1. Against Death
Of course, I realize that death is neither an illness, nor a bodily indisposition. However, it could be considered their most extreme consequence and ultimate goal, thus in this sense it is uncontrovertibly — and inextricably — linked with them. Did I say inextricably? No! And no again! I personally witnessed how Dr. Monardes, with the help of the healing power of tobacco, resurrected a man from the dead, just as in biblical times the ancient Jew Lazarus was resurrected. This took place in the village of Casas Viejas, (the more recent case, that is), where we had been called to save a man suffering from sharp pains in the stomach accompanied by a fever. When we arrived — which, given the roads in Andalusia, took a fair bit of time — he was no longer suffering from anything, but rather lying there stiff, stark, and yellow on a wooden bed. The man was dead.
Murdered by Nature! I thought to myself. She is mad — and heavy-handed, just as most madmen are. She had struck this man in the stomach or elsewhere, perhaps in several spots simultaneously, and had killed him. But why did she do it? This would be the logical question. Hadn’t she herself given him life? Well, the simple truth is that she didn’t do it on purpose. She didn’t smack him deliberately, but rather in a fit of frenzied arm-flailing. The man just happened to be somewhere in the range of her numerous arms, in the wrong place, and now he was lying before us prostrate and, by all outward signs, dead.
Dr. Monardes’ preliminary examination quickly confirmed my apprehensions.
“This man is dead,” said Dr. Monardes. “How long has he been this way?”
Amidst the general wailing, we finally received the answer that he had been that way for only a short while. Then Dr. Monardes took a cigarella out of his inside pocket, bit off the tip, looked around, and, not seeing a more suitable receptacle, spit it onto the floor (this was a typical village home), after which he lit it with much puffing. Here I surely need clarify what precisely a cigarella is. It closely resembles that which is known in the south as a “cigar,” and as a “cheroot” in the north, but is slightly thinner and rawer, for which reason it burns with more difficulty and much crackling. Normally the sailors at the port smoke cigarellas, since they are considered lower quality than cigars; however, since the tobacco in them is rawer and not as dried out, their healing power is far greater. So, as I was saying, Dr. Monardes took out a cigarella and after a minute, or at most two, managed to light it. This so impressed those present that the wailing subsided — the only sound was the doctor’s puffing and the cigarella’s crackling, accompanied by the heavy scent of tobacco, which enveloped us.
“Guimarães,” said the doctor, handing me the cigarella. “Breathe smoke into his mouth.”
Now, this was something I had no desire whatsoever to do. These country folk are sick with all kinds of diseases, all manner of fevers, and I was afraid of being infected. Noticing my hesitation, the doctor said: “Don’t worry, it’s the perfect disinfectant.”
I knew this was the case, yet sometimes fear just takes hold of you. I took several deep drags off the cigarella, rolling the smoke between my cheeks as if gargling — and speaking of gargling, I asked the villagers for a glass of pereira, i.e. pear brandy, and gargled with that, too, took another drag off the cigarella and was now ready for action.
First, I had to open the man’s mouth, which turned out to be no easy task, but once I grabbed him by the cheeks with one hand and pulled at his jaw with the other, I finally managed to open his mouth. I exhaled the tobacco into it, making sure not to let my lips touch his. This did not work very well, however. The smoke entered his mouth and then exited again, so I had to blow on it to chase it back inside. I soon sensed that our heads were wrapped in smoke, yet only a small fraction of it was going inside the wretched peasant’s mouth.
“That’s not going to work,” Dr. Monardes said with a certain — absolutely understandable — irritation, as he clapped me on the shoulder from behind. “Give it to me.”
I stepped back ashamed, but relieved. Shame or no shame, “fear guards the vineyard,” as they say in my homeland, Portugal, where, incidentally, they say all sorts of twaddle. Yet one shouldn’t expect such people to say anything but twaddle. A while back Dr. Monardes’ publisher, Señor Diaz, was collecting money for advance subscriptions to a publication he called “Folk Wisdom.” I told him that such a title was misleading in its very essence and that such a book should be called “Folk Twaddle” and that only in such a case would I pay for it. Moreover, he was confused about the very character and function of such a book — he imagined it as something which you could read to learn life lessons, whereas in fact it could only be a collection of inanities which you could read for entertainment and a good laugh. He replied that this was not the case and quoted several sayings which he clearly considered gems of folk wisdom, upon which I asked him what he would say about the proverbs “You can tell a man by his clothes” and “You can’t tell a man by his clothes,” which, by the way, could be found one after the other in the book subsequently published by said Señor Diaz. Upon which he replied that at the end of the day he was a publisher and his job was to make money and that no one would buy anything entitled “Folk Twaddle.” Now there’s a good argument, finally. I told him he should have begun with that and gave him a certain paltry sum. I read the book I later received with great satisfaction as a collection of jokes, then gave it to a beggar in Sevilla. “A gift for you from your brethren,” I told him. He couldn’t read, but would surely find some other use for it — such people are very imaginative, when they happen to get their hands on something. In the end, their entire life passes in preparation for that.
But to return to our story. In any case, fear got the best of me, and I stepped away from the dead man in relief. But Dr. Monardes! I would say that his very body, his stance, his shoulders, his feet firmly planted on the ground — all this radiated confidence and determination. He inhaled on the cigarella two or three times, blowing the smoke from his nostrils like a fire-breathing rhinoceros, two thick streams of smoke rose from either side of his face and for a moment he reminded me of a mythical bull with horns of smoke, at which point he leaned over, pressed his lips tightly to those of the dead man, and began exhaling tobacco smoke into them.
“Guimarães,” the doctor cried shortly in a husky voice, his eyes watering, shouting over the cigarella’s crackling. “Come here and pulpate!”
In this situation, “pulpate” means to press on the stomach. And that is what I did. When the doctor blew smoke into the man’s mouth, I would wait a moment and pulpate. We only needed to do this a few times, perhaps five at the most. After which the doctor abruptly drew back with impressive agility and raised the man’s head with his hand, such that for a moment it was level with mine, facing towards me as I bent over him. The man opened his eyes. What eyes! Although I only saw them for a moment, I will never forget them! Glassy eyes, huge and round as a fish’s, with a very strange emotion written in them: some mixture of horror and utter confusion. I suspect that this is how a person coming back from the dead looks. He positively cannot figure out what is going on. But all this lasted only an instant, like I said, because in the following moment Dr. Monardes turned the man’s head, deftly tucking it under his elbow. Then I, led by lucky intuition, pulpated him one last time. Lucky intuition is so called, since it shows up in the details, which no one could possibly teach you, so tiny and insignificant are they on the one hand, yet so often decisive on the other. And suddenly the glassy-eyed man took a breath with whistling lungs and proceeded to vomit. He continued to vomit as the doctor held his head to the side with one hand, while handing me the crackling and already half-extinguished cigarella. I took it, inhaled a final drag, and dropped it into the glass of pereira, where it went out with a loud hiss. I thought to myself: “If you are dead, it will raise you from the grave, if you are alive, it will send you there.” Of course, that was a completely unfounded outburst of superstition, stimulated by the powerful and exotic qualities of that vigorous substance.