Birth of a Bridge (2 page)

ANOTHER WORKER
joins the group without being noticed – not a single one among us would have cast an eye on his angular, shifty form, tattooed with a safety pin, a mistreated cat that would take a beating and dream of giving one in return. Soren Cry arrived after six days hitching from Kentucky and the Eastern Coalfields – a ghostly rural zone, scrappy, dismal little hamlets scattered over an area hammered with misery; drugs and alcohol to eradicate the threatening spectres of Cheyenne warriors hidden in the Appalachians; youth who bury their noses in rags soaked with white-spirit or turpentine, hunt squirrels with rifles, organize car rodeos in the mud, empty out cartridges into bottles of beer downed one after the other, light fires in the carcasses of rusty pickups, all this just to get their rocks off a little once night falls; they listen to heavy metal loud enough to burst their eardrums, music like decibels spewed, like death rattles. A quagmire. Kicked out of the army six months earlier for acts of violence against a superior – the colonel was a thirty-three-year-old woman, a technocrat hayseed who had humiliated him in public, treated him like a hillbilly, and spluttered in his face, no doubt because she’d seen too many movies, and something in him had given way. He broke her teeth. Since then he’s been living with his mother, taking one-off jobs, seasonal work, and the rest of the time, nothing, time off fiddling around, playing GameBoy in front of the TV in the condo he shares with this pious, poor, and depressive woman – who he has imagined stabbing to death or strangling countless times, but who he kisses tenderly each night on the temple – and probably he left so he wouldn’t have to kill her.

SO IT’S
a multitude that moves towards Coca, while another multitude escorts it, a thick and sonorous stream mixing chicken roasters, dentists, psychologists, hairdressers, pizzaiolos, pawnbrokers, prostitutes, laminators of official documents, television and multimedia device repairmen, public letter writers, T-shirt vendors, makers of laurel lotion to treat calluses and cream to kill lice, priests, and cellphone agents – all of these infiltrate the place, siphoned from the flood that such a site causes, betting on the economic spinoff of the thing and getting ready to collect this collateral manna like the first rain after a dry season, in stainless steel bowls.

AUGUST 30TH, NEARLY NOON. HEADING TOWARDS the Coca airport is a young man at the wheel of a deep-blue Chevrolet Impala – heavy, slow, a clunker. Sanche Alphonse Cameron had rolled down the window to smell the asphalt burning, the freeway is new, fluid, he’s got a full tank of gas and seizes the day, knows that soon he’ll be spending his hours a hundred and fifty feet in the air at the controls of an amazing cab crane and that all this horizontal propulsion will be over.

HE KNOWS
the way: ten days earlier it was him landing at this airport where he was welcomed by his own name on a sign held by a large hand, a disproportionate hand, it had seemed to him at the time, with thick and slightly reddened digits, with manicured nails painted magenta, a hand extended from the robust body of Shakira Ourga – her husky voice rolled the
R
of her surname. Discovering her in entirety once she had extracted herself from the small waiting crowd, Sanche had to be careful not to let his gaze lose its head like an excited kid at the gates of the fairground, because the girl was tall, taller than him by a head, a bizarre body, thin and burly at once, a wide back and slender arms, prominent joints, narrow hips and round breasts held high without a bra beneath a thin camisole with spaghetti straps, long thighs moulded into a pair of jeans, tanned feet in heeled mules. She had picked up his suitcase while smiling at him, a smile as copious as the rest, and a stunned Sanche had followed her back pockets, flecked with glitter, to the metallic sedan that sparkled in the parking lot – the Russian’s beefeater step required him to synchronize his own and he trotted along behind. Cellphone meowing in her bag, she had walked away slowly from the car to raise her voice, furious, rapid delivery, coming back with a red ear and forced smile, and finally, looking over the roof of the car at Sanche, she’d put on a pair of black, monogrammed sunglasses and shouted in a thundering voice, welcome to Coca, the brand new Coca, the most fabulous town of the moment!

SANCHE HEADS
for the access ramps, double helixes of concrete that hover around the airport terminal, looks at his watch, he’s perfectly on time, drives the Chevrolet to the parking lot – seventh level underground, the walls seep – and when he returns to the light of day lifts his eyes towards the sky, cobalt-blue surface at this hour, hard, absolutely clean, an immense doorway: he’s come to pick up the man who, at this very moment, is flying above the territory of Coca in business class: Georges Diderot.

THE PLANE
begins its descent, fifty miles away. Passengers roll their necks and look at their watches, they’re hungry, the flight attendant walks slowly up the aisle, impeccable, banana chignon and flesh-coloured hose, casts quick lateral glances to verify seatbelts and the angle of seat backs, and sways her hips so gently that she calms the most aerophobic passengers, who always grow more tense during the landing. Georges Diderot crushes his profile against the double focal of the window, salivating, trembling: the theatre of operations. Here we are! he whispers into his burning hands cupped around his mouth. Two immense and Siamese regions are welded to each other via a serpentine seam below, and from this height it’s a wildly powerful blueprint. Diderot squints his eyes, his heart beats stronger, he’s touched to the core.

TWELVE THOUSAND
feet. The earth’s surface sharpens its binary partition: to the east, a clear stretch, chalky ceruse pulling at the pale yellow, dry stubble strewn with needles that converge in a metallic cluster; to the west, a dark mountain range, black moss with emerald highlights, dense, irregular. Ten thousand feet: the white zone vibrates, crackles, thousands of scattered splints sparkle while the black zone remains impenetrable, perfectly closed. Eight thousand feet. A frontline comes into view, organizing the two sides, against which they rub or slide like two tectonic plates along a fault line: the river. Diderot’s smile is a smile of complicity. Five thousand feet. Track the course of the river now as it vertebrates space, articulates it, breathes into it, a movement that gives it life. Three thousand feet. Watch from this sovereign height the river’s chromatic variations – red clayish brick all along the banks, dark and brown and then purplish blue at the midpoint of the bed, turquoise shadows at the edge of mangroves and white tongues in the hollows of the bends – an incision of colour in the middle of this space cleaved into black and white. Two thousand feet. Rapidly scan the ground that complexifies, there’s a tug-of-war below, a battle, disjuncture: a topography of confrontation and tension in relief, you’ll have to be careful. One thousand feet. Lean your head back and breathe widely, close your eyes, what is the job of the site? Bringing these two landscapes together – there, that’s the site, that’s the story: electric sintering, reconciliation, fluidizing of powers, elaboration of a relationship, this is what there is to do, this is the job, this is what’s waiting for me. Oh Lord!

Later, at the very instant that the belly of the plane caressed the surface of the water before the asphalt of the runway, Diderot trembled violently, rapid spasms running under his skin, he shook his head. People cast worried or irritated glances his way. It was like seeing a large horse snorting at the back of its stall, digging in the straw with a hoof and demanding the outside, light and the prairie – but the truth is, it was just a shiver of joy and terror.

HERE HE
is now crossing the concourse of the airport, Diderot, you can’t miss him: he’s not that tall but he’s strong, dolichocephalic head and chest like a coffer, square wrists, long calm legs, tanned close-shaven face, rotted teeth, white hair swept back and crowned with tinted Ray-Bans, and always this air of having just arrived from very far away, from the confines of space with the wind of the plains at his back – Astana, Kazakhstan: the presidential palace unveiled three days earlier was a replica of the White House – Diderot had delivered the work on time to the local dictator and had gotten violently drunk the same evening with a young chess master just returned from Berlin. Sanche parts the crowd, heading to meet him, extended hand exaggeratedly firm, and takes it all in: the aviator jacket, the diver’s watch, the white shirt with the collar turned up, the soft loafers, the clean jeans belted at the waist, and the folded newspaper under his arm, the red leather sports bag inside which a number of objects jostle in rhythm: laptop, high-power Maglite, tape measure, change of white shirt, underwear, a few packs of Lusitanias, thick wad of cash, and, protected inside a thick three-ringed binder, a half-size set of plans for the bridge to be built. Greetings, handshakes in the middle of the wave of travellers. Diderot, says Diderot, and Sanche responds, Sanche Alphonse Cameron – his full name, since Sanche Cameron smells too much of that little Spanish follower and Sanche is only five foot three – whereas Alphonse, standing right in the middle with the
A
in the shape of a mountain, this gives him a few more inches: Alphonse, a royal name in Spain, is his symbolic high heel.

RIGID SKY,
stiffly shellacked, temperature so hot they can’t bear to have the windows open; the Chevrolet limps along. Far off, the buildings of Coca rise up from the ground, Lego shapes of disparate heights. No radio in your ride, Sanche Alphonse? Diderot says Sanchalphonse with a click of his tongue and Sanche hears sarcasm, he kicks himself, he shouldn’t have said his full name, shit, shit. No radio, sir, Sanche answers with his eyes glued to the Dodge pickup coming up alongside them on the left, no A/C, no suspension, no radio. Well then, no special treatment, eh. Diderot takes off his jacket and tosses it in the back seat, undoes the buttons of his cuffs carefully, lifting his wrists to vertical one after the other, pushes up his sleeves; he seems slimmer, more elegant, lights a Lusitania: are all the guys here? Sanche casts a quick glance in the rear-view mirror, all of them, now we’re just waiting for the girl. The pickup pulls in front of them at that exact moment, then speeds ahead – it’s the latest Viper V-10, five hundred horsepower, mounted on twenty-two-inch rims, a beast worth forty-five thousand dollars, Sanche knows it well. Diderot taps his cigar in the ashtray that rattles around above the gearshift. Ah. What’s up with her? Sanche steps on the gas, nothing, she had some problem, personal troubles.

Silence. The plain is a broiled straw mattress with livestock and industrial warehouses clumped together here and there. Diderot watches Sanche’s slim fingers tap the wheel, nervous,
taptaptap
, leans his head back, contemplates through his tinted glasses the quilted headliner of the Chevrolet and the crusty marks and oozing cracks in the vinyl. He knows what’s going on beneath the surface of their conversation. The little guy said
personal troubles
and with that he just dealt a first dirty blow to this girl who he’s never met –
personal troubles
– the words seep psychology, inner torment, they stink of women,
personal troubles
, what does that even mean? She has her period? – because he knows very well, the little worm, that on a three-billion dollar site (as they say at head office, chests puffed up and smiles to match as they crack open magnums of champagne) – yes, that on a three-billion dollar site, there’s no room for personal troubles, ever.

WE LEAVE
the freeway and enter Coca. Sanche drives at the same speed in the left lane, the silence weighs on him, he adds, her grandmother died or something like that and Diderot responds quietly, I don’t give a shit about her grandmother, then rolls down the window with the manual handle, sticks an arm out, estimates the temperature of the air at thirty-seven or thirty-eight, dry heat, continental, nice. We approach the river south of the city and stop in front of a brown brick building in a quiet neighbourhood beside the water, Diderot grabs his bag and opens the door – before he gets out pivots his torso and plants his eyes in Sanche’s own, tomorrow, seven o’clock, site meeting.

THE GIRL’S NAME IS SUMMER DIAMANTIS AND SHE’S cavorting on the other side of the world, in the streets of Bécon-les-Bruyères, sidewalk sunny side pumps and bare legs, in a hurry to pack her bag, having just been informed via the very mouth of the head of the company – a large mouth, yet one of few words, the kind that only forms subject-verb-complement sentences and emphasizes them with a nod of the head – that she will be on the bridge team, so at the moment she’s an ecstatic girl, chosen, named, hired as the manager of concrete production for the construction of the piers. In a hurry to pack her bag because she leaves tomorrow, no joke, tomorrow I leave for Coca, this is what she says to herself as she rushes towards the RER station, I’ll be boarding the plane while my friends are sitting down in front of the TV to watch the finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup, sitting shoulder to shoulder, chests leaning back, feet spread wide and falling onto their outer edges, can of beer balanced on their crotches, held with two fingers, the other hand smoking or cheering, and the Tiger among them will have the knowing silence of one who’s been on the pitch. I’ll take off five hours before my father turns off the TV and crunches a sleeping pill, and just a little after the Blondes, leggy, decorated like reliquaries and made up like crimes, late as always, will emerge on the rooftop of their building to wave to the Boeing 777 as it carries me away
.
Oh Coca!

This morning, the phone. She’s not sleeping, has had her eyes open for a while now looking at the unfamiliar pair of sneakers near the bed. It’s a call from the director’s secretary: they want to see her, they have something for her. Naked and alert, Summer walks to the window. The dawn stirs, the acacias are turning brown. She answers tonelessly, yes, okay, I’m coming. Later, she pulls on a pair of panties, makes a coffee, and in her bed the Tiger stirs – one shoulder first – lifts an eyelid heavy with tobacco and images still spinning. He looks at her through his lashes, she whispers, the Coca thing, I think it’s gonna happen, and he smiles. It’s the first time he’s come over, the first time that – ’cause that’s how it is, everything always happens at once.

I’M LEAVING
tomorrow. Summer Diamantis is standing in the train car, hanging on tight to the door handle, body swaying with the turns and heart compressed, I’m leaving for Coca, I’m going. The train ploughs under the Seine, the windows shake in a racket of underground rails, they’re black and liquid and the Tiger’s face is reflected there, blurred by speed; the profile of the Blondes like shadow puppets beneath the platinum of their manes of hair, the silhouette of her father. When they emerge from the tunnel, night has fallen. Port-Royal. Summer shivers. She pushes the strap of her bag up on her shoulder and gets ready to let go of the handle and step out onto the platform. Only a few people in the station, her heels resonate
clack
clack
clack
on the flagstones. A pharmacy that’s open, that’s what she needs. Stilnox for the plane, Dramamine for later, vaccines too, yes, she has to make sure she gets all this, and find a way to go and kiss the Tiger.

BECAUSE SHE’S
leaving tomorrow, going far, far away, to the other side of the world. Because in exactly seventeen hours, we’ll see her coming out of the Coca airport, getting into a lemon-yellow taxi, ponytail well elasticked, forehead and neck clear; she’ll give the address to the driver who’ll start the car without answering, heading into a labyrinth of express lanes that will suddenly propel them into the middle of a wide and empty plain where the sky will play an excessive part. Summer will grow dizzy when she sees the unbounded landscape, an immensity as uncontrollable as her breathing, she can’t keep it steady any longer, bit by bit she’ll suffocate, a faintness that will cause a bitter taste to rise up in her mouth, her head will ache, she’ll ask the driver to stop so she can get some air, he’ll park the vehicle on a shoulder without asking any questions, and once she’s outside she’ll breathe for a long time, bent over, hands on her knees, will spit on the ground a few times and then when she straightens up again will step over the guardrail to take a few steps into the pink, powdery plain, almost lunar in this razing light of dawn, a skin. She’ll stand stock still for a brief moment to listen to the silence, perforated by the rare cars that speed past behind her; a mineral silence where each sound rings out distinctly and pollinates space – a stone rolls, a branch cracks, a scorpion scratches the ground; a real silence, like that of a wildcat, while the lever of the night will cause the day to rise, stretching out space as far as it can go, like a screen, and the horizon will suddenly be so close that Summer will reach out her hand to touch it, she too, touched in that moment, and suddenly hearing the sound of human steps behind her will jump, the driver will be there, you okay, miss? They’ll head back to the car and Summer will roll down her window and lean back against the seat, shaken, they’ll drive till they reach the suburbs of Coca, fragrances will rush into the car, garbage, plastic cups deformed from the heat, rotting meat, newspapers smeared with gas, wilted flowers, mouldy vegetables, dirty laundry, and lots of sweat over everything – here it is, the smell of Coca, Summer will think, as though the odour of a city was first and foremost that of its trash. Once she has arrived, she’ll say goodbye to the driver and he’ll look her in the eye and nod, good luck miss, and then, following the directions given to her by the company and learned by heart, she’ll enter the code at the entrance to the building, a lobby, a hallway, an elevator, she’ll reach the second floor, and when she’s at the door will take out a little golden key,
click
, she’ll unlock the door, push it open, holding her breath – will feel around in the darkness, walk to the window, a curtain, it will be six o’clock in the morning. She’ll concentrate to remember what she has to do in the next few hours – first of all, plug in the laptop and wash her hair – then will take a quick inventory of the room where she’ll be living from now on; there will be a bed, an empty set of shelves, an ordinary table and two chairs, a television, a telephone, an armchair, a sink, a hotplate, a refrigerator, a square of carpet, and in a bathroom with pale-green tiles, a bathtub, a sink, a cabinet. She won’t stop to look at the papers tacked to the door – safety regulations, instruction manuals for the appliances, evacuation plan in case of fire – will open the window instead, a balcony, the street, and will see the building across the way, a young pregnant woman will be hanging laundry carefully and their eyes will meet, the young woman will smile over the line and Summer will give a brief wave without really knowing why, will go inside and sit on the edge of the bed, look at her watch, look around her, she should unpack, open the cupboards, fold her clothes, have a shower, and finally pull her laptop out of its case. She’ll leap up, string her movements together rapidly, as though each pause, each silence, would be something come to weaken her.

AN HOUR
later, she’ll pass through the gates to the site, back straight, breathing shallow, and heart beating madly, hard hat in hand. The esplanade will be silent, parked vehicles, not a living soul, she’ll continue on her course, her step growing more and more sure, her silhouette cut sharply against the immense open space. At the end of her path, a building, and in front of the open door a few men who turn towards her and hold out a hand, welcome, Diamantis, we were waiting only for you, Diamantis, did you have a good trip, Diamantis? Diderot will suddenly appear and greet her in a similar fashion and Summer will immediately be wary of the guy, would have preferred a more clean-cut character, a whiz at equations, gold-plated communicant’s pen hooked in his breast pocket, brush cut, and a direct gaze – instead there’s this guy, Diderot, the legend, who resembles a colossal and outdated Steve McQueen and looks her up and down like she’s just a kid but also like she’s a woman – she’ll be disappointed. Sanche Cameron, for his part, will step back to get a better look at her while she introduces herself to the others, will scrutinize her without managing to form an opinion, will find her strange, a good-looking girl, but a heavy one who walks like a gorilla, short hands and square shoulders, wide hips, beautiful olive skin, thick blonde hair, but with a protruding chin, a nose like a dog, yes, that’s it, and she will be hyperconscious of being the strange animal – she’ll want to make a good impression and won’t crack a smile, a girl in charge of concrete is not common currency.