Birth of a Bridge

by Maylis de Kerangal

  The machinery of the elevator has been set in motion, mechanical buzzing of cables and promises, and when the doors finally slide open, Shakira is there – stepping over the doorstep, superhuman-beauty spike heels dangling by their straps from her hand, and once she’s there she turns in a circle, amazed by the immensity that’s so close, I’m taking the grand tour, curious, takes the time to look at everything, the indicators, the buttons, the joysticks, the stickers, the knick-knacks, the CDs, and each movement of her body increases the space in the cabin, it’s beautiful here, she concludes, is it dangerous? Sanche devours her with his eyes, he yammers away, the problem with cranes is the wind. The wind in sudden gusts, the wind in blasts. I hate the change of seasons, there are violent breezes that come off the ocean, squalls that form on the plains, swell, and then come hurtling over the river, explode against the woods, then the birds flee and the water starts to turn like in the circus, he mimes the actions: stretches out his arms to say the birds, draws circles with his index finger to say the circus. Since she’s listening to him, he goes on, exaggerating: the crane towers sway on their barges, the cabs get the shakes, the loads swing like a pendulum at the end of a long chain, and each lifting operation becomes a risk that shouldn’t be taken, when the load is a hundred and fifty tons and the counterweight is twelve, that’s why I’m here, to avoid that risk; he points to the anemometer: every morning I monitor the wind speed, if it goes above forty-five miles per hour all operations are forbidden; and above all I watch, I see everything! He’s finished talking. The silence thickens.

  Shakira takes off her coat – it falls to the floor, reveals her in a black velvet bustier dress, a shape and a material that show her champagne-glass figure, the outline from her enormous breasts – did they grow again or something? – to her ultraslim waist, the chemical platinum of her hair, and the calm pressure of her very white skin, she is nearly naked and better than naked, a goddess and a little bit like a whore, goes to the window, watches the outdoors intensely, narrows her eyes as though she’s looking for geodesic landmarks, multiplied now in the panes, precise reflections of faces against the unstable night, spins suddenly towards Sanche, you see, I’m not scared of heights, I feel fine here, she sees the bottle of whisky, and I’d love a drink. They drink. Sanche comes to stand beside her, now he also appears on the glass walls, crowded in here, eh? He smiles, feels handsome beside her, he likes that this woman overcomes him like the outside overcomes the capsule, gobbles it up, reconfigures their presence, and unbridles both their movements and the free flow of their fantasies; he likes the relationship of their two bodies that grow and shrink like in a fairy tale as they touch, as they set in motion all the usual gestures of a first time and he likes that the glass cabin becomes the scene, ceaselessly renewed, of love affairs. He slips a hand sideways beneath her hair and pulls her to him while his other hand slides up under her dress, along the surface of her very real skin – it was phenomenal to touch her, like being the first witness to her existence, and perhaps even more to his own existence, as though it was the touch that created the body; she leans down to kiss him, taking him by the throat, then they undress each other without once bumping heads, no, on the contrary the cabin is exactly the right size for them, its walls provide support, offer them something to brace against or lever themselves with: she raises herself from the dashboard just enough that she can slip her panties over her ankles, lifts her arms just enough that he can slide her dress over her head – she touches the ceiling – he backs up just enough that she can unbutton his jeans and bend down to roll his boxers to the ground, then pulls his shoulders just far enough back that she can push the sleeves of his shirt off his arms, an obstacle course that accelerates the rhythm of their breath, increases their sweat, and soon the windows of the cabin are covered with steam, the carbon dioxide they exhale and the Joule effect of their naked bodies encloses them in the vapour of a sauna, a cloud of condensation that removes them from the gaze of the owls, bats, and moths, from that of the aviators and of teenagers who mess around at night on the rooftops of buildings, a halo that holds them together, sheltered in the heart of the shadows, when in fact the cabin is dilating, swaying, pliable, a limitless erogenous zone; they’re standing now, face to face – she had to lower herself a little – and when the moment arrives to enter her it again gets just complicated enough (she does, after all, have to be able to separate her very long legs, and in order to do so must press her back against the window without tumbling over backwards, and then lift her pelvis; he must after all place himself at the right height and be able to slip his hands behind her back, place them on her hips, and find enough amplitude to pull her towards him) that they are required to pirate some new solutions.

  EVERY TIME DIDEROT SHOWERS, HE COMES UPON the scar from Jacob’s knife, a diagonal line along his side, two inches long. It’s been almost ten months that he’s been living with this crimson segment that screams bastard every time his eyes fall on it, and that marks the day when Katherine Thoreau crossed his path. Sometimes he tells himself that without this knife wound, he would never have met this woman, and with the tips of his fingers he traces the imprint. But he can’t let go of the insult of the thing. He promises himself he won’t leave Coca without having found that man again, the one he rolled with in the dust of the road.

  For the moment, though, the site is pushing him hard. They still need to find some solutions for placing the flat deck of the bridge. They have to provide for thermal effects on the steel plates that make up the deck – in Coca, the variations in temperature are extreme, it’s a continental climate. Under the effect of a heat wave, swelling the steel, the length of the deck could increase by twenty-seven inches in a span six thousand feet long, and then retract again. So they need expansion joints every hundred and fifty feet – after some discussion they choose a system of modular expansion joints that will allow for movements of any amplitude, in three directions, and rotations on three axes. Deciding on the interval between them keeps the builders occupied for a few days. Diderot loves these crystal-clear technical demands; he orders tests, evaluates, compares, and decides. It’s the very movement of the bridge itself, its supple and living nature that’s at play in the pure reality of the steel, and he pores over this question with the zeal you put into finishing a project. The teams of ironworkers set out horizontally and assemble the span, plate by plate, six thousand feet long by a hundred across, it’s a mechanical job, weld, bolt, bolt, weld. Seamus and Mo are part of the team and work without talking to each other, they’ve synchronized all their movements with precision, it’s a choreography. They work fast in the lead and have quickly covered their strip – and then the river is crossed. They too feel like they’re almost at the finish line. A slackening that worries Diderot, it’s always in the last days that people mess up the most, careful, he warns them, all the more since in the last few days the heat has been torrid, the guys’ heads boil under their hard hats, and there’s hardly any shade to take a break in; the steel burns like the concrete that covers the whole span now, the site has become an inferno and it’s during the trips along the river that the men become reanimated, they’re already imagining themselves in the future, sharing a few leads. Seamus will skip the inauguration of the bridge and leave at the end of August for the northwest of Canada, Cigar Lake, the future’s in nuclear, he laughs, compares the wage he’s been offered with that of the workers on other sites, while the bridge guys grimace, I’d never do uranium, never, got no desire to become radioactive. Mo watches the banks parade past, he’s hesitant to leave with Seamus, who assures him that it’s a good contract, but he has a link in Zimbabwe, in a platinum mine where one of his cousins, who he found on the internet, is already working, there are hundreds of us here, he wrote. Mo doesn’t know yet what he’ll do, he’s always gotten by but one thing is certain, he wants to see the opening of the bridge, the lights, the jubilation. Three more weeks to go.

  AND THEN one morning Summer knocks on Diderot’s offic
e door, and in a stroke of luck he’s there, lifts his head from his computer screen: everything okay, Diamantis? Summer will be the last to work hard, he knows it – the levelling of the freeway approaches, including six lanes that must be connected at various points from the bridge to the road system, requires an increased production of concrete. On the Coca side, the bridge freeway flows perfectly into the system, converging towards an interchange which, past the toll booth, will redistribute the lanes in all directions, two of them bypassing the city to head straight for the plateau; but on the Edgefront side, past the toll booth, the six lanes remain connected, and then the hundred-foot-wide channel narrows to look like a simple road that stretches along the river downstream. Summer has to prepare the ground for future construction: the mountain range road, once it’s open, will wreak havoc on the neighbourhood of Edgefront, dividing it into two equal parts before reaching the forest. This forest highway is bullshit, Summer blurts as soon as she sits down in the chair facing his desk, hard hat in her lap. She’d hesitated for a long time before knocking on Diderot’s door: she’d been working alongside him for nearly a year, and while she respects and admires the way he has of fulfilling himself in human action, connected to a materiality that exists outside of him, she’s also cautious of this man for whom living amounts to flowing with the flux of the world, with all its movement. Diderot leans back in his chair: what’s going on, Diamantis? This freeway, she repeats, this freeway they want to build, it’s gonna wreck everything. Diderot, curt: that’s not our job, Diamantis. But Summer shakes her head, but my job is also the freeway approaches and the grid connection. Silence, then Diderot nods softly, that’s true, but there isn’t a grid yet in Edgefront, we’re connecting to the road along the shore, we’re easing up the traffic in the centre, that’s all. Then, since they’re suffocating in the little room, Summer opens the window, turns around, I found the man who attacked you in November. Diderot shudders, his scar burns under his shirt, oh yeah? Yeah. Two minutes later, they’re on the way.

  THEY STREAKED along in the Impala, silent, zigzagging between vehicles, taking as many risks as fugitives with the cops on their tail, and once they reached the Edgefront side they climbed the road up to the viewpoint, a path that Diderot is seeing for the first time, Summer’s driving. Once they’re out of the car, he doesn’t take the time to contemplate Coca, marvellous, buildings piercing the heat haze, no, they go straightaway into the forest and the undergrowth does impress Diderot, disorients him, fragmentary, the day occupying the same proportion of space as the darkness, he walks for a long time without knowing whether he’s inside or outside, incorporated as he is into the frenzy of vegetation, with Summer silent at his side; and later, with the shade increasing its share, the light dissipates into slivers and a silhouette can be seen at the end of the path, ghostly but becoming steadily more incarnate as it draws nearer, Jacob is walking to meet them.

  He stops a few yards from them – they too stop, and then the silence swells, swarms, a breeding ground. All three of them are covered with the same patches of light, clothes and skin transfigured. This is the meeting, Summer says simply, staying back while Diderot moves forward. The two men are now face to face, inches apart. They know each other by heart. There is so much noise that Jacob has to raise his voice, I knew you’d come, and Diderot answers slowly, dragging his syllables, I wanted to break your face – and also, I wanted to say thank you. Their timbres are expressionless, they size each other up, without affect, Jacob says, skip right to the thank-you, arms crossed over his chest. Critters of all kinds populate the luminous pastilles, pink flies, poppy-red butterflies, bronze beetles; then everything grows quiet and Diderot’s voice vibrates, all right, thank you for the knife wound. Jacob uncrosses his arms, dumbstruck, puts his hands on his hips, and kicks at a leaf; Diderot hesitates, thinks about dealing him a quick fist to the face, Jacob wouldn’t have the time to protect himself, he’d hit him in the nose, make him snort blood, the forest swirls around him, it accelerates, he smiles.

  Summer paces behind them. A butterfly flutters about her, electric and delicate, she follows it with her eyes for a long moment, then crouches to look closer as it creeps into the corolla of an unknown flower, she concentrates. It’s a mission blue butterfly. A super-protected species. On the banks of the river they had to plant entire areas with flowerbeds so these butterflies would have something to live on and decreed that the boat speed and that of the cars on the freeway approaches would be limited to five miles an hour from March until June. The forest is saved. She exults, eyes closed. Then, lifting her head, pulls the elastic out of her ponytail, it’s the very first time – suddenly her whole look and face change, she calls to the two men, so is the war over now? I have to get back to work.

  THE DAY BEFORE THE OPENING CEREMONY, PEOPLE are still hard at work on the bridge. The electrification of the structure requires the installation of one hundred and fifty-two lamps along the deck, and sixteen more powerful ones on the towers that will each be crowned with a red beacon, they’re still unrolling miles of cables. The freeway approaches are just barely finished, the poured concrete is still wet on the bridge’s access ramps. They’re scrubbing the metal, keeping a close eye on the birds; swing stages sway along the piers to clean up the least stain. Here and there along the structure, hanger cables are sprinkled with flags that smack in the wind, and in front of the Coca gate, a giant stage is put up, circled by bleachers and crowned with a meringue circus tent – tomorrow an orchestra is supposed to set up here and launch the fanfare when the Boa comes to cut the magic ribbon, when he places the tip of his shoe on the splendid roadway and walks across to Edgefront, alone at the head of the people, relaxed, triumphant, offered up to their gazes, arms at his sides and chin parallel to the ground, perhaps even a rose in hand, followed twenty minutes later by two thousand guests who will also cross on foot, hand-picked close friends – among them, Shakira, and we hope that Mo will also have managed to infiltrate the little privileged crowd, he will have put on a white shirt and a pair of grey linen pants that will narrow his hips, he’ll feel a wild pleasure in crossing this bridge that belongs to him, without a hard hat, full sun on his face. On the other side of the water the welcome will be triumphant: release of doves, cheerleaders, jugglers, Native traditional dances, a parade of municipal police, and free distribution of T-shirts emblazoned with a magic formula: c = 0%, m = 69%, y = 100%, k = 6%, the definition of the structure’s vermilion. Draconian security measures have been taken: Jacob and the Natives – among them Buddy Loo and Duane Fisher – are under surveillance in a motel on Colfax with a giant screen; the younger generation is excluded from the celebrations, Matt plans to watch the ceremony from the viewpoint, Liam will come too, they’ll bring Billie, their father has said he doesn’t want to see any of it, and anyways he’s got the TV.

  IT’S THE END of the afternoon and Katherine’s going to park her vehicle for the last time in the parking lot for the levelling machines, she taps the base of her seat – how many hours will she have spent in here? – picks up the photo of her kids tucked into the windshield, the bottle of water, the pair of gloves, and then, passing by the facilities, gathers her things from her locker – soap, towel, change of T-shirt – and goes to hand in her hard hat, her badge, and her padlock in the administrative building. Don’t dwell on it, make your gestures quick.

  Diderot is waiting for her past the work site, wedged into the Impala that’s soon heading upstream, towards the river bend, where there are no more villages, just a few cabins and coves. It’s not the last time they’ll see each other, there isn’t a last time, no one is dead yet in this car, and their only idea right now is to find a place for themselves, it’s still hot, they choose the wild reeds and the sandy grass, take off their shoes, prick their toes. They have beautiful feet, Katherine with slender ankles and wide heels, gently flared at the edges, Diderot with slim slightly curving toes. They walk along the bank lifting their knees high; their skin is erased in the brown, inhabited w
ater. Far off, the bridge, and before them, very unsettled, the river, worked by strong currents that create a froth on the surface, there’s only one landscape left around them, shall we? They get undressed quickly, toss their splashed clothes onto the bank, and with long strides run into the water yelling, pushing away the branches floating in their path, a carton of Campbell’s soup, a pink sandal, then catch the current and drift off in a sidestroke.

  THE AUTHOR thanks Ewa Z. Bauer, Robert E. David, and Alan Leventhal in San Francisco, and Paul-Albert Leroy in Paris.

  JESSICA MOORE is an author and a translator. She is a former Lannan writer-in-residence and winner of a PEN America Translation Award for her translation of Turkana Boy, the poetic novel by Jean-François Beauchemin. Jessica’s first collection of poems, Everything, now, was published with Brick Books in 2012. She is a member of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada and worked as the secretary in their Montreal office while completing her master’s in translation studies. She is also a songwriter – her debut album, Beautiful in Red, was released in 2013. She embarks on frequent adventures and uses her hometown of Toronto as an anchor.