The Bike Workshop – Part 1: Flat Tyre

The bicycle had three problems: the brakes, the chain and the bell, which rang by itself at corners.

"It's haunted," said Omar, wheeling it into the workshop.

"It's Dutch," said the mechanic. "Same thing."

The workshop was a tiny cave off a canal in Amsterdam, crammed with wheels, frames, tyres and tools hanging in the dark like instruments of a gentle torture. Jasper was thirty-two, tall, lean, in a stained blue overall, with sandy hair tied back and grease on his cheek. Omar was thirty-five, a newly arrived engineer from Beirut, dark-haired, careful, with an umbrella and an air of faint apprehension.

"Where did you buy it?"

"A man in the street."

"Ah." Jasper bent over the frame, ran a thumb along the chain. "It is stolen."

"What?"

"Not by you. Several times before." He grinned. "It's a canal bike. It has been through many lives."

Omar laughed, startled, and the apprehension eased from his shoulders. Jasper worked quietly for an hour, replacing the brakes, oiling the chain, taming the bell. At the end, he wheeled the bike to the door. It rolled smooth as silk.

"How much?" asked Omar.

"Nothing."

"I can't—"

"You can pay in conversation." Jasper wiped his hands. "Tell me where you're from. What you miss. What you've discovered."

So Omar told him. About the sea in Beirut, the café on the corner, the smell of jasmine at night. About the first week in Amsterdam, the endless rain, the baffling cheese. Jasper listened with all his attention, grinning at the right places. By the end, the afternoon had turned to dusk.

He came back the next day with a punctured tyre. And the day after, with a squeaky pedal. Jasper never charged him.

"Can I ask you something?" said Omar, finally.

"Yes."

"Is there anything wrong with the bike now?"

"No," said Jasper, with a smile.

"Then why do I keep coming?"

"Green?" said Jasper, a traffic light.

"Green," said Omar, going pink. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Canal Ride.