At home we used to live with the constant nightmare of my father's rages which would blow up all of a sudden, often for some trifling reason, a pair of shoes which couldn't be found, a book in the wrong place, a fused light bulb, a slight delay in lunch or an over-cooked dish. We lived too with the nightmare of the quarrels between my brothers Alberto and Mario which also blew up without warning. One would suddenly hear from their room the noise of chairs being overturned and of walls being thumped, followed by savage lacerating yells. By this time Alberto and Mario were big, strong boys who could cause real damage when they punched each other; they used to end up with bloody noses, swollen lips and torn clothes. "They're killin' each other!" my mother would shout, dropping the 'g' in her fright. "Beppino, Beppino, hurry up! They're killiin' each other she would shout, summoning my father.
My father's intervention, like everything he did, was violent.
He would throw himself upon the two of them, as they grappled
together and punched each other, and shower them with blows. I
was little then, and I remember the terror of those three men
fighting savagely. The reasons why they used to hit each other
so much were as petty as the reasons why my father would erupt
into rage; a missing book or tie, or whose turn it was to wash
first. Once, when Alberto arrived at school with his head bandaged,
a teacher asked him what had happened. He stood up and said, "My
brother and I both wanted to take a bath."