The bus ride was long from Zagreb.
The route took us through Istria and seemed to include a stop at every little picturesque village, only there’s something about bus stops in picturesque Istrian villages—they become the ugliest parts of town when they put the bus station there. Even in Rovinj, which doesn’t have any ugly spots as a rule, has the bus station, which is, relatively speaking, the ugliest part.
Then there was Porec, and Novi Grad, and Umag, and then the border—when you have to get out for passport control (and here I was thinking Croatia was already in Europe), then Koper, and finally Trieste. There was a middle aged woman throwing up into a bag across the aisle, with her husband trying to console her. The two Russians in front on me were speaking surprisingly quietly among themselves, but the Austrian boys speaking German, apparently on an excursion, were louder. No one was annoying, but it was crowded and loud and long.
When we got to Trieste, I was happy the rain had let up a little and only sprinkled me with a few drops during the two-block walk to the hotel. The reception desk clerk was friendly and, obviously pleased that I could speak to him in Italian, struck up a conversation as he handed me back my passport.
“So what’s the word from Trump?”
“Nothing good.”
“His wife’s from nearby here. What’s the name?”
“Of the town? Ljubljana” (I’m very good at pop-geography quizzes).
“No, his wife. What’s her name?”
This was my first moment of embarrassment. Couldn’t remember Trump’s wife’s first name. This did not bother me too much. I don’t really need to remember her name for anything, and there are other things I would much prefer to remember, like the dates of the Battle of Vienna or when Peter the Great died. “It starts with an ‘m,’ I think.”
He laughed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Melania!”
“Right! Melania! She’s pretty. How’s her English? Does she speak well?”
“You know, I’ve never really heard her speak except at that convention, and that speech she took from the other one.”
He had started laughing in the middle of this because he could see what I was going to say, but then: “Right, the other one, the black one. She was very pretty, too. What was her name?”
And now I was really embarrassed. Could we go back to the geography? He laughed a lot at my discomfort. I really couldn’t remember. Did I mention it was a long bus ride? “Her husband’s name was Barack.” I pronounced “Barack” carefully as if his wife’s name would follow easily from his…. Nope.
He looked on his computer screen, then said her name, laughing again, and added. “Maybe you should give me the passport.”
And maybe I should.
Russell Scott Valentino 