Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust and Forbidden Fruit - By Adam Schell Page 0,1
farm called him Nonno, his one true grandchild, Davido, was soon to be married, which meant Nonno would have something real to leave him—land and a wife. Nonno hoped that under Davido’s leadership the farm would blossom into a place where Ebrei from Florence, Siena, Pitigliano, even as far away as Venice and Rome could seek refuge, flee the ghettos and create a new life. Nonno understood that this late-coming dream would not reach fruition in his lifetime. He could feel his power waning. His body was still fairly limber and his mind still somewhat sharp, but he knew it was Davido’s time to come to the fore and prayed daily for the strength of his grandson.
He was an odd boy, his Davido, odd in ways Nonno admired and also feared. Goodness knows, Nonno was pleased by the seriousness with which his grandson took to farming. The boy was coming into his own. A year of hard country life had toughened up his grandchild and put a bit of muscle on his skinny frame, but Nonno found the boy’s devotion to the tomato a bit obsessive. He had no problem with his grandson’s newfound love of the earth, but he didn’t want the boy turning into one of those half-crazed farmers he knew from the markets of Florence. The kind of folk who mumble and grumble when conversing with another human, yet speak clearly and sweetly when talking to the vegetables upon their stand. Truth be told, the way Davido would talk to the tomato plants—his nose pressed closely against the leaves as if to inhale their entirety into the depth of his brain—Nonno was concerned some of this countrified madness had already beset the boy. Nothing a good wife and some children wouldn’t cure, thought Nonno. God willing, their trip today would help see to that.
Il Raglio Sacro, the Holy Bray, echoed into oblivion and returned Davido’s thoughts to the day at hand. Woefully, he lowered his gaze from the horizon so as to look into the basket held in his hands. His eyes could not help but mist with tears—the tomatoes were that beautiful. His first true crop: lush, round, slightly ribbed, a shade of red unmatched in all of nature, with a melding of yellow as the fruit bent and crinkled toward its green stem. What a shame, he thought to himself with an earnestness more appropriate to how the old look upon the young as they’re sent off to die in a pointless war. He would rather be doing anything than traveling to Florence today to visit with the girl and the family who in sixteen short days would respectively become his wife and in-laws. Davido brought his thought full circle. He had already met the girl once and the notion that fruits so glorious were bound to waste their goodness and vitality upon an ignominious cause pained his heart exquisitely.
Davido took a few steps forward and set the basket of tomatoes onto the rear of the wagon, sliding it forward so to brace it against another basket. The wagon was nearly full with a dozen similar baskets: presents for old friends and a wife-to-be in Florence. She wasn’t at all like Davido’s late sister—shrewd, strong-willed, adventurous, beautiful—and she was nothing near what Davido had hoped for in a spouse. On the contrary, she was shy and skinny and she reminded Davido of himself when he was about her age—a puny schoolboy of Florence holed up in the lightless Seminario di Ebrei for hours on end—and for this he could not stand being in her presence. She was a child, just fifteen or so, a good five years Davido’s junior and the youngest daughter of a successful merchant more than pleased to pawn off the last of his progeny to the grandchild of a legendary Ebreo like Nonno.
Though Nonno had explained to Davido a hundred times that this was the way things were done—that family knew best, tradition dictated the way—Davido was not convinced. He was repulsed by the girl, and the fact that their Chituba 1 stipulated that they would spend the first year of marriage living together in the home of her parents, in Florence, was a thought so horrible it brought bile to his throat every time he thought it, and he thought it often.
Davido turned and walked to the rear of the barn. He knelt down and took a handful of hay and set it in the bottom of another wood basket.