying? If we don’t have a clue what we’re doing, what are you expecting from us?” we’d stopped to tell him, because we were astonished.

“Well, that’s what I’m here for, to show you whatever you need,” he said smiling to reassure us. “You’ll see how nice we leave it. Have a little faith. Come on, let’s continue.”

Just as we were arriving at the place, a very old lady, all dressed in black, came out from the half-crumbled ruins of the house, and seeing our companion, she threw her arms around him.

“Son, what a joy, I thought it was a joke when you told us the other day that you would come with friends of yours to lend a hand,” and she started crying.

“Don’t worry Mam, everything will be fine, you’ll see how beautiful we leave the house, and Sir? How is he today?” and without waiting for a reply, he went inside the house.

“Thank you boys, we can’t pay you, but God will surely do that, He knows how much we need these repairs,” the old woman was telling us, standing there in front of her door.

Wiping the tears from her face with the corner of her apron, she turned around and said:

“Come in, come in.”

She went into the house, and we all followed.

“I can’t offer you anything,” she said, and there was concern in her tone of voice.

“Don’t worry, we’ve had a good breakfast before coming, besides, we’re here to help you,” I said putting my hand on her shoulder trying to reassure her.

I looked at those half-crumbling walls and thought, “How can there be people living in these conditions? Is there not a more decent place where they can be moved to?”

As if reading my thoughts, she answered me with a tone of deep sadness:

“No son, there is nothing we can do, only hold on while the body endures, between these four walls, and thanks be to God that we have them. Others are worse off than we are and don’t even have a roof to shelter under when it rains or when the cold comes.”

I looked up at it and then I stared at the ceiling, or rather, the place where it should be, because now the sky was visible through parts of it, and other parts only consisted of very old planks, which in their better days would have held something that now no longer exists, possibly some kind of roofing tile.

Addressing the youth who was closest, she asked:

“Where are you going to start? How can I help you? Tell me what I have to do.”

“Nana, take it easy and you’ll see how nicely we leave everything,” said Jorge with a smile, “you just get on with your things, as if we weren’t here. We’ll try not to disturb you too much.”

I didn’t know how he could say that, I mean, what could we do there? Where would we get the material we needed? And most surprisingly, having never done it before, how would we students place a single brick without it falling on us?

Well, we only had to wait a short time to see the results, which at that moment seemed so difficult to achieve.

We were there all summer. I think it was the best spent vacation time of my entire life. Working, with calloused hands, hauling earth, bricks, cement and the material that we were accumulating and using piece by piece until we rebuilt that little house with our own hands.

When we saw it finished, none of us could believe it. We had put all our enthusiasm into it, and we were truly proud of what we’d achieved.

It seemed that as the work progressed, it was taking years off the two people who lived there. They helped us with the eagerness of a pair of youngsters. We had to reprimand them so they wouldn’t carry so much. They apologized to us, telling us that they couldn’t stand by idle, watching us rebuild their beloved little house. A house that, back in their day, they had built themselves, so many years ago that they almost couldn’t remember how many, but that the passage of time had been responsible for ruining, one little flaw at a time.

<<<<< >>>>>

It was Sunday, the last day of vacation, and we wanted to gather all our friends together to say goodbye. Classes would begin tomorrow and each of us had to dedicate ourselves to our own path, so it would be difficult for us to see each other again, since each of us studied different things. As it was raining that morning, it was not possible to go out, so resigned, I looked for something to do. In the end, I dedicated the morning to fixing those bookshelves I had and the notes that had accumulated on the drawers and I said to myself: “I’m going to clean up to make room for the new materials for the new academic year that will start soon.”

How quickly time had gone by, it seemed like only yesterday when I came home saying:

“Family, I’m finished.”

“But you’re so thin, what’s happened to you?” my mother asked as she gave me a hug.

“You know buddy, eating during exam time doesn’t take up much time,” my father said smiling, “now it’s up to you to regain your strength.”

And giving me a hug, he asked me:

“What about your grades? Do we have any surprises?”

“In any case, let him get some rest, he’ll tell us everything,” she protested.

“Relax, I passed everything,” I answered my father smiling.

“Passed?” he asked me. “Only passed?”

“No, relax Dad, I didn’t lose the scholarship,” I said to him in a satisfied tone.

He gave a strong sigh of relief and said:

“Son, you know how important it is that they keep giving it to you.”

“Yes, calm down, everything went well. Well, I’d say better than well,” I added smiling.

“I’m so proud of you,” he said softly.

Chelito came out of her room just then and running, she pounced on me and wrapping her arms around my neck, said:

“Brother, I really wanted you to come home. This way we can be two against two, because the twins are always messing with me. Now they’re in for it,” she said, laughing happily.

I kissed her, and smiling, said:

“Yes, now they’ll see, we’ll beat them, together they won’t be able to win.”

“Manu, you haven’t changed a bit,” Mom said, “you’re still a big kid.”

Smiling as he went into the sitting room, I heard Dad say:

“That’s good, better to stay that way for a long time.”

<<<<< >>>>>

It was the last week of work. The group of bricklayers, as we liked to call each other, had to finish everything, summer was ending fast. As for our summer vacation, it was almost over as well, and we were going to take advantage of the last few days to enjoy, as someone put it, “a well-deserved rest.”

We approached the little house, the one we were so proud of, it was indeed our work. Even though we only came at first to try to patch up the roof a little, we ended up tiling it and fixing those holes that had been letting the rain water easily pass through since who knows when. Then, seeing that we were doing so well, we continued, and continued. We fixed the walls, we also put in a new floor in the room where they slept, which had only been cement and some of it was in a very bad state.

At the place where we bought the materials, the owner told us:

“I have some tiles piled up over there, they’re uneven, the ones that have been left over, do you want them? I can give them to you for a good price.”

A little sad, we answered that we would like to buy them, but we didn’t have money to pay for them. We told him that if he gave them to us, then the place would be left empty, and that way we would be doing him a favor, he would have the whole area cleared so he could put whatever he wanted there.

The man thought about it for a moment and said:

“Boys, you’ve been cheating me all summer, always asking me for this broken but still useful tile, those bricks that are neglected and flaking, and that’s how you cleared me up. I have to acknowledge that, and I also know that you work for free. Look, alright, I’ll give you the tiles, and this time I’ll even take them to where you tell me, so that later you don’t tell me that I don’t treat you well.”

We were very happy loading them onto that three-wheeled scooter that he had. Old and rickety though it was, it served him very well to distribute the construction material to those who bought it. He took them to the place where we indicated. When he saw what we had done, he was pleasantly surprised.

“You boys have done this on your own?” the man asked us, “I don’t believe it.”

“Of course, with your material and also with those tips you’ve been giving us,” we answered him.

“Guys, if you want to work on this…” he began to say, but we would not let him continue.

“Nooo!” we all told him, “for vacation is enough, the school year begins soon and we’ll have to dedicate our time to hitting the books, we’ve got a lot of subjects to get on with.”

Both the owners of the house, as well as the man who had brought those tiles for us, laughed with us. He said goodbye and left in his vehicle, which, even though it was very old, still did its job well.

We put in the floor of that little bedroom with those tiles, which were a variety of colors. We tried to make a picture with them, and it stuck with us when the old lady said:

“Beautiful, I would never have thought we’d have such an elegant bedroom.”

“What if we look for a bed?” it occurred to me to say to my companions. Those four wooden posts that held up the straw mattress were already severely compromised by woodworms, and one of these days they would break and they would end up on the floor.

As it seemed like a good idea to them as well, we began the task. We had to find something very cheap, something that we could afford, although we still didn’t know how. We were all broke, as they say, and we’d been taking everything we could from what little they gave each of us from our own homes. Although they weren’t much, those reales, “For expenses,” as my mother put it, enabled us to afford the material that we needed.

Determined to complete that last task, so necessary for that elderly couple, we went to the store where they sold furniture, but there was no way. Everything was very expensive and we were just students. We didn’t have a single peseta, although each of us had already agreed to ask our families for an advance from the monthly payment, to be able to pay for it if we found something that we could afford.

With this, we were in luck once again. One of them, Antonio, did as we had agreed, and asked for this advance from his grandmother, who used to give it to him, as she told him, “For tobacco,” because he was now a man, and men are known to have their expenses. When he asked for the advance, she had wondered why he asked her for so much money at once, because she couldn’t give it to him at the time.

“Go on, tell me why you want it, is it because you’ve gotten yourself into some kind of trouble? What do you need so much money for?” she asked him when she saw that he had been disappointed by her refusal.

He didn’t want to tell her, but you know how grandmothers are, when they want something, they get it. He told her a little about what we were doing. She was surprised, because she had her grandson pegged for a party animal, and that had her a little worried, and every once in a while she would say:

“Young Antonio, now that you’re on vacation, why don’t you come home for a while? I’m all by myself here, and I’ll make you the donuts you love so much.”

To which he always answered:

“Grammy, I’m going out with my friends.”

And he didn’t give her any further explanation, he just left and went days without seeing her.

She was a little sad, but he did not want to tell anyone in his family what we were doing, so he spent the summer saying he was going out with friends, without saying anything else, without giving any explanation about where he went and what he did. We even had to leave him some pants, some old shoes and a shirt so that they wouldn’t notice anything unusual in his house. He was always very careful when picking things up so that he didn’t get calluses, in case anyone in his family saw them.

What he told his grandmother resulted in us having a new bed and many more things. We could never have imagined it, and all because what her grandson had done during the summer had brought her such joy, she said she wanted to meet those people.

Antonio didn’t want to say where he was, nor give her any more information. He left almost without saying goodbye to her, because he thought he’d screwed up, and we were going to be angry about it.

When we met the next day and he told us, we told him:

“Well, I think the parties concerned have to make that decision,” and we all decided to ask the elderly couple, but we also told Antonio: “You should have taken advantage of the situation, you’ve been foolish.”

That was how we arrived at the newly rebuilt house and the couple were surprised because we were scolding Antonio and they asked us what was wrong.

Antonio told them what had happened and that his grandmother wanted to meet them. We also had to tell them about our plans to find them a bed.

“But boys, it’s not like you haven’t done enough already. Don’t bother yourselves any further, and above all don’t bother your families, who have had to spend the whole summer not being able to enjoy being with you all,” they told us in protest, surprised by what we were telling them.

“And what do I tell my Grammy now?” Antonio asked.

They looked at each other and the old man, taking the lead, replied:

“It’s not a problem for us,” he said to Antonio, “but tell her what it’s really like. We wouldn’t want her shoes to be stained with mud.”

Everyone laughed at that remark and Antonio said:

“Papa, that doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” he said very seriously, “don’t laugh, I have my reasons for saying that.”

“Sorry,” we said in unison, embarrassed.

“It’s alright, but I want you to understand that there are people who have never walked these roads, and you already know what they’re like, that’s why it’s better to warn them before they get here.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Antonio said, “my grandmother is one of those folk who like to go hiking, going up into the mountains ‘to take the air,’ as she puts it, and spending all day in the countryside.”

“Well, if she doesn’t mind, we’re happy for her to come,” the woman said.

“Let her come if she wishes,” added the old man, not really convinced.

Antonio told them more calmly:

“Well, next Sunday I’ll let her know.”

“What? Next Sunday?” I asked him. “Today, this can’t wait.”

“Whaaat?” he said in surprise. “What’s the hurry? How am I going to do that?”

“Look, if she comes and sees the situation, and she helps us, well, better for it to be as soon as possible, right?”

“What would I say? What excuse would I use?” Antonio asked, worried about the step he had to take.

“Look,” I said, “didn’t you tell us that you left almost without saying goodbye? That you didn’t want to say anything else? Well, you go and tell her that you’ve thought about it and that it seemed to you that the way you left was wrong, you’re going to ask for her forgiveness. I think that would please her, don’t you think?”

“Well, I’m sure she’d like that,” he said, although it was obvious that he wasn’t very convinced.

“And at the same time you tell her that a friend of yours likes donuts a whole lot. Let’s see if she makes you an extra one and you can bring it to me,” I whispered quietly, but everyone heard, which prompted unanimous laughter:

“You’re a greedy guy,” they told me, “you’ve always got eating on your mind.”

“That’s a good thing,” said the old lady, “eat now while you can. Over the years you lose your appetite, or even worse your teeth and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Come on, leave this for now,” said the husband, “let’s get to work, there’s not much time left and surely you’ll want to get away from us boring old folk.”

“Whaaat?” we all said, “but it’s been the best summer we’ve ever had.”

“You’re such jokers,” said the old lady, “you’re just saying that so we don’t feel bad. Think of all the fun you could have had with your friends, or with some girl.”

“Girls?” we said. “As if! None of them want to pay us any attention, they go out with boys in their final year, or with those who’ve already graduated, they don’t even look at us.”

With that the chat was over, we had to work, we still had something to do.

The following day, we were in for a surprise. Antonio had left early the previous afternoon because between all of us we ended up convincing him to spend some more time with his grandmother, and we encouraged him to arrive smiling and to be nice.

He went to her house, and happened to catch her as she was about to leave. She had arranged to meet a friend for a hot cocoa and to take a walk. When she saw him arrive, she said:

“Young Antonio, son, I wasn’t expecting to see you, is anything wrong?”

He told her what he had prepared, he was going to apologize for the rude way he had left.

“Ah youth, I already know, don’t you worry. Come on, since you’re here, come with me and we’ll chat a little bit. You can clarify everything you told me, I’ve been turning it over in my mind and I just don’t understand. Tell me where you’re going with your friends, it’s not true is it? Is it that you’ve got a girlfriend and you don’t want to tell me?” his grandmother asked him as they walked.

“No Grammy, really, I’m with them all the time, I’d never lie to you,” he answered, “I’ve already told you what we’ve done this summer, it’s all true, I can assure you.”

She was coaxing it out as only grandmothers know how to do, and before he knew it he was telling her everything about our secret. Well it’s not like it’s a bad thing, but as he told us later, he told her everything, or almost everything we’d done, because he didn’t know how to stop.

Distracted by their conversation, they arrived at the coffee shop where she had arranged to meet her friend. They saw from the door that she was already sitting waiting inside, because she had arrived earlier.

Leaving her there, Antonio tried to say goodbye by giving her a kiss, but his grandmother, taking him by the arm, said:

“Now, don’t you want a little cocoa? I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, warm like you’ve always liked it, and you can take it with you if you’re in a hurry, I won’t keep you any longer than necessary.”

“Well, if I’m not bothering you,” Antonio answered, “but then I have to go.”

“Son, how could you bother us?” said the friend who had been listening to him, “Let the young girls get jealous when they see us two old women accompanied by such a handsome young man,” and the three of them laughed.

When they had their cups of steaming hot cocoa, staring at her across the table, as if thinking aloud, Antonio said:

“How lucky some of us are.”

“Why?” said his grandmother curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Because you can afford these little treats,” he replied.

“Treats?” said his grandmother’s friend. “Son, this is just a hot cocoa to invigorate the body, and some days it even serves as dinner, and that way we don’t have to make anything at home.”

“Yes,” he said, “but it’s just that others can’t afford it, whether it’s this or anything like it, even if they’re dying of cold, or of hunger.”

Now in a serious tone, his grandmother told him:

“Listen son, I’m going to tell my friend what you’ve told me, I think she needs to know, to see if we can do something.”

“No Grammy, no please,” he protested, “I’ve only told you for you, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Yes, please let me, you can tell me not to continue, to stop, whenever you want, but I think I should do it.”

And before he could convince her not to say anything, she began to tell her friend about everything, or almost everything, that her grandson had confided to her.

To his surprise, looking at him, her friend said:

“Son, tomorrow we’re going to see the situation those people are in, to see how we can help them out.”

“What for?” he asked, with a very serious tone, because all of this was going down very badly with him.

“Well, what else? To help them in whatever way we can,” the lady replied.

When he was telling us earlier that day, the elderly couple said:

“They’re going to come here? But we don’t have anything to give them.”

“Nana, Papa, that’s not why they’re coming,” I told them and they relaxed a little.

Then, when we saw them appear mid-morning, we were all shaking. “What would happen?” I wondered.

It was a very interesting visit. Antonio’s grandmother and her friend told us that they’d had some trouble getting there, that they had almost lost their way, but hey, they made it in the end. What’s more, they did not come empty-handed, they brought some donuts that tasted heavenly to all of us, and the elderly couple brought them some food.

After resting for a little while, sitting there on those logs that we were also quite used to by that point, they told us to leave them alone with the elderly couple. We went off to finish doing four things that we still had to finish, so we let them talk quietly.

They had come to help and boy did they help. They provided them with a new bed and a new mattress. Well, it was all second-hand, but it was almost new. In addition, they looked to see what else those people needed, and as a result they brought them some chairs and clothes, especially coats, some blankets and I think some kitchen utensil too.

They told us that they belonged to an organization that helped the needy, and through them they were also provided with food, which they brought for them once a week, even though we almost lost contact with them, because upon starting the academic year we had to dedicate ourselves to our student assignments.

We tried to help those people as much as we could that summer, and even if a million years passed, I don’t think any of us “Bricklayers” will ever forget that wonderful experience. There were other summers, yes, but that was the first, at least for me.

<<<<< >>>>>

One day, we were resting, sitting on some logs that were there at the door of the house, and the old man began to talk to us while we ate those sandwiches that we had brought from our homes, and that we enjoyed so much, given how tired we were.

He sat with us and as if he were thinking aloud, he suddenly told us that he had been a soldier in his youth.

“Really? Where? In the civil war?” we asked curiously.

“No boys,” he said, “I’m very old.”

“Then where?” we asked again.

“In the Cuban war,” he answered quietly.

“Whaaat?” we all said in surprise. “But that was a long time ago.”

“Yep, I told you, I’m very old,” he answered and he remained very thoughtful, no doubt remembering those times.

Our curiosity wouldn’t leave him to his thoughts and we immediately asked him:

“Then you’ve crossed the sea? Tell us, tell us.”

“Sure, twice,” he told us, “one way, and fortunately back again, because others who were less fortunate than I was went over there and stayed there forever, they never returned.”

“And tell us, what was that like?” we all insisted with curiosity.

“Very pretty,” he said, “well, the place, not the war. It was always sunny, although sometimes we were so hot that we could hardly stay on our feet.”

He was telling us, but you could tell he was reliving it in the meantime.

“Such exaggeration!” said Jorge and immediately added: “Sorry.”

“No son, when it’s so hot, the body becomes dehydrated, and we didn’t have water, well, not even food. Also, bear in mind that we weren’t accustomed to that kind of heat, to the kind of high temperatures they had over there,” he said with a sadness in his eyes.

“Then why did you tell us before that all of that was pretty?” he asked.

“Well, because it didn’t rain like it does here.” Ending the talk, he was starting to get up and we said to him with curiosity:

“More, more, don’t leave us hanging.” Now that he had started, he had to tell us more things.

“Well, there’s nothing more, we had to retreat,” he told us.

“How did they win the war?” we asked him curiously.

“Wait, don’t you study those things? Then what do they teach you in school? That we went on to win it? We lost it, but I didn’t stay until the end. I had more luck. I was wounded and being on the right no longer served them, well, that’s what I think anyway. The fact is that they brought us all back a few months before the end of the war on a ship full of sick people. Well, there were sick and wounded people, and none of us were needed there anymore. Actually, we were a nuisance. A ship came from Havana to Spain to bring more soldiers and instead of making the crossing empty, it came full of those who would be useless in battle, who only ate what little food they had there, or at least that’s what we thought. They didn’t tell us that, but there are things you don’t need to be told to know.”

He suddenly fell silent; it was plain to see how he remembered those painful times. We were all silent, expectant. He took a breath, and continued talking.

“Here, the most serious cases were allocated to different hospitals. Of course, just the ones who made it back, because some fell by the wayside.”

The old man was silent and looking at the ground with deep sadness. He continued, saying:

“Both family and friends.”

“Family? Did you also have a relative with you?” Antonio asked curiously.

“Yes, we’d gone as three cousins. We wanted to leave the town so we enlisted, thinking that it would be easier, that there would be no danger. Yes, it was a war, we knew that, but nobody told us that there were other worse things there,” he was telling us all, but when he got to this point, we became aware of the upset tone in his voice.

“What worse things?” I asked, surprised. “What could be worse than a bullet?”

“Well, diseases, you can’t protect yourself against those, and those struck us more than bullets and decimated us without warning. One of my cousins died of a fever within a few days and the other came back on the boat with me also sick, but he didn’t make it, he succumbed on the journey. So out of the three of us who left, I’m the only one who can tell you about it.”

“And what did they do with those who didn’t make it?” Simón asked without being able to contain himself.

“Well son, what do you think they did? They tossed them overboard for fish food,” he said quietly and his eyes filled with tears.

“Whaaat?” we said. “No way! And nobody protested?”

“But how were they going to transport them with the time it took to get back?” and he stopped talking for a while.

Surely he was remembering all that he had experienced on that terrible voyage.

We remained silent so he would continue, but his wife who had approached him to listen to him said:

“Yes, but thanks to that we met one another. As the saying goes, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’ Come on, stop remembering the sad stuff, which doesn’t do you any good.”

“Really?” we asked curious. “But surely there’s more, come on, tell us, tell us.”

Also sat on another log and seeing us sitting there, she began to tell us:

“I was helping out in a hospital. At first I swept and scrubbed the floor, but one day they didn’t have enough hands to tend to all the soldiers that had arrived, and a doctor told me:

‘Young lady, drop that broom and come here right now, I need you, run.’”

“Surprised, I looked around me, thinking he was talking to someone else, but when I didn’t see anyone else, I went over, and before I knew it, he took my hand and put it on a bloody rag, applying pressure to stop the blood flowing from a wound.”

“When I saw the blood I almost fainted, but the wounded man lying there, looking at me and smiling, said:

‘Thank you pretty girl,’ and it was he who then passed out.”

“I was all scared and I told the doctor:

‘He died.’”

“‘No, stay here, he’s not going anywhere, press hard.’”

“‘How is he going to go anywhere if he just died?’ I asked the doctor, because I hadn’t understood what he’d meant.”

“‘He only fainted from the pain,’ the doctor said, smiling, ‘but right now I’ll stitch up that scratch and you’ll see, in two or three days you’ll be walking around out there together.’”

“I noticed how my whole face turned red with embarrassment, and I said quietly:

‘What are you saying?’”

“‘You’re both young, are you not? If I were a few years younger, I would also ask you if you’d like to take a walk with me, but I don’t think it’s appropriate anymore. We have a lot of work to do here.’”

“None of this seemed serious to me and I tried to leave. When I made a gesture to remove my hand from the rag, the doctor pushed my hand down hard on the wound saying:

‘Be careful, if you don’t keep pressing down, he could bleed out. Press down hard, he doesn’t feel it.’”

“Alright, I’m not telling you any more. That wounded soldier is this husband of mine, and that doctor seemed to be a fortune teller; he was right. As for the soldier, after the stitches they gave him; go on, show them.”

“What did you say dear?” the husband asked in surprise, not expecting his wife’s request.

“Yes, yes,” we said with curiosity. Faced with our insistence, he couldn’t refuse us.

He rolled up his sleeve as far as he could and we saw a large scar. It started near the elbow and ran up his arm, disappearing under the sleeve of his shirt, which hid the other end.

As the old lady had stopped talking, Simón, who was the most curious, asked:

“And you got married? You have to tell us what happened next, you can’t leave us hanging like that.”

“Of course, what do you think? Well, it wasn’t immediately because he returned home and we had to wait a bit,” she said looking lovingly at her husband, “but we finally managed.”

“Where are you from?” Simón asked again.

“I’m from Extremadura, from a very small village in the province of Badajoz called Azuaga. I worked there as a boy in the lead mines, like the rest of the town. I don’t know if you know, but they’re the only lead mines in the whole of Spain.”

“Well, there are loads of mines in Spain, almost everywhere,” Jorge told him.

“Yes, but lead mines? Surely not,” he insisted. “They’re only to be found in my town. One day I got tired and I enlisted, like many others, so I could leave all that behind, get out of that town and see the world. We agreed, two of my cousins and myself, and we didn’t say a word about it to our families, so they wouldn’t oppose it. After we’d enlisted, when it was too late to back out, they found out, and I can assure you that none of us would have gone anywhere if not for the fact that everything had already been set in motion. That’s how we embarked on the adventure. We’ve always done so in my town; we have a forefather from the town who went with Christopher Columbus to discover the Americas. We wanted to do something similar, go see the world, leave the place where we were. Yes, we were happy to be with our families, but there was no future there. You know what small towns are like, things just didn’t work out as we thought they would, the kind of stuff that young folk worry about! What were we gonna do?”

After stopping to rest a little, looking at the ground and remembering those distant times, he continued telling us about those snippets from his life, that he had kept so deep inside and that he almost certainly had never entrusted to anyone before.

“When I left that hospital where we met,” the old man was saying, “I had to go home to my town. I had to recover from all that. I was, as they say, ‘Like a toothpick,’ and I hadn’t an ounce of strength. Besides, I didn’t have a place to stay here, so even though I really didn’t enjoy leaving this woman, I had to, it was the best way. I only held out there for a few months though, and when I thought I’d sufficiently recovered, I told my family:

‘I’m going to look for my Galician girl,’ and there was no way they could stop me, so I came to this part of the country.”

“First, I looked for a job. I couldn’t approach the person I loved and tell her ‘I’m an invalid.’”

“I found one right away, because when you’re not fussy, you’re not put off by anything. With all that out of the way, I searched for her and eventually we got married; end of story.”

“Then came the civil war and our life took a turn, but hey, everyone had to adjust to the circumstances and we can’t complain.”

“We’ve always been together, that’s what we wanted and although God has not wanted to bless us with children, we’re very happy.”

<<<<< >>>>>

Others came after that first summer, but everything changed when I finished my studies. It’s still funny though when they ask me:

“Why did you get so involved in a task that only those who were engaged in church activities all day did? Those whose ideas led them to give more of themselves to the needy, as a way to follow their doctrine, those who listened in the sermons, those who never raised their voices, or got involved with anyone for fear of committing a sin, as the priests said.”

It’s not that I have anything against a person being good, I just refuse to accept that you can only be good by being, as they say, “a good Catholic,” because that was the normal way to think of these issues surrounding morality coming from a family like mine, and with Carmen, my older sister, living in a convent.

<<<<< >>>>>

Yes, it was an unexpected decision, being a brilliant lawyer, the top of her class, with a successful practice in La Coruña and as modern as she seemed. That Sunday, after meeting everyone and having made us all sit down, she stood there very serious in front of us, announcing without sidestepping that she had something to tell us.

“Dad, Mom, I’m going to live in a convent,” she said without blinking.

“Whaaat?” exclaimed my father, unable to contain himself. “What about your job? And the practice? What are you going to do with all of it? How can you just abandon it?”

Of course my mother, who at that moment began to weep with joy, getting up and hugging Carmen, said:

“My darling daughter, I knew it. I’ve sensed it since you were a child, but you persisted in studying law and I didn’t want to discourage you,” she said as she kissed her excitedly.

“Sorry Carmen! Could you say that again please?” said my father very seriously.

“Dad, I’ve made up my mind. I’ve been there several times, to the convent, to see how life there was. It’s not just a whim, I know that’s what I want. It’s not a joke, or anything like that, I’ll be shutting down the practice, I’ve already let the owners of the property know that I’m leaving it empty, so there’s no problem there. If you want any of the furniture or books that are there, you can take them, and if not, I’ll see what I can do about them.”

My father, who hadn’t yet absorbed the news, said:

“But love, given what it’s cost us to put it all together and now you’re going to throw it all away? What if it turns out that it was just a whim after all, and you decide to go back to your work? What will you do? Will you buy everything again?”

“Dad,” Carmen said, “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and you know better than anyone else that I don’t take things lightly, that I think about decisions a great deal before making them, and it’s already decided. The last commitments I had have already been concluded and I’ve not picked up any more cases. As for the expense you put into helping me set it all up, don’t worry, I have the money saved. Since I started earning it, I’ve spent almost nothing, so I can return it all to you, and you can invest it in any other need that might come up.”

“Carmen,” my father said a little more calmly, “it’s not money I want to talk about, we were happy to spend it to set up the practice. We’re not talking about that right now. I’m telling you, if what you want is to leave that job because it’s not what you expected or there’s some other reason, fair enough, close it all and take some time to think about which direction you want your life to take. Go out, meet people, maybe you’ll even find some young man you like and you can start a family, but think about it calmly and don’t rush into anything, because everything in your life has always gone in such a rush.”

He stopped for a moment to take a breath and continued:

“Studying and studying, that was always the only thing that interested you. I don’t remember if you’ve ever gone to any parties with your friends, those that I know so well from the endless hours that you’ve all spent studying to complete your course, but I also remember how on vacation, they would call you up to go out and you would make excuses, ‘I have to revise’. ‘But we’re done and you’ve got great grades,’ they told you, and you wouldn’t be persuaded. You’d spend the afternoon here at home, locked in your room among those huge legal tomes, saying you still had a little bit to get through.”

“Well, that’s in the past now,” said Mom interrupting at that point, “and thanks to them she managed to finish at the top of her class, which helped her greatly when it came to setting up the practice and finding her first clients, but now we’re talking about something else, her life, not her career and I think that’s more important.”

“Darling, I think it’s a good idea for you to spend a week at that convent you’re talking about, that you live with them and that you know there are other things in the world, but I think the decision to stay there permanently is something you have to sleep on.”

“Mom, I’ve already done that, do you think I haven‘t spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about how to tell you? About what I can add when you try to dissuade me? I told the superior once that maybe I wasn’t strong enough to act against your wishes and she replied that…”

“Wait, what are you saying? Who did you talk to about this before us?” my father asked interrupting what she was telling us.

“Dad, I just told the superior, I needed to talk to her and clarify things, and she said:

‘Don’t worry, you know you’re not alone, follow the call, and from there you’ll find the strength.’”

“What are you talking about?” asked my father. “What call? I don’t understand anything today, and who is that woman?”

“Well, she’s the superior of the place where I want to go,” said my sister smiling and approaching him. She wanted to give him a kiss.

“No, don’t try to flatter me, you’re not going to convince me,” he said, pulling his face back. “You, the best lawyer in La Coruña, the one that everyone wants to work with, you’re going to throw everything away, I could never agree with that. In my opinion, it’s a very unfortunate decision.”

Turning his back, he left the room and locked himself in the bathroom for the rest of the afternoon, and even though we asked him to come out, he refused and said:

“Nope, I’ve had enough upsets for today.”

It was only when Carmen had left, saying that it was getting late and that she couldn’t stay any longer, that he came out and went to his bedroom.

I ran into him in the hallway when he left, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and I could see that his eyes were bloodshot. He had been crying, so he hadn’t wanted to come out and his face was gloomy. I didn’t say anything to him and I let him go into his bedroom, where he apparently went to bed and did not want to come out for dinner.

Our mother told us that when she went in to tell him that dinner was on the table, he had answered:

“I’m for dinner!”

<<<<< >>>>>

I haven’t told you yet. My name is Manuel, I’m from Santiago de Compostela. My father is a civil servant in the Treasury Department, his father was a lawyer, I’m named after him.

I have four siblings; two brothers and two sisters. The oldest is Carmen, who’s named after my maternal grandmother, and the youngest is Sagrario, after my paternal grandmother, but we all call her Chelito. My two brothers are twins, which always surprised family and friends, because there had never been any twins among anyone we knew. One is called Antonio, we affectionately call him “Tono,” after one of my grandfathers, my mother’s father, who passed away some time ago and we never met him. The other is Carlos, or “Carlitos” to the family, after my uncle, the only one we have, my mother’s brother.

As a child I had always said I wanted to be a doctor, to heal the wounds of other kids, even though my family, and above all my grandfather, wanted me to be a lawyer like him.

“You’ll help me when you’re older and you finish your studies. I’m getting older and I need you to give me a hand in the office,” he would say whenever he had the chance.

That couldn’t be and he was disappointed, although never for long, because when he said that to me, Carmen would always respond:

“I’ll help you Grandpa and you’ll see, you just teach me what to do, and I’ll do it well.”

Although it wasn’t really the norm for a woman to study law, she was clear when deciding and choosing a career. She never doubted it for a moment, and of course nobody in the family was surprised, although my mother protested saying:

“Girl, that way we’re never going to get you married. Who’s going to want to be weighed down by a little know-it-all who knows so many laws?”

But everyone had assumed that it was truly what she wanted to do, and they always supported her.

Our life was simple, all things considered. Before I was born, my parents and Carmen lived in my grandparents’ house. Some houses were built; I think they said they were for civil servants. My father requested one, and he was lucky enough to be allocated one. It was a great delight for them, although my grandmother Sagrario wasn’t very happy about it. She asked how she would see her granddaughter grow up if they took her away from her, that they didn’t have to leave, that there was room for everyone in her house, which was indeed very large.

Those houses were a little outside the center of Santiago de Compostela, and of course my grandmother said:

“That’s why they’re so cheap, because no one can get there. That’s just a field for animals, not for people to live in.”

They were accustomed to always living in the heart of Santiago, right next to the cathedral, which of course has its advantages, but I’ve always wondered how they could sleep with the bells ringing every so often.

When I stayed in the house for the night every now and then, it seemed to me that they never stopped ringing. When I heard it I would think to myself, who cares what time it is in the middle of the night, when everyone is supposed to be asleep? Who was listening? Of course I don’t think anyone would be listening for the first bell, but surely everyone would hear the bell after it. Just being in those rooms we would already be lying there with our eyes wide open and then the bells; at one, at two, at three… Yes, we already knew that every night has those hours, and no it wasn’t necessary to remind us.

My grandmother found my protests amusing, but said:

“Young Manu, the bells are good company.”

I never understood. I always wanted to tell her that they were really annoying and that they sounded awful.

Shortly after being in the new house, my parents had me, according to what I’ve been told, because as you would imagine, I was too small to remember. It was an excuse for a big party. My father invited all of his colleagues and my grandparents also came with a friend. It was unusual for a son to have his own house, rented yes, but to own it? That was unheard of. Where would a young man get the money to pay for it?

We’ve been a family like so many others, very close, but also like many other Galicians, we’ve had an emigrant; my uncle Carlos, my mother’s only brother. He said one day that he was leaving and there was no way to convince him otherwise. That’s what my mother told us, when any of us asked her about why he had left.

I have a memory from those happy years of my distant childhood. When I was little, “Evita Perón,” at that time the wife of General Perón, who was the leader of Argentina, was going to come to Spain. At school they told us how after the war, she had insisted that meat be sent from her country to Spain, and it seems that thanks to that, many people were saved from starvation.

Because of their visit, they showed us where Argentina was, and I still remember those old pictures the teacher showed us. Depictions of gauchos with those big pants, mounted on their horses with their bolas in hand, those cords with the little ball at the end. Even though Don Juan, the teacher, explained to us how they used them, none of us could understand how they could hit their target from a running horse. What an aim they must have had.

He also showed us pictures of the Argentine pampas, those enormous plains without a single mountain, something that really fascinated all the children in my class, accustomed as we were to seeing mountains everywhere.

We could not imagine that there was a place without mountains and we told the teacher that surely someone had erased them from that picture.

What our teacher told us that day became etched on my memory, that it didn’t matter what you believed in, that you just had to always be a good person and think about helping others.

How did those two things relate to each other? At first I didn’t understand it, but I think it clicked in time.

That lady, being an artist, because I think she did theater, must not have been viewed very positively at that time by the Church, but in spite of that she persisted, and had helped to stave off famine for people so far from where she lived and so unknown to her.

I was remembering all of this now that I was so involved in the search for answers. Why are people compelled to perform a task, like helping others in a distant country? What would it matter to them? While others, who are nevertheless nearby, don’t bat an eyelid when they see someone at the side of the road with a problem, and they continue on with their lives as if nothing happened.

They had always taught us at home to help, to listen and, above all, not to believe ourselves to be better than others.

I remember that very well, that’s why on that long ago day when I told my mother that I was an atheist, I had also added when she had calmed down and I could continue talking:

“Mom, relax. I’ll never forget what you’ve taught me since I was little, to be good to others, but I feel that having faith is something different. I have to experiment for myself, and see things from my own point of view. I don’t know what I want, it’s something, but I don’t know what it is yet. There was a day when I was having a chat with Carmen about these matters,” I went on telling my mother, “and she told me that she’d had a discussion with Don Ignacio (our parish priest) and he’d replied that the important thing was to be a good person, regardless of your beliefs. I think that answer is very wise, I’ve always liked that priest, but since that day, I tell you I’ve liked him more. That doesn’t mean I’m going to go see him. I don’t want to be his friend or anything like that, but I liked his answer, because it coincides with my way of thinking.”

After waiting a few minutes to give her time to absorb what I’d said, I continued saying to my mother:

“Listen, one day at the university, some girls were talking. They were saying that when us boys left our parents’ house, we forgot everything, and in order to make ourselves seem tough, we would say that we didn’t believe. I interrupted them and told them that it wasn’t like that. What happened was that there came a point in our lives when we raised issues that we didn’t know how to respond to, and that lead us to distance ourselves from everything we knew, to clarify our ideas.”

“And how did they respond to you?” my mother asked me, and it seemed to me that she was interested in what I was saying.

“Nothing, they were silent, and they continued walking down the corridor, then they went into their class which was about to begin.”

“And you, what’s gotten into you that you’re now leaving me with the idea that you’re an atheist? To tell you the truth, it sounds like you’re a communist, a Russian, or I don’t know what. Of course, call it what you will, I don’t like it at all, I don’t think it’s a good thing,” she was saying a little angrily.

“Mom, they’re completely different things. A Russian is like a Spaniard, a Spaniard was born in Spain and that’s why he’s Spanish, and a Russian was born in Russia and that’s why he’s Russian. If I had been born in France, I would be French, and so on for all of us just because of the place where they were born.”

“Why do they call them communists?” she asked interrupting me.

“Look, that’s a different matter altogether, why are you Catholic?” I asked.

“What a nonsensical question, what else am I going to be?” she asked half irritated.

“Yes, you call yourself a Catholic,” I went on, “because you profess the Catholic Religion, you’ve been baptized and you go to Church.”

“And them? Why don’t they?” she asked with a certain tone of curiosity.

“Look, that’s why some people are labeled Communists, because just like here in Spain, there will be some people who aren’t Catholic…”

“But son,” she interrupted, “that’s impossible. Well, there will be some who have come on a journey from another country, but here we’re all Catholics.”

“Okay, you’re right,” I gave in to her so as not to get deeper into something that I saw was starting to bother her.

Turning around, I was going to cut the conversation short, as we began to hear Chelito calling. She had woken up and did not want to be alone, although we both noticed by her voice that the fever had gone down and she was feeling better, especially because we heard her say:

“Mom, Mom, aren’t you going to give me lunch today? I’m starving, have you forgotten that I haven’t had breakfast?”

Smiling, the two of us headed to her room, with what I’d said having settled that talk that I’d been delaying for a while for fear of how she would take it.

Now I had to tell my father, but he was more understanding, and now that Mom knew, I’m sure she would tell him as soon as he arrived, so it would make things simpler for me. It would also be made easier because Carmen would also be coming home with him, and I knew she was on my side, because we’d talked very seriously about it, in fact, it was she who told me:

“Tell him and don’t let more time pass, it’s best for everyone.”

I hadn’t yet decided to share it with my parents because, as I said to Carmen, I wasn’t ready, but she, who has always been very prudent, made me see that every day that passed with that secret would make it harder for me to tell them, and that’s what helped me to decide.

<<<<< >>>>>

Finally, it’s summer. The anticipated moment has arrived. We anxiously turned to our new work. The year has passed quickly, the days seemed to have wings and they flew away, well the day before an exam not so much, those were very difficult, “Endless,” you might call them.

This will be the last year I can devote to this for now. I have to start the University Militias next summer, which I am not looking forward to, but it is preferable to do it this way than to leave it and do military service when I finish studying.

“Son, it’s more comfortable, you don’t know what it’s like to be on sentry duty in the winter, out in the open all night,” my father used to say to me whenever I protested, because I didn’t want to do it.

“Don’t exaggerate Dad, nobody’s died of that,” I answered. I was still undecided and didn’t really know what I wanted to do, which made me a little uncomfortable.

“Listen Manu, military service is hard, any way you look at it and the University Militias have been made to measure for you. If only I could have landed such a sweet deal back in my day,” he said with a face of resignation.

“What are you talking about Dad?” and since I didn’t want to remind him of the hardships of the past, I tried to change the subject, but he continued.

“On top of that, I’m sure all your friends are going to do it, you won’t be left high and dry,” and he insisted that it was the best, and the most comfortable way.

What he’d said about not going alone had just convinced me, but I said:

“Well, I’ll decide when the time comes.”

When she heard us talking about it, Mom would intervene saying:

“Yes, that’s enough of that, I really don’t want you to go so far.”

“Sweetheart, the University Militias are held in the summer. If I’ve not been misinformed I think they’re from June 20th to September 15th. Think of it like going on vacation and that’s it, it’s only a few days and then you’re home again, and if you’re lucky, you’ll be taken to the ‘El Robledo’ camp, which is near the Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, in the province of Segovia, surrounded by pine groves called Valdesain.”

“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.

<<<<< >>>>>

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.