Part II: Dad - A Garden in Trieste

Trieste, Italy, 1971.

It was a bright summer afternoon when I arrived in Trieste on the Orient Express. Back then the famous train was still operating its twice-weekly run between Paris and Istanbul. I had boarded it in Venice for the short ride East along the Adriatic. Coming into Trieste on the Orient Express made the first contact with my newly discovered Italian family a romantic quest. The train approached along the sea inching its way along the cliffs, with the Gulf of Trieste on the right and the Carso Mountains on the left. As it took a last turn before starting its screeching descent to the Stazione Centrale, the bay opened up in full Mediterranean glory. The sun was shining on the hills of bougainvillea, speckled with clay rooftops all the way down to the edge of the sea. I had never seen such blue water and, like so many firsts before and after, the intense colors, the screeching train, and the anticipation of finally getting to know Dad’s story have remained tightly bundled in a corner of my brain.

Watching the glittering sea from the slow window made me daydream. I hadn’t learned much from Dad about his past while he was alive. Mom had never said much about him and he didn’t say much either. He was not a big talker. He told me that he had been born at the end of the 19th century in Smyrna, a city that, by the time I learned about it, no longer had that name. In 1922 Kemal Pasha Atatürk changed its name to Izmir. Dad’s birth in a place and century neither of which existed any longer made him ancient. He described himself as a Levantine but provided no details. Years later I learned that the term refers to Europeans who were born in or moved to the Middle East but remained outsiders, living in an isolated bubble of foreign culture. He had also mentioned a Greek island, Samos, where he had lived for a while - although I never looked it up and he never showed me where it was.  I knew from Mom that he had some sisters in Trieste and she had remarked that he never corresponded with them. “He’s a strange man, dein Vater, your father,” she had said. That was it.

Dad might as well have appeared in BA by spontaneous generation, because I'll be damned if by the time he died I knew much of anything about his origins. Sure, there was this strange album with cemetery photos and Greek letters that I had found in the upper reaches of their bedroom closet that day while on the ladder – and which I had thoughtlessly trashed.  Had he died when I was older than eighteen, or had I been wiser before he died, I might have asked him some pointed questions. But we didn’t talk much about his life; we didn’t talk much about anything.

After finding the photo of my unknown family, the Montanaris, I tracked down their address in Trieste and wrote to make sure they were still there and wanted to see me.  In their excited letter back, they invited me and identified who was who in the picture. The two smiling women on the couch were Dad’s sisters, Aunts Carola and Clara. The thin man was Carola's husband Bruno, and the kids were my cousins, Miki and Maura.

The train screeched to halt at the station, releasing a long sigh of steam. I easily recognized the group as I got off. Aunt Carola was in her sixties, about five and a half feet tall, with Dad’s well-proportioned shape. She was dressed in proper Italian style, silk stockings, leather pumps, and subtle make up. Uncle Bruno stood a little taller, a slight man with a triangular face, thin mustache over his lip, gray hair combed straight back. He was wearing a jacket and tie to the train station and now that I think about it, he wore that tie during most of my visit, even when gardening. Aunt Clara was shorter than Carola, a bit stockier, with greying hair. She was wearing a beautiful shawl and she projected understated elegance.

I could only imagine the emotions going through my aunts. I learned during that visit that the last time they had seen their brother Moritz  - his given German name - was 35 years earlier, in 1934.  He had visited them for a short time while in Europe from what was already his home in Buenos Aires. He never returned. The Second War had come and gone and they did not reconnect. The next thing they heard was from their nephew, Giorgio as they called me, that Moritz had died. And now Giorgio was coming to visit them.

Aunt Carola was first to step forward. She examined me up and down trying to find her long gone brother. I was also looking for Dad and so we just stared at each other for a while. Apparently more satisfied than I with the reincarnation, she said in very good English, with authority, "You look just like Moritz!" and embraced me. She turned to the others and repeated, this time in Italian, “Sembra proprio Moritz!” Then, turning to Miki and Maura, she instructed them to say hello "to your cousin Giorgio," and they did, kissing me Italian style on both cheeks. Uncle Bruno came over, kissed me and, patting my back, said "Benvenuto a Trieste!" Finally, the elegant Clara, who had stayed behind, stepped forward and, in halting English, whispered, "I’m your aunt Clara, your father's sister."  She gave me a hug with a softness that I hadn’t felt with Aunt Carola.

It was Carola who ended the moment by ordering everyone to the car for the ride home. Without asking me, she declared that I was hungry and tired, and that I needed to eat and rest. I recognized Dad.

The Montanari home, not too far from Trieste’s center, was a large two-story house sitting a few steps above and in one corner of an Italian garden crisscrossed by a maze of gravel paths along which grew laurel and rose bushes. The house and garden were enclosed within a thick stucco wall, the only access to the outside being a green metal gate. Tall oak trees shaded the garden from the Mediterranean sun that had made such an impression on me. Following one of the paths we arrived at a metal dining table and chairs sitting on a flagstone terrace under vines. The table had not been swept for a while, and bits of leaves and dried grapes lay scattered about.  Following another path, we arrived at a gardener’s shed and Carola, pointing at Uncle Bruno, said “This is his shed, he loves to garden!” Bruno, who did not speak English, understood and smiled warmly. Another curving path edged by more rose bushes led to a patio with wicker chairs and a low cast iron table. Aunt Carola had laid out a coffee service complete with cappuccinos and almond biscotti.

The ambience reminded me of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, a then recent Vittorio de Sica movie that takes place in Northern Italy during the rise of Mussolini. It is the story of a Jewish family under siege from encroaching anti-Semitic laws. The name of the movie’s narrator was none other than Giorgio, my Italian name. This coincidence added to the dreamy quality of the place and moment in which I found myself. The Montanari garden and wall, like those of the Finzi-Continis, seemed designed to keep the outside world at bay, frozen in time. In spite of our mood of anticipation there was a mustiness to the scene, as though the clocks in the Montanari household had stopped years earlier.

Dad’s ghost joined us for coffee as we all sat in the garden. I started asking about him and about Smyrna and the Greek writing in the lost photo album and why did he go to Argentina and how about my grandparents . . . and on and on. My aunts remained quiet.

Then Carola asked, surprised, "Do you mean that Moritz never told you the history of our family?"

"Not much . . . I know almost nothing," I said somberly. “A little about Smyrna and Samos. . . that’s about it.”

They looked confused and sad as they accepted that they had to tell me the whole story from scratch. Then, sometimes one at a time, other times in unison, they told me what turned out to be an astonishing and tragic family saga.

Dad was the oldest of seven siblings, four sisters and three brothers, all born in Smyrna in late 19th, early 20th century. The four sisters were Carola and Clara now in front of me; Marie, who had lived in Athens and was murdered in Auschwitz; and Cecile who had moved to and was living in Liverpool.

“We had two more brothers,” said Aunt Carola. “Dan, lovely Dan, who was also killed in Auschwitz, and Albert, after whom you probably got your middle name. Albert committed suicide in Samos and is buried there, next to your grandfather Leon. The two graves are in a corner of the Greek Orthodox Cemetery. They are not far from the old Goldstein homestead on the island, and across the bay from the Goldstein winery and bottling company. . .The Goldsteins of Smyrna, your grandfather Leon and his brother Karl,” added Carola, “had come from Transylvania. Your grandmother Regina, whom Leon met in Constantinople, survived the war with us in Trieste and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery, not far from here.”

They came up for air and looked at me intently.

My mouth must have been open because Aunt Clara asked, "You never heard these things, Giorgio?"

"No, never," I whispered, dumbstruck.

Dad had six siblings? I had an uncle who was killed at Auschwitz? There was a Goldstein winery in Samos? I had another uncle who died of suicide on that island? I have an aunt in Liverpool? It was a lot to take in.

Then. . .a sudden connection flashed through my mind:  My uncle Albert and my grandpa Leon are buried in a Greek cemetery. That pair of tombstones with Greek lettering stared back at me from a photograph in the trash of BA.

***

Here are Uncle Bruno and Aunt Carola in their rose garden in Trieste, ca. 1971: