Tomato Rhapsody

by Adam Schell

  “Why not keep your namesake, Bobo, and make a fool once more of this crowd’s fancy?” said the Good Padre as he lifted a tomato from the stand. “Here, I shall eat one first, then you shall follow.”

  It was not a particularly large tomato the Good Padre held, but the fact it fit so easily into his mouth and was masticated and swallowed so effortlessly mesmerized Bobo.

  “Now, Bobo,” said the Good Padre, “you try, and I’ll be first to fill your mug.”

  Though he saw the movement of the Good Padre’s lips, Bobo’s mind was elsewhere, entwined in an internal struggle between vision and thought, thought and vision, and he didn’t register a word said. Goodness knows how long Bobo might have stood there staring had the sloppy barnyard voice of Benito not cracked his stupor. “Listen to the Good Padre, fool, and eat your breakfast.”

  It was just enough of a barb to return Bobo’s wits to focus on what he’d been paid to do. “Oh, no,” said Bobo, eyes riveted upon the Good Padre, “Bobo doesn’t care for breakfast.”

  “Ha,” mocked Mucca, “both a coward and a fool.”

  “Indeed,” said Bobo, turning his eyes to Mucca, “for cowardice art my golden rule. Good and honest cowardice is what sets the fool apart, to wear upon his sleeve what most carry in their heart. For cowardice and suspicion is a good and natural thing, dear cousin. ’Tis why Bobo shan’t eat one, till the priest eat a dozen.”

  The crowd released a rather uproarious noise, well pleased with the words and challenge their fool had poised.

  “A dozen tomatoes?” mused the Good Padre with a laugh.

  “Indeed,” answered Bobo. “Let me make it simple, pointed and plain: there’s more to suspicion than meets the common brain. For all animals, be they cows, bulls, sheep, fowl or pigs, know to avoid certain berries and rotted figs. But what in a beast we accept and abide—suspicion—in a human, we condemn and deride. Even animals do not eat from any hand in which food is thrust. No, ’tis time and constancy that gains their trust.”

  “Bobo is right!” shouted Vincenzo. “We all know, our fool is not so foolish.”

  “Ay,” said Mucca,” ’tis spindly limbs on you, Bobo, but a fat brain.”

  “Indeed,” said the Good Padre amusedly, “fat on fancy and fallacy. For this wit and this logic, and all that it begs, scrambles virtue and reason like eggs. To think, the ill advice you lend this hamlet.”

  “Well, one must crack some eggs to make an omelet.”

  My God, thought Davido—the speech, the rhyme, this village, that girl, those ankles—how wonderful, how unlike Florence.

  “So Bobo sayeth again, dear cousins: I’ll not eat one till the padre eat a baker’s dozen.”

  “Now a baker’s dozen?” said the Good Padre.

  “Indeed. The number does know and will tell. For twelve is a number straight from the Book, plus, eat one extra, so not to be mistook. Twelve, a number of common yoke to both the foreign and local folk. As by the number twelve he shall imbibe the number of the Hebrew tribes. Plus, a little known fact of some surprise: twelve was the number of Moses’s spies.”

  Davido looked quickly at Nonno for affirmation of the fool’s last statement and with an upward crinkle to his thick eyebrows and downward bend to his lips, Nonno gave it. Some fool, thought Davido.

  Bobo continued. “As twelve are the months that rule the year, as twelve are the Apostles we hold dear. Hmm, well, minus one. And let us remember not in the least, dodici piu uno are the days till our coming feast.” Bobo pointed toward the statue of the Drunken Saint. “So, let the priest eat twelve, plus one. Then we’ll wait a twelve-plus-one-day week and at the feast we’ll have the truth we seek. So on the day of our patron saint, let us judge then if he be healthy or faint.”

  The crowd erupted with approval. It was a rousing performance by their fool and if it mocked them they weren’t so aware of it.

  “I will agree,” the Good Padre said loudly so to be heard over the crowd, “for the people have spoken, but to this I’m to add a token. If in thirteen days both fruit and health are to be judged, then in thirteen days we bury this grudge, and all agree to honor my request, that at our feast the Ebrei be our guest. And if on that day my health be of perfect accord, you hereby vow before the Holy Lord, that at the Feast of our Drunken Saint, with the pomodoro each and every one shall acquaint.”

  Bobo imagined that this was just the kind of result Giuseppe was hoping for. It couldn’t have gone any better, the priest was even foolish enough to say thirteen aloud, and Bobo shouted out to galvanize the crowd’s sentiments: “’Tis a fair shake through and through, if at the feast your health be without woe, then we all eat this fruit of the Ebreo.”

  The Good Padre turned his gaze to Nonno and Davido. “And for you, our neighbors,” he said, “do you agree to be guests at our feast?”

  A thousand excuses flushed through Nonno’s mind, not the least of which was his grandson’s wedding, but before a single one could leave his mouth, he heard the voice of Davido.

  “T’would be an honor.” Davido spoke up so quickly he didn’t even know it was his mouth that had uttered these words. But it was his mouth, driven by his heart to say or do anything that would keep him out of Florence on that day and keep him near the girl who had such perfect ankles.

  “Then take heed, my sweet cousins,” said the Good Padre as he lifted a tomato to the crowd’s attention, “for the priest is to devour a baker’s dozen. And as for you, gentle neighbors,” he said whilst turning to Davido, “think up a recipe most sublime, for we all eat pomodori in twelve-plus-one-days’ time.”

  With all eyes upon him, the physically enormous and mentally bewildering Good Padre bit into the first of his thirteen tomatoes and thought about the absolute deliciousness of the fruit and sublimity of God’s creation. Giuseppe thought about his own brilliance, how perfectly the morning had unfolded and the various possibilities for his next maneuver. Benito thought about the little voice barking away inside his head, incessantly repeating that he was a villain and a coward, and that after what he’d done—the horrible, murderous thing he’d done all those years past—Mari would never love him. Nonno thought about his grandson Davido, all the damage he’d just done to family and reputation, and about the trip he’d have to take to Florence to postpone the wedding. Cosimo thought about the absurdity of his life, about the reflection of his beloved courtesan that he caught in the tomato boy’s eyes and about the memories of a childhood playmate thought dead thirty years ago, now suddenly before him. Bobo the Fool thought about money and wine and how many coins his performance today might loosen from the tight fist of Giuseppe and how long those coins could keep him drunk. Luigi Campoverde thought about the Love Apples in his sack and wondered if his boss, who particularly enjoyed things that offended his wife and the Church, would like the fruit’s flavor.

  With eyes set solidly upon the sweet-looking tomato boy, Mari thought about how much she’d like to be the one eating his Love Apples and about how she would manage to survive for thirteen days without his face to gaze at. And Davido, well, Davido turned to look at the splendid olive girl, her sturdy wrists and strong ankles, and thought not of the relief of a ruined wedding or the fear of an irate grandfather, but of love— love and tomato sauce.

  OLIVES

  In which We Learn

  the Unusual History of the

  Good Padre’s Pigmentation

  The story of how the Good Padre came to be such a shade of eggplant purple begins with Fuka-Kenta, a witch doctor from a small tribe of natives located in the western jungle highlands of the Dark Continent. Because witch doctors were commanded to live alone in the highest regions to be closer to their ancestors, Fuka-Kenta lived on the mountainous slopes a half day’s walk from his people’s village. Upon each full moon, Fuka-Kenta would venture into the village for three days to cure the sick, depossess the possessed and relay messages from the recently deceased, especially those who’d died with a stone still on their heart.

  At abou
t the time Fuka-Kenta reached the height of his powers, when he had seen the monsoon rains come and go more times than he could remember, he descended from the mountaintop to discover that a group of men with skin as pale and pink as the underbelly of a hippopotamus had settled in the village. Fuka-Kenta had only been away for one cycle of the moon, but he was concerned by how much sickness had descended upon the village in such a short time. It seemed that the fire demon Wimba, in a form Fuka-Kenta had never before seen, had afflicted many of the children and some of the elders. The demon made their bodies hot to the touch and caused their flesh to break with small boils and their stomachs to retch yellowish bile.

  Fuka-Kenta had never seen men such as these, and he’d never seen Wimba come when the moon was full; for as long as he had lived, the fire demon had only appeared when the moon was hiding. The pale men did not seem war-like, but Fuka-Kenta could not see the light of the Asase Yaa in their eyes and this troubled him greatly. He had never known a man, be he enemy or friend, who did not glow with the Great Mother’s light.

  There was much about the pale ones that Fuka-Kenta found suspicious, from their heavy brown robes and the totems of two crossed sticks that they wore around their necks to their size, smell and behavior. They were enormous creatures, two heads taller than Fuka-Kenta’s people, yet their flesh appeared soft and tender, and their feet, though large and hairy, could not carry them about unless covered in animal skin and wood. They lumbered when they walked and grimaced when they sat. They moved awkwardly about the jungle, banging their heads into vines and branches. They jumped when the monkeys howled and scurried whenever leaves rustled. In general, they seemed ill conceived and ill designed. But how could that be? For as monkeys have tails from which to hang and birds feathers so they may fly, the Great Mother created all creatures with perfection. Perhaps, thought Fuka-Kenta, Anansi, the trickster god, had dropped the pale ones from the sky or belched them up from the swampy lands to the east.

  Fuka-Kenta hid from the pale ones until nightfall allowed for closer inspection. He was amazed by what he heard, smelled and saw. The pale ones made noise in their sleep, like a gaggle of warthogs—a sound so great it drowned out the chirping of night birds, the croaking of frogs, the creaking of insects and the howling of monkeys. Their bodies gave off an odor like that of female apes in the ripe of their springtime rut—a rank and sour musk. Their smell drew the insects to them, and even by the faint moonlight Fuka-Kenta could see that any exposed flesh was red and raw, swollen with bites and broken open from scratching. These pale ones had prodigious amounts of hair sprouting from their faces that looked and felt to Fuka-Kenta like the long and stringy moss that hung from Bubinga trees.

  At dawn the pale ones would rise and chant strange incantations while moving beads with their fingers and touching the wooden sticks around their necks. Their ritual seemed to be some kind of worship, Fuka-Kenta assessed, but who could be foolish enough to stir the gods so early when it was well known they do not like to be awoken before the sun? And what gods would tolerate such joyless prayer? No beating of the drum, no slapping of the thighs, no dancing, no dressing in paint and feathers, no laughing of children, no telling of the stories that the gods love to hear.

  With so much sickness among the villagers and with the strange men about, Fuka-Kenta returned to the mountain-top to ask his ancestors for a vision. He drank a tea made from the bark of young hatta vines, which opened his ear to his ancestors. But when their voices arrived, they carried no laughter or delight. Instead, the ancestors told Fuka-Kenta that the pale ones were from a land that did not dance to the drum or listen to the Great Mother’s whisper. They were wayward sons, bound to bring much harm upon the Great Mother’s land and children until the day they returned to suckle from her bosom.

  Fuka-Kenta awoke from his trance knowing exactly what to do. He would share the sacred hatta tea with the pale ones to open their ears to the whisper and way of the Great Mother. This he believed would protect the village, please the ancestors and prevent the spilling of blood; but when he returned to his village and saw the condition of his people, a great rage filled him and he put the sacred powder aside. The fire demon Wimba had spread and nearly half of the villagers now burned and blistered with disease. But it was not sickness that enraged Fuka-Kenta and prompted his massacre. In fact, Fuka-Kenta did not know why he felt such rage, for the simple reason that his people and their language had no expression or term for shame. But it was with a sense of shame that the children of his village had come to look upon themselves. They had taken to wearing sheaths that covered their parts of joy and creation. The women, whose bosoms used to hang and sway openly, now wore garments to cover them. And the men, whose power and virility had made them both great hunters and loyal fathers, bowed their heads in defeat, too sick and weak to hunt and provide for their families.

  Come nightfall, as the pale ones slept, Fuka-Kenta conjured the spirit of Kuli, the Great Lioness, and prepared himself for the ritual of bringing death. One by one, Fuka-Kenta approached the pale ones and plunged a sharpened and slightly curved buffalo horn into their hearts. Fuka-Kenta had searched throughout the village to make sure he had brought death upon every last stranger, when, in the stillness of predawn, he came upon our Good Padre tending to the sick in a hut on the outskirts of the village. Fuka-Kenta, who had been stalking and killing with the stealth of a jaguar, moved within inches of the Good Padre, when suddenly, he heard the goddess Kuli whisper in his ear. Stop, she said, this life is not for the taking. Bring him to the mountain, instructed Kuli, and cast your magic upon him. Turn his skin like your skin, his mind like your mind, his heart like your heart. Then send him back to his people as a lion of the Great Mother’s light.

  And so, with a handful of sleeping powder tossed into his face and the help of many men, the enormous pale one was carried to the mountaintop. There, Fuka-Kenta and his helpers fed the pale one potions and pastes of ground-up yams and hatta vines, which sustained his body, but also transported his mind to the timeless, painless realm of the ancestors and the spirits. Fuka-Kenta and his men broke the man’s nose and stuffed a small gourd into each nostril, so that when his nose healed and re-formed it was like their noses. They rubbed a poisonous ointment made from tree frogs into his scalp, which would forever keep him bald. They tied a heavy stone to his penis to stretch it and make it long like theirs. They used the slenderest of bamboo needles to prick every inch of his pale skin with a million holes, then submerged him for months on end in a pit filled with the dark juice of the yamba 11.

  For nine full trips around the sun that the Good Padre later would have only a vague, dream-like recollection of, Fuka-Kenta chanted prayers, whispered secrets and worked his transformational magic upon the Good Padre—magic that widened his nose, stretched his penis and colored his skin. Magic that opened the Good Padre’s inner ear to the voice of the ancestors, the animals, the plants, the wind and lent him a power that he was entirely oblivious to. Magic that forever would confound the eyes and hearts of all the wayward pale ones and cause the Good Padre to appear an inexplicable shade of eggplant purple that reflected the light and laughter of the Great Mother upon every living thing.

  11 A large jungle beet distinct for its purple-black color, nutritional potency and brilliant dye.

  In which Temptation

  Finds Two Takers

  What?” Mari stopped the motion of her arm as she wiped down an olive jar and turned to face Benito. Benito was sitting on the wagon-bed doing nothing while Mari broke down the stand, and though she was looking and speaking right at him, Benito’s eyes and ears didn’t register a thing. All his cognitive senses were currently overwhelmed by an awful jealousy churning in his stomach and a little voice barking inside his head. He had seen it all, every appalling instant. The way Mari came to the Ebreo’s defense, the hesitant, amorous glances they shared, the way they both nearly smiled when the Good Padre invited the Ebrei to the feast.

  “Good God, Benito,” Mari said sharply. �
��Had I a mirror, even you would be appalled.” Mari dropped her shoulders, let her posture slouch and her mouth fall open in mimicry of Benito.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re staring,” said Mari, “horribly staring.”

  In response, Benito straightened his posture and turned his face away from Mari. Lifting the jug of wine at his side, he took a slug.

  “Now, please,” Mari said, returning her attention to the stand, “move your ass off that wagon and get thee gone.”

  “Well,” snorted Benito as he slid onto his feet, “after a long day’s work a mug of ale does beckon.”

  Mari scoffed. “So the miscreant does reckon.”

  “The what?” said Benito, a touch of upset in his tone.

  “Oh, shut up, Benito.” Mari lifted an olive jar from the stand. “You heard well what I said and know well what I mean. A long day for you, maybe, but work, hardly.” Mari frowned at Benito as she set the jar on the wagon-bed. “’Tis a good thing the Good Padre was on hand and blood did not spill.”

  “Is that what you think,” said Benito, “that I would commit such ill?”

  “No, you, think? Hardly the wit and hardly the will. You are merely the mongrel who does his master’s bidding. Now, fetch off to the tavern. I’m sure there is a bone in store.”

  “Benito does no man’s bidding.”

  “Oh, good God, Benito, who are you kidding? Giuseppe doth keep you on a short, taut leash. And while you may be too deaf and blind a knave, ’tis a stupid fool who thinks he’s free when he’s a slave. Now, get thee gone. Your master awaits.”

  A stupid fool, laughed La Piccola Voce from inside Benito’s head, she sure enough has you pegged.

  “Vaffanculo,” Benito snapped back at the little voice.

  “What did you say?” Mari turned around, her nostrils flaring.

  Benito stood there with his mouth agape. He had not meant to speak aloud.