I had only stopped in Trento once. A couple of summers earlier, on the way to the Dolomites, all four wheels on my car expired at the same time. He had three girls in the back seat. It was beginning to get dark. It was time to close. But the guys at the shop took pity on us and changed my tires. From here my eternal gratitude. And I must add that always, when I have traveled through Italy with my daughters, I have felt treated like a king. In my memory is that table of burly bricklayers doing funny things to make my little ones smile, or the lady from Bologna who begged me with a “posso prenderla” to let her hold my baby, or that purser of the ship that was taking us to Génova, who gave me priority in a hallway leaving a “innocenza ha preferenza” that was engraved in my heart.
I was familiar with Trento that the council that established the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary was held there, and I was also familiar with that tongue twister that says that trentatré trentini entrano in Trento, tutti e trentatré trotterellando. My knowledge did not go any further when I received an invitation to give a lecture at his University. The date, a few days before Christmas. Furthermore, to top things off, the professor who invited me suggested that I add a couple more days to dedicate them to a program that promised to be unforgettable.
Thus, I landed at Venice's Marco Polo airport and took a train to Verona, where I connected with the one that would leave me in Trento. I have a vague memory of my conference. Not so about the dinner I shared with my host and his wife in a restaurant specializing in Trentino cuisine. The next day we spent visiting the ghost town of Erto. There Mauro Corona, climber, sculptor and ineffable writer, welcomed us in a sleeveless shirt despite the polar cold. The talk covered the myths about him, the Vajont disaster, when half a mountain collapsed on a dam built on terrain of unstable geology and the immense wave it raised took almost two thousand lives. He also told how some chords led him to meet the guitarist of the band Premiata Forneria Marconi, and how he introduced Erri de Luca to climbing the legendary Tre Cime di Lavaredo.
This was a jackpot. The next one looked more physical: some descents in a winter resort in South Tyrol. My host's wife didn't ski and stayed home. We left before dawn. I hadn't put on skis for years and I had some doubts about how my legs would take it.
Finally we went up by cable car to the highest point and attacked the first descent. Wide track, with some bumps, powder snow, clear sky. He was ahead and I was following in his footsteps with my muscles still numb. And suddenly he climbed onto a small mound and his right leg whipped. He couldn't do anything. He was left lying there. With his leg at an odd angle.
The paramedics arrived and loaded him onto the stretcher. Before disappearing, he handed me the car keys.
My ski day ended at the end of that slope, where a cable car took me back to the parking lot. I found the car, I found the hospital, I found him: operation that same afternoon. And I called his wife.
Then I walked back to his house. That night she and I had dinner. He still had the humor to heat up a tasty porchetta that had been reserved for me to try what would be a typical Italian Christmas dinner.
All that was left was to take the train the next morning. The regional got to the point. But in Verona, where I had to transfer, I discovered that there was nothing of that. The scheduled train had disappeared. At the box office they looked at me strangely, as if I wasn't with them. Nobody at the station paid any attention to me, except for an Albanian who accompanied me along the different platforms. Time passed and the time to board at the airport approached. We discovered a convoy stopped in a corner. We climbed up and toured all the cars. They were dark, empty. We got out, looked for a timetable, returned to the platform, waited, and suddenly the train was filled with life. We didn't understand anything, what springs had activated the rest of the passage. I even thought if they were extras in a joke of dubious humor.
Whatever it was, with my heart in my mouth and my nerves on edge, I managed to board the right plane.
They had promised me some unforgettable days in Trento. And they were correct. Every year, a few days before Christmas, my heart races, as if I sense a disturbance in strength. And then I remember them, Trento, my hosts and my Albanian friend.
