Birth of a Bridge

by Maylis de Kerangal

  AMONG THESE folks, a group of resisters speaks up more and more often, inhabitants from old stock who argue that they’ve been in Coca long enough to have extra legitimacy; these are individuals who know the area by heart and remind everyone in the preamble to each public speech – in the municipal council, in press conferences, in assemblies of their associations – that, as children, they ran free in fields as vast as the ocean, parting the tall grasses that scratched their pale foreheads; that they swam in every fissure of the river (they can cite the name of each rock and of every smallest pasture before it was converted into a building plot), and that their ancestors mixed the dust of their bodies with this very earth. These ones, who include landowners, families of the first merchants, and ferryboat operators – such as the Frenchman – form the majority of the municipal opposition; they’re affected by these towers that make them visible to the world, adding Coca to the list of potential terrorism targets, as though since the attack on the World Trade Center, their imagination has become contaminated by the threat and as though from now on, seeing vertical lines become firmer in their skies, they can’t help but envision these masses collapsing, tumbling down in a morbid cloud, a vague paranoia whose corollary, in architecture, boils down to one simple line: we don’t want any trouble.

  IN THE SHUTTLE, the discovery that the towers are already so tall provokes several questions – some technical (bolting or welding?), some financial (cost of river transport = fuel + crew + cost of wear and tear on the boats), and finally some aesthetic (the red was decidedly unpopular). When they are almost at the Edgefront tower, a member of the municipal opposition – a short man with grey hair in a brush cut, cozy inside his sheepskin coat with fur collar, seizes upon an interstice of silence to criticize this arrogant project, this provocation that will surely invite the vengeance and deadly schemes of terrorists. An embarrassed silence falls over the boat as it slows, approaching the structures. Ralph Waldo sticks his head out from under the awning to better see the vertebrae of the bridge and then concedes that indeed – he places a hand flat against his chest – like most bridges, this one will incarnate not only technological excellence but also a certain idea of democracy; producing a territory that is wider, richer, and more open; integrating dissimilar areas that up until now have been poorly connected; augmenting the volume and the speed of traffic: it will create a new communal space, a strong space, where victim tendencies and apocalyptic predictions – he’s become an orator now, defending his oeuvre, eyes sinking back in their sockets and rolling with intensity – have no place. Then, setting aside his formal composure, and vitrifying the stunned assembly with one look, he says: what you have before your eyes is a unit of raw energy, part of a creative impetus whose completion eradicates the dark ideas that will henceforth sully the work of architects. It will emblazon the city with an avenging optimism, a new affirmation – one hell of a number, the Boa laps it up, totally impressed, and Diderot lights a Lusitania. And then the Pontoverde execs lean their heads out to visualize the progression of the work, blinking their eyes momentarily against the wet snow that has begun falling from the sky, and the boat docks at the foot of the Edgefront tower.

  THE DELEGATION is brought inside the tower, and rises between the box girders to observe the work of arc welding and to congratulate themselves on the excellent productivity of this technique – one of the directors asks a worker about the thickness of the filler metal, trying to impress, and Diderot answers him curtly, cutting short the puzzlement of the man who puts his mask back on to continue his work; they examine the security, hard hats and harnesses, safety cables – a woman from the delegation stipulates in a loud voice that any disregard for safety guidelines will result in immediate layoffs for serious misconduct, it’s simply a question of insurance, and all the heads nod in agreement with the intransigence of such a procedure – they shake hands at random, many of which they have to wait for – Seamus O’Shaughnessy refuses to interrupt his work and keeps his own hand gloved, we’re not animals in a zoo, dammit – and anyway it’s freezing, the mouths of the officials sink into their collars beneath their scarves and they decide to make a U-turn and head back to the platform. On the way, the adversary of the project stops Diderot, says, I’d like to know your feelings about the bridge – you are the builder – tell me something concrete – he has a determined face, very white and perfectly aligned teeth, and the air of a retired GI colonel. Diderot looks at him and articulates very distinctly, I don’t think about hypothetical threats and fantasies, I don’t have the time, my concern is for the execution of the work and the safety of the workers, which is threatened by insane deadlines, impossible specs, this shitty climate, and the fucking cost-effectiveness of this whole mess.

  IN TRUTH, DIDEROT IS CONCERNED ABOUT Katherine, who he hasn’t seen since the night when they sat face to face in that banal snack bar at the corner of Colfax and Arapahoe, centred on short fake-leather banquettes the colour of oxblood, between which – frank, square, and welcoming to elbows and palms, as though created expressly for dialogue – stood the table, champagne surface with rounded corners just the length of an extended arm – an arm that, indeed, had to be extended, unfolded to horizontal, so that the bodies waiting behind could begin to move forward, conjoined at the shoulder, and so they could come along softly, gaining territory, their slow approach; and this carnal arm that would seal the alliance, and which was at present the very measure of what separated them: something still has to be crossed, and that is the table, which is also a river, and Diderot calls the waitress over, Katherine needs to eat soon so she can sober up.

  And in this bar, with its flat obviousness and crackling jukebox, on this ochre linoleum shaded with dark rings, between these dirty windows muddled with paint, beneath these globes of white light laid out on the ceiling like the dots on a domino, not far from the counter where fluorescent cupcakes and three-day-old doughnuts sit drying under glass, where fake-leather stools veined like ground beef stand waiting, the Formica table is their greatest ally. With its quotidian power in action, it becomes the great equalizer – of sex, age, social status – an egalitarian playing field neutralizing hierarchies and presences – and if they had thought of this, they would have thanked it, this table, they would have kissed its flat surface with its residue of grease and ammonia, upon which they had unfolded the present. They speak to one another on level ground, as though they had just suddenly turned up face to face smack in the middle of a clearing, or in the way we throw ourselves at one another’s heads – like elk that clash antlers, all decorum aside – short-circuiting introductions; Katherine takes off her sweater directly, and watching her, Georges encloses them together in the heart of the matter: the only backwards glance they’ll allow themselves is to speak of the path that led them to Coca. She bites into a slice of bread, announces, lucid, I live with my husband and my kids in Edgefront, I have two boys and a little girl, Georges nods, smiling, I know, I met the whole troop the other day, she lifts her eyes to his, right, that’s them, she’s spreading mustard on her bread now, and you? Georges tilts his face towards the south, I live in Cherry Creek Valley near the river on the Coca side, by myself, no kids, and Katherine smiles, oh it’s pretty out there, you’re right near the water, and he nods, yes, for the duration of the bridge – he too is lucid, calling it what it is. The waitress puts the drinks down on the table at this exact instant – a beer for Georges, a coffee for Katherine – thus diverting the impact of these last words, and also giving them the gift of a few movements to make – he picks up his glass, she plunges into the mug – then Georges begins again, still calm, three kids, that’s a lot of work, eh, but Katherine’s gaze slides to the guy in a white hat and long dirty apron who’s walking towards them now, pancakes and home fries, kids, that’s my thing, she passes a hand in front of her face as though to close the subject, and Diderot moves his belly back from the table: the food has arrived. And afterwards, do you know where you’ll go? Katherine asks while considering t
he contents of her plate, afterwards? he answers, afterwards I leave again, we’ll see. There aren’t many people left in the place at this hour, the waitress is wiping tables, the old guy with the beard mutters, the duo of cops have gone back to cruising, Katherine splashes maple syrup over the pancakes, and tells him – obstinate in this moment, forehead rounded and very white in the light of the bulb: Lewis, my husband, had an accident last year, a fall, twenty feet; he was redoing a roof for some people south of San Francisco. The insurance didn’t work – she swallows her coffee in one gulp – why? Georges interrupts, and Katherine, forehead leaning over her plate of syrupy potatoes that she mops up till the last drop, says in an expressionless voice, he’d had a few beers with lunch, they said he was drunk. She hadn’t worked since Matt was born, it didn’t make sense with how much daycare cost, and she’d had to find something real quick and so, for her too, the site, a godsend, she liked it, yes, really. And afterwards? Georges asks. Katherine lifts her palms towards the ceiling and leans her head towards her shoulder, repeats, afterwards? Afterwards we’ll see, we move all the time. So we’re the same, then? Georges murmurs while they both eye the beer, yes, the same, Katherine smiles.

  NOW THEY’RE alone in the restaurant, two towers of light facing each other, and outside night has fallen. A systolic joy clangs in their chests, painful, and traces in a single movement the thing that rises between them and that which sinks quickly, the upsurging of the present and the erasure of their lives before, they’re restless and vaguely sad – love is what tears at them. Feeling better now? Georges, serious as the pope, points to the plate that sparkles and she laughs with mock shame, lines folding into suns at the corners of her lids, swollen with fatigue, and at that moment the waitress reappears stiffly, filthy rag in hand, and says, excuse me, we’re closing in five minutes. Then Katherine leans towards Georges, forehead pale beneath her mass of tobacco hair, her irises dark now and shining, nearly black, and suddenly she reaches out her arm, advancing one hand towards him and placing it flat against his cheek – a strange gesture, thinks Diderot, touched – and says, we have to go, time is running out, but he takes her hand, folds it like a fist into his own, turns it over, hup, a kiss: we have our whole lives ahead of us.

  Outside, the cutting cold sent them reeling at first – actually, finding themselves suddenly without a table, they were thrown off-kilter, clattering about like spinning tops – and then it stiffened them as they stood face to face, statues of flesh. Is someone waiting for you at home? Georges turns up the collar of his coat and Katherine zips up her parka, without answering, cheeks on fire and shivering already, you trying to say I should go, is that it? Serious now, and on the defensive, she begins to walk away along the sidewalk – you think I haven’t sacrificed enough? – vaguely aggressive while simultaneously weary, on the edge of dropping it completely, but Georges interrupts her, firm, I don’t think anything at all, it’s you that knows. Let’s go.

  THREE BLOCKS away, the Niagara Motel on Colfax, and a coarse room where they won’t turn on the lights. They arrive out of breath: they ran here. A little hundred yard dash, Georges suddenly pointing out the finish line to Katherine – see the door with the red neon sign over there? – and the two of them got into position side by side, one knee on the ground between their gloved hands placed flat on the pavement, don’t you dare cheat, Katherine murmured, and then Georges shouted, go! without warning and they set off like sprinters – clatter of their soles against the nocturnal asphalt, their forms (no longer quite so young) bundled inside heavy coats, the beanpole and Ms. Messy Hair, breathless with the effort – he’s in front, she catches up with him at the second block, and then they run heads down, exaggerating their strides, arms pumping like Olympic champions, and she passes him, touches the reception door first, and Diderot, touching it three seconds after, shakes his head, hands on his ribs, and spits I don’t get it, they call me Carl Lewis, and Katherine, calm, her hand held out over the counter for the key, it’s simply a question of mindset, darling; still breathing hard they stroll through the shadows between buildings till they find theirs, then skirt the doors till they reach their number, a room that is one among many, absolutely like all the others, exactly the way they are a man and woman among thousands of others, and once they’re inside there’s the sensation of a rebellion, a chanted uprising; they undress in silence, seated one on either side of the bed but they keep glancing at one another over their shoulders – it takes a long time to remove all these clothes, these thicknesses of T-shirts, these laces to undo, each movement liberating epidermal odours, above which floats the scent of the site, like a shared fluid; they’re naked now and their skin, merged by darkness, takes on the same temperature and the same carbon nuance. Each one stretches out a hand above the bed till they touch the other, till they move closer, one against the other, and then it’s the great trial and error, the tactile opera, and their bodies in multiple fragmentation that know perfectly well how to find their way in the dark.

  THEY HAVEN’T seen each other since then, not the next day, not in the weeks that followed. He knows that she works on the levelling sites for the freeway approaches, far from the platform, while he is required to be on the tower sites. And if he’s concerned, seated in the powerful superintendent’s speedboat among the Pontoverde bigwigs, it’s less about seeing her again, touching her, pushing her hair back again from her forehead – they don’t miss each other and they have faith – and more about knowing how she’s managing to hold these lives – these territories – together.

  That night, she was singularly calm and serene when she whispered to him, I want to go home now. He was stretched out on his back, could make her out searching for her clothes in the darkness, had said I’ll take you – it was late, the buses would be few and far between, he would drop her off in Edgefront. They got dressed, joking at the thought of getting their clothes mixed up, then once again the space of the motel, Colfax, the frozen car, and the heart of Coca, abuzz like it was every night around 2:00 a.m. They crossed the frozen river, venous and unstable, and once they reached the other side she said, stop the car, I’ll get out here. Georges parked without a word and, abbreviating the separation, Katherine got out quickly, then bent down in the doorway, we’ll be in touch, and he nodded, take care of yourself. He didn’t start the car right away, instead he watched her walk up the avenue, very slim now, not so tall, a silhouette that was out of proportion with her mane of hair. He followed her with his eyes until she turned the corner of the block and until even her shadow had disappeared in the deserted and luminous street, certain that he could still hear her, walking now in another territory, a space that closed itself behind her with every step, a space that belonged to her, that was her home, and he admired for a moment this ability to go home, to go on to the next thing; while she – accelerating now towards her prefab shack with its whitewash mildewing at the corners, getting ready to open the flimsy door to her front hall, sure that the kids are sleeping, breathing cozy beneath gaudy quilts, but that Lewis will be waiting for her in front of the television, eyeballs staring, umpteenth can of beer in hand – she sped up, swelled with a strange desire, and she may even have been smiling softly with her head tucked down into the collar of her coat that hissed like fire with each of her movements, because everything was happening as though she was already recreating herself.

  THE ACCIDENT HAPPENS A FEW DAYS AFTER THE debacle – time is running out and the men on the towers accelerate their cadence. Some of them attach themselves only once they’ve reached their posts to save time during the ascent, which is slower if they’re wearing safety cables. But the ascent and the descent are delicate manoeuvres, each a sort of rush hour that demands order and vigilance – the descent is especially worrisome: they tumble onto the deck sections, down the ladders, they hurry so as not to miss the first shuttle back to the Pontoverde platform, they’re in such a rush to be finished with the workday.

  This particular day, the mild spell had delighted the troop
of workers who went bare-armed, in overalls or T-shirts. Already in the river shuttle some of them had babbled excitedly about the return of girls in short skirts, whistled at the joggers running along the banks, and the few women on the teams had piped up, cheeky, calling out to the guys who cut through the air in satiny shorts that they were waiting for them, whenever you want it, honey. This new gaiety congests their movements, all of them stammering the most ordinary gestures, getting excited as they imagine a boat trip in the bay or a fishing session in the branches of the river upstream from the city, as they plan carpooling from one box girder to the next, yelling over the noise of the welders, and at lunchtime there are a lot of them squashed onto the deck to eat their sandwiches, and each one has a story to tell, the transparency of the air sets winter tongues stirring; just as, far below, hundreds of feet down, the river thickens its slow and unctuous course, the last sheets of ice stuck in the branches on the banks have long dissolved into the very green torrent, and here and there, enigmatic whorls curve the surface of the waters, the seals of some pearly white gastropods, genies of the river who shake themselves off in the eddies – it is once again the time of great liquid mobility.

  So now the light too has returned. It splashes off the bend of a crossbeam, a crate, ricochets off rivets, and when a ray of sun passes through the frame and hits their faces, it’s blinding, it makes bodies vacillate. The fatal accident happened in just this sort of glimmering: it was a little after noon when, moving forward onto the deck after eating and drinking, his safety cable detached while he mimed the bowling session that led him to a strike – three quick steps followed by a slide, the arm carrying the ball lifted to shoulder height – a guy in his fifties, blinded by the sun, slipped and fell to the side, his right knee hitting the steel deck while the other slid into the void; the big boot at the end of his leg acted as a weight, there was nothing for his hands to grab – and plus the left hand, the one supposed to be holding the invisible ball, was hanging on the wrong side from the rest – and there was no net, no cord there that could save him, he fell to the side, body in a tailspin like a big bag – and if you saw the scene, you might have thought of those stories of pirates, of the guys who were thrown overboard, trussed up in a blanket or a sheet, their bodies nearly parallel to the ship’s planking at the moment of the fall: a shout like gauze tearing, the sky half-opens, the sound of the water being pierced, the splash stifled by distance – only a few workers could hear it, too much ruckus, too much banter.