threatening because the gentleman seemed afraid that he didn ' t know what I was saying. I repeated the phrase sharply, pressing two fingers against my lips to illustrate. After a moment he clocked it. He began to explain that I was speaking Spanish but Valdemossans speak Catalan. I didn ' t care about his local trivia. Sod your language, I thought. Sod Chopin and George Sand and Salvador Dali and Picasso and the Spanish Civil War: where is the fucking tobacconist?? He gestured to a small shop a little down the road and I had already stormed halfway there by the time I had given him my hasty thanks.
There it was: temple to all the gods of my addiction. Inside, the idols of them lined the walls: Gauloises, Rothmans, Marlboro, Camel, Lucky Strike. And another customer currently being served. My eyes drilled holes into the back of his head as he oscillated leisurely between brands. ' Hmm, I could take the superkings but, then... Oh, I don ' t know. I like Chesterfield but maybe... What do people smoke here...?' I almost threw him out of the way as he idly turned away from the counter upon the conclusion of his languid business. Trembling, I placed my order and before I had even taken my change I had ripped the wrapper from the pack and pulled out that first, gorgeous, slender cigarette, its dappled filter like the golden tan of soon-to-depart beach boys, its smooth paper as milky white as the alabaster skin of speedo ' d new arrivals.
I took my change hurriedly and nearly fell over myself in my rush to get outside. I pressed the filter to my lips and touched a flame to the tobaccoey tip. Had a hundred tumours blossomed in my lungs at that precise moment it would have been worth it for the heavenly pleasure that flooded over me, filling me up, making my stomach dance galliards of delight. I wanted to smoke it every which way simultaneously. I wanted an inhalatory Karma Sutra with this scintillating wand of bliss. Every memory of pride and pleasure until that moment withered in comparison to the overwhelming sense of completion I felt at being reunited with my smoker self. He and I pressed ourselves together like long-separated lovers. I felt like Oscar Wilde gliding out through the gates of Reading Gaol. I felt like Nelson Mandela taking his first righteous breath of freedom.
After I had smoked six or seven more in quick succession I felt ready to carry on my day. I spent ten euros to look briefly round the Chopin cell, a commercialised husk of the room where Chopin had lived and worked, drained of any real interest by its velvet ropes and dead, framed scores. Recently free of my own self-imposed prison I felt more sharply than I otherwise might how ' cell ' was the right word for this tourist trap. I spent the rest of the afternoon contentedly puffing away as I dilly-dallied from restaurant to restaurant looking for somewhere I could smoke and eat tapas. I settled on an exorbitant place with
smokers ' manifesto 15