1. The perfect gift for someone else
For my sixty-three years, my daughter gave me a red bike. She had thought of everything: a frame that was easy to step over, a basket, lights, an anti-theft device and a doorbell that sounded like a small spoon thrown against a glass. She forgot to check one thing. I couldn't ride a bike.
It was not a deliberately kept secret. It was information that I had failed to communicate for fifty years, which, on reflection, could pass for a fairly serious organization. When I was a kid, I had a bike for three. My brothers took it and I preferred to pretend that I was not interested in it. Later, I took buses, learned to drive, raised Alice and answered yes when someone asked if I knew the happiness of a country path by bicycle.
I knew the country roads very well. Through the windows of the cars.
My granddaughter Nina had decorated the basket with a yellow ribbon. She had just turned ten years old and possessed the quiet certainty of people for whom moving on two wheels does not require a negotiation with their skeleton. She told me that we could participate in the little loop of the Fête des Chemins, six weeks later. Six kilometres, almost flat. Alice agreed: she had said exactly the same thing. She said that she had been advised for the model. I did not ask by whom: I was already looking at the distance between the saddle and the ground.
— “You’ll see, Mom, it’s coming back all by itself.
I smile with the dignity of a person promised the return of an event that never happened. I was a retired seamstress, not an actress, but I had learned a lot by responding to clients who were convinced that you could shorten a dress without touching the fabric.
The bicycle was installed in my entrance. Everyone admired the place he took. Alice handed me the helmet. I turned it upside down, which was attributed to the distraction. This generosity of interpretation gave me an extra week of tranquility.
After they left, I was left alone with the gift. He was beautiful, really. Its deep red went well with the bricks of the house. We could have made it a remarkable plant carrier. I told him out loud that we would calmly reflect on the situation.
Then I pushed him to the garage, knocking the basket against the door. The doorbell rang as if she was laughing. I understood that we had not started on a good basis and decided to check the brakes before any other conversation.
2. The Number Eight Specialist
Rachid lived at number eight. He had repaired bicycles for thirty years and kept in his garage a cup with the inscription “Winning team, artisans race”. I brought him my gift, pretending that he was shooting to the left.
Without asking for the mark, he found the attachment of the basket, straightened it and checked the wheels. He then wanted to know when the defect occurred.
— Especially at the beginning.
— Show me.
I looked at the street. A van was parked near the gate, which allowed me to develop an objection regarding visibility. Rachid did not argue; he offered me the disused sports field the next morning. No one was there until nine o’clock.
He arrived with a pump. I had brought my helmet and the belief that I should have confessed everything the day before. After lowering the saddle, he explained how to push on a pedal. As soon as one foot left the ground, the other clung to it. We repeated this for twenty minutes, under the indifferent eyes of a pigeon.
— "Could you show me?"
Rachid leaned on a tire.
— With your saddle so low...
— We just settled it. We can pull it up.
He turned the wheel, and then wiped his hands with his pants, though they were clean.
— “Listen, to repair, yes. To teach, I'm not sure.
I could have let him get away with it. I had a lot to lose in an interview. He gave me the number of an association that offered courses for adults and we went back talking about the work of the street, an area in which no one was likely to ask us for a demonstration.
I spent the afternoon cleaning a shelf. At seven o’clock, a message arrived from Nina: she wanted to know if I had tried the ribbon on my helmet. I told him that the basket suited him perfectly, and then I called before I found anything else to store.
Apolline asked for my experience. I began a sentence about a long interruption, stopped and said that I had never learned.
— Do you already have a bike?
That was all. No surprises, no questions about lost opportunities. I noted the price of the sessions in my account book, next to the chirping, and the date on my calendar.
The class was held behind a school. There were five of us, including a latecomer. Suzanne wanted to go alone to her vegetable garden; Joel, a plumber, explained that he had always had a van. Apolline made us move our feet to the ground. I stared at my wheel with a seriousness that prevented me from seeing anything else.
The portal squeaked. Rachid entered with a grey bike and stopped when he saw me.
— "Near the wall, if you prefer," said Apolline. As we talked about.
He joined me without raising his eyes.
— “The race of the artisans?” I asked.
— I was the mechanic.
— You could have said it.
— You too.
Suzanne passed in front of us apologizing for going too fast. His feet did not leave the ground. Rachid laughed, and I had to get off the bike so as not to fall with him.
3. Four meters and two cafes
In the second class, I walked four meters. Apollinus had seen them, but I checked with her that none of my metres had touched the ground. On the way home, I took out my phone to call Alice and then put it away. First, we need to explain why four meters was a new one.
Rachid offered me a coffee. We set up the bikes against the terrace with great care, as if we had just crossed the department.
He started working at a very young age in his father’s studio. He had been given air chambers before thinking about lending him a bike. Then everyone assumed he knew. He turned his spoon and told it, his eyes on a stain of coffee he had just made.
— “My father said, ‘You’ll take this one on Sunday.’ On Sunday, it was sold.
— "And then?"
— After that, I did the same. I was selling them.
I told him our only bike, my brothers always faster to take it. He asked for their names. It surprised me: usually, we waited for the end of the anecdote to tell his story. We talked about my younger brother, who was still calling to ask me to stitch things from the other side of the country, and then Rachid’s neighbors who brought him their toasters.
— A toaster is not a bicycle.
— Try to tell them.
He had sugar on his sleeve. I held out my hand to remove it, then pretended to look for my towel. He shook his sleeve without comment and asked if I would come back on Thursday.
At this third session, my four meters went up to my head. I wanted to advise Suzanne on the position of her shoulders. Apolline asked me to let her do it. Rachid looked away; I could see his cheeks moving very well.
In the evening, Nina called while I was making soup. She wanted to choose the route of the party. The bike had returned to the entrance and its basket was carrying a small scratch that I had not even tried to erase.
— Can you give your mother the phone? I need to tell you something.
4. The Wednesday I couldn’t remember.
Alice knew nothing. I had imagined that she had guessed, that she was offering me the bike to subtly push me to learn, that she was hiding behind her gift a very constructed project of maternal renewal. She just believed what I had been saying for years. When I told her I had never stood on two wheels, she asked if I was joking.
— I took three classes, I replied. I wouldn't pay for all this for a joke.
Nina found the information great. She immediately offered to teach me. I explained that a professional took care of it and that she could rather encourage me without running behind my bike. She asked if she had the right to run ahead. Alice sent him to get his things for the next day.
— You could have told me the gift didn’t suit you.
I assured him that I liked him. I told the story of the four meters, Rachid, his cup. She had a little laugh about the mechanic. Then she asked me:
— Even before you got me, didn’t you know?
— - Never. I thought I was pretty clear about the extent of the disaster.
— What about Wednesdays on the farm?
I looked at my soup, as if the answer could come up with the pieces of carrot.
Alice was eleven years old. His class spent three days on an educational farm, about fifteen kilometers away. The available parents had to join them on Wednesday, for a bike ride organized around the village. I had returned the form saying that I could not close the workshop. Alice had found him the next day on my desk: I had checked “do not participate”, without signing the request for authorization that would have allowed her to leave with another adult.
It came back to me in small pieces. The yellow paper. His anger. Me, busy pinning a sleeve, explaining that the other parents knew nothing about the roads and that I was not going to entrust it to the first comer. She spent the afternoon with the teacher on the farm.
— There was a solution, she said. You could have told her to the mistress.
— - Yeah.
— You said I wasn’t comfortable either.
I wanted to answer that she was small. Eleven years old, however, was no smaller than Nina today, about a year. I didn’t know why I refused to sign. I remembered, on the other hand, having preferred an argument to the possibility of being handed a bike in front of the other parents.
— “I think I used your caution to hide mine.
— "It was not a matter of caution. You didn't know.
The soup began to boil. I extinguished the fire. This is an operation that I was still succeeding without provoking a discussion about my past.
— - You're right.
She didn't answer right away. I heard Nina ask where her sports socks were. Alice answered, then came back on the phone.
— “I didn’t want to bring you a thirty-year-old file.
— I was the one who classified it well.
This time, she laughs frankly. Not long.
I told him I was sorry for that Wednesday. I avoided adding anything I had done for her on the other days. The temptation was considerable. I had a very rich collection of dedicated days, and I knew how to take them out without even opening a drawer.
— I like the bike, I said. And I want to learn. But I don't know if I'll be ready for the party.
— “Then we will not make the loop.
— Nina will be disappointed.
— It will survive a missed afternoon.
We both heard what the sentence had just done. Alice sighed.
— It’s not the walk I’m sorry you missed. It was to let me believe that it was I who was not capable.
I put my hand on the handlebars. The handles still retained the smell of new rubber that had invaded my entrance.
— I will not do it again with her.
I almost promised more. Alice knew enough of my big announcements not to need a new one.
Nina finally picked up the phone. She wanted to decorate my helmet. Instead, we came up with a card of encouragement that I could put down at home. She already had an idea of the title: “Grandma’s Adventures”.
— Can you wait until the next class before choosing the plural?
— You did four metres, didn’t you?
I didn’t argue with an editor so easily satisfied.
The next day, Alice sent me a photograph of the farm, found in an old album. She was sitting on a fence, with a fringe that I had cut myself and a furious look that I couldn’t be entirely responsible for: the fringe had its share.
Under the image, she had written: We had to see a calf born. Finally, I saw him before the others.
I told him that I should have asked him more questions when he returned. I did not add that everything had ended well.
Then I took the bike to the sidewalk. The neighbor to the dog asked me if I was going for a walk.
— "Not yet. I am learning.
He shook his head and continued his walk. I was almost disappointed that the event did not produce more turmoil on the street.
5. Coffee without bicycles
In the fifth session, I drove long enough to forget to count. The next Wednesday, I wanted to try alone on an alley that I thought was deserted. A dog came out behind a hedge. I braked, put my foot down badly, and found myself sitting in the grass, with a handle stuck under my arm.
The owner restrained his dog and asked me if I was in pain. I told him dryly that I didn't. He waited without insisting; I finally asked him to lift the bike. On my return, the stripe of the basket seemed much less charming to me.
Two days later, I spoke of an impediment to Apolline.
— Do you want to postpone?
I looked at my knee, where a blue took the approximate shape of Corsica.
— "I have fallen.
She let me tell her story, and then we agreed to resume on the closed ground. I had already prepared a defense against a speech about courage; she simply asked me if the brake had been damaged. I'll have him check it out on Thursday.
Rachid offered a coffee without the bikes. We went to the bakery, side by side. I was afraid he would ask me why I wanted to go out alone. He told me that he had burned some rice and had to throw the pan away.
— “One night in the hot water, you could have recovered it.
— “That’s what I did. Now I have a burnt pot full of water.
I laughed and my knee pulled. It slows down without looking at my leg. We took a table in the sun; when I checked the time, our cups had been empty for a long time. He proposed to order two more, and I put my watch under my sleeve.
When we got home, we went through his garage. He had slipped under the cup a paper: “Mechanic, not a runner”. The writing was so small that I promised to sew him a legible label.
The road party was cancelled because of the rain. Nina protested on the phone. I shared his indignation with a relief that displeased me as soon as I hung up. No one was waiting for my six kilometers; I could return the classes to the category of ideas that I had almost completed.
The next day, Suzanne passed through the street with leeks sticking out of her basket. She had driven to the vegetable garden and walked back, because she could not start with the load.
— Are you coming on Thursday?
I almost replied that I no longer needed it. She put her bag back in place.
— I hope we make the turns. I will not buy a garden at the end of a straight line.
I came on Thursday.
6. With pieces on foot
It took us several more weeks before Apolline offered an outing. She chose a landscaped path, with a small slope where we would walk. We reviewed the stops together. Rachid asked how many kilometres it was; she answered six, and I bent over to retie a shoelace.
At first, I only heard my breath and the basket that vibrated. Then I began to see the ditch, the leaves stuck against a barrier, a woman watering her planters. The fresh air came in through my sleeves. We didn’t go much faster than some walkers, but the path came to me in a way I didn’t know.
At the first pause, Rachid announced a noise in his channel. Apolline bowed down to listen.
— He said, “She can wait. It’s mostly me.
We stayed under the trees until he breathed again. In the slope, Suzanne and I pushed our bikes while talking about her tomatoes. I forgot to ask myself if those meters mattered.
Near the return, a group arrived in the opposite direction. We stopped as planned to let him pass. I managed to leave without help, with my foot on the pedal, my eyes at the end of the road. Rachid was no longer behind me; he was still taking his time, and I waited for him without explaining how to do it.
When he arrived, there was a hand on the saddle.
— “Thirty years of repairing them,” he said. I didn’t know it was so quiet when everything was going well.
A leaf was still spinning between its rays. He pulled it out with the delicacy he used to touch everything in his workshop, and then we looked for a place to drink something.
7. People who knew how to dance
Alice wanted to celebrate. I refused the big meal she offered, but agreed that she would spend with Nina for a snack. I had learned something; I had not just crossed the ocean. My granddaughter had chosen a new, louder doorbell because she thought the old one was too shy. Alice had given it to me the day before, and Rachid mounted it before they arrived. I kept the first one in a drawer. She had attended the negotiations; I owed her the pension.
— "He comes often, Rachid?" asked Alice, perceiving his cup by the sink.
— We have classes together.
— In your kitchen?
I offered her the cake with enough firmness that she understood the answer.
The next Sunday we took a short walk, the three of us. I chose the path with Apolline. Nina left too quickly, returned, left less quickly and finally found an occupation at my pace: to announce the dogs before I saw them. This gave our exit the slightly military character of a canine rescue operation.
Alice was riding behind me. At one point, I felt her hand move closer to my saddle and then withdraw.
— Do you want me to help you?
— Not if you want me to know what I’m doing.
She kept her distance. We stopped near a meadow where Nina discovered three calves. My daughter looked at me. I offered him a photograph. She put her arm around my shoulders and we let Nina decide the framing.
At home, I received an image with a large finger piece and our two faces. I printed it without correcting it.
The following weeks, the bike did not change my life with the regularity that would have appreciated the manufacturers of brochures. I took the bus again. It's nice. One morning, I went down after a hundred meters because I had no desire. Another, I went to the market and came back by the longest way, without thinking of calling anyone to report it.
I bought six eggs. Five arrived intact. The last one provides me with a lunch and the reasonable conclusion that the towel in the basket had to be thicker.
Rachid and I were always having coffee. His cup now had a sewn label: “Victory of the team. He had placed it so well that a customer asked him if he had just won a new race. He answered no, then managed to tell his first walk without checking that no one was listening in the street.
One Friday, he arrived at my house without a bike and with an envelope. First, I thought of an invoice. He would sometimes still fix for the neighbors, and I had never asked him what I owed him for the bell.
— It’s Saturday, he said.
The envelope contained two tickets for the ball of the association of artisans. He said he helped prepare the room. The seats included the meal, but not the drinks. He also gave me the closing time of the cloakroom, information that no man had yet used to invite me somewhere.
— You can say no, he added.
We had been at the house for a few weeks, without ceremony. Hearing this “you” in a sentence where he was really waiting for my answer gave him a new use.
I wanted to answer yes immediately. I thought of my blue dress, of its little sleeves that I could take back. Then I imagined a track, music, his hand waiting for mine. At Alice’s wedding, I had taken care of the plates until the hour when one could reasonably remain seated.
— I don’t know how to dance, I said.
Rachid looked at the tickets, then me.
— Neither do I.
I'm laughing. He's not smiling right away.
— No, seriously. I don't know.
— But you're having a ball!
— I installed the extensions.
I thought I was going to eat my coffee wrong. We spent many years allowing others to move.
He held out his hand to the envelope.
— We can go to the restaurant. It was only...
I put mine on it. I did not yet know what name to give to this invitation, and I had no desire for him to decide by taking it away.
— We can also have dinner there. And look. Without saying that we have pain in the knee.
He finally smiled.
On Saturday, I put on the blue dress. I had not taken any seams; by dint of trying to improve it, I risked above all making us miss the entrance. Rachid came on foot. He brought an umbrella for an evening when no rain was expected. I recognized in this object a masculine version of my three apologies of the first course.
In the room, someone called him for a microphone that wasn’t working. His hand almost dropped my arm. He stopped.
— “The catch is under the table,” he said. I'm invited tonight.
We sat down. We ate. He spilled a little water while using me; I told him the five eggs. When the orchestra began, I felt this familiar expectation: someone was going to assume that I knew, and I was going to have to choose between disappointing him and continuing the show.
Rachid did not get up. He only stretched out his hand on the tablecloth, palm up. I put mine in there. We could do this very well before we considered the rest.
At ten o'clock, Alice sent me a message: So, the ball?
I photographed our hands, the plates still on the table, the edge of the track behind us. I wrote: All right. We did not dance.
She answered with a heart, then with a second bubble that took time to appear.
By the way, the bike is fully paid. I'm telling you before you try to thank Rachid for a discount.
I looked up.
— Did you know the gift?
He looked exactly what he had when he entered the first class.
— Alice asked me for advice. For the model.
— Did you know he was for me?
— - Yeah.
I looked at the man who had checked the wheels so seriously, and then lowered the saddle. The bike never pulled to the left. He knew that. What he wanted to fix the next morning was not the direction.
— You could have bought me a cup of coffee from the start.
— “I can fix the bikes,” he said. For the rest, I start.
There was nothing left in our cups but a cold bottom. I drank mine without commenting.
On Monday, I called Apolline. She knew a lot of associations. I asked her if she had the number of a dance class for two adults.
— What level?
— “Very nice electrical connections,” I replied. Impeccable hems. For the rest, we have to take it all back.
End
