Tomato Rhapsody

by Adam Schell

  Finally, the morning sun slivered through the muslin curtains of his open window and roused the Good Padre. He awoke in a leisurely fashion that belied the urgency of his engorged member and swollen bladder. He yawned, stretched and opened his eyes with a smile, silently thanking God for the gift of another day. True, the Good Padre desperately needed to flow his water, but there was no need for panic, no need to rush to the outhouse. He’d experienced this problem before and recently worked out what he felt to be a fine solution.

  What the Good Padre used to do was place his left hand against the outhouse’s rear wall and lean at the most acute angle possible to reduce the degree to which he’d have to force his obstinate bastone downward. Alas, such a posture was strenuous to the point of undermining all the pleasure to be had as the bladder emptied. There was little choice, though, and over the course of his first weeks at the new parish, he withstood this morning ordeal until the day his support hand, in mid-release, broke through the outhouse’s old wood boards. Instantly, his arm sunk to the hilt of his shoulder and his barrel chest crashed against the wall. His personal mass was far too great and sudden a weight for such a flimsy structure to endure and, before the Good Padre realized what was happening, he was lying on the ground, the outhouse toppled over and broken to pieces, warm urine spouting up his nightshirt.

  Now, peacefully, in accord with his new routine, the Good Padre rose from his bed, shuffled to his window, slightly parted the curtains, lifted his nightshirt, perched his ba-stone on the windowsill and relaxed his body’s floodgates. Though his window was not entirely private, the release was guilt-free as he usually woke at an early hour, well before sunrise, and knew that the chamomile patch he’d planted below the window benefited from the properties inherent in horse and human urine. This morning, however, just as he reached that delicious halfway point in his urination, a glimmer of sunlight suddenly illuminated more than just his yellowish water. He looked up to assess the angle of the mid-morning sun. “Bless’d Virgin!” the Good Padre gasped as the panic of oversleeping pinched his stream to a dribble. “Gli Ebrei!”

  Bertolli and the other altar boys had hardly slept a wink all night. Supper’s euphoria, come midnight, had regressed to fear and shame. Surely, if they closed their eyes to sleep, the Love Apple’s poison would take hold and they would wake to find themselves roasting in the fires of hell. Spontaneously, with the dawn’s first light, Bertolli and the boys found one another gathered and hiding outside the church’s garden, all gripped by the same paranoia. Filled with awful thoughts the old padre had planted deep inside their heads, they had come to see if their Good Padre survived the night. But when he appeared in the window, Bertolli and the boys did not sigh with relief that he was alive and well. Neither did they think of hell or transgression, Original Sin, serpents or forbidden fruit. They had no thought but one: that maybe, one day, if they were as pious and kindly and good as their Good Padre, their bare and diminutive cazzoni would also grow to such staggering proportions.

  In Which We Learn

  the Meaning of

  Il Tuono dell’ Amore

  Davido felt strangely good, better than he dared admit as he busied himself in the construction of a tomato pyramid upon his stand. He was terrified, of course—he really had believed the priest would be there to greet him and Nonno as they rolled into market—but Davido found the terror oddly exhilarating. He’d been raised with the stories of Nonno’s travels and, in comparison, his life had been an utter bore thus far. He had heartache and heartbreak, but none of the excitement. Now, however, as Nonno must have felt aboard the deck of Cristoforo Colombo’s ship as it sailed into uncharted territory, Davido felt his bodily senses adrenalized and heightened. The tomato in his palm had never felt so soothing, so varied in tones of crimson and red, nor so piquant to his nose. To his ear, the readying market squawked and flapped like a flock of geese breakfasting on a riverbank at dawn. He could hear the fracturing of crust as a peasant tore a chunk from the bread she’d purchased, the clinking of wine bottles, the crowing of roosters and the chatter of bartering. Clove bud being sold down the market row tickled his left sinus. He could smell the deliciously unkosher aroma of roasted pork through one nostril, while catching the floral perfume of late-summer lavender in the other. Exuberantly, his nose deciphered patchouli, frankincense, myrrh, cedar wood, cinnamon, oak moss, bergamot and all the sacred oils wafting through the market’s air. And though he could not encase such thoughts in language, he felt engaged in the world, as if the adventure before him was finally his!

  Down the market row, Mari was struggling to stay focused on her duties. It was still early, but a decent-sized crowd was waiting before the olive stand to have their old wine bottles filled with oil and their clay pots replenished with any one of the dozen varieties of cured olives her stand offered. It was a busy morning, too busy for Mari’s sake. She was feeling flustered and distracted and, much unlike herself, her mind wasn’t entirely focused on olives and oil. Yes, it was always draining to have Benito around, as he did nothing to help and plenty to hinder. However, the cur had been around for as long as she could remember and while his behavior had grown increasingly repulsive in the years since her father’s death, she could handle him without a problem. Although, if she was being perfectly frank, she had even less patience with Benito on days like today, when her mother joined her at the stand. Mari’s mother knew she wasn’t good for much. She was content to sit on half of a wine barrel at the rear of the stand and watch her daughter work, but even the idea that Benito might try any of his antics in front of her mother had Mari especially on edge.

  But more than Benito and her mother’s presence, what was most on Mari’s mind and undermining the usual attention with which she managed her stand was the enticing sight of those red fruits down the market row and the loose curls of brown hair moving behind the growing pyramid of produce.

  “How’s your mother?” whispered a full-breasted and semi-toothless peasant woman who’d been called Mucca for so long that hardly anyone in the village remembered her real name. Mucca extended Mari her empty olive oil bottle.

  “I don’t know,” Mari answered with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. She couldn’t stand it when people pretended her mother was deaf as well as mute. “Let me ask her.” Mari turned over her shoulder. “Mom, Mucca wants to know how you’re feeling?”

  Mari’s mother frowned and tilted her head to the side.

  Mari turned back to face Mucca. “There, you see,” said Mari, “the same.” Mari took hold of Mucca’s empty bottle and the pair held eyes for a moment. Mucca had known both Mari and her mother since they were babies. Like almost everyone in the village, Mari found Mucca to be a pain in the ass, but she also knew the woman had a heart of gold. “Maybe a bit worse,” Mari added softly.

  “Sorry, dear,” Mucca looked at Mari contritely. “Well, the good news is a husband can’t be too far off.”

  “Oh, good God, Mucca.” No subject annoyed Mari more.

  “Must you?”

  “Surely,” Mucca laughed, then continued, indifferent to Mari’s protest and loud enough for Mari’s mother to hear, “that stepfather of yours is gonna find you a husband?”

  Mari raised her eyebrows and shrugged as she set the bottle under the olive oil spigot.

  “I imagine,” chimed in Signore Coglione, who was waiting in line behind Mucca, “that’s the problem.”

  “True,” laughed Mucca as she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “never trust a magnaccio 9 to find you a mate.”

  Not that something so true struck her as funny, but Mari chuckled anyhow.

  “Nevertheless,” Signore Coglione said with smile, “a husband and children can be a happy fate.”

  “Perhaps,” Mari retorted, hoping to end the conversation, “but I’d rather choose the food upon my plate.”

  “Ay.” Signore Coglione nodded and raised his eyebrows in a conciliatory fashion. A triple rhyme always trumped.

  “What’s the matter
,” Mucca said with a wave of her hand, “no boy in town strike your fancy?”

  Mari had had enough. She corked the oil bottle and set it down with a clunk. She felt her blood heating up. “Saving myself for Benito,” she said flatly, hoping that would shut Mucca up.

  “Goodness, dear,” Mucca said as both she and Signore Coglione laughed, “you can do better than that!” Mucca handed Mari her olive jar. She pointed to the olives she wanted.

  Mari took hold of a large wooden spoon and began to fill the jar with olives. She knew full well why she didn’t have a husband yet. True, she didn’t find any young man in town remotely worth marrying, but that was hardly the issue. Her stepfather couldn’t care less about love or her desires. He was indeed a magnaccio, and had made his life—a good life— eating with other people’s money. She ran his olive and grape mill, took care of his crippled wife and made his supper, and why in the devil’s name would he give that up and pay a dowry to do it?

  Mari caught some motion in the corner of her eye and her instinct system went on alert. She tightened her grip upon the large spoon she held. Despite the dozen or so villagers waiting with empty bottles in hand behind Mucca and the presence of Mari’s mother, Benito left his position alongside the olive oil barrel and picked up the weighty satchel he’d brought with him to market. “Back in a bit,” he snorted at Mari.

  “Not on my account,” Mari retorted as she powerfully whipped the wooden spoon behind her buttocks.

  “Ow!” yelped Benito as the spoon whacked the knuckles of his right hand. “Faccia di merda!”

  “Ha! Serves you right,” said Mucca as she, Signore Coglione, Mari’s mother and the handful of villagers surrounding the stand burst into laughter. “Best keep your fingers where they’re less likely to get hit,” Mucca said whilst handing some coins over to Mari. “Either stuffed in your nostrils or scratching about your dangling bit.”

  Benito jutted his chin in Mucca’s direction. “Vaffanculo!” he spat as he shook the sting from his hand and shuffled off into the market.

  “Oh, tell it to the sheep,” Mucca yelled after him to more laughter—forever reminding Benito and villagers alike of his most infamous moment of adolescence, some twenty years past.

  It had been a solid connection, the sharp rap of wood upon knuckle, and though Mari’s pride flared from the perfection of her timing, she shared little of the crowd’s joy. It was a tired routine to her. She had experienced enough of Benito’s pats upon her backside to know exactly when his hand was most likely to make its wanton move, always in public and always as he parted her company.

  Truth be told, Mari was fed up with Benito for many reasons, foremost of which was that she found him contradictory to her fundamental belief in the purity of the olive. He was always scratching the whiskers about his chin, picking his ear and then thoughtlessly sticking his vile fingers in the olive jars and stuffing olives in his mouth—olives that she had worked tirelessly to cure, marinate and stuff. Worse still, she would catch him—in the midst of servicing customers— reaching inside his trousers to adjust his genitals. True, there was no other olive oil vendor in town, but Mari still imagined Benito’s presence caused more than a few people to abstain from having their bottles refilled with oil or olives for the week, and this was a horrible affront to her. She loved her olives too much to stomach such degradation.

  Over the years Mari had tried to distance herself from the fortunes and follies of the olive orchard, but she had been unable to do so. Olive oil ran through her veins. Indeed, she felt that by honoring the olive she honored the memory of her father and the orchard and fruit that her family had nurtured for generations. In the years since her father’s death she’d been overworked, unpaid and treated indignantly, but Mari still cared about olives—cared with a vengeance.

  “Are you paying attention?” Giuseppe said as he snapped his fingers before Benito’s nose. But Benito wasn’t paying attention. He couldn’t stop thinking about the other day, how a boy, a queer little boy wearing a dress, so easily silenced his boss, and how, once again, it was Benito charged with the dirty work.

  “Listen up!” Giuseppe leaned in, his pitch controlled but fervent with enthusiasm. “Three dozen Love Apples to do the deed, to sow the soil and plant our seed. ‘Tween now and tomorrow, Benito, play it cool and aloof, then when market starts to bustle, make your way up to the roof. Splatter these forbidden fruits upon random heads, hams, breads and lambs; off cheese panino and dried sheets of papiro 10, upon roasted pigs and pies, figs and dyes; hit the butcher and baker and candlestick maker. Wail and paste arms and limbs, baskets and shiny knife blades; plant one solidly on that fat prick who sells spades. Better yet, don’t waste the time on direct aim, pelt the young, the old, the vigorous, the lame. Quick as you can spread bedlam and fear, disorient the eye and confuse the ear. Let Love Apple drip from noses and off statues in poses, making soggy crisp crusts of bread and speckling clothing in watery red. Tainting white pails of heavy cream, splashing the gypsy who interprets the dream. Let it cling to short eyelashes and the hair on horses’ asses, to peaches and plums and off the tip of farmers’ thick thumbs. Bombard the marketgoers head to boot with the juice and pulp of an illicit, forbidden fruit. Rejoice, Benito, take your vengeance upon the crowd, do the deed well and make me proud.”

  That was what Giuseppe had instructed yesterday evening, just before leaving Benito at the tavern with a full mug of ale, a purse full of coins and a belly full of fear. But as Benito, now perched upon the roof of the bakery overlooking the bustling market two stories below, opened up his leather satchel and peered into it, he felt his throwing arm go suddenly numb. There they were, thirty-six deathly and deadly Love Apples. Worse still, Benito had forgotten Giuseppe’s leather gloves, the only thing, he was certain, that saved him from catastrophe yesterday when he picked them from their vines.

  As Giuseppe had instructed, Benito was to launch the Love Apples into the crowd as quickly as possible. Giuseppe felt it was critical for the bombardment to be rapid so as to create as much confusion as possible. Giuseppe suggested throwing them two by two, and although it would be a great temptation, he urged Benito not to take particular aim at any one person, as it would only slow the process; under no circumstance was he to throw one in the direction of the Ebrei. It had to appear that they were throwing them.

  Slowly, with a nervous tremor to his hand, Benito reached into the satchel and pulled out a Love Apple. Instantly, its dreaded poison began to burn the tips of his fingers as if he’d just scooped up a handful of lye. He felt his pulse quicken, his brow break with sweat and his heart beat unnaturally fast. Good God, he thought to himself, I’ll be dead before I manage to throw all of these. Then he rose up onto his knees, still mostly hidden behind the bakery’s wide chimney, and gazed intently at the market below, searching for the perfect target. His hand still ached from where Mari had whacked it and he gave a moment’s thought to hurling the first one at her, but the little voice inside his head wouldn’t allow him to hurt what he loved so much. Who then, Benito pondered, entirely ignoring Giuseppe’s order. Quick, before this devilish fruit incinerates my hand. Mucca? Vincenzo? “Vaffanculo,” Benito whispered, “there’s the face of Bobo the Fool.” Feeling his upper limb suddenly come back to life, Benito cocked his arm and with all the vengeance a dozen years of snide comments and putdowns can instill, he hurled the overripe tomato at the slender, hairless face of Bobo the Fool.

  Mari slid Signore Coglione’s coins into her apron pocket as they said, “Ciao,” to each other in near-harmony, though he always added bella. As the tavern owner, he was her best customer, and without any help at her stand, it took Mari nearly ten minutes just to put his order together: eight bottles of olive oil, six earthen jars filled with olives. The wine he ordered from her was delivered separately, usually on Wednesdays: one barrel of red, one half barrel of white. As Mari looked up to greet her next customer she noticed with aggravation the backup at her stand; at least ten people were waiting. She looked
over her shoulder to see if her mother could help, but her poor mama was so exhausted from the short walk between her apartment and the piazza that she’d fallen asleep. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Her mother, once so beautiful, looked like a fat little toad as she sat there asleep on the half barrel, chin collapsed into her bosom, a thin stream of saliva drooling from the permanently numb left corner of her mouth.

  Mari cursed Benito’s name silently as she took the next empty bottle before her and turned to face the large olive-oil-filled barrel to her side. She placed the bottle under the olive oil spout, turned the lever and watched for a moment as a thin line of green-gold oil flowed into the bottle. She estimated how long it would take to fill then lifted her head to look across the market in the direction of her curiosity, when something prodigious caught her eye and in an instant all the anger and heartache that pestered her mind vanished.

  Whether it was the lone hand of the Divine or the gods acting in collusion or a mischievous Cupid out to cause a stir was impossible to say; but at the very second Mari lifted her head, the crowded market appeared to part and Mari and Davido found each other’s gaze. Naturally, the jolt of Eros simultaneously stunned the eyes and enthralled the loins of our two lovers-to-be; but at a moment such as this it would be too easy to speak solely of beauty and youthful lust, as the couple’s shared vision was more than that. Indeed, what they found in each other’s eyes shot through them from the inside out and sent a hot, sublime sensation bursting up their spines, causing the world around them to melt away, as if the eye had just beheld the image of what the soul had previously known and craved to know again. A vision that revealed a shared destiny and a burning desire to manifest it. It was a vision that came with a great clamor that only Davido and Mari could hear: Il Tuono dell’ Amore, as Menzogna put it. The thunder of love.

  9 From the Etruscan magnare, meaning “to eat,” i.e., “someone who eats with other people’s money.”