food is thrust. No, ’tis time and constancy that gains their trust.”
“Bobo is right!” shouted Vincenzo. “We all know, our fool is not so foolish.”
“Ay,” said Mucca,” ’tis spindly limbs on you, Bobo, but a fat brain.”
“Indeed,” said the Good Padre amusedly, “fat on fancy and fallacy. For this wit and this logic, and all that it begs, scrambles virtue and reason like eggs. To think, the ill advice you lend this hamlet.”
“Well, one must crack some eggs to make an omelet.”
My God, thought Davido—the speech, the rhyme, this village, that girl, those ankles—how wonderful, how unlike Florence.
“So Bobo sayeth again, dear cousins: I’ll not eat one till the padre eat a baker’s dozen.”
“Now a baker’s dozen?” said the Good Padre.
“Indeed. The number does know and will tell. For twelve is a number straight from the Book, plus, eat one extra, so not to be mistook. Twelve, a number of common yoke to both the foreign and local folk. As by the number twelve he shall imbibe the number of the Hebrew tribes. Plus, a little known fact of some surprise: twelve was the number of Moses’s spies.”
Davido looked quickly at Nonno for affirmation of the fool’s last statement and with an upward crinkle to his thick eyebrows and downward bend to his lips, Nonno gave it. Some fool, thought Davido.
Bobo continued. “As twelve are the months that rule the year, as twelve are the Apostles we hold dear. Hmm, well, minus one. And let us remember not in the least, dodici piu uno are the days till our coming feast.” Bobo pointed toward the statue of the Drunken Saint. “So, let the priest eat twelve, plus one. Then we’ll wait a twelve-plus-one-day week and at the feast we’ll have the truth we seek. So on the day of our patron saint, let us judge then if he be healthy or faint.”
The crowd erupted with approval. It was a rousing performance by their fool and if it mocked them they weren’t so aware of it.
“I will agree,” the Good Padre said loudly so to be heard over the crowd, “for the people have spoken, but to this I’m to add a token. If in thirteen days both fruit and health are to be judged, then in thirteen days we bury this grudge, and all agree to honor my request, that at our feast the Ebrei be our guest. And if on that day my health be of perfect accord, you hereby vow before the Holy Lord, that at the Feast of our Drunken Saint, with the pomodoro each and every one shall acquaint.”
Bobo imagined that this was just the kind of result Giuseppe was hoping for. It couldn’t have gone any better, the priest was even foolish enough to say thirteen aloud, and Bobo shouted out to galvanize the crowd’s sentiments: “’Tis a fair shake through and through, if at the feast your health be without woe, then we all eat this fruit of the Ebreo.”
The Good Padre turned his gaze to Nonno and Davido. “And for you, our neighbors,” he said, “do you agree to be guests at our feast?”
A thousand excuses flushed through Nonno’s mind, not the least of which was his grandson’s wedding, but before a single one could leave his mouth, he heard the voice of Davido.
“T’would be an honor.” Davido spoke up so quickly he didn’t even know it was his mouth that had uttered these words. But it was his mouth, driven by his heart to say or do anything that would keep him out of Florence on that day and keep him near the girl who had such perfect ankles.
“Then take heed, my sweet cousins,” said the Good Padre as he lifted a tomato to the crowd’s attention, “for the priest is to devour a baker’s dozen. And as for you, gentle neighbors,” he said whilst turning to Davido, “think up a recipe most sublime, for we all eat pomodori in twelve-plus-one-days’ time.”
With all eyes upon him, the physically enormous and mentally bewildering Good Padre bit into the first of his thirteen tomatoes and thought about the absolute deliciousness of the fruit and sublimity of God’s creation. Giuseppe thought about his own brilliance, how perfectly the morning had unfolded and the various possibilities for his next maneuver. Benito thought about the little voice barking away inside his head, incessantly repeating that he was a villain and a coward, and that after what he’d done—the horrible, murderous thing he’d done all those years past—Mari