The Food Taster Read online

  THE FOOD TASTER

  Peter Elbling

  Version 1.0

  Copyright © Peter Elbling 2002

  ISBN: 1 84354 369 9

  CHAPTER 1

  March 1534

  For years after my mother hanged herself, I wished I had been older or stronger so that I could have stopped her. But since I was only a child who could not even reach her waist, I had to watch helplessly until it was over.

  The day before, we had celebrated the feast of San Antonio stuffing ourselves on roast pig, cabbage, beans, polenta, and dried chestnuts. We stuffed ourselves because the plague had been walking through the valley for weeks, striking whomever it pleased, and no one knew if they would live to see the sun rise.

  Now it was evening and Mama and I were staring at the hilltops where my father and my older brother, Vittore, were lighting bonfires. I preferred to stay with my mother. I liked it when she scratched my head, put her arms around me, and called me 'my little prince.' Besides, that afternoon that bastard Vittore had banged my head against a tree and it still hurt.

  It was dark, there was no moon, but I could hear my father's bellowing over everyone else's. The wind teased the fires this way and that as a man teases a dog by pulling on a stick in its mouth. Then the flames shot straight into the air, and for the blink of an eye I could see the men standing like ants on the top of the hills. Suddenly, one of the bonfires toppled over and bounced down the hill, a huge fiery ball, spinning over and over, faster and faster, leaping in the air, flattening bushes and crashing into trees as if the devil himself was guiding it.

  'Holy Mother of God!' my mother cried. 'It will eat us alive,' and, grabbing my arm, she pulled me into our house. A moment later the flaming wheel passed right over the spot where we had been standing, and in the center of its fire I saw the face of Death staring straight at us. Then it disappeared down the hill leaving a trail of burning leaves and grasses behind it.

  'Maria? Ugo? Are you all right?' my father shouted. 'Are you hurt? Answer me!'

  'Stupido!" my mother screamed, racing out of our house. 'You could have killed us. C'e un bambino qui. May the devil piss on your grave!'

  'I missed,' my father yelled to much laughter. My mother kept on shouting until she ran out of curses. They say I take after her because I use my tongue as others use a sword. Then my mother turned to me and said, 'I am tired, I want to lie down.'

  When my father stumbled home, the sheepish expression on his face pulling his big curved nose even closer to his pointed chin, my mother had boils the size of eggs under her armpits. Her eyes had sunk into her head, her teeth were rising up from her gums. Everything I loved about her was slipping away in front of my eyes so I clasped her hand tightly so she would not vanish completely.

  When the sun rose, Death was waiting in the doorway. My father sat on the floor by the bed, his big face in his hands, weeping silently.

  'Vicente, lay me outside,' my mother whispered. 'Go. Take the boys with you.'

  I climbed up the chestnut tree outside our house and straddled one of the branches. My father lay my poor mama on the ground and placed a bowl of polenta and water next to her. My brother Vittore told me to come down to watch the sheep with him.

  I shook my head.

  'Come down!' my father yelled.

  'Ugo, my angel, go with him,' my mother pleaded.

  But I would not. I knew that if I left I would never see her alive again. My father tried to climb up after me but he could not, and since Vittore was afraid of heights he threw stones at me instead. They hit my back and cracked my head, but though I cried bitterly, I stayed where I was.

  'Go without him,' my mother said.

  So my father and Vittore climbed the hill, stopping every now and again to shout at me, but the wind twisted their words until they were no more than the cries of a distant animal. My mother coughed up blood. I told her I was praying for her and she would soon get better.

  'Mio piccolo principe,' she whispered. She winked at me and said she knew a secret cure. She took off her shift, tore it in half, threw one end up to me and told me to tie it round the branch. I was happy to help her. It was only when she wrapped the other end around her neck that I sensed something was wrong. 'Mamma, mi displace!' I cried, 'Mi displace!' I tried to untie the knot but my hands were too small and besides my mother was making it tighter by jumping into the air and pulling her knees up to her chest. I screamed for my father, but the wind threw my cries back in my face.

  The third time my mother jumped there was a crack like a piece of wood snapping. Her tongue shot from her mouth and the smell of shit curled up to me.

  I do not know how long I screamed. I only know that, unable to move, I stayed on the branch all night, whipped by the wind, ignored by the stars and engulfed by the stench of my mother's decaying body until my father and Vittore returned the following morning.

  CHAPTER 2

  Until the death of my mother, I had known only one sort of hunger, but now my heart was emptier than my stomach and only night brought my weeping mercifully to an end. Then I prayed to join her because after she died my father became more bitter than wormwood. Nothing I did pleased him. He said I burned the polenta. He said I let birds escape from his traps. Whatever I did or said made him angry. 'You have your mother's tongue,' he shouted at me. 'You will come to a bad end.'

  To avoid his temper I spent my days minding our flock, sometimes taking Vittore 's turn. Vittore was five years older than me and looked older still because he was tall and thin. He had a long nose like my father, but my mother's small flat chin which threatened to crumble under the weight of his face. When he boasted how he had won at cards or screwed some girl, my father clapped him on the back. When they went fishing I had to spend the night alone with the sheep. I did not mind. I knew them all by name. I talked to them. I sang to them. Christ! Later on I even screwed one of them. I am not proud of it, but it is the truth and what is the point of writing all this if I do not write the truth? Besides, all shepherds have screwed sheep and if they say they have not, then trust me, they are liars and they will burn in hell. Anyway, compared to Vittore, I was a saint. Whenever the sheep saw him coming, they would run the other way.

  I built fires to warm myself at night, and if the sheep did not talk to me they did not beat me either, although I was nearly bitten by a wolf who snatched a lamb. I was blamed for that, too.

  Five years after my mother died, famine struck our valley. Our crops died, our chickens were too thin to lay eggs, and since our sheep belonged to the lord of the valley, we were forbidden to even eat their turds. I had often prayed for sleep to forget my hunger, but now my stomach ached all the time and my knees were so weak I could not stand. My father made a pie out of chestnut flour and grass and baked it on the stones by the fire. He sang a song which went,

  Cut the loaf of bread in half

  The first half to eat,

  The second to shove up my culo

  To stop what I ate from coming out.

  I dreamed my mother was making my favorite pies stuffed with figs and apples. The smell of the hot apples excited me and I asked her if I could have a small slice. She smiled and broke off a piece of crust for me. But as I reached out for it I woke up to find that my father and Vittore were already eating. 'Where is mine?' I asked.

  My father pointed to a small black glob of pie on one of the stones.

  'That is it?'

  'You were asleep.'

  Tears welled in my eyes.

  'Do you want it or not?' Vittore shouted at me. I grabbed it. His hand closed over my fist.

  'It is mine,' I screamed. The pie burned my palm but I would not let go. My father shouted 'Basta!' and opened my fist up. The piece had been squeezed into a ball half it
s size. He broke it in two and gave half to Vittore. 'He is bigger than you,' he said. 'Now eat before I give it all to him.'

  'One day I will have as much food as I like,' I shouted. 'You will be starving and I will not give you a crumb.'

  'You are no son of mine,' my father said, and smacked me across the face. The pie flew out of my mouth. Vittore laughed and my father joined in. My father's words carved themselves into my heart even as the picture of the two of them laughing etched itself into my memory. No matter how many things have happened to me since then, I have never forgotten that moment. My mother used to say, 'He who bears a grudge will be buried beneath it.' But I thank God for giving me a grudge! I thought of it every single day and prayed for the time when I could have my revenge. Now God in His mercy has rewarded my patience.

  CHAPTER 3

  After my mother died, my father carried the weight of his sorrows on his back. In time they bent him double. When he could no longer walk to the pastures, Vittore inherited the flock. Since I had cared for them so often I asked Vittore for a few sheep to start my own farm somewhere else. He refused. That cursed, miserable fallo! I knew better than to ask him again, so the next morning before it was light, I bundled my clothes together, and without a word to Vittore or my father I left. I was about fourteen although I cannot be sure. I remember standing on top of the hills watching the clouds scurry across the skies as if they were late for church. I said, 'They are blowing away my old life,' and my spirits lifted immediately.

  The sun was shining, the hills were dizzy with the smell of rosemary and fennel. God had blessed me! I began to sing and I would have sung all the way to Gubbio where I hoped to find work, had I not seen a girl on the path in front of me.

  I noticed her hair first of all. It was as dark as the soil and tied in a plait which swayed down her back like a great horse's tail. I do not know why, but I wanted to grasp it in my hands. I wanted to bite it and rub its silky warmth against my face. Can you blame me? I was fourteen. I had spent all my life with sheep.

  I did not know what to say to the girl so I crept behind a mulberry bush to see her better. She was about my own age with big dark eyebrows that matched her hair. Her lips were red and full, her nose straight and her cheeks as round as apples. She was wearing a loose blouse, but I could not see her breasts or if she had any. Her hands, which were quite small, were picking fennel and blue geraniums, lifting them up to her nose to smell before placing them in her basket. I had heard people talk and sing about love, but until that moment I did not know what it was. Now, as if I was suddenly bewitched, every part of me ached to be close to her.

  The girl was singing to herself, a song about a woman waiting for her sweetheart to return from the war. At first, my heart was crushed because I thought she was singing about a real person. Then I remembered my mother used to sing about a woman waiting for her lover to come back from the sea, she had grown up in Bari, and I knew my father had never even seen the sea.

  Although this gave me courage, I still did not say anything for the girl seemed so at peace and I did not want to frighten her. In truth, I feared she might be angry if she knew I had been watching her so I sat quite still as bees buzzed around my face and the stones cut into my thighs. A scorpion even crawled over my legs, but I hardly breathed.

  I followed her back to her house, and all afternoon I hid in a nearby glade of oak trees, planning what I would say to her on the one hand, and on the other fighting with my feet, which wanted to run away. But as the sun sank behind the hills I was afraid that if I did not speak soon I never would. So I banged on her door and when she opened it, I asked her to marry me.

  'If you had asked me on the hillside,' she said slyly, 'I might have said yes. But you waited too long.' And she closed the door in my face!

  Pota de mi! I wanted to kill myself! But Elisabetta, for that was her name, had smiled before she closed the door so when her father, a small man with hands as large as cabbages, returned that evening, I told him I was looking for work. He asked me if I knew how to cut wood and I said I was the best woodcutter he had ever seen. He spat on the ground and said that if I was as good a woodcutter as I was a liar, he would never have to work again.

  My days were filled with hard work, but Elisabetta's father had always wanted a son and he treated me kindly. If I did not eat well, at least I did not have to give my food to Vittore and my father. And in the summers, when we left off woodcutting and went to the plains north of Assisi to help with the wheat harvest, I ate like a pig. We were fed not once, but seven times in a day! There was as much pasta as we liked, bread shaped like mens' falli and womens' bocche sdentate, fried calves' liver, plenty of roast chicken and, of course, polenta. We drank and danced till we could not stand. A couple of the women lifted their dresses, bent over, and showed off their culi. Jesus in sancto! That was it! The men leaped on them and screwed them in front of everyone.

  The third summer, I took Elisabetta's hand and we walked to the trees on the edge of the field where the air was heavy with the scent of sage and thyme, and I asked her to marry me.

  For a time we were happy. Then Elisabetta's father cut his thigh with a blow from his axe. It did not heal well and gangrene set in. Elisabetta became pregnant. Her father knew he was dying and wanted to live long enough to see his grandchild, but the good man passed away before that could happen.

  One evening I came home to find Elisabetta screaming in pain. Her beautiful hair was matted with sweat. Her lips were black with dried blood where she had chewed them. She was in labor all day and all night. The midwife, a gnarled old woman said, 'She is too thin. I can save one or the other.'

  'Save Elisabetta,' I said, 'we can always have more children.'

  When she heard that, Elisabetta lunged forward and grasped my arm. 'Promise me you will take care of the child,' she cried. 'Promise!'

  When I pleaded with her, she shook my arm and shrieked, 'Promise!' so loudly that I did as she asked. No sooner had I done so than Elisabetta expelled the baby to the world and her soul to heaven. My Elisabetta for a blob of bloody, crying flesh.

  I did not look at the suckling for two days. I blamed it for Elisabetta's death and, because I wanted to leave it for the wolves, the midwife hid it from me. On the third afternoon she put Miranda — that was the name Elisabetta had breathed before she died — in my arms. Oh, miracolo! What a miracle! That tiny life turned my sorrow to a joy I did not know existed! She was Elisabetta all over again. She had the same big, dark eyes, the same dimples in her cheeks, the same straight nose. She was already biting her bottom lip just as her mother used to! For months after, I prayed that God would forgive me for what I had said.

  Miranda was a year old when I heard that Vittore 's flock had died and that he had left the valley to become a soldier. I thought — my father will be lonely. This will be a good time to take Miranda to him, it is his first grandchild, he will be pleased to see her.

  I got blisters upon blisters walking to my father's house and many times on the way I cursed myself for starting the journey. But when I saw his hunched-up figure sitting in the sun — he had become so much smaller — my pains were drowned in a sea of tenderness. Holding Miranda in my arms, I ran to him, crying, 'Papa! It is me, Ugo!'

  He did not recognize me right away, his eyesight was failing, but when I came close and he knew who it was, he shouted at me for not coming to see him sooner! Even then it was my fault!

  He was hungry and cold and had little money. 'Where is Vittore?' I asked, pretending I did not know.

  'Fighting for the Venetians,' my father boasted. 'He leads hundreds of men.'

  'Anyone who puts Vittore in charge of anything is a fool,' I replied.

  'You are jealous,' my father shouted. 'He has won honors. He will be a condotiero.'

  I was about to say, 'You stupid ass! It is your own fault you are in this mess. Vittore ruined you and you know it. But instead you pretend he is a captain in the army. Screw you.' But that is not really what I wanted to say.


  In truth, I did not want to say anything. I wanted him to show that he was glad to see me. I wanted him to cradle his only grandchild in his arms and kiss her face and squeeze her cheeks as other grandparents did. I wanted him to show Miranda off to his neighbors and proclaim that she was the most beautiful child in the whole world. But he did not do any of those things. All he did was sniff at her and sneer, 'A girl.'

  CHAPTER 4

  After that I stopped cutting wood and raised vegetables in the valley of Corsoli. Most of them went to the palace, just as most of everything went to the palace. However, there was still enough left over to eat and sell in the market. I also had a goat, a sheep, some chickens, God's blessings, and Miranda, whom I loved more than life itself.

  My Miranda! Che bella raggazza! A heavenly angel. Her lips were the color of rich red grapes and she had blushed apple cheeks just like her mother. Her skin was soft and she had light brown almond-shaped eyes that peeked out from beneath her thick, dark eyebrows. She often frowned even then, but this only endeared her to me even more. Her hair was thick like mine, but lighter in color. She loved to laugh and sing. And why not? She had the most beautiful voice even as a child. Clear and bright as a bird's in springtime. It was a mystery to me how she knew so many songs! Some, of course, she learned from me, but others must have been borne on the winds from churches in Assisi or festivals in Urbino. She only had to hear a melody once and I swear she could repeat it perfectly months later.

  As they say, 'He who makes himself laugh is never alone,' and so she was never lonely. The animals adored her, sometimes knocking her to the ground in their eagerness to be near her. Then they would turn her cries to giggles by licking her tears away. When she was no more than three years old I saw her pretend to fall down just so they would do that.

  She could imitate all the birds and bleat so like our goat that it used to chase her round the farm. When she did this I would pick her up, squeeze her cheeks and say, 'These are the prettiest apples in all of Corsoli,' and tickle her till she begged me to stop.