by Adam Schell
10 Papyrus paper used for writing and wrapping.
In which We Learn
How the Mind Stills Itself
in Moments of Trauma
Across the piazza, oblivious to Benito’s orders and Mari and Davido’s rapture, Luigi Campoverde stood with his mouth slightly agape, staring at the beautiful array of purple and green figs on the stand before him. Luigi was deep in thought, envisioning how delicious the ripe figs would be once he sliced them lengthwise, spread them with whipped ricotta and set a balsamic-caramelized walnut atop each for a bit more sweetness and crunch, when the recipe suddenly burst inside his brain.
Twenty-four hours ago Luigi never would have imagined that he, esteemed chef for Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, would have ventured a rough two hours by mule to attend the market of an inconsequential little village he’d never even heard of. One of the luxuries about being the chef for the Duke of Tuscany was that food vendors came to him. However, despite the breach of protocol, the duo of rimatori who’d arrived at his kitchen the other day with the exquisite pair of early-season truffles had aroused his curiosity about what other gastronomic treasures the hilltop hamlet might offer. His interest had been further stoked by how willing the one pompous scoundrel had been to accept payment in a manner other than money. Should such sentiments be shared by other vendors at the out-of-the-way market, well, Luigi reckoned, it could make for the perfect place to covertly resupply his kitchen.
Surreptitious thoughts of delectable produce bartered for some of the useless bric-a-brac overflowing from the duke’s villa was what Luigi had been thinking about all morning. Until now, at least, when a rude, spindly, drunken fool cut before him and obstructed Luigi’s view of the mouthwatering collection of figs. As if that weren’t offensive enough, the fool reeked of soured wine, and his continual bobbing and bending, as he sampled amply from the stand, had Luigi at his wits’ end. Finally—suddenly—just as Luigi was thinking of knocking the twit out of his way, the fool once again bent over, and a tomato, hurled by one and meant for another, came spectacularly crashing into Luigi’s face.
It has long been known how the mind stills itself in moments of trauma so that details may be recalled afterward with an absolute clarity, and it was with this heightened sense that the instant of impact played out in Luigi’s mind. The sound hit Luigi first. That unmistakable whistle of the wind breaking across a hurled projectile. Then the sharp slap of fruit skin upon human skin. It was a funny sound and Luigi wondered where it was coming from. Next, a squirting noise, like a wide boot stepping into a fresh pile of mud, as the tomato’s moist innards broke across the upper bridge of his nose, right between his eyes. Of course there would be pain, but that sensation would have to wait. For as the splattering of pulp, seeds and juice blinded his eyes, blew into his open mouth and registered upon his taste buds, there was flavor. My God, there was a flavor the likes of which Luigi had never tasted.
Across the piazza, Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was still in something of a daze and had yet to notice the stand laden with nostalgic fruit or his filching chef prowling about. It had been a difficult evening for Cosimo. The indelicacy of being caught in flagrante delicto by his child had been most awkward. The embarrassment was greatly compounded by the fact that his wife and entire staff had all been present, standing at attention to receive their returning duke when young Gian pulled open the carriage door, exposing, quite literally, his father.
The family meal that evening proved unbearable. The cavernous dining hall, sparsely filled with three Meduccis and three attending servants, crackled with tension. Cosimo and his wife sat at opposite ends of the table, twenty-six feet apart. Splitting the distance sat young Gian, merrily cooing over a bowl of wild mushroom ancini di pepe, copiously infused with the wafer-thin shavings of fresh truffle.
The boy sounded happier than Cosimo could remember, as if a great secret had been revealed to him, and he ate with a demonstrative relish, his feet dancing and tapping upon the floor. God bless you, thought Cosimo, I only pray the aristocracy shall fall before you inherit such a burdensome heartache. Cosimo wanted to look up. To smile at his boy and tell him how much he loved him. To laugh with his wife at the farce that fate had made of their lives. But he could not bring himself to do so. He knew his wife would never share in such a joke. The sad reality for Cosimo was that he had no one with whom to share anything of feeling or meaning, no true friend—no trusted confidant. The one person he did have, the one who would have laughed with him, his beloved courtesan, had been stolen away.
Oh, dear God, thought Cosimo, as he rose up from the table in a fit of melancholy and without a word slid out the kitchen entrance, if only I were a farmer. Yes, he repeated to himself, if only I were a farmer. And then he strode over to the stables, awoke the snoozing stable-master and demanded not only the most decrepit mule of the lot, but that his servant disrobe and lend him his well-worn and far less regal boots, trousers, tunic, vest and long stableman’s jacket. If only I were a farmer, mused Cosimo as he left the villa behind, rode through the night, past his old vineyard, and loped into a small hilltop village at dawn, I could have led the life I was meant to lead and she, she would still be alive.
That’s what Cosimo had been thinking until he noticed a blur of red hurl through the market and explode across the face of his chef. “Mio Dio,” Cosimo sighed, it was a pomodoro! The same precious fruit his courtesan used to feed him.
In Which We Learn
How Davido & Nonno Came to Be
Invited to La Festa del Santo ubriaco
The scream was horrendous, a bloodcurdling yelp, the desperate cry of a man in his death throes.
The acid-scorch of Benito’s fingers was unbearable and he could only bring himself to throw one more tomato, despite his nearly equal superstitious fear of displeasing Giuseppe. Nevertheless, his second throw had found its mark. He’d blasted that blubbery pork-selling piglet good, and despite the arsenic pain ravaging his throwing hand, the scream now playing before his ears made it all worthwhile.
Certainly, the hurled projectile exploding solidly into his ear stung and stunned the pork butcher Vincenzo and sent him crashing against his rack of sausage links like a lumbering drunkard. But he didn’t realize it was a mortal wound until his senses sorted out that it was a Love Apple that struck him and he saw the red juice and aghast expression splattered across the tunic and face of his closest customer, Augusto Po. Instantly, Vincenzo felt the forbidden fruit’s deathly seeds and juice drip into the cavity of his ear and his brain set fire as he clasped his head, keeled over and yelled bloody murder.
Petrified, the crowd around Vincenzo’s stand leapt back. Men hollered and women screamed. Vincenzo rolled from his knees and fell to the cobblestones like a pigeon shot mortally in one wing. Drained of life, his screams receded to ghastly moans. He began to writhe and reel upon the ground, the acid burning down his ear canal and eating away his brain. The crowd surrounding him doubled, tripled, quadrupled, until nearly half the market was there to see Vincenzo take his final breath and his body go lifeless. Killed by a hurled Love Apple impacted solidly in his right ear.
Instantly, there was silence, dead silence that spread from the surrounding crowd to the entire market. Heads turned, people left their shopping aside until nearly all the marketgoers, all but Mari, Davido and Nonno, were gathered around Vincenzo. Close enough to see what happened, but far enough back to keep clear of the murderous poison that had killed him.
“Gli Ebrei,” a lone voice in the solidifying crowd shouted out. “Gli Ebrei del Pomo di Amore.”
The crowd took to grumbling. Heads began to now turn in the direction of the Ebrei stand. Eyes narrowed, expressions went cross. A pair of men slid on their thick leather gloves, stepped forward, grabbed Vincenzo from under his arms and dragged his lifeless body fifty or so feet and then dropped him before the Ebrei.
“Oy, merda,” babbled Nonno as he became terribly aware
he and Davido were no longer going to be ignored. Nonno turned to look at his grandson. He saw the bewildered expression on the boy’s face, the nearly completed tomato pyramid before him and the ripe fruit gripped in his left hand. Could he have been so foolish, thought Nonno?
“Assassino!” Mucca took a half step into the semi-circle surrounding Vincenzo’s body and the Ebrei stand. “Murderer!”
A hot burst of adrenaline shot through Mari and roasted what remained of her amorous goose bumps. She heard the angry words and saw through a fracture in the crowd the prone body of Vincenzo. Mari squinted to better observe the shocking sight and could have sworn she saw his eyes twitch. Mio Dio, thought Mari as she continued to focus her vision upon Vincenzo, does that cacasodo have no shame? Suddenly, a scenario flashed before her. Where was Benito? How odd that he should shuffle off so shortly before all this. And what was in that weighty satchel of his? Oh, no, thought Mari, as she grabbed a bucket of water from under her stand and made her way over to the scene, what had Giuseppe put the ogre up to?
A horrible silence thickened the air as Davido looked upon the body before him and the soft tomato: smashed, splattered, destroyed upon and into the man’s ear. What happened, he wondered, that my eyes could so quickly go from gazing upon that beautiful girl to looking upon this? Davido swallowed hard. He thought of his young cousins who would often have fights with the overripe tomatoes they found upon the ground, and wondered if he’d ever see them again.
“You,” said Mucca as she pointed to the tomato in Davido’s hand, “you killed him.”
Davido followed the squat woman’s finger and looked oddly at his own hand, which he wasn’t even certain was part of his body, and wondered why it held a tomato. His defense left his mouth like a wounded whisper: “No.”
“You did!” Mucca yelled. “I never liked him much, but he was one of ours and you killed him.”
“No,” Davido repeated faintly, shaking his head in dismay.
“Of course,” blurted a man in the crowd, “of course the Ebreo would seek to kill a pork merchant!”
“No.”
“Then how did this happen?” Mucca asked while pointing to the dead man on the ground.
Davido was speechless and he returned the peasant woman’s contemptuous gaze with a look of dumbfounded apology. Their eyes held each other in an awkward pause until an egg flung from the rear of the crowd suddenly hit Davido upon the neck. The shell stung and burst upon his collarbone, its innards quickly sliming down his shirt like a fast-moving slug.
The blow to his grandson, though harmless, erupted the stomach acid in Nonno with a sickening force. He had been in these situations before and was fearful that the barrier between angry words and action had just been broken.
A clamor erupted from the crowd as a second piece of produce, a baton-like green zucchini, crashed before Davido, toppling his tomato pyramid and sending a hundred tomatoes bouncing to the cobblestones. To a chorus of jeers, the floodgates of retribution opened. Instantly, the air was filled with other fruits and vegetables as the villagers reached for whatever produce was near at hand. Soft peaches, overripe plums, soggy figs and heads of loose-leaf radicchio began to crash and bang all around and upon the foreigners in their midst. Thank goodness, for Davido and Nonno’s sake, it was late August, a time in which most of summer’s fruits and vegetables were well ripened and the hard tubers of autumn were still a few weeks from harvest, and the villagers were too inherently frugal to throw any more eggs or the expensive and delectable melone del cantalupo.
Panicked and concerned for his grandfather’s safety, Davido glanced over to discover that the old man had lifted a large wicker basket from the wagon and was using it to protect his face and head. It was a ridiculous sight, his skinny old grandfather warding off an assault of soft fruits and vegetables behind a flimsy shield of wicker, and he felt a rather bizarre impulse to laugh. That was, at least, until a large cabbage broke across the side of Davido’s head, knocked him off balance and caused him to slip and fall upon a soft tomato.
“Basta!” a voice moving through the crowd shouted out and brought the bombardment to a halt. “Basta! Enough!”
To Davido, disoriented and lying upon the cobblestones under his stand, the voice, so firm, so feminine, sounded as if it issued from the lips of an angel. Davido blinked a few times to sort out his vision as the crowd parted to reveal the calves, ankles, feet and sandals of the dissenting voice. She walked to the center of the crowd and paused next to the body of the dead man. Davido had never seen such wonderful extremities. Her feet were perfect—salt-of-the-earth perfect—strong and shapely with a slight arch shaped like a cantaloupe’s curve. She had beautiful toes, like baby eggplants—sleek, tapered and slightly bulbous around the tips. Her ankles were strong, not too thick, nor too skinny, and they grew gracefully into muscular calves that seemed shaped by hours of standing on tiptoe to pick peaches or knock olives from trees. Just below the hem of her skirt, Davido could make out a small scar, right below her left knee, shaped like a scythe. It was a beautiful imperfection existing in harmony with the perfection of her skin, and Davido longed to crawl out and give the little scar a kiss.
“Basta!” she yelled one more time, and then promptly dumped a bucket of water over the face of the dead man.
“Huh!” The crowd gasped at such disrespect for the deceased.
Immediately, the dead man sat up and began to cough.
“Madonna mio!” a hundred voices rang out as nearly half the assembled group dropped to their knees and made the sign of the cross. “Un miracolo!” shouts rang out, “a miracle!”
“Nothing of the sort,” shot back Mari. “If any of you had been as concerned about Vincenzo as you were about vengeance, you might have noticed that he was breathing the whole time.”
“I was dead,” protested Vincenzo, gasping for breath. “Sure as Cristo died on the cross, I was dead!”
A frown curled Mari’s mouth as she sunk her gaze into Vincenzo.
Vincenzo withered, lowering his head sheepishly. “Well, I thought I was as good as dead.”
Mari did not relent.
“Regardless,” Vincenzo flicked his thumb in the Ebreo boy’s direction, “what kind of monster attacks a man in his own village?”
“How do you know it was him?” asked Mari.
“How do I know?” Vincenzo responded indignantly. “Who else could have done this?” He pointed to his tomato-splattered right ear.
Despite the safety of his current position and the lovely view of the woman’s feet, knees and ankles, Davido drew a deep breath and, though motivated more by curiosity than courage, rose up from under his stand to face his many attackers and lone defender.
“Vincenzo,” Mari said with a confidence that made him feel a bit like a little boy, “did you actually see this man throw his fruit at you?”
“What?” said Vincenzo indignantly as he lifted himself up from the ground.
“Did you actually see this man throw his fruit at you?”
Vincenzo’s lips pursed. “No, but need I more proof than what lies lodged in my ear and resting in his hand?”
“Vincenzo,” said Mari, “do you think anyone so foolish that they would attack the locals with the very fruit they wish to sell?”
“Foolish?” Vincenzo repeated. “Surely those who nailed our Cristo to the cross could be so foolish as to give their fruit a toss.”
Good God—Nonno rolled his eyes—must it always come back to that?
The villagers erupted in agreement. Even the more open-minded and sensitive among them, like the Cheese Maker and Signore Coglione, could not rightly doubt the depths of evil and foolishness to which an Ebreo could stoop.
“Vincenzo,” Mari said calmly, adopting a new tactic, “in which direction does your stand face?”
The question flustered Vincenzo as he regarded his stand. He was prepared to argue about Judas and Cristo and the profound injustice dealt to the pig, not about direction. “West, I think. B
ut what has that to do with anything?” Vincenzo said brusquely.
“Mmm, west, indeed,” repeated Mari. “And in what direction does this stand here face?”
Vincenzo took in the angle of the tomato stand. The market row had a slight bend. “North, split with west,” he said, not sure what Mari was getting at.
“Mmm, north split with west,” Mari said, parroting Vincenzo. She had never done anything quite like this before. What prompted her to speak from her heart had become an equation for her head and she now strained mentally to organize her point. “Now,” said Mari, “in which ear were you hit with their fruit?”
“My right ear,” Vincenzo said, again pointing to his ear.
“I know your right ear,” Mari affirmed, though she was still not certain her own logic was on target. “But when you stood outward, doling the sausage from your space, in which direction did your right ear face?” Mari set her feet as if she were tending Vincenzo’s stall, then pointed to the Ebrei at her left and gave a slight tug on her right earlobe, which lay clearly on the opposite side of her head from the Ebrei’s stand.
Vincenzo, keener in geometry than in confidence, finally got Mari’s point and he lowered his eyes like an admonished schoolboy.
Davido watched in amazement as ears were tugged and conversations flared up between those who understood the girl’s point and those who didn’t. But to Davido an altogether different point was being made—this was quite a woman!
“What if,” a rather slow and slippery voice in the crowd spoke out, “Vincenzo had turned around?”
“What?” said Mari as the crowd quieted.
Incensed by an unsightly globule of tomato stuck upon the breast pocket of his Venetian silk tunic, Augusto Po repeated his challenge. “What if Vincenzo had turned around for a moment, let’s say, to fetch a sausage off his rack?”
