Books Burn Badly

Pinche’s Bike

OLINDA SAID TO Polka, ‘We have to buy Pinche a bike.’ For such a reticent person, this was quite something. A Biblical sentence. ‘If he’s going to work on site during the week and then, at the weekend, if he wants to go and play, he won’t manage.’ Pinche had taken up Polka’s bagpipes and was making something. Polka would say to the boy, ‘The good thing about this instrument is it already has the music inside.’ Polka looked at Olinda, who was waiting for his approval, and said, ‘You’re absolutely right. He’ll need a means of transport.’ This definitely sounded convincing, dispelled any doubts, because it cost a lot of money at that time to buy a bike, even if it was secondhand.

The point is Polka made that judgement about the means of transport and was himself convinced and very proud, as if the words had come from a decisive voice of Providence which had happened by. There weren’t many bikes around at that time and lest anyone should think it a senseless waste or a whim, careful what the neighbours might say, Pinche’s father declared:

‘It’s a means of transport!’

This argument, however, so pleasing to local ears, was touted about only when they’d bought it and were coming back, father and son, leading the conveyance by the handlebars. It was a kind of tribute to its owner, an old friend, another disaffected worker by the name of Estremil. His widow said of man and machine, ‘He liked to lead it by the hand. He rarely got on it, only on the flat, and, as you know, it’s not very flat round these parts. So it’s pretty new. He was very affectionate towards his things.’ And what could have been a compliment paid to the dead turned out to be a splendid truth when they were shown the workshop and saw the order and cleanliness that reigned there, together with the heavy mourning of tools that are without their operative.

‘Would you like to see his shoes?’

An unusual invitation, thought Polka, but who could refuse to see a dead man’s shoes? So the widow opened the door of a wooden shed and there, arranged on shelves, were his shoes and boots. Not four or five pairs, but all the pairs of a lifetime. The widow pointed to the clogs he wore as a child, his football boots, his wedding shoes, a present from a brother who worked for Senra Footwear. Every Sunday morning, Estremil would take out his shoes, line them up and polish and shine them. In silence, he’d travel back down the road of existence.

‘Would you like to see his radios? He painstakingly repaired half a dozen. I can’t sell them to you because away from here they don’t work. And his books? He had a thing about books. More than he could read.’

‘Objects have a homing instinct, madam,’ said Polka.

‘And they’re selfish too!’ replied the widow. ‘Careful with the bike, boy. He loved it like a sorrel mare.’

This was the image that stuck in Pinche’s mind. As soon as he took possession of the machine, he felt the tug of a tetchy, resentful animal.

Surrounded by a pack of children, they stopped in front of the Cuckoo’s Feather bar. In the face of night, in the burnt, smoky tavern light, the bike had an animal aura, a cervine air. The machine was waiting for some kind of communal recognition and people lent themselves to the task.

‘You need to keep the chain well oiled. ’Tis the vehicle’s soul.’

‘The frame’s heavy. It’ll be tough to ride uphill.’

‘What goes up must come down.’

‘Who d’you buy it from if you don’t mind me asking?’

And Polka let it out, ‘From Estremil de Laz.’ He realised too late. The information was inappropriate, then at least, and he tried unsuccessfully to correct his mistake, ‘I mean, from the bike’s widow.’ This is what happens when you trip on your tongue, you lose your sense of direction.

‘Wasn’t he run over as he was wheeling it along?’

The others eyed the bike with suspicion. Some of them moved off, partly as a joke. And Pinche and Polka were left alone.

‘You know what I think?’ asked Polka aloud. ‘You’re a bunch of fools!’

Enough said. For Polka, being a fool was the gravest insult to a man’s honour.

‘It’s just a bike,’ he said to Pinche. ‘Caress it, so it gets used to you.’