FROM ANOTHER WORLD (March 22, 2007)

After a short but brisk walk around town, I walk into Klaudio’s. Besides Karen Hrvatin at the bar, only Zdenko Mićanović is there. Still dressed in the colorful uniform of his company, which builds and maintains roads in Istria, he is sipping his beer. As we are gabbing, three people walk in—a youngish woman and two oldish men, one of whom is talking on his mobile phone in perfect German. He must be German, too. I saw them coming up Gradiziol a few minutes earlier. They drove into town in a car with Rijeka license plates. “Where is your Internet café?” she asks. “Well,” I chuckle after a long silence, “that’s like asking where is our heliport!” Everyone laughs. “Where would the closest one be?” she asks ingratiatingly. “Pazin?” ventures Zdenko after another long pause. “Pula?” she looks around hesitantly. “Still,” I offer helpfully in the end, “I know the only place in town where you can get a drink!” And this is what the three visitors from another world decide to do as I wave everyone goodbye and walk out of the café.