An Old Friend

Bruno had a small workshop by the canal. He repaired bicycles there, six days a week, for nine years. The room smelled of oil, rubber and cold coffee.

He liked the work. Tools on the wall, quiet music, friendly people. They came back every spring with the same old bikes. He knew their names, their dogs and their broken brakes.

On a Wednesday in June a man came in with a blue bicycle. The back wheel was bent. "Can you help me?" the man asked. "I need it tomorrow."

Bruno looked up and stopped. He knew that face. It was Samir, the friend who sat next to him at school. They shared a desk for five years and one very old football.

They said nothing for two seconds. Then Samir said: "Bruno? Is this your shop? I didn't know." Bruno put his hands on the counter. "It is," he said. "Since 2016."

Eleven years passed since school. Samir moved to another city. Letters got shorter, then they stopped. Nobody was angry. Nobody wrote the last letter on purpose.

Both men were nervous. Bruno held a tool in his hand and did not know what to say first. Eleven years are a lot of questions, and all of them felt too big.

So he asked about the wheel. Samir explained: a hole in the road, a dark evening, and no serious harm. "The wheel is easy," Bruno said. "Give me forty minutes."

Then Bruno laughed. "Do you remember your first bike? The green one that lost a pedal on the hill?" Samir laughed too. "I walked home and I told nobody why."

After that the words came easily. Samir works in a school now. He teaches maths and coaches the football team. "The boys lose every Saturday," he said. "But they lose happily."

Bruno told his own news: his daughter, his workshop, his bad knee. His daughter is six and she wants a bicycle that is far too big.

The wheel took forty minutes. Then they sat on a bench outside. They ate chips from the shop on the corner. Two ducks came out of the canal and looked at them with interest.

"Why did we stop writing?" Samir asked. Bruno shrugged. "No reason. Life. That is the boring answer." "Then we should make it less boring," Samir said, and Bruno agreed.

They made a promise: coffee once a month. "I'm going to call you on Sunday," Samir said. He did. Now they meet on the first Sunday of every month, near the bench.