Portrait of My Grandfather in Uniform

There is a photo, almost hiding behind the others, on the mantel of my fireplace: a man posing in uniform, sitting proudly on a beautiful white horse. The photo is taken from the ground, so this man is looking down from his height. I can't quite see his eyes, hidden in the shadow cast by the hat; a half smile seems directed right at me, but it does not register as inviting, as if it was not meant to connect, rather to keep at a distance. His stance is elegant, impeccable. He looks handsome, and he seems aware of it. There is, however, something unconvincing about him; an emptiness, a sadness …

A detail both odd and tragic in my eyes, the horse's head and tail are cut off from the image, as if the only worthy, interesting subject was the man seated on it, the horse a mere prop.

This man is my mother's father. His own mother, a woman very dear to me, is my great-grandmother. With her I associate my felt sense of motherly tenderness, of a loving hug; my cellular memory of a welcoming safety, in her abundant and multilayered traditional Dalmatian clothing, rigorously black for widows, swishing around me as I take my first baby steps. I am part of her bloodline. And her son, my grandfather, is wearing a Fascist uniform.

It hits me as if I was apprehending this for the first time. And again, I can't contain the sadness. It feels desperate and raw. It comes from a deep place within where reason and thought have a hard time claiming their role. It is a place that houses my shame.

My shame, with the collective shame of my family.

I WONDER WHAT IT DOES TO A PERSON to feel that underneath a formal, stiff uniform they are wearing, metaphorically speaking, a stained and tattered undershirt.

By association my mind travels to this one morning in elementary school, in a small provincial town in southern Italy; I am eight or nine years old. It is picture day. I have two headshots from that day, same pose. One is taken with my immaculately white s