Still gripping my ear, my mother hauled me across the kitchen and I did my best not to bump into counters and chairs.
“Armand! Armand!” she screeched.
But my father, thank God, was not home. He’d left for the warehouse early in the morning. I’d seen him from my bedroom window, from my prison.
I managed to set myself free once we reached the inner patio. But she got hold of my arm and dragged me all the way to the Saints Room.
This was my mother’s favorite room. It was smaller than the rest. It had a spare bed that had never been used and an armoire filled with doll-sized saints. There was the Virgin, of course, Saint Paul, Saint Joseph, and the Christ child. When I was little, I’d asked to play with the saints. After all, they looked just like dolls to me, but that had constituted the biggest sin and blasphemy of all time in my mother’s world.
An assortment of candles could be found inside one of the drawers with matches, rosaries, and the book of prayer.
“Right here, in front of all the saints, you’re going to purge!” my mother said in a roaring voice.
She handed me the cigarette, which I’d just started and had several more drags in it, and sentenced me.
“You’re going to eat this.”
Have I heard right? “Eat it?”
“Yes!”
She couldn’t possibly.
“Do it!”
“No!”
My mother slapped me with all her might. My cheek felt as if one of the saints had fallen on it.
“You’re not leaving this room until you eat this. Do you know what kind of women smoke?”
I shook my head.
“The kinds of women who get paid to copulate with men: the women of the night! That’s who!”
I stared at the cigarette in my hand, which Franco had gotten for me with much effort, and I took a bite—it was the only way I could ever leave this place. Once my mother got her mind set on something, there was no contradicting her.
The cigarette tasted as if I’d licked the bottom of a chimney and then chewed a piece of paper. I spat tobacco pieces on the floor. Ignoring my coughs, my mother pushed my hand toward my mouth, making it clear that I had to take another bite. I did just that, eyes shut, breath held. This time I swallowed the moist pieces.
“Are you ever going to do this again?”
I shook my head, swallowing the last piece between coughs. My throat itched. I wanted to throw everything up.
“Now you’re going to take me to your room and give me your entire stash.”
*
I’d never thought I’d crave cigarettes so much. I never even knew what they were until Franco offered me one. For as long as I could remember, Franco had been around—a silent boy who alternatively followed his father around the plantation or hunted squirrels, birds, or rabbits with his slingshot. In many ways, he was like me, though, a loner. The other kids in the area always spent time together, including my brother and sister, but Franco and I were younger so we were left out of all the fun and games. Plus, there was the issue of class. Franco was the son of one of my father’s workers, so my siblings didn’t give him the time of day. It wasn’t done on purpose. They just knew that there were implied rules to follow in our micro-society. But I didn’t mind so much.
The first time he’d talked to me I was twelve and he was thirteen, I’d been taking a walk along the stream near my house. He asked me if it was true that I’d seen the Virgin in my room. I avoided the question—I hated talking about that—and asked him if it was true that his mother had magical powers and could see the future.
It seemed like he liked to talk about his mother as much as I liked to talk about the Virgin.
So we decided to talk about ourselves instead. I told him what my favorite activities were （in no particular order）： climbing lemon trees, lying on the grass to make out animal shapes with clouds, looking for four-leaf clovers, playing the violin, and reading novels. His were: carving wood, swimming in the river, and playing dominoes. He said that from my list, the only thing that interested him was climbing trees for fruit and he might consider searching for four-leaf clovers, but he didn’t have any interest in playing music （or listening to me play） and he didn’t know how to read. Occasionally, he would look at clouds, he confessed, but then declared that such activity was for small children. On his end, he offered to let me play dominoes with him.
I accepted with a shrug but was shocked to hear that a boy his age couldn’t read. I made a solemn vow that day: I would teach him.
CHAPTER 19