The Christmas Kid

You Say Tomato, and…

DURING THE LONG DECADE after his mother died, Bondanella lived in a furnished room in Park Slope. The room was cozy and warm, with a small refrigerator and an electric stove, a clothes closet and a large chair. The bed was a bit hard, but Bondanella didn’t mind; he was used to it now, as he had become accustomed to the bathroom in the hall. He had his sink, his TV set, the plastic hamper for his dirty clothes, and didn’t care too much about the small pleasures. He had eliminated passion from his life as if it were a bad habit, and was frequently puzzled when he observed the tumultuous fortunes of the people he saw on TV. They lived dangerous lives, and Bondanella lived in safety.

Part of his sense of safety came from his insistence on routine, the only souvenir of his three years in the United States Navy. Routine pleased him: it eliminated choice, it gave his life structure. And so each day he rose precisely at seven, did precisely ten minutes of exercise, spent precisely five minutes in the shower, and took precisely twelve minutes to dress. He walked six blocks to the Purity Diner, and always ordered scrambled eggs and bacon, rye toast, coffee, and orange juice. The subway sometimes gave him problems, because it refused to follow Bondanella’s own careful schedule. But most mornings he was at his desk in the brokerage house on Broad Street at precisely ten minutes to nine. He took precisely an hour for lunch, and left the office at exactly 5:15.

There were, of course, no women in his life. Somehow all that had passed him by, although Bondanella had no real regrets. He saw marriage as a huge invasion of privacy, a disruption of safety. So in the evenings, Bondanella arrived alone at precisely seven at Snooky’s Pub, ordered the hamburger platter, and was home in bed, watching TV, by nine o’clock. On Saturday nights, he was a cautious adventurer. He went to Chinatown once a month; he tried other neighborhood restaurants; he ventured to downtown movie houses. He was always alone.

Then, one Saturday morning, he saw the tomato.

He was bringing his shirts to the laundry when he saw it, lying with other tomatoes on a stand in front of the Korean fruit and vegetable store. The tomato stood out from the others because it was still brushed with green. An ordinary young tomato. But when Bondanella lifted it, he felt youth, warmth, firmness, and he knew he had to have it. The Korean gave him fifty-one cents change from a dollar and slipped the lone tomato into a bag, and Bondanella went out, heading to the laundry, and was astonished to find himself whistling some old tune, with jumbled words, something about an umbrella. A tune he hadn’t thought about in thirty years. He fought down a sudden urge to forget about the laundry and go directly home. But that urge was frightening; it was a clear threat against routine, and as he dropped off the shirts, Bondanella discovered that his hands were sweating.

“You’re a beautiful tomato,” he said out loud as he closed the door to his room behind him. But it took him a while to open the paper bag, to reach in and lift out the tomato, and then heft it in the palm of his hand. He took it over to the windowsill and placed it directly in the center. The sun was streaming in, emphasizing the highlights on the tomato’s glossy skin. Bondanella trembled.

That evening, he went to see Return of the Jedi, sitting alone in the orchestra, baffled by the abrupt shifts in the story, unable to make sense of the dialogue. He went to Lombardi’s on Spring Street after the movie, and casually ordered rigatoni. But when the plate came, and he saw the luxurious sauce, his mind filled with an image of the tomato, home in Brooklyn, alone on the windowsill. He poked at the pasta, but had trouble eating it; the waiter was upset, afraid that the food had displeased a customer.

“It’s not the food,” Bondanella explained. “It’s me. I, er, don’t feel too good.…”

He went home, wondering what his mother would say if she knew that he’d paid for food he hadn’t eaten. Poor Ma. She led a hard life. But as he reached the house in Park Slope and hurried up the stoop, he was feeling better. He whistled the same half-remembered tune about a fella with an umbrella. And then, safe in the furnished room, he approached the tomato. He couldn’t see the color clearly in the artificial light, but he thrilled to its firmness and youth. When he tried to sleep, he tossed about, filled with odd anxieties.…

On Sunday morning, the tomato seemed larger. And redder.

“You…you’re growing!” Bondanella said in an amazed voice. He swallowed hard, reached out, and lifted the tomato from its sunny perch. She’s growing up, he thought. She’s changing.…The room was very hot now, and Bondanella felt tiny beads of perspiration on the tomato’s skin. Do tomatoes sweat? Or is it me?

“You’re the most beautiful thing I ever saw,” he said. He filled a bowl with cold water and placed her in it, the water intensifying her pale greens and deeper reds. The bowl was kind of her room. Then he heard the landlady’s heavy footsteps in the hall, and a sudden sharp knock on the door. He opened the door about a foot and stared at her powdery face, the mole on her chin, her rheumy, colorless eyes.

“Do you have someone in here, Mr. Bondanella?” she asked in her throaty voice. “If you do, I want the room.”

He opened the door wider. “Of course not, Mrs. Reilly. I was just, you know, humming a tune, I guess. Or maybe talking to myself.…”

She glanced past him, her colorless eyes prepared to prosecute at the first sign of sin. “Well, have a nice day, Mr. Bondanella,” she murmured in a disappointed voice, and went out through the hall doors to the stoop. Bondanella’s heart pounded. That night, he took the tomato to bed. He placed her in a small bowl so he wouldn’t roll over and crush her, and he slept solidly, a man content and complete.

Now there was a new element to his routine. In the evenings, he hurried home, picking up food at the deli or the Chinese take-out place. He would gaze at the tomato while he ate, enchanted by her plumpness, her size, her quiet beauty. By Wednesday, the streaks of green were gone; she had survived adolescence. He entered her gently in cool, clear water, drying her with a soft cloth. And she inhabited his dreams. Once, he came home in a dream and the tomato was sitting in a chair, with sewing beside her. In another dream, she wore a veil, mysterious and sensual, peering at him from a corner of the room. And there was a time when she grew to fill the entire room, from wall to wall, keeping Bondanella in and Mrs. Reilly out.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said one night that first week. “You’re so perfect. I wish you could speak.…”

And then he knew that somehow he was sure to lose her. She was, after all, mortal. And knowing that, Bondanella became angry. He cursed fate, the universe, nature, God. He had lived a long solitude, and suddenly, absurdly, the solitude had been broken, and he knew that the union would be only an interlude. And knowing that, Bondanella held the tomato to him and rubbed her smooth skin against his cheek and began to cry.

The next day, he called in sick for the first time in nine years. There was so little time left. He took her to Coney Island, showed her the beach, took her on the Cyclone and the merry-go-round. He whispered to her in the wax museum. He explained to her about the clam sandwiches at Nathan’s. They went home for a nap, and that night he took her to Yankee Stadium, trying to make clear to her the elegance of the game. The next day it was the Statue of Liberty, and Washington Square Park and the Empire State Building. She was very brave, and Bondanella had never been more charming, more full of life.

When she began to fade, he put her back in the bowl and laced the cool water with vitamins and herbs. He talked about winter trips to the country, about getting tickets in the spring for La Cage aux Folles. But nothing reversed; youth was gone; she shriveled into inevitable old age. Bondanella found himself talking to her without actually looking at her. He wanted to remember her the way she was.

He buried her on a starry Saturday night in Prospect Park. He found a thicket on the hill beside the Quaker cemetery, dug quickly and furtively with a soup spoon, and laid her gently in the dark, moist earth. He made a triad of smooth stones to mark the spot, and then said a short prayer. It was over. At the end, he looked up at the sky, at the infinity of stars, let out one aching cry of loneliness and loss, and then walked in silence down the hill and back into the safe routine of his life.