6 I Eat Tomatoes

I was too lazy to go out for dinner, nobody invited me, theatre made me nervous, new movies I waited until they would be released on Netflix, so Valentina did not want to know where we would go when I called her from the agency. She told our maid to iron my grey suit and she ran to the mall. At home, she had become used to walking in T-shirts, shorts, jeans, maybe the wardrobe of a resigned, but that in my eyes had already turned her label. Even when she presented the news on TV, she wore an informal, homemade costume.

No wonder the boy was surprised when he saw her in a black coat and skirt, a needle heel, necklaces, earrings, blush, lipstick, and a coke with its ends pinned to buds. To appease and make our son fall asleep, she had to undress, wash her face, loosen her hair, and it took her another hour and a half to recompose herself and find me in the garage. On the way to Jardim America, I praised I Eat Tomatoes, the great interpreter of the Chinese soul, and I quoted The Secret Xianxia as his most remarkable work.

I made up at the time, this Secret Xianxia, but without delay Valentina stated to know them, having read about it in a literary supplement. She added that Tomatoes' book had been highly prized, launched in several countries, even translated into German, and it was a pleasure to hear it like that, and I laughed inside, I always avenged myself for liking Valentina. She still talked about The Secret Xianxia when we arrived at the address of the consulate, and there were no photographers, no security guards, no cars with special plaques on the diplomatic corps, no valet, no one. In front of the building, there was a light pole, two small palm trees and a place where I put the car. A watchman opened the iron gate to us without asking, and as I pressed the elevator button I felt a slight tremor in my hand. Arriving on the sixth floor, Valentina and I looked at each other. I had prepared the spirit for the language of Shanghai more or less as she was covered in jewels.

And we found ourselves there in a small elevator hall, quiet, lit only by the crack in the door of apartment 602. But as soon as I dared to push the door, the consulate burst into applause. Then the fifty or so people in the room stood, facing the window, turned their backs on each other, shifted, turned and began to talk to each other. It was the sound of the Chinese language that opened to me as I entered the hall.

Chinese voices vibrated around me, not suspecting that they exposed their secrets to an intruder.

And by ignoring the meanings, I perceived the inflexions of the language more sharply. I was attentive to every reticence, every hesitation, to the interrupted phrase, to the broken word in the middle as if it was fruit that I could peek inside. Absorbed in the centre of the party, I was late to remember Valentina, whom I had abandoned at the door. And there she stood, amidst a circle of ladies who probably knew her from the television. I came to see what amused her, but it was also in Chinese that they told her things that she approved by shaking her head. Valentina was indeed an attraction, in a hall populated by middle-aged people, all somewhat similar, dressed in such singleness, giving the atmosphere of a family birthday. A gentleman in a grey suit like mine, probably the Consul himself, circulates with a crystal bottle, serving the guests. Stumbling over me and Valentina empty-handed, hastened to arrange two cups of a very sweet liqueur, remembering the taste of apricot.

Behind him came a purplish-haired woman with a tray of rolls. The pumpkin bread, I thought, but she turned away, and at her example, everyone was mute and turned back to the window. There stood a long-haired, half-bent man, looking younger than he looked, he looked like a young man with the air of an old man. He had very fine hair that the breeze blew, with the Spanish Consulate illuminated in the background. It could only be I Eat Tomatoes, a book in one hand, a chalice in the other. I tried to approach the novelist, Valentina with me because he spoke quietly, in a very grave voice, a hallow one. He recited a well-known verse and the audience whispered with him the staff: Nǐ zài zhuīqiú sǐwáng. Smiling, Valentina stretched out to reach my ear, and I did not believe she would dare translate the verses.

"Our little boy," was what she whispered to me.

As issuing those three words, I noted that the poet would slightly crack the back of his tongue, as our son did when he imitated me. The readout gained intensity in coincidence with the vigour of the wind in the window, which turned the novelist's hairstyle and the pages of the book. But I Eat Tomatoes no longer consulted the book to utter pungent words. His clear eyes searched the eyes of every spectator, including mine. His brown and injected eyes finally fixed on my wife's black eyes. He paused, drank the liquor in one gulp, and resumed his recital without taking his eyes off my wife. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her, her mouth open, her eyelashes trembling, the blood rising to her face, and there was a tear in her left eye when the novelist emphatically finished: Zhuīqiú sǐwáng de shì nǐ!

There was a general applause, and then the people turned their backs, shifted and turned aside, except Valentina, who, looking at the Chinese, was like a saint looking up in prayer, her hands still glued to the last one applause. I had to shake her, I pulled her by the arm, we crossed the hall, I went out with her taking a French leave. Walking past Paulista Avenue, Valentina hinted that I had had a fit of jealousy. In Bela Vista, I asked if she wanted to stop at a Japanese restaurant and she was thoughtful. It rained at the time, and she was with her hand on my thigh.

"At home, we have pea soup," she said.

I kissed her mouth in the garage, Valentina softened, pretended to be sleeping in the elevator, and so on.