The Bike

There was that time at
the beginning of July – prime biking season – that I finally thought to pull
out my old, red, chunk-wheeled beauty from the back shed, only to find its
chain completely rusted over. I happened
to voice my disappointment in passing to Mitya, while I hunted unsuccessfully
for machine oil. The sun was edging
towards the horizon, but it was still quite light out.

“You’re better off buying
a new chain,” he told me, but not ten minutes later he was outside near the
edge of the back lawn, the bicycle supine in front of him, wheels up in the air
like helpless limbs. In Mitya’s hands
was the chain. I sat opposite him, the
bike between us. I remember getting a
glimpse of his health card once. In the tiny thumbnail photo, he looked like a pasty,
utterly ordinary Russian. But by the
middle of the summer – his first in Canada – he had acquired a deep tan,
and it was obvious to me that he was only a stone’s throw from the
sublime. I didn’t show my admiration at
first. So I sat on the grass and watched
his hands, caked with dark red mud and slippery vegetable oil, and his arms,
bulging Popeye-like out of his T-shirt sleeves, as he loosened the stiff joints
of the bike’s chain. His face, showing
the wear of years and concentration, looked even darker because the sun was
shooting fire just behind him. His fingers of thick flesh met the round-eyed links
of the chain, forced them into rotation.
The slow, difficult work went on quietly.

“Aren’t you bored?” He grunted.

“No,” I replied, “not at
all.” A squeak escaped from between the
links in his fingers. “That looks hard.”

“It isn’t really,” he
said.

More interesting than the
result – a functioning bicycle – was the miracle of bare-handed man, physically
unimpressive save for those carpenter’s arms and that long spine, turning
unyielding metal into pliable cord. He carefully looped the chain back around
the bike’s gears after giving it a thorough wavelike role, link by link, to
satisfy himself that no one part was stuck.
The chain had shiny rust on it, but not in the spaces that
mattered. It was oily and glistened in
the sun, but I beamed brightest at Mitya, my rescuer of aging steeds, my groom
of metal horses.

“Well,” he said when he
had finished, “try it out.”

Sitting up on the firm black
saddle, I rolled down the sloping grass, and gently pumped the pedals.

“It works!” I exclaimed in mirthful surprise as I braked
and hopped off. I turned and wheeled
back, and stopped facing Mitya. There
was an awkward pause where I fumbled for words, gestures, the right action in
response to this selfless act, in response to his greasy, scarlet palms, and to
the drops of sweat that rolled down his neck.
I flashed my brightest, warmest smile, looked straight into his hazel
eyes, and said, “Thank you!” I could have kissed him from sheer happiness.

He smiled back and said,
“It’s nothing.”

Turning away, I pushed my
bike out through the wooden gate, calling out, “Bye!” back over my
shoulder. In seconds I was borne away on
eagles’ wing at Mach 1 – at least, that’s what it seemed like to me. But something, something was pulling me back.
I braked suddenly and jumped off the bike. I pushed out the kickstand with my foot, but
in my haste I didn’t kick it out all the way.
The bike staggered and fell, but I was almost
through the gate by then and didn’t turn back to right it. Mitya’s black T-shirt, a rust-spotted towel,
a pack of cigarettes all mixed and blurred as I rushed towards him. His eyes widened and his torso braced for the
impact as I twisted my arms around him.

I mumbled, “Thank
you very much…” into his chest in response to his gasped “Goodness…”

I tried to be
careful about it, and he held his hands a bit away from my back, but somehow a
spot of rust got onto my tank top, and it never washed out completely. The sun behind him was setting. It looked juicy and bright red. When I pulled away, I saw that I had crushed
his pack of cigarettes.

“Oh… I’m so
sorry…” I murmured, staring at it.

“Don’t worry
about it,” he said, pulling out a slightly bent cigarette and putting it
between his lips. “It’ll still work.”

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~ by radachka on January 18, 2008.