Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

I owe Gimenez Caballero a great deal, but, unfortunately, politicscan sometimes wreak havoc with friendships. Caballero constantlysprinkled his speech with references to the Great Spanish Empire,and as time went on, he began to sound more and more fascistic.Ten years later, on the eve of the Civil War, when each of us waschoosing sides, I saw Caballero at the railroad station in Madrid.Neither of us could bear to acknowledge the other's presence; yet Iwas still publishing poems in La Gaceta and later sent movie reviewsfrom Paris.My sporting life continued, too. Thanks to an amateur boxingchampion called Lorenzana, I met the magnificent black boxer JackJohnson, who'd been a world champion for many years. Rumor hadit that he'd taken a dive during his last fight; when I knew him, hewas already retired and living with his wife, Lucilla, at the PalaceHotel in Madrid, where their life-style seemed less than irreproachable.Johnson, Lorenzana, and I sometimes went jogging togetherearly in the morning, from the hotel to the race track, a distance ofabout three or four kilometers. The time I beat him at arm wrestlingis still a prize memory.One day in I 92 3, a telegram arrived from Saragossa, announcingmy father's imminent death. He was very weak from pneumoniawhen I arrived; I told him I'd come back to do some entomologicalresearch, to which he replied that I should take good care of mymother. He died four hours later.When the whole family gathered that evening, there wasn't acentimeter of breathing space. The gardener and the coachman fromCalanda were sleeping on mattresses in the living room. One of themaids helped me dress my father; I remember we had to slit hisboots up the side to get them on. Finally, everyone went to bed andI remained alone with the body. As I sat by my father's bedside, Idrank cognac steadily; sometimes I thought I saw him breathing;sometimes I went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette while Iwaited for the carriage that was bringing my last cousin from thestation. It was May, and the air was filled with the perfume of