turned back to Benito—”so I may play this through.”
Giuseppe snapped his fingers before Benito’s face. “Eh, pay attention now. Take from Coglione a case of good wine—ours. Then upon my horse-drawn wagon to the Ebrei in double-time. Have Bobo do the bidding, whilst you do the waiting. Bobo will say that the wine is from me, a victory bequest, whilst Bobo slyly does his mistress’s request and drops the young Ebreo a secret note, which for his purposes my stepdaughter wrote. Now, tonight, I’m off to test her will and guarantee that tomorrow she’ll be at the mill. Then, while all are off tossing crumbs and cleansing soul, tomorrow, in hiding, you’ll play the mole.” Giuseppe reached inside his vest and removed his recently acquired three-segmented telescope. He placed it before Benito.
Benito looked wide-eyed at Giuseppe.
Nodding at his underling, Giuseppe signaled that he was indeed trusting him with his prized possession. “In the distance, upon Mari spy, lie in wait. We’ve set the trap, Benito, now let the Ebreo take the bait.”
Bobo the Fool sauntered over carrying paper, ink and quill.
“Sit,” commanded Giuseppe. Benito slid over. Bobo set the paper down and dipped his quill. “Now write,” Giuseppe went on. “Tomorrow. Morning. At the olive mill.” Giuseppe paused, searching for the right words. “With bated breath.” Giuseppe was especially curt when it came to letter-writing.
Bobo looked up with eyes that seemed to say, That’s it?
Giuseppe’s expression grew stern. He did not like revealing so much to the fool. “Sign it,” said Giuseppe, “Mari.”
Bobo raised his eyebrows inquisitively, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew well that Giuseppe masked his near-illiteracy not only with bullying but overpaying.
“Give it here.” Giuseppe took the paper and pretended to peruse it.
Bobo and Benito shared a quick glance at the ridiculousness of this gesture.
“You write like a woman,” Giuseppe said snidely. Giuseppe folded the paper into the shape of a proper letter. He reached for a candle and dripped some wax onto it, forming a seal. After blowing on the wax to quicken its drying, he slid the letter back to Benito, stood up and reached into his pocket. “Half each,” said Giuseppe, dropping a money purse before his underlings. “Now,” Giuseppe looked to Benito, “is there anything for which you lack?”
Benito slid the telescope into his pocket, placed his hand upon the letter and shook his head.
“Then fill in the fool and move this play to final act.”
18 To Toss Crumbs: an ancient Etruscan ritual that followed a village’s grape and olive feast, whereby the devout filled their pockets with crumbs and dirt, then traveled to a river and tossed the crumbs into the water as a symbolic act of purification. Once the crumbs had floated off, the devout would then plunge into the river. This was done so one could approach the sacred acts of grape-and olive-harvesting clean of conscience and spirit. With the spread and adoption of Christianity the ritual also came to include a baptismal procession led by the local priest.
In Which We Learn
of Broken Stairs & Spilled olives
“Birds chirp and vineyards bloom and I float like the plume.” It was a warm and delicious evening as Mari strolled amidst the olive orchard, heading for the mill. By all practical accounts, Mari should have been exhausted. She’d hardly slept last night and then done nearly a full day’s labor cleaning the piazza, but it mattered not. She was beside herself with happiness and bubbling with energy. Her lips still tasted of tomatoes and Davido; her fingertips were still imprinted with the outline of his flesh. It had been quite a kiss and the possibility of going home and ruining such a rhapsody of feeling by crossing paths with Giuseppe was so totally unappealing that she’d set out for a walk in the orchard, found an eagle feather lying upon the ground and then, like her father before her and so many in this story, she began to speak of her joy aloud:
“The plume carried upon the winds of love, the plume that falls from tail of dove. The plume adrift on these warm currents, the plume that sets my soul a-errant. To plume and wander lost amidst the timeless moments of our tryst. To ride and float, plume and careen, to plume myself on pleasures unseen. Oh, Father in heaven, I have met the noble soul who fits my half into a whole. And now I plume, plume and blush, on what so moves my heart to flush and sets