at me. “This is a worse prison than Silvano’s. The other beggars spit on me, because they know what I used to be. At least the patrons wanted me, even if it was disgusting!”
“You get used to the street. It’s better than Silvano’s, you’re free out here!”
“I was freer at Silvano’s! At least there I could command my own body, sometimes, when the patrons weren’t using me.”
“You can still command your thoughts!” I cried. “Like you told me, think about things that make you feel better! You can travel to wondrous places—”
“I’m a cripple on the streets with no way to get food for myself and no friends out here. I will die, slowly and suffering. You will do this mercy for me,” he said coldly. “It’s what I need. I would do it myself, but my strength has been gone for two days; in the cold, it won’t return. Pull me to the edge and slide me into the river. If I bob up, hold me under.”
“It’s too terrible!” I cried. “I can’t do it!”
Marco glared, holding my eyes with his empty, inscrutable ones. “Yes, you can. I know you, Luca Bastardo. You’re the kind who can do whatever he has to. You won’t pull back from the edge. That’s how you survived out here for so long. That’s why you didn’t die the first week at Silvano’s. Plenty do, you know. Not you. I have a feeling you’ll be the only one of us to make it out of Silvano’s alive! And not crippled. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve got something inside you, some quality that makes you endure!”
“You’re asking me to kill you,” I whispered. And would it matter if I did? No one but me in this world cared about Marco. In the next world, God was snickering; if I fulfilled Marco’s request, it would only enhance His joke. There was a hard knot in my chest as we argued, but now it collapsed into waves of sadness.
“I’m asking you to save me! It’s what you have to do to save yourself,” he returned, in a tone both triumphant and bitter.
I’m not proud of it, but I did it. It was easy, in fact. Marco had only a sparrow’s weight and it was nothing for me, strong and well fed as I was, to drag him to the water’s edge. It was but a few minutes’ labor.
“Go with freedom,” I said to him, which was a kind of prayer for forgiveness.
So I rolled him over into the sun-stippled water. Life has a will of its own and wouldn’t be denied so easily. Marco’s arms splashed and propelled him to the surface gasping and sucking in air. I pushed down firmly on his black-haired head. I held him down until his thrashing stopped and his arms eased out. Marco was right: I was capable of doing whatever needed to be done, no matter how appalling. I had picked pockets and stolen fruit and extorted money for fake injuries on the streets, and I had submitted to degradation by patrons at the brothel, but this was different, in magnitude and in kind. I willingly became a killer. I could steel myself to anything. To this day it is a characteristic of mine, whether for good or bad or both, and I’ve lived long enough to understand that a man has to reconcile all sides of his nature. It’s not that I don’t weep later, just that I will pay the toll that the moment demands. Marco taught me this about myself, and I’ve never forgotten it or his kindness.
I let go of his head and sat watching the Arno carry his body away. I wondered if I would end similarly, a husk lapped by the river as it floated off. It might be soon; there was no predicting Silvano’s whims. I wished with all my heart that someone who meant me well would be nearby, so that I did not die scorned and alone, as I had lived. Perhaps some friend would return the service I had just performed for Marco and yield me to the river. I did not know then that life had other plans for me, and that my end would come not through water, but through flame.
Chapter
3
AFTER MARCO’S DEATH, I took on more of the liberties that had been accorded him. I also took on
“You get used to the street. It’s better than Silvano’s, you’re free out here!”
“I was freer at Silvano’s! At least there I could command my own body, sometimes, when the patrons weren’t using me.”
“You can still command your thoughts!” I cried. “Like you told me, think about things that make you feel better! You can travel to wondrous places—”
“I’m a cripple on the streets with no way to get food for myself and no friends out here. I will die, slowly and suffering. You will do this mercy for me,” he said coldly. “It’s what I need. I would do it myself, but my strength has been gone for two days; in the cold, it won’t return. Pull me to the edge and slide me into the river. If I bob up, hold me under.”
“It’s too terrible!” I cried. “I can’t do it!”
Marco glared, holding my eyes with his empty, inscrutable ones. “Yes, you can. I know you, Luca Bastardo. You’re the kind who can do whatever he has to. You won’t pull back from the edge. That’s how you survived out here for so long. That’s why you didn’t die the first week at Silvano’s. Plenty do, you know. Not you. I have a feeling you’ll be the only one of us to make it out of Silvano’s alive! And not crippled. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve got something inside you, some quality that makes you endure!”
“You’re asking me to kill you,” I whispered. And would it matter if I did? No one but me in this world cared about Marco. In the next world, God was snickering; if I fulfilled Marco’s request, it would only enhance His joke. There was a hard knot in my chest as we argued, but now it collapsed into waves of sadness.
“I’m asking you to save me! It’s what you have to do to save yourself,” he returned, in a tone both triumphant and bitter.
I’m not proud of it, but I did it. It was easy, in fact. Marco had only a sparrow’s weight and it was nothing for me, strong and well fed as I was, to drag him to the water’s edge. It was but a few minutes’ labor.
“Go with freedom,” I said to him, which was a kind of prayer for forgiveness.
So I rolled him over into the sun-stippled water. Life has a will of its own and wouldn’t be denied so easily. Marco’s arms splashed and propelled him to the surface gasping and sucking in air. I pushed down firmly on his black-haired head. I held him down until his thrashing stopped and his arms eased out. Marco was right: I was capable of doing whatever needed to be done, no matter how appalling. I had picked pockets and stolen fruit and extorted money for fake injuries on the streets, and I had submitted to degradation by patrons at the brothel, but this was different, in magnitude and in kind. I willingly became a killer. I could steel myself to anything. To this day it is a characteristic of mine, whether for good or bad or both, and I’ve lived long enough to understand that a man has to reconcile all sides of his nature. It’s not that I don’t weep later, just that I will pay the toll that the moment demands. Marco taught me this about myself, and I’ve never forgotten it or his kindness.
I let go of his head and sat watching the Arno carry his body away. I wondered if I would end similarly, a husk lapped by the river as it floated off. It might be soon; there was no predicting Silvano’s whims. I wished with all my heart that someone who meant me well would be nearby, so that I did not die scorned and alone, as I had lived. Perhaps some friend would return the service I had just performed for Marco and yield me to the river. I did not know then that life had other plans for me, and that my end would come not through water, but through flame.
Chapter
3
AFTER MARCO’S DEATH, I took on more of the liberties that had been accorded him. I also took on
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