his monk’s robe over Mari and hurriedly escort her back to his farm like a hired servant leading an old monk between monasteries. Of how the hours went by in each other’s company. Of how Mari spoke of the death of her father and the living death of her mother, the annoyance of Benito and torments of Giuseppe. Of how Davido spoke of the plague in Florence, his parents’ demise and the death of his sister (though he did not say how she died). And of how finding someone who could relate fully to the sadness that always sits in the heart of a child who’s lost a parent brought them both a feeling of emotional kinship that equally matched their more lusty desires for each other. Of how Davido kept stealing downward glances to gaze upon Mari’s wondrous little toes, shaped like baby eggplants, her ankles, not too thick, nor too thin, but perfect and strong. Of how Mari breathed in a little deeper each time she passed near Davido and how his musk of body odor mixed with the slightest scent of cypress formed a smell so delicious to her that if it were a pudding she would have eaten a bucketful. And of how their simple lunch of tomatoes and olives and cheese and wine and figs and bread and olive oil was the tastiest meal either of them had ever experienced.

And how it all began so innocently as Davido shared with Mari his difficulty in making a proper sauce from the tomato, given that cooked tomatoes became too acidic. And of Mari’s simple suggestion to do what she did for the olive and add red wine. Of how they emptied basket after basket of ripe tomatoes into the enormous cauldron at the center of the barn. Of how it was Mari’s idea to crush the tomatoes the way women crush the grapes, rolling up pants and skirt and climbing into the cauldron. And of how titillating it felt to hold each other up and balance on each other as the thigh-high heaping of tender tomatoes burst under heel and squished between toes. How it was Mari who first squished a tomato onto the side of Davido’s head. Of how their tomato fight grew into tomato wrestling, their bodies slipping and wriggling against each other. Of the energy that grew inside them and between them, until that energy took on a life of its own and they were no longer Davido and Mari, but something else, something ancient that seemed to know the other in a way that transcended knowingness, and of how this energy was like a madness. Of how Mari used her fingers to paint tomato pulp across the lips of Davido. And of how their lips then came together mixing tongues and tomatoes as they kissed. Of how they kissed and licked each other with mouths so open that it was as if they wanted to eat through the other’s flesh. How kissing in itself was not enough. How clothes— anything that kept their bodies apart—became an enemy to them until they finally felt their naked flesh press against each other for the very first time. How the shaft of Davido’s pisello pressed against the soft muff of Mari’s farfalla. And of how, as their bodies slid downward into the mash and pulp of tomatoes, something else rose upward, spinning and reeling and twisting and turning until neither Davido nor Mari knew what was up or down, only what was together. How they pulled onto and into each other’s bodies, smashing tomatoes between their bellies. How the moan that came from Mari’s mouth was the greatest sound Davido had ever heard. And of how the act did not last long—a thrust, a sigh, an ecstatic clench—yet seemed to last forever. How time melted away as if there was no such thing. How their bodies twitched and spasmed as an eruption rose up through them, between them. And of how, for a sublime moment, they entirely disappeared into each other, losing all sense of where their bodies began and ended.

This is what Menzogna would want us to know. How it was that Davido and Mari made love for the very first time in a cauldron filled with crushed tomatoes.

They had been cooking for hours. It had been Mari’s idea. It was just too many good tomatoes to waste. They’d stoked the fire and swung the cauldron atop the iron fire ring—an invention that Mari found