Читать книгу Fatima: The Final Secret - Juan Moisés De La Serna, Dr. Juan Moisés De La Serna, Paul Valent - Страница 9

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

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

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

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

“Where you go? You play with me?”

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

The four of us said in unison:

“Good morning, we’ve come…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He returned her look full of love and said:

“Thank you sweetheart! I know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why not two?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you think?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What strange things these young men are saying!”

Out there alone and all in agreement, we said:

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

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

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

We all agreed:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s over here, come, come.”

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

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

Without coming out, she said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He smiled and told me that he’d answered:

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

I believe the gentleman told him:

“Not a chance, he’ll have done it before without you knowing.”

“No, because the photographs would be here, he doesn’t have another camera,” my father argued.

He had told me all of that, and I was telling the parents of the little boy while they stared enthralled at the photo, which had been put into that little picture frame that the wife had placed on some boxes in a corner. We had taken the frame from there a while ago, and she hadn’t noticed, we had put the photo inside and then the four of us gave it to them as a farewell gift.

The father, who was on the verge of tears, told us:

“It was a pleasure,” and we laughed, so as to keep him from tearing up.

“Let’s see if from now on, it can make you happy,” Simón told him. “You see how everything has been overcome. You have to have more confidence man; life is very beautiful.”

“Well, almost everything,” he said, looking sadly at the sheet that covered him.

“Yeah, but that’s not something we can help you with that,” Simón added very seriously.

“Yes, well we can’t complain,” the woman interrupted. “Thank you for everything, we’ll never forget you.”

We all said our goodbyes. We didn’t want to extend that moment that was difficult for all of us any further. So many hours spent there, so many memories that would safely stay with us forever.

When we were returning home, commenting on the incidents that had happened to us, we said:

“We spent so much time there and we never did find out what was wrong with him, why was he always covered?”

“I know why,” said Santi.

“Tell us, tell us!” we all asked him, eager to know.

“Well, he was a blacksmith, and one day he had an accident. Some chunks of iron fell on him because the wooden shelf they were sitting on collapsed. He was so unlucky that they injured both his arms. He took little notice, but it seems that the iron was rusty. The wounds it caused developed gangrene, so his arms had to be cut off.”

“Oh, is that why he was always covered up to his neck?” asked Jorge. “It did seem odd to me.”

“Come on you idiot! Didn’t you notice that the bedding was flat where his arms should have been?” asked Simón.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think much of it, I thought maybe it was his legs that were bad. Hey, and how come you know that?” he asked Santi looking at him.

“Listen, do you remember that day when we had to break down the wall that connected the new room to the old one? I overheard the woman when she worriedly said:

‘But honey, they’ll have to find out, they’ll help you, I surely can’t do it alone.’”

“‘No, please,’ I heard him say, crying. ‘Please help me on your own, please don’t let them see me like this.’”

“On impulse, I walked in and told them:

‘I’m here to help you for whatever you need.’”

“He was uncovered and I saw him lying there without his arms. The woman rushed to cover him right away, but when she saw that I’d seen him, she told me:

‘Please don’t tell the others, I couldn’t bear to see their faces full of pity, watching me,’ and two big tears ran down her cheeks.”

“‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘keep calm, now I can help you,’ and before anyone could protest, I was uncovering him, and helping him to get up.”

“I put him in a chair in that corner, where he could be sure that no rubble would fall from the wall when we made the hole, and I wrapped him up properly with a blanket so that he wouldn’t get cold, and also so that if you guys came in, you wouldn’t see.”

“The woman was watching me, it seemed that she couldn’t believe what was happening, I’d caught her off guard and all she could say was:

‘Thank you! Thank you! Are you okay, honey?’ She looked at him with such tenderness.”

“He was sobbing the entire time and I asked him:

‘Am I hurting you?’”

“He shook his head, because the words wouldn’t come out. He let me do this to him, and once he was sitting in that corner, he said softly:

‘Thank you son, God will bless you for it.’”

“I tried to smile to calm him down and said:

‘Come on, it was nothing.’ Then I grabbed the straw mattress and pulled it out so that it wouldn’t get in the way, and in turn so that the rubble from the wall wouldn’t fall onto it.”

“When I came outside, I went to tell you guys that we could start making the hole where we had planned, because it was in the same place where he had been lying on the other side, and I told you:

‘He’s already been moved from there, there’s no danger that anything will fall on him.’”

We worked more quickly that morning. Everything had to be completed so that he could go back to his place. The back room was almost finished, all we had to do was close up the hole through which we went in and out. After creating that connecting door, two of us dedicated ourselves to closing the hole and plastering everything properly and the other two to removing the debris.

The wife could not stay still and in her eagerness to help, was faster than we were. Surely it also came down to her nerves, but it made us take on more than we would have done had she not been helping, because we realized how much she was doing, which was a lot and we were not going to be doing less.

When everything had been cleaned up, we finished properly reviewing the new space we’d created, and we said satisfied:

“It’s not too bad.”

The husband, who had been tucked up quietly in that corner the entire time, told us:

“Not too bad? It’s fantastic! You seem to be professionals, surely they wouldn’t have done a better job.”

Since we were lucky that day and it was very hot, the cement dried well, so we could put the mattress into their new bedroom at the end of the afternoon. They would sleep there that night, and we told them that we would take it out again tomorrow to finish up and whitewash the walls, and we left it at that.

Santi was still telling us his story and as we reached the point where we had to go our own separate ways and say goodbye, we asked him:

“What happened the next day? Why did you go early?”

“Don’t you remember? When we were on the way home that afternoon, I said, ‘I forgot my sweater, you guys just keep going,’ and I ran back.”

“Yes, and by the way you took a long time to come back,” Jorge said, “we were waiting for you there in the countryside, we were exhausted and you didn’t seem to be in any hurry.”

“Well, that’s because I’d thought, ‘When we leave, he’ll have to be put back into his bed,’ and I had to find an excuse to help him without you guys knowing, so I left my sweater in a corner, how could I have forgotten it? That’s why I told you that I was going back for it, and that’s how I arrived just when Encarnación was about to lift him up so she could put him back onto the bed. I helped her to do it and then I went back to where you guys were waiting, but in the rush, I left again without the sweater and I had to go back to pick it up, that’s why it took so long.”

“And the next day?” Simón asked.

“See, as I knew that he wouldn’t let himself be touched or seen by any of you, I said to myself, ‘Surely his wife will have to do it before we arrive so he’s already up by the time we get there,’ so I came earlier, when there was barely any light in the sky, to help in any way I could. Sure enough, when I arrived, she was already getting ready to carry him, and she got a fright when I called out, she wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“What are you doing here at this early hour? The sun’s barely up,” she asked me as soon as he saw me, when she opened the door.

“‘I’ve come to help you,’ I answered.”

“‘You’re an angel,’ she said quietly.”

“‘Please! That’s just because you don’t know me very well, ask my mother and you’ll see. She’s always telling me, ‘Santi, you’re a demon, you’re always messing about.’’”

“‘Well, that’ll be at home, you don’t behave like that here,’ she added, smiling as I entered.”

“I went in following her instructions and I found the man in the new bedroom already prepared because he’d heard me and the boy was asleep beside him.”

“‘And what are we gonna do with this one?’ I asked quietly so as not to wake him up.”

“‘Don’t worry, we can move him anywhere and he won’t even notice,’ his mother told me.”

“I took the man out and put him in the same chair he’d been sitting in the day before. The wife was patiently feeding him breakfast, spoonful by spoonful into his mouth. As I didn’t want to disturb them, I went to leave, but she noticed and asked me:

“‘Where are you going? Stay here, it’s still chilly.’”

“So I stayed there for a good while. Then I took out the mattress, so that it wouldn’t get in our way, and I did a little preparation for everything we needed to start the day’s work, and as soon as you guys arrived, you were surprised to see me there and I had to tell you that I’d been confused with the time and thought I was late and that you hadn’t waited for me, and that’s why I came to the house by myself. I saw that you looked at me with a weird expression, it seems that you didn’t believe me, but you didn’t have time to question me about it. It was just then that the boy came out and started to run after the hen and we all started laughing and you forgot about it. Now you know everything,” Santi told us, “there are no more mysteries. I’ve told you now because everything’s finished, and I don’t think they’d mind now.”

“We did leave everything really nice,” I told the others to change the subject, “and about the furniture you’re all asking me about? When I asked my mother to give me the crib, she nearly collapsed.”

“But son, I’m saving it for when you get married and you give me a little grandchild,” she’d told me very upset.

“What if I become a priest?” I answered.

“Stop that! Don’t mess around with that,” she said very seriously.

“No, I said that to you as a joke, but I’m serious about the crib. Please can you give it to me? It’s not doing anyone any good being kept here when there’s a little boy who could use it,” I said, trying to calm her down a little and get her to cave.

“No, the crib was yours, and it’ll be for my grandchildren when you have them,” she insisted.

“Mom, I know it was mine, well Carmen’s first, and after me, it was for the twins and finally Chelito, but look, that little boy I’m asking for has nowhere to sleep and he needs it now. If I get married and have children, and who knows if I will, I’d have to do very badly in my career and my new job to be unable to afford to buy a crib before I emigrate to America,” I was saying in a bid to convince her.

“Enough son, don’t say that, even in jest. Listen, your uncle left and didn’t want to come back here, and it’s not because of a lack of money, he has plenty as you know. Sometimes he’s even sent some to me, he says he doesn’t know what to give me, that money always comes in handy, and I say, he must have enough to spare.”

“Mom, money is never spare, but that shows that, even though he’s far away, he still remembers his beloved sister. Well, if I’m doing badly here with work, I’m leaving like him,” I said without thinking.

“No!” she said resoundingly.

“Well, I’m not leaving, but please give me the crib,” I begged.

“But you have to promise me that you’ll never emigrate,” she said, becoming very serious.

Also seriously, standing there in front of her, staring at her sitting in her chair, I said:

“Mom, I solemnly promise you that I’ll never emigrate to America.”

“Alright smooth talker, take the crib, but tell them to take good care of it,” she said, smiling.

“I’ll tell them what you’ve said. Ah Mom! Can I go to Germany at least?” I said very seriously.

She got up from the chair, and giving me a light smack on the head, said:

“No, not to Germany either. You stay here with me and give me grandchildren, and I won’t settle for one, that’s very boring.”

“I already know that,” I said, “I’ve envied the neighbors since I was little because there are seven of them, always playing and me here alone and bored. I still don’t know why whenever I asked you to let me go to their house to play with them, you always gave me the same answer, ‘No son, there are enough of them, I don’t want you to bother them,’ as if they would’ve noticed one more.”

“Well,” she said, laughing, “then the twins came along, so don’t complain, all of sudden there was two of them. You looked at them and said, ‘Which of them do I play with?’ They were toys to you. Alright, when are you taking the crib?” she asked me more calmly.

“Well tomorrow, so you won’t change your mind,” and giving her a kiss, I was leaving when I heard her say:

“You see what you’re like? You always get what you want.”

<<<<< >>>>>

Summer was coming to an end, we were only one week away from starting classes again and returning to our routine, just enough time to get some rest and enjoy spending time with our families, but unexpected things can happen in just a few days. Tono came that morning crying:

“Mom! Mom!” he screamed as he climbed the stairs.

“What’s wrong?” I asked when I opened the door, because I’d been the first one to hear him, and I’d rushed to open it, to see what had happened.

“No! Not you! I don’t want to talk to you,” he told me very angrily.

I was surprised, but he ran into the kitchen where my mother was preparing food.

“Mom! Mom!” the child kept calling very upset.

“Angel, what’s wrong with you?” she asked in alarm.

He closed the kitchen door behind him so that I wouldn’t go in after him, because I was following him down the hallway, although as he had been closing the door to the house, he was running and he reached where Mom was before I did. I went to open the kitchen door, but he told me from inside:

“Go away! You’re to blame, I don’t want to see you ever again, it’s all your fault.”

I stopped in my tracks. “What had I done? I don’t think I’ve done anything,” I thought, “plus, if he was out on the street playing with his friends and I was at home; surely it would have been a fight with one of them and he was taking it out on me.”

I didn’t really hear what he was talking about, but I immediately heard my mother say:

“Of course, I knew this was going to create problems for us.”

Opening the door, she glared at me and angrily said:

“You see!”

I didn’t understand any of this and I asked:

“Wait, what’s going on? I didn’t do anything to him.”

“How have you not? Look at what’s happened to your brother, he hasn’t done anything and look,” my mother told me, and I still had no clue what she was talking about.

I looked at her, then I looked at him, and I still wasn’t getting it. “What a mess!” I said to myself. I couldn’t figure any of it out, so I asked:

“Okay, well, can either one of you please tell me what’s going on? What have I done that’s so serious? Because I don’t think I’ve done anything, and I can’t work out what’s happened to him. He was out playing on the street!”

Barging angrily past me, Tono said:

“I’m never talking to you ever again in my whole life,” and with that he left for his room, where I heard him locking the door with the key from the inside.

“Mom, please, tell me what’s wrong, what has he told you?” While I asked, I looked at her and I could see her getting angrier.

“Look, do you see what happens by being the way you are?” she said to me very seriously and then she fell silent.

“Me? And what is the way I am? Let’s see, now what on Earth do I have to do with whatever might have happened to the kid on the street?” I was asking her slowly, because I did not want her to get any more upset.

“Listen!” said my mother, when she had calmed down a little. “He told me that the children he was playing with told him he was going to hell.”

“And, what about it?” I asked. “What does that have to do with me?”

“What does it have to do with you? Well, I don’t know how they would have heard about your little thing,” she told me.

“But what is my little thing? Please explain it to me, I still have no idea what you’re talking about, it’ll just be kid stuff,” I said a little irritated, because she insisted on focusing the blame on me for something I didn’t understand.

“Look Manu, this has to change already, I can’t deal with this situation any longer either. Look, my Spiritual Advisor…”

“Who?” I asked a little confused. “Your whaaat?”

“My Spiritual Advisor,” she repeated.

“Wait, what’s that?” I asked again.

“Well, Don Ignacio, the priest, have you forgotten already?” she asked me. “You have to see how you’ve changed son.”

“Yes, the priest, but what you said before, I don’t know what an advisor is. And I haven’t changed at all, I’m still your son, the same as always.”

“Well, the Advisor is another matter, you don’t understand that.”

“Okay, what did that good gentleman tell you?” I said a little irked.

“Don’t call him that! It’s disrespectful,” she said angrily.

“But Mom…, I’m imagining that with him being a priest, that’s proper, is it not? So what should I call him then?” I asked a little more calmly, to see if she finally realized what I had said.

“Look, let’s get on with what we were talking about,” she said getting more and more angry.

“Yes, so he said something, but can you explain it to me just once? What did he say? What do I have to do with all of this? And what does it have to do with what happened to Tono?”

“Well son, you’re coming off like a fool, it’s very clear, it’s all the same thing.”

“But what is it?” I said impatiently, because the issue was becoming increasingly complicated.

“Be quiet and let me finish, and don’t interrupt me every two seconds. Your brother has been told by his friends that he’s going to hell, because he has a brother who’s an atheist.”

Opening my eyes wide, I said:

“Whaaat? Is that what this is all about? I don’t believe it.”

“Of course, I’ve talked about it several times with my Spiritual Advisor, and he has always advised patience, but I’ve had enough. Either you change, or I don’t know what I’m going to have to do with you!” she said staring firmly at me.

“But Mom… It’s not like it’s a dirty shirt that I can take off and put on a clean one.”

“Enough nonsense. I’m having a serious discussion with you, and you, as far as I know, have other shirts. I’d like to be able to take a hold of you and wash you like I do with dirty clothes, and rinse those ideas out of your head. We’d all be better off for it.”

“But Mom… Let’s see, what harm am I doing to anyone by thinking what I want to think? Everyone has their own life to live, the way I see it,” I told her trying to calm her down.

“But don’t you realize? Don’t you see what just happened to Tono?” she told me, her anger not abating and there was no way to change it.

Suddenly we heard Dad at the front door saying:

“Honey, I’m home now.”

Wiping her eyes, my mother said:

“When he finds out…!”

“But Mom…, I haven’t done anything wrong. Calm down!” At that moment, my father came into the kitchen and when he heard me say that he immediately asked:

“Honey, has something happened to you?”

“No,” she replied, approaching him to give him a kiss.

“So, why is Manu telling you to calm down?” he asked again.

She lowered her head and said:

“Go on, tell him! The sooner this is cleared up, the better.”

“Well, what’s all this about? Let’s here it Manu, tell me what’s going on,” my father asked impatiently.

I told him everything that had happened. Then, going out into the hall, he called Tono. From his room with the door closed, he asked:

“Is Manu there? Tell him to leave, I don’t want to talk to him.”

With an authoritative voice, my father said:

“Tono, come out here immediately. I want you to clarify one thing for me right now, and enough with this seclusion and childish nonsense.”

He came grumbling down the hall toward Dad and said:

“What do you want, Dad?”

He looked up, and told him what they’d said:

“I want you to explain one thing for me. Who told those children about your brother?”

“Me!” he answered quietly, “but I didn’t know it was bad.”

“Son, it’s not bad, it’s just a different way of thinking, everyone is allowed to think what they want, do you tell us everything you think?” he asked looking at him very seriously.

“No!” he said, trying not to look my father in the eye, “but the other kids told me…”

“Tono, the other kids can tell you what they want. Do you think Manu is bad?”

“No, at least he never hits me,” my brother replied.

“So are you not going to tell Manu that he has to change?” my mother then asked my father.

“Honey!” he said, “why don’t we eat and leave this for another time? I’m home and I’m quite tired, but I do want you to know Tono, that we love you all and that nothing’s going to happen to you because your brother thinks that way.”

He approached me more calmly and said:

“Alright, if Dad says that nothing will happen to me, then I’ll talk to you again,” and then he ran off.

That incident was over, but it seemed that a pending conversation with my father would be on the cards.

<<<<< >>>>>

“Manu,” he said one afternoon, “I want to have a chat with you today,” and we went for a walk to my grandparents’ house.

I was not clear on why he wanted me to go there, then it all became clear.

When he saw us come in through the door of his house, my grandfather said:

“Nice! I have company.”

“How so?” I asked him immediately when I went over to give him a kiss.

“Well, because your grandmother went to visit a friend who’s sick and I didn’t want to go, so I stayed here reading.”

“Grandpa, don’t you already know all your books by heart yet?” I asked.

“Don’t you believe that Manu, I can always pick one up and discover something new,” he told me very seriously.

“So to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” he asked my father, who was coming into the room just then. I had arrived before him, because I had run down the hallway.

“Well, I think it’s time for you to talk to your grandson,” he replied to his father.

I was very surprised to hear that, so I asked:

“About what?”

“First, I’m going to make you a coffee,” my grandfather said. I’m sure it’ll do you some good, the afternoon is a little chilly.

Then, the three of us sat there like three friends, it was barely noticeable that there was an age difference between us all, the three of us had always gotten along very well.

Grandpa started telling me that he was also like me:

“Oh good,” he said, “rather, it’s you who is like me, because I was born first and you were born after me.”

Well, he told me that he had also been an atheist, I was very surprised.

“But Gramps, I’ve seen you go to church on Sundays with Grandma,” I said without being able to restrain myself, even though I knew that he did not like to be interrupted. He always told us, “It’s bad manners to interrupt someone when they’re talking.”

He told me very seriously:

“Listen, if you’ll keep quiet and not interrupt me, you already know that I don’t like that, I’ll tell you about it, otherwise the one who’ll keep quiet will be me.”

“Sorry!” I offered, “I won’t interrupt you anymore,” so I listened to him for the entire time he was speaking, quiet and attentive to everything he told me.

He told me that, like many of his friends, he’d been an atheist in his youth, that he did not see eye to eye with the priests nor did he believe in what they were saying and that he was always fighting with those he knew in defense of his ideas, but something happened in his life that made him change.

I really wanted to interrupt him to ask him what it was, but I held back and sat there by his side listening.

“I met an angel,” he said suddenly.

I must have opened my eyes wide.

“Careful, they’re going to come out of their sockets,” he said with a smile. “Well, as I was saying, almost an angel, your grandmother.”

I took a deep breath.

“Yes, you don’t believe it, I know what you’re thinking, but she was straightening out my life, and making me see how wrong I was. She never gave me big sermons, or forced me into anything, she just set me an example, gave me understanding and affection, and that gradually made me reflect and see that my position was incorrect, that I had the wrong ideas and I changed them as things were becoming clearer in my mind.”

He paused in thought for a moment, and then continued.

“She changed me! It was like I was a sock and she had turned me inside out. I’m not saying I became sanctimonious or anything. No, that’s not me, but she made a new man out of me. I’ll never be able to thank her enough for that.”

“Do you love me Manu?” he asked me suddenly.

I was unsure of whether or not to answer him or if he would scold me for interrupting.

“Answer the question son!” said Dad, who was sitting there quietly beside me.

“Of course Grandpa! I don’t imagine you doubt that,” I told him softly so he wouldn’t get annoyed.

“Well, God loves you like that,” he said, looking me straight in the eye.

“Whaaat? If God doesn’t know me, how is he going to love me?” I said bewildered.

“How can that be? How do you know that?” my grandfather asked me.

“I don’t know, that’s what I’ve asked myself many times, if God really exists.”

“Of course He does son, and He’s like a patient Father who’s there looking after His children, even if they don’t realize it.”

He was telling me in a way that, I don’t know… that was so sweet. I had never heard my grandfather speak that way before.

“But how do you know, Grandpa?” I asked curious.

“Look, the little one doesn’t know if his father is next to the crib, but haven’t you seen your father when Chelito was little? He would go over to put on her little baby clothes.”

“Yes, of course, Dad would stand there and watch her, very quietly, I think so as not to wake her up.”

“Well, imagine your father being nothing more than a man and taking care of his little daughter, and surely inside he was thinking and saying, ‘Little one, be at peace, I’m here and nothing’s going to happen to you.’”

“Yes, he’d say something like that, because I would approach slowly to see her and my father wouldn’t see me because I was hidden behind him, but I would hear him saying things like that, and I would also say, ‘And I’m going to take care of you too,’ but I would say it very quietly so that Dad wouldn’t realize I was there.”

“You see? We all have feelings inside us that make us love others. Sometimes siblings, sometimes grandparents,” he was telling me.

“Yes, and parents too,” I said, interrupting him.

“Of course, parents too, because if God has created us in His own image, how is He not going to love us?” he asked me softly, as if he were reflecting upon it himself.

“But Grandpa…” I began to say.

“No, Manu, I want you to think about all of this, I don’t want to convince you of anything, just to tell you that He loves you and cares for you, even if you don’t know who He is, or where He is.”

The conversation ended and my father said:

“Thanks Dad, I couldn’t have done it that well, he wouldn’t have listened to me.”

“I know son! Children don’t listen to their parents, that’s a generational thing, it’s no one’s fault, but relax, the seed has been sown, it’ll blossom in the spring.”

“What are you talking about Grandpa?” I said, because I didn’t understand anything. “What does a seed have to do with all that?”

“You pipe down, you want to know everything. This is between your father and me.” He did not say any more and then exclaimed: “Here comes your grandmother!”

At that moment, we heard the key in the lock and I made my way quickly to the door. In truth, my intention was to hide and give her a scare, but when I got there I told myself, “No! It might be bad for her,” and before she came in I said:

“Grandma, what are you doing outside your own house?”

She finished opening the door and said:

“What are you doing here? What a surprise!” I wrapped my arms around her neck and told her:

“I love you so much Nana!”

“Charmer!” she said smiling. “You’ve come to have a snack, right? Just give me a minute to change my shoes, and put on my slippers, my feet are frozen.”

After a while, now that “she had gotten comfortable,” as she put it, in her housecoat, which according to her was “warmer than her actual coat,” she went into the kitchen and in no time at all, she brought me one of those delicious sandwiches that she used to make me on cold days. Then she brought me an omelet which she had “Stumbled across,” as she liked to claim, with little chunks of chorizo through it, which were so delicious, and then she also brought me a glass of warm milk, and she asked me:

“What about your assignment? How is it going?”

“I haven’t done it yet,” I said jokingly.

“If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have given you anything. You haven’t earned it,” she told me, turning very serious with an irritated face.

“Nana, I’m only joking,” I said, “of course I’ve done it all.”

“Don’t ever stop doing what your teacher tells you to,” she told me.

<<<<< >>>>>

I remember that first time I went to Fatima so long ago. I was overwhelmed by feelings; curiosity, fear, hope, what did I hope to find? What would that place that I thought I knew through my reading really be like?

I had searched everywhere, and I had read everything I’d found about the events that had taken place there, but I wanted to see it all with my own eyes.

I left Santiago de Compostela one morning at dawn. I had a long journey of over 400 kilometers in front of me. It was raining, and boy was it raining. “That rain was certainly not normal,” I was saying to myself, while the car’s windscreen wipers were moving ceaselessly from one side to the other.

I almost couldn’t believe it, I was driving. I had recently taken my driving test and gotten my license, and I still remember how the urge to drive started.

“Look, Manu, maybe you won’t ever need it, but that way, you’ll have it,” my friend told me on the day he suggested it to me.

He was very excited, he had gotten his license to help his father, who’d had an accident and couldn’t drive now because he had broken his leg in a fall and had had to get a cast. As he could not take time off work, his son had to take him there and bring him home every day in the car.

Santiago, the friend in question, encouraged me. He was the only person in my generation I knew who had a driving license.

Up to that point, it had only been something that our fathers did, and not even all of them, only those who needed it for their jobs like mine, who had to go to La Coruña or Madrid now and again, and they’d had to buy one for that reason. The truth is though that he didn’t really like driving, and the car spent the vast majority of its time sitting parked outside, next to the door of the house, getting wet.

“Manuel, the car spends so much time in the rain that someday it’ll start sprouting branches,” my mother would say to my father from time to time.

“Well, let’s see if a tomato plant grows and we can have tomatoes for salad,” he joked.

One Saturday afternoon, I went with Santiago for a drive as we didn’t have class, and he let me take the wheel so I could see that there was nothing to it. I started to like it and that made me decide to learn, out of curiosity more than anything else, to see how I would do.

When I had it “Mastered,” as Santi put it, I decided to tell my family, even though I was pretty certain they were going to say no, and ask me why I wanted to.

“Dad, I want to get a driver’s license,” I said one day when we were all sitting at the table.

“Are you going to buy a car?” Chelito asked immediately. “With what money? What do you want it for?”

“Hold on a minute,” said Mom, “what’s brought this on son? Why do you want a car? What you have to do is just think about your studies, that’s your most important business for now.”

“Mom, it’s to ride around with his girlfriend,” Tono immediately said mockingly.

“Quiet everyone,” said my father, “Manu, what did you say? I didn’t hear you properly.”

And before I could continue, my sister Carmen said:

“Well, I think you should do it. You never know what awaits you in life, and having it can’t hurt.”

My father, who always listened to Carmen because, as he said, “She was the wise one in the family,” asked her:

“Do you think it’s good to have it?”

“Sure Dad,” my sister laughed, “it’s hardly going to be a bad thing.”

Then with an angry tone, Mom said:

“So do I have no say on the matter? After all, I’m only the mother,” she said.

Carmen, who was sitting beside her, kissed her and said:

“Mom, if he’s told us it’s because he’s already decided, it’ll only be a matter of time before he does it.”

“I already know how to drive,” I said quietly.

“You see Mom, what did I tell you?” Carmen said to my mother, “I could tell.”

“But son, how can that be?” my father asked me. “You haven’t let me teach you.”

“Look Dad! I wanted to know if I would like it and if I was able to learn it, because at first it seemed really difficult. First of all, you wouldn’t believe how much of a struggle it was fitting my long legs into that small space.”

“Don’t grow so much,” Tono laughed, “look what happens.”

“Well, it’s not like I wanted to grow so much, but you, you’ll see, it’s already happening to you. As you keep eating you’ll grow to be as big as me, or bigger,” I answered.

“What are you saying? Wait, are you telling me that I have to stop eating? Because I’ll die in that case. You know what? I’m going to keep eating and if I grow, I can take it.” He fell silent and continued eating.

“Okay, stop fooling around and tell me, why have you made that decision? Don’t tell me it’s not strange, instead of studying. I see that you waste your time when you’re not at home,” my father was telling me, indeed quite angrily.

“Listen Dad! A friend has a driver’s license and now he helps his father by taking him to work, because he’s had a fall and broken his ankle and his leg is in a cast and he’s in no state to be driving, so my friend has had to get a driver’s license and take his father wherever he needs to go.”

“Uh-huh,” said my father, very seriously, “but I’ve not broken my leg, why do you need it? I believe when you can’t walk, you should stay at home to rest in your armchair, because this way the broken bone will fuse back together better.”

I was going to continue with my arguments, although I was not sure I could convince him, when Carmen interrupted me.

“Wait,” she said, “Dad, look, let him get it, but on one condition.”

“What condition?” said my father, looking at her with a stern look on his face.

“That he get better grades this year and never take the car without your permission,” she added.

“That’s all?” said my mother. “He would take the car whenever he wanted. Out of the question! I’m strongly against it. The car belongs to your father and only he touches it.”

“Hold on!” said my father. “Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think it’s a bad idea, that way when I’m old he can take me for long walks.”

“Dad!” said Chelito, “you don’t need a car to walk the streets.”

“Love, I didn’t exactly say through the streets, he can take me to La Coruña or sometimes to Sanxenxo, to the beach, when I’ve retired.”

“I see!” she said, “and why would you want to go to Sanxenxo alone without us?”

“Well, I’ll explain later,” said my father. “Look Manu, alright, I’ll let you get it, but you have to promise me you’ll always go slowly. I have three sons and I want to keep them for a long time.”

“What about us?” said Chelito.

“Well, you’re both daughters, are you not?” said my father with a smile, which I took as an indicator that the tension had passed, and I could breathe easy and start eating. I hadn’t eaten anything yet, not even a spoonful of that delicious food I had on my plate, which my mother had made and which smelled so good.

“I’ll foot the bill!” said my grandfather, who until that moment had been silent listening to us all.

“You?” said my grandmother in surprise, “with what expenses? Keep quiet you and get on with your dinner.”

“Well that’s going to cost a few pesetas,” my grandfather added.

I sat there not knowing what to say. The truth is that I hadn’t thought about that, because I was only asking for permission, but I’d not decided to do it yet. I assumed they wouldn’t give me their permission, at best they would say that I could get it in the future.

My mother, unable to contain herself anymore, spoke up, saying:

“Have you all lost your minds? The boy comes up with some nonsense, and now you all support him. What he has to do is focus on his studies, and drop all these unnecessary flights of fancy, because if he neglects them now, what will he ask for next? And of course if we give it to him, what happens to the others? What kind of an example is he setting for his brothers and sisters?”

“Don’t get upset Mom,” said Chelito, “I’m not going to ask you to let me drive, it’s too difficult. I’ve watched Dad when he’s doing it, and he has to keep looking at the road for the whole time, and doing things with his hands and his feet at the same time. He can’t even talk so he won’t be distracted, like he always tells us.”

“Right!” said my father, “no more talk on the subject, you can get it, and you Dad, we’ll talk about that. I don’t think you should bear that expense; we’ll see where we can get the money from.”

My mother was going to protest again, but she looked at my father and continued eating, but with a scowl on her face, which made it clear that she did not agree.

<<<<< >>>>>

It was my first solo trip. I had already been on one trip behind the wheel with my father at my side. For the first one, we went to La Coruña. He had to do some paperwork and he wanted me to show him how I drove. He was very nervous, but he saw that I was good at driving defensively, well, for a rookie.

“Manu, I’m sure I’ll get there quicker if I get out and continue on foot,” he said at a certain point, trying to put on a forced smile, to disguise the tremendous nerves that were clearly plaguing him.

“Dad, I don’t want to rush,” I answered, because I wanted to conceal my fear that he didn’t like how I was driving, and he wouldn’t let me do it again.

“No, you’re doing well, going like this we’re sure to get there tomorrow, but it’s better late than never,” he answered, “we’re not in a hurry.”

“What if I pressed down on the gas pedal a little more?” I asked softly to see what he would say.

“Well, a little bit, yes,” he answered me, although it was obvious by his voice that he was still nervous. I also looked at him out of the corner of my eye, and saw that he was clutching the seat so tightly, that I thought, “If he continues on like this, he’s gonna break it for sure,” but surely that gave him peace of mind and that’s why he did it.

I was so careful on the gas pedal that it wasn’t even perceptible. I was putting my foot down at times, but because my feet are so big, I was afraid that at some point, I would press on it too much and the car would go faster than it should.

“You have to be more relaxed,” said my father, “you’ll end up breaking the steering wheel with how tightly you’re gripping it, and stop looking in the rear-view mirror all the time, don’t you see that nobody is behind you?”

With my fear rising, I answered:

“But if I don’t look, I won’t know if anyone is following us, and I can’t let them pass.”

“Well, look at it from time to time,” he added patiently.

When we were arriving in La Coruña, he told me:

“Pull into the curb, carefully and then stop, but first hit the turn signal. Never forget that little detail. That’s how you warn whoever is behind you, so they can be mindful of your maneuver.”

I did it and he got out of the car. I didn’t know why, but he came around the vehicle to the door at my side. Opening it he said:

“Son, let me do it. I don’t trust the streets of the city, it’s more dangerous here, although I have to admit you’re not doing badly at all.”

I got out and changed my seat. That was my first big trip. I felt such fear! Such nerves! But I managed to take him and get there without any problems. That was the important thing. Of course I don’t know how much my mother would be praying at home until she saw us appear, because she knew that I was going to be the one driving and she didn’t trust me.