by Adam Schell
“Mark her well,” Giuseppe repeated, paying no heed to Benito’s shock. He’d been conjuring this idea for the better part of a week. “Mark her nose, her eyes and her pretty little face, for therein, Benito, lies our ace.”
Benito was annoyed. “What is it you wish Benito to know?”
“The theme with which we’ll play the Ebreo.”
Benito grunted. It was all he could think to do.
“Ten years past when my life took hold,” Giuseppe continued in a near-whisper, “I made the moves that were quite bold, and through those moves this mill and that daughter I did inherit, she who thinks no more of me than a ferret. But by the village Mari’s adored, and it’s for them my plan’s in store. Now, are you positive of what you saw that market day?”
“Ay, the young Ebreo and Mari shared romantic play.”
“And after market, forbidden fruit she did find and so quickly lose her mind that she bit into it, letting its juice ooze down her chin?”
“By my life, Giuseppe, ‘twas the very sin.”
“Oh, then we have the finest Italian theme with which to lay our cunning scheme. ’Tis epic, age-old, even biblical in style, an illicit love ‘tween Ebreo and gentile. For what better way to make our case than to lay the shame upon my daughter’s face? As we play the fear that in this town runs thick, that a Cristiana daughter has met with an Ebreo pri—”
“Ha!” Benito blurted. He could not stand to hear Giuseppe say the word. “’Tis a fine plan,” he lied.
“And thanks to our good and noble stupid priest, the thing’s to commence at our coming feast. Now, at the feast we’ll deepen our ploy by making a hero of this Ebreo boy. Then, soon after, once we’ve come to trust, all will be undone by a most unholy lust. And the gravest of fears shall be proved so, that we’ve been deceived by the serpent Ebreo. And the love we did lend both true and free, the Ebreo will defile by eating the Cristiana Mari.”
“But how,” said Benito faintly, “how do you know she’ll love him?”
“Oh, Benito,” Giuseppe chortled, “you know much of whores, but nothing of girls. Like Venus locked in a cage, I know the turnings of a youthful rage. How anguish of heart is grieved through the loins, you watch the way in which they join. For as surely as the farmer does reap what he sow, there’s more than one way to raise Cupid’s bow. Pain. I will pain her heart and plague her mind and of the Ebreo speak unkind. I’ll abuse and insult, torment and demean, commingling youthful love with youthful spleen. She is a local cow who doth love to chew the homegrown cud, so imagine her fear as I speak of sending her off to marry blue blood. Oh, I’ll have it so nothing seems more splendid to her eyes than loving the very thing that I despise. And just as Eve was drawn to fruit of the forbidden tree, she’ll flock to the Ebreo for hate of me.”
Benito felt his mind fracture and through the crack, like molten lava scorching everything in its path, came the mocking little voice. You coward, it burned inside his brain, you pathetic coward. First you kill the father and now you destroy the daughter. Take this spoon and kill him now. Bash his very brains out.
Giuseppe heard the sound of a wagon and glanced over his shoulder. Bobo the Fool approached, conducting a two-horse-drawn cart that carried a good two dozen cases of wine. It was time for him to go; he had business in Lucca to attend to.
Giuseppe leaned in to Benito to quickly finish his instructions. “Now listen closely, for here’s what you’re to know, to make a hero of our young Ebreo. When the bravest men line up to start the Drunken Saint’s Race, among them Benito will have a space.”
The news squelched the little voice inside Benito’s head and he turned to face Giuseppe.
“Yes,” Giuseppe said, returning Benito’s boyish smile with a smirk. “You will race the race.”
And in an instant, as was so often the case, Benito loved Giuseppe. He had always dreamt of racing in the feast.
“But second shall be your place,” said Giuseppe matter-of-factly.
And in an instant, as was so often the case, Benito felt all the love in his heart transform to hate.
“You will lose,” Giuseppe continued, “lose so we may win. For in order to hate the sinner and avenge the sin, the Ebreo must first be a hero and the hero must win.” Giuseppe put his hands on Benito’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Now I’m off to Lucca. More details upon my return. But in the meantime, tell no one. Be shrewd. Deal with a sly hand, as now we start in earnest our play for Ebreo land.”
“Vaffanculo,” Benito whispered to himself as he watched Giuseppe and Bobo roll away from the mill in the wagon. Benito returned to the simultaneous actions of stirring the olive vessel and staring inside the barn at Mari as she prepped the salt and bay leaves for the next vessel. Tist, tist tist, La Piccola Voce clucked his demon tongue. You know much of whores, but nothing of girls.
“Oh, shut up,” Benito murmured. “You’ll see.”
You, scoffed La Piccola Voce, Giuseppe’s willing whore? I would sooner entrust your vendetta to a boy in a dress. You’ll do nothing of honor but much of shame. You will be as you’ve always been.
“Oh, you’ll see, and so too will Giuseppe.” Benito took to stirring the olives with a bit more vigor. Again, he pressed himself into the vessel. “Crude Benito, here for all to mock. Lewd Benito, who’s deflowered the flock. Benito, bawdy, lowly and rank, the butt of all childish pranks. So mock me, bring it all in heaps, say I copulated with sheep. Run me over with your large words, hear from me what you only want heard. For I remember, you coward bully, ‘twas I who undid that pulley. And the act that gave you wife and land put nary a penny in my hand. But this time Benito shall not toil in vain to have Giuseppe make the gain. No, while he plays the Ebreo and plays Mari, I’ll play along and play all three. So mock me, ’tis better I be mistook, for Benito’s not as dumb as he might look. And whilst you laugh, I operate in stealth, for soon I’ll be the man with wife and wealth.”
In Which We Learn
of Little-Known Saint Rachel
“Surely, Priest,” said the Meducci guard, “there must be a patron saint of lost causes and impossible odds?” Davido felt his mouth go dry and his chest run with sweat under his heavy robe. Could this be a test, he thought, fearful that he knew not of such a saint? “With Cristo no cause is lost.” It was all he could think to say.
“Ah,” said the older and friendlier-looking of the pair of Guardia Nobile di Meducci who had stayed their magnificent horses before Davido’s donkey-drawn wagon. “The priest is young, but wise.”
Davido gave a slight bow of the head. “But I am not a priest.”
“No?” said the older guard. “Well, what are you, then?”
“A novice monk, a friar of Il Ordo Fratrum Minorum,” answered Davido in proper Latin, just as Nonno would have.
“Oh,” said the older guard, genuinely pleased. “A Franciscan.”
Davido nodded.
“Long ago, in Assisi,” said the older guard, “I took a wound, and were it not for the Order of the Little Brothers, dare I say, I would not be here today.”
Good God, thought Davido with a jolt of fear, he’ll know more about the monks than I do.
“And what of him?” said the gruffer, younger-looking of the pair, who had yet to speak. He pointed to Davido’s uncle, Culone, who was passed out asleep in the wagon-bed. He too was dressed as a monk.
Davido smiled. “The brother does like his wine.”
“Ah,” said the younger guard with a tart chortle, “a little brother of the drunken order.”
The older guard ignored his partner’s comment. “Well, your kin did aid me once, perhaps you can again? God knows we could use a blessing for this fool’s errand.”
Even through his panic, Davido could hear Nonno’s voice inside his head. Keep your mouth shut. Nod. Play the part. The less you talk, the wiser you’ll seem.
The older guard leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Will you swear to secrecy, young monk?”
“I swear only to God,
” said Davido, trying his best to be monk-like. “But if something troubles you, speak your piece. It shall not leave my lips.”
“Well,” said the older guard, seemingly impressed with the young monk’s manner, “monks are not known to be big talkers, are they?”
“Only big drinkers,” said the younger guard caustically.
The older guard nodded at Davido apologetically for his partner. “The Duke of Tuscany has disappeared from his country villa. Not seen for a week now.”
“Who can blame him,” said the younger guard, “with a sticchio for a wife and frocio for a son?”
The older guard’s countenance turned suddenly fierce. He shot his associate a disapproving glance. “Enough!” he said and then returned his attention to Davido. “Have you seen him, perhaps,” he asked, gesturing to the surrounding countryside, “along the road or in any of these rhymer villages?”
“Well, I know not his look, but I’ve been upon this road since morning,” Davido lied convincingly, “when I set out from Siena, and I have seen only shepherds with their flocks and farmers in the fields.”
“Ah,” sighed the older guard, “then you see how hard our charge?”
Davido nodded.
“Then give unto us a blessing before we part, good friar.”
“Well,” answered Davido, mimicking exactly the line he’d heard Nonno use once before in a similar situation, “it is God and priests who bless and monks who meditate and pray.”
“Then lead us in prayer.” The guard did not wait for a reply and swung a leg over his horse and dismounted.
“Ay,” grunted the younger guard, clearly displeased.
Davido saw the older guard’s eyes widen with anger as he turned to his associate. “Figlio di Puttana! You will dismount your horse right now and bend your knee in prayer,” commanded the older guard with a severity that nearly caused Davido to leap from his wagon seat, “or I will stuff your goddamn balls up your horse’s ass.”
Immediately, the hierarchy became supremely clear as the younger guard grimaced, but dismounted nonetheless.
“Sorry, Friar,” said the older guard, and then, in a rather knightly fashion, he staked his sword into the earth with both hands, held tight its hilt and took a knee in front of Davido’s wagon. “Come,” he beckoned Davido and then bowed his head in supplication.
Davido felt his pulse quicken and the muscles of his body tighten. Usually these exchanges never went further than extending the sign of the cross to a passing stranger. On the few occasions when they had, Nonno had been there to handle the situation; but even in those instances, it had never gone this far. The travel ruse that Nonno had thought up long ago did not extend much beyond dressing like a monk in a heavy frock, wearing a large cross around the neck and knowing a few key facts about the order of Franciscan friars. Alas, Davido did not know a single Cristiano prayer.
The younger guard knelt alongside his partner and assumed the same knightly position. Gripped with fear, Davido could not take his eyes off the pair of guards. Though little more than their faces and forearms were uncovered, their potential for ferocity was well apparent. These were real men of war. Their hands and forearms were the stuff of Michelangelo’s sculpture, heavy with muscle and vein, marked by the real-life scars and burns of battle. Their necks were thick from years of wearing weighty helmets that may have kept their brains from being bashed out, but did not spare their faces from the traumas of their vocation. The pair of them made the heartiest of farmers look like altar boys.
The older guard again beckoned Davido: “Come, young friar, we await your prayer.”
Davido let go his donkeys’ reins and rose from the wagon seat. Good God, he prayed first for himself, sweet sister in heaven, help me. It was the right spirit to beseech, and as Davido took a knee before the pair and closed his eyes, suddenly words came to his lips.
“Brothers in God,” said Davido, recalling his favorite line from the Talmudi 12 and one of the few he had committed to memory, “it is said that the mind is the essence of man, and when we think holy thoughts we enter a holy place. So let us bring our minds to holiness. By thought let us turn this patch of road into the holiest of temples. By invoking her name, let us invite the presence of little-known Saint Rachel,” said Davido, spontaneously elevating his sister to sainthood, “patron of impossible odds, seemingly lost causes, self-sacrifice and protector of donkeys. So that our prayers may be better heard and better heeded, we will pray in the tongue that Rachel spoke. The language of Gesù il Cristo and his Apostles.” Davido lowered his head and so too did the Meducci guards.
Kneeling there, in the middle of the ancient road built by the Romans, and speaking in an even more ancient Hebrew, Davido softly sang Psalm 23, the Shepherd’s Prayer. It was his sister’s favorite prayer and, since her death, his favorite prayer too. A prayer he had sung a thousand times in the Sinagoga of Florence. In truth, it was the only prayer he believed in. For as surely as he had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, which as a boy he always took to be the plague that stole the life of his mother and father, something, some divine power had protected him. And as he prayed he realized all the ways that this prayer he loved so much had manifested in his life. That not a rod and staff, but a shovel and a hoe did comfort him. That he did lie down in green pastures, fields that grew ripe with pomodori. That the country air and rains had been like still waters restoring his soul. Surely, prayed Davido, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Despite the fact that there was no Saint Rachel in the Cattolico lineage, nor any lineage, to the pair of battle-hardened Meducci guards the ancient Hebrew prayer sounded sacred and mystical. To the older guard, especially, the prayer was like a healing balm offering him the transcendent moment that his soul and psyche so craved. A moment in which all the battles he had fought and lives he had taken were pardoned and the delicious elixir of forgiveness washed over him.
The prayer finished and Davido allowed silence to fill the space for a moment. “May Saint Rachel guide us in the service of our lives and fulfillment of our duty,” said Davido, returning his tongue to Italian. “Amen.”
“Amen,” repeated the Meducci guards.
Slowly, Davido opened his eyes. He noticed tears streaming from the eyes of the older guard.
“Thank you, thank you, Brother,” said the older guard. He clasped Davido’s hand and kissed it. The guard reached inside his tunic and took out a purse filled with coins and placed it in Davido’s hands. “Here,” he said, “I have done much ill in my years. I have waged war and taken the lives of many men. I have contradicted my conscience and fought for unworthy causes and been on the side of the unrighteous. You, though, and your brothers do the work of God on earth.”
The older guard held Davido’s hands tight to the purse, letting him know that a rejection of his generosity was not an option. He turned then to his junior guard and with a glance communicated what a thousand words could not.
A grimace crossed the younger guard’s face as he reconciled himself to the inevitable. He reached into his frock and removed his coin bag. “Here,” he said, handing the purse over to Davido, “for the worthy deeds you and your kind do.”
Doing his best to appear more humble than amazed, Davido took the purses, bowed his head, then rose to his feet.
“Godspeed to you, young friar,” said the older guard, and then he touched his heart. “You have given me my patron saint: Saint Rachel.”
“And Godspeed to you both.” Davido made the sign of the cross as the pair of Meducci guards spurred their horses and rode off.
Davido took a deep breath and as he exhaled he found himself chuckling: a chuckle of disbelief. He thought to himself proudly, I’m finally getting some interesting stories of my own! And like that, the stress of the last week lifted from his shoulders. It had, indeed, been a difficult week. The usual banter and laughter that characterized his relationship with Nonno was abse
nt; in fact, the pair had spoken very little beyond discussing the practicalities of the farm. There was much on both their minds, and for most of the week Davido had been anxiously rehearsing the great battle of ideas he was expecting to have with his grandfather—Nonno advocating the importance of keeping the wedding date; Davido, the necessity of going to the Festa and honoring their neighbors. But to Davido’s surprise, the battle never transpired. On Friday evening, after a few days of less than happy contemplation, Nonno simply informed Davido that on Sunday he would be leaving for Florence to postpone the wedding. “What’s done is done,” Nonno said to his grandson. “You’ve made certain of that. It would be foolish to give the natives an excuse to hate us. There is more to lose in offending them, than our own.”
Davido knew instantly what Nonno meant. He had heard the stories on a number of occasions: how Colombo’s ignorance and arrogance so often left behind a pile of bodies. Nonno then told Davido to prepare two wagons, four donkeys and four sets of monks’ outfits for a Sunday sunrise departure. Upon one wagon, Davido and Uncle Culone were to travel south to Pitigliano to deliver to the community a wagonful of pomodori and other fruits and vegetables, and to inform Rabbi Lumaca, a longtime friend to Nonno and to whom Nonno was greatly indebted, that the wedding was postponed until “a later date.” Nonno also handed Davido a sealed letter that he was to deliver to Rabbi Lumaca. Upon the other wagon, Nonno and Uncle Uccello would be setting off for a few days in Florence to do what needed be done there.
“A later date?” Davido had questioned with a combination of relief and apprehension.
“Yes,” said Nonno with a touch of exasperation.
“When?”
“The autumn and winter are far too wet and miserable for an old man to be traveling back and forth to Florence,” said Nonno. “We will see what comes with the spring when we go to Florence for Purim.”
“The spring?” repeated Davido. “But what of the pomodori? Seeds need to be germinated, soil tilled and amended, seedlings planted.”