Walter turned the photograph over and discovered faint writing nearly erased by time: “A. Moretti, 1944.” The historian urged him to search old property and census records. The name rang with a strange familiarity, as if the past were beginning to pull itself into focus.
At the county archives, Walter located the first deed issued for his home in 1948. The buyer’s name leapt from the page: Augusto Moretti, a dockworker who had purchased the property shortly after World War II, only to vanish without settling taxes for the following year.