“That’s No Student, She’s My Girlfriend”: A 10th Mountain Division Veteran’s Day Story About Cake

(Gerry Furth-Sides) This is a Veteran’s Day tale about food. The food is cake and champagne at a midnight supper party in Italian Alps in 1939. The story is that before my dad, Lee Furth, became a proud 10th Mountain Division soldier and later decorated hero, he had to escape from Europe. His lifestyle was transformed, in his words, “from being bored with the menus of every luxury restaurant I knew rightsize up and upside down to not knowing where I would find my next meal or have one.

For the story of how he learned to cook on the spot in order to stay in the 10th, please see //localfoodeater.com/dad-mastered-italian-cooking-10th-mountain-division/)The result of this was not lost on us kids. My dad ever since then always let it be known that whatever he was eating was the best meal he ever had — including our least favorite dish of liver, lima bean and rice.

During the lush aftermath days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Lee, or “Zoli” was a playboy with a passion for sports and family homes in five cities. This came to an abrupt halt after a bully he had beaten in a brawl became head of Nazi unit. The bully had him jailed and beaten. This is story in his words.

“A girlfriend’s father got me out, and Mother saw me off on the first train to Italy. She was used to me fighting but this time she could hardly bring herself to look at my battered body.

“I had no working papers when I got to Italy.  The first job I landed was driving a bus way up in the mountains.  The passengers were wild Italians.  The kids hung out the windows.  The mothers gossiped and laughed even on the most precarious ledges.  They were used to it.  

“Fiorinna, my girlfriend, worked for the Fascist party as a translator.  She had been so passionate about her political hero, the intellectual former reporter, Benito Mussolini. Now she was becoming more and more disillusioned.  She translated my papers for me in order to get the passport to get to America.  Most important, Fiorinna could move me around when I was getting too “hot” and the Fascists were on my trail.  

“I first went up near the northern border to teach skiing in the winters. In the summer I taught tennis when I came down to Genoa.   

“I didn’t get the ski instructor job with class at first because I was the outsider, and the new guy.   I saw that the local instructors were very strict with the students.  I knew that most of the students just wanted to have fun.  This was especially true with the ones with a lot of money and a lot of time on their hands.

“So I explained this to the manager that I could teach the “difficult” students.  He gave me a chance.  But the chance came with me giving private lessons and getting the same pay as group lessons. And when I couldn’t get the classes from him I taught “privately” and hired myself out as a tour guide. Both were against the law in Italy.

“One of my students named Maria gave me a Maria Madonna, which later saved my life.   I knew a few words in each language. It was enough. Another one was an Italian noblewoman, who spoke German, Italian and English, so this worked fine.  She later got me a ticket on the last private plane out of Italy. But that comes later. 

The lessons were a big success.  I could coax the students to traverse the slope instead of forcing them to go straight downhill or make a lot of turns and they loved it.  I noticed the first year that groups of jolly students came and stayed at the resort.  The following year, there were fewer and fewer groups, and much quieter. Fascist police came to check more regularly on who was there. 

The police found out I was teaching skiing there without papers, and came to investigate on day.  I asked them how they knew I was teaching skiing.  

They told me, “you were this and this woman.” It was the Contessa. I said, “oh, she is my girlfriend, she’s not a student.” They started to laugh.  They said, “Sure.  Prove it to us.”

So I said I would talk to her and she would tell them.

 When I told her what happened she said, ‘you know what, tonight is a dance at the hotel.  Come to it.’ ”

“I went to the dance and went over to her table and sat down.  I was so tired after a day of teaching and in wet boots from the days before.

The Contessa’s companions gave me a drink.  Then the contessa said, “let’s go dancing!” She thought it was a big adventure.

She was wearing a beautiful gown and high-heeled slippers.  In the heels, she was well over six-feet tall, almost a head taller than I was.  She was really a knockout.  We danced.  She put her face next to mind and cozied up to me on the floor.  She was really a good sport.  The police captain was there and he couldn’t say anything.  She saved my neck because they would have put me in jail right then and there.

 But I forgot I had told the manager it was the night of my birthday.  After the Fascists were satisfied and left, the Contessa prevailed upon me to stay at her table where they were playing cards.  She told me, “you are my good luck piece.”  

So the evening went on.  They had a supper and played cards.  All I could think of was getting up early the next day to face a pair of wet ski boots.

Midnight came.  Suddenly a cart was wheeled in with champagne and cake for everyone.  The contessa and her party broke out in a “Happy Birthday” to me. In this sweet moment I forgot everything else.