That had been his unplanned trip to Egypt, which he recognized too late as an attempt by an idle shipping company to make money during the off-season. The real joke of the tour was that only twenty minutes was allotted to visit the pyramids and twenty for the Sphinx; then they were conducted into the souvenir shops, where considerably more time was devoted to ornaments and papyri.
At least I’ve been warned, thought Bärger. It can only be worse in Japan as far as the number of people are concerned. But then, he had also read that the Japanese were very different; polite, self-contained, gentle and, above all, full of respect for every aspect of their own cultural heritage. Perhaps it is the fault of that Cyprus trip, thought Bärger, that I can’t yet really look forward to this trip to Japan.
The lights of the tram came into sight beyond the crossroad at the end of the street. On time to the minute, thought Bärger, after glancing at his watch. He climbed into the last car, sat down next to the exit, and took his textbook out of his bag. The chart of hiragana symbols continued to irritate him. There had to be a trick to it, some hidden order that he hadn’t yet discovered.
When a group of noisy youngsters got on at the next stop, Bärger was so deeply involved in his problem that he didn’t even notice. He only looked up angrily when a black boot with white laces kicked the side of his foot. It was suddenly quiet in the tramcar and, without looking around, Bärger realized that he was alone with a grinning bunch which had surrounded him.
The young man with the black boots grinned at him, raised an open beer can and shook it so that foam spurted out.
“Chinaman,” he said, “Chinaman like to dlink beel!’ and then with a quick movement, he poured beer all over the book which still lay open on Bärger’s lap.
In the loud laughter that broke out, he heard the giggling of two girls. Then everything happened very fast. Furious, he tried to jump up to protect his book and he was hit. He was hit from behind, above his right ear and, because he was hit with a full beer bottle, the fun was quickly over for the bunch of young thugs. He sagged back onto the bench, and then slid to the floor of the car, where he lay motionless. As the tram then rolled shrieking around a curve, he rolled with his head beneath the bench and blood from the wound began to flow over his ear and down his neck.
Then they were at the next stop. There was no one on the street as the sobered bunch leaped off the tram and raced across the street, scattering in different directions.
It wasn’t until the next stop that passengers climbing into the car discovered Bärger, unconscious and lying in a pool of blood and beer from the discarded beer can. Disgusted by the sight, an elderly lady informed the driver that there was a drunk lying in one of the cars who must have passed out, fallen, and injured himself.
Two men carried him out and laid him on the bench at the tram stop where he slowly regained consciousness. The wound on the side of his head was still bleeding slowly.
An ambulance happened to be passing and was stopped by the tram driver to pick him up. Bärger’s damp clothes were sticking to his body, and he began to freeze. A drum began beating in his head and he felt that he was going to be sick.
“What happened?” asked a voice in his ear. Gentle hands wound a bandage around his head.
“That’s what I wanted to ask you,” said Bärger.
“He’s not drunk,” said a woman’s voice. The hand was now wiping the blood from his ear. It hurt and Bärger started.
“I’m cold,” he said after a bit, while the ambulance raced through the night.
“At the moment, that’s the least of your worries,” said a man’s voice. The ambulance raced through a crossing with siren going and lights flashing.
“Where are we going?” asked Bärger.
“To the emergency room at the casualty hospital,” answered the woman’s voice.
“Oh, hell,” he said despairingly.
“What’s wrong?” asked the doctor.
“Tomorrow, I’m flying to Japan,” Bärger said tonelessly.
The doctor laughed. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said.
“I think that I have to throw up,” said Bärger. And he did.
He was still nauseous when they finally put him in a clean hospital bed, almost flat on his back with his hands clutching the sides of the mattress to fight against an increasing sense of vertigo.
On his arrival, a tired ER doctor diagnosed his problem as a brain concussion with all the typical symptoms and, showing little further concern, went back to bed. Before he did, however, he had Bärger taken for an x-ray, and in spite of his protests he was rolled across a dark courtyard on a gurney with wheels that were too small. The narrow cart bumped across the uneven surface and he tried to keep his head up to avoid the jarring which caused the pain to pulse in his head. His wound seemed to be trivial in the eyes of the hospital personnel. It still hurt a little after stitches had been placed in the crescentshaped wound. Instead of the bandage, he now had a light pad that was stuck with wide tape unto the shaven half of his head.
He gradually became aware of all this after a hurrying Sister awakened him the next morning. Bärger had trouble remembering; he had a raging headache; he was nauseous; and he had no idea how long he would stay that way.
For several hours, all that Bärger threw up into the gray plastic basin was only a greenish slime. Unwillingly he drank some insipid herbal tea, only to give it back by return mail, as he put it.
He was doing that at the moment when a Mr. Bärger from Berlin was being paged for the last time at the Brussels airport to present himself at Gate 14 for the flight to Narita/Tokyo. At the same moment a small Japanese rolled up his banner with the legend “Noyama-Travel” and rapidly left the departure lounge.
He didn’t feel better until the next day.
His headache gradually faded, and the attacks of nausea occurred less frequently. Bärger wanted to go home, but the doctor wanted to keep him under observation for another couple of days. So, swearing, he went to the reception area and called Lothar.
His friend’s first question was to ask where he was calling from. He took a deep breath and then, as briefly as possible, told him what had happened.
There was a short silence at the other end of the line, then Lothar said, “It won’t make you feel any better, but you can be glad that it wasn’t any worse.”
Bärger hadn’t thought of it like that, and he said, “It will be a while before I can agree with you. At the moment I have other things on my mind.”
Then he asked Lothar to bring his daypack down to the hospital. It was in the corridor of his apartment next to his suitcase.
“It has everything that I need,” said Bärger. “You don’t have to look for anything. You can get the key from my neighbor. You know her. And please bring my mail with you.”
Late that afternoon, Lothar showed up with the small daypack that Bärger had packed with such care for his trip. As Bärger looked for the pouch with his shaving tackle, a map of the city of Tokyo fell out. He picked it up and stared at it until the picture of the skyline on Tokyo Bay swam before his eyes. An ice-cold rage began to slowly rise in him, and the wound on his head began to throb again.
Lothar could see how he felt and left after only exchanging a few words, dismissing Bärger’s thanks with a careless wave of the hand.
Listlessly, he leafed through the thin stack of mail. He put a picture postcard from Denmark to one side; the rest was junk mail and he threw it unread into the wastebasket in the hospital waiting room.
Once he had shaved and thoroughly