This story is part of the literary competition created by In Trieste magazine in collaboration with Comune di Trieste called “Stories from Trieste to the World” which was open to all female writers living in Trieste as part of the annual “Festa della Donna” initiative by the city of Trieste.
by E. J. Abrahams
The most beautiful thing I saw in Trieste during the pandemic was a video on the Piccolo website of a Siberian student from the Conservatorium singing his own interpretation of an old Triestine standard, co’ son lontan de ti (Trieste mia). I’d never heard the song before, and whilst it’s undoubtedly sappy old tune to most people from here, I couldn’t help being touched by the tribute, feeling far from a city in which you were still living, holed up in your apartment, longing for reunion.
The nature of lockdown meant that little felt particularly triestine to me about the early experience of Covid and its discontents. If anything, it seemed like a more Italian national fervour emerged as windows hung tricolour flags or blasted Puccini in those early lockdown days, a whole year ago. On social media, triestini ordered osmiza delicacies to enjoy on their balconies as Springtime came in, unsavoured by most people barring our strolls to the supermarket. The transformation of the giardino pubblico was simply astonishing—what had seemed the epitome of melancholy, the dreary congregation of artist and writer statues, bloomed into bursting green, with its gate sadly closed. Lucky for me, the boschetto at the end of the Viale was within my designated 500 metres, so I was enabled to commune with the birds and listen to their blissfully ignorant warbling.
Perhaps I wasn’t the only one who found myself assuring friends and relatives that no, Trieste isn’t quite as grave a situation as what you’re seeing in the headlines, but yes, actually, we do have to line up for groceries, no it’s not as bad as you think. Don’t worry about me! But, oh, please worry a little. It’s hard to go without osmiza.
The first time I went to the Molo after lockdown my legs almost failed me. I said, somewhat alarmed, to my masked companion: my legs aren’t working! They’re going to collapse under me! I was told that this was a normal reaction to strong emotions—there I was thinking my jellied limbs were a mere consequence of three months’ smart working.
Clearly, in my short acquaintance with Trieste, the Adriatic and I had formed some form of emotional affinity. Before Covid, I had made a habit of glaring into it, demanding epiphanies, now the silvery water gleamed back, somehow even emptier and silent than before, as now even all the big ships were gone. I was still glad to take in the view, much like when you finally see an old friend after a number of rough years and explanations are scarce, but the goodwill is not.
Summer came and went like a fever dream, the cases fell, and so did restrictions. Barcola was full up of maskless individuals, freedom was sweet, bodies youthful and exposed, and Covid all but forgotten, except when someone yelled at another for inching their towel too close. (One wonders why a person would venture to Barcola at the height of summer if they were significantly concerned about contagion, but once again, some questions don’t have answers).
If Trieste felt like a city of hiatus before, which is not my own observation, it certainly began to feel like one come autumn of 2020, as our tanner, more optimistic selves were swiftly ushered back inside, bound to become pale and doughy and zoom-fatigued once more. It was a rude reawakening, rather like the storm which preceded Barcolana 2020; so loud that it woke most clean from slumber with its hysterical thunder. Whether the Triestine tradition and its crowds would be permitted to happen at all was a subject of speculation for some months, until it was wiped reluctantly from the calendar not by Covid but by the bora scura. The bora was not to be upstaged, not even by a pandemic.
The lonely, redundant wooden Barcolana sculpture adorning Piazza Unità was joined rather early by Trieste’s doted on Christmas trees, brought out in advance in a bid to lift the city’s collective spirits as we concluded the strange year in another phase of restrictions. The Viale was empty of the San Niccolò market. Our noses, mouths, and chins were once more obscured, in the hope of saving Christmas and New Year. The festivities went ahead, somewhat encumbered, unauthorised fireworks and all. From my balcony, such hits as ‘What Is Love?’ and ‘Dolce Vita’ were to be shivered to in a fit of apprehension and muted hopefulness.
On the eve of another March red zone, the cold, miserable rain discourages most from rambling freely in the streets before our auto-certificazioni become necessary again. Once more we are on hiatus, and we do not know what awaits on the Adriatic horizon. But that longing for reunion, an unhindered osmiza, persists as before.
