Fatima: The Final Secret. Juan Moisés De La Serna

questions that I had, had been avoiding me after a certain point, as if he didn’t want to speak with me anymore, and I hadn’t known why.

      I’d attributed it to the fact that every time I saw him I detained him with all my questions. I was sure I was keeping him from any work at hand and that he was too polite and wouldn’t tell me, “I can’t help you just now.” Still, what I was hearing in these moments surprised me and I had to say:

      “What are you saying? You thought I had a police friend and I was going to say something to him? About what?”

      “I don’t know,” the man said, shrugging, “because you asked so many questions, I wondered why you wanted the information.” Ending the conversation, he said, “I’ve already said to my wife to prepare something for your dinner for when you freshen up a little.”

      “It’s alright, don’t trouble yourself,” I said, “I see it’s already too late and the kitchen must be closed.”

      “Yes,” he said, laughing, “but my wife has the key and doesn’t have to bother anyone. She’s the one who makes it and she’s very happy to do so, you’ll see later when she tells you the same thing.”

      I climbed the steps, remembering the first time I had climbed them and everything that had happened there. Now that I was remembering, it seemed like a movie I had watched sitting in a movie theater, and not my own experiences, and I said to myself, “So now, what will happen to me? Because I really don’t know why I came.”

      I left those thoughts for another time. I was too tired; with two strides I was in front of the room I knew so well.

      The door had been changed. It was made of a better quality of wood than the one I remembered. “They’ve really made a lot of renovations. It’s natural I suppose, time spoils everything,” I thought standing there, as I inserted the key into the lock.

      I opened it slowly, with curiosity, remembering what had happened to me inside those four walls, those experiences that had changed my life, and I looked around after turning on the light. “My” lamp had been taken away, the one that made me dream so much.

      “Well this one is fine, too,” I told myself, “the other one must have broken or been replaced by a more modern one.”

      How silly I was to hope that everything would still be the same as when I left it. I passed in front of the closet mirror, which was still there in its place, facing the foot of the bed, reflecting my image as I passed.

      I looked at myself, how I had changed and “How skinny I was!” as my mother would tell me. She was right, I had to put on a little weight so that my bones wouldn’t be quite so visible.

      “Just fill out those bones,” Mom would say, insisting that I eat a little more.

      “Leave him be, he’s an adult now,” Dad would say, “he knows how to look after himself.”

      I went over to look out the window. My window was still there. Of course it was, as much as they might change a room, it’s not as if they’re going to move the window from where it was before.

      What they had removed were the curtains. Now it had some modern Persian blinds and some net curtains that I didn’t remember from before. They’d also removed the table that I’d once used to take notes in my notebook about what had happened to me on that day so as not to forget it.

      I remember the times when I wrote down the conversation I’d had with the owner and the amount of information he had given me.

      Now, next to the closet was a desk. It was a modern piece of furniture with a drawer on runners and a modern looking chair in front of it. I left the bag there and went to wash my hands. I could tell that there was also something here that had changed, but I didn’t pay it much attention. I finished up quickly and went downstairs to the dining room. I didn’t want to make them wait, since they had been so kind as to prepare me something for dinner in spite of how late it was.

      The lady was sitting a steaming plate down on a table. The rest of the dining room had been cleared. It was empty, clean and lonely at that time, although they had turned all the lights on. I smiled at her from the door, she looked the same, it seemed like time hadn’t passed for her, and I told her so.

      “You’re very kind to say so son, but time doesn’t forgive anyone, and I’m not what I used to be, if you saw how my knees are getting,” she said smiling.

      “That’ll be because you don’t rest all day,” I said.

      “That’s true enough, but I don’t know how to be still, so many years doing the same thing… but let’s not talk about me, what about you? What is it that made you decide to come back?” she was saying slowly, almost with an air of confidentially. “What? Are you back at your research again?”

      I watched her closely, and said:

      “What do you mean? I don’t understand, it’s just a trip to remember old…”

      “Yes, old what…?” she interrupted, “because you’re not going to tell me that nothing happened to you. You can’t tell me that. I know something happened to you, right?”

      “Wait, what are you referring to?” I asked in surprise.

      “It’s alright, I understand if you don’t want to tell me. Don’t worry, the day you want to share it, you know who you can talk to in confidence,” she was saying softly.

      I didn’t quite understand it. Yes, something had indeed happened to me, but I wasn’t going to tell a stranger, I couldn’t even imagine doing that.

      I took the spoon and began to fill it with the soup that she had brought me, which smelled so good, so I could eat it and finish up.

      “Son, there are some things in this life…,” she was saying, “…that get easier when you share them, don’t you forget that.”

      Turning around, she went into the kitchen to bring me the second course, that cod that I think only she knows how to make so delicious.

CHAPTER 6.

      I was walking quickly. The rain fell heavily and because it was very windy, an umbrella would have been useless. I hadn’t even taken it, so my whole face was getting soaked.

      When I turned a corner, someone crossed my path, I was as scatter-brained as ever, but certainly justified under the circumstances, because I was in a hurry, not just because I was getting drenched but because I was late too, which I’ve never liked. I kept walking, when I heard:

      “Don Manuel.”

      I stopped in my tracks and turned around, then I noticed who had called me, it was the person who had crossed my path a moment ago.

      “How long has it been since we’ve seen each other?” she asked.

      I hadn’t recognized her before, but I did now, it was the librarian, but I couldn’t remember at that moment what she was called, but masking my confusion, I said:

      “How are you? And what’s with this ‘Don’ Manuel? Has time made you forget that we’re friends and all the hours that we spent together?”

      “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” she said. “Did you continue researching the subject?” she asked me.

      “Yes,” I said and added, “what do you think about meeting for a coffee this evening and reminiscing about old times? I’m in a bit of a hurry just now, they’re waiting for me.”

      “I think that would be good, I’m also in a hurry, besides there’s not really time to be standing around here on the street with this rain.” Turning around, she said, “six at our place.”

      She left me almost mid-sentence, before I had the chance to respond. I watched as she disappeared around the corner, and thought, “At our place, where would that be?” I had no idea where she meant at that moment, after all the years that