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 indecent 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