The Bicycle Thieves: Part II

One of my friends and compatriots bought a relatively new bicycle, paying through his nose, soon after he reached Ferrara. He would ride up to the bus stop, leave the bike there and board the 9 O’ clock bus to work. Three days into the new routine he came back in the evening and his bike was nowhere to be seen. The next morning, it reappeared in the same parking lot, secure in a brand new lock.

As luck had it, that day he picked up a conversation with the bus driver in faltering Italian and English. “Are you sure it is your bike?” he asked, “wait for me in the evening, we will find a way.” So as the evening grew dark, the duo returned to the spot where the bicycle was. "Perhaps he will help me explain the problem to the police”, thought my friend. Even before the thought was over the bus driver, with the skill of a seasoned thief, had broken the lock and the bicycle was returned to its rightful owner.

At the supermarket round the corner, Despar, I often see a number of old people- men in gray tailor made suits and women in their severely cut black skirts. Bent almost double, they struggle to reach the counter with their grocery baskets. The shop assistants or people around carry the bags out for them as they follow with faltering steps. Once the bags are piled up on the bicycles parked outside, they ride away, negotiating the traffic, with surprising agility.

Biking is second nature to the townspeople. Well during our initial days in Ferrara, my friends started looking for bikes. We checked the online shop list, made a few trips to Ricicleta, the second hand bike shop near the railway station, but could not find anything that would suit our budget. It was after a few days of futile search that they realized that the way to find a bicycle in Ferrara is to ask for it in the streets.

On the night of the next Wednesday, leaning on the steps of the San Giorgio Cathedral, with their beer cans, my friends talked of their search to no one in particular. Wednesday nights are the nights of socialization. Friends meet up; new alliances are forged and often forgotten by the sober sunrise of the following day. With the word “bicycle” offers started pouring in. With exaggerated magnanimity strangers came up with offers too good to believe. One young man pointed to a handsome bike parked a few meters away and asked if ‘something like’ that would suffice.

Inebriated they might be, but these helping hands are never extended in a light vein. If a promise is made it is almost always kept. And when it comes to bikes, eyebrows are seldom raised, nor moral judgments made. It is as though it is in the nature of the bicycles to change hands, to be possessed and dispossessed, not to belong anywhere or to any one for too long.

As for me, I got mine from friends- Jasmine and Biju. Jasmine had learned cycling on it. It was pink and small and had a small white basket in front. In her new shiny red Chinese lock she stayed with me till my last day in Ferrara. From the day I found her my horizon expanded. I would bike over the wide city walls gazing beyond its perimeter. During a strange phase of insomnia, to shake away the pointless unease, I would slip out and ride into the night, the cool breeze on my face. Now that I am back home, these are things I realize I might never be able to do again. Often, we would fill the baskets of our bikes with wine bottles and take off for a party. On the cobble paved streets, at regular intervals, the bottles would make a loud ‘clang’ and we would smile at the amused passers- by and ride on.