Our First Cigarette · II

Come on, Alfonso! You look like a baby!”

This was the last thing that could be said to the little stepfather. He let out an oath and his legs pursued me with such speed that he came very close to catching me. But at that moment I was shooting out of the open door like a stone from a sling, and darting toward the orchard, with my uncle right behind me.

In five seconds we flashed past the peach trees, the orange trees, and the pear trees, and it was at this moment that the idea of the well, and its stone, loomed terribly clear.

“I don’t want you to touch me!” I still shouted.

“Wait!”

At that instant we reached the cane field.

“I’m going to throw myself in the well!” I howled so that Mother could hear me.

“I’m the one who’s going to throw you!”

Abruptly I vanished from his sight behind the canes; still running, I gave a push to the scout stone that was waiting for a shower, and jumped sideways, burying myself beneath the dead leaves.

Uncle emerged right after, just as he stopped seeing me, feeling down there at the bottom of the well the abominable thud of a body being crushed.

The little stepfather stopped, utterly livid; he rolled his dilated eyes everywhere, and approached the well. He tried to look inside, but the maidenhair ferns prevented him. Then he seemed to reflect, and after a close look at the well and its surroundings, he began to look for me.

As unfortunately for the case, it had been a short time since uncle Alfonso had in turn ceased hiding to avoid hand-to-hand combat with his parents, he still kept the subsequent strategies very fresh, and did everything possible to find my person.

He discovered my lair right away, stubbornly returning to it with an admirable sense of smell; but apart from the torrential leaves hiding me completely, the sound of my crashing body obsessed my uncle, who consequently did not look well.

It was thus resolved that I lay crushed at the bottom of the well, thus beginning what we might call my posthumous revenge. The case was quite clear: with what face would my uncle tell Mother that I had committed suicide to prevent him from hitting me?

Ten minutes passed.

“Alfonso!” Mother’s voice suddenly rang out in the patio.

“Mercedes?” he answered after a sharp jerk.

Surely Mother sensed something, because her voice rang out again, altered.

“And Eduardo? Where is he?” she added, stepping forward.

“Here, with me!” he replied laughing. “We’ve already made up.”

Since from afar Mother could not see his paleness or the ridiculous grimace that he pretended to be a beatific smile, everything went well.

“You didn’t hit him, did you?” Mother still insisted.

“No. It was just a joke!”

Mother went back inside. A joke! A joke was what mine was starting to be for the little stepfather.

Celia, my eldest aunt, who had finished her afternoon nap, crossed the patio and Alfonso silently summoned her with his hand. Moments later Celia let out a muffled oh, taking her hands to her head.

“But really! How awful! Poor, poor Mercedes! What a blow!”

It was necessary to resolve something before Mercedes found out. Pulling me out, still alive?... The well was fourteen meters deep over live rock. Maybe, who knows... But for that it would be necessary to bring ropes, men; and Mercedes...

“Poor, poor mother!” my aunt repeated.

It is fair to say that for me, the little hero, martyr of his bodily dignity, there was not a single tear. Mother monopolized all the enthusiasm of that grief, sacrificing to it the remote probability of life that I might still preserve down there. Which, wounding my dual vanity of dead and living, revived my thirst for revenge.

Half a minute later Mother asked for me again, and Celia answered her with such poor diplomacy that Mother immediately had the certainty of a catastrophe.

“Eduardo, my son!” she cried, tearing herself from the hands of her sister who tried to hold her back, and rushing into the orchard.

“Mercedes! I swear to you I didn’t! He’s gone out!”

“My son! My son! Alfonso!”

Alfonso ran to meet her, stopping her when he saw her heading toward the well. Mother was not thinking of anything concrete; but upon seeing her brother’s horrified expression, she then remembered my exclamation from an hour before, and let out a frightful screech.

“Oh! My son! He’s killed himself! Let me go, let me go! My son, Alfonso! You’ve killed him for me!”

They carried Mother away unconscious. Mother’s despair had not touched me in the slightest, since I—the motive for it—was indeed alive and very alive, simply playing at eight years old with emotion, much like grownups who use semi-tragic surprises: the pleasure she’s going to have when she sees me!

Meanwhile, I took an intimate delight in the little stepfather’s failure.

“Hum!... Hit me!” I grumbled, still beneath the leaves. Then rising cautiously, I sat squatting in my lair and picked up the famous pipe well hidden among the foliage. That was the moment to dedicate all my seriousness to finishing the pipe.

The smoke of that tobacco—dampened, dried, dampened again, and re-dried infinitely many times—had at that moment a taste of cumbarí, Coirre solution, and sodium sulfate, much more advantageous than the first time. I undertook, however, the task that I knew was hard, with contracted brow and teeth clenched on the mouthpiece.

I smoked, I’d like to believe a fourth pipe. I only remember that at the end the cane field turned completely blue and began to dance two inches from my eyes. Two or three hammers on each side of my head began to smash my temples, while my stomach, installed right in my mouth, sucked the last puffs of smoke directly itself.

I came to when they were carrying me in their arms to the house. Despite how horribly sick I felt, I had the tact to remain asleep, just in case. I felt Mother’s delirious arms shaking me.

“My beloved son! Eduardo, my son! Ah, Alfonso, I will never forgive you for the pain you’ve caused me!”

“Oh, come on!” my eldest aunt was telling her. “Don’t be crazy, Mercedes! You can see he doesn’t have a thing!”

“Ah!” Mother replied, pressing her hands to her heart in a massive sigh. “Yes, it’s over now!... But tell me, Alfonso, how could he have not hurt himself? That well, my dear God!...”

The little stepfather, broken in his turn, spoke vaguely of a cave-in, soft earth, preferring the true solution for a moment of greater calm, while poor Mother did not realize the horrible tobacco stench that her suicide exuded.

At last I opened my eyes, smiled, and went back to sleep, this time honorably and deeply.

Late already, uncle Alfonso woke me up.

“What do you deserve for me to do to you?” he said to me with a sibilant rancor. “As for tomorrow, I’m telling your mother everything, and you’ll see what jokes are like!”

I still saw quite poorly, things were dancing a bit, and my stomach was still stuck to my throat. Nevertheless, I answered him:

“If you tell Mother anything, this time I swear I’ll jump!”

Do the eyes of a young suicide who heroically smoked his pipe express desperate courage, perhaps?

It’s possible. Anyway, the little stepfather, after staring intently at me, shrugged his shoulders, pulling the slightly fallen sheet up to my neck.

“I think I’d do better to be friends with this microbe,” he muttered.

“I think the same,” I replied.

And I went to sleep.