Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust and Forbidden Fruit - By Adam Schell Page 0,119

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 his arms and pulled Bobo close into a tender hug and began to cry. And Bobo, for reasons he could not rightly explain, hugged Benito back and began to cry too.

In Which We Learn

the Difference Between

Knowing Long & Knowing Well

“I will kill him,” said Davido in the faintest of murmurs. “I will take a knife from the cupboard, sneak into his quarters and stab him through the heart.”

It was late. Mari’s exhausted body lay upon him. Davido could feel the cuff and chain binding Mari’s ankle scrape against his shin. They had been holding each other and making love off and on for hours. Quiet lovemaking, with their bodies squeezed so tightly together that their passions were nearly soundless, their voices muffled by lips pressed to cheeks. They did their best to keep the chain from rattling against the bed frame to which it was locked. They had no choice but to suppress both their ardor and angst, as they could faintly hear Giuseppe’s snores wafting from down the hall.

“No, my love,” answered Mari with a poignant smile that Davido felt against his raw and swollen cheek. Though she had not known her lover long, she knew him well enough to be certain he was no killer. “Killing him would mean only certain death for you and all your kin.”

“Then what?” asked Davido. “Do we take our own lives? Do we set a knife to our wrists?”

Mari inhaled deeply and then sighed. “I do not think you or I are made of such stuff.” She pressed her lips against his ear. “And I am not yet without hope.”

Davido smiled, sadly, ironically. “How can it be,” he said, “that I know you so little, yet feel as if I’ve known you forever?”

Mari felt the space where their cheeks touched moisten, their tears commingling. He was crying, which made her love him all the more. “I know not, my love.”

“Do you feel this too?”

“I do, my love, as if I have waited lifetimes to be with you again. Like some part of me that I did not know to be incomplete suddenly felt whole the moment I set eyes upon you.”

It was both the greatest and the saddest sentiment Davido had ever heard. “Then how,” he asked as he kissed her softly upon the cheek, “how can God permit a thing so heaven-sent to be denied on earth?”

“God,” Mari whispered, “permits what man allows.”

“And are we allowing this?”

“Well, we do not fight it.”

Davido turned his head slightly. He felt suddenly ashamed.

Mari felt the shift in her lover. “What, my love, is wrong?”

“Oh, Mari,” Davido sighed, “so much is wrong. I am an Ebreo. You are a Cattolico. What do I know of fighting? Ebrei, we do not fight. We run, we hide, we broker, we bribe, we do what must be done to survive. How can I fight? There would be so many. How can I do something I know nothing of?”

“How can we not?” answered Mari.

“I,” Davido began several times as if his desire to speak preceded the formation of his thoughts. “I … I will track you to the nunnery where you are sent. I … I can acquire the money—we have much of it hidden. I will buy your freedom. I have seen Nonno bribe many. I know how such things are done. I will buy your freedom. We will run, Mari. To Venice, to Genoa, to … to anywhere. We’ll take passage on a ship, to an island of Greece, to Cyprus, to Macedonia. Anywhere we can start anew.”

Mari leaned up on Davido’s chest and looked directly into his eyes. Her lips bent with a slight, sweet smile. She let her fingers linger as she brushed a bit of hair off his