After a visit to the bathroom, I quickly made a sandwich with the first things I found, a slice of bread with chorizo sausage, that would surely be delicious. The truth is that I don’t have any aversions to anything, everything seems great when it’s time to eat. Well, if I did have any aversions, I don’t know what they would be to, because I’m forever eating.
I didn’t have the patience to eat the whole thing and after a few mouthfuls, I looked back at the book. Leaving what I still had in my hands on the napkin, I continued, engrossed in my reading. It was so novel and so interesting that before I realized it, it was morning, or rather, the alarm clock sounded.
I got freaked out, that could not be the time. Yes, I’d been reading all night and not only that, but looking at the table, I saw that more than half a sandwich was still sitting there, just left on top of the napkin. “How could I have left it sitting there unfinished and not even noticed?” I asked myself in surprise.
Closing the book quickly, I almost ran to the shower. I had to get a move on if I didn’t want to be late for work, but even though I was a little tired, the truth was that it was worth spending the time reading that book.
It’s really quite amazing how the work of some people can in turn make it easier for others to get on with their own. I’d been receiving all that information compiled by the author through his trips to so many different sites, and however many interviews he’d conducted to find out so much, while I was seated comfortably absorbing the knowledge.
If I’d been determined to dedicate my time and my efforts to illuminating the truth before, a truth that seemed increasingly likely to have been concealed, now, I suddenly found myself with a huge desire to see where all this took me.
Up to that point, Fatima was just a more or less meaningless word to me, a place that had been, and which still was, important to many people, although it had never interested me personally. Now I found myself becoming increasingly interested in the place.
I wanted to know why there was so much mystery surrounding something that should be simple. If there were really seers and messages, why were they not available to anyone who wanted to know what they were, whether they were a believer or, as in my case, not?
Firstly, it was out of curiosity, to substantiate my discovery, that secret of mine, which nobody knew, and that of the person who had left it hidden there, because if they had wanted it to be known, they would certainly not have chosen to keep it there in that secluded place.
Thinking about it, why would they have done that? Couldn’t they have found a better place to leave something that important?
This intrigued me right from the start, from the moment I scraped at the damaged wall, trying to fix it up a little, giving it a coat of plaster. I noticed that a brick had shifted, which made me take a closer look at it, because up to that point it had been just that, a wall that I had to scrape so I could then apply some patches and then paint it to make it look decent. It was certainly not decent-looking when I’d found it, and if that wall could speak, it could tell me how many years it had been standing there without anyone spending any time maintaining it, that’s how bad it was.
“What am I saying? If the wall could speak!” That word made me reflect. That was undoubtedly what the wall had done, it had spoken to me through what I’d found. How would they have taken the brick out at the time? How had they been able to carefully place that behind it? And how could it have been preserved over all this time?
When I’d taken out the little package, the fabric that was wrapped around it was very damaged, because it had absorbed all the moisture and thus protected the contents, which were still in perfect condition.
I remember that I was going to look at what it was more closely, when I heard my companion who was shouting, calling out to me:
“Manu, it’s time for sandwiches, come on, you can get back to it afterwards, it’s time to rest for a while.”
Fearing that he would come into the room where I was, I tried to quickly store what I had just found in the back pocket of my pants, but seeing that it wouldn’t fit no matter how much I pushed it, I unfastened two of my buttons, carefully placed it under my shirt and put on my sweater, which I’d brought with me and sat down there on the floor in one corner. That was how I went out to join the others, have my sandwiches and chat for a while. And so we rested and talked about how each of us were doing in the tasks we had been assigned.
“What’s up Manu?” the others asked when they saw me appear.
“Well, I’ve been peeling the wall and removing all the bits that are coming loose, but I think we’re going to have to repair the whole thing, it’s in a really sorry state,” I said, taking a bite out of the mouth-watering sandwich I had in my hands, which Simón had just given me.
“You’re so lucky!” Blas told me. “Today I have to repair the roof, that’s much more difficult.”
“Do you need any help?” I asked him, but I was hoping he would answer me that he didn’t, I just said it in the spirit of compromise. I’ve never liked heights, but I thought it would be nice to offer my assistance.
“No, I can do it on my own for now, but I’ll call you if I need you,” he answered me.
When we were finishing up with our sandwiches, a few drops of rain began to fall, and when I saw that, I said to Blas:
“Looks like your work is done for the day, you’ll not be able to get up onto the roof, it seems you won’t need my help after all.”
“Yeah, nobody’s getting up there now” he answered looking up at the sky, then he added, “Well, you know what? Now I’m gonna be the one who comes to help you, what do you say?”
And without waiting for an answer, he went with great strides into the room where I was halfway through my work and put himself to work on another wall, removing the loose pieces. He looked at me and said:
“Of course I don’t know how you always manage to land the simplest jobs, you’re so the favorite! I’m sure it’ll be because you’re always willing to do any job and you never complain about it, so they reward you by giving you the less strenuous jobs,” and laughing, he added, “I’m only kidding by the way, don’t get annoyed. Look at how heavy the rain is now, especially given how lovely a day it was earlier! It was so nice that I said to myself when I was up there, ‘If the wind blows those clouds away, I’ll have time to inspect that row of tiles and replace the broken ones,’ but clearly it’s not a day to be changing tiles, they’ll have to wait a little longer. To be fair, I’m sure they’re not too bothered, because I have no idea how long they’ll have been like this, but it’s certainly been a good few years since anyone has lifted them off.”
Impatient because the day was ending, and because I had to remove my sweater so I could get on with the work, I tried not to move much, because I feared that Blas, who was now there with me, would notice the bulge under my shirt, which felt massive to me, even though he was working on the wall behind me.
Suddenly, perhaps due to the rain, the temperature changed, and using that excuse I quickly put on my sweater again.
“You’re gonna get it caked in dust!” Blas told me when he saw that I’d put it back on.
“It’s just that I’m cold, but I’ll be careful not to get it stained,” I replied.
“Cold? Are you for real? Take it off and you’ll see how much faster the work goes,” he said laughing. “Goodness, you get cold easily!” He got on with his work and we didn’t talk any further.
With that “Little package” already well hidden, I felt calmer, but I was wishing that the day would end so I could leave. I don’t ever remember that having happened to me, because I was usually the one who always finished last.
“Let’s keep going for a while longer, there’s still a lot of work to be done here,” I would tell the others in the evening when it was time to pack up and leave.
“Leave something for tomorrow! Don’t you see that even the sun has gone to rest?” they would protest at me, already looking tired and happy to leave it behind and go home.
I would drop whatever I was doing, but reluctantly, and on the way home I would always say:
“We could have stayed a little longer, we still have a lot to get through, and if we don’t hurry, the summer will be over and we won’t have finished everything.”
“Fine, we’ll stay longer tomorrow,” they would answer me, but they never did. Normally, as soon as the sun went down, we would leave, but today I was the first to say it:
“Guys, what if we leave it until tomorrow?”
“Earlier you were cold and now you want to go? Hmm! That sounds fishy to me, you’re not getting sick are you? Those symptoms sound like you might be coming down with the flu, or something worse,” Blas said surprised.
“Get outta here, don’t exaggerate, it’s not like we can wait for the sun to set today, because it hasn’t even come out,” I said trying to justify myself.
“Well, let’s gather everything up and we’ll continue tomorrow,” he said.
The others also agreed, because even though we’d not yet finished the task we’d set ourselves, as we do every day, today we all seemed a little more tired than usual. It would be because of the change in the weather, and picking everything up, we left.
The rain started falling even heavier than before and wore my raincoat. In Santiago de Compostela you always have to be prepared, and when you get into the habit, you always carry it wherever you go.
That prevented the rain from wetting my sweater, and with it, the object that I was hiding with such zeal, but my legs were soaking wet, because the rain had been accompanied by an unpleasant wind, so the water that fell came from all directions, and it was impossible to stop it from soaking me all over.
I took a warm shower when I arrived, but quickly, because I was impatient, and I think even nervous. That was something unusual for me, my classmates had always told me:
“Manu, you’re the calmest person we know. We never see you getting nervous, you don’t seem to get bothered by anything.”
Well, I would say that I did get nervous, but I didn’t show it. Now I was really starting to notice it, instead of hitting the hot tap, I hit the cold, so when that jet of icy water sprayed out, I wasn’t expecting it and I jumped back, then in the kitchen, I went to heat up a glass of milk, to invigorate myself, and instead of milk I poured water into the saucepan. “You see!” I thought. “Boy, you’re more nervous than Jell-O, be careful.”
Just then, Mrs. Petra, the owner of the boarding house, came into the kitchen and asked me if I needed anything. She had told us from the first day that everything was at our disposal, that we were the only ones in the whole place, well, besides them of course, but that when we needed anything, there was no need to ask her, we could just take it because we already knew where everything was.
Of course, she showed it to us by opening all the drawers, so that if we needed anything, like sugar at breakfast, or water or whatever, we confidently went into the kitchen and took it for ourselves, that’s why I was here trying to prepare the milk for myself.
I answered that I was a little out of sorts and was going to prepare a glass of milk.
