My father and I both knew that Lieutenant William L. Calley, Jr.'s parole had nothing and everything to do with our bitter and escalating quarrel. Still, neither of us risked climbing out of the trenches from which we'd been firing at one another ever since the day I turned twenty-one and made the discovery about my mother.

Once father had retired from the Italian Air Force three years ago and moved out of the officers' quarters at Aviano Air Base and into the Roman apartment he had inherited from his parents, he relinquished his inveterate ascetic existence and embarked upon a life of comfort with a vengeance.

Thwarted by the frost on the windowpanes, nearby streetlights, nonetheless, bounced off the ice crystal splatter on the glass and coruscated into father's toasty second floor residence. Although it was only November, he had already begun heating his spacious home, all the while thundering against OPEC for the now yearlong soaring cost of energy.

Father poured coffee for all three of us as my wife, Serena, served the habitual number of brown sugar cubes with Nonna’s¹ chrome tongs and I splashed some cream into his demitasse.

Serena replaced the sugar bowl on the silver tray and lit a Winston. Father pricked up his ears and peered into the dusky corridor checking for signs of his granddaughter. Before he turned, I told him that Aster, my eight-year-old daughter, who was also named after my mother, had collapsed on her bed earlier, chewing a morsel of veal scaloppini.

"General,” Serena, said, blowing smoke rings at the stationary ceiling fan, “Aster couldn't stop raving about the fountains you showed her at the Piazza Navona during your outing today." Father beamed and raised saucer and cup to his stubbled jaw. "I don't see why,” he declared, following Serena’s gaze, “you don't leave Naples and move in here with me. No need to remind you that there's plenty of space for—”

The General gaped and then groaned in apprehension as a smoke ring hovered and then wriggled around one of the overhead teak fan blades.

“Brava, Serena, Brava!” he roared.

Lieutenant Calley, brazen in his creaseless uniform, taunted me from under the masthead of the Corriere della Sera, folded next to the tray.

“Not only,” the General continued, “would the little one accompany me on my daily walks to Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori but we would also take excursions on the weekends to the Botanical Gardens and Palatine Hill. What more would a little girl want?" he grumbled. “Serena, my dear, you should talk some sense to my stubborn son, here. I don’t understand why he persists in holding you hostage in Naples. Teaching positions abound in Rome. I can help find him a post. He spent idyllic summers here with his grandmother so I know that every nook and cranny in this apartment evokes terrific memories. Isn’t that true, Giònata?”

A whirlwind of steam spiraled from the General’s scalding coffee and condensed on his furrowed forehead.

I locked eyes with him and blasted President Nixon’s decision, absolving Lieutenant Calley from his monstrous crime. The officer had instigated and participated in the massacre of as many as 500 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians at Mai Lai.

Without stirring the sugar or cream, Papà lowered the spoon on the saucer.

"Giònata,” Serena raged, sitting up on the chestnut art deco leather chair. “Why do you insist on ruining our evening? Why pick that story for an after-dinner conversation?" She leaned over the coffee table and snatched the newspaper. "You want to talk about current affairs?" Serena hissed, turning over the paper. "Look," she exclaimed, slapping the banner headline, "here's an election special, investigating Aldo Moro's relationship with Socialists and Communists." She plucked the sports supplement and brandished it in my face. "Ali and Foreman's Kinshasa boxing match in pictures." Folding the paper backside out, she flung it on the coffee table, knocking Nonna’s chrome tongs out of the sugar bowl. "Oh, yes," she fumed with renewed vigor, "A mock Covent Garden market obituary. Tomorrow, they’ll relocate to Nine Elms after 300 glorious years in central London. Now, which of these three news items should we discuss?" Serena glowered, twisting her unruly hair back into a chignon.

Holding saucer and cup below his chin, father pulled out a starched handkerchief from his coat pocket with his other hand and wiped the beads of moisture off his brow. I crouched over the coffee table and replaced Nonna’s chrome tongs in the sugar bowl. The General raised the demitasse to his mouth, pinching the rim with his lips.

His eyes darted but I waited until they decelerated and lingered on my face.

"Had I been one of the judges at Calley’s court martial,” I drawled, “I would have sentenced him to death.”

Papà’s hand shook as his café latte sloshed and slopped, the stain encroaching the ridgeline corners of the saucer napkin. Serena cursed me under her breath as I grabbed my overcoat and left the apartment.

My footsteps ricocheted against the walls of the marble foyer, but they did not rouse the concierge from his slumber. Vehicles parked bumper-to-bumper along the sidewalk obstructed my path. Frustrated, I vaulted over the fenders of two conjoined sedans and walked up the narrow lane. In spite of an itch on my throat, I tightened the woolen scarf’s knot around my neck and turned up my collar to shield myself from the nippy night air.

Skirting Palazzo Braschi, I crossed Vittorio Emanuele II Avenue and entered Campo dei Fiori. Convivial Romans, dismissing the OPEC induced double-digit inflation, filled the pizzerias, restaurants and cafés in the piazza. Lights gleamed through the eateries, casting the frames of the vegetable stalls, huddled in the middle of the square, into geometric reliefs. A lone vendor roasted a heap of white chicory roots in a charcoal-grill. It’s earthy, coffee-like aroma, overwhelmed the burnt rubber smell of wilted arugula leaves strewn on the cobblestone. Smoke clouds rising from the grill blurred the statue of the heretic, Giordano Bruno.

Once I detected La Caverna behind the monument, I slackened my pace. Climbing down the basement brasserie’s abraded granite stairs, I doffed my coat and scarf and moseyed past the bar habitués to my table, wedged between the corner arches.

Moments after I sat down, Nonna’s waiter, Renzo, put my Galliano Sour on the table and asked about Aster. He picked up the ashtray and dumped the contents onto another while I inquired after his three enterprising sons in the Bronx. Renzo made me promise to bring Aster for her gelato and excused himself to seat a few familiar patrons at the entrance. I looked around the crowded and smoke-filled room, recognizing several regulars at their usual tables.

An elderly couple in well-cut plaid suits sat a few tables from me. I had never seen them at La Caverna before and couldn’t identify them by their features. They could pass for Balkans or even Slavs. The woman dabbed her red eyes with a handkerchief edged with turquoise tatted lace as the man stroked her back and whispered into her ear.

"BeqaN, inemeles wedeagerachin²!" the woman cried out in Amharic.

Unable to conceal my surprise, I lowered the tumbler from my lips and gawked at them. The old man glared at me. Caught red-handed, I excused myself in Amharic and averted my eyes.

“Did you—? Did you just speak to us in our language?” the woman continued in Amharic, wracked with sobs.

In spite of my curiosity, I did not want to be drawn into what I assumed to be a marital squabble so I kept my eyes fixed on the entrance.

“Excuse me, young man,” she persisted.

I glanced sidelong before turning to face them.

“Didn’t you speak Amharic right now?”

I nodded as a smile surged and crested over her mopes.

She must have noticed the puzzled expression on my face for she continued, "It's curious but I have gotten used to it. We are Ethiopians. But every time I'm outside my country, I have to remember having to explain my identity. My family hailed from present-day Syria but we’ve made our home in Ethiopia ever since the Armenian Genocide during the Great War.” Riveting her eyes on her handkerchief she thrust a manicured nail into an eyelet and tugged at the lace. “That is until three weeks ago when we fled from home."

The man introduced himself and his wife as Monsieur and Madame Hagop Chakarian.

“Giònata.”

"Signor— Signor Giònata," M. Chakarian asked, "how long did you live in our country? You don’t have any problems communicating with us in our language."

“My-my mother is Ethiopian.”

Mme. Chakarian looked at me in astonishment. "How extraordinary! Let alone Italian, you could pass for a Swede or a Dane," she ejaculated.

I nodded with studied nonchalance. Several frustrating years after I had discovered my mother's existence and nationality, I had decided to stop searching for kinks in my straight blond hair and traces of dark pigments in my pale skin.

M. Chakarian asked me to join them at their table as Renzo showed up and took the couple's order. I left my overcoat and scarf on the hanger and sat next to M. Chakarian, across from his wife.

They both reverted to their moroseness when I inquired about their Roman visit. While I was contriving ways to switch to safer topics, Renzo reappeared with our drinks. He served Mme. Chakarian a Grand Mariner, M. Chakarian an Armagnac and the customary Dimple Pinch on the rocks for me. He then placed a bottle of Pellegrino and three water goblets on the table.

”I see that Signor has found other people beside Aster to speak his other language,” Renzo exclaimed in Italian.

“Yes, Renzo,” I said. “I’m very fortunate.”

Once Renzo had left, M. Chakarian held the glass by the base, lifted it to his eyes and scrutinized the amber drink. I swirled the ice cubes in my Scotch while Mme. Chakarian kneaded an errant thread with her thumb and forefinger. T-Bone Walker's Railroad Station Blues reverberated through a hi-fi speaker mounted on the crown of an arch above M. Chakarian's head, enveloping us all in our melancholy.

“Do you parents live in Rome?” Mme. Chakarian asked, coiling the thread around her finger.

When I didn't respond, she sipped her liqueur and unraveled the thread.

I drank a mouthful and sighed. “As far as I know,” I said, rotating the tumbler on the table, “my mother lives in Addis Ababa.”

Mme. Chakarian looked up at me, expecting an elaboration. “My father,” I continued, “lives in Rome.”

Somehow, we soon stopped asking questions and began to talk about ourselves without any prompting. They had just escaped from Ethiopia via Djibouti and were on their way to join their daughters in the United States. I told them that I had not returned to Ethiopia since my third birthday and that I didn't remember and hadn't seen my mother since.

"For someone who left home at such a young age,” M. Chakarian said, “Your Amharic is remarkable."

“My father,” I construed, “insisted I take lessons until my twenty-first birthday.”

"You should be thankful that you have such a conscientious father," M. Chakarian said. He then drank some brandy and slammed the glass down on the solid oak table. Mme. Chakarian frowned as her husband grunted and slumped in his seat. "You should have no problems fitting in when you return to your motherland," he added.

"If I may ask," Mme. Chakarian said, twisting the tatting on her handkerchief, "what is your mother's name?"

“Aster Ambachew.”

Mme. Chakarian gurgled with delight. “Aster Ambachew. I know her well! I know her very well. In fact, I designed and made all of her gowns as well as your sister's wedding and bridesmaids' dresses.”

I was aching to ask her my sister's name but couldn't summon the courage lest I reveal my parents wartime union.

DespairDeDespair resurfaced once again, casting a shadow on Mme. Chakarian's transparent face. Not wishing to startle her, I did not move my arm when she hooked her index finger around my jacket sleeve button and rubbed the embossed ornamentation with her thumb.

"You do follow the news back home, don't you?" she asked.

I used my free hand to fill my mouth with whiskey and toss the ice cube disks with my tongue against the walls of the extended cheeks. Mme. Chakarian waited for me to respond. I bit and held a disc with my front teeth as I swallowed the alcohol and it thawed out the chill in my chest.

"Several months before the sergeants and majors deposed the Emperor in September," Mme. Chakarian continued, undeterred, "they arrested numerous high-ranking civilian and military officials including your father, the General.”

“My father is a General but he isn’t—”

“If,” she continued, paying no heed to my objection, “you have contacts in the Italian government that could influence the junta in any way, now is the time to act. Signor Giònata, I speak from experience. Most of my family refused to leave the Ottoman Empire until the Turks annihilated them. That's why Hagop and I decided to abandon all and flee before the situation turned from bad to worse.

"At our age," she continued, " do you think we would choose the life of refugees by choice? Do you think we would want to start from scratch in a new country? I witnessed what exile did to my mother. No, Signor, we are going to wait from a safe distance with our daughters in America and go home once the madness has subsided. But your mother, she needs all the help she can get. Aster has to take care of your sister's two children as well as your imprisoned father. The soldiers have—"

“But my father is not— What’s wrong with my sister?”

"Oh, she’s quite well. Last I heard,” Mme. Chakarian continued, “she and her husband were both completing their Masters or Ph.D.s in California or Arizona, I'm not sure which. Thank God, Aster is not alone and is surrounded by her grandchildren. Imagine being all alone, contemplating the General’s uncertain fate behind bars. I wouldn't—"

"Tamara," M. Chakarian interrupted, enveloping his wife's bejeweled fingers between his heavy-jointed hands, "Bekerie is not Giònata’s father. He is his stepfather. What did you say your surname was?"

"Please forgive me.” Mme. Chakarian broke in. “I do hope you understand. You see, I've known Aster for more than thirty years and when I think of her husband, it’s General Bekerie that comes to mind. They've been together ever since the Emperor returned from exile in '41. Your sister and Nemzar, my eldest daughter, graduated together from the Empress Menen School."

“No need to apologize,” I said, smiling at her.

“Giònata? May I take the liberty to call you by your first name?” M. Chakarian asked.

I assented with a nod.

“I’m very forgetful these days,” he continued, “but—”

"Lieutenant-General Fioravante,” I blurted. “My father's name is Lieutenant-General Apollonio Fioravante. Patrons seated a few tables from us paused and exchanged glances. I realized that I had yelled out Papà’s name.

M. Chakarian ground his teeth and averted his eyes. My hand trembled as I inverted the tumbler over my lips and drained it.

In a booth across the room, a pair of entangled lovebirds swayed in their seats, belting out I Don't Hurt Anymore in unison with Dinah Washington. A tuft of threads from the tattered fabric behind the speaker grille pulsated through the cracks every time the Queen of the Blues hit a note.

Rotating her fingers around her husband's immovable wedding band, Mme. Chakarian glued her eyes at the wall behind me. After a few seconds, I looked back over my shoulder and examined the foxed black and white engraving mounted on the wall. Doomed Pompeians, trapped by soon-to-be-destroyed Doric columns, scurried in a foreground courtyard, as Mt. Vesuvius spewed molten lava in the background.

"He was Capitano Fioravante when we first met," M. Chakarian murmured. Wary of nipping the revelation in the bud, my eyes did not waver from the volcanic eruption. But M. Chakarian did not continue. Then, I turned to face him.

He cupped the tulip-shaped glass and jammed the rim under his nostrils. Traces of nutmeg, orange peel and caramel tantalized my olfactory system. When M. Chakarian tilted back his head and emptied his drink, he found Renzo waiting with the ’56 Baron de Sigognac.

I motioned Renzo to refill the glass but M. Chakarian blocked it with his broad palm and dismissed the waiter.

"Militiamen stung by the humiliating defeat and subsequent retreat from the decisive Battle of Maichew³,” M. Chakarian resumed, “had besieged my family's estate in the outskirts of Addis Ababa when your father, Capitano Fioravante and his fighter plane emerged from the sky."

"Hagop," Mme. Chakarian interposed, "you never recount your stories from the beginning. You should first tell him a little bit about the war, about your father, about your feelings towards your country so that he does not misunderstand your reaction against—"

“Did he— Did my father hurt you or your family during the war?”

"On the contrary," M. Chakarian sighed. "On the contrary, I wish that were the case. That would have made the encounter much less painful."

"Hagop, there you go again, speaking in riddles," Mme. Chakarian chimed.

"I apologize. I apologize. I'll start from the very beginning," M. Chakarian said, twisting open the Pellegrino bottle cap and filling up our three goblets.

"At the tender age of sixteen, forsaking his entire Levantine Armenian clan,” M. Chakarian declaimed, “and after brief and fruitless sojourns in Damascus and Alexandria, my father arrived in Ethiopia in 1889 to seek his fortune. On November 3rd of that very year, Emperor Menelik II, the soon-to-be-hero of the Battle of Adwa⁴, acceded to the throne.”

Mme. Chakarian extracted the Pellegrino bottle from her husband and set it down next to the empty ashtray.

“Six months after father’s arrival,” M. Chakarian continued, “he secured an audience with Emperor Menelik and showed the monarch samples of his recent work. Mind you, Giònata, Grandpa Chakarian reigned supreme as Beirut’s premiere goldsmith. So Papa must have inherited his father’s gift for, in one sitting, he used to transform gold nuggets into sinuous snake bracelets or to wield lumps of silver into filigreed snuffboxes with secret bullet compartments. Nevertheless, my precocious father, with his six older brothers—all avid jewelers reckoning on inheriting the family trade upon the death of their father—knew not long into his adolescence that Beirut was not going to be his El Dorado. By 1894, five years after he had debarked from the HMS Gordon of Khartoum at Massawa, his medals, diadems, rings, coronets, bracelets and pendants adorned the who's who of Emperor Menelik’s court."

I snatched the bottle cap from the table and bent the rim, rotating it between my thumb and index finger.

"On his thirtieth year, father slaked his ambition and decided to start a family. Two weeks after his birthday, he married my mother, an only child of a wealthy Armenian ivory exporter. After an extended honeymoon and hunting expedition in Goré, they took up residence in a house Papa had built in the heart of his budding vineyard outside the city limits."

“Hagop,” Mme. Chakarian yammered, “now you’re stuck on the beginning.”

“Tamara,” he burst out, “first, you tell me that—”

“M. Chakarian,” I intervened, “please continue, at your own pace, but I do want to know what my father did to you.”

M. Chakarian clutched his goblet and gulped down the water, not looking at his wife’s disapproving glance. She shut her eyes and winced seconds before her husband slammed the glass and grunted in satisfaction.

"Unlike the children of other affluent members of the Armenian community in Ethiopia," M. Chakarian continued, "my father refused to ship his children to boarding schools in Beirut or Alexandria. My three brothers and I all attended Emperor Menelik School with the children of my father's friends, colleagues and clientele. Two or three years before His Majesty became an invalid, he awarded my father the highest honor of the land for his service: the Star of Ethiopia. In fact, since the Emperor wanted to surprise Papa—remember father designed and produced all the court medals—he secretly sent word to Beirut and commissioned Uncle Sarkis to duplicate the medal. Grandpa, by then, had been long gone.

"Father outlived the Emperor by about a quarter of a century, but until the day he died, he invoked Menelik’s name when uttering an oath or when brandishing his ivory cane at his grandchildren or retainers. He would foam at the mouth and fulminate: ‘Let Menelik strike you from his grave if ...’ or, ‘Let Menelik swipe you from the heavens if .’

"So it was only natural that in October 1935, ten months after the infamous Italian Captain Cimmaruta and his followers killed 107 of our men at Walwal⁵, I took up arms with my old schoolfellows and acquaintances when Emperor Haile Selassie issued a mobilization order. My two older brothers rallied behind Ras⁶ Desta to fight in the southern front; my younger brother joined Ras Imru in the northwestern front; and, my twin sisters volunteered in the Red Cross.

“In addition to a substantial cash contribution, Papa donated a vehicle to the war effort. I joined the Emperor’s medical corps as an ambulance driver. What can I tell you about the battles of Tembien and Amba Aradam and the climax at Mai Cew that you already don't know? Emperor Haile Selassie launched a massive frontal assault against Marshall Badogalio and his six divisions, but try as we might, we couldn’t break through their lines. Throughout the entire day, Italian artillerymen and Air Force pilots, which I assume included your father, pounded us with shells and mustard gas bombs. Even St. George, our patron saint whose feast we had celebrated that very day at mass before the break of dawn, could not shield us from the poison that first seared our bodies and then burned alive thousands of our men and women. Two days after Mai Cew, the Emperor, under continuing bombardment from the unrelenting warplanes and the lethal contamination of the rivers, ordered a retreat.”

Mme. Chakarian held my arm as I covered my face and massaged my eyes in a circular motion.

"Since Tamara was two or three months pregnant with our first child before my departure to the front, needless to say, I was anxious to return to Addis Ababa. Before we left, my siblings and I had entrusted a few guards with the protection of our ailing father, our wives and all five of my older brothers' children.”

M. Chakarian interrupted his tale as I sprung to my feet and yanked my overcoat off the hanger.

“Hagop,” Mme. Chakarian murmured, “maybe you ought to stop.”

“But I haven’t told him about Capitano Fioravante yet,” he protested. I donned my coat and took to my seat. “I’m sorry, M. Chakarian,” I stammered, “please continue. It’s cold as death in here. Three days exposure to father’s overheated apartment has spoiled me rotten.”

“Yes, yes. But don’t you worry. I’m getting to the part involving your father. By the time my sisters and I had returned to Addis Ababa with the remnants of the Emperor's straggling army—”

Renzo had reappeared. He dropped a couple of ice cubes in my glass, poured a shot, and vanished.

“What a topnotch waiter! M. Chakarian exclaimed.

“He is. And he’s been close to our family. Now, with my daughter, Aster, he’s delighted four generations of Fioravantes. M. Chakarian, please finish your story. And I promise, they’ll be no more interruptions.”

“By the time we staggered into the capital,” he heaved, “we knew that all was lost. Order in the city had already begun to disintegrate. Random gunfire broke out in the streets in broad daylight. Panicked residents scampered to hoard all the water and food they could ill afford. The expatriate community fled to their respective embassy grounds and blockaded themselves against looters and angry citizens who had branded all whites as Italians. Many Armenian-Ethiopians sought sanctuary at the Greek, British and Russian embassies.

"Since Papa had refused to leave Ararat, the name he had given the family vineyard and manor on the downs, the guards awaited our return with anxiety. Naturally, they wanted to join the exodus from the city and find refuge in the countryside. Two days after my homecoming, the very day the Emperor and his entourage left for Djibouti on the last train, Tamara had a miscarriage, and, in the process, almost lost her own life. Being as advanced as she was in her pregnancy, she needed time to recuperate. So we had to remain at the estate.

“On that same day, we learned of my older brothers' deaths on the southern front. Through a trusted intermediary, my sisters and I arranged the immediate and safe passageway of my grief-stricken and hysterical sisters-in-law and their children to the Greek Embassy and braced Ararat against Marshall Badoglio's⁷ entry into Addis Ababa.”

M. Chakarian snatched his wife’s handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

I raised the tumbler and wetted my lips with whiskey.

"At the break of dawn,” M. Chakarian resumed, “two days after we had buried our baby girl and a few hours before Badoglio's column rolled into our capital, a band of Mai Cew veterans, presuming our family to be Italian, surrounded and attacked our compound. Initially, the interlocking branches of the Lebanese cedar trees that my father had transplanted around our compound twenty-five earlier screened us from the nascent resistance army’s assault. Nonetheless, I distributed the family’s hunting rifles to my sisters, my convalescing wife, and to the other remaining half a dozen household members and launched a counter-offensive.

"When the crossfire outside his bedroom awoke my gout-ridden father, he pulled out his Mauser pocket pistol—a present given to him by Emperor Menelik’s beloved consort, Empress Taitu—from his nightstand drawer and limped out of his room in great haste. In the vestibule, he found the vineyard overseer, training his rifle through the porthole. He asked if Mussolini’s Army had breached the gates.

“When the overseer informed him about the unfortunate misunderstanding, Papa stomped out of the house, muttering, ‘Let Menelik strike all of you from his grave, you fools!’ With arm raised above his head, he hobbled toward the gates, past his splendid Model 7 Citroën, and fired his gun in the air. At that instant, Capitano Fioravante."

M. Chakarian's narrative trailed off as he looked around La Caverna, disoriented. Huddled around the bar, the few remaining patrons were bumbling through Paolo Conte’s chart-topper, Onda su onda.

Ever attentive, Renzo noticed M. Chakarian's distraction and advanced to our table. He turned back as I signaled him with a slight shake of the head.

Mme. Chakarian poured some Pellegrino into her husband's goblet and offered it to him.

"Your father, Capitano Fioravante," M. Chakarian said, clearing his throat, "out on a reconnaissance sortie before Badoglio's victory march into the capital, appeared from the smoke-filled sky in his Fiat CR.32 fighter plane and nose-dived straight toward our front gate. Fearful of yet another mustard gas attack, the militiamen fired their last rounds and fled to hills. I heard one of our assailants shout, ‘Didn’t I tell you? They are Italians. Otherwise, why would the pilot come to their rescue?’

"I had run out of the house searching for my father when I saw Capitano’s CR.32 touching down on the grass strip that demarcated the vineyard. I dashed past Father's Citroën and noticed the blood splattered on the navy blue hood. Papa, shot by one of the retreating patriots, lay dying in a pool of blood. I kneeled on the driveway and lifted him into my arms. He held onto the Empress' Mauser as he gasped for his last breath."

Mme. Chakarian grimaced as her husband blew his nose into her handkerchief.

"You found us quite shaken earlier,” she said, recovering her poise, “because burglars had stolen Papa Chakarian's Mauser, his Star of Ethiopia medal and almost all of my jewelry from our hotel room early this evening. We were out by the Colosseum, retracing part of Abebe Bikila’s⁸ route on Via Appia and through the Arch of Constantine when that happened.”

M. Chakarian folded the handkerchief and inserted it into coat his pocket.

"Your father," he concluded, "strode up to us and removed his hat when he realized Papa’s condition. He pointed at the vineyard, stared hard at me and asked, 'You are Italian, right?'"

When I returned to Papà's apartment, I found him seated on the same chair, listening to Ella Fitzgerald’s wistful rendition of Ellington’s I Let A Song Go Out of My Heart. Ever since the Duke’s death several months earlier, father played the same LP on the phonograph over and over again.

With both of my hands deep in my heavy overcoat pockets, I walked towards him and stopped by his chair. He did not look up.

"Papà, I need to know what happened between you and my mother."

With his eyes fixed on the floor, he pressed his forefingers on the opposite corners of the album and spun it.

"Papà," I insisted, "I need to know."

He put the cover down on the coffee table and looked up at me.

"I can’t,” he whispered. “You should go back and ask your mother for the answers, if there are any to be found."

1. Nonna: Italian for grandmother.
2. BeqaN, inemeles wedeagerachin: “I’ve had it. Let’s go back!”
3. Battle of Maichew: Emperor Haile Selassie and his army’s final and failed counter-attack against invading Italians on March 31, 1936.
4. Battle of Adwa: A battle between the Ethiopian and the Italian armies. The decisive Ethiopian victory on March 1, 1896, under the leadership of Emperor Menelik II and his consort, the Empress Taitu, secured recognition of the country’s independence.
5. Walwal: A border dispute that took place in 5 December 1934, igniting into a full-scale war a year later.
6. Ras: Imperial military title equivalent to a general.
7. Marshall Pietro Badoglio: Italian general and statesman who was the commander in chief of the Italian army during the invasion of Ethiopia.
8. Abebe Bikila: Ethiopian track and field athlete. He was the first black African to win an Olympic gold medal and the first man to win two Olympic marathons (Rome, 1960; Tokyo, 1964).