![]() ![]() “He didn’t pick up the last order and I never saw him again. When he opened the box, there were six packages of the finest Toscano cigars, untouched. ![]() “So, do you still have some?”, I inquired. I was only a boy back then, working with my father, so it must have been in the 60s.” The gentleman was still puffing on his cigar, throwing the ash on the ground, as he continued: “He was a tall, handsome fellow, like you. He came up once a month and bought whatever stock we had.” “We used to have one customer, just that one, who ordered large quantities of these cigars. “When you spoke about breaking them into two parts, I remembered something,” he said, clinging to the closed treasure chest. I could see that he had just removed the dust of decades, for cobwebs clung to his right sleeve. Something was creaking terribly, and I couldn’t make out if it was the wooden planks or his bones.Īfter what seemed like eternity, he came back up with an old cardboard box. “Wait here,” he commanded with a pointed finger, stepping down the stairs below his shop. While this may sound strange to anyone not familiar with cigars, it spurred the old man into slow motion. “They are about 10 cm long and you break them into two parts.” “From Italy?”, he repeated, his expression unchanged, as if we were playing a game of high-stakes poker. He raised his head slowly and squinted at me, as if trying to ascertain if I had spoken in earnest or in jest. ![]() “Sir,” I announced my presence, “you wouldn’t happen to have any Toscano cigars?” But the cigar which he held between his lips, early in the morning, gave me another idea. It would find it at the tobacco shop, I was told.Īs I entered the store, just around the corner from the cathedral of Santa María la Mayor, the old owner, in a plaid shirt with a few buttons too many unbuttoned, didn’t bother to look up from his own newspaper. I had gone to Huéscar for market day, thinking I might as well look for my favorite Spanish newspaper, El Pais. ![]()
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