Kilometro 135 - Christmas tale
"Madame, you must have a little patience. Being the night that is, it is possible that the crane does not appear before forty-five minutes. I confirm your information. You are far from the capital, at kilometer 135 of the N-71 on the Gray Mountain. Make sure your vehicle is properly signaled with the emergency triangles, put on the reflective vest and rest inside the car to avoid any abuse. Taking into account the night that is and that your notice is given, we ask that in case the crane is delayed, call "Teleasistencia in carretera 24H" after the established deadline. Good evening, Mrs. Sanchez.
-Good night Miss. Julia said, and rightly applied the index finger on the red key to hang up the mobile phone and end the call.
Damn it, he thought. Of all the days of the year and despite how good the car had been, he had to choose the old Renault that night of December 24 to leave it lying in that mountain port, which was far from his house a whopping 147 kilometers . And a whopping she made out in that evening, for being six-thirty in the evening was almost night. She was not a woman given to nervousness or scare without foundation, but what was said grace, grace; It did not make her alone on that slope of a busy highway. Already inside the car she called her husband to tell her what had happened trying to take all the iron possible. He could only wait for the crane because although Juan was a mechanic, he was too far away to come to his aid. Yes, her husband warned her. He had to insist on the gruider to take her home and not return it to the nearest workshop in the city; If that were the case, he would have no room to return home in good night, and a taxi could cost a fortune with a race of almost 170 km. After hanging up her husband and for killing time ceasing to think about her situation, in the dark interior of the car began to write to his daughter Marta for "wassap."
Mamajulia: Martha, hey girl. Did you board the plane?
Martahija: nooo, mama. This goes slow cloth. The luggage control is failing and goes very slow. Have you arrived home yet? Will not you be waseando driving ???
Mamajulia: No, shut up. Listen and write well that I will give you one that you will see. For that we pay you a race in Paris. I stopped the car and I'm waiting for the crane on the road. Comes in awhile.
Martahija: puaff ... go plan mami. Luckily you left the dinner done but, I see dad and brothers eating cookies wet milk ... lol.
Mamajulia: Well, your father and your brothers could feed on cookies for the rest of their lives. What a liking to everything that gets wet in milk, by God ... lol!
Martahija: hahahaha ... I piss myself off with laughter.
Mamajulia: do not be mischievous Marta. Well, I'll let you get some big headlights and it might be the crane, but it seems to me soon. Give me a hint before I get on the plane. Muaccc.
Martahija: Okay. Besukis mami July.
In spite of the high cold, she was sunbathing like the summer siesta, when she saw in the rearview mirror that a vehicle was approaching slowly with sirens on. It was the crane, thank God. In the darkness of the late evening, he could not even see the driver's face, though he was quite young. He pushed her off the side of the shoulder in an unfriendly way. She let him do as he placed the anchorages of his car and climbed it on the rear platform.
At fifteen minutes Julia was sitting in one of the two seats of the copilot of the crane, which was traveling on the freeway at high speed. Too much speed.
Young man, I see you driving too fast. Do you have other cars to collect? Julia asked. But the boy did not answer. He decided to try another possible dialogue.
"Do you have a name?"
The boy seemed to think twice before answering. But finally he said that his name was Sergio. As the crane was passed by other vehicles and the interior of the cabin lit up, Julia realized that the boy seemed to be beaded with beads of perspiration, but with the cold it was quite likely that sweat would not be. He would be sick, he wondered.
Be that as it may, his mind interrupted him when he told her that in less than twenty minutes they would be in the workshop. Julia was alarmed.
"Young, what workshop are you talking about?"
-To the workshop in the capital, ma'am. As soon as we get to the next service area we change the direction of the march and in twenty minutes we are in the capital.
Julia insisted. "But young, you must take me home." It's good night, the workshops are closed and I have no where to stay in the city.
The gruista was sharp. "Ma'am, that's not my problem. I have an obligation to take her to the nearest workshop from where her car has been stopped, and that is what I am going to do.
And do not look at me with that face, because I do not even take you home for money! Things are as they are and period.
Julia was stunned by the aggressiveness of the words of that boy who could be one of his children, but responsibly he thought he should not insist. Maybe the boy had other problems and she did not want to be the target of them.
They were circling the freeway when they reached the service area and the boy said he would stop for a moment to go to the service. So they did and they went down together. Julia waited for the boy in the empty restaurant. When he went to the bar from the service aisle, he was staggering, his face soaked with sweat. She had to cling to a bar stool so she would not fall to the floor, so instinctively Julia came out as a spring in search of him and helped him to sit on a chair.
He asked what was wrong, if it was wrong - although it was obvious that yes - but the boy responded angrily saying that it was okay.
Look, boy, "Julia said, trying to be sympathetic. You are not in a position to drive. Surely you have a fever and you come from vomiting the toilet. I want to go with my car home and I think the insurer should send another person as soon as possible to fix this situation. My family is waiting for me at home.
The boy looked at Julia with the saddest countenance Julia had ever seen and told him regretfully that no one was waiting for him at home that night. Really, not that night or any other night. Julia was stunned by what she had just heard.
The boy got up with the help of Julia and asked at the bar for a "gelocatil", which the waiter kindly gave him with a glass of water. After heading to the crane with the intention of the young man to continue his way to the city.
-Sergio! Forgive me, because you're old enough to be my son, but I have to protest. Julia said briskly. "You're in no condition to drive, and the only thing you're going to get is that we crash with the fever you have on us." Boy, please reconsider!
But the young man laboriously got behind the wheel and once inside he told her that she had two options, either to return with him and his car to the city or to stay where he was in the service area. Julia's desperation was absolute. He was about to give her something, for it was a suicide that the sick boy would run down the road. They would kill them and God knows who they were leading.
Sergio inserted the key into the opening, activated the mechanism and started the crane. Even as he sat, Julia could see the boy swinging a little from right to left because of the instability of his illness and fever. The boy was quiet. Everything was very quiet. The only noise in the background was the crane's engine.
Julia thought the boy was muttering something. She looked at him. Yes, she was saying something in a very low voice and she could not hear him. He repeated a phrase in a whisper.
"Son, what do you say?" I can not hear you. Hears? He said touching the boy's arm. Then he understood what the young man was saying. "I'm alone, I have nowhere to go."
The stupidity he felt toward that stubborn boy, Julia became for the moment in grief and tenderness for what he had just heard. He gave her time to take off her seatbelt and moved to the center seat, when Sergio collapsed beside her in her semi-conscious lap. His forehead was beaded with sweat and it was pure shivering. He had to put his head down a thousand an hour, to think what to do. What a good night out, she told herself. And in the meantime, her daughter might have flown through the heavens and her husband was waiting for her at home with her other children.
Suddenly, his pragmatic self reminded him of a phrase from a saint who said, "If you have a good idea, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission." So, as best he could, he took off his Scottish plaid coat and made it into a ball. He dragged the boy to where she was, tied his seat belt, and leaned him back against the windowpane in the passenger seat.
Forty-five minutes later, and some distance away, Julia's husband rang the cell phone at home and saw the word Mom on her screen. He hung up.
"Julia, where are you?"
"That's what I'd like to know." She told him, trying not to notice the nervousness she was in.
"But you do not know?" Is everything alright?
"I think so, but I'm not entirely clear.
"Julia, please, you're scaring me."
"No, Juan, let's stop playing comedies and listen to me. It takes me fifteen to twenty minutes to get home. I want you to fill the hot tub upstairs. Prepare the girl's bed and put a heater in her room. Juan ... can you hear me?
"Yes, but. Julia, are you sick?
-No, no. After tonight, a little crazy I think so, but hey. Hey, do not worry any more than necessary. Do me the favor of preparing what I have asked you to do. See you in a moment.
Juan, who was one of the people who let themselves be carried away by his partner, prepared to prepare what his wife had told him, wondering about the meaning of those preparations. He saw no explanation. After a while I heard beeps on the street and peered out the window. The crane, thank God it's here! But when he took to the street in the cold night, he was stunned when he saw that it was his wife who was driving the crane and that the supposed driver was fried in the next door. He had a hard time reacting. But Julia did not have time to ask. They took the boy from the crane with much effort and care and went into the house.
The next morning about eleven in the morning, Julia quietly entered her daughter's room. After the experience of the previous afternoon and having been able to have dinner and spend the good evening with family; He saw everything more clearly. The serenity of young Sergio's face, asleep in his daughter's bed, confirmed that he had done the right thing.
He sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. Sergio began to wake up. He opened one eye and then the other, making a face of not knowing where he was. Julia put a finger on her mouth telling her to be quiet and quiet, still very weak from the fever. She would explain everything.
-Good morning Sergio. You have to take the pills.
"Good morning, Madame," the boy said hoarsely.
"You remember about yesterday afternoon, right?" Yes, I know you remember. The fact is that when you fainted choose to be practical and brought you home. I launched a rookie grunt and I got home, where with the help of my husband we got you into the bath, wash, clean the fever and put on my son's pajamas the big one that will be about your age.
Sergio interrupted her a little embarrassed: "But then you saw me ..."
-Naked? Yes, but man I am mother of three children and as you will see one is cured of fright. Besides, your health came first. As I told you, we got you into this bed of my daughter, Marta, who is studying abroad and we called the emergency department to see the doctor. We told him that you were a friend of the family. Oh, by the way, the crane has been removed by the insurance company. We said a little lie to make you look good and everything is fixed.
There was a knock at the door. Juan was Julia's husband.
"How is the sick?" I ask.
The boy said better. Julia introduced them to both of them and Juan stood next to his wife looking at the convalescent boy.
"A little Sergio," said Juan, "we saw ourselves as black to get into bed. We are almost old. The three of them laughed a little.
Sergio, listen to me. Julia told him. I talked to my husband and we think you're not a bad person. At least not the people you're hurting for life. After the experience of yesterday, we are enough to offer you an opportunity that you can take advantage of in the short or long term. My husband has a workshop, he's the one who gives us food. It is not a great workshop but there is no lack of work because it is the only one in town. Do you understand mechanics?
"Yes, ma'am, I'm a senior mechanic." I got the title right before my uncles kicked me out. Sergio said.
Very good. Julia continued. Well if you want or until you want it here you can have a job. We are a large family, we have three children, two of whom Ruben and Carlos live with us. Ruben, I think he's your age, eighteen. We do not welcome you with compassion, Sergio, but for the sense of family. You should not be alone in this life and I think our meeting yesterday was not pure chance. No one should be denied an opportunity and we believe that we must offer it. You will work and earn your salary, and if you want it at home there is a place for one more.
-What do you say? Julia asked.
Sergio answered yes, bluntly.
Very good. Julia continued talking to him tenderly. "Yesterday you told me in your feverish state that you were alone, that you had nowhere to go. Imagine how great life is, that you are here today, among us. Sergio, you've found a family.
In the silence between the three of them in Marta's room, only one thing happened. Sergio's eyes began to glow. His mouth trembled a little emotion. Tears do notThey took their young face until they became uncontainable. Julia drew nearer and again they embraced in a cry full of sensitivity, tenderness and gratitude to life.
Julia kissed the boy's forehead. Cradling him a little, he touched his disheveled bangs and said,
"Sergio, you already have a family and a home. Merry Christmas.
Juan joined the embrace of the son, whom life had just given them.
End.
Florencio Salvador Díaz Fernández.
(It is authorized the diffusion of this story indicating its origin)
This Christmas story, I dedicate this year to all the disinherited ones of the earth. Those who close their borders and are denied fraternity. To those who live without love. To those who are denied love. To all those who are forced to flee their land feeling the rupture of their family and affective roots. To the prisoners of themselves and of their ego. To the empty of heart.
To all these people and to all the good people, to whom I love, to those who love me and to whom I should love more; From the heart, I wish you the most brilliant lights this Christmas are those of the works of your hands.
In the name of the blessed child born in Bethlehem, be happy.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND VENTUROSO YEAR 2017.
