Maylis de Kerangal - Birth of a Bridge

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.