I almost strangled a guy last night. About twenty, he was sitting behind my beloved and me and gabbing on the phone in a loud voice. Another guy his age was with him. We were right in the middle of the upper square, and the first movie of the evening was about to start. There were hundreds of people around us. “We got drunk like cows,” he was bragging in the accent of the Croatian capital. Not my favorite accent, either. “Perhaps they put some dope into my drink,” he cackled. At some point he started jerking my beloved’s chair. As she was turning toward him to tell him to stop, I turned toward him, too. I was faster, though. I put my right index finger on his left cheek: “Don’t touch my woman!” His cheeky response did not please me. The next second I was on top of him, throttling him with both hands. I squeezed hard. My right thumb was ready to rip his throat out. Looking startled out of his mind, he crumpled in my embrace. But I let him go after a few seconds with a hiss: “Another word and I’ll slaughter you, motherfucker!” A moment later a bunch of security guys were around us. “Everything alright?” one of them asked. “Everything alright!” I answered. The two young men got up in a short while and looked for another place in the square. Hours have passed since this little encounter, but the joy of strangling that guy is still with me.

Addendum (December 23, 2007)

On her last visit to Motovun, Una Jovanovich brought many a pretty Christmas package from England. One of them was for my beloved and me. A bit heartlessly, I assumed it would contain nothing but sundry sweets. There were many surprises in it, though. Among them, it contained many packages of superb Indian spices. It was clear that Una chose them carefully for my celebrated hot sauce. But that was far from the end of surprises. The one gift crafted expressly for me was a T-shirt with a proud inscription on its chest: “The Motovun Strangler.” “I dare you to wear it,” she chuckled. “Don’t worry,” I smiled ruefully, “I sure will.” In fact, I put it on immediately. As she knows perfectly well, every association with my little town, no matter how trivial or even embarrassing, is precious to me.