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A Novel
by Derek B. Miller
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I knew what was happening. But I had never seen buildings fall or balls of fire in a city. I had never experienced the industrial force of hatred and revenge. I could not absorb the notion that my country, Italy, had wanted this. Had asked for this. That the timeless buildings were simply gone. That we (me, my mother, my father, the people I saw running) were guilty of something. I may not have been raised a proper Catholic but the core teachings were the very lifeblood of the Italian people and were therefore inescapable. I knew that we were punished for guilt, not for innocence.
A stray bomb—caught by the wind—landed at our feet in San Lorenzo, near the university. When the air raid sirens started, my parents had instinctively thrust me ahead toward a building with a bomb shelter in it, and I had run in that direction, assuming they were right behind me, but they had stopped to take the hands of an aging friend. A moment later they were all dead from falling rubble.
I ran back and dug for them through the debris.
I found them.
My mother's butterfly clip. My father's watch.
I RAN SOUTH FOLLOWING THE Via Merulana. I had no money or suitcase. I saw a truck full of people and they waved to me to join them. I had no idea then—how could I?—that Rome would be declared an open city only a month later and I would have been safer there than where I was headed.
My clothes were ripped and dusty and foul, so a woman on the truck gave me some of her son's clothes out of pity. I put on a white shirt and waistcoat and cap.
When the truck finally stopped a hundred kilometers south with the last of the people who wanted to go that far, I stood by the side of the road near Frosinone and then continued walking. My aunt was in that direction and my dead parents were behind me. That created a line I followed.
I walked. I slept. I walked more. I stayed with kind people for days at a time. I got as far as the village of Cassino in early August before someone put his hands around my throat.
The cause of that fight and what they wanted doesn't matter now. What matters is they didn't get it, and soon after the skirmish was over, Pietro found me broken by the side of the road. It was a good thing he didn't ask my name in that moment because, there in the filth and blood, I hadn't decided on one yet. I had decided only that the old me was gone and so was my history.
The old me was an only child who was raised uneventfully in Rome to loving parents who shielded me from the wider politics of Mussolini's Italy and the war all around us.
The old me had been studious and had a few close friends at school, but had never been especially popular or admired.
The old me was comfortable in the company of adults and liked to listen and pretend I understood everything happening around me even when the topics turned to matters far beyond my comprehension.
That me had been happy because I had been sheltered from what would later cause me the greatest pain.
However:
That other me had been weak and I wanted to be strong. The other me was vulnerable and I wanted to be a warrior. The other me had been taught that being weak and vulnerable was a product of my birth and that it could never change because I was born inferior and lacked the creativity and courage for greatness.
That was the person I was committed to leaving behind in the gutter as my parents had been left in the rubble below.
I was a newborn without a name; a child who matured on the spot.
He was big but he was not a threatening presence. He sounded educated, which to me meant safe.
"Who are you under all that?" he asked.
"Just a boy," I said.
What he said next—I think—was maschio. It means "manly" or "masculine." I suppose he was speaking to himself. Perhaps he was being sarcastic. I don't know. Through my ringing ears, though, I heard "Massimo." Or was it the other way around? Did he say "massimo" and I nervously heard "maschio"? Either way, what I said aloud was "Massimo."
Excerpted from The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B. Miller. Copyright © 2024 by Derek B. Miller. Excerpted by permission of Avid Reader Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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