Marco didn’t interrupt, feeling a knot in his stomach.
“I saw what happened with the cat, too. It ran into your path, but you didn’t lose a split second. It’s time for you to train in earnest. Imagine what you can do with my regimen, son. You could wear the maglia rosa someday. You could win the Giro, the premier race in all of Italy. You could take your place in cycling history.”
“Papa, I’m not that good,” Marco said, since it was the last thing he wanted.
“I think you can be. It’s in your blood.”
Aldo frowned. “Papa, what about me? I’m training hard.”
Their father turned to Aldo. “I’ve told you, you’re not building the muscle you should. You’re not getting any faster. You must not be working hard enough.”
“I’m trying.”
“Keep at it, then. Prove me wrong. Two are better than one, anyway. You can train together.” His father’s head swiveled back to Marco. “Son, tonight you begin. Understand?”
“Yes, Papa,” Marco answered, having no choice in the matter.
CHAPTER THREE
Sandro
May 1937
L ater, Sandro sat alone at the dining room table. The night air wafted through the window, and the crystal chandelier shed a gentle light on his notebook. His family had just had dinner, and he was supposed to be working, but his head was full of Elisabetta. He didn’t understand how to think about anything else while you were in love. He marveled that people did so, every day. He had never felt anything so intensely in his life. His intellect enabled him to think so much, but perhaps until now he had felt too little.
He couldn’t stop thinking about when he’d kissed her, by the river. The thrilling closeness of her body, nearer to him than ever before. He loved everything about her, especially the way she regarded him. As his intellectual abilities had come to the fore, everyone treated him differently, whether for good or ill; the teachers adored him, but his classmates thought him odd. Elisabetta did neither. She had liked him from the beginning, for who he was inside, and so he could be himself with her.
Sandro’s gaze strayed out the window. The Simones lived in one of the houses lining the elegant Piazza Mattei, on the Ghetto’s north side. Their apartment was on the third floor, catercorner to the refined Palazzo Costaguti, and he could see his neighbors through their windows. Giovanni Rotoli was doing homework at the table, and on the floor below him the Nardunos, an older couple, were sharing the newspaper. The Ghetto was typically quiet at night, and the only sound was the water bubbling in the Fontana delle Tartarughe below, the fountain of the turtles.
Sandro loved living in the Ghetto, which was the oldest living Jewish community in Western Civilization. The Community was established nearly two thousand years ago, when Jerusalem had fallen to the Emperor Titus, who had sacked the Temple and brought Jews back to Rome as slaves. The conquest was commemorated in the grand Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, which Gentiles viewed as a majestic arch but many Jews considered a symbolic yoke. In 1555, the Ghetto was created, and Pope Paul IV had ordered that walls be built surrounding the neighborhood, with doors that were locked at night and guards on patrol, for which the Community had to pay. There were thousands of Jews in Rome at the time, and they were compelled to wear yellow badges and forced to live in the Ghetto, packed into about a hundred and thirty homes on a handful of city blocks that encompassed less than three hectares, or seven acres. It was considered the least desirable neighborhood in Rome, situated on low-lying ground that flooded every winter from the Tiber, bringing malaria and other diseases. Its streets were narrow and dark, permitting little light or circulation of air. Churches were built at its entrances, and Jews were forced to listen to sermons pressuring them to convert.
The Ghetto walls were torn down in 1888, after Rome had been absorbed into the new nation of Italy in 1870, and Jews were permitted to come and go. The Ghetto was cleaned and an embankment built around the Tiber to prevent flooding. A beautiful synagogue, the Tempio Maggiore, was consecrated in 1904, with its square dome that distinguished it from the hundreds of churches with round ones. Some said that the synagogue was designed to be the tallest building in Rome, since Saint Peter’s Basilica was technically in Vatican City, and it became the spiritual home of the Community. Many Roman Jews still lived in the Ghetto, although those with means had moved away. Sandro’s house had been in his father’s family for generations, so the Simones would never dream of leaving, though they were far better off than their neighbors.