Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust and Forbidden Fruit - By Adam Schell Page 0,113

quick to the scene, pulling Giuseppe off Davido with such facility that a raving adult seemed suddenly like a squealing child, or who knows what may have happened. Even so, it was not a good ending, with Giuseppe cursing the Good Padre and “the wicked Ebreo” as he dragged Mari off by the hair, and the Good Padre escorting the old Ebreo and his beaten grandson onto their donkey-drawn wagon and hurrying them off.

And now, with the onset of evening and only an old mule as his transport, Cosimo was afraid there wasn’t time enough to return to his villa and muster up a legion of guards to keep the next travesty from occurring. For Cosimo had little doubt another travesty would occur. He knew Giuseppe’s type too well; whether they wore the clothes of a petty landholder, politician or pope, such men were dispassionate, shrewd and adept at exploiting tragedy for great personal gain.

It was depressing to Cosimo that so many in this village that he had come to adore seemed just as vile and cowardly as the aristocrats he had left behind; indeed, as cowardly as himself. Not a single man in the crowd, save for Luigi, raised a finger toward Mari’s defense. Only the Good Padre and Mucca, blessed Mucca, dared to confront Giuseppe. And, to Cosimo, a startling number of villagers actually seemed to share Giuseppe’s outrage, raising their fists and voices in approval, as if Mari’s feelings for the boy were a threat to their very existence, her virginity a communal possession.

Of course, Cosimo knew that fathers often place a foolish pride upon their daughters’ chastity, but Giuseppe was hardly a father to Mari. Neither was this a case of rape or salacious seduction. No, from the manner in which Mari called after Davido as she was dragged away, and he after her, the truth of their feelings was undeniable: young and innocent and beautiful love. Indeed, it made Cosimo sick with despair and self-loathing to think that he had let such a thing be killed before his very eyes.

“Order! Order!” Vincenzo took off his shoe and pounded it against the table. “Po shall be heard!”

The tavern quieted. All heads turned to Augusto Po. “Vincenzo is right,” said Po smugly, pointing to a specific page in the large book he held. “The Church’s Dictum Coitus di Chastatia 19 does clearly state that if a virgin Catholic daughter be deflowered before wed and out of faith, then in payment for the aggrieved family’s disgrace, the perpetrator is to pay by forfeiture of his estate.”

“There!” shouted Vincenzo over the grumbling of the crowded tavern. “There you have it. Giuseppe does have his rights, and we here have no right to act against a deceived father or our Mother Church.”

“Oh, hypocrites! The lot of you,” said the Cheese Maker as he rose from his seat. The room drew quiet. “Sanctimonious blowhards seething over a ruined virgin bed, all blind to the lives and lies you’ve led. Feigning holiness as if we have not shared a life; I know many here who rolled in hay with another ‘fore you bedded your wife. And now you spew this venom toward a deed you seemingly abhor, when who amongst you has not turned another man’s daughter to whore—or at least longed to?” The Cheese Maker looked about the room and then softened his tone. “Please, good neighbors, this is Mari we speak of, daughter of our deceased friend, yet we brand his child a harlot and contemplate such end. She is but a young woman, who in the folly and hotness of youth perhaps did err, but banishment and forfeiture?”

“Have you no shame?” said Vincenzo disgustedly. “No pride? Nor even eyes to see the sin? A serpent hath slithered into Eden and deflowered our kin!”

“I saw only love,” said the Cheese Maker.

“But what of the sauce?” shouted Vincenzo.

“Is it even true?” questioned the Cheese Maker.

“Now you call Giuseppe a liar?” Vincenzo’s face crinkled. “Are you blind? Were you not there? Could there be a greater sign of culpability than her temerity and his timidity?”

The tavern went quiet. Even the Cheese Maker said nothing.

“Ah,” scoffed Vincenzo, “even our milk-hearted friend is at a loss to defend the malicious act of the Ebreo coward, who would serve us to eat as food the Cristiana he deflowered.”

“Please,” said the Cheese Maker as he looked about in disbelief, “this is madness. It was an act of the young, the foolish and imprudent, but to answer