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near the city centre. My next goal was to find work, so I applied for a job as a waiter I saw advertised in a local paper for the Hotel Principessa and was surprised to find Italo, my old Partisan comrade, doing the interviewing for the job. He was now the headwaiter for the hotel and he was delighted to see me. We hugged and kissed and spent the interview time catching up on old times. I was offered the job on the spot, and was asked to start the following morning at 7am sharp. I was to shadow a more experienced waiter for the first day, who would help me learn the ropes, and after that, I would be on my own.
    Italo took me to meet the waiter I would be shadowing so that I would not be wasting anyone’s time the next day. He introduced me to a girl about my own age whose name was Maria Fabiani. She was a bubbly type of person with long brown hair and was really quite good looking. I liked her straight away. I realised after the first two or three days that there was a mutual attraction between us, and after a few weeks in the job Maria and I started going out together. At first, we would just go to a movie after work and then, after a while, we progressed to going out for meals, followed afterwards by long chats over a coffee or a glass of wine at the Bar Regina, a trendy bar near the church of Santa Maria Delle Stelle in the city centre. We would sit and talk into the small hours about anything that came into our minds, laughing and joking over the silliest of things. Sometimes we would just sit holding hands and enjoying each other’s company, but most of the time we sat talking about the things of the day. By this time, I was a confirmed communist atheist and Maria was an innocent Catholic conservative. I would kid her on about religion and she would pretend to pray for me. We would laugh at our differences, however, I wondered if her parents would laugh too, if I ever got to the point of meeting them.
    It was a Monday evening in May and I was sitting in the Bar Regina waiting on Maria. Italo had arranged it so that we had our days off at the same time and we would usually spend them together. Maria came into the bar with her usual smile lighting up the room like a bright ray of sunshine. When she sat down beside me I could tell that she had something on her mind. After a while she said, ‘Bruno, would you like to meet my parents on our next day off?’ She shifted uneasily in her seat and before I could answer she continued, ‘They are dying to meet you.’
    Of course, I readily agreed, but I could tell there was something else on her mind.
    â€˜What is it Maria, what’s troubling you?’
    Maria was reticent to continue. Eventually, she plucked up the courage to say, ‘My parents were asking me about your family Bruno and I had to tell them I don’t know anything about them or anything about your background. It got me thinking that we have never spoken about your past and I wondered why.’
    I was stunned. It had become such a way of life for me not to think about the events on Monte Sole and to try to blank out any thoughts of my family that I hadn’t thought about the effect on Maria of never mentioning them. I held her hand tightly in mine and kept my gaze on my wine glass, afraid to look at her. ‘Maria, it’s not what you think. I find it very painful to talk about my family because of what happened to them. Have you heard about what the SS did on Monte Sole during the war?’
    She nodded, ‘They killed everyone there.’
    â€˜I witnessed my own family, every last one of them, being butchered by the SS just outside Marzabotto. I lost all of the members of my family in that rastrallemento . Mother, father, brothers, sister, even my aunt and uncle with their own family, so you can understand why I never talk about them. I even lost all of my friends and neighbours. Maybe one day I will tell you the story, but I think I have told you enough for you to