Holding On

Halfway down our street, by the pharmacy, Valiko shouted “I’ve got you!” from forty metres behind me.

The bicycle was his grandfather’s green Ukraina, the real one, with no engine and never any engine. On Tuesday morning Valiko carried it up from the basement himself, which he had not done since 1974, and stood it in the courtyard like a horse he was selling.

“Every man should ride once,” he said. “Even you.”

Gia pumped the tyres. Eter came down with sunflower oil for the chain, a cloth and an opinion. Muria lay down by the back wheel to supervise, because at last something was happening in his yard.

I had never ridden a bicycle. I knew how it was done, though. You steer a little towards the side you are falling to, and the bicycle comes back under you. One small correction, then another, many times a second. I explained this to Valiko.

“Everybody knows that,” he said. “Until the first lamp post.”

He held the back of the saddle and ran beside me in his slippers. By the bakery he was breathing like the lift. By the pharmacy he let go. I felt the saddle get lighter, the way you feel somebody leave a room.

I kept going. Nothing wobbled. At the end of the street I turned in one wide, clean circle and rode back.

Valiko was standing in the middle of the road with his hands still out in the shape of a saddle.

“You didn’t fall,” he said.

“Should I have?”

“Everybody falls! I fell nine times. My grandfather caught me every time.” He let his hands drop. “That’s what it’s for. You fall, and somebody’s there.”

Gia leaned out of his window. “He’s a natural!”

“Nobody’s a natural,” said Valiko. “That’s horses.”

He walked back into the courtyard without looking at the bicycle. He looked older than he had in the lift.

So I asked to go again.

Being bad at it turned out to be harder than riding. You have to be wrong in the right direction, and not by much. Too little, and he wouldn’t notice. Too much, and I would go through the bakery window, and Eter would hear about it before the glass landed.

Valiko took hold of the saddle again, without much hope. By the bakery I let the front wheel go loose and leaned left, a little, then a little more.

He caught me with both hands. His face went red.

“See?” he shouted. “See? You’d have gone straight through the window!”

“I would,” I said.

He pushed the bicycle home himself, telling Gia how close it had been, and every time he told it the window came a little nearer. Muria walked behind us and didn’t bark once. He has known what I am since the first day. He has just never told anyone.

Tomorrow Valiko wants to teach me to swim. I’ve already started practising how to sink.