Then Mom and Dad exchanged pleased looks like they had just won a prize. And I could see that Dad thought my correction had been timely and was helping me a lot.

Gino covered up his eyes very dramatically and said, “Don’ta tempta mia!

I was showing him my welts and had pulled down my pants so he could see how bad my injuries were.

I pulled up my pants and Gino uncovered his eyes. He said, “Leta me tella you a lesson to learn. Never pulla your pantsa down and benda over in front of an olda queena likea mia!”

I laughed and he did too, then I asked him if he had ever seen welts like these before and he said once on his sister, when his mother had whipped her with a rope all over her body. I asked him why had she been whipped. Then suddenly he stopped smiling and poured out more whiskey and drank it for a while and I thought I’d never hear the story. But in the end he told me.

“It was een ‘forty-four,” he said. “We were leeving een Modena and the Germans were steella therea before the Americans arrived. There was a German boy my seester loved. She loved ‘eem too mush because she beegin to tella ‘eem to be careful because my oldest brosser was in a partisans who were to blow up the truck. And because she tella the German to be careful they catch some partisano only two days before they leave and shoot them. Then my seester cry and tella my mother, who take a rope and she beat my sorella so much my sorella faint and is seeck in bed for more than a week. After the war my sorella go to Hamburga to meet the German boy and they marring. But my mother never speaks ‘er again and my brosser say if ‘ee ever seeing ‘er again ‘ee keell ‘er. So I never see ‘er again or see ‘er children.”

I wished I hadn’t asked Gino to tell me his story. Gino kept drinking when he told me. When he was done he cried and sat quietly watching the ash on the end of his cigarette.

Chapter 30

I WORE MY SHORTS TO THE BEACH so Jennifer wouldn’t see the belt marks. Also because of the problem I had had the day I couldn’t get my Little Thing to go down. I’d asked Mom if I could get a new pair of swimming trunks but she had said, “Why? The ones you’ve got are brand new.”

I didn’t want to explain so I just said, “They’re a little tight but that’s O.K., never mind.”

So I wore my khaki shorts with my swimming trunks underneath and no one in the family asked why because they had seen the marks on the top of my legs so they could guess.