I am anguished to get to Zagreb. I imagine the hostility or the evilness of the unknown, its closeness looming behind station walls. When I get down of the train, unwillingly, and walk onto the large garden street, it's 1 pm, hot weather, inhaling dust, everyone is greeted by someone else, even the tourists. A tram rails by in front of the station, few pedestrians walk by.
I suddenly know it is not the case to be anguished by the unknown, but probably by the too well known and boring.
Coming from Budapest the city appears as another version of a southern rich Swiss city, divided between the industrious plains and beautiful mountains of woods and villas. In the city it is all very well kept, clean, renewed, anonymous. If only it had a lake it would be Lugano.

It's sunday, the city is slow, well-mannered, the shop are closed, the embassies and ministries on the way to the old city are closed too, and the flags rest in the unmoving midday hot air. Birds sing all around from the trees, as they do in Budapest. Wherever trees are, birds know what to do, I guess.

In the central square of Zagreb it is all close. On a glass door it's written that the Tourist Informations Office will be closed for the rest of the day. I keep walking around. There aren't many hotels although bars are everywhere
This is how I meet Gabrielle T. on the streets. I am asking directions for a not too expansive hotel nearby to an elderly extremely kind couple. They are discussing about it when Gabrielle T. emerges from the background and asks me if I am looking for a hotel, because she knows a cheap one. She's a 50 years old woman, short blond hair and thick-framed glasses, with a very kind and ironic smile. She says she can show me the way to the hotel, so I wave off to the couple and walk away with her.
In few steps down the road I learn that she's from France, she works for an important international organization (very important) as a financial adviser; also that she collects memorabilia from the USSR era. She shows me one of the pieces she bought in the morning at the local antique fair. It's a little white marble bust that fits into her pocket.
I also learn that the hotel is nearby but if I want I can sleep at her place, 'cause her apartment is big and she lives alone. I learn that Croatians are hard to deal with in her job, but not as Bulgarians were, although Sofia is the most beautiful city she ever visited. I learn that she worked in Kosovo and many other places. She was around a lot.

"You know, when I was young I traveled a lot by myself, particularly in the east", she says. She seems very sure of herself, and yet she doesn't look directly at you speaking as if she is going to tell it anyway even if you don't listen. It's a sign of bashfulness I suppose.
"I was always so happy to find such an hospitality there", she's saying, "when people you asked directions to invited you to sleep at their place, just like that. So I know how it is when you travel alone. How much that hospitality means" We are entering her apartment at this point, which is nice, bright, messy and huge. "I got plenty of space here, so, really, it's up to you"
I know I am going to accept her invite. Not because I can't afford a hotel, or I have one of my attacks of stinginess. It's because a extraordinary fact is happening, this spontaneous reception of strangers that was normal in the old days and now it's not anymore. I only don't know how to say "yes thank you!", spontaneously, so I mumble something that could be 'you're very kind, thank you', while I give my name and we have a formal presentation, the dull "nice to meet you" exchange that luckily we manage to keep in the ironic realm.

While preparing the coffee, Gabrielle T. makes me notice the big Lenin bust on the cupboard in the large dining room.
"I'm a communist", she says, "you must know that."
"Really?" I say. I feel I must tell her what I make of it before it's too late. "I am an anti-communist instead" I tell her with a smile. "You know, I know communists very well, it's my personal story."
"It doesn't matter" she says.