Fatima: The Final Secret

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Both family and friends.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I was all scared and I told the doctor:

‘He died.’”

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

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

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

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

‘What are you saying?’”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where are you from?” Simón asked again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<<<<< >>>>>

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

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

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

<<<<< >>>>>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m for dinner!”

<<<<< >>>>>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My grandmother found my protests amusing, but said:

“Young Manu, the bells are good company.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<<<<< >>>>>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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