The moment my brother was old enough to travel, he flew to Thailand to study mixed martial arts. In the years leading up to this, he had spent many hours every week in the local dojo, training with the same intensity he had once devoted to fishing. He even hung a punching bag in his bedroom. For months our next‑door neighbors listened to its steady thump – ba‑bang, ba‑bang – late into the night, until the wife finally knocked on our door and asked, hesitantly, whether he could please stop using his “loom” after bedtime. They had spent weeks trying to identify the mysterious sound until they settled on the least plausible and wrong answer.
Whenever he tired of the bag, it was my turn. He was a few years older, so I never stood a chance at our “training sessions”, but the bruises paid off: the few schoolyard fights I encountered ended quickly and in my favor. In 1990s Austria, high school fights were common, though rarely more serious than a bloody nose.
I can still see us sparring with broomsticks beside the abandoned tennis courts overgrown with mullein and lesser weeds. quickly got frustrated, and after a particularly painful blow to my legs I hurled my stick at him; it caught him square in the face. He dropped to his knees, clutching his nose, blood spilling between his fingers. I think I started crying, but my memory is blurry. I was around eight years old and he was thirteen.
What I do remember is my brother’s return from the hospital. It was dark already and I lay awake in bed. “Is it broken?” I asked. He nodded, then said it was all right and I shouldn’t feel guilty. Then he gave me a hug that told me he meant it, and I still remember the sense of relief I felt then.
Nehaveigur 