{"id":4812,"date":"2021-01-24T14:05:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-24T14:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/?p=4812"},"modified":"2021-01-25T00:31:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T00:31:55","slug":"memorial-stones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/memorial-stones\/","title":{"rendered":"Memorial Stones"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nBenedetta Cibrario<\/a>\r\n\t \t\t
\n
Born in Florence, <\/span>Benedetta Cibrario is an Italian novelist, who lives in Milano and London. She was the recipient of the Rapallo Carige Prize for Sotto cieli noncuranti<\/i> in 2010,  and was a Premio Strega finalist with Il Rumore del mondo<\/i> in 2019. A short novel of hers was translated into English as  The Man Who Slept in the Park<\/i> (Feltrinelli 2013) by Giulia Maccagnini.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nTranslated by Michael Haggiag<\/a>\r\n\t \t\t
Michael Haggiag is a former U.K. editor and co-founder of Aurum Press, now an imprint of Quarto Books. He is of Italian Jewish descent.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The complex and often elusive workings of memory (including the memory and memorialization of the Shoah) have been often explored also by literature, from the immediate post-war period to the present. On the occasion of the the 2021 Giornata della Memoria ( Holocaust Remembrance Day) <\/span>, Printed Matter  would<\/span> <\/b>like to offer<\/span> <\/b>to its readers a contemporary shorts story which explores, in fiction, the relationship between the living memory of the Shoah, and  its memorialization.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The cloister of the old cemetery of San Pietro in Vincoli is bathed in sunlight. The grass is high. It\u2019s probably May or June.  <\/span>I remember it because I was working on my thesis about Anton Walbrook and came every day to do research at the History of Cinema library.<\/p>\n

I had come here so many times that I no longer noticed that the university library was located in a cloister within the grounds of a disused cemetery. In fact none of us students paid the slightest bit of attention. It\u2019s only thinking about it years later \u2013 this period of university studies in the history of cinema now long since over – that I realize how little connection I perceived between these apparently distinct realities: a library and an abandoned cemetery.<\/p>\n

We managed to see old films \u2013 we\u2019re talking here about the years when there was just one VCR at the Institute of Film History \u2013 only on movie club nights in the basement of the Science Academy and whenever they projected a film during the occasional seminar. We often studied directors whose films we had never seen or, if we had seen them, were exhibited on the most rough-and-ready prints imaginable. <\/span><\/p>\n

The library had a rich and exhaustive archive, however, that made up for many of our institute\u2019s shortcomings.  <\/span>It was also through these explorations in print that there awoke in me a desire filled with nostalgia for those films that I had not yet seen but had merely read about. <\/span><\/p>\n

The only thing that bothered me about the library was that to reach it I had to cross a field of wild grasses that made my eyes burn and fill up with tears. I don\u2019t believe it ever occurred to me that this soft field had once been studded with headstones nor did I ever ask myself where all the dead bodies had gone, whether they had been returned to their descendants or relocated to an ossuary or even if they might still be there below me, sealed within their tombs. <\/span><\/p>\n

I avoided crossing it, not for what it had been but for what it had become: a field of weeds. I quickly skirted around the three sides of the portico until I was able to slip through the glass door of the library and out of reach of the long grasses and the invisible flight path of their seeds.<\/p>\n

I went back for a visit with my friend June, an attractive volunteer who works for the Touring Club of Italy. She acts as a custodian, rotating with other volunteers between several historic sites around Turin. It was she who told me, in her soft American accent, that the library where I studied had only been temporary. Today San Pietro in Vincoli hosts cultural events, art exhibits and conventions. The cloister is just as I remember it: small in scale with perfect proportions. \u201cIt always brings to mind Mrs. Astor\u2019s ballroom and the legendary Four Hundred,\u201d says June.  <\/span>\u201cThe ballroom was built to entertain just four hundred guests, not one more or one less, such being the number of people in New York\u2019s high society.  <\/span>They say the same principle was applied here when the cemetery was first erected for the local nobility at the end of the eighteenth century.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike Mrs. Astor, however, who would never have allowed socially undesirable guests at her ball, here they ended up accepting everyone: unbaptized babies, the mortal remains of suicides and finally even those who had been condemned to death by hanging \u2013 all destined for the charnel house of course.  <\/span>I remark to Jane that belonging to a restricted circle, like that of Mrs. Astor\u2019s Four Hundred and even in this case, demands some form of compromise. \u201cIn any event,\u201d she chuckles, \u201cit was over-crowded. Try to imagine it. The cemetery is overflowing. Hygiene is terrible.  <\/span>Awful smell everywhere. They close it – for good.\u201d<\/p>\n

She turns around and points at the cloister walls. \u201cEverything that could be stolen was <\/i>stolen.\u201d Those headstones removed with a chisel have left traces on the surface like missing paintings in a gallery.  <\/span>But two headstones remain side by side. You cannot help but notice them. They stand out as the only survivors after so many years of assault and vandalism. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAn Italian officer and an English lady were married and presumably living together in Turin\u2026like me, \u201c says June. \u201cI met my husband when I was on vacation in Italy and ended up staying. I\u2019m going back to New York for Christmas, but by now I feel at home here.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow did these two end up in Turin in the mid-nineteenth century only to be buried in a cemetery reserved for nobility and hanged men?\u201d I ask her. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows? Travellers. Merchants. Officials. People travelled the same as they do today. We tend to judge people of other times by our own standards. Today coming from London in a horse and carriage seems like a rare and difficult thing to do, but they did it much more often than we think, believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are no other headstones in this devastated cemetery, only empty places. Left alone, the dead seem somehow even deader. I mark down these two names and hastily copy their epitaphs on a little piece of paper. I don\u2019t want to be seen. I feel a bit ashamed as if there were something morbid about what I\u2019m doing.  <\/span>At home I have three shoeboxes full of similar bits of paper: each time I find a memorial stone <\/span><\/p>\n

I transcribe the information on it.  <\/span>I gather names and dates and places and try to piece together stories about people who no longer have them.<\/p>\n

 <\/span>Over time I have learned to spot them – those headstones and markers that are everywhere in our cities – from the most recent ones to those of the last World War. A cluster of names might be found in a chance place of death. Victims executed in the street will have their names embedded next to a newspaper stand or a bar or a pizzeria.  <\/span>There are names of men and women, and many children too. They will include a date, or at times the age of the person or a photograph. They constitute a map, showing us where a story ended in that intersection between the personal and the collective. I am no longer embarrassed about transcribing their names or reading them carefully. I feel they\u2019re alive – memory\u2019s curbstones – and the silence and distraction of the passers-by protect them, their gaze touching them without seeing them. I want to think of these headstones, all memorial stones, as engraved words that enclose entire worlds that happened – events concluded, reconstructed, conceivable, avoidable \u2013 like signposts to memories that won\u2019t fade but project themselves into the future to compensate for the limitations of our imagination.<\/p>\n

Distance, as travellers know, narrows one\u2019s focus; and distance is memory, the very essence of memory which either trashes or conserves; which stores, accumulates, consolidates and projects every instant somewhere else. The future will also become a memory, one that will use words so as not to be lost. <\/span><\/p>\n

Two sisters, Rome 2011<\/i><\/p>\n

Rome is bathed in a warm, invigorating light. It\u2019s the first light of spring. It has rained over the last few days so the air is very clear. The limpid light makes the entire city appear to be under glass. I recall the closed door and Laura searching her purse for the keys as I glance down at the pavement in front of the entrance.<\/p>\n

There are five of them. Five shiny brass cobblestones embedded in the pavement in place of the usual ones made of basalt rock. Each one is inscribed with a name and two dates, a birth date and the 16th<\/sup> of October 1943.  <\/span>Guido and Laura. Then Carlo, Arrigo and Anita, ages seven, five and three. The last line is the same for all of them: deported to Auschwitz. Place of death unknown. Date of death unknown.<\/p>\n

My sister and I are standing one in front of the other. The area surrounding the door of Via Anicia is unusually silent and deserted. A whirlpool of dry leaves swirls about and a rectangular piece of tin foil, perhaps from a packet of cigarettes, somersaults a couple of times before making a delicate landing. Another gust of wind from the opposite direction disperses them all. The leaves scatter but the tin foil is caught in a crack between two cobblestones.<\/p>\n

I take out my notebook and write down the names and the date. Laura gives me a curious look. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you doing that?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. Because I want to know, I suppose.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She shakes her head and points at one of the brass blocks. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDid you see that? She was called Laura.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes I saw.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not being morbid?\u201d  <\/span><\/p>\n

The tone of her voice makes it sound more like a statement than a question, but I know she meant it as a question.<\/p>\n

We were both born many years after the searches, the deportations, the executions, and the reprisals. We read about them in our history books; we saw them at the movies, in documentaries; we read about them in the newspapers on Memorial Day holidays, wincing at the clarity of the survivors\u2019 memories.  <\/span>As children we lived in a large city in northern Italy on a long tree-lined street, the same one where a few blocks away Primo Levi fell down the stairs of his apartment building in 1987. Our generation is poised half way between those who lived the horror in their own skins and those who only studied it in books or saw it on film. For us it was already, even then, history. <\/i>Something that we had to know and preserve in our memory, but something we couldn\u2019t change, only remember. Something that is a part of us because we\u2019re human, but doesn\u2019t personally concern us. This is what we thought.<\/p>\n

And yet my sister struggles to insert her key into the door at the entrance of Via Anicia because her hand is trembling almost imperceptibly. It\u2019s an old lock that most likely hasn\u2019t been replaced since the early thirties when the door was first mounted on its hinges. \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything,\u201d she says. \u201cI never imagined that they lived in this building.\u201d \u201cWe can ask the caretaker for more information,\u201d I offer. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAntonio is a cantankerous character,\u201d she snorts. \u201cIt\u2019s better if we let it be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy let it be? Don\u2019t you want to know why there are five brass blocks on your doorstep instead of cobblestones?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s me who knocks on the caretaker\u2019s door. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe office is open from 8 to 1pm,\u201d he grunts. It\u2019s a quarter to two. \u201c<\/p>\n

This is my time off.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

I give him a five euro bill and apologize for the disturbance. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat disturbance?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to know about the brass cobblestones. The ones in front of the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonio shakes his head. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey look like five gold rocks, don\u2019t they? They call them stumble stones.  <\/span>A German artist did them. There was even an article in Il Messaggero<\/i> about them. Didn\u2019t you see it?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

My sister shakes her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the reason you didn\u2019t see the article was because it was no longer than this.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Antonio opens a gap of ten centimeters between his thumb and forefinger. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you didn\u2019t know what to look for, you could miss it altogether. Anyway Via Anicia has been a no parking zone for the last three weeks. Road works. That\u2019s why you didn\u2019t see them until now. You can\u2019t park on top of them anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat road works?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gas company. Maintenance. It\u2019s always someone. Last summer it was the fiber optics people. One robbery after another. Wouldn\u2019t it be better, I say, to dig the road up one time only?\u201d<\/p>\n

I nod in agreement. \u201cOf course it would be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI must warn you not to park your car here. Or your moped. Not even for five minutes. They towed away Dr. Sannazzaro\u2019s VW twice in one week. The second time it happened he went ballistic. He came down here cursing and shouting at everyone for fifteen minutes. A full quarter of an hour. I was about to call the police myself. They\u2019re going to really go for each other now, I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich apartment did they live in?\u201d said my sister, interrupting his flow. <\/span><\/p>\n

She glances at the stairwell. It\u2019s a small building of just three floors with only one  <\/span>apartment per floor. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I know?\u201d he shrugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly everyone knew each other here,\u201d she says, staring at the building as if  <\/span>she expected someone to come to the window. \u201cHow ugly,\u201d she whispers under her breath. <\/span><\/p>\n

I persist, \u201cWho can we ask?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Antonio sticks a cigarette between his lips but doesn\u2019t light up. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. Listen, don\u2019t ask me.\u201d<\/p>\n

My sister intervenes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAntonio was a haberdasher on Via delle Mule, right in back of here. He came to work here as a caretaker only last year. Isn\u2019t that right, Antonio?\u201d<\/p>\n

He nods and smiles, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe best stocked haberdashery in Trastevere. My clients came from all over Rome.\u201d<\/p>\n

My sister simply closes her eyes and smiles sweetly. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt must have been sad having to change jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonio purses his lips.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end I wasn\u2019t selling anything anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did you do with the overstock?\u201d I ask him. \u201cDo you still have it?\u201d<\/p>\n

He looks at me as if he were about to make a difficult decision. He shakes his head and takes a step back as if he wanted to retreat into the caretaker\u2019s office and shut us out, but he doesn\u2019t. Instead he turns and unlocks the door next to the office.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He shows us into a ground floor apartment that extends into the interior of the building. I can see a corridor opening onto two rooms. He leads us into the first one, which is freshly painted and filled with light. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you live here?\u201d I ask him. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my parents\u2019 apartment. I moved here after my mother died.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonio leads us to the end of the hallway. In the last room, between the bed and the dresser, is a storage closet. He opens it carefully, as if the latticework door were a coffer holding a great treasure.  <\/span>There are boxes piled neatly on metal shelves. Each one has a sticky hand-written label describing its contents: braid, ribbons, fringes, wicks, jerseys, vestment railings. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI also have buttons,\u201d says Antonio, \u201cI only kept a few, the most beautiful ones.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

He pulls down a box and grabs a handful of polished, multifaceted black buttons. He opens the palm of his hand under Laura\u2019s nose as if displaying a handful of rough diamonds.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at that sheen. That\u2019s true black.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLignite,\u201d she smiles. Turning to me she adds, <\/span>\u201cJet Black is what it\u2019s normally called. Very fashionable throughout the 19th<\/sup> century. They used it to make buttons and jewelry for mourners.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor mourning outfits and evening clothes,\u201d says Antonio. <\/span><\/p>\n

He raises his thumb, index and middle fingers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree generations in Vicolo delle Mule. Seventy years in haberdashery. First my grandfather, then my father and then me until I was evicted. And now here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonio draws a circle in the air with his right forefinger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t complain. It\u2019s a nice building in the middle of the city. Quiet. The tenants are all good people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you don\u2019t remember anything about them? Since you all lived here, maybe\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

I point vaguely at the ceiling and then towards the street, my hand making an invisible trajectory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told you. I don\u2019t know anything. I was only six or seven years old during the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonio strokes the jet buttons that my sister has handed back to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember anything. Every afternoon after school I went to the shop. To work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Mrs. Ranzi?\u201d asks Laura, waving her finger uncertainly at the ceiling. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe lady on the top floor? She\u2019s always lived here, hasn\u2019t she?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s deaf,\u201d says Antonio. \u201cDeaf and slightly mad. Just so you know. You\u2019ll have to shout.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonio accompanies us to the door. Laura smiles sweetly at him: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou had a lot of very nice things in your shop. No plastic Chinese buttons or synthetic fringes for you, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonio shakes his head and looks crestfallen at the buttons in his hand. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI made a mistake, you know. I needed the money. I sold almost everything. The trimmings, the ribbons, the braided gallons, the chenille. I sold them all for nothing. The zippers, the mother of pearl buttons, the hooks. I kept only these few boxes. Next time take what you want. I\u2019ll give you these buttons. See how they shine?\u201d<\/p>\n

We walk up two flights of stairs. The studio is on the second floor. Laura extracts a big bunch of keys from her purse. There are three locks to open and an alarm system to disarm. Behind the door is a metal gate, like something you would see in a prison. We have to unlock this as well. The shutters are rolled down and we move about on tenterhooks until my sister turns on the central switch. The lights come on serially.  <\/span>Finally we turn on a large reflector lamp that lights up a picture, which has been placed on the ground. It looks strange, as if the lady\u2019s drapery and the Pharaoh\u2019s daughter were foreshortened and out of proportion. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s meant to be seen from the bottom up.\u201d Laura explains to me. \u201cThere are a few na\u00efve technical errors here and there but on the whole it\u2019s a beautiful painting. Look at the trees. They\u2019re magnificent. I think there may have been two painters involved, one who was a specialist in human figures and another artist who did the landscape.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She hands me a magnifying glass. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe foliage is extraordinary, you see?<\/p>\n

We look at it for a moment in silence. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was destroyed,\u201d she said. \u201c The colors were separating in many places and it had been repainted with a varnish which had oxidized and turned it completely yellow. Now you can see its true colors. See how well the dressing gown has been done? <\/span><\/p>\n

A metallic sound reverberates from the floor above. Someone is dragging something that screeches. My sister looks up at the ceiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cMrs. Ranzi,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s her chair. They\u2019re constantly moving the furniture about in that apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo she\u2019s at home.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, she\u2019s always at home. She\u2019s almost ninety.  <\/span>She goes out on Sunday with her granddaughter once in a while. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn that case let\u2019s go and ask her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk what? Ask about that family? You\u2019re crazy. Completely out of your mind. What makes you think I want to know?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end we went upstairs. A girl with crinkly hair opened the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking for Mrs. Ranzi,\u201d says my sister. Then she adds,  <\/span>\u201cBut I didn\u2019t tell her we were coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

I give her a stunned look. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll call her,\u201d says the girl, slipping away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean, \u201cI didn\u2019t tell her\u2026.\u201d??<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever,\u201d says she. \u201cDo you want to speak to this Ranzi woman or don\u2019t you? \u201c<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi is a kind of Gloria Swanson. That\u2019s the type: tall, bony, with high cheekbones and strong features. Painted eyebrows. Here hair is fine and stringy, and \u2013 contrary to every biological norm \u2013 dark brown. She\u2019s wrapped in a beige, woolen shawl that is stained with a few spots of coffee or tea. Yet she\u2019s majestic, in a certain way. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo,\u201d she says in a somewhat high voice. \u201cWhat is the reason for this unexpected visit? Unexpected but pleasant,\u201d she hastens to add. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI work downstairs on the second floor. I\u2019m a restorer,\u201d says my sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d replies Mrs. Ranzi. \u201cYou\u2019ll have to speak louder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sister said she works below you on the second floor. She has a studio where she restores paintings. And I\u2019m passing through Rome. I\u2019m a writer.\u201d I\u2019m speaking so loudly that I suddenly feel ridiculous, like I\u2019m on stage doing a performance. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAh,\u201d says Mrs. Ranzi. \u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turn to Laura and mutter that normally when I say I\u2019m a writer people ask me what I write. They never just say \u201dgood\u201d.  <\/span>I fear the conversation has come to a dead end.<\/p>\n

She chuckles. \u201cContinue. You\u2019re doing wonderfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday I noticed \u2013 we noticed, my sister and I \u2013 that they\u2019ve place a memorial in front of \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cA memorial stone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, not exactly a memorial stone. They\u2019re more like cobblestones. Made out of brass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBrass cobblestones.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turn to my sister.  <\/span>\u201cMrs. Ranzi is repeating everything I say to her,\u201d I whisper.<\/p>\n

Eyeing me, she shrugs her shoulders and opens her hands as if to say, \u201cdeal with it\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, brass cobblestones with names inscribed on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith names inscribed on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFive people arrested on the 16th<\/sup> of October 1943.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 16th<\/sup> of October 1943.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you remember?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi raises her face to the light and inhales deeply as if she needed to catch her breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cExcuse me,\u201d she says. \u201cI need a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why I let you persuade me to come here,\u201d says Laura.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi purses her lips and makes a gurgling sound. \u201cCatalina!\u201d<\/p>\n

Catalina arrives with a tray in her hand bearing a bottle of sparkling water, glasses and a pitcher of lemon juice. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCatalina can read my mind,\u201d says Mrs. Ranzi. \u201cLemon and water was just what I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catalina places the tray on the table and pours the glasses of water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always drink lemon juice at this hour. It disinfects the stomach.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She glances at Catalina who is pouring the lemon juice into a glass and stirring it with a spoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the way we protect ourselves from the flu.\u201d Catalina looks at us to see if we too want some lemon juice, but we indicate that we don\u2019t. She waits for the woman to drink and takes away her glass, leaving the tray behind. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOld age is no joke,\u201d continues Mrs. Ranzi. \u201cYou have to learn to protect yourself if you\u2019re going to get away with it or at least postpone the end.\u201d  <\/span>She allows herself a grimace. \u201cI\u2019m not ready yet. Not me. They say some old people refuse to eat and let themselves die, a little bit at a time. What nonsense. Better to die just once. I don\u2019t see why you should postpone the deed once you\u2019ve made up your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

She shuts her eyes and suddenly opens them wide, just like Gloria Swanson when she played Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will stay in this house until the end. I was born here and I intend to die here. And that\u2019s what I told my grandchildren. They can have the apartment after I die. Not before. This is my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s truly a lovely house. Full of light. And peaceful, I imagine. Really a lovely apartment,\u201d I tell her.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course it\u2019s a lovely apartment. The loveliest. The house was built by my grandfather. He owned the land. In 1927 or \u201928 my family still owned parcels of land in this part of the city. Oddments, my father called them, relative to what they had before. My grandfather sold them all, one after the other. This was the only one left and he built this building on it. He put up the land and the contractor put up the money and then they divided up the apartments. This is the one he kept for the family because it was the largest and had the most light. The building was very modern for the period. The architect was a friend of my father. You see how large and well proportioned the windows are? He was a good architect. My grandfather was very capable when it came to this sort of thing. He had a nose for business as well as a certain aesthetic sensibility. The family often talked about it. Then he got into trouble, like a lot of other people, and lost his money. I made him sell the apartment of the ground floor. In \u201945 the war was over. I convinced him to sell it to the caretakers who lived in it. He had to sell it to them at a hefty discount or they wouldn\u2019t have been able to afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cForgive me, but why did you make him sell it cheaply?\u201d Laura asks. \u201cDidn\u2019t you say he had lost money? Why sell it for less than it was worth?\u201d<\/p>\n

Our Swanson ignores the interruption with the same hauteur as the true Gloria Swanson. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was I who insisted he sell. I had my reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pulls back her head, peering over us as if she were addressing a public that was seated behind our backs.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is a tangled web for us all. Decidedly tangled, as I always say to my granddaughters.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She falls silent for a moment, lost in thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou too will have to disentangle yourselves one day,\u201d she mutters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow old are your granddaughters?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi starts to straighten her dress with her hands, as if she wished to stretch it over her knees and smooth out some invisible creases.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do I know?\u201d she replies irritably. \u201cThose two idiots. And that\u2019s precisely what they are: certifiable idiots. They\u2019ll sell this apartment without a doubt. And they\u2019ll give all my things to the parish church. They\u2019ll put everything in plastic bags and give them to the priest. That\u2019s what always happens. What can African charities do with my lizard handbags or my evening shoes? My friend Ada left everything to the Institute for the Blind. But I won\u2019t do that. Giving handbags and satin shoes to the blind is sheer foolishness. I could leave them the apartment. Now that would teach those two a lesson. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi inhales heavily as if she were fishing for oxygen at the bottom of her stomach. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut they\u2019re my brother\u2019s daughters so I couldn\u2019t do that. The apartment is a family asset, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a generous woman,\u201d says Laura with a smile. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMe generous?\u201d You must be joking. Ask Antonio if I\u2019m a generous woman. He hates me. And that\u2019s because I had my revenge,\u201d she adds. <\/span><\/p>\n

The three of us sit in silence for a moment. Laura seems uneasy. I\u2019m more curious than she is and end up asking Mrs. Ranzi what she meant when she said that she had her revenge. She looks at me as if I had just uttered something incredibly foolish. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMust I remind you of our ugly history, young lady?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat history?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t this why you\u2019re here?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n

Laura is visibly uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease forgive us,\u201d she says. \u201cWe should go now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had my r-e-v-e-n-g-e,\u201d Mrs. Ranzi replies, literally spelling it out for us. \u201cIt was<\/i><\/p>\n

exactly what I just told you. <\/i>A little at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catalina reappears and takes the tray. Then she disappears again into the corridor. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bottomless pit,\u201d Mrs. Ranzi is saying. \u201cOnce you fall into it you never come out again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is a bottomless pit?\u201d I ask her.<\/p>\n

\u201cA bottomless pit,\u201d she repeats, straightening her dress again. From this position, with her head bent over, her voice has a strangled quality.  <\/span>\u201cBottomless,\u201d she repeats, \u201cbottomless.\u201d<\/p>\n

My sister signs to me that we should leave NOW. I nod and rise from my chair, making a certain amount of noise. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAntonio is Adriana\u2019s son,\u201d says Mrs. Ranzi lifting her head. She emphasizes each of her words. \u201cThe caretaker of the building. My grandfather hired her. And he let her live with her husband and son in the apartment beside the caretaker\u2019s office. The same one that Antonio lives in today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same apartment?\u201d I say with a trace of amazement, but Mrs. Ranzi doesn\u2019t seem to have heard me.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdriana was a stupid woman,\u201d she continues. \u201cA stupid gossip, but above all stupid.<\/p>\n

Antonio wasn\u2019t around much because he went to the shop to help his father after school. The haberdashery shop, you know, the best one in the neighborhood. He didn\u2019t study at school so they failed him. And then there was the story about the lessons, the cause of everything. In some way it was my fault too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat lessons? I ask.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi ignores my question once more and continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey lived on the first floor. Madam Laura was a very kind lady. She was a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

We absorb this information in silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thirsty. I\u2019m always thirsty these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looks around her with an expression that seems suddenly uncertain, as if she didn\u2019t know where she was. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou said Madam Laura taught school?\u201d I ask, trying to help her recover her train of thought. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t say she taught school. I said she was<\/i> a teacher. There\u2019s a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

I nod. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe liked teaching. It was what she did. Before the racial laws, obviously, when they no longer let her\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

She leaves the sentence hanging and closes her eyes, leaning against the back of the armchair. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no more peace or serenity anywhere, not even in this little building. And it wasn\u2019t the war that was about to break out that took it away from us. The war only accustomed us to being afraid of everything and to try and stay alive. The peace of mind we had lost was something else. I was only a girl but some things you understand even if you\u2019re only fifteen years old.  <\/span>In \u201938 or \u201939 I went downstairs to help her with her babies. This was how I became aware that she had changed. Any sudden noise would make her jump. \u2018I\u2019m worried,\u2019 she would say. \u2018People have changed. Rome is different.\u2019 I thought it was because she had lost her job so I suggested that she might give private lessons. I would take care of spreading the word around the neighborhood and find students for her. She seemed relieved. The children came immediately. Word had gotten out that she was a good teacher who didn\u2019t charge much. They were well off but not rich. They had three children and as long as she could work they had two incomes to help support them. Then, from 1938, only her husband Guido worked. So the idea of giving private lessons lifted her spirit. She said that I had given her a splendid idea. Her afternoons were soon full so I looked after the children when she gave her lessons. She began to smile again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi pauses and wets her lips with her tongue. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere were days when they continued arriving without stop. You know how kids are: noisy and disorderly. They made a hell of a noise. And they continued to come even after the war started because she was so able. At the end many no longer paid her. Instead they would bring palm butter or a couple of eggs, but she was happy. You could see that she was in a good mood again. Adriana grumbled, however, and how she grumbled. She said she had to mop the stairs every day after the students came. She said she couldn\u2019t go on like this, with all the coming and going. That they had made her do maid\u2019s work when she was actually a caretaker – the caretaker of a brand new building at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura gets up and takes me by the arm. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThank you. You\u2019ve been very kind, but now we really must go. I have an appointment with the Superintendent of Archeology on the other side of Rome. I can\u2019t be late.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdriana didn\u2019t like what was going on, but for a few years she didn\u2019t do anything about it. She limited herself to grumbling ever more vociferously. Then Antonio failed his exams. You see he couldn\u2019t ever do his homework because they sent him to work at the shop every afternoon.  <\/span>Madam Laura offered to give him free lessons. She did it out of kindness and because Antonio was then a nice, well-behaved boy. But Adriana took against it. She was mortally offended. \u2018How dare that Jewess <\/i>offer me charity? Who does she think she is?\u2019 she used to say, \u2018Just because she\u2019s studied<\/i>?\u2019 \u2018They\u2019re Jews,\u2019 <\/i>she would say repeatedly, \u2018the only Jews in the piazza and they had to land on me.\u2019 She talked as if the building belonged to her. \u2018It seems like there are Jews everywhere,\u2019 <\/i>she would say, \u2018and they look down their noses at us, as if they were who knows what.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi lowered her voice as if she was about to share a secret with us. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is\u2026 everyone knew about Adriana\u2019s opinions. She made no secret of them. We\u2026my grandfather should have got rid of her. He was, you understand, the majority shareholder in the building. But he thought she was a fine caretaker who polished the brass railings on the stairwell until they shined. She made them look like pure gold. My grandfather didn\u2019t think it was necessary to fire her. I believe he thought \u2026 well, that she was too stupid to be\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Ranzi breaks off and stares into space with a veiled look in her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be what?\u201d I ask her.<\/p>\n

\u201cDangerous,\u201d she replies. \u201cHaven\u2019t you got it yet?\u201d<\/p>\n

My sister tries to drag me away, but since I don\u2019t move she makes her way toward the exit by herself. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going,\u201d she says. \u201cYou do what you like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMadam Laura was a true teacher,\u201d Mrs. Ranzi is saying. The tone of her voice is much lower, almost caressing her words. \u201cI can tell you this story dozens of times,\u201d she says sweetly, \u201cdozens and dozens of times. I haven\u2019t forgotten a single detail. Occasionally in the afternoons I looked after their little girl. She was the youngest of the three and\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From the doorway comes Laura\u2019s raised voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to go, I\u2019m sorry. I completely forgot about this appointment. I really have to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the last one of the building\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura has already reached the exit and is fumbling with the latch. For the second time that day she is too nervous to undo a lock. I move around her hand and open the door. She slips out and I follow her. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter with you?\u201d I ask her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is giving me the creeps. Let\u2019s get out of here, I beg you.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re on the landing in front of the elevator when Mrs. Ranzi joins us, with the help of her minder. She looks perplexed. We\u2019re her public, the only one that refused to hear her story through and who left before the end. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf one of these days you would like to come by again and have a lemonade, you\u2019re welcome,\u201d she says. <\/span><\/p>\n

Catalina echoes her words and confirms them with a nod of her head. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>\u201cYou\u2019ll be welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c Thank you,\u201d I murmur. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know,\u201d says Mrs. Ranzi,\u201dI\u2026well\u2026 I was the last one of the building to see them alive. It was very early in the morning when they came for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She leans on Catalina\u2019s arm. The skin on her face looks like tissue paper, a thin sheet of ivory-colored tissue paper. She bends over, scrutinizing the shiny mottled pavement of Venetian tiles with her opaque gaze as if searching for the infinite steps that have trampled upon it, dispersed and spent steps, that to her were still visible and indeed indelible. We watch her as we wait. <\/span><\/p>\n

When she looks up there is no longer any trace of opacity in her eyes but only a look of implacable determination. Her voice is sharp and clear and brimming with youthful vigor. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey made an infernal racket and I woke up. I opened the door ajar and tiptoed downstairs. The baby\u2026 Anita \u2026 saw me and waved good-bye. And it was precisely this that I went to tell her for fifty three years. I went downstairs and knocked on the door of the caretaker\u2019s office every morning. I never missed a day. Even when she was no longer a caretaker but simply a deaf old lady who lived in the apartment that my grandfather had sold to her, I knocked on that door too. I never used the bell. I knocked with the knuckles of my fist just like they had done. I knocked and knocked until she opened the door. I wanted her to hear my story every day. I wanted her to have that image in front of her eyes: Anita in her mother\u2019s arms saying bye-bye with her little hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God,\u201d I exclaim. <\/span><\/p>\n

My sister can\u2019t even speak and retreats to the back of the elevator, as if taking shelter from a sudden gust of icy wind. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she saw her, you understand?\u201d She saw little Anita though my words<\/i> every God-given day she remained on earth from that moment on.\u201d<\/p>\n

I push the button on the elevator and hold it until it reaches the ground floor.<\/p>\n

We leave the building and turn right.  <\/span>We slip into the first sandwich bar that we find open and order two coffees. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like peeking through a keyhole,\u201d my sister is saying. \u201cDon\u2019t you realize how morbid this all is? What do we ourselves know about these people? The details are no use to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo speak about someone and tell their history is like keeping them alive,\u201d I counter. \u201cIt guarantees their survival.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She shakes her head. We know the history, <\/i>at least the general picture. You remember the round up of the Roman Jews on the 16th<\/sup> of October, don\u2019t you?  <\/span>We studied it at school. What else did you want to ask Mrs. Ranzi, eh? Tell me.  <\/span>Whether she felt better doing what she did?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I reply. \u201cI don\u2019t think she felt any better. She made sure that Adriana wouldn\u2019t forget, but she wasn\u2019t able to forget either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura raises her voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou dragged me to \u2026 to \u2026 You wanted to know their story as badly as Mrs. Ranzi wanted to tell it. So what did you want to know? Go ahead, tell me. What did you want to know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to know their story. What happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, that\u2019s not true! I\u2019ll tell you what you wanted to know. You wanted real life! Facts, not history. The details. The terrible \u2026 the atrocious cruelty of the details. Whether they went in silence. Whether they were sleepy or pleaded and begged. This is what you wanted to know. Whether they prayed \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLaura, calm down,\u201d I tell her. <\/span><\/p>\n

But she doesn\u2019t calm down. Instead she raises her voice even more. The barman glances at me in embarrassment and then starts to empty the dishwasher without raising his head again.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to know if the children cried or shouted,\u201d Laura continues. \u201cIf they knew. You can always go back and ask her. She will certainly remember! Who could forget it? In the end she is too upset even to go on speaking.  <\/span>She hides her face in her hands and we stay this way for the next quarter of an hour: she crying softly and I looking at her without saying a word. <\/span><\/p>\n

Finally she uncovers her face and grabs a paper napkin to dry her eyes and nose. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to know, I can tell you who they were. But you should already know, even without the things that Mrs. Ranzi told us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were three children and their parents,\u201d I tell her.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly,\u201d she murmurs. \u201cJust three children and their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are both feeling ignorant and frightened and unworthy of the clear, fresh spring day that awaits us; unworthy of our two coffees; unworthy of our youth. Each of us sees reflected in the eyes of the other something that seems like a belated and nearly lost sense of shame. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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