With out-stretched arms he floated upwards until, blinded by the glaring light, he had to close his eyes.
He awoke as the morning sun glared in his eyes.
Bärger was released from the hospital on the morning of the fourth day after he had been admitted. The nurse gave him his shirt and jacket in a plastic bag. They looked and smelled as they had on that evening when he was brought in unconscious from the streetcar. He threw the bag into a trash container in the hospital courtyard.
The thought that he would have to come back the next day to get his stitches taken out spoiled his joy in the late summer weather. Unhappily he shuffled through the yellow linden leaves under the trees to the tram stop.
When the tram arrived, he hesitated a moment to cast an eye over the passengers before climbing in. Shaking his head, he got on. Never again would he be able to use a streetcar without this uneasy feeling. The bump over his ear throbbed and Bärger rubbed the hard lump on his head with the flat of his hand.
When he arrived home, he took the mail from his mailbox and opened the window. Then he took a long shower, soaping himself twice and sniffing his wrist suspiciously, as he thought he could still smell the hospital on his skin. Finally he turned the water off, put on his Japanese robe, the yakuta with the bamboo pattern, and sat out on the balcony in the sun.
He could hear the shouts of the school children playing ball in the high school yard across the street.
The school possessed two large gymnasiums. Sometimes in the evening from his balcony, he watched the various sport teams while they trained.
Training, thought Bärger. In the winter, we always trained with the bow in a gymnasium. Where could I really train now, if I wanted to begin again?
Interesting question, he admitted to himself.
Through the open door, he heard the telephone ring.
He waited until after his message, recognized the voice of the caller, hesitated a moment, and then finally went back inside to pick up the receiver.
“Hallo Jürgen,” said Bärger, “Still snowed under with work?”
“I’m glad you’re there,” said the voice on the telephone.
“Right now I’m on my way home from the construction site, and I thought I might drop by and see you. Weren’t you supposed to be somewhere in Japan now?”
Bärger looked out the window. That question was going to be around for a while: Weren’t you supposed to be in Japan? Did you have an accident? What are you going to do now?
I don’t want to deal with those questions, thought Bärger, in any case, not now. But then he said aloud, “Come on over, and I’ll tell you all abut it.” He hesitated a moment, “I missed the flight”.
They sat together and he made a pot of the Frisian tea mixture, which was also Jürgen’s favorite. They took the cups out onto the balcony and Bärger told him what had happened.
“You ought to get away for a while,” said Jürgen after a bit.
“Go somewhere where there is no cultural program to attend, no hotel, and no tourist group. Somewhere where you like it, I mean where you used to like it. Feel the fresh sea breeze in your face until your head is clear again. Right now, you’re good for nothing.”
“What do you mean?” Bärger was surprised by the urgency he detected in Jürgen’s words.
You’ve changed completely,” said Jürgen. “I don’t really know you any more. In the shape you’re in, you’re not going to be able to finish anything properly no matter what you start. I tell you again. Pack a suitcase and get out. Disappear for a couple of weeks, and leave your cell-phone at home.”
“But I don’t have a cell-phone,” said Bärger.
“So much the better,” replied Jürgen, and they grinned at each other.
“Is it too early for red wine?” asked Bärger.
“It’s never too early for red wine,” replied Jürgen. “Well, let’s say that depends on what kind.”
It was a light California red wine that he took out of the drawer under the refrigerator. It tasted of vanilla and black currants. At first, they thought that it was a little too warm, but they agreed that that only intensified the bouquet. After the second glass, neither had anything against either the temperature or the bouquet.
Instead they talked about holidays.
Bärger recalled vacations in Spain and Provence. Jürgen talked about Sweden, Norway, and Brittany.
The sun had dropped low in the hazy sky. Bärger leaned back with his hands on his neck and stared into the deepening twilight. No cloud reflected the shining evening red on the skyline. Instead, the straight contrails of two crossing jets began to shine brightly as intersecting straight lines.
“Technology inscribes its symbols over the city,” said Bärger. “Even in the heavens.”
Jürgen looked at him uncomprehendingly. Bärger pointed at the slowly blurring light streaks and they watched them a while in silence.
“I wonder why no one ever got the idea of making clouds rectangular for advertisements?”
“I can tell you,” Jürgen grinned and held his wine glass up in the last rays of the dying sun. “It wouldn’t pay.”
They both laughed.
“I just recalled something,” said Jürgen after a while and looked at the row of four scroll paintings that Bärger had hung close together over his slip-covered sofa bed.
“A good contractor shouldn’t have a problem with recalls,” said Bärger earnestly.
“You used to be funnier. Do you remember that you promised me an ink painting a long time ago? How long ago was that?”
“A long time,” said Bärger, “far too long. Do you have some idea of what you want?”
He looked at the narrow paintings, each the same size, mounted on silver-gray, matt silk, displaying the classical theme of the “four nobles”, along with the plants that represented the four seasons in China. The sequence began with a twig of flowering winter plum. Spring was represented by an orchid next to a bizarrely shaped stone. Bamboo represented summer, with needle sharp leaves motionless and stiff in the midday heat. The last picture in the series, which stood for autumn, was of chrysanthemum blossoms, heavy and full among irregularly shaped leaves.
“Aside from the fact that we don’t have any flowering winter plum trees here in the winter, I really think it’s right to begin the year with winter,” said Jürgen.
Bärger nodded. Spring, summer, fall, and winter – this series of seasons was the biological sequence of birth and death. But was it really necessary to impose a beginning and end on an eternal cycle?
“Bamboo,” said Jürgen. “ I would really like to have a picture of bamboo.”
Bärger emptied his glass.
He looked at Jürgen for a while, who seemed to be sunk in a reverie looking at the scroll painting of the bamboo and stone.
They had known each other for a long time.
They had been students at the same university at the same time, but they hadn’t met there. They both liked early jazz from the twenties –Jürgen played the trumpet, Bärger the banjo and drums. They had both been active in the martial arts, karate for Jürgen and Judo for him. Jürgen had a black belt, but Bärger had never taken it that far.
That was long ago.
Long ago once again? Why did things keep occurring to him that were over? Gone, over, never again – was that it? Were his thoughts beginning to run backwards? If so, then the pictures of his past would become stronger than promises for the future. Bärger was startled. Was this what happened when