Cigarette Break
The way we war | Non-Fiction | Fresh Soup
There’s nothing like spending three days in a bomb shelter at wartime to make you nostalgic. And for me, the liveliest memories always have to do with my parents.
My father smoked two packs every day for his whole adult life. My mother smoked too, but no more than five or six cigarettes a day. When it came to smoking, unlike other health issues, my parents were in complete agreement: having a cigarette is such a wonderfully pleasurable experience that it’s worth paying for with your health. My mother would occasionally badger my father to eat nutritious food and have proper meals, or to exercise more, but she never tried to get him to quit smoking. Not even when he was diagnosed with a terminal cancer that mostly afflicts heavy smokers. I remember my parents sitting on a bench outside the radiotherapy building, waiting for my father’s treatments, both smoking—without a trace of hesitation or guilt. “If you find something you really love, don’t be so quick to give it up,” my father counseled me a few weeks before he died, “even if it kind of kills you.”
My father spent the last month of his life in hospital, hooked up to an IV drip, a urinary catheter, and a feeding tube. He could no longer get out of bed, but he still didn’t completely give up smoking. He was the only patient in a room meant for six, and his bed was pushed up against the window. Every few hours, he’d smile at my mother and tilt his head at the door. Mom would nod and flash her own knowing smile, then she’d shut the door, pull the curtains shut around his bed, and hand him an innocent looking glasses case where she’d hid a lighter and cigarettes. Dad would light one, take a drag, and close his eyes in bliss while my mother watched contentedly.
About two weeks before his death, during one of these absurd cigarette breaks, someone knocked at the door. I panicked. The thought of a nurse or doctor coming in and finding my father smoking in bed made me break out in a sweat. My parents were apparently unbothered. Mom calmly got up, left me and Dad in the curtain-cubicle, and went to open the door. My father kept smoking nonchalantly.
The woman at the door had a high-pitched, stressed-out voice. “Excuse me,” I heard her say, “but can you smell smoke?” My mother paused, probably taking a sniff of air, and then said, in the most innocent tone I’d ever heard her use, “No, sorry. I don’t smell anything.” The woman thanked her and Mom closed the door, came back, and sat down next to my father. The most reasonable thing to do at this point was to put out the cigarette and try to conceal the evidence, but my parents thought otherwise. Dad kept on smoking placidly. I was about to tell him to put out the cigarette, but then there was another knock. My mother went to the door, once again pulling the curtain shut behind her. “Ma’am,” said the woman with the squeaky voice, sounding a little more assertive now, “I’m standing here and I can clearly smell smoke. There’s no question.” “How strange,” Mom replied coolly, “I’m standing here too, and I don’t smell anything.” There was another pause, and then I heard the door shut and Mom came back and sat down. “Maybe it would be better if…” I stammered. “I mean, since people are complaining… Maybe Dad should put the cigarette out?” My parents looked at me lovingly. “Of course,” said my father, wagging the lit stub between his fingers, “I’ll just finish this and then I’m done.”
I wanted him to do it now, immediately, but before I could make my case, there was a third knock at the door. “No, Dad…” I started, but Mom, already standing up, waved her hand at me to signal that everything was fine. When she opened the door, I could hear the squeaky lady say, “I’m very sorry, but the smell is coming from in here, and you’re not going to snow me anymore, do you understand? Someone in this room is smoking.” I had no idea how Mom was going to get out of it this time. The air in our room was rank with smoke and the woman in the doorway sounded very confident and very angry. “Go to hell,” I heard my mother snarl, in English. Then she slammed the door shut.
I couldn’t say exactly why she’d suddenly abandoned the language of the Bible. I imagine Hebrew was adequate as long as she was at the polite denial stage, but when it came to delivering a Hollywood-style one-liner, she opted for the vocabulary that had done the job for John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. I don’t know what the woman with the screechy voice did after the door was slammed in her face. Did she obey my mother’s demand and descend, Orpheus-like, into the underworld? All I can say is she never knocked on the door to my dad’s smoking den again.
Mom took a red apple out of her stylish purse, peeled it, and handed me a slice. “That woman was right, you know,” I said as I munched on the apple, “you can’t smoke in here.” Mom sighed and took a bite of her slice. “Fine, Garchik. So she was right. And now she can go be right somewhere else.”
The switch to English for "Go to hell" is the whole piece in one move. Hebrew for denial, English for defiance — your mother knew exactly which language carried the right weight for each job. And the final line does what the best closing lines do: it sounds like a joke but it's actually a philosophy. She was right. And now she can go be right somewhere else. That's grief and love and stubbornness compressed into a single sentence. Beautiful.
Thank you, Etgar. Our family stories must not be forgotten - no matter how sad, how ridiculous, how profane. They are monuments. I continue to write my mother's stories and send them out to others. So many people have fallen in love with her years after her death. She still lives - for them and for me.