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I can't complain, I spent a relatively good life, I always devoted myself to what I loved the most, but nevertheless, right now … there are only memories, and on many occasions not even that.
Sometimes I went to the office, where I have so many folders of work accumulated, years ago, I sat and opened some of them and reviewed, looking at the work done and reminding it.
So many notes written with evident emotion, thinking that it was going to "make a difference", as today's young people say, and time has left everything in oblivion.
Years have gone by and what I remembered before with pride, became almost a strange sensation of curiosity, I saw those heaps, and I didn't know what was in there, I opened them to know what they were, with an approaching anxiety, it's sure that all that was mine, but I didn't remember I wrote this, or when it happened.
I was sure it was my handwriting, at least I did not doubt, and that it was in each of the hundreds of notebooks and reports scattered there, but little else I was able to recognize the time spent in that work.
This was when I realized what was happening to me, I was losing my memory, which was always so good, now I was unable even to recognize what I wrote.
My papers were already the papers of a stranger with my handwriting, unable to see any kind of order among such a folder.
It made me frequently so angry that I threw the folders on the floor, and … I do not know … I tried to make it not so … but everything was useless, and the feeling of despair invaded me, making me believe that life doesn't do any good..
After a while, when I made me feel calm, I picked up paper for paper, and without knowing why, I put them where I thought it was their place, without being able to even remember what they contained, I just managed to classify them according to the date that appeared in each of those manuscripts in their upper right side, as strenuous as it was this task, I didn't leave it until putting together that puzzle, although I couldn't put everything in a chronological order, at least together according to every year.
I have not returned there in a very long time, it makes me angry! So many hours of work between those four walls, those papers that I no longer know what they are, not even if they are still good.
Sometimes I sit in front of the TV, even when is off, and I try to remember some past moments, times when serious events were hidden from the public to avoid alarming them and I imagine what their life would be like, without noticing they were in danger.
They carried out a very busy life, they barely notice the work behind it in order to bring there the sense of well-being.
I still remember the first time I have heard a discussion about the subject, my gifts for numbers had made me stand out among my teammates, it was during military service, something that would have gone unnoticed by anyone, but not my captain, when he realized it, he wanted to offer me a promotion.g
A decision that I will always be grateful for, because it gave the opportunity to do a great service for my country and to save so many of what could have been a painful death.
–You have a gift! – the captain told me that day.
–I don't believe it's a gift, it's a talent – I replied.
–A talent? He asked startled
–Yes, a talent given by the Creator.
The captain completely puzzled, after a long pause said:
–Whatever! I'm sure you will do better service in Pennsylvania, over there they will prepare you to complete something important.
–But, what about my parents? What am I going to tell them? – I replied, between surprised and bewildered by his words.
–Do not worry! The army will look after your family during your absence, that is what you wanted, right?
–Yes, indeed, we just arrived and my parents don't know the language, and although some friends of ours help them out, they still haven't found a job.
–Relax! They will get the paycheck right on time every month, but you have to fulfill your duty.
–Of course, I'll be the best! I won't let you down!, but what am I going to Pennsylvania for?
–You will have time to figure it out, all I can say now is : make your parents feel proud of you!
Those were his last words or orders , I'm not sure!, because next day, two soldiers arrived at my barracks where I slept with my platoon and they took me out of the base where I was completing my training, they took me to an uncertain destination.
Wow, how strange! I can almost chew the sand that the jeep was raising from the road as we were approaching that military base.
It was a particularly hot day, despite of, the emotion of the moment prevented me from thinking about something other than finding out how I could use my talents.
I remembered it almost as if I was living it, and despite that, I'm unable to remember the name of the base.
I am sure that after three years of training there, I would know without hesitation but the passage of time erases what you want and without warning.
Although even the most familiar names have dissipated from my memory, I have long since came up with a system by which I wrote down all the important names, dates and events of my life, and from time to time, I placed a white paper on the side and tried to write down everything I remembered.
It was a child's play! At first, how could I not remember the name of my grandchildren? Or the date of my wedding? But over time, the blank sheet I was trying to fill in, remained more blank to my despair, until one day, I came to forget where the list was stored, where I listed the dates, names and events that I never thought I could forget.
I still remember when we bought that toaster on the kitchen, and how my wife and I fought over the color. She wanted it lemon yellow, and I preferred it silver.
In the end, as in all things, I gave in to her decision, in fact our fights, if you could call them that, were due to insignificant things on most occasions, then, Why not giving in ?, deep down, Did the color of the toaster actually matter?.
She was comfortable having everything in her own way, although those bright colors did not convince me, but she always said something like: "this cheers the room up".
However, now I am not able to remember when it stopped working, if it broke down, or why I no longer use it, for me it is another dish, like many of those that I find in the house, of which sometimes I doubt how to use.
Sometimes I open the drawers to see what's inside, and I find everything, pieces of junk in some, tools in others, empty boxes in the one beyond, I didn't know that we could accumulate so many things that now are unusable.
In one of the drawers I found a toolbox, I have never changed a light bulb! Why would I want it now?, Despite thinking about it, and after a few moments of looking at it, trying to remember if it was ever used, I just close the drawer.
My wife, how much I miss her!, if I only knew where she is, surely in heaven! But heaven is so far away!
I have no doubt that if someone has deserved a rest it has been her, always so willing to help others in whatever they need, and she did it all with a big smile and without any protest.
She didn't even complain about the many hours of loneliness that she spent while I remained locked in my office working, or about the trips I had to leave for weeks.
Every time I was back, she had a beautiful smile waiting for me and a warm voice to ask me how the trip went, even though I knew I couldn’t tell her anything related to my work.
Sometimes I get up and after washing up and completing my exercise routine, I sit down by the dining table, and I wait, and wait, I don't know for how long , until I realize that my wife is not there anymore and that she will not longer bring me breakfast, then, great sorrow invades me and I barely feel like getting up and fix my self breakfast.
In fact, is not my thing to be in the kitchen, since I never excel at cooking or frying anything, only when I didn't have any other choice I helped whenever was asked for, specially at parties, when we hosted big crowds and my wife couldn't manage to prepare everything.
I liked better to set up they able and scrubbing at the end of the meal, and go grocery shopping when we didn't get it delivered at our door, but that was about it.
On the other hand, since she's gone, if you could call it that, and despite that at the beginning I was resisting because I considered it “her territory”, now it feels like I'm spending my life in the kitchen.
I have never realized how much work the kitchen demands, and the hours it takes, and also the sorrow of knowing that those were her things and that now she will never use them again.
Many times… I stayed quiet, waiting to hear something, maybe a noise coming from the kitchen as it did while she was fixing dinner, maybe her singing while she was looking after her plants,… well, I don't know what is it that I'm doing, but I miss her greatly, that I do know.
Even when I returned to my life as a civilian, I was still in contact with my former colleagues, worried about being up to date on everything that came out of my area, despite this, and the many hours of study I have dedicated in my life, time does not seem to have mercy on me.
Although the list of people with whom I maintain contact is getting smaller, since some have moved far away, and there are even those who no longer want to know anything about these government issues.
It is true that others are gone, at least I can count another day of life and I must be grateful for it, but I have long since lost count of how many days have passed, in fact, if it were not for the notebook that I always carry around, I wouldn't even know what year I was born.
In this small notebook I have written down the most important information: my name, my address, date of birth, what are the things I should do on the day, who to call if I have any issue…
Although I don't know why, there are fewer and fewer numbers on that list, several deleted, I guess the person will have changed the phone number or is no longer among us.
My memories! How many times I was offered to write about my life, so that the new generations could learn from it, but of course, I couldn't! I was forbidden to do so, due to my work I signed several confidentiality agreements.
If I told any of the military secrets which I knew, I would be sentenced to death.
Well, said like that seems very drastic, but it was the truth. I had seen it before, enthusiasts who wanted to raise their voices and let the whole world know about the secrets of the government they had worked on and even a journalist who was willing to tell it on the front page, and all of them simply disappeared.
Traffic accidents or in the bathtub of their homes, were the official reasons why two days before being published, the people involved simply were not longer there.
It was something they taught us from day one, you do not play with the government! They know everything and don't allow any information leaks.
Even when there are, it is they who take care of it, because they do not allow a single detail to come out to light without their authorization.
For a long time I just had to close my mouth and look the other way, as if everything was normal, and as if society as we know it had no alternative, but it is not like that.
I tried to have my own documentation of everything I did, as an activity record, but it was not possible, the day I left the army, interestingly, all my belongings were confiscated and they only allowed me to take out of the base a suitcase with my clothes in it.
I, who had accumulated so much information and enjoyed my own home since the day I had arrived in the army, I saw myself with a small suitcase and the number of a bank where I would receive my pension for the rest of my days.
In the following months, I locked myself in my home office trying to remember all that knowledge, looking for data and writing about it to put together my own files, a strenuous work that resulted in an office full of folders everywhere, and what was the point of it?
When I entered that place, I felt proud of my job and proud of being able to collect as much information, to order, classify and shape it, but now I hardly know what's in those piles of folders.
When I see it and I read the sign on the folders, I think that will be important, but it has been a long time that I lost curiosity about things.
I guess everything is now old paper, past cases that nobody cares about, government secrets that have been forgotten.
So many and so many lives saved, that they will never know they were, so much work done to achieve it, and the world remains oblivious to the reality that it was about to live.
"A change in the course of history" our commander had told us when he gave us our first case.
The instruction was over after the hard training. Unlike what I had imagined, I did not have to do as much physical as intellectual activity in there, from the first day they had me attending classes of all kinds, mainly languages and mathematics.
Soon I started taking private lessons on a subject that I had not heard anything about before, cryptography.
This is an art, so to speak. The ability to hide messages in sight, something that was already used since the ancient Greeks, and that consists in making variations on the text, either of the position of the letters or of the letters themselves to send the message to its recipient. No one else can understand it without the decoding key.
The Enigma machine was the first and last thing I saw in my classes, it was like the height of mathematical development for message coding.
At first, all of that seemed confusing and complicated, but when they taught it to me as simple, chained mathematical processes, everything was easier to learn.
It is nothing more than making a message difficult to read, at least difficult for the enemy, because to whom it is addressed, it must be simple and unambiguous.
So many and so many read encoded messages, that sometimes I have dreamed of them seeing myself deciphering messages. The numbers, the hidden, who would think that there would be such a close relationship between them?
When I started it, I was so enthusiastic that I even dared to propose my own coding methods, but of course, many before I have worked on it, and quickly discovered my codes and unmasked my method.
It was about making a coding impossible to discover, except for the person that who had the decoding key.
They asked us to be able to invent new methods while showing us intercepted messages to decode.
At first, they were simple test messages with contents as simple as: “Well done!”, “You are improving!”. But soon they were changing, they were true messages used in ancient times to communicate positions, bases’ names or missions.
And then we began to receive "messages from the enemy" in our hands, as we called them, although we didn't really know who they belonged to.
They were intercepted messages, which we had to decode and know without error what they said.
Hence the importance of knowing other languages, because these, unlike those we had seen so far, were not in English and the first thing we had to do was identify the language in which they were written and then be able to decipher the message.
Some were simple, such as French or German, since they have very characteristic accents, which make them easily identifiable, but, on the contrary, others were very complicated, such as those from Eastern European countries.
Although we were clear about its origin, due to the influence of Russian among its characters, identifying which of those multiple countries of the so-called “Iron Curtain” came from was a more complicated task.
Our enemies, on the other hand, seemed to have the same task as us, to complicate everything, and if we managed to crack a code, the next one would surely be more complex, mathematically.
But all that effort had been worth it, we had managed to stop spies, transactions with stolen sensitive information, and even small-scale attacks, but that was nothing in our record of success.
As we progressed in our work, we were less and less, as we were distributed throughout the country as intelligence specialists, to help the various government agencies.
Although we all corresponded fluently, because that way we could share the advances we made, the work gradually became more solitary, or well, more technological, the machines at the beginning and the computers later, began to have a notable role in our work.
It was no longer necessary to perform large calculations in order to find replacement values, now it was necessary to give the parameters to the machine, so that they were the ones that worked for us, but of course, we had to give them the correct parameters to work properly.
That was the greatest risk of our work: making mistakes, which in any other position could mean the delay of an airplane or a lost letter, in our case, it meant losing the opportunity to get ahead of the enemy, see what he thought or how he planned to act.
And all this despite the fact that the civilian population was not aware of anything, it is true that they talked about the tension between nations and that some were sensitized regarding the policies on the other side of the iron curtain, but little did they know about the "Intelligence war" that was carried out every day.
At the beginning our work was easy, the messages were either translated or not, that means, when they are translated they have a meaning and they can be read, if you do not find the code, you can't know what it says. You only had to try combinations of keys until the message made sense.
"At eleven at the embassy”, "Under the statue of …", or "We continue south, near the border …".
Sometimes they were simple fragments of something, short and specific instructions, addressed to someone to follow up.
Many times, we did not know what they meant and our mission ended when we returned the message with the translation, so the army knowing who had been intercepted and after knowing its contents, could take the appropriate measures, which we never cared about much, that was not our mission.
But the most difficult thing was when the messages had more than one meaning, something that took time to find out, because we were still using the same method, decoding and sending.
The high spheres began to complain about our results, "we had not succeeded," they told us over and over again. We were surprised, we did not understand how it was possible, we had managed to decode the message, as we had always done: "Behind the third tree" or "At eleven in the same place."
The content was the same as always, we had done the decoding well, despite this our bosses were not happy.
Life is like that sometimes, we think that we are doing our best and that that will be enough, and everything changes overnight. I still remember when I had to move to Spain, I knew the language and some customs of its inhabitants, but nothing more.
