Lentils

            I was four years old. We were going to have lunch in the kitchen, my mother, my brothers Luis and Arturo and I. We were sitting at the table as we came in. When  I sat down on my chair and saw a plate of I don’t know what. I asked my mother: What’s this? Lentils, said my mother. I don’t want lentils. I don’t like lentils, I said. If you don’t want lentils, you add sugar. They are delicious with sugar, she said. Fristly, my mother had knocked me down with that. I didn’t know what to do. All of a sudden it occurred to me to ask my mother: Where’s the sugar? Here it is, said my mother pointing out the sugar recipient with her spoon. It was very quick. I stretched my hands to take the sugar’s recipient, that was open, and I dumped it on my plate. What are you doing? You fool! And then, as if such a thing was normal I took my plate and put it to her. What are you doing? You fool!, she shouted again. You told me they were delicious with sugar, so they are now as you like them.

            The slap came instantly. I jumped up on my chair in a convulsion of fear of taking another slap. That was my first experience with lentils. If you knew how much I like them now! Today I am 63 and I use to ask my mother to cook lentils very often.