Читать книгу The Spy - Juan Moisés De La Serna, Dr. Juan Moisés De La Serna, Paul Valent - Страница 6

The silence had already taken hold of each of the rooms in the house, so much that sometimes it was difficult for me to go there, where so many things had happened in the family.

At the beginning I turned on the television or the radio, to listen to a voice wherever I was in the house, and that make me feel better, but then, it seemed so absurd, deceiving myself, it was like I was with somebody, when there was nobody left.

Joys, sorrows and sadness, listened in every corner of that home, in which my wife had always worked with such care to maintain order and cleanliness.

Gradually I was closing the rooms, those which I didn't use at all, or those which brought me so many experienced memories just by seeing, most of them joyful, which strangely caused me great suffering, perhaps because I longed for them, or maybe because of the certainty that wouldn’t be repeated anymore, that everything that I lived there, would remain only in my memory, as long as it lasted.

Even though I told my wife repeatedly to move somewhere else, either because of work or retirement, she always said no, her place was where her memories remained, there she had seen her children grow up, and he knew the whole neighborhood, and that made him feel at ease.

For some strange reason she preferred to leave, as she said, "things as they were", without changing anything in the house, not a single picture or photograph, and when I asked why she just said, "that's fine".

I had been having trouble leaving on vacation, since on several occasions, when we were older and our sons had already moved out, when we were both alone, nevertheless, she always hoped someone appearing in the house, and finding reasons because she didn’t want to stay away from that place more than two or three days.

But how were they going to appear? If some of them lived in other continents, and with the one closest to us, we hardly kept in touch after we had that discussion.

It's something of which I still regret, not so much because it was completely unnecessary, but rather to the consequences it had in our relationship. Since then my wife looked at me in a different way, I know I was right, that our son was wrong, but she, as a mother, didn't understand why I didn't support our son when he needed.

For me her loss was the most difficult thing, just thinking to that moment, I can barely breathe, so many years of coexistence, although not always peaceful, there was always a lot of love and respect between us.

In recent years, we almost had separate lives, but we respected each other, we loved each other, but each one tried to develop their own activities without counting on the other, unlike when we met that we wanted to do everything together, and be sharing as much time as possible.

Perhaps it's the habit, but we almost did not see each other except for lunch and dinner, she had planned each evening, a different activity, sometimes going out with friends, sometimes visiting some relative, others …,I liked to be quietly at home, I had my notes and calculations, without realizing that she had left, but … when she died …

Everything changed, now I had more time for my things, no one who could tell me that I had been with it for too long, no one to remind me that I had to rest, no one… but for me everything I did, dedicated so much time and believed so important, for me, all that had lost its meaning.

The house had gradually turned into a mausoleum, I do not know why, but as the years went by, I filled the walls with pictures of the children, and grandchildren, which we were receiving from time to time, in occasion of a new birth or some celebration.

Now I can barely recognize the ones in those photographs, it's not just for the eyes, that's why I have the reading glasses and it would be impossible without them to see things with details, but those faces no longer tell me anything.

How many times I stopped discussing with my wife about different photos, about how happy we were, and the desire we had to see that again, instead now, they are there, like stops in time, as if they were from another life, to which I no longer belong.

Without her, I cannot imagine a past, in each of the places where we went, she was there, in every celebration we attended, she was there, and in so many photos, we were both, but now, except for her, I can hardly recognize the rest of the people in the photos, and … in addition, there's no one I can ask, there is not even with the one who to comment those photos.

Now they are part of the wall, as if it were a wallpaper, I don't stop to look at them, because for me they are strangers, one day they shared my life but now I do not feel them far away, I just do not feel them.

When I go down the corridor, sometimes I look at the photos that are hanging, they are from totally unknown places and people, curious to try to guess who they are or what they do, but no, I cannot remember!

An assistant occasionally comes home to do a little cleaning, at first she asked about my grandchildren, and I pointed them out on the photos, but now, I do not know where those photos are, nor do I know how many grandchildren I have.

I hardly want to talk, because I have nothing to say, my memories are painful, not because I have not lived much and have much experience, but because my most important memories are precisely those of my great loves, and those, unfortunately, are not with me anymore.

I can remember my first love like it was yesterday, she worked in a bar on the road, near the gas station, just outside the town.

I always refueled the minimum so that my vehicle walked, for having to go to put gasoline next day, and so having some excuse to enter that bar to have breakfast.

At first I had not noticed her, she was a new girl in the village, maybe someone passing by. Her kind smile and curly black hair made me go crazy. I was not sure if she had even noticed me, used to attentions of other men, but my persistence paid off. After a few months going there daily, one day she told me:

– Okay, tell me really, what do you want?

– Well, today I'd like to eat an house specialty! – I answered.

– No, really! You're the only of our customers who comes every day, it's cold or hot, and even when the gas station is closed, then what do you want?

I was left speechless, so I sucked it up and I happened to say:

You!

– What? – She asked astonished.

–Yes, all these days, weeks and months, I've loved you, and that's why I came to see you, to spend a day without seeing you is like taking off the morning sun!

She went to the kitchen running, I think she was confused by my words or something, and after a while she came back and said:

–I'm leaving, this is my last day of work!, I was here only to earn some money, before I went on my way, you have been very kind all this time, and thank you.

–But I…. I just declared.

–Yes, I know it and your words are very nice, but it was too late, if you had told me before, maybe we could have taken advantage of the time in another way, now … it's too late -That said, she turned around and followed with her work.

I could not taste anything, despite how succulent everything seemed to be, I just stayed in that place for five more minutes and left almost running, I could not believe it! I had gotten used to see her every day, her pretty smile and her black hair, and now … she left me.

I thought, I don’t know, to talk to the boss, to tell him to pay her more, I even thought to pay the boss for the difference in the salary increase, I thought to talk to her and ask her not to leave … I thought … but the next day, when I came back, believing that it had been a bad dream, she was no longer here, nor the next, nor the next … until I made up my mind that I would never see her again, that my great love had disappeared from my life, and I would never meet again a woman like her, she was unique.

Painful memories, I can still remember her smile and her hair, especially that hair, as I liked, it seems I am seeing, as if it were yesterday, removing it from her face, when that treacherous strand that was leaking fell out, and putting it behind the ear with her finger.

Although it was not a corresponded love, I have never been able to forget her, since she was my first love.

I do not have any pictures of her, so many scattered all over the house, but there is nothing of that part of my life.

Nor do I have any friends, neighbors, anyone known, they have left this world or have gone to the nursing homes.

The neighborhood is not what it used to be, now everyone is in a hurry, they don't go out in the morning to mow the lawn, nor to play with the children on weekends, sometimes, it's strange to be here, everything is so changed.

I know every house, every tree, but people are so unknown to me that I do not know … I do not feel comfortable when I go out, even though the people I meet always show me a smile after greeting me.

Someone occasionally still needs me, talking about my past, about my experiences, as if that is important, but I think I find it tough to face the time passing and that my best moments are already so far, that seems to be someone else's.

Years go by, and every time they leave more mark on my health, and unfortunately, they are taking away the memory, the most precious thing I had, all the rest, my personal belongings, I do not care if they get full of dust! Memories seem to be erased little by little, blurred like the mist in the morning, and so many experiences with them.

Someone has suggested that I should write a book, at my age, like it's so easy! I have even been asked to make a documentary about my life, but I have not seen it clearly.

So many things I could say, but I do not feel strong enough to remember everything, and not in front of a camera and with strangers listening to it.

Every time I remember a fact I get excited, since I live it as if it were happening at that moment, but then, when it's over, I have a deep sadness, when I realize that it's just a memory, something from the past, that remained relegated in time, almost forgotten.

I don't know why the memories of my youth and childhood are increasingly clear, I can barely remember what I ate yesterday, but I can do it about the adventures I had when I was a kid, or the most important things that happened to me during high school.

So many people with whom I spoke and I came across, so many who loved and loved me, family, friends and acquaintances, all that affection and shared emotion, and I do not know where any of them are anymore.

Surely they have made their lives, and they are enjoying their children and even their grandchildren, wherever they are, but sometimes I wouldn't feel so alone!

The nights are the worst moment, sometimes when I try to sleep I'm flooded with a lot of memories, experiences that happened in the house, the stories of an old man, can be said, but it's a whole life, day after day, how many things experienced! And I start thinking, and one thought leads to another, and to another, and sometimes the hours pass and I can't sleep, until fatigue and exhaustion make me fall weary.

At other times, the aches prevent me from spending the night, when it's not one thing it's another, if I stay in a position too long I can feel the knee or the back complaining, every night until I finally fall asleep.

Of course, the alarm calls me every day at six in the morning, just as it has done since I started working, when I was young.

A "my mania", as my dear wife said, that I never left, not even when I stopped having obligations once I got old, but I’ve always liked to take advantage of time, and not allowing the sun rise before me.

Perhaps it was force of habit, or perhaps I felt comfortable knowing what I had to do every morning, anyway, as much as she tried to persuade me, I always woke up at the same time, whether the sun rose or not.

Every day, as soon as I got up I looked for an open space and did my exercises, a few stretches, to have some flexibility, enough to wake up before washing my face with cold water.

"The secret of my smooth skin is the cold water in the morning!" I heard about that from a famous actor, who bragged about his skin despite his age.

At my age, I don't do it for aesthetic, or for the skin, just to clear it, but whereas that was necessary for a long time, it made me ready to go out to work and start the day, but now … many times I stay in front of the sink mirror asking me, "What now?"

I go back to wash my face, hoping that I can think of something to do in the day, and nothing … I look in the mirror, and it returns a face I barely recognize, some wrinkles that were never there, now covering my whole face and not only, I'm also seeing the hands…

I don't know how others are as they get older, but in my case, it has not been a pleasant thing to see how little by little all my dreams and illusions have been diluted over time.

I have achieved a lot, but why? Who will remember me, my work and effort? Who cares now about the thousands of hours dedicated?

Eventually, it's true that someone can recall when one day he met me, but apart from friends and family, no one cared about what I did and achieved.

I can't complain, I spent a relatively good life, I always devoted myself to what I loved the most, but nevertheless, right now … there are only memories, and on many occasions not even that.

Sometimes I went to the office, where I have so many folders of work accumulated, years ago, I sat and opened some of them and reviewed, looking at the work done and reminding it.

So many notes written with evident emotion, thinking that it was going to "make a difference", as today's young people say, and time has left everything in oblivion.

Years have gone by and what I remembered before with pride, became almost a strange sensation of curiosity, I saw those heaps, and I didn't know what was in there, I opened them to know what they were, with an approaching anxiety, it's sure that all that was mine, but I didn't remember I wrote this, or when it happened.

I was sure it was my handwriting, at least I did not doubt, and that it was in each of the hundreds of notebooks and reports scattered there, but little else I was able to recognize the time spent in that work.

This was when I realized what was happening to me, I was losing my memory, which was always so good, now I was unable even to recognize what I wrote.

My papers were already the papers of a stranger with my handwriting, unable to see any kind of order among such a folder.

It made me frequently so angry that I threw the folders on the floor, and … I do not know … I tried to make it not so … but everything was useless, and the feeling of despair invaded me, making me believe that life doesn't do any good..

After a while, when I made me feel calm, I picked up paper for paper, and without knowing why, I put them where I thought it was their place, without being able to even remember what they contained, I just managed to classify them according to the date that appeared in each of those manuscripts in their upper right side, as strenuous as it was this task, I didn't leave it until putting together that puzzle, although I couldn't put everything in a chronological order, at least together according to every year.

I have not returned there in a very long time, it makes me angry! So many hours of work between those four walls, those papers that I no longer know what they are, not even if they are still good.

Sometimes I sit in front of the TV, even when is off, and I try to remember some past moments, times when serious events were hidden from the public to avoid alarming them and I imagine what their life would be like, without noticing they were in danger.

They carried out a very busy life, they barely notice the work behind it in order to bring there the sense of well-being.

I still remember the first time I have heard a discussion about the subject, my gifts for numbers had made me stand out among my teammates, it was during military service, something that would have gone unnoticed by anyone, but not my captain, when he realized it, he wanted to offer me a promotion.g

A decision that I will always be grateful for, because it gave the opportunity to do a great service for my country and to save so many of what could have been a painful death.

–You have a gift! – the captain told me that day.

–I don't believe it's a gift, it's a talent – I replied.

–A talent? He asked startled

–Yes, a talent given by the Creator.

The captain completely puzzled, after a long pause said:

–Whatever! I'm sure you will do better service in Pennsylvania, over there they will prepare you to complete something important.

–But, what about my parents? What am I going to tell them? – I replied, between surprised and bewildered by his words.

–Do not worry! The army will look after your family during your absence, that is what you wanted, right?

–Yes, indeed, we just arrived and my parents don't know the language, and although some friends of ours help them out, they still haven't found a job.

–Relax! They will get the paycheck right on time every month, but you have to fulfill your duty.

–Of course, I'll be the best! I won't let you down!, but what am I going to Pennsylvania for?

–You will have time to figure it out, all I can say now is : make your parents feel proud of you!

Those were his last words or orders , I'm not sure!, because next day, two soldiers arrived at my barracks where I slept with my platoon and they took me out of the base where I was completing my training, they took me to an uncertain destination.

Wow, how strange! I can almost chew the sand that the jeep was raising from the road as we were approaching that military base.

It was a particularly hot day, despite of, the emotion of the moment prevented me from thinking about something other than finding out how I could use my talents.

I remembered it almost as if I was living it, and despite that, I'm unable to remember the name of the base.

I am sure that after three years of training there, I would know without hesitation but the passage of time erases what you want and without warning.

Although even the most familiar names have dissipated from my memory, I have long since came up with a system by which I wrote down all the important names, dates and events of my life, and from time to time, I placed a white paper on the side and tried to write down everything I remembered.

It was a child's play! At first, how could I not remember the name of my grandchildren? Or the date of my wedding? But over time, the blank sheet I was trying to fill in, remained more blank to my despair, until one day, I came to forget where the list was stored, where I listed the dates, names and events that I never thought I could forget.

I still remember when we bought that toaster on the kitchen, and how my wife and I fought over the color. She wanted it lemon yellow, and I preferred it silver.

In the end, as in all things, I gave in to her decision, in fact our fights, if you could call them that, were due to insignificant things on most occasions, then, Why not giving in ?, deep down, Did the color of the toaster actually matter?.

She was comfortable having everything in her own way, although those bright colors did not convince me, but she always said something like: "this cheers the room up".

However, now I am not able to remember when it stopped working, if it broke down, or why I no longer use it, for me it is another dish, like many of those that I find in the house, of which sometimes I doubt how to use.

Sometimes I open the drawers to see what's inside, and I find everything, pieces of junk in some, tools in others, empty boxes in the one beyond, I didn't know that we could accumulate so many things that now are unusable.

In one of the drawers I found a toolbox, I have never changed a light bulb! Why would I want it now?, Despite thinking about it, and after a few moments of looking at it, trying to remember if it was ever used, I just close the drawer.

My wife, how much I miss her!, if I only knew where she is, surely in heaven! But heaven is so far away!

I have no doubt that if someone has deserved a rest it has been her, always so willing to help others in whatever they need, and she did it all with a big smile and without any protest.

She didn't even complain about the many hours of loneliness that she spent while I remained locked in my office working, or about the trips I had to leave for weeks.

Every time I was back, she had a beautiful smile waiting for me and a warm voice to ask me how the trip went, even though I knew I couldn’t tell her anything related to my work.

Sometimes I get up and after washing up and completing my exercise routine, I sit down by the dining table, and I wait, and wait, I don't know for how long , until I realize that my wife is not there anymore and that she will not longer bring me breakfast, then, great sorrow invades me and I barely feel like getting up and fix my self breakfast.

In fact, is not my thing to be in the kitchen, since I never excel at cooking or frying anything, only when I didn't have any other choice I helped whenever was asked for, specially at parties, when we hosted big crowds and my wife couldn't manage to prepare everything.

I liked better to set up they able and scrubbing at the end of the meal, and go grocery shopping when we didn't get it delivered at our door, but that was about it.

On the other hand, since she's gone, if you could call it that, and despite that at the beginning I was resisting because I considered it “her territory”, now it feels like I'm spending my life in the kitchen.

I have never realized how much work the kitchen demands, and the hours it takes, and also the sorrow of knowing that those were her things and that now she will never use them again.

Many times… I stayed quiet, waiting to hear something, maybe a noise coming from the kitchen as it did while she was fixing dinner, maybe her singing while she was looking after her plants,… well, I don't know what is it that I'm doing, but I miss her greatly, that I do know.

Even when I returned to my life as a civilian, I was still in contact with my former colleagues, worried about being up to date on everything that came out of my area, despite this, and the many hours of study I have dedicated in my life, time does not seem to have mercy on me.

Although the list of people with whom I maintain contact is getting smaller, since some have moved far away, and there are even those who no longer want to know anything about these government issues.

It is true that others are gone, at least I can count another day of life and I must be grateful for it, but I have long since lost count of how many days have passed, in fact, if it were not for the notebook that I always carry around, I wouldn't even know what year I was born.

In this small notebook I have written down the most important information: my name, my address, date of birth, what are the things I should do on the day, who to call if I have any issue…

Although I don't know why, there are fewer and fewer numbers on that list, several deleted, I guess the person will have changed the phone number or is no longer among us.

My memories! How many times I was offered to write about my life, so that the new generations could learn from it, but of course, I couldn't! I was forbidden to do so, due to my work I signed several confidentiality agreements.

If I told any of the military secrets which I knew, I would be sentenced to death.

Well, said like that seems very drastic, but it was the truth. I had seen it before, enthusiasts who wanted to raise their voices and let the whole world know about the secrets of the government they had worked on and even a journalist who was willing to tell it on the front page, and all of them simply disappeared.

Traffic accidents or in the bathtub of their homes, were the official reasons why two days before being published, the people involved simply were not longer there.

It was something they taught us from day one, you do not play with the government! They know everything and don't allow any information leaks.

Even when there are, it is they who take care of it, because they do not allow a single detail to come out to light without their authorization.

For a long time I just had to close my mouth and look the other way, as if everything was normal, and as if society as we know it had no alternative, but it is not like that.

I tried to have my own documentation of everything I did, as an activity record, but it was not possible, the day I left the army, interestingly, all my belongings were confiscated and they only allowed me to take out of the base a suitcase with my clothes in it.

I, who had accumulated so much information and enjoyed my own home since the day I had arrived in the army, I saw myself with a small suitcase and the number of a bank where I would receive my pension for the rest of my days.

In the following months, I locked myself in my home office trying to remember all that knowledge, looking for data and writing about it to put together my own files, a strenuous work that resulted in an office full of folders everywhere, and what was the point of it?

When I entered that place, I felt proud of my job and proud of being able to collect as much information, to order, classify and shape it, but now I hardly know what's in those piles of folders.

When I see it and I read the sign on the folders, I think that will be important, but it has been a long time that I lost curiosity about things.

I guess everything is now old paper, past cases that nobody cares about, government secrets that have been forgotten.

So many and so many lives saved, that they will never know they were, so much work done to achieve it, and the world remains oblivious to the reality that it was about to live.

"A change in the course of history" our commander had told us when he gave us our first case.

The instruction was over after the hard training. Unlike what I had imagined, I did not have to do as much physical as intellectual activity in there, from the first day they had me attending classes of all kinds, mainly languages and mathematics.

Soon I started taking private lessons on a subject that I had not heard anything about before, cryptography.

This is an art, so to speak. The ability to hide messages in sight, something that was already used since the ancient Greeks, and that consists in making variations on the text, either of the position of the letters or of the letters themselves to send the message to its recipient. No one else can understand it without the decoding key.

The Enigma machine was the first and last thing I saw in my classes, it was like the height of mathematical development for message coding.

At first, all of that seemed confusing and complicated, but when they taught it to me as simple, chained mathematical processes, everything was easier to learn.

It is nothing more than making a message difficult to read, at least difficult for the enemy, because to whom it is addressed, it must be simple and unambiguous.

So many and so many read encoded messages, that sometimes I have dreamed of them seeing myself deciphering messages. The numbers, the hidden, who would think that there would be such a close relationship between them?

When I started it, I was so enthusiastic that I even dared to propose my own coding methods, but of course, many before I have worked on it, and quickly discovered my codes and unmasked my method.

It was about making a coding impossible to discover, except for the person that who had the decoding key.

They asked us to be able to invent new methods while showing us intercepted messages to decode.

At first, they were simple test messages with contents as simple as: “Well done!”, “You are improving!”. But soon they were changing, they were true messages used in ancient times to communicate positions, bases’ names or missions.

And then we began to receive "messages from the enemy" in our hands, as we called them, although we didn't really know who they belonged to.

They were intercepted messages, which we had to decode and know without error what they said.

Hence the importance of knowing other languages, because these, unlike those we had seen so far, were not in English and the first thing we had to do was identify the language in which they were written and then be able to decipher the message.

Some were simple, such as French or German, since they have very characteristic accents, which make them easily identifiable, but, on the contrary, others were very complicated, such as those from Eastern European countries.

Although we were clear about its origin, due to the influence of Russian among its characters, identifying which of those multiple countries of the so-called “Iron Curtain” came from was a more complicated task.

Our enemies, on the other hand, seemed to have the same task as us, to complicate everything, and if we managed to crack a code, the next one would surely be more complex, mathematically.

But all that effort had been worth it, we had managed to stop spies, transactions with stolen sensitive information, and even small-scale attacks, but that was nothing in our record of success.

As we progressed in our work, we were less and less, as we were distributed throughout the country as intelligence specialists, to help the various government agencies.

Although we all corresponded fluently, because that way we could share the advances we made, the work gradually became more solitary, or well, more technological, the machines at the beginning and the computers later, began to have a notable role in our work.

It was no longer necessary to perform large calculations in order to find replacement values, now it was necessary to give the parameters to the machine, so that they were the ones that worked for us, but of course, we had to give them the correct parameters to work properly.

That was the greatest risk of our work: making mistakes, which in any other position could mean the delay of an airplane or a lost letter, in our case, it meant losing the opportunity to get ahead of the enemy, see what he thought or how he planned to act.

And all this despite the fact that the civilian population was not aware of anything, it is true that they talked about the tension between nations and that some were sensitized regarding the policies on the other side of the iron curtain, but little did they know about the "Intelligence war" that was carried out every day.

At the beginning our work was easy, the messages were either translated or not, that means, when they are translated they have a meaning and they can be read, if you do not find the code, you can't know what it says. You only had to try combinations of keys until the message made sense.

"At eleven at the embassy”, "Under the statue of …", or "We continue south, near the border …".

Sometimes they were simple fragments of something, short and specific instructions, addressed to someone to follow up.

Many times, we did not know what they meant and our mission ended when we returned the message with the translation, so the army knowing who had been intercepted and after knowing its contents, could take the appropriate measures, which we never cared about much, that was not our mission.

But the most difficult thing was when the messages had more than one meaning, something that took time to find out, because we were still using the same method, decoding and sending.

The high spheres began to complain about our results, "we had not succeeded," they told us over and over again. We were surprised, we did not understand how it was possible, we had managed to decode the message, as we had always done: "Behind the third tree" or "At eleven in the same place."

The content was the same as always, we had done the decoding well, despite this our bosses were not happy.

Life is like that sometimes, we think that we are doing our best and that that will be enough, and everything changes overnight. I still remember when I had to move to Spain, I knew the language and some customs of its inhabitants, but nothing more.

I had always thought that if they moved me they would do it to Washington, or if I had to go abroad, I would go to London or Paris, but to Madrid? I couldn't wait for it! What would I do there?

A decision that only increased my curiosity to know what a mathematician specialized in coding and decoding messages would do in that country.

I tried to work as much as possible, trying my best, but my work at that time was still rejected by my bosses. Not because I failed, not because I didn't do it right, but because they said “We have gone at the right time, and we didn't find anyone!” Or “There are no troops where the message said!”, which puzzled me, and it just increased my pressure.

Spain, what a country! It completely changed my way of seeing life, at the beginning I did not interact with anyone, I rarely left the embassy where I felt comfortable, as I did not know anyone I preferred to stay in reading, but soon they started inviting me to parties, and I couldn’t refuse, I had to attend as part of the staff.

I was not a friend of the parties, and less of that loud music of the Spaniards, those songs and dances, I did not understand them because it seemed all quite confusing. I tried to pay attention to the lyrics, while seeing the showy movements of the dancers and I did not understand the meaning of all that.

Within a few months of being there, they sent me to introduce myself to the command,, an institution of the Spanish army. I didn't know very well why, but it was an order, and you know, you always have to comply those without questioning!

As soon as I got there they arrested me, I didn't understand anything, they stripped me of everything I had and they put me in a cell where I was held for several hours.

You have chosen a bad time to leave your embassy! –A captain told me that he was the first one I talked to.

–What? – I asked a little confused.

– Your country is at war! –That person told me.

"At war? But what are you saying?" – I asked surprised, I thought I

had misunderstood.

And as a military man, you can't be on the street – he kept telling me.

–No, I wasn't on the street, I was coming here …

– Anyway, you are invading our country and that is why you have to remain arrested.

– Invading, me? With what, with my briefcase and my hat?

– I said surprised, I did not understand anything that was happening, I even thought that I was misunderstanding what I was hearing, something that I did not want to believe, because my knowledge of the language I had already tested it many times.

–Less jokes ! Everyone here is suspicious until proven otherwise, you are awaiting a war council!

–But, what are you talking about? – They told me to appear in command.

– Did they tell you? Who told you? – He asked very seriously.

– Well, I received orders from Washington.

– Let's see, show me! – He demanded impatiently.

– I do not have them with me, I only fulfilled what they told me to, I was never told I have to present any document.

– Yes, they all say that! They say they don't know what they are doing, that they carry out orders. You are not the first spy we have behind bars.

–Spy? – I asked surprised, he had called me a spy, I couldn’t believe it, it really was a confusion.

–Of course ! Or do you think we have locked you up to admire our facilities from the inside ? Until our government decides what to do with you, you will remain locked, and pray for your government to be willing to cooperate, because if thy don't…

–What if they don't ? – I asked scared, seeing that this man was serious, and that he planned to leave me there.

– Others before you, have been in this same room and with those same bars, and not all have returned to their country, many have served as bargaining chip, but the rest …

I remember that I was very scared at the time, but speaking of money, where have I left mine? I have to go out for bread and I don't know where I left the cash, it doesn't have to be far, maybe in the kitchen, because bread goes in the kitchen.

After checking everywhere, rearranging everything I had and opening all the drawers I said to myself: "It must be on the dining room table, because bread is for eating."

I went there and looked again without success, a little frustrated by the situation I thought, "Well, it wasn't important" and I sat in my armchair, next to a large window where I could see a small garden.

I don't know how many times I had run out of food because I didn't remember where I had left the money, even though I had it written down in my notebook, the one I carried everywhere, only that sometimes, I forgot to look at it as well.

This memory, seems that it only worsens, how can this happened to me? I was always told that I had photographic memory ! Just one look at the message and I was able to retain it to mentally translate it before any computer, and after years and years of secret work, I had managed to repeat each written report, to put together a personal file.

My memory … if I have been able to show off something in my life, it's of having a good memory. Cultivated every day with many hours of study and reading, because although it may not seem like it, languages need to be practiced continuously to keep them fresh.

How many hours have I spent studying each of the languages I know, or well, did I know, or who knows if I still know them.

That is something that surprisingly I think I have not lost, the ability to understand other languages, on television sometimes I put one of those international channels, and I understand it without problems … it's like what they say about riding a bicycle, “Once learned, never forgotten, regardless how many years that you go without practicing”.

Something that has helped me a lot to progress in my career and arrive, strangely, to know more secrets than many presidents, since they only wanted results, and we were a few who knew what to do in each case.

My task as a mathematician had changed over time, and I went from translating messages from others to creating complex models to encrypt my own. It was no longer about coding one or two words for the field agents, security should be maximum for all government documents, and they asked us that if there were leaks, the stolen documents couldn’t be read by our enemies.

And from there, without expecting it they moved me to intelligence, well, until now I was working for one of their sections, but then it was knowing all the secrets.

Everything that the government denies or is silent, I was the first to know, and codify it.

There was a system within the system, an exclusive coding for ultra-secret documents and messages, as colleagues liked to say.

These, in no way were to be deciphered, so the work was sometimes strenuous, and the demand even greater.

It was no longer about knowing where the positions of the enemies were, their advances, and even their field agents, now they knew each of the tactical and intimate details of the relevant people of the enemy regime, their family, their lovers… A huge amount of information classified as vital and that should not be available to any other than the authorized person.

That seemed to me nothing more than a curiosity, something like those magazines that only serve to pry into the lives of others, but little by little I became interested, not so much for people and their relationships, but for certain issues that were hid from the public voice.

But yes, I was very clear that I never, never should say anything, since my life was at stake.

It never occurred to me to comment on any of those papers, despite their seriousness, and then I saw on television such absurd news about it, a chemical accident, a fire started without apparent cause, a plane that fell inexplicably.

I do not know how people can be so calm seeing these absurd justifications, if they stopped to think they would realize that that, more than news, is misinformation nationwide.

So many implausible stories to cover some government operation or a frustrated attack, and nobody stopped to think how strange that sounded.

Maybe everyone would rather look the other way, and not ask anything, feeling safe like this, sometimes I have heard that "naive people are the happiest" to refer to when you ignore what is happening around you, that gives you a False feeling of happiness.

Hundreds and hundreds of interventions on American soil with the same result, “Neutralized Agent”.

At first I did not know what it meant, but it became clear to me that neutralized meant eliminated, because when that word appeared in the reports, there were no more news of that agent again.

All the spies were classified, and we received periodic reports of their follow-up, what they did, who they talked to, who they had relationships with … until one day, they were neutralized, and from there nothing.

Sometimes reading the newspaper that they left on the porch every morning, I started to think if what I read would be true or not. Some news seems so false, I wondered if it was a government thing.

Although I have been disconnected from all that for some time since I retired, I am sure that the government has continued to do what it believes is best for the country, or at least we were always told so, “Freedom is not something that you have by right, it is something that is achieved by force ”, from time to time our superior in the academy reminded us.

At first, after I retired, I cut the most absurd news from the newspapers, an oil platform sunk by a tsunami, a gas explosion in an Alaska region … unconnected things, which make no sense whatsoever, and I tried to guess what had really happened.

When I was active, I didn't have to guess, I knew, exactly who had done what, how many dead, and how it was justified. And as absurd as the news that covered that was, no one seemed to wonder about the truth of what happened, even the relatives of the deceased were "at ease" with the "official version", without questioning anything.

A few months after I retired, I had so many cuts, and so little idea of what really happened that I abandoned it, since it was impossible to know for sure what was behind each news, or if any or several of them were related.

Now, when I read the newspaper with those kind of news , which are clearly absurd, I simply smile and wonder what the government will have done this time?.

In fact, I have noticed something strange with all those spy stories, I understand that it was necessary to keep the enemy under control, but sometimes I think that, if there were no real threats at one time, strangely our government intervened to "stir things up" and the others must answer.

I do not understand much the sense of losing the peace and tranquility that a calm season can offer, but it seems that to someone at the high spheres, that seemed boring, because at that time they always took advantage to annoy the enemy and make him react.

Many and many stories not always with a good ending, that made me wonder if there were other interests behind, the army arm dealers are always the most interested in the government being one way or another on alert, intervening in small or large wars; but then there are the military, who would have no reason to exist in a peaceful country; and then the politicians, who often base their discourse on patriotic sentiment, against the enemies, without them, what would they say ?, or how would they justify the expenses?

Each and every one of them wanted one thing, to have a high level of action and intervention against the enemies, although this was changing over the years.

Allied countries became strategic objectives, new enemies arose, and paradoxically, enemy countries of a lifetime, became key allies in the area.

Despite my access to information, I couldn’t see the whole equation and understand the movements involved. There was a lot that escaped me, although I had more information than any of the generals of my government.

Be that as it may, if it were a chess board, it had gone from being a simple pawn, to being a tower, a safe place for government secrets, but far from the central figures of the board, the ones that really make the decision… And speaking of chess, with this memory issue, I don't know how I can manage to play every day.

They had forced me to learn to play chess, a strange game at first, but that helped me to have an agile mind, which suited me very well with mathematics.

But in a short time I had no opponent to beat, and the others got tired of playing because they always lost, so I had to learn to play against myself.

A board game for two, only for one, which created a small problem for me, because when I changed position and had to play with the opposite color, as I knew the strategies I was going to apply, I had to think about how to refute myself . In the end a game could become endless, spending days and days to win it.

My point being, with this memory, it was becoming increasingly difficult to follow the games, because as soon as I got up to see something, and returned to the game, I did not know what color of chips I was playing.

Such is the case, that I had to start placing notes before getting up, such as "Now move the white ones", but there came a time, that I even forgot to write those notes, so I stayed blank, looked and looked at the board , trying to guess what chips I had to play, and I even had a hard time thinking about the plays.

It was weird, I presumed to be able to see the whole game as soon as I started playing, being able to predict in which movement I was going to win, now, instead, it was strangely difficult for me to concentrate on knowing what to do.

So much that chess has become one of many things that I keep in the house, junk that I suppose at some point served, but now only serve as an ornament.

Many of them I have kept in the drawers so that they are not in the middle, but then, I don't even know what's in there.

Sometimes I entertain myself by opening the drawers to surprise myself with the amount of objects that are stored there, some of them gave me the feeling that it was the first time I saw them, but it couldn't be, if they were there, it's because I would have put them there, and despite that I couldn’t remember, either when or where I bought them, if it was mine or someone else who had lent it to me, and sometimes, I did not even know what that "junk" was for.

Not even the plants, which my wife cared for so dearly, not even these survived my forgetfulness. Although she had told me, "Before the nap, pour some water and they will last forever," but even that simple instruction I was unable to remember, and they all dried up.

The lady who came to do the cleaning from time to time, brought me a new plant to "give joy to the house," as she said, and told me when to water it, despite this, they did not survive.

Well, for me it was better, so I had no more of those obligations, the kind that then overwhelmed me for not knowing if I had fulfilled them or not.

I believe that I have already obeyed too much during my life, and that I have also more than fulfilled my patriotic duties, if one could say so.

Luckily I never had to use a weapon, but I'm not naive either, the information I was handling has led some to death, especially spies from the opposite side, but above all it has saved lives.

Luckily for everyone, mathematics is finite, and as much imagination as we throw it, there is always some element that can be used for decoding, it is only a matter of time and effort.

Thus, we could be aware of the progress of our enemies, many times without intervening so as not to reveal that we were able to read their messages. Then everything got complicated.

After the Second World War, our country assumed a relevant role worldwide, we were no longer a country that only limited ourselves to guarding our borders, now we maintained world peace, and our work got complicated, so much that they sent me to Europe to work from there, because that was the greatest political interest of our country at that time.

The Nazi threat had put the intelligence of all European countries in check, but especially ours, despite the distance, something I did not fully understand until I got there.

At the time, no one had noticed the real danger of that popular movement, or everything that had happened afterwards, and it couldn’t be repeated.

That is why they sent me there, to study everything I could about the advances in codification of the Europeans, who strangely had come a long way in recent years, something that I could observe over time, how great technological advances occur in times of war and not only in terms of armament development concerns.

I do not know what it is, the need to survive or something else, but the progress when there is imminent danger is evident, and nothing better than Europe to prove it, always threatened by one side or the other, and yet, look how They have progressed leaving their competitors behind and becoming world leaders in many fields, despite the fact that they practically had to rebuild their nation from their foundations after World War II.

So, they sent me to Europe, as a diplomat, cultural attaché with a mission, to learn from our allies, which is what the Europeans were called at that time, in return, from our government they would receive tactical assistance, so that they could rebuild their cities and towns.

At first everything went well, but what am I saying?!, Well, removing the incident in Spain, from which I learned to take nothing for granted and cover my back very well. Someone had tried to get me out of there, and I hadn't even noticed it. False instructions that I had never seen before had put me behind bars waiting for a military trial.

Luckily, in those troubled times, not everyone thought I was a traitor, and with help from inside they managed to free me and took me out of the country, with the promise of never returning under penalty of death.

"An exile is better than death," I thought, but they had left me on the French border without knowing what to do.

That was not much safer than the country where I came from, so I had to look for some kind of embassy or military base, from where I could communicate with my command, to give signs of life and request instructions.

As I could, and after many hardships, I finally got to England and I felt at home there.

Already at the border I was able to show my papers and they treated me very well, at first they sent me to a nearby military base, to corroborate my story, but when they were sure that I was who I said I was, everything was easier.