Fatima: The Final Secret. Juan Moisés De La Serna

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      And before I could continue, my sister Carmen said:

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

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

      “Do you think it’s good to have it?”

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

      Then with an angry tone, Mom said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “Hold СКАЧАТЬ