But I was thirteen and full of appetites I couldn’t fathom. Full of emptiness I couldn’t fill. I was getting so used to my family’s piecemeal extinction that Simon’s disappearance was just one more. I had living of my own to do. Gianni’s dad was a sampietrino, a custodian of Saint Peter’s, with keys to the toolsheds on the basilica roof, so Gianni and I would sneak up there and host picnics for our girlfriends, drinking wine and staring down at Rome like kings. He was seeing a girl named Bella Costa, and I had Andrea Nofri, then Cristina Salvani, then Pia Tizzoni, whose body was so far outside the curve of fourteen years old that I expected the statues on the basilica roof to turn around and stare. I never gave a thought to what Simon was up to. Even if I had known, I wouldn’t have believed. Back then, I was the fighter in our family. Simon had a Roman body—the letter-opener silhouette, the fan belts for muscles—but I had Father’s Greek genes, the pack-dog neck and unbreakable back. I fought other boys for the joy of it. So when Gianni heard there was street boxing at the old dogfighting pit, I dragged him there. Because a bare-knuckle fight was something I needed to see.
The first fight was two bums off the streets, playing for laughs. They managed six rounds before the crowd became restless, then the barker called a second bout in which a short Turk laid out a jiggling man in overalls. Finally came bout three. And with no explanation, the crowd of boys on all sides of us stood up and grew quiet.
Down into the pit crawled a pale white fighter, glistening like soap. He scratched his soles on the dirt as if they were new Sunday shoes. And at the sight of him, every boy in that house screamed as if he were pierced with nails. Eyes-shut, bloodthirsty wailing. The fighter kept his back to us, but when he pulled off his shirt—stripped it off like a skin of glue—I felt my throat tighten. Because I knew those muscles. I knew the way they strained around that backbone like wings.
“Oh,” I heard Gianni say. “No shit. Get outta here.” He grabbed my shirt. “Alex, that’s your brother down there.”
But I was already pushing my way into the crowd. The kids were chanting now. Slapping their legs.
Pa-a-a-a-dre, Pa-dre, Padre.
Men in the front rows threw money into piles for bets. A second fighter jumped in. He was pink-skinned and hunchbacked. A Russian, people murmured. And for the first time in my life, my big brother looked like just a boy. A kid in a sandbox. He was nine or ten inches taller than the Russian, with forearms like cement mixers, but the rest of him was so thready that God seemed to have stretched him from chewing gum.
Someone hit a wrench on an overhead pipe, and Simon came off his corner first. I shouted his name, but it vanished in the rush of noise. I pushed myself toward the edge of the pit, and then—I don’t know why—I just stood there. I watched. Because what I wanted, desperately, was to see this happen. To see Simon hurt this man.
Our parents had always hidden us from places like this. When I fought at school, my father strapped me. But now that we’re alone, Sy, I thought, you can show me. Because I have this in me, too. So tonight, do this for me. Put your fist through this man’s jaw.
Each step Simon took in that pit, I tracked with my own legs. The rhythm of his feet, the instinct that told him how long to dance and when to stop, was in me, too. The Russian had meaty hands, fists that must’ve left craters in heavy bags, but they were slow. And by the time they reached Simon, we were gone. We came with straight rights that cracked like bones breaking. And back he went, still swinging. He was bleeding from the face now, black around the ribs. And still he came back for more. So more is what we gave.
The kids were roaring. I split the skin around my mouth, screaming so loud.
Come on, Sy! I shouted. Hit him!
But the words that came out were:
“Come on, Sy! Kill him! ”
And all of a sudden, down there in the pit, Simon stopped. Flat-footed—dead in his paces—he stared into the crowd.