by Adam Schell
20 Tomás de Torquemada: First Inquisitor General of Spain and the man universally credited with fomenting and leading the Spanish Inquisition.
In Which We Learn
the Meaning of La Punizione
You shameless coward, shouted La Piccola Voce from inside Benito’s head. He defiles you and you do nothing. He does not even bind your hands and feet, yet you take it like a sheep. How can you let him do this? Do you have no honor? No dignity? How can you not fight?
Because, as Pozzo Menzogna stated in his eloquent treatise on drama, comedy without tragedy is irrelevant. And how else to explain the tragedy of Benito’s mind, his self-hating subservience to Giuseppe, unless we glimpse the wicked means employed by Giuseppe that ruined Benito’s mind. Giuseppe called it la punizione, just as his uncle had. It had been a long time since he had last doled out the punishment upon Benito, some ten years. But there are certain things one never forgets. The first time Giuseppe dealt Benito la punizione was when Benito was just thirteen, after he had sided against Giuseppe in a disagreement with the man who would one day be Mari’s father. After that, Giuseppe used la punizione throughout Benito’s teenage years, to break him and mold him into the kind of loyal underling he desired. Giuseppe had not used the sadistic form of discipline in years, not since shortly after the accident that killed Mari’s father. But then, like now, Giuseppe had risked too much and stood to gain too much to abide any disobedience from Benito.
Benito, bent over a barrel of olive oil, crumpled to the ground like a sack of grapes. Sobbing and sniveling, Benito lay there upon the cool floor of the olive mill, his hairy buttocks hanging out, drool and tears issuing from his mouth and eyes.
“Oh, shut up,” said Giuseppe as he wiped his brow with his handkerchief and tucked in his shirt. “Stop that pathetic whimpering and take your punishment like a man.” That’s what Giuseppe’s uncle used to say to him. “And pull up your trousers.”
Benito did not move.
“I said, pull up your goddamn trousers, murderer.”
“No,” whimpered Benito through the mucus that clogged his mouth. “You made me. You tricked me.”
“I did no such thing,” answered Giuseppe. “You always loved Mari and hated her father. It was you who rigged the pulley system. You who killed him.”
“No,” cried Benito.
“Oh, yes, Benito. You killed him and I am the keeper of your secret. You owe me your very life. You would be drawn and quartered should the village ever discover the truth. Your flesh would be torn from your bones and left for vultures. Your name would never be spoken here again. It would be as if you never lived. And Mari, the one you love so much, she would spit and curse whenever a thought of you arose.”
Benito writhed upon the floor as if the words Giuseppe spoke proved a second defilement.
“And it is I, and I alone, who protects you,” Giuseppe continued with a chilling calmness. “You shall not fail me, Benito. You shall not fail me ever again.”
Giuseppe stepped back from where Benito lay. He walked over to the base of the stairs that led up to his office and picked up a wine bottle sitting there, a bottle infused with a massive dose of Fungi di Santo. He returned to Benito and knelt down. “Listen to me,” Giuseppe said with an odd tone of tenderness. “Pull up your pants and sit up.”
Benito did as he was told.
Giuseppe now set the bottle of wine before Benito. “This is a very special bottle of wine, my finest. Tonight, you are to bring it to the Good Padre. Tell him it is a gift from me, an apology. Tell him I am sorry, that I beg his forgiveness. Tell him I have forgiven Mari, that she has forgiven me, and that all is well in my house. Tell him I will pay a visit to the church in the morning and make my confession. Then you are to open the bottle of wine and insist on sharing a toast with him on my behalf. Tell him you cannot leave until you and he have toasted to peace. Fill his goblet full and watch him drink it down. Then share with him another toast, for the wine is good.” Giuseppe stared into Benito’s eyes. “Do you understand what I ask?”
Benito nodded yes.
“And you shall not fail me?”
Benito nodded.
“Serve me well and you will be much rewarded.” Giuseppe extended the back of his right hand before Benito’s face. “Now kiss my hand and tell me that you love me.”
Bite it, screamed La Piccola Voce, bite the filthy hand that ruins you, that has stolen your life from you. Scar him as he has scarred you!
But the little voice that ranted away inside Benito’s head could not undo the bizarre loyalty that bound him to Giuseppe. And with both his hands Benito took hold of Giuseppe’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “Ti amo,” he said. “I love you.”
In which We Learn
How Bobo & Benito Came to
Hug for the Very First Time
“Dove?”
The focaccia and cheese and tomato sauce made him do it. How could he not tell Mari what he’d made with their sauce? He was in such a state that he hardly recalled the donkey ride into the village. Thank God the moon was nearly full and the road to town free of bandits. He tied off his donkey in the brush outside the gates then snuck stealthily into the village. There, he saw the glow and heard the noise coming from the tavern. He figured here, in the shadow of an alley, with one eye on the tavern, was as good a place as any to lie in wait.
“Where?” Davido repeated an instant after reaching out from the alley’s shadow, collaring the fool, snatching him into the darkness and pinning him against the wall. Davido had been hiding for over an hour and the fool was the first person to exit the tavern whom he recognized.
It took Bobo’s eyes an instant to adjust to the darkness of the alley and the shock of being grabbed in such a manner. But as he made out the face before his, he knew immediately the meaning behind his abduction. Bobo saw the desperation upon the boy’s face and something inside him cracked. “There,” Bobo offered without hesitation; he pointed to a balcony some twenty paces off. “That’s her room,” he said in a whisper. “I believe she is there, and I know Giuseppe is not.”
Davido looked hard into the fool’s eyes, searching his face for the truth. After a moment, he loosened his grip upon the fool’s collar. “Are you truly a villain or do you just play at such?” Then Davido craned his neck to see if the coast was clear and headed off to Mari’s balcony.
Bobo leaned back against the alley wall and slowly slunk down as if he’d been deflated. The boy’s words echoed in his head: Are you truly a villain or do you just play at such? The question combined with the boy’s desperation pierced him like an arrow through his heart. Now he watched as the boy struggled to get a grip upon the building’s stones. It was not an easy face to climb. The bottom three feet were smooth marble and the boy’s foot kept sliding, making too much noise for such a risky operation.
He couldn’t stand it anymore. Bobo sprang up and ran to where the boy stood. The boy turned in panic. Bobo offered him a slight, conspiratorial smile then dropped onto his hands and knees, creating a stool of sorts. The boy now stepped onto Bobo’s lower back. Bobo felt his slight frame buckle—he never was much for physical labors—but his spine held true. At last, the boy found a handhold and the weight upon Bobo’s back lightened. Bobo stood up and pushed against the boy’s feet, helping him crest the balcony. Leaning over the balcony the boy nodded gratefully down at Bobo, then turned and gently rapped upon Mari’s door.
With haste, Bobo shuffled back to the alley and stepped into its shadow. Peering from around the corner, Bobo could not help but watch as the shutter doors opened and Mari stepped onto the balcony. He heard a noise: a sound like a metal chain rattling against stone—had Giuseppe shackled her by the ankle?
It was an archetypal sight for Bobo, something read about in countless stories, seen in plays and reenacted with Bobolito in puppet shows from the time of childhood: the star-crossed lovers in a desperate, moonlit embrace upon a balcony. The image cut to Bobo’s very core, and though he knew it was i
ndecent to spy upon two people during such an intimate moment, he could not look away. “Bitter, bitter fool,” Bobo whispered to himself as tears welled in his eyes, “look what you have done. Lent a willing hand in killing the only thing worth living for. Cruel, heartless fool, look how they love. What deed more wicked and worse, than to have played in the destruction of love so to hide myself and fill my purse? Is this the fool, is this the creature I’ve become, to stuff my face whilst love’s undone?”
“Huh!”
Bobo’s heart sank as he heard the breathy gasp come from the street just beside the alleyway. He knew that grunt anywhere. Bobo pressed himself against the wall to remain hidden and turned his head to find Benito, standing with a bottle of wine in his hand and his mouth agape, also dumbstruck by the sight of the lovers embracing on the balcony. Surely, thought Bobo with an immediacy and horror that was not at all in step with his temperament, if Benito were not dealt with quickly this would be the end of Mari and Davido. Something in Bobo snapped. All his wit, all his cunning and all his cowardice suddenly fled his being, and for the first time in his life, Bobo clenched his fist in violence and struck Benito squarely across the chin.
The blow was excruciating and Bobo felt for an instant that he might faint from the pain coursing through his hand. Benito, on the other hand, appeared to hardly register the punch whatsoever. Slowly, he turned in the direction from which it came. He seemed hesitant to take his eyes off Mari and Davido embracing upon the balcony, as if that was more important than suddenly being knocked across the face. But when he turned to his side and saw Bobo standing there, Benito’s emotions flooded not with pain, shock or anger, but desperation. And then Benito did the oddest thing: he stepped into the shadow of the alley, lifted his arms and pulled Bobo close into a tender hug and began to cry. And Bobo, for reasons he could not rightly explain, hugged Benito back and began to cry too.
In Which We Learn
the Difference Between
Knowing Long & Knowing Well
“I will kill him,” said Davido in the faintest of murmurs. “I will take a knife from the cupboard, sneak into his quarters and stab him through the heart.”
It was late. Mari’s exhausted body lay upon him. Davido could feel the cuff and chain binding Mari’s ankle scrape against his shin. They had been holding each other and making love off and on for hours. Quiet lovemaking, with their bodies squeezed so tightly together that their passions were nearly soundless, their voices muffled by lips pressed to cheeks. They did their best to keep the chain from rattling against the bed frame to which it was locked. They had no choice but to suppress both their ardor and angst, as they could faintly hear Giuseppe’s snores wafting from down the hall.
“No, my love,” answered Mari with a poignant smile that Davido felt against his raw and swollen cheek. Though she had not known her lover long, she knew him well enough to be certain he was no killer. “Killing him would mean only certain death for you and all your kin.”
“Then what?” asked Davido. “Do we take our own lives? Do we set a knife to our wrists?”
Mari inhaled deeply and then sighed. “I do not think you or I are made of such stuff.” She pressed her lips against his ear. “And I am not yet without hope.”
Davido smiled, sadly, ironically. “How can it be,” he said, “that I know you so little, yet feel as if I’ve known you forever?”
Mari felt the space where their cheeks touched moisten, their tears commingling. He was crying, which made her love him all the more. “I know not, my love.”
“Do you feel this too?”
“I do, my love, as if I have waited lifetimes to be with you again. Like some part of me that I did not know to be incomplete suddenly felt whole the moment I set eyes upon you.”
It was both the greatest and the saddest sentiment Davido had ever heard. “Then how,” he asked as he kissed her softly upon the cheek, “how can God permit a thing so heaven-sent to be denied on earth?”
“God,” Mari whispered, “permits what man allows.”
“And are we allowing this?”
“Well, we do not fight it.”
Davido turned his head slightly. He felt suddenly ashamed.
Mari felt the shift in her lover. “What, my love, is wrong?”
“Oh, Mari,” Davido sighed, “so much is wrong. I am an Ebreo. You are a Cattolico. What do I know of fighting? Ebrei, we do not fight. We run, we hide, we broker, we bribe, we do what must be done to survive. How can I fight? There would be so many. How can I do something I know nothing of?”
“How can we not?” answered Mari.
“I,” Davido began several times as if his desire to speak preceded the formation of his thoughts. “I … I will track you to the nunnery where you are sent. I … I can acquire the money—we have much of it hidden. I will buy your freedom. I have seen Nonno bribe many. I know how such things are done. I will buy your freedom. We will run, Mari. To Venice, to Genoa, to … to anywhere. We’ll take passage on a ship, to an island of Greece, to Cyprus, to Macedonia. Anywhere we can start anew.”
Mari leaned up on Davido’s chest and looked directly into his eyes. Her lips bent with a slight, sweet smile. She let her fingers linger as she brushed a bit of hair off his forehead and then said, “No.” “No?”
“No, Davido. I will not flee like some fugitive.”
“But Mari—”
“I shall not play the part of criminal. I shall not give him the satisfaction. This is my rightful home. Olives and grapes my ancestors planted, wine my grandfather made, oil my father pressed. We are not felons that must run from a crime.”
“But Mari, I am an Ebreo, and you, you a Cattolico.”
“So what of it?” Mari held her hands upon the sides of Davido’s face, their lips so close they shared the same breath. “What worth is my life if not lived with you? What matters of God or religion true, if I go to nunnery yet pray only for you? Every day, every moment of life, a torture, if I took a false husband and you a false wife. Is this what God wants, is this religion’s point and forum, to deceive the heart and live by paltry decorum? Is this what it means to be an Ebreo, to be a Cattolico?”
Davido felt as if he were suffocating. A horrendous fit of images, real and imagined, spun before his mind’s eye. He saw his farm and the fruits he loved; his Nonno as a young man stealing away from Colombo’s ship with a sackful of tomato seeds; a memory of his sister as she left home for her Courtesane training; the skinny ankles of the girl he was arranged to marry; the children asleep between the rows of tomato plants; his father and mother lying in bed and dying of plague. He felt three thousand years of ancestors standing on his heart, and two awesome forces ripping him apart. Again he said, “But Mari, I am an Ebreo and you a Cattolico.”
“And so what of it?” Mari too said again. “Though it may seem so, in our hands does not rest our religions’ fate, one less will not make their numbers any less great. Neither does threat of hell seem such a curse. I’ll risk it in the afterlife rather than guarantee it here on earth. For what could be a more gruesome hellfire, than by cowardice to squander our true love, to waste this right desire. We have, Davido, only to live for ourselves. And folk and village will in time care not whether I went to your side or you to mine, but will see the truth my heart tells me looms above, that if we choose each other, God will protect us, for God is real and God is love.”
“We should run, Mari. This is not a battle any man was born to win.”
“I cannot, my love. Running before fighting would prove a double sin. Giuseppe would appear the aggrieved and keep my lands, and as vengeance, take yours from your kin.”
Davido felt a great weight upon his chest, ten thousand pounds greater than the weight of Mari’s body. He felt such the coward. He had never raised a fist, never fought for anything. The only fight he’d ever won, he won by vomit. “But so many will rise against us.”
“Not so, Davido. There is less here than you think to dread, the monster has but one head.�
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“But what weapon would I wield?”
“Your heart! Your love, and if need be, your fists too.”
Davido looked desperately to Mari. His mouth fell open as if to speak, but no sound came out.
“Fear not, my love,” Mari said tenderly as she stroked his face. “I believe in you. You have more than enough heart to stand against this villain. I know this village. They may be cowards, but they are not killers. He is the coward, the petty tyrant who bullies and abuses, but he engenders the hidden scorn of all he misuses. If you stand against him and I stand with you, the villagers will choose and choose what’s true.”
“Do you think, Mari? Do you really believe so?”
Mari smiled at her lover, a smile so strong that it poured courage into Davido’s heart. “Oh, yes, my love, I do. It must be so. If not, what the point of life? How another moment proceed if not held by the secret belief that somehow, some way, good will succeed? Our love will win, Davido. It’s already done, my heart knows it as fact. For why would God make our love so perfect if God did not want us to act?”
Mari sunk her lips into his, and the lovers began to kiss fully, deeply, hopefully—tasting both the salt from their tears and the sweetness from their soon-to-come victory. Davido slid his hands down Mari’s back and once again was overcome by that sublime feeling that his fingertips were each a living and breathing entity. Her skin, how could he describe such a feeling? He let his fingers luxuriate in the detail and nuance of her flesh; the rise of her muscles that ran along her spine; the upward roll from her lower back to the mounds of her backside—mounds of heaven! The two most wonderful, ripe and luscious things he had ever touched. He would compare them to tomatoes, but no tomato could withstand the wondrous kneading and pulling like Mari’s ripe fruit.
