Homer & Langley

LANGLEY AND I treasured the couple’s bicycle built for two, which they’d been forced to leave behind. It had an honored place under the stairs. I said we should ride it to keep it toned up for when the Hoshiyamas returned. And so we got into the habit of taking the bike out when the weather was fine.I was much cheered by pedaling away. It was good to be getting some exercise. I had moments of doubt with Langley steering because he could be distracted seeing something of interest in the street or in a store window. But this only added to the derring-do. We rode in and out of the side streets and took pleasure from the horns that blew behind us. This activity went on for one whole spring until a tire blew as we cut a corner too closely. Langley’s strategy for repairing the tire was to replace it. In wartime you could not find anything new that was made of rubber, so for a while he picked up secondhand bikes here or there to see if he could get a tire match. He never did, and the bicycle built for two has stood ever since on its handlebars in the parlor and with a few other bikes propped against the wall to keep it company.The Hoshiyamas also left their collection of little ivory carvings — ivory elephants and tigers and lions, monkeys hanging from branches, ivory children, boys with knobby knees, girls with their arms round one another, ladies in kimonos and samurai warriors with headbands. None of the pieces was bigger than one’s thumb, all together it was a Lilliputian world amazingly detailed, revelatory to the touch.We will save all their things for when they come back, Langley said, though they never did and I don’t know now where any of the little ivory carvings are — buried somewhere under everything else.And so do people pass out of one’s life and all you can remember of them is their humanity, a poor fitful thing of no dominion, like your own.