1938

If I try hard enough, I can still smell the glue, that viscous liquid that dripped onto the pavement with every dip of the brush, a filthy accomplice to so much printed paper.

And to think that at school, as soon as what was called the Great War ended, I liked it when I used it to attach leaves in my herbarium, being careful not to let them crumble. The secret was to collect the best ones, not crumpled and preferably clean.

To find them, we would go, with my older brothers, up to Monte Mario; then, triumphantly, we would return home and spread them out on the wooden kitchen table, commenting on their shape but, above all, their originality.

Our glue was white, so solid that we had to use a small brush to spread it and prevent it from forming lumps on the paper. The glue that billposters generously spread on walls, poles, and closed shutters, however, mercilessly smeared every surface so that announcements and posters would be clearly visible, even if handled by workers careless of respecting any property and a minimum aesthetic sense that would have been due.

The political objective was that what was printed on it had to be read. Then, to remain silent about the content and do nothing else.

I'm not saying that we, as boys, somehow hadn't gotten used to those figures who appeared suddenly, shouting to make an impression – as if they were angelic ambassadors, but in dark uniforms.

The atmosphere, in those years, was suspended for everyone; we were now ready for novelties, knowing that they were never synonymous with pleasantness. We lived like hares, with our ears pricked, always alert, sniffing the air, ready to hide or become invisible.

Despite everything, the younger ones still played in the street with what they had: a ball, two small sticks, a rope to skip with; and then there were us, already over twenty, who didn't want to give up that state of youth and the hopes associated with it.

I was the second to last of five siblings: three boys, two older than me, Daniele and Davide, one younger, Enrico. Then there was her, Anna, the eldest, with whom I had a thirteen-year age difference.

My parents' gazes, when the two of us argued animatedly about something, had an air of resignation and, at the same time, were filled with admiration. I sensed their sacrifices, but also their pride in having brought us into the world and placed us in a society that – they deluded themselves – would respect us.

When you are born, you have no label, only your appearance: the color of your skin changes, the shape of your eyes, the form of your nose, the texture of those few hairs that sprout – not on everyone, to tell the truth – on your head. You cry and squirm, making that wail your only form of communication with those you will find outside the womb of the one who gave birth to you.

Everyone does it, in the exact same way; yet, it is a word, the turning point.

It is the word that differentiates us.

My mother, a teacher, had not needed to insist that, after high school, I enroll in university. Even as a girl, I seemed molded for that faculty of literature.

I applied myself, effortlessly, only so as not to disappoint my parents' expectations, who considered education as important as the whole wheat flour with which we made unleavened bread.

We were Jews. A word that, by identifying us, made all the difference, despite ourselves, in our lives.

We had been condemned to a branding difference by a perverse twist of fate, which, perhaps, only in a longed-for rebirth, we could redeem, recovering that dignity and reconciliation that, now, was forcefully denied to us, in this life.