Tomás Bozen, Chapter 4

Here's Chapter 4 for your reading pleasure. Please tell me how you like it. What should Tomás do next, now that he's enrolled at the University of Bologna?

CHAPTER 4

Growing Up

A few days after his tour of Ravenna’s mosaics, Tomás was back in school—August vacation was over. The mosaics had strengthened his love for art and Italian art history. Three years later, when he was twelve, he was permitted to enroll in an advanced painting class at school. The instructors had reviewed his earlier drawings and paintings, and said they showed great talent. “A few of Tomás’s paintings are boyish and primitive,” they told his parents, “but most of them show maturity and understanding far beyond his years.”

The lead instructor in Tomás’s painting class was Leonardo DiBaltzo, a thirty-five year old man who had studied in Paris before returning to his home town to share his love of Italian art with a new generation. DiBaltzo made no secret of the fact that Tomás was his favorite student. He always helped Tomás set up his easel near the front of the class so that less talented students could observe his protégé’s painting techniques. “So they can learn from you,” DiBaltzo said. But Tomás noticed how DiBaltzo spent a little too much time touching his back while unfastening the shoulder straps he used to carry his easel.

After working with Tomás for two years DiBaltzo urged him to enroll in a special after-hours class in art history he was organizing. In that small class he mentioned the art history curriculum offered at the HUniversity of Bologna. “You’re a natural for that program, Tomás. It could lead you into academics—think about that as your next step after graduation.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tomás said. “Do you think I can get in the university? Is my work good enough?”

“Oh yes, I’m sure you can get in.” He beamed. “I took my undergraduate studies at Bologna…I could write to the professor for you. That might help.”

“Would you really do that for me?”

“I’d be glad to write a recommendation for you, Tomás. Why don’t you come to my apartment after class and we can talk about it over coffee.”

Tomás was a young boy, but he’d grown up with older brothers who’d taught him the ways of the world. He guessed what going to DiBaltzo’s apartment might lead to and he thought better of it. Besides, he was a few years away from applying to the university. “Thank you, Mr. DiBaltzo, but I can’t do it today. Maybe sometime later, okay?”

His art studies were a compelling interest for Tomás, but for him that wasn’t enough. He wanted more and he liked sports, too. Same as most Italian boys he was a big fan of soccer, but he was even more attracted to the rough and tumble look of rugby. As soon as he moved up to high school he began trying out for the rugby team. He wasn’t good enough at first, but he watched the seniors and worked hard to improve his own skills. Finally, just before he was fourteen he won a position on the high school team.

Tomás threw his heart and soul into rugby practice and the games with school teams from other cities in the region. He admired his teammates skills on the playing field, but he secretly thought of them as art dummies who didn’t know the difference between a daVinci and a Dalí. None of his friends shared his keen interest in their paesani who’d been key players in the Italian renaissance. Not a single one of them cared a whit about art history. None of them knew of Tomás’s unflagging devotion to the painters and sculptors who went before them. No one shared his conviction that, even after hundreds of years, each and every one of the renaissance artists and artisans still had a weighty impact on everyday life in Northern Italy.

He continued his studies with DiBaltzo even though it was sometimes difficult to make time for painting—what with rugby practice and team workouts, not to mention the games themselves and Coach Casanova’s drive to produce a winning team. But DiBaltzo never let Tomás  forget about the University of Bologna and, without making a conscious decision, Bologna became an important goal in the boy’s youthful thinking. Bologna would become part of his life—he would make it happen.

Unexpectedly, in the fall of 1991, a few weeks after that fifteenth birthday dinner with the family, Tomás’s carefree schoolboy life took a surprising turn. Flipping through Mama’s newspaper, La Repubblica, he came upon an article about an amazing discovery in the mountains north of Bolzano. A pair of German hikers had come upon the dead body of a man frozen in the mountainous glacial ice near the border of Italy and Austria. The lurid details reported in the newspaper captivated Tomás—he couldn’t get the image of that frozen naked body out of his mind.

Dio, that must be less than three hundred kilometers from Ravenna. Could the frozen man be from his own family? Papà grew up in one of those valleys north of Bolzano. His cousins and uncles still lived somewhere up there. The pictures in the paper weren’t too clear—it could be his own relative, somebody from Papà’s family.

That evening Tomás paced about in the front room, waiting for his father to come home. He tried to read a book, but his mind was not on it. He untied and retied his shoelaces a dozen times. When the front door finally opened he rushed to Papà and gave him a big hug. “Did you hear the news, Papà? Did you hear about the dead body they found in the mountains?”

“That frozen man?” Papà said, brushing stone dust from his sleeves. “In the mountains up above Bolzano?”

“That’s right Papà. That’s the one.”

“Yeah, some of the guys at work told me about it.” He winked at Tomás. “They told me the man was naked. Why do you suppose a man would run around in the mountains naked like that? He’d freeze his culo if you ask me.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, Papà. Could that man be somebody from our family? Could he be one of my cousins?”

Papà laughed. “No, son. Everybody in the family is okay. Your uncle Giovanni called me at work today. They don’t know who the frozen man is, but Giovanni told me it’s nobody from our family—nobody from the whole village.”

Through every ensuing year the schoolboy Tomás followed the twists and turns of that mysterious case. Scientists in Austria determined the Iceman, as they called the corpse, was not a recent death at all, but a 5,300 year-old mummy frozen in the glacial ice. He was given the name Ötzi, from the Ötzal Alps in which he was found. A legal joust between Austria and Italy resulted in re-survey of the mountainous border and awarded ownership of Ötzi to Italy.

Knowing the frozen corpse was not a modern-day relative did not lessen Tomás’s burning desire to learn firsthand about the amazing discovery. His obsession with the case convinced him the Iceman might actually be his ancestor—some relative from ancient times, maybe a very early creator of the sculpture and paintings he longed to study. He never let that obsession go.

Five years later, at the age of twenty, Tomás had managed to persuade his father that stone masonry was not for him, that he felt compelled to study art. He’d won a scholarship on his own merit—without a recommendation from his flirty art teacher, DiBaltzo. That helped convince Papà, and Tomás became a student of art history at the University of Bologna.  He travelled by train to Bologna a week before the September beginning date of the semester, arriving in mid-afternoon. From the station he took a very long walk down Via Dell’Indipendenza  to Piazza Maggiore.

From there he walked to the next door piazza to admire the Neptune Fountain, a towering, larger than life, bronze nude of Neptune standing atop a pedestal that was itself nearly twice as tall as Tomás’s six feet. Neptune’s lordly pose suggested he was controlling the flow of water from the various parts of the fountain. Tomás grinned at the life sized nude sea nymphs seated in the water at the four corners of Neptune’s pedestal, each nymph squirting water from her nipples.

He knew the bronze fountain was cast and erected in the late fifteen hundreds. And he knew it had become a symbol for Bologna. He had heard it was a popular hangout for many of the thousands of students that expanded the city’s population, but the crowded piazza surprised him.

People from all walks of life milled about, some aimlessly, some with determination. A group of school children followed in a ragged line behind their teacher. An old man wearing a felt hat pushed a baby carriage across the stones—no doubt a grandchild. Tourists posed before the fountain for their friends’ cameras. A man in workman’s clothes pushed a cart filled with bricks toward one side of the piazza where some repairs were taking place. A young couple sat arm-in-arm on the steps at the base of the fountain, sharing the pages of a book. An old woman sat on the sunny side, looking skyward with her eyes closed like a cat on a warm afternoon. Savory smells from a nearby restaurant wafted across the piazza. Through it all, the gentle tinkling of water from the various parts of the huge fountain provided an almost musical background for the scene.

Tomás decided then and there he would definitely like living in Bologna. He headed to the opposite side of the open expanse of Piazza Maggiore, then down the narrow Via Pignatattari alongside the Basilica of San Petronio. A short block later he entered the Hotel Commercianti, where Papà had reserved a room for his first night in the city. The hotel was another surprise. It pleased him to see the many sculptures, mostly modern, arranged in the lobby and other public spaces. Seated on a couch in the lower lobby was a full suit of armor holding a sword—just sitting there as if waiting for a companion. Filled with needless worries about beginning a new life, Tomás laid awake most of that first night.

Out of bed early the next morning, he had breakfast at the hotel then set out for the university. He walked across the piazza, then down Via Rizzoli past the Twin Towers, remnants of an ancient bloody rivalry between two wealthy families. Continuing down Via Zamboni, he soon came to the University and went looking for leads to inexpensive housing. He found a student bulletin board filled with scraps of paper seeking everything from bicycles and boyfriends to lodgings and roommates. One notice caught his eye: three students had a large apartment near the city center and needed another roommate.

Heading for the address on the notice, he wandered beneath the myriad arcades at the ground floor of the city’s very old red brick buildings until he located the address on Via San Vitale. A good omen, he thought, same as the Basilica San Vitale in his own Ravenna. At the entrance he discovered the apartment was situated up the stairs—way up the stairs on the fourth floor. There was no lift.

After trudging all the way up with his full backpack, he was breathless when he finally knocked on the door. A scruffy looking blond boy answered the door. Probably twenty-three or twenty-four, his hair hung almost to his shoulders in loose, unkempt curls and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He wore sneakers, jeans and a dirty white sweat shirt emblazoned with something about Milano.

Tomás hesitated for a moment, then stuck out his hand. “Hi, I’m Tomás Bozen. I saw your notice about the apartment.”

“Oh, hey, man. Come on in. My name’s Roberto Corcelli. Three of us live here—one girl and another guy. We have one bedroom left over. Would you like to see it?”

“Well…yeah, I would.” Tomás looked around the living room which was sparsely furnished. A well-worn overstuffed sofa and a large upholstered chair which had seen better days sat facing a table with a large screen television and an array of audio equipment. The empty walls were faded yellow, or a new yellow wash, hard to tell which. Roberto led him through a dining room into the kitchen, where the other roommates waited. A coffee machine was a prominent fixture in the kitchen. Warm coffee smells filled the air, and the other two were sipping from cups. Both of them looked about as disheveled as Roberto, like they had just crawled out of bed or something.

“Hey, Tomás, this is Giuseppe Pucci and Lucrezia Pisano.” He put his arm around  Lucrezia’s shoulders and grinned. “We call this one Luci.”

Tomás shook hands with both of them. “I think I’m interested in your room…if the rent’s not too much.”

Luci smiled big. “What are you studying, Tomás? Where are you from?”

“I’m in the art history curriculum—just starting. I grew up in Ravenna.”

“That’s great,” Luci said. “We could use some art around this dump.”

Roberto took Tomás into the spare bedroom. It wasn’t much of a room—just enough space for a single bed, a desk with one chair, and a large armoire. Everyone shared one bathroom and Tomás was relieved to find it looking clean and smelling fresh. No lingerie hanging around like his sister, Anna’s, bathroom at home. The four agreed on a price and Tomás moved in. It promised to be a life style that was a far cry from the close knit family he’d grown up with, but at last he was officially in Bologna and ready for the university.

His new roommates were a diverse group. Roberto was studying architecture. Both he and Giuseppe were from Parma—they’d been friends since boyhood. Giuseppe was the taller and thinner of the two. He cut his dark brown hair short with long sideburns and he had the hint of a beard. He was enrolled in the business school, majoring in accounting.

Lucrezia was a medical student. An attractive young woman, she was tall and thin, with well-defined facial features and a long graceful neck. Svelte, Tomás thought. She pulled her long, dark hair back from her face to flow smooth and straight  down her back. She looked like the type who could keep rowdy boys on the straight and narrow. Giuseppe grinned. “Luci’s the official medical expert of the house. She can cure everything from broken bones to hangovers.”

Those three easily became a surrogate family for Tomás. They introduced him to student life in Bologna and showed him the best places to go for cheap food. In no time Tomás learned to substitute beer and mortadella with crispy bread for his mother’s tagliatelle and ravioli in black truffle sauce.

In the ensuing weeks, Roberto was full of stories about the city and the university—their history and their well-known buildings as well as lesser known architectural treasures. He often led Tomás on walking tours around the city, sometimes rainy day tours when they had to dodge from one of the city’s forty kilometers of covered arcades to another.

Giuseppe managed the household accounts. He collected the shares of rent and other bills from everyone and made sure all the bills were paid on time. True to his profession, he kept careful records of every penny. He looked over some of Tomás’s drawing and suggested he catalog them according to date and locale.

Luci had grown up in a well to do family in Milano, and accustomed as she was to life’s finer things, she took charge of Tomás’s cultural introduction to Bologna. She showed him the best times to visit the huge art museum, the Pinacoteca Nazionale, using free student passes. She insisted he dress up one evening to accompany her to Teatro Comunale di Bologna for an avant garde performance of Verdi’s Traviata re-set to modern time.

The museum was Tomás’s favorite of everything his roommates showed him. It was an easy walk from the San Vitale apartment, practically across the street from the University, so he found it convenient to spend lots of time exploring its collections of medieval art: large paintings by Raphael, El Greco, Titian, Carracci, and Giotto, all of them beautiful and well displayed.

He found one room with a magnificent altarpiece by Giotto and several large rooms with preparatory drawings and some frescos from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—all in all, a strong collection of works by Bolognese artists from the 14th century onwards. Most of them were not the renaissance masters Tomás most admired, but they were important works of their forerunners. The museum was never crowded, and he sometimes came upon another student copying one of the great masterpieces.

Occasionally he recognized the student-copier as a more advanced member of one of his own classes. When that happened he’d stop and chat for a few minutes. Seeing what they were doing and watching their techniques gave Tomás great hopes for what lay ahead for him at the university. Those times made all his years of preparation and waiting worthwhile—they justified his secret box of art treasures, his insistence to his family that this was what he wanted to do in life, the frightening experiences of leaving his family to begin university life in a new city surrounded by a new clan. Tomás was happy. These were the things he had wanted for as long as he could remember.

 

Previews for Tomás Bozen, Chapter 4

Here are some photos of the locale of Chapter 4, most of them in Bologna. The university students in the last photo are apparently preparing for a rehearsal of some kind. After being photographed they waved and smiled. Can you guess which three of them are the basis for Tomás's roommates in Bologna?

The text of Chapter 4 will be posted in a day or two.



Tomás learns of an amazing discovery.

Neptune Fountain in Bologna













Sea Nymph at Neptune Fountain



 

              Covered arcades in red buildings^

Art Museum in Bologna^                  

 

                                                    Students at University of Bologna^
         

Finally, Tomás Bozen - Chapter 3

HUSH, BOY is winging its way toward release without my daily attention, so here is a new chapter from Tomás Bozen. Don't be dismayed if you run across one or two paragraphs you think you've read before. What you have at this web site is basically a first draft, and I've removed some of the backstory material from Chapter 1 and added it into later chapters.
Read, enjoy, and let me have your feedback.

CHAPTER 3

Lunch With Papà

     Leaving the Basilica San Vitale, Papà and Tomás retrieved the Fiat and headed back down the Fiume for a few blocks, then turned onto Via Guglielmo Oberdan. Papà turned quicker than Tomás expected and he slid over next to the window. “Where are we going, Papà?”
      “You’ll see…just be patient, like I told you.”
      “Are we going to see some more stones? Is that where you’re taking me now?”
      “Just wait, son. Patience.”
      Papà pulled the Fiat into a parking space near the Piazza Duomo and turned to Tomás. “A few more beautiful stones, then we’ll get some lunch. Would you like that?”
      “I would like that Papà, but the Duomo doesn’t have any mosaics does it? I don’t remember seeing any mosaics when we went to mass here.”
      Papà beamed and put his hand on Tomás’s shoulder as they walked across the street. “Smart boy. You’re right. The Duomo is beautiful, but it doesn’t have mosaics. We’re going to that smaller building around on the side—the baptistery, that’s what I want to show you. Look, there it is, right over there next to the bell tower.”
      “You mean that little place. One, two, three, four…. It’s got eight sides just like San Vitale, but it’s a lot smaller.” They stopped beside a palm tree in a smaller piazza in front of the octagonal building made of bricks. Two stories tall, the baptistery had a terra cotta roof like most public buildings in Ravenna. “What does that mean, Papà? That name on the sign, Battistero Neoniano?”
      “Well, a bishop named Neon commissioned this baptistery a long time ago, and they gave it his name. There was an older church right here at that time, but today’s duomo was built much later. Come on, let’s go inside.” As they headed toward the entry, Papà said, “One of the men at the shop told me this place used to be a Roman bath, before they made it a baptistery.”
      “Are we gonna see some more stone mosaics?”
      “Right, that is what we’ll see. They tell me this is the oldest one of Ravenna’s mosaic treasures.” He reached down and took Tomás’s hand. “I believe these stone pictures date from the late three hundreds.”
      Inside the baptistery the light seemed blue because of the predominant color of the mosaics. Tall mullioned windows all around the mid-level of the walls kept it brighter than the mausoleum they’d visited earlier. Tomás stopped near the entry, then leaned back and stared up at the high domed ceiling. “Look, Papà, that man way up at the top is swimming, like Michael swims at the lido.”
      Papà laughed out loud and pulled him closer. “He’s not swimming, Tomás. That’s Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan.”
      “Oh, yeah, I heard about that story. It’s a nice painting, isn’t it.”
      “Wrong, again, Tomás. It’s not a painting. The whole ceiling and all the wall decorations in this baptistery are mosaics—every centimeter made out of tiny stones.”
       “Oh, okay. I forgot. Who are all those men standing around the picture of Jesus and John the Baptist?”
       “Those are the apostles, son. You know about them, don’t you?”
       “I do know them. They look nice up there on the ceiling.”
       Papà smiled. “They do look nice. Look at the way the little stones look almost like a painted picture. Do you like that?”
      “I do like it Papà, but I still like real pictures better than stone pictures.”
       Papà shook his head. “Okay, whatever. I guess you’ve had just about enough mosaics for one day, Tomásito. Look at the colors for a while, then let’s take a break and get some lunch? Are you hungry?”
      “I am hungry, Papà. Where are we going for lunch?”
      “We’re going to a little place I like on the other side of the main piazza. The owner’s a friend of mine—I did some work for him a few years ago.”
      “Are we going back to the Fiat now?”
      “No, it’s better if we walk to the restaurant—we can’t drive straight through anyway because of the restricted streets in the center of town. No cars allowed.”
      From the Duomo they headed to Piazza di Popolo, crowded with shoppers and tourists, some of them sitting under umbrellas at open air restaurants. Papà pointed out the City Hall and, at the other end of the piazza, the large church, Santa Maria del Suffragio.
      Tomás stopped and looked all around the busy piazza, then asked, “Does Santa Maria have any mosaics, Papà?”
      “No, no mosaics there. Come on, son, we have a way to go.”
      They wandered on past the Urban Center and a large market, then turned into Via Salara and continued to a trattoria called L’Oste Bacco. “Here we are, Tomás. Here’s my friend’s restaurant—he calls it The Bacchus Inn.”
      Stepping inside they smiled at the rich smells of good food cooking—garlic and onions, savory spices and cheeses, all blended with the special techniques of the region. A few tables arranged along the walls were covered with red and white checkered tablecloths. Noisy patrons sat at some of the tables, gesturing passionately to emphasize their conversation. A middle-aged man wearing a long white apron tied around his fat belly rushed to greet them with a bow as soon as they entered. “Ah, Signore Bozen, buon giorno. Welcome to my restaurant. You’ve brought your figlio, as you said you would.”
      “Yes, this is Tomás, my youngest son. We’ve been looking at the mosaics, so Tomás can learn how beautiful the stones can be.”
      “You are right—they are beautiful.” He smiled. “Like the stones you made for the fountain in my garden.”
       Papà said, “Grazie, mio amico. Tomásito, this is Signore Lucido. He owns this nice place.”
       Lucido put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and kissed him on each cheek. “Piacere, Tomás. I will make a wonderful lunch for you and your papa.”
      Tomás drew back slightly, then stood up straight and said, “Grazie, signore. Piacere.” Pleased to meet you.
      Lucido showed the two to the best table in the house, a quieter table away from the others. He sat them so Papà could see into the kitchen. “No menu for you, Bozen. I will make your lunch. Pasta for both of you to start?”
      “No,” Papà said. “Tomás might like pasta, but not for me. Do you have some nice fish today?”
      “Si, very nice swordfish. Fresh from the sea today. I will make it for you. And a special pasta for Tomás. What about drinks? I’ll bring you a good Chianti Classico I just got in. And for you, Tomás? What would you like to drink?”
      “Succa di frutta, per favore…arancia.” Orange juice, please.
       Lucido disappeared into the kitchen. A younger man brought the drinks a few minutes later, along with a tall bottle of water and a glass for each of them. He put a round loaf of warm yeasty-smelling bread on the table with a little tub of yellow butter.
      “Well, Tomás,” Papà said. “What do you think of this place?”
      “I like it—sure smells good.” He broke off a piece of the bread and spread butter on it. “What was he talking about, Papà? What kind of stones did you make for Signore Lucido’s garden?”
      “I’ll show you after we have our lunch. Outside, in the back, he has a few tables in a little garden. When he opened the garden tables he asked me to make a nice fountain for him to please his guests.”
      “Did you make the fountain out of stones, Papà?”
      “Of course, stones. You know that’s what we do in my shop—make beautiful things out of stones. I want you to love the stones, Tomás—love them like I do. When you’re old enough to join us in the shop we’ll teach you everything you need to know about working with the stones.”
      Tomás ignored that remark. He broke another piece of bread from the loaf. “Signore Lucido’s bread is almost as good as Mama’s. You should try it.”
      Their food arrived before Papà could bring the conversation back around to stone works. Signore Lucido himself carried a large tray to the table with great flourish, and the younger waiter followed to help him with the service. They served Tomás first: a large plate containing a sea of black pasta with pink prawns swimming in it. Lucido said, “Ink pasta from the squid for you, my boy. Would you like cheese?”
      Tomás nodded and said, “Si, grazie, molto formaggio.”
      The waiter grated a lot of fresh parmigiano onto Tomás’s pasta while Lucido made a big show of serving Papà’s plate: poached swordfish in a light tomato-cream sauce. “This fish will melt in your mouth, Signore Bozen—I guarantee it.” He stood near the table with raised eyebrows, waiting for each of them to taste the food he’d prepared.
      They each took a single taste then looked up at Lucido. Papà said, “Molto bueno, mio amico.”
      Tomás grinned and said, “Meglio della cucina di mia mamma.”
      With a bow, Signore Lucido laughed and said, “Many thanks, but I doubt it’s better than your mama’s cooking. Enjoy your lunch, both of you. Let me know when you’re ready for dessert. I have something special for you today.”
      The two did enjoy their lunch and, as soon as they finished, the keen-eyed Lucido rushed over to take away their plates and serve small bowls of fresh strawberries with a dash of grappa and a sprinkle of coarse sugar. He poured another glass of wine for Papà and refilled Tomás’s juice.
      After the berries Lucido brought a plate of the local soft cheese, squaquarone, with crisp toasts for spreading with the cheese. The waiter served an espresso for Papà and a caffé latte for Tomás. Finally finished, Papà took Tomás into the garden room for a look at the stone fountain his shop had created.
      “Here it is, son. I am very proud of this creation from my shop.” The fountain, at one side of the garden, was an small oval pond within a white marble retaining wall which had a row of short columns of the same marble all along the top. At the back of the pond was a pedestal with a statue of Neptune standing between a pair of miniature dolphins. Water gushing from the mouth of each dolphin fell into the pond, making soft tinkling music that echoed through the entire garden. A few orange and black koi swam slowly among the water plants gracing the pond.
      “This is beautiful, Papà. You made the whole thing in your shop?”
      “Well, we did get the Neptune and the dolphins from Sienna, but we made the rest of it and we built the whole thing right here in this garden.”
      Over Signore Lucido’s protests, Papà insisted upon paying for the lunch and the two of them left the trattoria to head back to the Duomo and the Fiat. Tomás stayed quiet while they drove home—quiet and thinking about the mosaics. Not about the stones, but how he’d like to turn them into painted pictures. He wanted the same depictions, but painted, not made of stones.
      Papà pulled the Fiat into the shed beside their two story stone house. He had built the house with its terra cotta roof on the south side of town off Via Cesarea long before Tomás was born. All their neighbors admired the house, especially the two pine trees Papà had planted in front when he built it, both now taller than the house itself. He has chosen umbrella pines that made good shade against the western sun.
      Mama had a little garden in the back yard where she grew most of the vegetables she needed for her kitchen. With their six children those two had made a happy life in the stone house, and now their youngest was growing up, only a few years from making his own way in life. None of their sons had followed Papà into the world of stone masonry, but he had great hopes for Tomás.
      As soon as Papà turned off the engine, Tomás jumped out of the Fiat and ran to his room to find his painting materials. He made a few quick sketches of some of the mosaic figures he’s seen during the morning, then began to bring them alive with colors from the palate of acrylics his mother had bought for his birthday. Papà’s voice from the doorway surprised him. “What are you doing, Tomás? Did you like the mosaics we saw? Did you like the beautiful things we can do with stones?”
      “Yes, Papà, I did like them, but I want to turn them into pictures. I like the pictures a lot better than the stones. They look more like real people to me, real people and real things. Look at these stars I painted, just like the ceiling of that mausoleum. I want to draw your fountain from the restaurant, but I can’t get it quite right.”

Chapter 3 delayed

Last minute details in preparation for publication of HUSH, BOY have kept me very busy. I've been forced to delay further development of THOMAS BOZEN. Be patient--Chapter 3 is coming to this site in about a week.

Busy is good--I love it.

Tomás Bozen -- Chapter 2

Enjoy this next chapter of the novel-in-progress. Leave me your thoughts and suggestions in COMMENTS. Hint: One more chapter will depict Papà showing the boy, Tomás, more of the ancient beauty of Ravenna. Then they'll have lunch at a trattoria and talk about the things they've seen. Tomás humors Papà, but in truth he's more interested in paintings than the stone mosaics.

CHAPTER 2

      Tomás was a happy boy. The love and support of his family had filled his life for as long as he could remember. Two older brothers and his oldest sister had married and moved away to Milano. All of them had sent postcards from time to time showing that city’s duomo or some other grand sight. Papà had always taken pains to make sure he understood the importance of Ravenna’s place in the history of Italy. From an early age he taught his youngest son the value of his own heritage as a descendent of a long line of skilled artisans. He often took Tomás to his masonry shop where a dozen younger men and apprentices worked under his tutelage. “In a few years,” he bragged in the shop, “Tomás will be working right here with us. We’ll make him ready to take on the most difficult restorations in Ravenna—who knows, maybe the most difficult in all of Italy.”
     One day, not more than a week after Tomás’s ninth birthday, Papà shook him awake very early in the morning. “Wake up, Tomásito. Get dressed and have breakfast with me. We have big adventure today—I want to show you something very special.”
     “What is it, Papà? What are you going to show me? Is it something you made at the shop?”
      Papà laughed and hugged his son. “No, no. Nothing from the shop. Today I’ll show you something much older and much more beautiful than anything that ever came out of my shop.”
     “Can we do it another day, Papà? Michael said he’d take me to the lido with him today.”
     “Lido? You can go to the beach any day. Today we’re going to do something much more important than teasing girls at the lido with Michael. Get up now—I want us to get an early start.”
     By the time Tomás got to the dining room, Mama had put out a plate loaded with thick slices of mozzarella with a big mound of yellow butter, and she’d added a loaf of bread from yesterday’s baking. The coffee machine’s gurgling and hissing from the kitchen told Tomás she was making café latte for him.
     Papà was already at the table. He’d pushed his plate away to sip his second café while Tomás filled his plate. Mama brought in the latte and a frothy cappuccino for herself, then sat down next to Tomás. She reached over and put another slice of cheese on his plate. “Have some more bread, Tomásito. You need a big breakfast—Papà’s planned a busy day for you.”
     “Aw, Mama, more cheese is too much.”
      Papà said, “Leave the boy alone, Contessa. He’ll take what he wants.”
      Breakfast finished, Tomás headed out the front door with his father. He couldn’t imagine what they were going to do, but excitement was in the air as they got into Papà’s 1984 Fiat Uno. It was a small car, but big enough for his needs, Papà had told the family when he bought it a year earlier. The Fiat was brand new at that time, and nobody else in the family was allowed to drive it. Just about the only time Papà drove it was going to his masonry shop every day. He usually took a train when he went to other cities to study the decorative stone patterns used on some of the older buildings, or to bid on some of their restoration projects. So the Fiat still looked almost new—all bright gray with silvery chrome.
      Papà drove down Via di Roma toward Piazza dei Popolo, but he soon had to turn westward to avoid the central part of town where no vehicles were allowed. Tomás said, “Tell me now, Papà. Tell me where we’re going.”
      “You’ll see soon enough. You have to learn patience if you’re going to work with the stones.” Papà turned back and forth through Ravenna’s streets to reach Fiume Montone, then parked the Fiat at Piazza Baracca. “Okay, here we are,” he said. “We walk from here.”
      Tomás took his father’s hand to cross the street. After a block they turned a corner and he saw a tall white marble gate crowned by a fancy medallion and, on each side of the medallion, a small obelisk with a ball on top of it. Peering through the broad gate Tomás saw a garden with green grass and pine trees in front of an old red brick building with a terra cotta roof like their own house. Curious about the building’s tall windows with many small panes, he said, “What is this place, Papà? Can we go inside?”
      “Yes, Tomás, we can go inside. This is the main thing I wanted to show you today.”
      “It looks like a church, Papà. Is that what it is?”
      The building was an odd shape, octagonal with three levels stacked up like a wedding cake. The top level was smaller than the lower ones, and each level had tall mullioned windows on each of its eight sides. The red bricks looked old, and the corners of each side were supported by flying buttresses of the same old bricks.
      “It is a church,” Papà said. “A very old church—the Basilica of San Vitale. Look at those fine old bricks, Tomás. They’re the long, skinny bricks the Romans liked to use—same as the one I showed you at the shop. This church was built more than fourteen hundred years ago, sometime around the year 545.”
       “Yeah, the bricks do look pretty good for that old.” Young Tomás did not share his father’s fascination with old bricks and stones but he loved the man with all his heart, so he didn’t bring that up.
      “Come on,” Papà said. “It’s not the bricks I want to show you. Let’s go inside. That’s where you’ll see the most beautiful stones you can imagine.”
      Tired of the stone thing, Tomás decided to try a different line of conversation. “Who is San Vitale, anyway. I never heard of him.”
      Papà chuckled. He guided Tomás to a seat on the steps outside the basilica. “The story is that Vitalis was well-to-do man who lived in Milano—same as your brothers. Vitalis was in the Roman army and he was friendly with a important judge named Paulinus who hated Christians.”
      “Why, Papà? Why did the judge hate Christians?”
      “A lot of Romans hated Christians in those days, Tomás. They were afraid of them or something.  Anyway, secretly, Vitalis was a Christian himself and he went to a lot of trouble to look after other Christians who were mistreated by the Romans. One day the judge asked Vitalis to travel over here to Ravenna with him to look after some business. Well, Vitalis heard about a doctor who was being tortured in Ravenna because he was a Christian, so he visited the doctor when he was about to die and told him to be strong and trust in Jesus. After the man died, Vitalis carried off his body and buried it.”
      “Wow, that’s a good story,” Tomás said. “What happened to Vitalis?”
      “Things got a lot worse for Vitalis after that. His friend, Paulinus, heard about what happened and he asked Vitalis why he did that since he was not a Christian. ‘But I am a Christian,’ Vitalis told him, ‘and proud of it.’ Paulinus hated Christians so much he threw Vitalis in prison. He had him tortured on the rack then buried alive underneath some big stones.”
      Stones again…could Papà never get away from stones? “So what happened after that?”
      “Well, a long time later, after the Roman Empire ended and most of the Romans became Christians, the Church made him a saint. His torture was right here, in this same place where we are, and that’s why they built the basilica here. April 28 is Saint Vitalis’ feast day—your mother made me bring her over here last year for the celebration.”
      “Is that why we came here today?”
      “No, Tomás. We came here today because I want to show you what’s inside this basilica.” He took Tomás by the hand. “Let’s go in now.”
      The two entered through the narthex, a kind of entry to the main basilica. Once inside Tomás stopped and pulled back on Papà’s hand. He had never seen so much color, so much beauty in one place. The church was not as large as some he’d seen, but the colors stopped him in his tracks—greens, golds, blues everywhere. On the walls, on the ceiling, everywhere. Even the floor had fancy designs, some with colorful birds, worked into the marble. The walls and ceilings were even brighter, and they had lots of pictures of people doing different things—clear pictures that looked like the ones Tomás had seen in his bible story book.
      “Who painted all these pictures, Papà? They’re beautiful.”
      Papà grinned. He leaned down close to Tomás. “They’re not painted, Tomás, they’re all mosaics. Each one of them is made out of millions of tiny colored stones.”
      Stones, again. No wonder Papà brought him here. He gazed up at the high arch leading into the sanctuary. The arch was covered with round pictures of men’s heads, and each picture looked like it was held up by a pair or dolphins, just like those dolphins Michael showed him at the beach last year. “Who are those men, Papà? Why are their pictures up there?”
      “You know some of them. The man at the top, the one in the brown robe with dolphins on both sides of the picture, is Jesus. All the others are his disciples and one or two other important men.”
      “The pictures look so clear. Who made them out of all those little stones?”
      “It had to be a whole team, Tomás. Not just one man. They’d need a painter to outline the pictures on the walls, mosaicists to select the stones, cut them to just the right size and fasten them on the walls. Their technique was Byzantine and it looks like they were trained in Constantinople or somewhere over there. They must have had one master mosaicists who was in charge of the whole team, but nobody knows who he was.”
      “So many different colors—what are the stones made out of, Papà?”
      “Lots of different things—glass, marble or other kinds of stones, ceramics, even mother-of-pearl. You like these stones?”
      “Yeah, the little stones are okay, I guess, but the pictures are really beautiful. That’s what I like. I want to go on inside and look at the rest. Tell me what they are, Papà.”
      “Well, some of them are about stories from the Bible. Look, there’s Abraham over there and Moses next to that one. You remember their stories, don’t you? On the other side is Isaiah and, right there’s Abel making a sacrifice to God.”
      “Who are those guys up above the altar windows—those five standing on the grass and flowers?”
      “Tomás. Your mother wouldn’t like you talking like that about Jesus. He’s the one in the middle, sitting on that round blue thing—it’s represents the world.”
      “He doesn’t look like Jesus to me. He doesn’t have a beard.”
      Papà laughed at that. “It’s supposed to be young Jesus. There’s an angel on each side of him and that man on his far right is San Vitale. Jesus is giving him a crown because he was a martyr, like I told you before we came in.”
      “Who’s that on the other side of Jesus—all the way over on his left?”
      “That’s supposed to be the Bishop who founded this church.” He put his hand on Tomás’s shoulder. “Now look up to the top, way up above your head”
      Tomás stretched his neck backward. “Wow. That’s the best of all. So much color, all that gold. I can’t believe every bit of it is made out of little stones. Why’d they put that animal in the middle of it? What’s he supposed to be doing?”
      “That animal represents the Lamb of God, and the four angels are holding up the medallion with his picture. Come on over here, I want to show you this mosaic up on the left wall.”
      “That bunch of men? Who, are they Papà?”
     “The man in the middle is the Emperor Justinian and the others are his supporters. Now turn around and look on the other side. That group of women are Justinian’s wife, the Empress Theodora and her court. Look at those little figures near the bottom of her robe. They’re supposed to represent the three wise men who brought gifts to the baby Jesus.”
      “I’m still amazed they made this whole place out of little colored stones. Who was Justinian, anyway?”
      “He was a very important Byzantine emperor, a good ruler I think. Have you seen enough, Tomás? Ready to go yet?”
     “Are we going home now. I want to draw some of the pictures from this place.”
     “Not yet. There’s another thing I want to show you while we’re here.”
     The two walked together into the backyard of the basilica and headed across a green lawn with more pine trees, then toward a smaller brick building at the edge of the compound. “What is that building, Papà,” Tomás asked. “It’s a lot smaller than the church.”
     “It is smaller, but you can see it’s built of the same kind of bricks.” He pulled Tomás off the path to a shady spot under one of the pines. “This little building is called the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. They tell me it’s one of the oldest monuments in Ravenna. Just wait ’til you see what’s inside.”
     “Mausoleum? Isn’t that a place to bury dead people? Are we gonna see some dead people in there?”
      Papà laughed. “No, Tomás, no dead people. There may be a stone casket, but no dead people. For a long time everybody thought it was the burial place of a woman named Galla Placidia. She was the daughter of the Emperor Theodosius and she later married another Emperor. She had this little place built and everybody thought she planned to be buried here, but she probably never was. Later on they found her body in Roma. But come on, I want to show you what’s inside.”
      Papà had to duck his head when he led Tomás through the low doorway to the mausoleum’s dimly lighted interior. The small windows didn’t bring in much light, and the whole place had a blue look because of the predominant color of the mosaic tiles covering the walls and ceiling. Tomás stopped and took his father’s hand. “Look at all the stars, Papà. It’s just like the sky at night.” The entire ceiling and the arches supporting it were covered with mosaic representations of a hundreds of bright stars in a dark blue sky. The walls depicted several of the apostles.
      Tomás turned around, then pointed to the mosaic over the door through which they had entered. “Look, there’s Jesus with a bunch of sheep.”
      “Right, son. Christ, the Good Shepherd.” Various plants and flowers formed a base for the starry sky, and birds were included here and there.
      “I like this mausoleum a lot,” Tomás said. “I want to draw some stars in the sky like that.”
      “Maybe you can do that, Tomásito, but right now we need to leave. I want to show you another place with beautiful pictures made out of stones. I want you to see what wonderful things you can do with stones…I want you to love the stones like I do.”

Preview of the Locale of Chapter 2

Anybody reading the posted chapter? Leave me your comments. Here's a glimpse of where we're going next in the novel:

Tomás Bozen - Chapter 1

Here's the first chapter of the novel-in-progress I told you about. Read, enjoy, then tell me in Comments how you think the action should proceed in the next chapters. One clue: I'm structuring Chapter 2 as a flashback to Tomás at age nine, when he father took him to have a look the magnificent mosaics at Ravenna's Basilica San Vitale.

                                                                   CHAPTER 1

 

       Tomás Bozen wrapped a towel around his trim waist as he walked out of the showers. He jumped aside, barely in time to dodge a mean towel snap aimed at his butt. “Cut it out, Luigi. I’m not in the mood for that stuff today—the coach pushed us too hard already.” The team’s rugby practice that afternoon had been way too long and way too tough for a warm spring afternoon. Never in recent years had Tomás’s Ravenna team defeated their rivals from Bologna, and Coach Casanova was pushing his young players beyond belief hoping for a turnaround. He was dead set on winning the upcoming match against the Bologna team. 

Tomás was glad the day’s practice was finally over. He was more eager than usual to head home—it was a special day for him and his family. Most of the time he liked joking around with his rugby buddies in the locker room after practice but, truth be known, his heart was never in it. He secretly thought of his teammates as dummies who didn’t know the difference between a daVinci and a Dalí. None of his friends shared his keen interest in their paesani who’d been key players in the Italian renaissance. Not a single one of them cared a whit about art history. None of them knew of Tomás’s unflagging devotion to the painters and sculptors who went before them. No one shared his conviction that, even after hundreds of years, each and every one of the renaissance artists and artisans still had a weighty impact on everyday life in Northern Italy.   

Tomás slung his backpack onto his shoulders then looked around the locker room at the rest of the team. Smiling at their horseplay, he realized he was different from them in yet another way. He was much better looking than most of the other boys, and every one of them envied his way with the girls.  In their shower room teasing, many of them tried to discover his secret. Playfully splashing soapy water on his taut body, they’d say, “Is that what the girls like about you, Tomás? Is that why they hang around you all the time?” He’d learned silence was the best way to stop their envious put-ons. Anything he said just egged them on. He knew the girls liked him, and some of them did chase after him. He liked the girls, too, and sometimes he enjoyed letting them catch him. Tomás’s mother fretted about that, but his father beamed with pride. “My son, the ladies’ man,” he often bragged to the workers in his masonry shop.

“Ciao, amici. A più tardi,” Tomás yelled as he headed out of the locker room. He hurried home to get dressed for the special family dinner planned for that night. He wanted to look extra spiffy—after all, the party was to celebrate his own fifteenth  birthday. It was a special day for the whole family. He was the youngest of them all, and Tomás knew his father would celebrate by giving him half a glass of his best red wine from the casks in the basement. After the birthday toasts he planned to bring up his ambition to go to the university in Bologna and study art history. He wasn’t so sure his father would go for that idea, so he’d decided to approach it when the whole family was celebrating and after they’d all had a little vino.

The family lived in a two story stone house with a terra cotta roof his father had built on the south side of town off Via Cesarea before Tomás was born. Everybody in the neighborhood admired the house, especially the two pine trees Papa had planted in front when he built the house. Both trees were now taller than the house itself—those umbrella pines that make good shade against the western sun. Mama had a little garden in back where she grew most of the vegetables she needed for her kitchen.  

Heading for the front door, Tomás grinned at the play of late afternoon light and shadows dancing across the stones of the house—something like a Caravaggio painting. Racing up the stairs two at a time, he smelled sautéing onions and garlic and roasting meat. Mama was at work in the kitchen. He threw open the door to his room then stopped dead in his tracks. The scene he stumbled upon shocked him more than just about anything he’d run across in his young life. Anna, his bratty sixteen year old sister was sitting in the middle of his bed, her legs crossed, skirt up above her knees. His secret box was open on her lap. 

Anna cracked a big grin and held up a photo of a nude drawing Michelangelo had done in preparation for sculpting his David. “I found your secret box under the bed, Tomás. What do you do with all these pictures of naked people? Do you play with them, Tomás? Do you play with ’em when nobody’s around? Is that what you do—play with yourself while you play with the naked pictures?”

Had she looked at everything in the box? Those were his dreams, his alone. Had Anna handled his treasures, had she spoiled ’em by her touch? He slapped her hard on the side of her head and yanked the box out of  her hands. “Get out of here, Anna. Leave my stuff alone—it’s none of your damn business. Just stay out of my room.”

Anna stood up and put her hand on the side of her head where Tomás had slapped her.. She grinned again and tilted her head to one side. “I saw all of ’em, Tomás. Naked men and naked women. I know what you do with them—you do it at night, don’t you? I’m gonna tell Papa everything I saw in your secret box.”

“Don’t do it, Anna. Don’t tell Papa. If you tell him, it’ll ruin my whole life. He won’t let me go to the university if he discovers my plan—it’s too soon to tell him about it.”

She kept on rubbing the side of her head. “You shouldn’t have slapped me, Tomás. I am gonna tell Papa—I’ll tell him tonight right in the middle of your birthday dinner.” Laughing, she skipped from the room and slammed the door.

The youngest of six children, Tomás grew up in a close knit family in Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast of northern Italy. Much loved by his boisterous family, he was totally supported in everything he undertook as a boy. His mother, born in Barcelona, had given Tomás the name of her own Spanish grandfather and she had spoiled him rotten from earliest childhood. After coming to Italy as a new bride, she threw herself wholeheartedly into the language and customs  of her new husband’s country and, over the years, she became the archetypal Italian mama.

Mama had cried a year earlier when fourteen year old Tomás, her bambino, announced at a family dinner that he had won a spot on his school’s rugby team. “Too rough—those big boys,” Mama had said. She’d rolled her eyes and  pulled her rosary from the pocket of her apron to finger the beads, but his father had beamed from ear to ear—“My son, the athlete.”

Tomás did well on the team. He soon developed a tight muscular body that equaled any of the big boys Mama was so worried about. He threw himself into the team’s practice sessions and their games, but his heart was never in the sport. He liked art and Italian art history. Those were the things he wanted to learn more about—the things he wanted to become his life. He was eager to explore those interests, eager to understand the lasting beauty his antenati had created.

Tomás didn’t worry much about being the only boy in his school with that kind of attraction to art history. Just a normal part of life, as far as he was concerned. He longed to reach the right age for university, longed for was a chance to explore the techniques of the world’s great artists. After all, many of the artists he admired had been Italian—why not him? Why couldn’t he do what they did? He had the same dark hair and eyes, the same swarthy good looks they’d had, and the same Italian heritage—so why not?

While waiting to reach university age Tomás collected photographs of the art works he admired most of all: painting and sculptures by daVinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio. He kept them hidden under his bed in a secret wooden box along with a few other boyhood treasures: a piece of kite string, three special marbles, a spinning top, a charcoal drawing he’d done of the family house, things like that. Lying in bed at night, he felt a furtive thrill just knowing those photos were near. One of his older brothers shared his bedroom and sometimes, when he was out for the evening, Tomás opened the box and looked at the photos, touched them, admired them while waiting for his future to begin. 

He had never revealed his dreams about art and Italian artists to the family or anybody else. He’d dropped a few hints about it with Mama once or twice when they were alone, but he was afraid to tell Papa—Papa’d never let him go to university if he knew what he wanted to study, if he knew about his secret yearning. He’d always said Tomás had a good eye for design and should become a master stone mason like himself. Why did he need the university? He could learn everything he needed as an apprentice in the masonry shop. What Papa didn’t know was that his own visits with the nine-year old Tomás to study the ancient mosaics in Ravenna’s churches were the thing that first triggered the young boy’s interest in Italian art.

Now Tomás’s head was spinning. His run-in with Anna threatened to ruin the birthday celebration. What could he do? How could he keep Anna from telling Papa about his secret box? All that worry made him sweaty and he decided to take another shower. Standing naked in the spray, hot water streaming over his head, he stewed over all of it. How could he shut Anna up? How could he keep her quiet, at least until he was a little older, a little closer to being ready for university? Shower finished, he pulled a towel around his waist and headed back to the bedroom. His older brother, Michael, was there, changing shirts for the birthday dinner.

Michael grabbed at the towel and grinned. “Hey there, little bro. What’s up under that towel?”

“Cut it out, Michael.” Tomás put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Listen, I need your help with a problem. A really big problem.”

Michael hugged him and tousled his wet hair. “What’s wrong, kid? Girlfriend kick you out?”

“No, nothing like that. I’ve got a problem with Anna?”

“Anna? What’d she do now?  

“She’s a snoop, Michael. A total jerk and a damn busybody. She discovered something about me, and she’s gonna tell Papa. He won’t let me go to university if she tells him what she found out. How can I stop her, Michael? How can I keep her from telling Papa?” 

“Whoa, Tomásito…what are you talking about? Tell me what Anna found.”  

Tomás told him the whole story, his interest in Italian artists, his hope for a career in painting and art history, the things he kept in the secret box under his bed, everything.

“Okay,” Michael said. “I knew about your box, but I didn’t know what you had in it—didn’t make a damn bit of difference to me. You really like that stuff, don’t you?”  

“It’s my life, Michael. I have to study those things when I go to university—I have to do it.”

“Maybe I can help you, little bro…maybe I can help you.” Michael sat on his bed and pulled Tomás down to sit beside him. “I think I know something you can tell Anna, something that’ll make her keep quiet about your secret box and your plans for university.”

Tomás jumped to his feet and tightened the towel about his waist. “What is it, Michael? Tell me what you know”

“Well…you’ve heard about Anna’s boyfriend, Alfredo, haven’t you?”

 

“Sure, I know about Fredo. What about him?”

Michael grinned. “One night last month, real late one night, I went to Anna’s room to get a book she’d borrowed from me. I thought she was at the cinema…but she wasn’t. Anna and Alfredo were on her bed together, both of ‘em naked as a pair of swans.”

“Naked? What were they doing?”

Michael laughed. “You figure it out, little man. Alfredo was on top of her—his butt was bouncing up and down in the air.”  

“Oh my god…they were…did you see everything?” Tomás adjusted the front of his towel.

“I didn’t see much. Alfredo jumped up right after I opened the door and ran around the room like a crazy man—he tried to cover himself  up with his hands while he grabbed at his clothes. He finally jumped right out of the window carryin’ his clothes and ran naked across the yard.”

“What did Anna say?”

“Nothin’. She just pulled up the covers. She cried like a baby and begged me not to tell Papa.”

“Damn, Mama would kick her out of the house if she knew about it. Did you promise not to tell?”

“Naw,  I didn’t promise anything. I just laughed and told her to put on some clothes. I picked up my book and left her bawling in the bed.”  

Both boys pulled on freshly ironed white shirts Mama had left on hangers for them. Both of them added neckties. The birthday dinner was a strained affair for Tomás. Anna squinted at him a few times, then rolled her eyes toward Papa. After a while Mama touched his arm and said, “What’s wrong, Tomás? You’re acting nervous as a gatto.” She tousled his dark hair and kissed him on the forehead. “Fifteen is a good age—you’re almost a man now, but you’re still my baby boy.”  

Mama had made her special Sunday gravy for the pasta—tagliatelle she’d made that morning. After the pasta they had roasted sausage with asparagus from the garden and, like always, the meal included fresh baked bread, hot from the oven, for dipping in olive oil. Anna kept her devilish threat alive throughout the dinner, glancing from Tomás to Papa and back again at every opportunity. Michael saw what she was doing and gave Tomás’s leg a squeeze under the table.

Finally, Papa finished eating and Mama cleared the table. Tomás knew she’d bring in the birthday cake next, and it would be something extra special. He knew Papa would pour him a special treat for his birthday, half a glass of the Sangiovese he aged in the basement. Maybe he’d get lucky, maybe he’d make it through dinner without Anna making trouble.

But his luck didn’t hold for long. Anna pushed back from the table and shot Tomás a knowing glance then walked toward Papa’s chair at the end of the table. “Can I talk to you in the front room for a minute, Papa. I want to tell you something special about Tomás—something for his birthday.”

Tomás’s heart sank. Was life about to end on his fifteenth birthday? No, not if he could help it. He jumped to his feet, took Anna by the arm, and pushed her toward the front room. “Before you talk to Papa, Anna, I need to tell you something.”

Once out of the dining room, he held her by both shoulders and spoke close to her face. “Michael told me, Anna. He told me about your late night get-together with Alfredo.”

Anna looked stunned. Her expression was blank. Her shoulders sagged.

“You know what I’m talking about, Anna. Last month, you and Alfredo…in your bedroom. If you tell Papa about my art pictures, I’ll tell him all about you and Alfredo in the bed. Michael told me everything…every single detail. He told me about Fredo jumping naked out of the window and all that….”

Anna fumed. The pupils of her brown eyes grew bigger. She grabbed her brother’s waist and looked right into his face. “Please don’t tell Papa, Tomás. If you keep quiet, I’ll keep quiet. I promise I will. I won’t say a word.”

Tomás kissed his sister on the forehead. “Deal.” The two of them smiled and returned to the birthday celebration as if nothing had happened. Papa said, “What is it you wanted to tell me, Anna?”  

“Oh, it’s nothing Papa. Alfredo told me Tomás scored the winning goal in last week’s game—that’s all.”

“That’s great news, Tomás. Good job. I told your mother you’d make us proud with the rugby team.”

Tomás had scored another winning goal that night, a goal against Anna. His knowledge of her clandestine meetings with Alfredo ensured she’d keep quiet about his box of treasures—keep quiet about his interest in studying art and art history at university. At least keep quiet until he was ready to talk to Papa about it.

Mama signaled  Michael to dim the dining room lights as she waltzed into the room with a huge birthday cake sporting fifteen blazing candles. Beaming with pride, she sat her creation down in front of Tomás. “For you, my baby boy, I made a cassata with three colors of gelato like the flag of Italy. Happy birthday!”

The whole family applauded and sang Happy Birthday while Tomás blew out the candles and sliced the frozen cake to serve them all. Even Anna perked up and joined in the good wishes. She threw him a kiss. Tomás grinned and looked all around the table at each member of his family, basking in the pure joy of their love. Plenty of time to talk to Papa about university—not tonight, sometime later when he could figure out how to get him in just the right mood before bringing it up—maybe at the masonry shop or something like that.

Copyright ©, 2013, George Beddingfield