Dunker had met more than once, on the streets of Almagro, with Galipol, the now renowned chef of European cuisine. All kinds of celebrities have frequented his restaurant in Valencia, and reservations were requested months in advance.

They had met several years earlier when, recently divorced, Dunker moved from the private neighborhood of San Patricio to Almagro and, in the nearby convenience store of his new apartment, discovered that Galipol bought Duna batteries in large quantitiesmade by Dunker himself.

The casual dialogue had turned into a casual and equidistant friendship: they had never managed to see each other outside the spontaneous meeting on the street, but they always greeted each other affectionately and exchanged some ideas about the slow dissolution of the country. Both work appreciated, fair trade, acceptance of the limits of the human condition.

Galipol had never married. When he went to Europe – first to Madrid, then to Barcelona, ​​until he finally found international success in Valencia – he asked Dunker that if he ever traveled, not to stop contacting him.

But Dunker’s trips to Belgium, to purchase materials and update stocks, had shortened in days and possibilities, to the point that the Argentine situation forced him to come and go as if it were a collective journey; at the end of the day, although his position was not desperate, hardly if the profit were enough to keep the status quo of their children and their support.

He did not want to sell the factory or emigrate, but had gone from a comfortable upper-middle-class situation with no anxiety to a fluctuating middle class with no obvious victims yet.

In that September, however, Galipol had visited Argentina and the neighborhood; and knowing that a new trip to Dunker was coming, he asked to go to his restaurant. He gave him a reservation for the 21st, spring day in Buenos Aires, but in Valencia: at the famous La Trucha Roja.

The journey from Belgium to Valencia, Dunker set out to last, by train. But did the booking include an invitation? As Mossen said: in different parts of the world the check is requested in another way, but in all of them they bring it to you at the end of dinner. Even in the red trout?

But he couldn’t ask for clarification. A booking of less than 20 days in La Trucha Roja was in itself an honor … it was not appropriate to consult or reject it. To make matters worse, she met Helena on the plane. She lived in Valladolid and Dunker met her in Belgium the same night her ex-wife Viviana filed for divorce on her phone.

With that night, and the next day, Dunker kept wondering if Helena was not the woman of his life. But in the midst of the sentimental earthquake, everyone had gone their own way, without reconnecting. Fate placed her on the same level as Dunker pondered if a friend’s restaurant reservation would be the end of your middle class membership or a memorable event.

He couldn’t help but share his thoughts with Helena, while hiding his dignity in a haze of euphemisms, without revealing his fears. Of course, he made up his mind for both of them: a reservation in La Trucha Roja required assistance and a meeting. How to refuse?

At the end of his business trip to Belgium, Dunker came casually dressed at his friend’s restaurant, equidistant between the City of Arts and Sciences and the sea, almost like a stranded ship. Helena was waiting for him dressed in an infamous jet set kimono. The disparity between one and the other was that which ranged from feminine beauty to scarce masculine resources.

Dunker lowered his head to hide the depth of his desire and told himself that if dinner cost what Helena did, if Galipol hadn’t invited him, he would have been his last supper: no wife, no inheritance, no future.

The three dishes on the menu did not advertise the cost: but he had discovered it by experts. It wasn’t like ordering tuco and pesto noodles in via Montevideo. It was more like buying the local Buenos Aires historian.

There wasn’t much to choose from: Galipol had invented a ground paella, a “diversion” of the classic Valencian rabbit and chicken; Thai duck and mushrooms, with a very mild hallucinogenic effectcompulsory commentary from specialized journals.

The wine was home-made and the cocoa dessert was prepared by an Aztec sorcerer, of uninterrupted descent from Tenochtitlan to Spain. With only the cover charge, Dunker would have to sell his house.. Hardly if he subtracted to pay the expenses of your children’s home.

Helena discovered the bewildered look of her interlocutor and asked what was wrong. Dunker had no choice but to confess, as if he were the unfortunate relative of the sweets wizard, haunted by Cortés, Garay and Magellan.

– The truth -Dunker was sincere-: I don’t know if Galipol will invite me or not. I was hoping he would come and say hello, but he’s not even at the restaurant.

“I don’t think he’ll invite you,” Helena said. In itself, booking only twenty days in advance is a gift.

Dunker cleared his throat, the duck did not go down his throat. He took a sip of that apparently unique wine: he could not distinguish its unattainable value. Its price, on the other hand, was explicitly unattainable.

“Well, this gift, in that case,” Dunker mused aloud, “is a Trojan horse.” A gift from Caesar, Asterix would say.

“Then enjoy it now,” Helena insisted, and smiled. Because When the bill comes, you will want to die.

He made no mention of Asterix.

The dessert reconciled Dunker with chocolate, which had fallen out of favor for at least a decade. But between the surrender to the Empire of Castile and Aragon, and the renunciation of that dessert for life, he would have preferred to resign.

He had never been able to understand Moctezuma’s strategy or behavior, and now it was not even explained why he attended that probable coven without first finding out if it was a gift or a commitment. She had made a mistake that he had vowed not to repeat exactly since her divorce.

Finally the waitress approached, a stunning beauty with an Italian accent, and when Dunker, in an agonizing whisper, asked for the bill, the apparition told him he was safe: dinner was a courtesy, an invitation from Galipol. Then he brought Helena a bouquet of flowers. Elena wept.

Just half a block from the exit, passing through a medieval alley, a few meters from a dry bed of the Turia River, Dunker asked Helena’s permission to go to the bathroom for a moment on her way back to the restaurant; but, fortunately hidden, vomited before arriving.

He returned with his beautiful company and, looking at her, he remembered Elena’s phrases: they will not invite you, have fun because the disaster will come later … Elena was not and would not have been the woman of her life: in that decision, Dunker did not would be wrong That was his last supper. His friend Galipol had given him a gift infinitely more precious than the price of the menu.

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