From: Luigi Semenzato (luigi@paola.dei.unipd.it) Subject: Oberdan's Story Newsgroups: rec.windsurfing Date: 1993-07-05 06:47:17 PST OBERDAN'S STORY Copyright (C) 1993, Luigi Semenzato `We are almost there. It's beyond that ridge.' Oberdan was driving skillfully a Fiat Ritmo with a 99% worn-out clutch. The road followed the narrow east-west valley between Rovereto and Torbole, leading to the north shore of the Gardasee. Some geologists claim that valley is the old path of the river Adige. At some point, for some reason, the Adige changed its mind and decided to head directly south. Now the Gardasee, the largest lake in Italy, is fed by two pitifully small rivers. Which is good, because the Adige would have filled it with sediments. There would be no lake, and no windsurfing. Oberdan's green-grey eyes followed the lane divider. His features were a mirror of the kindness in his soul, and a hint of sadness, a lost love in the Dublin winter. He stopped talking. He did not want to distract me, to pollute the pure emotion that would soon surge in my heart. The road flattened and the valley opened. Colorful sails on deep blue water, huge dark-grey granite walls plunging in the lake, the random red roofs of a village. My trained eye focused on a tiny sailboard, a shining speck on the dark surface. I estimated its speed and sail size. The long white trail left no doubt. There was wind. `This is better than Crissy' I whispered. Oberdan was gloating. It was his territory: the Gardasee, also called Lago di Garda by the minority of Italian windsurfers. The sadness in his eyes had gone. For the moment at least, a dark-haired, blue-eyed Irish beauty had disappeared in the mist of his memories; the same white mist that in the distance stole lake and mountains from our world, bestowing boundlessness on them. Ah, Oberdan, I never told you how much I have always wanted to use `bestow' in a sentence. `The Ora has already started' he said. The Ora is the afternoon wind, from the south, a 5.5 or 6 typically. From midnight til morning the mountains return what they have borrowed, and the Peler blows strong from the north. Then you don't want to be at Torbole: it's too gusty there. Drive ten minutes south to Malcesine and you can often get 4.5-5 conditions in the early morning. Experts there can manage forward loops on the tiny swells. Parking in Torbole is impossible; unless, of course, you have connections, the basic mechanism of the Italian society, and the fundamental explanation of why Italians are so nice: they can't afford not to be. A friend of Oberdan owns a campground on the shore. We drove there, found her, gossiped a bit, and left the car inside. I had the impression that she liked Oberdan, but I knew better than telling him. We walked to the rental place. Vasco, the owner, greeted us as if we were old friends. His eyelids were relaxed, one-third closed; his smile slow but generous. I had never imagined that somebody working at a rental place could be so calm. There was wind out; we wanted to pick up the stuff and go. But his serenity was contagious: his speech, his movements, his steady gaze convinced us that there was no hurry, that the wind would last long enough. I picked a 100-liter slalom board and a 6.5 race sail, rigged and ready. Oberdan is lighter and went for 90 liters and a 6.0. We carried them through a garden and onto a pebble beach. The wind was directly onshore and it almost died near the beach. The first fifty yards were the hardest. Oberdan caught some gusts and left me behind. No sweat: his sail was the same colors as mine. I slogged upwind. No trace of Oberdan. I begun to plane. Lots of sailors around, but also a lot of room. There! The distant sail was my twin, and it was coming my way. I adjusted the course to meet it, but just before we crossed I saw it wasn't Oberdan's. Ah, there he was instead! Got closer, oops, not him either. I scanned the lake more carefully. I saw one, two, five, ten... Blast! The most popular sail on the lake! Now what color was Oberdan's wetsuit? I kept sailing west, towards the vertical granite wall. All I could see ahead of me was rock. I was having a montain-climbing experience on a sailboard. Toy cars drove on a man-made horizontal crack a hundred feet above the water, and through tunnels with arch-like openings on their side. The wind blew stronger there, and the water was the color of ink and stormy clouds. There is something primal about the color of the water. I was only a bit overpowered, but in that unexplored territory I felt as if I was on the edge of disaster. I crossed the lake several times, sailed upwind and downwind, but never too much downwind, always looking for Oberdan but also trying to have fun. Finally I thought I recognized his harness. I was upwind and I reached him quickly. `Luigi! I am so happy to see you!' We sailed together: he was faster and jibed better. With the new board and a largish sail, I kept losing my plane halfway through the turn. The sky got cloudy and grumbly. The wind was weakening, so we stopped on the east shore, at a small beach next to a pier. We sat on the pier under a light rain. It was the time for revealing the secrets of one's soul, for a renewal of friendship. `Tell me about her, Oberdan' I said. `About who?' `Come on, Oberdan. Her! The mysterious Irish woman who stole your heart.' `What are you talking about?' `Oberdan! She wore a heavy red wool sweater, that Sunday morning at Trinity College. Her footsteps and the bells of St. Mary's echoed in the empty hall. She smiled. Remember the feeling of her sweater on your bare skin? The day she told you, crying, she was with the IRA, and your plans to start a new life together in New Zealand? She was supposed to join you, but you knew, as the airplane rolled on the tarmac, that you would never see her again. Still, you waited. You worked at a pub in Wellington and learned to windsurf. What did they call you? The Italian. Remember the screaming, desperate reaches in 40mph winds, your mast breaking in an offshore storm, the tanker that rescued you and dropped you in Honolulu?' Oberdan stared in the distance, smiling. `It's a good story' he said. `It's not just a good story, Oberdan! It's your story! Why don't you accept it?' He stopped smiling. He was struck. It didn't matter whether or not it had really happened to him: it was his story. The mountains reflected in his eyes: and in that moment I knew he would windsurf forever.