Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

studied at the university and lived at the Residencia de Estudiantes,whose students later distinguished themselves in the sciences, letters,and the arts. These friendships remain crucial to my brother. Biologyimmediately captured Luis's fancy, and for many years he was aresearch assistant to Ignacio Bolivar.Luis ate like a bird and, despite snow and subzero temperatures,dressed only in lightweight clothes and sandals with no socks. Theseidiosyncrasies drove my father wild with rage; in his heart he wasdelighted to have sired a son with such extraordinary powers, but hewas furious each time he saw Luis washing first one foot, then theother, in ice-cold water in the sink.As children, we had strange pets. The most bizarre was an enormousrat, as big as a rabbit, a rather filthy beast with a long, roughtail; but he was treated like one of the family. He accompanied uson trips in a bird cage; in fact, he complicated our lives for a longtime. The poor creature finally died, like a saint, showing obvioussymptoms of poisoning. (We had five servants and were never ableto discover the murderer; but before his odor had disappeared, we'dforgotten all about him.)At one time or another, we had monkeys, parakeets, falcons,frogs and toads, grass snakes, and a large African lizard who the cookkilled with a poker in a moment of terror. My favorite was Gregorio,the sheep, who just missed crushing me when I was ten. I think webrought him from Italy when he was a baby. Poor Gregorio wasalways a misfit, a true "black sheep"; the only thing he loved wasNene, the horse. Luis also had a hatbox filled with tiny gray micewhom he allowed us to look at once a day-well fed, fairly comatosecouples who procreated nonstop. Before he left for Madrid, he tookthem up to the attic and, much to our dismay, gave them theirfreedom while admonishing them to "grow and multiply."We loved and respected all living creatures, even those from thevegetable kingdom, and I think they felt the same way about us. Aschildren, we could walk through a forest crawling with wild animalsand come out unscathed. There was one exception, however-spi-