Free History by Elsa Morante, Lily Tuck, William Weaver Page B

on trial at the Palace of Justice, presented herself at the City Offi in Rome.
    She had duly provided herself with all the required documents : both those on her Jewish matern side and those on her Ary patern side, including her baptismal certificate, as well as Giuseppe's, and those of her Calabrian grandparents (also in their graves now) . Not a thing was lack ing. And since she was ashamed even to open her mouth, along with this dossier, she also handed the clerk a page from a notebook where, in her own hand, she had wri out her personal data. But a kind of repug nance, tantamount to a fi little tri had made her omit any accent on her mother's maiden name.
    "Almagia or ALMAGIA?" the clerk inquired, examining her with an inquisitori eye, authoritative and threatening.
    She fl worse than a pupil caught copying an answer. "Almagia," she murmured hastily, "my mother was Jewish!"
    The clerk sought no further information. And so, for the moment, the matter was settled.
    In any ca Authority, in its secret coff from that day on retained the knowledge that Ida Mancuso, nee Ramundo, schoolteacher, was a halfbreed, though for every else, still, she was an ordinary Aryan . . . In Italy, an A ryan! After a certain time, however, through private sources of hers, Ida learn that the laws were different in the Reich . . . And she began to suspect that any day a possible amendment of the national de crees might occur, involving not only her alone, but perhaps also her son Nino! Like her husband Alfi Ninnuzzu, too, had always been unaware, and could never have dreamed, that there were Jews among his own rela ti He grew up carefree, heedless of every and a fanatical admirer of the Blackshirts.
    Meanwhile, the Mussolini-Hitler bond be tighter and tighter until, in the following spring of 1939, the two formed a military alliance with their Pact of Steel. And without further ado, as Benito had colonized the Ethiopians, Adolf set forth to colonize the people of Europe, under the empire of the supreme German race, as he had promised. Still, at the outburst of the World War that shortly followed, the Italian partner, in spite of the pact, preferred to remain to one side, insecure, temporizing. And only the sensational winnings of his partner (who in the course of one moon, having devoured all Europe, was already at his goal, Paris ) and a

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    wish to guarantee his own share of glory made him enter the war at Adolf's side. It was the month of June 1940; and Ninnuzzu, then fourteen, wel comed the news with pleasure, though irked at the delay. In fact, he had become fed up waiting for his Duce to decide on this new, grand action.
    Of all the rush of world events, Iduzza followed nothing, except the announcements of resounding Hitlerian victories which reechoed in the house through Nino's voice.
    In the days of Italy's entry into the war, she happened to hear various opinions of the matter. Called one aftern by the Principal of the High School, because of certain unjustifi absences of her son Nino, she found the offi in a state of radiant euphoria at the Duce's prompt decision. "We are," the personage declared to her with great pomp, "for peace with victory, at the least possible cost! And today, when the Blitzkrieg of the Axis is about to achieve its goal of peace, we hail the foresight of our Leader, who has won for our Fatherland the fruits of success with the greatest economy. In a single move, saving even the price of tires, here we are at the fi alongside the winner!!" Tbis authoritative speech impressed Ida, who didn't reply.
    As far as she could understand, her fellow teachers at the elementary school, whose talk she overheard in the corridors, thought, more or less, like the Principal of the High School. Only an elderly charw (called Barbetta-the Beard-by the children because of a senile wisp that grew on her chin ) had been caught by Ida as, to ward off evil, she was touch ing all the doors and murmuring, as she went along, that this action