Mark Nassutti

I have some ideas for a third novel, also set in Trieste. I remain fascinated with how World War II came to an end in Trieste and love digging into (and imagining) how individuals affected the outcome.

One of many dramatic historical aspects was the race between New Zealand’s 2nd Armoured Division, coming from the West, and Tito’s Partisan Army coming from the East. Tito’s troops got to Trieste first, but the Kiwis drove in the next day, luckily choosing the only road the Partisans hadn’t yet secured, La Costiera. They quickly parked their tanks in Piazza Unita to the consternation and irritation of their Yugoslav colleagues.

Forty days later, after much dickering at the highest levels of the Allied command (including, I concluded, Truman and Stalin), Tito’s men withdrew to the city’s periphery and ceded most of Trieste to a US/UK occupation. The New Zealanders had won.

But that fork in the road for the Kiwis, was it luck? Did the New Zealanders have help choosing their route? From the last German garrisons, desperate to surrender to them instead of the Yugoslavs? From Slovenian Partisans who hoped the Kiwis getting there first would help them keep Slovenia out of Tito’s iron grasp?

The New Zealanders brought their own whiff of exoticism to the whole affair: One of their battalions was made up of Maori warriors. As thousands of Trieste’s relieved civilians mingled with the newly-arrived “Anglo-Americani,” they marveled at the Maori’s tattoos.

Twelve years ago, I met a Maori fire dancer. Of all places, she worked as a server in a small restaurant in the tiny town of Wallowa, in far southeastern Washington State. She too was covered with tattoos. From neck to toe, she said. It turned out she was to perform the next day in a public event, so I came back. I was amazed.

So, as I was thinking about the New Zealanders and their Maori warriors in Trieste, I wondered “What if…?” What if a Maori fire dancer like the woman I met had shown up in Trieste a few months earlier? Maybe as part of a morale-building troupe of entertainers for the German troops occupying the city, a German version of a USO show.

And what if she was a spy?

And what if she had been arrested by the Germans or the Yugoslavs just before the liberation? And what if what saved her was the Maori battalion performing a Haka in Piazza Unita?

This is why I love fiction.