The bicycle at the railway station: he met her train for thirty years

From 1993 on, every Friday evening, an old black roadster bicycle stood at the exit of the small town's railway station.

The owner was Master Liang, who worked at the railway locomotive depot. The person he came to meet was his wife, Xiu Yun, a nurse at a hospital in the next city. She took the Friday night train home and the Sunday afternoon train back to work. The two places were a hundred and twenty kilometers apart, and that arrangement ran from the year they married until their son was in high school. Thirty years.

At the start he met the train because he could not stand not to. They were newly married and she traveled every week. The exit was a solid wall of people, and he was afraid she would not find him, so he borrowed a bicycle and waited out front. Later there was money. They bought a motorcycle, then a car. Xiu Yun refused them both. "The bicycle is better. You come on the bike and I can see you from a long way off. In that row of cars at the exit, yours is the oldest. I pick it out at a glance."

So the bicycle became the signal between them. Over thirty years it went through three saddles, two sets of spokes, four bells. Every time she saw the old machine from a distance and heard the bell, half a day's tiredness came off her at once.

His meetings had method. In summer he brought a wet towel. In winter he brought a hot water bottle. Either way it hung from the handlebars. Xiu Yun climbed onto the rear rack, tucked the bottle against her chest, and the bicycle started to move.

Thirty years, never once stopped by weather? No. One winter there was a blizzard and the train ran three hours late. He stood in front of the station pushing the bicycle for three hours, and his eyebrows were white with frost. When she came out and saw him she was angry and hurt at the same time. "Couldn't you wait at home!" He said, "The train is late. You must be colder than usual. If I'm standing here, you have something to walk toward when you come out."

Their son wrote about it in a school essay: My parents' love is a bicycle ringing downstairs. It appears every Friday night, and my mother sits on the back and smiles like a girl.

Thirty years of meeting trains, and what he met was never the station. It was the certainty of someone being there when you come out.

The bicycle's story has a gentle ending. After their son settled in the provincial capital he brought the old couple to live near him. Before they left, Master Liang wiped the bicycle down and pushed it to the young man next door. "Your aunt and I won't need it anymore. If you're going to meet your girl, this bike works. It's old, but it's steady."

The young man did use it to meet trains. At his wedding last year he rode it to the venue himself, a pair of red lanterns hung on the handlebars. The master of ceremonies asked what the custom meant. He said, "This bicycle met trains at our station for thirty years. I borrowed it to meet my bride, to take on some of that long-lasting luck."

In the audience, Master Liang stood up and gave him a thumbs up. Xiu Yun laughed beside him, light in every wrinkle.

Now, in the provincial capital at dusk, you can still occasionally see that old roadster carrying a young couple, ringing its way through an intersection. The bell is the same bell, and it rings out crisp and bright.

Before he moved, Master Liang summed up thirty years of station-meeting for the young man, and there turned out to be real technical points. Park where you can be seen at a glance from the exit. Hang the hot water bottle on the handlebars in winter and the towel in summer, and add an umbrella when it rains. Hand over the thing first and talk afterward, "so she can stand there and catch her breath, not stand there looking at you." The young man wrote each one down like a man taking a training course. The old colleagues at the depot used to say Liang was a fool. He answered, "Thirty years of meeting trains and I've worked out one thing. Her seeing me the moment she comes out is worth more than a hundred times saying I missed you."