Tomato Rhapsody

by Adam Schell

Oh, God, thought Mari, I hadn’t considered that.

  The crowd parted to better reveal Augusto Po, his smooth bald head and corona of white hair glimmering in the sunlight. “Sweet girl,” he said after a moment’s pause, “you have used logic and reason to defend this here Ebreo from treason. But what say your eyes? Surely, your eyes must bear some witness to your defense?”

  The crowd hushed. Augusto Po was a nasty old fox and it was rare for him to make a scene in public, especially since the death of his uncle. Po was not native to the village. He was the nephew of the town’s recently deceased old padre, and had, many years ago, moved to the village to help his uncle manage the church and its landholdings. Most considered his a well-paid but dubious position, which Po managed to exploit for great personal gain. He was known to engage in usury, and he owned a good many of the rental dwellings about town.

  “I am sure,” Mari responded directly to Augusto, “because my eyes were upon him.”

  A murmur ran through the crowd.

  Oh, no. From the corner of his eye, Nonno caught his grandson battling a smirk. Great tragedies have stemmed from lesser lines.

  Giuseppe, who had descended from his balcony to witness the action, really wasn’t as patient as he believed himself to be and he didn’t like the nature of this standoff. “Oh, Mari, my daughter,” said Giuseppe as his face parted with a put-on smile, “who, as a child, at a mouse’s pain took pity, as a woman protects even the donkey of our fair Italy.”

  Her name is Mari? Davido felt his heart jump.

  “Oh, God bless the good Italian heart,” the Good Padre said on top of the crowd’s laughter as he stepped enthusiastically to the center of the crowd. He looked at Mari and smiled. “I see news of the decree has been well spread and well received. Yes, welcome, neighbors, welcome.” The Good Padre rubbed his hands together as if sizing up a holiday table set with a delectable feast. “Now, Mari, who has tried this new fruit and can attest its flavor?”

  Mari bit the corner of her lip. The crowd fell stone silent.

  “Come now,” the Good Padre said, attempting to prod the villagers, “no need for shyness.” He pointed to the crimson-speckled villagers before him. “You, Signore Po, seem to wear its juice upon your blouse, and you, Vincenzo, though, ’tis off your mouth, upon your ear. Indeed, by appearances, it does look like a sloppy feast hast happened here. Now, who shall step forward and tell me of its flavor?”

  The public recognition of a blemish upon his tunic, coupled with his disturbing inability to comprehend the Good Padre, caused Po to slither back into the crowd.

  “Good Padre,” Giuseppe said, fracturing the pause, “we have not partaken of this fruit.”

  “No? Then why the mirth? Why the merry? Did I not enter in mid-joviality?” The Good Padre paused his eyes on Vincenzo. “You mean, not a single one has tried this fruit?”

  Vincenzo looked at his feet.

  “Oh, good God,” said the Good Padre with a chuckle as he stepped over to the tomato stand. “I tell you, just last night, after visiting with our lovely neighbors, I ate several of their fruits. And they were delicious.”

  The crowd gasped at the revelation.

  “O, bless’d Virgin,” said the Good Padre as he lifted a tomato from the stand and held it up for inspection, “’Tis a fruit, nothing more and nothing less. Here,” the Good Padre handed the tomato to Davido, “good lad, cut me a slice of this one here.”

  Davido reached across his stand to take the pomodoro from the priest. He cleared a small space before him upon his disheveled stand and began to slice the tomato in half.

  “And if I,” said the Good Padre as Davido handed him the sliced half tomato, “a man of the cloth, be cut down, then we know here evil be found. But if I emerge in salubrious splendor then forever fear not the fruit of this vendor.”

  “No! No!” shouted the Cheese Maker, “don’t do it, Good Padre.” “It will be the death of you,” another villager called out. “No, no, Boun Padre!” other shouts rang out in protest.

  The Good Padre smiled as he unveiled his acorn-sized teeth and, to a chorus of gasps usually reserved for the swallowing of a sword when the Gypsy circus came to town each spring, bit into the fruit and began to chew.

  “Oh, my!” the Good Padre uttered upon swallowing. Immediately, the breakfast possibilities the pomodoro offered flooded his mind. He thought of how lovely softly poached eggs laid atop sheep’s-milk-cheese-smeared toast, with sliced pomodoro, sea salt, chives and a drizzle of olive oil would be for a late breakfast. “Put fear and anxiety to waste, dear neighbors, for here is a heavenly taste,” said the Good Padre as he opened his mouth wide and tucked the rest of the tomato inside.

  With the sting from the blow finally wearing off his face, yet the flavor still lingering on his tongue, Luigi Campoverde found the Good Padre’s expression too compelling an affirmation to ignore. Luigi knew a good eater when he saw one, and he decided to take advantage of the crowd’s distracted state and gather a few of the fallen fruits lying about the piazza’s cobblestones. He reached between legs, under skirts, around canvas bags and wicker baskets and quickly gathered up nearly a dozen of the Love Apples into his sack. While slinking about at ankle-level, Luigi noticed a wonderful bottle of olive oil resting inside some preoccupied peasant’s basket. The small market seemed to possess a wealth of gastronomic charms and he was curious if it extended to the local olive oil. The oil had a robust color—a perfect hue of green-gold—and Luigi couldn’t help himself. Slyly, he dropped a pair of the lady duke’s pearl earrings into the peasant’s basket and then slid the stolen oil into his satchel.

  “Dear cousins,” said the Good Padre as he motioned for Davido to hand him the other half of the tomato, “t’would be a shame to let fear and superstition impede this delight. Indeed, this fruit is delicious.” The Good Padre took the half tomato from Davido and stepped closer to Vincenzo. “Come now, Vincenzo,” said the Good Padre as he put his arm around the pork merchant. “Since you appear the most aggrieved, you above all will be the most relieved. Have a bite.”

  Ever since the miraculous Good Friday disappearance of his mother’s cataracts and hemorrhoids, Vincenzo had attended church regularly, but he was, nevertheless, hardly comfortable in the Good Padre’s presence. “Bbb … Bbb … But …”

  “Oh, Vincenzo,” assured the Good Padre, “two full mouthfuls now and half a dozen just last night, and I am here and healthy as ever.”

  “Go on, Vincenzo,” said the squat, bosomy hag Mucca, “mangialo!”

  A single affirmation was all it took for the crowd to let loose. “Eat it!” was the first. “Si, Vincenzo, mangialo!” rang the second, as the third, fourth and fifth voices reiterated the same call of “mangialo.” Then, inevitably, from deep in the crowd, having finally descended from the rooftop, came the tormenting prompt that followed Vincenzo throughout his life and that drove him to this situation in the first place. “Go on,” the somewhat disguised voice of Benito rang out, “you pig-loving bastard, mangialo.”

  Seeing that no ground remained sacred before the Good Padre, the crowd broke into a chorus of pig-like snorts.

  Vincenzo’s jaw dropped and his expression turned cross. “Who said that?” he asked, though he knew full well who said it. “Va il piacere una pecora!” Vincenzo yelled.

  With his slight shoulders, protruding potbelly, oddly short neck, errant right eye and the absolute toothlessness of his threats, Vincenzo’s curses, especially his standard retort to Benito—Go pleasure a sheep—carried the very opposite effect he desired and the crowd howled with laughter.

  Truly, thought Nonno, the Lord is great.

  “Ah, go on, Vincenzo,” Mucca repeated herself, this time more loudly and audaciously. “Eat it.”

  Vincenzo’s wandering eye shot to Mucca. “Not a chance, you beslubbering old cow. You eat it!”

  “Blah.” Mucca waved the back of her hand as if swatting the insult away. “Since when does a pig give such a thought to what it scoffs?”
/>   “Nor a cow to what it cuds,” Vincenzo said sharply.

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” chimed the Good Padre, “won’t either of you try one?”

  “But what if it’s like hemlock and cuts slow to the chase?” Mucca answered the question with a question.

  “Aye! True. True. For not all poison is quick to kill,” added Vincenzo with an affirming nod.

  “I doubt that’s the case,” said the Good Padre.

  “With all due respect,” said Vincenzo, as he squirmed from under the Good Padre’s arm, “I will not let that Love Apple cross my lips.”

  The Good Padre eyed Mucca.

  “Nor I,” gasped Mucca as she brought her hand to her prodigious bosom in mock offense. “I have lived long and well enough without this fruit. If you’re so excited about it, why don’t you eat another one?”

  “Si,” several voices in the crowd rang out. “Mangialo un altro, Boun Padre. Eat another one.”

  “Ay, ay,” said the Good Padre, still surprisingly unflustered. “For the sake of my nervous brother I will gladly eat another.” He turned to Davido. “A pinch of salt, perhaps?”

  Davido’s lips pursed into a held-back smile as he fetched a small container of salt from the rear of his wagon. He really couldn’t help but adore this priest. He unfastened the leather tie that held the cloth atop the earthen jar of salt, took a pinch, reached across his stand and sprinkled it upon the Good Padre’s half tomato.

  The Good Padre liked the look of this: the way the whitish-blue bits of sea salt glistened and dissolved upon the tomato’s moist innards. “Witness,” he shouted to the crowd and then gracefully slid the salt-speckled tomato into his mouth and began to chew.

  Mucca, who stood barely chest-high to the priest, poked her knobby little forefinger into the Good Padre’s stomach. “You feel not an ounce different?”

  “Not even a pinch,” said the Good Padre.

  “But you’re the size of a barnyard ox,” said Mucca.

  “Eh, true, true. He’s big as a cow,” agreed a voice from the crowd.

  “And broad as a bull,” added Vincenzo.

  “I have heard,” continued Mucca, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, “that Sicilians can eat fire, fart smoke and shit ash.”

  “Eh, true,” said Vincenzo, wagging his finger. “’Tis well known, Sicilians have a gut of iron and a bowel of bronze.”

  “Sicily?” said the Good Padre with a raised eyebrow. He didn’t think he was from Sicily.

  Mucca, ignored by her husband as a libidinous nag, but appreciated by the villagers as a foul-mouthed wench, was very much enjoying herself and continued as the crowd’s mouthpiece. “How are we to know a pleasure in the morning won’t be a poison by the dusk? For we know nothing about this fruit.”

  “Is it even a fruit?” asked Vincenzo. “Looks like a vegetable to me.”

  Curious himself as to the pomodoro‘s origin, the Good Padre turned to the old Ebreo. “Neighbor,” he said, with a questioning tone.

  Nonno took a moment to clear his throat. “Well,” he said, “as it’s yet to be marked by the botanists of Florence or Rome, its delineation is still officially unknown.”

  “But what of the fruit’s nature?” said the Good Padre. “How does it grow?”

  “For that answer, ask my green-thumbed grandson,” said Nonno. “Davido.”

  Davido, Mari’s heart leapt as she repeated the name to herself, Davido.

  “Well,” said the Good Padre, “what say you, young Davido, how grows it?”

  Davido felt his flesh get hot and his mouth go dry as all eyes turned in his direction. Since when does Nonno defer to me in public, he thought? This was certainly more than he’d bargained for and he was sure he would sound like a fool before her—he’d never had to rhyme in public. “’T … ’t …” Davido’s voice crackled with uncertainty. “’Tis a small seed.” He kept his eyes upon the tomatoes before him as his mind searched desperately to find the rhyme. “Best planted from mid-spring to early summer in rich, well-draining soil. It likes a good, strong sun and a once-weekly rain. From a small, scentless yellow flower comes a fruit, green at first, which ripens to red. About eighty days, from planting to harvest. Its skin is soft and its flesh easily bruised, and after picking, it’s not to be abused.” Oh, thank God, thought Davido, having finally coupled a sentence the way locals do. “And though it may sound a bit contrary, pomodori grow like a pepper, yet are juicy like a berry.”

  He loves the earth, thought Mari. She could hear that in his voice, see that in his eyes. He looked at his tomatoes the way she wished he’d look at her.

  The crowd was silent, not knowing what to make of it all.

  “Well,” said Mucca, “that’s an odd combination.”

  “Eh, true,” added Vincenzo. “Berries are oft poisonous, and peppers oft sorcerous.”

  Many in the crowd hummed and nodded in agreement.

  “Neighbors,” said the Good Padre. He had no tolerance for the ignorant maligning of the earth. “What do you know of poisons and sorcery? For surely,” the Good Padre gestured to the onion and garlic farmer standing nearby, “had Renzo here come upon this fruit and seeds, who’d suggest such evil deeds?”

  “Exactly the point!” said Vincenzo. “For Renzo is as common to us as the garlic he grows.” “And as stinky,” blurted Mucca.

  “Oh, good God!” The Good Padre threw up his hands. “Hast not anyone the bravery to try this fruit?”

  Mari looked apologetically toward Davido. She felt a jolt as her eyes met his and the two fought against their smiles in unison. She would have gladly taken up the Good Padre’s challenge and eaten a hundred of the boy’s fruit. A hundred hundred she would have eaten. But Mari was smarter than that and knew her village well enough to understand what would be perceived as principle and what as promiscuity. So, against her heart, she held her tongue.

  It was time, thought Giuseppe, as his eyes scanned the crowd for Benito. He located his underling and gave him a subtle nod.

  “Bobo the Fool will eat it,” Benito called out. “Bobo will eat anything!”

  A grand idea! The crowd reacted with rousing support and the air filled with an array of calls for Bobo to step forward. Here was a perfect time to put one on the fool who so often put one on them all.

  “He’ll do it for a mug of ale,” said Mucca, as if revealing a little-known piece of information.

  “Or a goblet of wine,” seconded Vincenzo through the ruckus.

  “Well,” said the Good Padre, “where is this brave Bobo?”

  The idea of the words brave and Bobo existing in the same sentence sent a roar of laughter through the crowd.

  “Here’s the brave fool!” shouted Benito. He pointed underneath the statue of the Drunken Saint where Bobo the Fool was curled into a fetal position, sleeping. Bobo had awoken briefly to sample a few figs from the Fig Farmer’s stand, but once food started flying about, Bobo quickly took shelter, desirous of more sleep.

  Benito now poked the toe of his boot against Bobo’s buttock. “Wake up, fool,” he chided.

  “Go away,” groaned Bobo, swatting at Benito’s foot. “Bobo sleeps.”

  Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had been gratefully distracted by these provincial antics until a voice in the crowd landed upon his heart like an anvil. “My God.” Cosimo’s mouth fell open and his knees went weak under the weight of so many memories. He hadn’t seen Bobo for almost thirty years.

  “But ’tis time for your breakfast, fool.” Benito felt a disconcerting tingle in his loins as he reached under the statue, grabbed the belt of Bobo’s trousers, dragged the rather slight fool to his feet and flung him into the crowd. Benito often felt that tingle whenever he manhandled Bobo and it bothered him immensely. He was no finocchio.

  The crowd parted with laughter as the spindly-legged fool stumbled forward. Those villagers closest by goosed Bobo’s buttocks, slapped his thighs and tugged his ears, overjoyed to see the fool they thought they
knew so well and the padre they barely knew at all go mano a mano. Though few villagers would admit such a thing, they held much affection for their fool and often spent days pondering his irreverent point of view.

  The only problem when it came to Bobo was that nearly everything about him annoyed someone in some way. Those who thought a man should be broad, strong and hairy were put off by Bobo’s spindly limbs, soft flesh and hairless face. Those who thought a man should be serious were put off by Bobo’s complete disregard for seriousness. Those who thought a man should be straightforward in his speech were put off by Bobo’s circuitous reasoning and roundabout rhyming. Those who thought a man should be industrious were put off by Bobo’s sloth. Those who thought a man should be sober were put off by Bobo’s affection for insobriety. Those who held themselves in high regard were put off at how quickly Bobo laid them low. And those who thought a man should stand and fight were put off by how quickly Bobo would go limp and run. The list of Bobo’s annoying traits varied from person to person, but as long as one wasn’t at the sharp edge of Bobo’s razor wit, almost everyone agreed there was much pleasure to be had by his presence.

  After a final slap upon his watery buttocks, Bobo hobbled forward and the crowd parted to reveal the extraordinary Good Padre to him for the very first time. Bobo never was much for churchgoing.

  The Good Padre, who had heard much about Bobo but had yet to meet him, decided to get right in on the joke. “Come now, Bobo,” said the Good Padre, “won’t you eat one for a beer?”

  A mere arm’s length from the Good Padre, Bobo’s knees turned to pudding and his brain flushed with the abstract thought that all the wine he’d drunk over his lifetime had somehow stained his eyeballs. He put his hands upon the enormous shoulders of the Good Padre to steady himself and confirm the reality of such a being.

  The Good Padre’s lips peeled back into a broad smile. “Come now, Bobo,” the Good Padre repeated, “won’t you eat one for a goblet of wine or pitcher of beer?”

  “Oh, no,” said Bobo with a slowness most unlike the rapid repartee that normally marked his speech. “Not today and not here.”