A friend who lives up Borgo called me last night: “Come and meet some Australians.” He sounded merry. I promised to join them in a few minutes. There were three Australians: a man my age and a young couple on their honeymoon. As it turned out, the older man was born in Motovun and went to Australia some forty years ago, while the younger man’s father was born in Mosšćenička Draga. I met him this summer. He, too, went to Australia about forty years ago. We sat down. After a few minutes the young man motioned toward me: “May I ask you a personal question?” A bit puzzled, I nodded. “Are you recently divorced?” I paused, and then started laughing. Everyone joined me. “You don’t have to answer!” said the young man. “No, no,” I said, “I stalled because I actually do not know whether I am still married or not.” And then I explained that my divorce might have gone through the court in California already, but that I was not all that well informed about the court’s ways. “Anyhow,” I chuckled, “how can you tell about such a thing?” “Oh,” he said, “a fellow in Draga told me a few days ago there was a professor from England in Motovun, and he mentioned that this professor was recently divorced…” It did not take long to figure out who the fellow was, but all the young man actually wanted to know was whether I was the professor from the story. We laughed again. And this we kept doing throughout the evening whenever I would come up with the startling question: “Are you recently divorced?” It was a long evening, too.

Addendum (December 24, 2003)

Today I received a large envelope from my wife’s lawyer in Beverly Hills. The envelope contains another one, which was originally sent to Reading, and which was subsequently returned to the sender. “Gone away,” it is scribbled on the envelope by the postman. There is no date showing when the envelope was sent, but it was returned on October 23. The lawyer, who was informed about my new address in Motovun weeks before I left Reading, sent the package once again on December 17. This time it reached me safely. The upshot is that I was divorced from my wife on October 16, when the court decided the case. This is what the documents in the envelope say. Returning to the main story, had the original package reached me here I would not have been confused by the young man’s personal question.