I hurting you?’”
“He shook his head, because the words wouldn’t come out. He let me do this to him, and once he was sitting in that corner, he said softly:
‘Thank you son, God will bless you for it.’”
“I tried to smile to calm him down and said:
‘Come on, it was nothing.’ Then I grabbed the straw mattress and pulled it out so that it wouldn’t get in the way, and in turn so that the rubble from the wall wouldn’t fall onto it.”
“When I came outside, I went to tell you guys that we could start making the hole where we had planned, because it was in the same place where he had been lying on the other side, and I told you:
‘He’s already been moved from there, there’s no danger that anything will fall on him.’”
We worked more quickly that morning. Everything had to be completed so that he could go back to his place. The back room was almost finished, all we had to do was close up the hole through which we went in and out. After creating that connecting door, two of us dedicated ourselves to closing the hole and plastering everything properly and the other two to removing the debris.
The wife could not stay still and in her eagerness to help, was faster than we were. Surely it also came down to her nerves, but it made us take on more than we would have done had she not been helping, because we realized how much she was doing, which was a lot and we were not going to be doing less.
When everything had been cleaned up, we finished properly reviewing the new space we’d created, and we said satisfied:
“It’s not too bad.”
The husband, who had been tucked up quietly in that corner the entire time, told us:
“Not too bad? It’s fantastic! You seem to be professionals, surely they wouldn’t have done a better job.”
Since we were lucky that day and it was very hot, the cement dried well, so we could put the mattress into their new bedroom at the end of the afternoon. They would sleep there that night, and we told them that we would take it out again tomorrow to finish up and whitewash the walls, and we left it at that.
Santi was still telling us his story and as we reached the point where we had to go our own separate ways and say goodbye, we asked him:
“What happened the next day? Why did you go early?”
“Don’t you remember? When we were on the way home that afternoon, I said, ‘I forgot my sweater, you guys just keep going,’ and I ran back.”
“Yes, and by the way you took a long time to come back,” Jorge said, “we were waiting for you there in the countryside, we were exhausted and you didn’t seem to be in any hurry.”
“Well, that’s because I’d thought, ‘When we leave, he’ll have to be put back into his bed,’ and I had to find an excuse to help him without you guys knowing, so I left my sweater in a corner, how could I have forgotten it? That’s why I told you that I was going back for it, and that’s how I arrived just when Encarnación was about to lift him up so she could put him back onto the bed. I helped her to do it and then I went back to where you guys were waiting, but in the rush, I left again without the sweater and I had to go back to pick it up, that’s why it took so long.”
“And the next day?” Simón asked.
“See, as I knew that he wouldn’t let himself be touched or seen by any of you, I said to myself, ‘Surely his wife will have to do it before we arrive so he’s already up by the time we get there,’ so I came earlier, when there was barely any light in the sky, to help in any way I could. Sure enough, when I arrived, she was already getting ready to carry him, and she got a fright when I called out, she wasn’t expecting anyone.”
“What are you doing here at this early hour? The sun’s barely up,” she asked me as soon as he saw me, when she opened the door.
“‘I’ve come to help you,’ I answered.”
“‘You’re an angel,’ she said quietly.”
“‘Please! That’s just because you don’t know me very well, ask my mother and you’ll see. She’s always telling me, ‘Santi, you’re a demon, you’re always messing about.’’”
“‘Well, that’ll be at home, you don’t behave like that here,’ she added, smiling as I entered.”
“I went in following her instructions and I found the man in the new bedroom already prepared because he’d heard me and the boy was asleep beside him.”
“‘And what are we gonna do with this one?’ I asked quietly so as not to wake him up.”
“‘Don’t worry, we can move him anywhere and he won’t even notice,’ his mother told me.”
“I took the man out and put him in the same chair he’d been sitting in the day before. The wife was patiently feeding him breakfast, spoonful by spoonful into his mouth. As I didn’t want to disturb them, I went to leave, but she noticed and asked me:
“‘Where are you going? Stay here, it’s still chilly.’”
“So I stayed there for a good while. Then I took out the mattress, so that it wouldn’t get in our way, and I did a little preparation for everything we needed to start the day’s work, and as soon as you guys arrived, you were surprised to see me there and I had to tell you that I’d been confused with the time and thought I was late and that you hadn’t waited for me, and that’s why I came to the house by myself. I saw that you looked at me with a weird expression, it seems that you didn’t believe me, but you didn’t have time to question me about it. It was just then that the boy came out and started to run after the hen and we all started laughing and you forgot about it. Now you know everything,” Santi told us, “there are no more mysteries. I’ve told you now because everything’s finished, and I don’t think they’d mind now.”
“We did leave everything really nice,” I told the others to change the subject, “and about the furniture you’re all asking me about? When I asked my mother to give me the crib, she nearly collapsed.”
“But son, I’m saving it for when you get married and you give me a little grandchild,” she’d told me very upset.
“What if I become a priest?” I answered.
“Stop that! Don’t mess around with that,” she said very seriously.
“No, I said that to you as a joke, but I’m serious about the crib. Please can you give it to me? It’s not doing anyone any good being kept here when there’s a little boy who could use it,” I said, trying to calm her down a little and get her to cave.
“No, the crib was yours, and it’ll be for my grandchildren when you have them,” she insisted.
“Mom, I know it was mine, well Carmen’s first, and after me, it was for the twins and finally Chelito, but look, that little boy I’m asking for has nowhere to sleep and he needs it now. If I get married and have children, and who knows if I will, I’d have to do very badly in my career and my new job to be unable to afford to buy a crib before I emigrate
