"You can stay here as long as you want, I'm glad you're here," Clara said as she greeted them when they got up in the morning and came to sit at the table.
Aunt Clara usually wakes up every morning at six, does her morning exercises in the living room, goes out to the garden to pick some fruit, and goes for an hour walk on the street where she lives, and returns around eight for breakfast.
Beatrice went to make herself coffee.
"Thank you, Clara, but we have to go back tonight. I have a job that I must return to, and Maria Grazia left her child with a neighbor until Sandro returns from work. We'll be happy to come back again for the holidays, maybe with Sandro and Carlotto."
"You are always welcome in my home," Clara replied.
"Auntie, after we eat something, I would like to go through the documents and family albums; where is everything?"
"In the basement, but I warn you, it is full of dirt, cobwebs, and maybe even mice. I haven't been down there in years."
"Do not worry, Clara; we will make it fast and leave it as it was."
"I still do not understand what you are looking for there, but that is your problem; I will not interfere."
The basement was dingy and cold. Beatrice turned on the light and recoiled backward. Bundles of old newspapers tied up in string were piled up high, blocking access to the crates containing the albums and family valuables. Beatrice had visited the basement once before. Before her marriage, Clara had promised Beatrice her Grandmother Sarah's engagement ring kept inside a silver cigarette box in her handbag. Her brother Davide received the pendant with a portrait of King Vittorio Emanuele, while Beatrice was happy with the ring.
Maria Grazia helped her mother clear a row of bundles of newspapers to allow them to pass. Beyond the wall created by the newspapers, it was quite dark. "Go upstairs and bring a flashlight," she said to her daughter.
After several minutes Maria Grazia returned, panting, holding a burning candle.
"Did you think Auntie would have a flashlight?" she said in an angry voice. "I had to light the stove as she doesn't even have matches, let alone a lighter."
Maria Grazia stood close to her mother and lit up the way. Their silhouettes danced around whenever she moved the candle. There was a heavy musty smell in the air.
"Finish quickly and let's get out of here," she grumbled.
Beatrice opened the lid of one of the crates and looked inside. There were bundles of letters tied with a string, a box full of photos, bags, shoes, framed photographs of various sizes, and many objects of a whole life gone by.
She found a shopping bag full of paperbacks and emptied it on the floor, then took one of the bundles of letters tied together, a leather bag containing various documents, and the box with the photos and tucked them inside. Between all of this, she squeezed some framed pictures. As she turned around to leave, she noticed a medium-sized oil painting with a portrait of a woman lying on a dresser wrapped in plastic and covered in dust. She decided to take that too.
Maria Grazia cleared a path as she led the way. Beyond the pile of newspapers, there was light, so she blew out the candle. Beatrice pulled out a newspaper from one of the bundles and looked at the headlines. It read Viva il Duce, Imperatore! She took the newspaper and covered the items in the shopping bag with it.
When they went upstairs, Aunt Clara had dozed off in an armchair in the garden. They quietly left the house and placed the things they had taken in the trunk of the car.
When they returned to the house, they heard Aunt Clara snoring. They smiled at each other as Beatrice said, "She must never know we took anything." Maria Grazia nodded in agreement.
Before they left, Beatrice walked over to Clara and kissed her forehead. Clara opened her eyes and said, "I must have fallen asleep; I fall asleep several times a day in the armchair, I am already old, and so I am allowed." She smiled.
"We are leaving, my dear aunt; I promise we will visit more often."
For most of the time she was driving, Beatrice withdraws into her thoughts. Maria Grazia lowered the backrest of her seat and stretched out with her eyes closed. As dusk was approaching, the driving became difficult due to the transition from light to dark. It also became more difficult as she had to contend with the continuous traffic of long convoys of trucks whose drivers did not follow safety rules and wildly bypassed each other without regard for small vehicles. Beatrice had years of driving experience, but she suddenly felt insecure. She slowed down and entered the first service area that she met.
"Let's have something to drink, and maybe the traffic will ease up a bit," she suggested.
Beatrice parked her car so that she could keep an eye on it while inside the cafe. Then, they got out of their car and entered.
"There were several cases of car thefts while their owners went in to eat," she explained to her daughter.
"Mamma, this whole trip seems a little strange to me. You were not really interested in Aunt Clara. The reason for your trip was to check the basement, right? "
Beatrice smiled at her as they sipped the cappuccino. "True, I would not particularly go to visit Aunt Clara, although I like her, and we talk once every few weeks on the phone. She never came to visit us in Rome since we moved there, even though I invited her and before that her brother also invited her."
"She's over eighty; how does she live like that alone? If something should happen to her, who will ever know about it?"
"She is a stubborn woman and unwilling to let a stranger into her home, but I made sure she has a distress button connected to a private company that provides medical services."
While they were drinking, Beatrice saw a crowd near her car, "Finish up and come to the car; I'm going out."
It was a tourist bus dropping off its passengers in front of the cafe and blocking Beatrice's view.
"Sorry, are you ready to move your bus? I have to get out of the parking lot," she said to the bus driver.
"Yes, ma'am, I'm moving, just one minute until the last of the passengers gets off. They are a little slow as they've been traveling for many hours."
"Where are they from?" she asked, without really being interested.
"From Israel," the driver replied.
Beatrice looked and examined them one by one. A tourist who noticed her smiled at her, and she smiled back at him.
After about ten minutes of driving in complete silence, she turned to her daughter, "Did you notice anything in those tourists different from Italians? There were light blondes among them with ordinary noses. If they did not say where they were from, I would have thought they were German or French. "
"So, where are they from?" Maria Grazia asked who had not heard the bus driver.
"They are Israelis," she replied.
"Are Israelis Jews?" she asked innocently;
"Of course, Israel is the state of the Jews."
"Everything is so confusing today. For example, one of the women whose child is in kindergarten with Carlotto married a Moroccan Arab. Is their child a Muslim or a Christian?"
"I am not sure, but I think it goes according to the father. I think in Judaism, it goes according to the mother."
'There is a logic in Judaism, the mother is always the mother, as she gave birth to the child. However, the father is not always sure that he is the father. There were many cases in which the mother had a relationship with a lover and her husband at the same time, and when she became pregnant, she couldn't be sure whose child it was."
"Jews have lived in Italy since the times of the Romans, perhaps even before that, during the Hellenistic period, which is more than two thousand years ago. It is thus very likely that for generations they mingled with Christians, just as the Italians mingled with Etruscans and other populations who lived here."
When they arrived in Rome, they said goodbye near Maria Grazia's house, "Mamma, the subject starts to interest me as well, already waiting to hear what you will discover in the stuff you took."