Boxes that must not be opened

We are seated at the table at home while Giovanni, not yet two years old, methodically explores the large bookcase in the living room. He knocks over felt-tip pens, crayons and children’s books, then moves on to the next shelf – the grown-ups’ section. He pulls down whatever he can, examines it carefully, then discards it. Now, on tiptoes – I can see him out of the corner of my eye – he manages to grab a large metal box. The clatter of the box hitting the floor makes us all turn round. “Nothing dangerous,” I say, and we carry on eating.

However, that is not entirely accurate. Giogio has opened one of those Boxes That Must Not Be Opened. Photographs from a time long past, with significant emotional impact. They must be handled with care, as they can be painful.

When the child departs, I bend down and hastily shove everything back into the box, almost breathlessly. Yet I cannot help but glance at the small black-and-white photograph of my mother as a bride, pure and ethereal as if in a dream. The images I would prefer not to see slip through my fingers. One long-ago summer, the five of us were sitting on a bench in the mountains: Giuditta, ninety years old, in her long Ampezzo-style dress; her husband Ferdinando; Emma, her unmarried daughter, who went to Mass every morning; my sister, aged twelve; and me, aged six. They have all passed away since then—not only the elderly, as might be expected, but also my sister, just two years later. I am now the sole survivor of that morning.

However, another photograph comes to the fore, dominating the scene: my older brother – he too has passed away – my sister and I together on a sledge, smiling. With the sort of smile children have on a summer’s morning, not yet aware of any sorrow.

Reflecting later on the domestic scene, one is struck by the absence of any shadow on our faces. And yet the photograph that emerged from the Forbidden Box, which had been sealed for years, radiates a singular light—like the glimmer of an indescribable hope. ‘We didn’t know, it’s true,’ say my brothers who vanished on the sledge, ‘but how much is there now, Marina, that we know, and you don’t?’