The Girl from Petrovka

Here’s a good one offered by my friend, Dale.

Anthony Hopkins, who in researching his part for the film of George Feifer’s The Girl from Petrovka, traveled to London in search of a copy of the novel. Having failed to obtain a copy after searching a few secondhand bookstores, he was waiting on the platform of Leicester Square subway station when he noticed that a book had been left on the seat beside him. He picked it up only to discover that it was a copy of The Girl from Petrovka.

Two years later, while in the middle of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was visited on the set by Feifer. The author mentioned that he no longer had a copy of his own book. Feifer told Hopkins how he had lent his last copy to a friend who had mislaid it somewhere in London. Then Feifer added that it had been especially annoying because he had annotated that particular copy. Scarcely believing that such a coincidence could be possible, Hopkins handed Feifer the copy he had found at Leicester Square subway station. “Is this the one?” he asked, “with the notes scribbled in the margins?” It was indeed the very book Feifer’s friend had lost.