Episodul 44 · A Good Mechanic

On Wednesday, the truck stood in Soles’s yard, parts collected and a tray beneath the engine. Maxim did the heavy work. Soles sat beside the fender, guiding him with his good right hand.

They had fixed things together since childhood. Lately, Maxim had done all the carrying. Soles wanted to give him something back that would still be useful after breakfast.

— Drain it first. Lower. That’s the sensor.

— It was looking at me.

— Try not to repair it out of spite.

Green coolant ran into the tray.

— Now the belt. Loosen the tensioner. Fifteen-millimeter wrench. Pull toward you, slowly. Hold it. I’ll take the belt off.

Maxim pulled. Soles slipped the belt from the pulleys with two fingers. He kept the bandaged left hand clear. The belt came free.

— You enjoy telling me what to do, Maxim said.

— This part, yes.

— You always did.

— Most things warn you before they break.

Maxim let the tensioner return.

He looked at the old pump’s crooked pulley.

The third pump bolt would not turn. Maxim pulled harder. Soles told him to stop, but he gave it one last wrench. The bolt snapped.

Maxim swore and flung the wrench into the grass.

— That helped, Soles said. Now get it back.

Maxim fetched the wrench and put it carefully beside the open engine.

— It’s all right, Soles said. It happens. Get the extractor kit. In the shed, top shelf, blue case.

Soles lined up the bit, then let Maxim take the drill’s weight. Working slowly, they caught the extractor in the broken bolt and backed it out.

— You’re lucky, Maxim said.

— No. I have a good drill bit.

Soles showed him the old pump. Its shaft rattled like a baby tooth; dried coolant marked weeks of leaking.

— How long had it been whining? he asked.

Maxim looked away.

— A while.

— How long?

— Since I started making more trips.

— What trips?

Maxim fitted the new gasket to the pump, carefully enough to avoid answering.

— Since the funeral. I swapped runs so I could be here. Took the late ones, came back through this neighborhood. The dispatcher stopped asking why. Then the customers started asking him.

Soles kept his eyes on him.

— Which one complained?

— The building supplier. The dispatcher put someone else on his run Thursday.

Maxim fitted the gasket once more, though it was already sitting right.

— If I’m late again, he wants another driver. The depot can arrange that. It’s getting good at it.

Soles set the old pump on the ground beside the tray.

— Why didn’t you tell me?

— Because you would have said, “You don’t have to come.”

— I would have.

— See?

Maxim handed him the new pump, the gasket on it, and Soles took it and set it in place, slowly lining up the holes with his fingers.

— I kept thinking you’d tell me if I was asking too much, Soles said. You’ve been telling me when I’m an idiot since we could talk.

Maxim gave a short snort.

— Usually you make it easier than this. Have you looked in a mirror since Thursday?

— Maxim.

— I know.

Maxim took a new bolt from the box and handed it to him. Soles caught it in the first hole and tightened it with his fingers. Maxim passed him the second.

— I come because I want to, Maxim said, looking at the bolt. And because if something happens and I’m not there, I’ll never forgive myself for a single trip I made somewhere else.

Soles tightened the second bolt. Then the third, the new one, into the cleaned threads.

— Ten-millimeter wrench, he said.

Maxim gave it to him.

Maxim refitted the belt and filled the cooling system under Soles’s eye. They checked it for leaks, then started the engine.

The engine idled. Soles leaned over the hood and listened, his head tilted slightly.

Nothing whined anymore.

They listened beside the fender as though waiting for someone to disturb the quiet.

— I’ll ask for that run again, Maxim said. Tell them the pump’s fixed.

— Tell them a good mechanic changed it.

— I’ll tell them a one-handed mechanic changed it, after leaving the parts in his cart for three days without ordering them.

— And if he finds someone else?

— Then I’ll take another route. But I’ll arrive when I say I will.

Maxim closed the hood carefully, pressing it with his palm until it caught.

— No more changing every shift. You give me time, we work it out.

— I’ll call.

— With the whole story.

Soles nodded.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, the edge of it still wet with antifreeze. It was Krista.

— I’ve read everything, she said, without a greeting. We need to talk. All of us. Tonight, at my place.

Her voice was polite and orderly, the way it was when nothing was in order at all.

That evening, Krista opened her apartment to them. Copies covered the living-room table and spread onto the floor. A sweater lay over a chair she had cleared for guests.

— Forgive the mess, Krista said as she opened the door. Please step only on the rug.

Maxim looked at the piles, then at Soles.

— That’s a mess? he asked quietly.

— To her, it is, Soles said.

Tesa was already there, sitting on the windowsill with her knees drawn up and a mug of tea she wasn’t drinking. She raised two fingers instead of saying hello.

— The truck? Soles asked her.

— Several yellow ones. None with the broken stripe. Still looking.

— You asked until Sunday, Tesa said.

— Sunday I had a missing receipt. Today I have the depot register.

— And?

— Nothing arrived. Now I can show you that, not just a gap in my copies.

Tesa set her mug down and came to the table.

Krista brought tea and sat beside the closed folder.

— I’ve read everything, she said. Everything that came from the committee office, everything in the appendices they had separated from the inventory, and everything that wasn’t supposed to be there.

She opened the folder.

— And I found this.

It was a single invoice. The same letterhead, the same administration stamp, the same two signatures in the corner. Final haul of materials, northern-bank site. Recovery and relocation. The quantity filled an entire line of figures.

— Recovery, Maxim said. Of what? The site was finished.

— Exactly, Krista said. On paper, unused materials were carried back from there to the depot, paid for with donations. Except nothing arrived at the depot that month, according to its inventory.

Soles read the date and looked up at Maxim. Maxim was already looking at him.

— Ivo saw a truck, Soles said. On the upper road, toward the northern bank. It went in empty and came out full. With crates. Six years ago, maybe seven.

Krista looked up from the original’s date.

— This is dated six years and four months ago.

The refrigerator started with a clunk.