Amanda, 37 years, turns her head and blows a thick stream
of smoke from her mouth and sighs. The sigh makes more smoke
flow from her lungs and she looks at it as it drifts away with
eyes full of satisfaction and pleasure.
- What are you thinking about? You seemed to be so far away,
I ask.
- All the smoke in here reminds me of my childhood. All the
smoking women around me. Mom, her mother, my father's mother,
my aunt, my big sister.
Amanda drags again on her cigarette and inhales after losing
a little smoke that manages to avoid being captured by her
lungs. She lets the smoke free through her mouth before continuing.
- There was one thing that was so funny, I remember, Amanda
smiles. Smoke has been flowing from her mouth when she talked and
now she blows a new, thin stream of smoke after leaning her head
back a little.
- My room was on the second floor, just above the stairs. All these
people I mentioned sounded almost exactly the same when you just heard
the steps. I mean, usually I can distinguish between two people from
the sound of their footsteps, but it was hard to distinguish between
these five that way. I think that's why I started to pay attention to
other sounds they made, and the best way was their coughs. Grandma,
I mean, my father's mother sounded like her chest was full of... foam,
it sounded like. Yes, really, she sounded like her lungs were full
of lathering shampoo or soap or something. She always got surprised
by her own coughings; she never had one single chance to prepare for
coughing, I mean like moving her hand up over her mouth. All of sudden,
she just started to cough with a sequence of lathering hacks and when
she inhaled to start a new sequence directly after, her inhale sounded
like she was pulling all that stuff down to the bottom of her lungs,
which made the next sequence even wetter.
- Amazing, I mean to remember those details, I fill in. What about
your mother's old Mom then, could she compete with your father's mother?
- No, not really. She always started by inhaling slowly. But she had a
funny habit too. Amanda laughs a little when remembering this and
she then has to cough with three unusually loud hacks. They are loud
but dry.
- Sorry, she says and caresses herself over her chest. She finishes
the cigarette with a long drag and nose exhales after a while. I notice
that her lungs didn't really get much time to enjoy all that smoke this
time. By the way, I've never seen anyone in real life making such a long
nose exhale before, without any interruption.
- Oh, sorry, perhaps the smoke annoys you? She asks when she sees
how I'm following her smoking with my eyes.
- No, no, not at all, I was just ... dreaming, I smile quickly.
- About your childhood too?, she smiles.
- No, about... but please, we were talking about your grandmother...
- Yes, she started with a long, slow inhale at the same time as she
put the back of her hand for her mouth. The funny thing was that her cough
was as long and slow as that inhale. It sounded like she tried to push
all the stuff in her chest away by just one, single hack. I think she sort of
used her diafragma deliberately to try to force the air out from her lungs.
She always coughed like that, one single hack followed by a long, slow wheezing.
If that wheezing sounded dry, she wasn't satisfied because whatever had made her
cough was probably still there and she would get another one after a short while
until the sound got thicker and wetter. She would then, afterwards I mean, close her eyes and swallow
hardly twice or maybe three times before taking a deep breath and open her eyes.
I remember I loved asking her about why she coughed like that, but she was
very reluctant to reply all the time. I used to admire her, the way she could
sit and chain smoke while reading her old ladies' magazines.
- Did your father's mother chain smoke too, then?
- Oh yes, these two loved to smoke and chat together, and Mom tried to
make me go outside and play rather than spending hours just watching them.
Amanda moves closer to me.
- I don't think anyone of them ever told Mom that they let me smoke
with them when I was 12, she whispers.
- Anyway, Mom started to develop her own style. To my surprise, she
NEVER sounded like Grandma, she had totally another face expression when
coughing too and while Grandma used the back of her hand, Mom put her
hand formed to a fist for her mouth. Mom coughed with, I think, between
two and ten loud, a little rattling hacks but there was always a short
break between each hack. If she got one of these longer ones with up to
ten hacks, the last four or five were more quiet than the first ones, which
could be really loud! The last one sometimes sounded like she had no
air left in her lungs at all, it was like if her lungs was one their way up
almost. She would then let her hand remain over her mouth for a while and
just stand there without saying a word and without moving for a couple of seconds.
Well, it felt like hours to me when I was a child, I used to stare at her.
"Don't you worry, Manda, it's just a little smoker's cough", Grandma used to say
when she saw me.
- Were you worried, then, you mean, I interrupt Amanda, actually because I
think that stopping her from talking could make her light a new cigarette, but
she doesn't.
- No, not at all, maybe I looked like I was, but it was something else.
Her cough, as well as the other ones, were sort of exciting to me. And, then
there was my aunt, she didn't cough so often. I think I forgot to mention that
the older ones had quite frequent coughings, and they had their periods every day
when they got one coughing fit after the other for half an hour or so. Mom too,
I think, at least when I was a little older, twelve perhaps, and she increased
her smoking. I think all the three of them smoked at least two packs per day
when I grew up.
- What about your aunt then?
- Well, as I said, she didn't cough very often but when she did she always
sort of got in panic. I mean, she had the same habit as my mother, she got
these sequences of hacks but she tried to keep them back. She usually got longer
ones than Mom, and immediately as she felt it was time, she dropped whatever
she had in her hands and pressed both her hands over her mouth with the finger tips
up on her nose and tried to keep herself from coughing. She looked so funny,
because it made her body shake in a special way. "Come on, Beth, cough it out",
Mom used to say but I knew my aunt hated coughing, she was almost afraid of doing
it. I think she for some reason wanted to be alone when coughing, because if she
thought noone else was in the house, she could cough almost like Mom. First,
a long sequence of hacks getting more and more quiet, then a long inhale
followed by a new longer sequence which ended in a sound like if she was whooping.
Once, I managed to get a sight of her during one of her "secret" coughing fits;
I had hidden behind a door. She wasn't pressing her hands like she used to if
other people were around her, instead she closed her eyes and put her hands
on her chest and I got the feeling she liked to cough like that when she was on
her own.
Finally, Amanda reaches out for her pack of cigarettes and takes one from it.
But, she goes on talking, just holding the cigarette between her fingers without
lighting it.
- And finally, there was Anne, my sister. She's seven years older. I think
she was around 19 when she already started to cough. She had always been very prone
to cough, I almost think she had some sort of chronical cough even before she started
to smoke. She had a really "chesty" cough but she didn't have any real coughing fits.
She coughed every now and then, all the days, usually with her hand cupped over her
mouth. Noone ever thought of it really, she kept coughing and there was never any
talk about seeing a doctor or so. She must have been younger than ten when it
started.
- Did she use to sit and watch Grandma together with you, then? I ask to give
her a break so that she could lit that cigarette. Yes, she grabs the lighter but
goes on talking...
- No, don't think so. Especially my father's mother used to ask her too
if she wanted to smoke with them when Mom wasn't at home, but Anne never did.
I think she started to smoke at school instead. Probably the reason why it took
her longer time before she started to smoke regularly, I mean, I smoked more and
more with Grandma, and when Mom detected us it was too late. I must have been
13, and I tried to keep myself from smoking but it was impossible. Mom saw my
sufferings and gave up with a smile. But, it was Anne's cough I was talking about.
Her already chronical cough got more and more chesty, the smore she smoked.
Especially after a cold, she couldn't lie down in her bed, she had to sit and
sleep because her chest got so thick. And when she didn't have any cold or so,
she still sounded like a thunderstorm. Every single little hack seemed to force
huge amount of mucus inside her up a bit, where it got stuck. So, the slighest
little hack, or just a throat-clearing could start off a rumbling coughing fit
which lasted until she had got rid of all that stuff inside her. I can still see
her sitting there with her hand cupped over her mouth, her eyes getting teared
and her face getting red. "Oh, now it's time for a well-earned cigarette,
or maybe two", she used to wheeze when it was over and smile at me. She never
bothered that I forgot what I was doing when I heard her start to cough and came into
her room just to watch her. Sometimes, I could even come into her room and ask her
to provoke a coughing fit by clearing her throat or so. On rare occasions, she
could smile at me and kiss my cheek so her smoky breathe flew over my face and
then do it. "Just because you're my little sister", she used to say.
- A fantastic story! , I say to her. Then I can't keep my mouth shut
anymore. - Are you going to light up or...? I smile.
She laughs a little and coughs with two dry little hacks before lighting up.
- And you're... 37 now, aren't you? Are you following all these lovely
ladies you just described?
- No, I'm disappointed really (she frowns a little as a joke), I try to
punish my chest by smoking as much as I can, but it won't protest. Well, except
from my small dry hacks maybe. In the mornings, I clear my throat and I wheeze
for a quarter of an hour but that's it. Shame on me and my chest, isn't it?
I couldn't agree more...