Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust and Forbidden Fruit - By Adam Schell Page 0,123

running with tears and blood, yet they seemed to register the face of his beloved chef.

“Oh, my little Margarita” was all Luigi could think to say, “how you would have loved the pizea.”

21 Ancient Etruscan word describing the blackening of bread in an oven.

In Which We Learn

the Meaning of

La Dolce e Piccola Morte

Among the courtesans of the Sisters of Esther they called it la dolce e piccola morte—the sweet and little death—and while Davido’s sister may have known of it, neither Davido nor Mari had ever heard of or experienced such a thing and they knew not to be on the lookout. And so they slept, the sweet and delicious sleep that occasionally follows perfect lovemaking. It had been sublime, the wave-like buildup, the way their bodies and hearts and minds—even their souls—seemed to meld and explode into one another. And then sleep came over them, like a perfect and painless death, and the lovers drifted from orgasm to unconsciousness with their bodies still entwined and without the least bit of awareness.

Usually, as Davido’s sister may have attested, the sleep would last for but a few exquisite moments and was more often than not a male-oriented phenomenon—the end result of a heaving, humping, grunting, sweating mass of flesh suddenly erupting and then just as quickly cooling off and passing out. As one might imagine, this was often a rather unpleasant experience for the woman. One moment, she was doing her best to endure a torrent of thrusting, jostling and panting, and the very next, near-suffocating under an intractable blanket of blubber. But in instances of inspired lovemaking, when true love is involved, and especially when the woman’s body was atop the man’s, the few moments of sleep that followed the couple’s climax often proved to be a transcendent siesta for both. Such was the case with Davido and Mari. However, after the physical and emotional trauma of the day, the late hour, the repeated lovemaking and their total exhaustion, what normally would have been a short siesta went on a good bit longer. Had it been a moment or a lifetime? Davido knew not as he was stirred to semi-consciousness. It was that good and deep a sleep, but he wondered—or perhaps he dreamt— why would Mari wake him in such a manner, with her fingernail digging sharply into his neck?

Giuseppe knew the smell. He had been about to enter her room when the scent stopped him in his tracks. Could they be so stupid? He was imagining that the day and events to come would be much more arduous: gathering up Mari and making a bit of a scene as he led her out of town and banished her to the nunnery at far-off Assisi, then rallying some villagers, mostly men under his employ, to storm the Ebrei land. But this, thought Giuseppe, as he took one more sniff of the musk emanating from his stepdaughter’s room, this would make everything easier. Quietly, he walked past Mari’s room to his own bedroom. Delicately, he opened the door one-third of the way. He reached in and removed the key, then closed the door and locked it. It wasn’t much of a lock, but Giuseppe imagined it would be more than enough to keep his wife in her place. After all, the last thing he needed was a hysterical invalid disrupting his plans. Giuseppe slid the key into his pocket and strode over to his study. He lifted his crossbow off its wall mount, cranked back the bow and slid an ivory-tipped bolt into the chamber.

“Get up, boy.”

Davido heard a voice, an awful voice, and then he heard the panting and screaming of Mari as her weight suddenly, violently lifted off his body. He opened his eyes only to find himself blinded. Sunlight filled the room. What was going on? Had he slept so long? He was naked, he knew that. Mari was screaming and it was not, he realized—as the pointed pain against his neck increased and the crossbow came into focus—Mari’s fingernail pressed to his throat.

Giuseppe turned and glared at Mari. “Shut up,” he said, forcefully pressing the arrow end of the crossbow against Davido’s throat. Davido squirmed. The arrow broke the skin; a trickle of blood ran down Davido’s neck and stained Mari’s bedsheet. Mari quieted; she understood Giuseppe’s point: you scream, he bleeds.

Davido strained his eyes to catch Mari in the periphery of his vision. The panic etched upon her face told him that the situation was