CORRI! CORRI!

       The words, corri, corri, kept sounding over and over in my head.  What did they mean?  What was their significance?  Why now in Trieste?  Why so insistent?  I could not recall hearing those words before…at least not in recent history.  So who or what was behind them?   The voice said, don’t ignore it.  Corri!  Corri!  They came, again, and again.

~

        Lucilla does not know a stranger.  She would address a lamp post and learn of its makings if it would answer her back. 

So when the two young women came over to share the magnificent views seen from the S. Giusto Castle, seated high on a hill above the city, Lucilla, immediately engaged the Italian girl---who, like myself, was busy snapping pictures-- in conversation. From the background I could hear her sharing the details of my journey and her enthusiasm over my blog.  This sparked the interest of both women who moved into our space to share their story. “We were members of a philanthropic group established by the European Union who met, became close friends, and worked together on a project in Ireland a while back,” the blond girl said. 

Like kindred spirits reunited, we momentarily put our ambitions of sightseeing and picture taking aside to exchange some mutual philosophical views; and what better place to feel the inspiration of the moment then beside the gate of a late fifteenth century castle with its detached courtyard of ancient ruins.

      Later that evening, Polona, the young Slovenian woman, set the kitchen bar in my apartment with three place settings while, Simona, the young Italian woman ---affectionately referred to by her friend as “Mama Mia”—stood behind the stove preparing our wonderful pasta meal, and I the fresh mozzarella and tomato salad.            

        It’s difficult to put into words the magic of such an encounter, other than to say that we all felt a common bond, and that our paths had been destined to cross.  Later, I would discover that I had found another angel in Trieste who would play an important role in my journey. 

      ~

       The next morning I met my new friends/soul mates in town for a prearranged trip to the “white fairy tale” castle of Miramare. Still suffering with the hangover from our late night talk, we stopped first at a coffee bar for an espresso to help jump start the morning.

     Simona, now our interpreter, was standing in front of the glass door that protected the bus driver from the passengers, chatting with him in Italian about the castle stop. Ten minutes later we were standing in front of a stone wall looking for the entrance (a short cut according to the bus driver) to the castle grounds.  But all we found was a locked gate. ‘Guess we have to walk back down to the castle,’ Simona said to her bewildered followers.

       Luckily, the long coastal walks in Baska Voda, and now in Trieste, had conditioned me for the strenuous walk we were about to make back to the castle--two plus miles worth to be exact, on a narrow and uneven path along the same road the bus had just traveled.  It seemed our brilliant bus driver--who passed us on his way back down the hill some time later, and looked with surprise in our direction-- had given us bum information.  An hour plus later my phone was vibrating in my purse from the incessant calls from Lucilla, who was cooling her heels at the castle grounds wondering where we were.

          It seemed with each step as if the uninspiring walk and the roar of the traffic sounding in my ears would never come to an end. 

      Finally, to my relief, we arrived at the road that entered the castle grounds where we began our quarter mile coastal walk watching as its outstanding headland feature grew nearer with each step.  This time it was Simona’s phone ringing and she was explaining in Italian to a very impatient, Lucilla, the details of our unfortunate circumstance. 

      The views along the coast were stunning and begged for the lens of the camera.

     I had to stop and soak up the beauty of it all: The families of sea gulls gathered on the rocks, others competing with the pigeons for a spot on a sea wall,

the mansions that shared the coast, the sound only of the sea splashing against the shore, the outline of ships dotted against the horizon.  I had missed those sights and sounds and wanted to linger in the calm of it, only making for a longer delay while poor Lucilla stood in the cold wind waiting to present me with her latest surprise.

         At long last we entered an arbor that led to the castle grounds where an anxious, Lucilla, was standing next to two young women and waving at us in recognition. She could hardly contain her excitement as she approached me holding up a business card, sparing the greetings to share her news.  “I want to introduce you to these two Mormon missionary girls that I have met while I was waiting for you.  They told me that they can help you find your Venetian family. More of the destiny,” she added.  My self-appointed advocate had once again rounded up two total strangers and inspired them, as she had the girls the day before, with stories of my journey while tempting them with a visit to my blog   And just as she had sparked the enthusiasm of my companions, Simona and Polona, so had she done with the missionaries who were now all too eager to have the Mormon Church assist me in my search.  But for now, I had Miramare in my sights and the perfect tour guide alongside. The Mormon Church would have to wait until a more opportune time.  

       I walked along the walled terraces and over the age-worn marbled floors of the fairytale castle while Lucilla created another mood with stories about Trieste’s history, stopping along the way to capture in perpetuity the coastal panoramas and the windswept sea charging against the rocks below.

Miramare was, I thought, a beautifully preserved castle that spoke to an era of elegance and great wealth,   and in its surround of nature one felt an atmosphere of peaceful serenity. Who could not be happy in such a magical place? 

When I stopped to lean over the rail and look upon a terraced garden that ultimately stepped down to the sea, Lucilla, began to dispel those romantic images with the story of the former resident’s fairy tale, a tale that ended in tragedy.   

        

 “Miramare castle was built in the year 1860 for Maximilian, the brother of the Austrian Emperor, Franz Joseph, and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium.  Four years later the couple left Trieste as, Maximilian, now facing a brilliant career, was offered the crown of emperor of Mexico.  His fate was ill-timed, however, for he was to enter the country at a time of serious internal conflict, and as a result was shot in Queretaro, Mexico, at the age of 35, never to realize his dreams.

His young wife, Charlotte, returned to Trieste to live in the empty castle, later showing signs of insanity, presumably over the loss of her husband”.

      I asked myself.  If not in a place such as this, where then does one find serenity after suffering so great a loss?  

 

~

    That evening “Mama Mia” was relieved of her cooking duties while her replacement stood behind the stove preparing our Italian style pork cutlet and risotto dinner, and Polona prepared the mozzarella and fresh tomato salad. “We’re going to make it an early night,” Polona said as she laid the slices of tomato on the plate.  I knew better, however, as early nights were impossible with the likes of our in-depth conversations, which, that final evening of our encounter, had us talking until three in the morning!  We talked about our lives, our families and loves.  Our individual stories began to unfold as the food settled nicely in our full bellies and the evening wore on. 

      I shared with them the old family documents I had brought with me, never thinking that two women of their generation would show such interest.  One such document was my great-grandmother, Pierina Monello’s, diploma (all handwritten in Italian) as a levatrice (midwife) issued by the University of Padova in 1893.  They were fascinated, not only by the heavy paper (now brown and fraying from age) upon which it was written (they were both running their fingers lovingly over the surface) but also by the decorative border surrounding the acknowledgements, and all the stamps it bore. As college educated women of the twenty-first century they also realized and pointed out the fact that it was not common in Italy for a woman of that era to go out on her own and seek an education, much less achieve so difficult an accomplishment. They even thought she may have paved the way for other women of her generation. They were building a character larger than life, and I was soaking it all up.  Simona began to interpret the somewhat difficult to read writings on the document and when she strained to read the small writing on the back side, revealed that it was in another language, probably Brazilian, and that the document also bore a Brazilian stamp. It was clear that my great-grandmother had immigrated to South America, at least for a while, and was accepted as a midwife by the Brazilian government in the year 1898.  I felt the little hairs on my arm rise with the news, the story of my immigrant family now pouring from my mouth before a captive audience of two.

      “My grandmother, Giovanna Favretto, born in Venice, Italy, also a midwife later on, was a child of seventeen when she married my grandfather.”  I paused to listen while Simona interpreted both of their marriage certificates, one from the church in Spinea (a province of Venice) dated April 16, 1894, which revealed my great-grandparents’ names on both families sides, and that the documents where issued at no cost owing to the poverty status of the recipients. 

       The girls were alternating sharing a crude magnifying glass, each one eagerly combing over the fine print on the old ship’s manifests while I continued:  “My grandfather, Guglielmo Giuseppi Abele, born in Venice, a setter of mosaic tiles, was seven years Giovanna’s senior when they married.  They both immigrated to America, grandfather in 1902 on the ship Lombardia that sailed out of the port of Genoa, Italy.”  I then showed them a picture of the ship. By now they were totally caught up in the story pouring over naturalization papers and a passport with early European stamps while I revealed more of the facts as I knew them. “Grandmother sailed a year later following the death of her mother, whom she and my grandfather may have joined at some time in South America, perhaps seeking a better life than the one of poverty they knew in Venice. I remembered my father telling me the story of his parents sailing on a ship to South America and his father describing pulling out his mother’s abscessed tooth with a pair of ordinary pliers, and no anesthetic. I grimaced at the thought. “Giovanna sailed as steerage (the lowest class, and reserved for the poor) out of Genoa, Italy, on the Princess Verona with three small children and ten dollars in her pocket”  We all paused to marvel at her courage and began to share our visions of her in Ellis Island amongst a crowd of fellow immigrants seeking entry into America.

Perhaps the girls were hoping for a happy ending as I told what I knew of the rest of the story.  “By the age of twenty-four, Giovanna, had given birth to six children…there were five boys and one girl.”  I could feel the overwhelming sadness gathering in my chest. “The little girl, Vittoria, died at twenty-two months, the  boy, Paride, at sixteen months. Giovanna died at age thirty-nine of stomach cancer.  My father had recalled how horribly she had suffered, of her final meal of a soda biscuit which he had gone to the corner store to fetch, and of her deathbed wish that would inspire him to become a physician. The oldest son, a gifted artist who had won a scholarship to a school for sculpture, and my grandfather’s namesake, would later hang himself from a tree and set his body on fire at the age of nineteen; the reason forever remaining a mystery. Thank God, she didn’t live to experience that.”  There was a final moment of silence and then I concluded with a heavy voice, “I never knew her, yet I feel a strong connection.  Is it Giovanna that continuously pulls me to the shores of the Adriatic, this place she left behind in search of a better life?  Did she indeed find a better life?  Is there something she left behind in Italy that I’ve been called to find?” 

      Simona’s large black eyes were filled with compassion. “Perhaps we’ll find something in Padova, Nanine. I promise to help you.” 

       And then I thought… there are also the two missionaries who await a call.

~

       I believe those days that we spent together helped to open these two young women up to the possibility that those areas of their life which they had believed to be true and real were, perhaps, born not of reality, but of a program or emotion that no longer fit. My message to them was to look within and listen carefully to the voice that would always lead them in the right direction; that to give up the now was to give over their power; that yesterday is a finished chapter; that tomorrow is an unknown, maybe never to be; that this moment was theirs; and to live every precious moment of it! 

    
      I would forever more cherish those three days spent with “Mama Mia,” and, Polona, from Slovenia; three souls searching; three souls connecting.

     

        In the meantime the words continued to dance in my head:  Corri!  Corri!