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at home. When one of my nephews comes to pay me a visit, not that it’s often, but when they pass by where I live, they ring the bell downstairs and if I answer them, they say:
‘Hello uncle Manu!’ and they come in to see me for a while. That’s because their parents always tell them that since I’m a loner, I must get bored a lot, and because they hear it so much, they come to keep me company for a while. Well, he asks me why I don’t throw away all those old papers.”
“And what do they think of all your work?” Pilar asked me.
“Well, the truth is that no one in my family has ever understood, although as they know, I’m very stubborn and I was never gonna let it go, and they’ve never asked me to give up.”
I keyed in a date where she told me, and immediately the newspaper I wanted appeared on the screen, of course I just searched for something I already knew, to see if it worked.
“How much time and money this invention would have saved me before,” I said looking at her.
“Yes, she said and miles, I know you’ve had to make many trips to collect all that information.”
Well, what have you dedicated yourself to since you don’t have to go to work every day? How have you been spending your time? I was asking her curiously.
Blushing like a schoolgirl who had been caught hiding something, she said:
“I’ve dedicated myself to writing.”
“Writing?” I asked surprised. “Writing what?”
“Well, memories, experiences, in short, part of my life between these four walls, my views on many things,” she was telling me and had lowered her voice, it was clear that she didn’t want anyone to find out.
“Tell me! Tell me! I’m sure it’s very interesting,” I interrupted her with curiosity.
“Look,” she said, looking at the clock, “let’s go, or we’re going to be too late for coffee, and we’ll get there at dinner time, but I promise I’ll tell you.”
We shut down that device and headed down the corridor to the exit, where we said goodbye to the lady. Pilar gave her another two kisses as she had when she arrived and said:
“Keep holding down the fort for me!”
As a farewell, I said to her:
“I’ll be back some day when I have more time to take a look at that little gadget you have, bye!”
Looking at me with an expression on her face that told me she had no idea what I was referring to, she said:
“Well, I’ll be here, come back whenever you want.”
I left behind Pilar, and started walking quickly, because I didn’t want her to leave me behind, but it was hard for me to stay by her side.
I noticed that time had not sapped away that energy that she always had, and that although now she would not have to walk so much through the corridors of the library, her legs were as agile as ever. Suddenly she stopped there in the middle of the street, and she started thinking.
“Look, seeing as we’re together, we don’t need to go to our coffee shop, I’m thinking of something I’d like to show you,” she was telling me with a smile.
Without asking any questions, because I thought, “She always has first-hand information,” I said:
“Whatever you want. Let’s go to wherever you’re talking about.”
We went to the Rúa da Raiña and in surprise I said:
“So where are we going?”
At that point, we passed by the door of a coffee shop, and she said:
“Look, this looks like a good place to get a coffee, what do you think?”
I liked the place too, although in reality it didn’t matter to me, so we entered and asked for one right there at the counter, which really surprised me.
I had assumed she would take advantage of the fact that we would be sitting quietly to show me what she had just told me about, but I was wrong, she didn’t want to sit down at all. When I proposed it, she said:
“No, this way is faster.”
When it was served to us, she started drinking it immediately. I saw that the coffee was steaming and I asked her:
“Are you in such a hurry that you can’t wait for it to cool down a little?”
“Wait, you’ll see,” she said, smiling, and she did not say another word.
She drank all the coffee that was left in the cup in a single sip. I don’t know how she could tolerate it and not burn her throat, because there was no one who could have drank mine at least like that, it was just too hot.
Indicating with her hand that I should hurry, she headed for the exit, so my full coffee was left untouched in the cup. I did not want to burn myself, besides, curiosity had already gripped me. What could Pilar want to show me that would suddenly make her hurry so much?
I followed her out of the coffee shop, and of course because she knew where she was going, her steps were firm, yet I didn’t understand anything and I looked all around me, and before I knew it, we had arrived at the University library. She immediately greeted the two people at the door, it was obvious that they were old acquaintances.
“Hello Pilar! Here for information again?” asked one of them.
“Yes!” she answered. “I know you’ve received something interesting, and I’m going to keep an eye on it.” We kept walking until we got into a big room.
“I’d never come here before,” I said looking at the place. “I’d visited the public library, yes, who in Santiago de Compostela doesn’t know it? This place though, I didn’t even know it existed. Where are we?” I asked.
She smiled at me softly:
“Shhhh! You can’t talk here.”
I shrugged a little embarrassed, because for a few moments I’d forgotten that talking is prohibited in libraries. Of course, given all the time I’ve spent in them, I was almost always alone, so I didn’t have to make any effort to keep quiet. Since I didn’t have anyone to talk to, how was I going to do it?
At that moment, I don’t know why, I remembered one time when I was occupying myself with a book that I had in my hands in the Vatican library, and that nun approached me and asked me:
“Can I help you?” and I immediately realized that she had asked in English.
I looked at her surprised and thought, “How strange! Why have you asked me like that?” Then I answered:
“No, thank you.” I was of course trying to pronounce it properly, in the same language that she had spoken to me, English. It’s a problem that I’ve always had, even though my teachers have always told me:
“Manuel, you know how to assert yourself very well,” but when I’ve had to speak it, I’ve always been indecisive, fearing that the person who was listening to me wouldn’t understand me, because I was pronouncing things wrong.
The nun gave me a pamphlet, and turning around, disappeared into the aisles of the place. Surprised, I looked at what she had given me, I opened that pamphlet to see what it was when I saw in large letters, “FATIMA.”
I got up as if propelled by a spring to look for her, but it was useless. There were a lot of people sitting there, priests, the odd nun, and I looked at them closely, to see if the nun who had spoken to me was among them.
But nothing! I couldn’t recognize her because I’d not taken notice of how she was dressed, and here there were different uniforms, or habits as I believe their clothes are called, some dressed in blue, others in black, still others in white, which surprised me. What would they be doing here? Why were they