As a rule, my beloved and I exchange around twenty mobile-phone text-messages a day. We talk on the phone only rarely, when something goes amiss. The number of her messages has been dropping since she got into hospital almost two weeks ago, but we have talked several times already. Yesterday I received only four or five messages from her. They got ever more terse. The last two were rather confusing. She could not talk to me, either. It was clear she was suffering a great deal. This morning I got a lengthier and much more coherent message from her. Last night she went through a deep crisis. The ladies who share her room told her this morning that every doctor and nurse on the ward had hovered above her for hours. At some point she asked them to let her die. She does not remember any of this, though. She is better this morning, but she is very weak. Once again I offered to come and see her, but I am still waiting for her reply.

Addendum (August 18, 2008)

I am so open with everyone around me, both in direct communication and in writing, that I am now facing a growing number of my beloved’s feisty well-wishers. Everyone in Motovun wants me to go see her. And many of those who regularly visit my Residua website feel the same. A short while ago I received a mobile-phone text-message from a German friend who lives nearby: “May I help you in some way? Could I drive you to Zagreb, for instance?” A moment later I received an electronic-mail message from an American friend who lives very far away: “Go! Just go and see her! Hold her hand, bring her flowers, yell at the doctors!” My answer is always the same: I will not go until my beloved says that she needs me near her. “She knows that her wish is my command,” I insist over an over again. “She is a clever woman, and she will let me know when she needs me.” To make my friends a bit more comfortable, I always mention that my own experience with hospitals is the same: I would never wish my beloved there. Wait, another electronic-mail message has just arrived…