“Look, even if he’s a priest, he’s right”.

With this coarse injunction, Sergio De Infanti often reminded his mountaineering friends about Father Mario Qualizza. De Infanti, defamer par excellence, true son of the mountains of Carnia, was a mountaineer, just as Father Qualizza was a mountaineer and true son of the harsh pre-Alpine border woodlands. Now they are once again together on the same rope in the “great beyond”, while down here they live on in memory. Unfortunately, memories fade and dissipate with us, but we hold on to them, as long as we’re here.

A short while ago, I was talking with a friend about the modern-day significance of cemeteries, about the opportunity of plaques instead of burial recesses or tombs, as I even approved of those plaques placed at the bottom of some climbs to memorialize those who didn’t come back alive; plaques that then were removed when, over the years, heroic mountaineering gave way to recreational mountaineering, which is more than welcome, although it’s better not to forget the real elements of history. My friend pushed for tombs to find, while I looked for plaques and scattered ashes, as much as I must admit that I too visited cemeteries in the Alps and Patagonia, with emotional engagement and not just curiosity. Taking leave of one another, I said to him, that way, without reflecting too much, that I would have in any case gone to visit a few tombs: “the one I’d go try to find is that of Father Mario Qualizza, who passed recently”.

But why? Why did I like him, given what I knew about him? Because I associated him with Sergio De Infanti, who I had known and esteemed, seeing that their respective friendship suggested that there might be some affinity with me too?

I don’t know. But the fact is that I was in San Pietro al Natisone, intimately coming face-to-face with that statement, and subjected to the whims of chance. The concrete occasion arose from a date at one of the well-known pastry shops. I had time to kill; Father Qualizza spent his last years as a parish priest right there in San Pietro—and didn’t I say that I would have gone to look for his tomb? In San Pietro there are two adjoining pastry shops that compete for fame, and there are also two conjoined cemeteries, but the cemetery search was harder than the pastry shop search. I wander about, inspecting tombstones upon which to decipher dates and surnames, without finding what I seek. An old woman sees the lost look on my face and offers to help me. No, she didn’t know Father Qualizza, but she’ll ask the parish priest, who she calls on her mobile. But the parish priest doesn’t answer, and the location of Father Qualizza’s final resting place remains a mystery.

Near the pastry shops, however, I run into someone who gives me a tip: “Go look in the town of San Leonardo”. “The pretty church you see heading up to Castelmonte?”. “No, a small hamlet, Cravero. Be careful, the fork in the road is hard to see, a steep, narrow road starts there”. I like the prospect of a small recon mission which has sparked my curiosity. At its start, the road is neither steep nor narrow, and after a few kilometres, I reach the township of Cravero. The cemetery? I have to look for it. I don’t see anyone around, neither shops nor cafes: indeed, there are none. I get the sense that the place might have a unique soul, despite being almost entirely abandoned. I was drawn in by a spectacular little church, which I discovered was one of the most beautiful votive churches in Friuli, but the cemetery was on the opposite side.

“Who knows why Father Qualizza wanted to spend eternity here?”, I wonder as I open the heavy gate to a small cemetery at the end of a dirt road, encircled by walls and crowned by trees along the outer edge. It doesn’t expand into an open horizon like I would have imagined the last wish of a mountaineer. There’s the tomb: it’s the most recent chronologically, still provisional, there are flowers, someone is taking care of it. I stop to think. If Father Qualizza sought serenity in the modesty of a secluded retreat, here it is. But perhaps there are other reasons too, his soul and memory will be elsewhere, perhaps on some peak in the Andes. Here you rest in peace, it’s a natural choice. I go back to the clearing, where a nice fountain makes it feel like a small square.

I open the tap; water arrives. I suppose it’s potable, but I ask for confirmation from an elderly man who’s mowing a section of grass along the road. When he stops the weed wacker and takes his helmet off, a keen smile appears with gentle kindness: “Of course, it’s potable and good”. Almost to excuse myself for bothering him, I tell him why I’ve come to that place, which to me was unknown and seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and his smile opened up, extraordinary in its simplicity: “Father Mario was my brother”. I’ll leave it to the reader to daydream, more or less rationally, on this type of encounter, or signs of destiny, which in any case are life’s gifts. I’ll add something about what happened after that encounter too. Because, ultimately, it’s also the answer to my question upon exiting the cemetery.

Giuseppe Qualizza, nicknamed Beppe, one of ten children in a family which had been in Cravero for generations, is a retired train driver. Serene in response to my curiosity, he explained what their life was like back then and how this is where the person that not only became father Mario, but also a monsignor with an ecclesiastical career and a teacher at seminary, grew up, all while maintaining the authentic imprint of his origins, in which his natural relationship with mountaineering also took root. Today, the surviving family members live elsewhere, but still they remain connected to Cravero. And, while he too has settled in to the lowlands, he returns often to visit the village and, I’d say, to tend to the culture of his community, in practice and in memory. While fixing up the old family abode, he recovered what was worthy of being rescued and preserved as heritage: he takes me to the “Exhibition of Everyday Objects”, which he himself has set up in the former school, now closed because the children of the fifty or so remaining residents are too few to justify it. In his exhibition, Beppe Qualizza has neatly and skilfully displayed the objects coming from the Qualizza home, some of them from before their grandmother was born in 1905. He’s inventoried them and catalogued them with precision, with bilingual Italian and Slovak notes, and comments on their importance in the daily life of other generations.

Father Mario’s rucksack and ice axe are there too. Taken as a whole, it conveys the experience of lived history with fascinating grace. Rural life was one of self-sufficiency: you grew crops (with horticulture which is still present today, in part, with modern efficient development), tending to the woods (timber and carpentry), and animal husbandry. Survival thanks to the woods, he explained, was possible also thanks to a group of WWI deserters, both Austrian and Italian, who had hidden nearby together. From the chestnut wood, cut under the moons of August and February, they carved out tools and doors and windows: the display of the planers (including special ones for windows), saws for timber, and hatchets for roof beams is awe-inspiring. Today very few chestnut trees are grown; less useful plant species have taken over the pastureland. But Beppe Qualizza explained to me how much toponyms have to tell us. Cravero comes from Slovakian Krava and refers to meadows for cows, while other toponyms characterize the areas chosen for crops and to plant species of trees, according to the exposure to the sun and wind, with adjectivisations such as “pod” which means “below”. I browse a bilingual newspaper and I notice that he himself handles at least part of the editing.

I thank him, I’m sorry to say goodbye; it was all so intense and unexpected. I wish I could freeze those hours, in time and out of it. Their resonance continues to accompany me with gratitude, for Beppe Qualizza and for expanding mountaineering’s role in conveying meaning throughout life. Cravero Cemetery may not be unique or popular, but that isn’t what matters: I think that I’ve come to understand a choice, and I need to reconsider some of my ideas about tombs. Moreover, Cravero is home to the Church of Saint Lucy. Built in 1454, its historical and artistic importance goes well beyond that spontaneous echo of its architecture, which inspires tenderness. The two slender old ropes that hang freely from the bells in the double-arched window also speak to me, as a mountaineer: I caress them furtively; I imagine them used first for climbing, perhaps, even better, by Father Mario. I’m tempted to pull them a bit, but then I don’t dare. Instead, I dare to imagine that he would smile at me with comprehension, in childlike complicity, perhaps even now during my vaguely meditative journey in serenity, as I return to my starting point, in search of the pastry shop of San Pietro al Natisone.