Juan Moisés De La Serna - The Spy

Although I tried to calm her down and comfort her, I know she was always missing her land, Israel, and although she was an immigrant there, "she felt at home and protected by her faith," as she liked to comment.

On the other hand here, being also an immigrant, she couldn’t integrate, because she did not share the customs or the way of seeing the world of others, even though she spoke perfect British, so she could get a job if she wanted to.

But she refused to leave the home and her chores, arguing that she had been taught where her function was and that of working outside the home she considered it a modernity with which she disagreed.

Although it would not have been hard for her to find what to do on that base, either as a translator or even as a school assistant, she refused to devote herself to anything other than the house.

It took me time to realize how much she needed to be surrounded by her people, in that place that caused her so much fulfillment; such was her insistence that I even requested a change of destination, one as close as possible to that land.

Thus, on several occasions I had requested the transfer, but they always told me "It's not the time", and the years passed and passed.

My retirement was the turning point. I had not wanted to say anything about it, and our children had already made their lives, none of them had followed my steps within the army, and each one had moved to a different place.

We had been alone for a few years, well, with coworkers, on a military base, with their families, but alone in the sense that we did not share faith with others.

My wife had stopped the discussions, something weird about her, but it seems she had tired of protesting, and simply focused on reading, day and night.

That surprised me when I realized that I "lacked" the discussions. One day I woke up protesting, I had dreamed that we discussed as we always did, and instead, the house was now so quiet.

Sometimes I feel so sorry for those discussions, so much wasted time, so much misunderstanding, but instead, on other occasions, I miss them, being able to listen to her once again, being able to see her, so energetic and beautiful.

Many times it has been said that, "love makes people blind", but I think what it does is help us to see better those we love.

Despite the time that had elapsed, my wife still seemed so beautiful to me, so much that I kept telling her, although she had a hard time believing me, telling me that I was jokingly telling her; but it wasn't like that, my eyes not only saw beauty, but also love and gratitude.

I would not have imagined a fuller life than the one I had with that woman, and all thanks to a fortuitous encounter in a land so far from my country, if it can be called that.

Well, what I intended to say – I get lost in my thoughts – on the last day of work, my colleagues had prepared a party for me and asked me where I would like to go on vacation.

This was something like a tradition, among the officers a fund raiser was made to send the retired person to a beautiful destination, either to California or to Bora – Bora Island.

Personally I preferred one of those exotic islands, where to enjoy the beaches and palm trees, where to create beautiful memories that could accompany us the rest of what we had left to live, so my first choice was Hawaii, but in an act of love, or at least I remember that, I asked everyone to help me do something, I did not want a week trip, not even a month paid with the proceeds, I wanted to move.

A somewhat risky idea for all the changes that it implied, but that my colleagues and collaborators quickly accepted, and they were helping me find a house, I just needed to tell her.

That day was special, nobody in the office wanted to pass the opportunity to say goodbye to me. I, who was not very of that, bit the bullet and was as kind as I possibly could, distributing hugs, and shaking hands with everyone.

At noon I went out to lunch with some colleagues, and they all gave me the plane tickets and the keys to the new house. I was late that day, and when I opened the door she was standing there, with a surprise on the kitchen table, she had prepared one of her dishes that she knew I liked so much.

She had not cooked it in a long time, because she said that, "for two, she was not going to bother preparing it", because it took a lot of time and effort, but that day was special.

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