Page 182 of Two Marlboros

“Naty, when are they going to stop?”

Jimmy clutched the blanket, his little fists closed until they almost hurt. I sighed. The repartee between my father and mother left little room for imagination. The door to the nursery was closed, but out there was a battlefield, and came blow after blow, over missed responsibilities, difference of opinion, and the last, unfailing, Nathan-is-your-son-too. I knew everything else was an excuse, that the problem was me.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Bunny to keep you company?”

I grabbed the bunny, forgotten on one side of the bed, and handed it to him, making him hop around.

“His name is not Bunny. And anyway, now I just want a hug from my big brother. Will you give me a hug?”

I didn’t let him tell me twice and hugged him. I hugged him tightly, but he hugged me more, much more; he squeezed his little fists on my shirt as he had been doing with the blanket until just now, and pushed his head on my chest, almost as if he wanted to get into it, like a shield. I wrapped him up as best I could, tried to get my arms over his ears, but it didn’t do much good.

I knew they were fighting over me, because by then I had raised that fuss and had stopped suffering my father’s indifference; and my mother, as she had always told me, was looking for the best solution, and more importantly, as I understood at that moment, she was looking for it for me.

I stroked Jimmy’s back in circular motions when I noticed that his body was shaken by sobs. He groaned softly, or maybe it was just our parents’ screams that overpowered the crying of that little creature; but when he looked up, his eyes turned out to be so wet and too desperate, and something inside me snapped. It was something that resembled a sense of protection, of affection - but no, it was something more: a sense of responsibility. I owed something to my brother. I owed him all those years when I had hated him, all the resentment I had felt because I considered him a substitute for me. I had dumped my suffering on him, I had increased the conflicts with my father, because in addition to not feeling accepted, I also felt replaced.

I had played my part in that downward game of suffering, I had done wrong, but I had also avoided acting. I had stood there, like him, hiding behind a blanket while others ranted to protect me.

“I’ll tell you a story, shall I?”

He broke away from me, and looked at me with an astonished look, as if wondering if that was really the time to think of such a thing. I reassured him with a smile, and he trusted me, perhaps thinking that if an adult proposed a story at a time like that, then it was certainly the right thing to do. I helped him hide inside the blankets, tucked him in, and sat as close to him as I could. I stroked his head as I searched for a story to tell.

“Once upon a time there was a very sad town in the middle of the hills, but so in the middle that the sun never came. The inhabitants were really unhappy, because the governor had imposed very high prices, even just to buy a piece of bread. So, the inhabitants, always in the dark and hungry, led a sad and graceless life.”

“What does ‘graceless’ mean?”

“Well, that is...” I scratched my forehead in search of an explanation, “it means they had a hard and unfortunate life. Something like that.”

My brother seemed satisfied, so I continued, trying to come up with a suitable follow-up.

“One day, among the peasants, a child was born. It was not a strange thing, because the peasants had so many children, but he was special. He had...” I paused again to think, “yes, he had red eyes and white hair.”

“A child with white hair?!”

“Sometimes that can happen. I mean, it’s not that they’re really white-white, it’s more of the kind that have no color. Whatever. Anyway, by the looks of it, they were white. Of course nobody wanted this child, not even to work. So, he was always playing alone, in the woods, since nobody wanted him.”

“And what did he play with in the woods?” my brother asked, his eyes still moist but brighter than ever.

“Well, he’d pick berries, crush them, and make really good juice with them. Or he would create dams or clear the ant hills of some other prankster child’s stones.”

“How nice, I want to do that too! Go ahead.”

I smiled. My parents’ squeals almost seemed to become a monotonous background.

“One day, while playing in the woods, the child saw a wounded animal. He saw right away, though, that the animal was... different, like him. It was small, as long as you, had little wings, and it breathed fire from its mouth.”

Jimmy’s eyes lit up. “A dragon!”

“That’s right, a dragon. He was forced to live hidden in the woods, though, because no one wanted to believe he existed. The dragon was immediately affectionate toward the child, and they soon made friends. Meanwhile, as the weeks and days passed, the governor became more and more evil. He had taken breadaway from the poor people and distributed it only on certain days of the week. Meanwhile, he watched everything from his hilltop tower, which made the city even darker.”

“And then?”

“The child soon learned how to tame the dragon and, you might say, the opposite as well. He had never had a real friend and being with the dragon taught him the basics of friendship. He then began to share berries with him and used his fire to warm the other animals in the forest. When he returned home, however, as he did every night, he found that his parents were not well. They had eaten a poisonous mushroom and needed treatment.”

“Oh, no! He could try curing them with berry juice.”

“That’s right, he tried to cure them with juice, but it had no effect. The problem was that the medicines were kept in the evil governor’s tower, where no one could access. There were in fact... plastic cannons at the entrance.”

“Plastic ones? I’ve never heard of them.”

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