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understand.’
    When I looked up again at Maria, she had tears running down her face. She picked up a tissue from the table and dried her eyes.
    â€˜Bruno, I had no idea. I’m so sorry for bringing this up please forgive me.’
    â€˜How could you possibly have known Maria, there is no forgiveness necessary, so let’s have a glass of wine and put this behind us.’
    We kissed and I felt the warmth of her lips and knew from that moment that I loved this girl and that I would spend the rest of my life with her.
    On our next day off, we headed for the bus station and took a bus to Maria’s parents’ house. I had been invited there for lunch and I was feeling very nervous. This was the first time I had been in a family gathering since before the massacre and too many memories of my own family mealtimes were filling my mind. Maria held my hand as we knocked on the old oak door of the small town house. ‘Remember Bruno, my father’s name is Placido and my mother’s name is Laura. Just be your usual good-natured self and they will love you.
    The door was opened by Maria’s mother who gave us both a big hug and asked us in. Her father was a tall man with a distinguished look about him, which was emphasised even more so by his grey hair and neatly trimmed beard. He politely shook my hand and offered me a glass of wine.
    Over lunch, the subject of the war came up and Placido asked me if I had been involved in it. I simply answered yes.
    He told me that he had fought with the Italian Army in North Africa and had been wounded in action fighting the British near Benghazi. He had been shipped out to a military hospital in Sicily for recuperation until the Allies landed and he was made a prisoner of war until 1944. The more the wine flowed the more Placido wanted to hear of my own military involvement. After more prompting, I finally gave him the story of my war, although when I spoke, I couldn’t look him in the eye.
    â€˜I was only thirteen when the SS came to my village and murdered all my family. They killed my parents, three brothers and my baby sister. I also saw them kill my uncle and aunt and my young cousin . I watched the slaughter from a nearby hillside unable to help any of them. My mother was raped before my eyes before the SS slit her throat and killed her. My aunt had her unborn baby cut out from her womb and both of them were killed. When the slaughter had finished, I left Monte Sole and joined the partisans in Bologna. I fought the Germans until the war ended in April 1945. After a few years of different jobs, I volunteered for the Italian Army until I left that last year for the hotel.’
    There was an embarrassed silence round the table. Placido put his arm round my shoulders and gave me a warm hug. ‘You have seen much, Bruno, and suffered much. This has helped to make you the man you are now. I want you to consider this family as your own family from now on.’ He gave me another hug and pushed a glass of wine into my hand. ‘Maria tells me that she is in love with you and that you are in love with her, so I raise my glass in approval of this love. Salute !”
    We all clinked our glasses together and I laughed out aloud at this unexpected acceptance into the family. That was how I came to have this new love in my life, which changed me from being a loner to a man who cared with his whole life for another person.
    Placido and I became great friends and we spent many hours talking about the things that a father and son would normally have talked about. He became almost as close to me as my father had been and this feeling was reciprocated as he treated me as the son he never had. Maria was delighted at our closeness and it seemed to confirm in her eyes that her love for me was meant to be.
    Maria and I often spoke about her moving into my small flat in Bologna and eventually she made the break from her parents’ house. We planned to get married in a few