The travel agency—a small, family-run business—was located near the city’s parks and next to a Baroque church. Silence reigned on the quiet street with a synagogue in its courtyard. It was spring, and the season had not yet begun. The women working in the office were slowly getting ready to leave. They were planning to do some shopping on the way and watch their favorite TV series in the evening.
The owner was closing a binder labeled “Holidays in Spain with Own Transport.” In the mid-1990s, this was a new way of traveling. Customers bought a stay at a foreign hotel through the agency, but had to get there using their own means of transport. The binder was not very thick; perhaps a dozen people had decided to take such an independent trip. Few knew a foreign language. For many, traveling west was a journey into the unknown.
The peace of the spring afternoon was broken by the ringing telephone. The manager put down the binder and answered:
– “Travel agency,” she introduced herself, giving the agency’s name.
– “I’m your tourist—you sold me a holiday in Spain with my own transport!” an agitated male voice replied from the other end.
– “Yes? Can I help you with something?” the owner asked.
– “Yes!” the client shouted back. “Tell me, WHERE AM I NOW!?”
If this had been a film rather than a story, this would have been the moment to show a lone man in a telephone booth. The camera would pull farther and farther back and rise higher, first showing the empty street of an unknown city, then the city, the outline of Europe, the globe, and finally the Milky Way. In the background, a question would drift: Where am I now?
The manager froze. The other two women looked at her with interest.
– “Please hold for a moment,” she said to the tourist, then whispered to her colleagues, “Our tourist, traveling independently, went on holiday and doesn’t know where he is. That is, he must be somewhere in Europe, hopefully.”
One of the women quickly opened the binder and found the offer. There was one trip dated the previous day.
– “Ask him when he left—yesterday?” she whispered.
The tourist confirmed it. He had set off toward Germany the previous evening.
– “Have him determine what language the people where he is are speaking,” the manager suggested.
– “How am I supposed to find that out when I don’t know any language at all?” the tourist now raged in earnest.
– “But are there any people there?” the manager asked.
– “There are! Of course there are—it’s some country. Are you making an idiot of me?” the man roared.
– “No,” the manager backed down. “In that case, have him wave to someone, call them over with a gesture.”
After a moment, she heard the tourist bellowing unintelligible cries at the passing people: “Uuuu! Eeee!”
– “They’re not coming over. Don’t they want to, or what? What a useless nation,” the man grumbled.
– “Maybe he should smile,” one of the women suggested after the manager switched the phone to speaker mode.
– “Smile,” the manager repeated.
Silence fell in the receiver. A long silence. The women looked at the clock. Ten seconds, fifteen, thirty. Suddenly, a sigh full of relief could be heard in the receiver, followed by the tourist’s voice:
– “Phew, one’s coming, one’s coming. Talk to him.”
A sonorous, melodious French language sounded in the receiver. The Frenchman told the lost tourist where he was. He wished everyone a pleasant day and walked away.
– “Good,” the agency manager said to the tourist. “Now take out your map, and we’ll tell you how to get back to the motorway and reach the border with Spain.”
– “You can call me back. I’m running out of change,” the tourist said, “and my map is in the trunk.”
And so, after an hour-long lesson in how to use a map, the tourist hung up. The women left the office, while the manager wrote down some notes and put them in the binder. She wrote: “Ask the tourist whether he can read a map. How many times has he traveled west in his life, and does he know where Spain is?”
Grażyna Hanaf