Girlymann's eyes fluttered. He felt light from a window that made his eyes hurt. It made the headache throb and he covered his eyes with the blanket to sleep off the wine. But as the fog began to lift, and he felt his head throb where there was now a bandage, feeling the gauze, he began to wake.
"Monsieur Campy, it is me, Pierre."
Campy squinted a bit before he could focus on the face of his friend Pierre. "What the fuck happened?"
"A man hit you, I was saying goodbye to someone at the cafe when I heard a crash down the street. I saw someone dragging a body. It was you he was dragging and I yelled. He dropped you and ran."
Campy tried to lift himself but the pain crushed him back down. "Which way did he go?"
"That was three days ago, Campy. I told the gendarme what I saw. You rest, we'll talk later."
Girlymann looked around the small, comfortable room. The smell of fresh linen, the song of a bird outside in the garden, lulled him back to sleep and back to his dreams. The next time he woke it was late afternoon and he was hungry. With wobbly legs he got up from bed and went in search of something to eat. Someone had dressed him in a night shirt, his head still bandaged, but the throbbing pain was gone. He opened the door and looked out to a hall that led to a sitting room where he found a comfortable chair. Girlymann could hear laughter and smell Pierre's cooking that came from the kitchen of the cafe. He decided to wait in the comfort of the reading chair until Pierre might look in on him.
Girlymann must have nodded off. He felt someone nudge him and looked up to see Pierre and another man.
"Monsieur Campy, I'm so glad to see you get up."
"So am I Pierre. Can't thank you enough for saving my ass."
"I want to introduce you to a friend. He is the man who doctored you, Monsieur Anton."
"You took a nasty thump on your head. I wanted you in hospital but Pierre said that was not wise right now, so, we made hospital here. How do you feel?"
"Like I fell off the bike and over a cliff."
The doctor took Campy's wrist and looked at his watch while taking Campy's pulse. "You are a tough, eh how they say, son of gun, Monsieur. Another man might not have waked up from a concussion such as yours."
Pierre peered over the side of the doctor, "Do you remember anything?"
Campy thought for a while, back to the plaza, the Germans and then the sight of cobblestones before his lights went out. "Not much, did I get hit by a car?"
"A club, monsieur Campy. A very big club." Pierre's eyes were wide opened when he said this in a profound manner.
"Fuck." Girlymann looked a bit dazed, not understanding exactly what happened to him and why.
"Pierre? Do you have my bike?"
The doctor and Pierre looked at one another for a moment before Pierre said, "We don't know who took it. It could be almost anyone in town."
"I never had trouble here before?"
"Campy, my friend, what you did, angered almost everyone but those of us who know you. You see, this is Jean Claude's home. His fiancee was on the stage waiting to award him. The whole town came to see him, not the Belgian domestic with his arms thrown in the air signaling victory. You are in danger and that is why I felt it unsafe for you to go to the local hospital. You're safe here, for a while at least, but you must leave soon."
Campy's face knotted up. "I'm going to look for my bike. Me and that De Rosa go back a long way."
The doctor patted Campy on the shoulder, monsieur, get another bike and save yourself the grief."
"You might as well ask me to cut my arm off doc. I'm finding the De Rosa or I'll die doing it."
The doctor looked at Pierre and then back at Campy, "Then you just very well might die doing it, monsieur.
To be continued.
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