The motor went in on Wednesday, and it wasn't the man we expected who came but his partner, and Igor was displeased about that for the first twenty minutes and then calmed down, because the partner turned out to know his business.
They worked together, or rather the partner worked and Igor stood beside him passing things, and they talked in a language of which I understood one word in three.
I was taking orders at the counter meanwhile, and in the shop there was no room to move: the old motor lay on the floor, Velichko's crates stood against the wall, and between them people walked with their shoes, stepping over carefully.
"Are you having work done?" a woman with ankle boots asked.
"We're having an improvement," I said.
By four everything was in place. The partner switched the machine on, listened, adjusted something, switched it on again.
And it went quiet.
Not completely quiet, of course: the machine makes a noise, and it ought to. But that low hum was gone, the one I had heard as a background for twelve years and stopped noticing, and without it the shop became twice as big.
"Oh," I said.
"There," said Igor.
We stood a while. The partner packed up his tools, took the money, explained that it might run warm the first week, and drove away.
Igor sat down at the bench and stitched one heel counter for no reason, just to listen.
"Hear that?" he asked without turning round.
"I hear it."
"I'm thinking how much I didn't hear because of it all these years."
In the evening we sat in the shop longer than usual, because we didn't want to leave. I finished washing the mugs, he swept up, then we simply sat, he on his stool, I on the chair by the window, and listened to the talking in the yard.
Every word was audible. Two men were discussing what to do with an old sofa.
"Twelve years," said Igor.
"What twelve years?"
"Twelve years all this has been audible here, and we didn't hear it."
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