tangle of limbs and leaves that slumbered away the afternoons. And on the occasion when his curious siesta practices were called into question, Davido simply replied that they were a recipe for sweet dreams. And indeed they were. After growing up amongst the reeking, congested labyrinth of Florence’s ghetto, these rolling acres of farmland and forest that Davido now called home carried a breeze so restorative that in thirteen months a lifetime of foul smells had been nearly eviscerated from the corridors of his nostrils. That was, at least, until this last visit burned the ghetto’s stench back into his nose.

Beyond all of the other bad memories, Florence in the summer carried an especially rancorous odor that undid any and all peace of his afternoon siesta. Yes, he was satisfied with the preparations he’d made for lunch that day—indeed, the fish was especially delicious—but something about the pasta wasn’t quite right. The flavors were too thin and ill-combined. Noodles squirmed upon the palate from the virgin lubrication of olive oil. Tomatoes slid across the tongue and burst under tooth, diluting the other flavors. The piquant dried goat cheese and the fresh basil were a nice touch, but, as a whole, the dish was strangely unsubstantial, inconsequential and ultimately disconnected. The pasta neither left the mouth with a robust impression nor stuck to the ribs with satisfaction. This culinary inadequacy very much undermined the quality of Davido’s rest. Lying there, under the weight of the plant’s fruits and leaves, Davido could not help but feel that the tomato and the pasta could be better combined.

The truth was, despite his complete adoration of the tomato, Davido didn’t entirely understand it. Neither did Nonno. None of the books on farming he’d bought in Florence even knew the tomato existed. True, while growing up in the ghetto he and his sister would propagate a few seeds each spring and grow a dozen tomato plants from pots in the courtyard of their building, always collecting the seeds from the largest, best-looking and best-tasting fruit. But that was hardly the large-scale production he was into now. Everything about the tomato was a process of experimentation, and while the crop was producing this year in spectacular fashion, it was the phase after the tomato was ripe and picked that troubled Davido the most.

There were thousands upon thousands of tomatoes to be dealt with. Just keeping up with the demands of harvesting such a bountiful crop, let alone the myriad other farm-life demands, was a near full-time affair, and Davido was placing great pressure on himself to conjure up other uses for tomatoes. The trouble was, besides precious little spare time for experimentation, when it came to cooking the tomato, Davido was flummoxed. The fruit emitted a great deal of water when heated and while this was acceptable for the braised bronzini—the sauce more on the brothy side—for pasta it just wasn’t right.

Neither was this whole business about marriage! The weekend had been awful. Florence was hot and stunk like shit and piss, just like it did every summer. The visit with his bride-to-be had been a fiasco, burdened by the enormity of the commitment placed on the two young people. And if there had been even a flicker of hope in Davido’s mind it was emphatically extinguished after he presented her with a gift basket full of ripe tomatoes. Her reaction was one of utter indifference, and she three times refused her father’s invitation to indulge in one of the sweet fruits in front of their guests—a deflection that slammed the barn door of Davido’s heart. Fine, Davido begrudgingly recognized, she wasn’t a monster, but she was a girl, a child still, and she had none of the earth in her that Davido craved. Her skin was fair and her demeanor meek. Her wrists and ankles were so thin that Davido imagined they would snap beneath the toil of working a shovel into the soil. And as the moments of their visit dripped by, her continual glances at Davido’s hands—which, despite much scrubbing, still held remnants of the farm under his fingernails—made clear her fear of country life. She would never make it on the farm, and though she and Davido shared few words with each other, they both seemed to know it. Likewise, Davido would never make it in Florence. Florence was death to him, the death of his mother, father and sister. If he had to leave the farm to marry and live in Florence