John Berger - Lilac and Flag

All the men were watching his puckered, red face.

A swallow flew into the roof of the archway above. For a split second Sucus glanced up to find it. He recognised a nest, the colour of cement.

Swallows, two wings carrying a soul, that’s why they fly so fast, his father used to say.

Four minutes!

The question of pain counted no more. It was a question of how to keep the arm in the air. Nothing was holding it up except a thought. The thought was one word, endlessly repeated: UP!

Newborn’s going to keel over!

He’ll break the bottle!

Look at him!

Five minutes! whispered the man with the goddess helmet, he’s won!

Sucus still kept the bottle up.

Five and a half minutes!

The men watched now without any expectation but more intently than before. The excitement of the wager over, curiosity remained and wanted nothing to stop. The exploit had become mildly surprising and they were happy to suck between their teeth the sweetness of this surprise.

Sucus didn’t know it, but he was saying UUPP out loud.

Six minutes, Newborn!

Murat the Turk, with whom Sucus worked on the concrete mixer, clambered to his feet, walked over to Sucus, and put the palm of his hand gently under the bottom of the bottle to take its weight.

Your victory! he said so softly the others didn’t hear him.

Sucus opened his eyes and stared at Murat. Murat wore his yellow helmet low over his brow. With his right hand he was eating an apple and on his left he still wore an industrial glove.

Back to work, cried the man with the goddess helmet, Cato’s out of his hotel!

Cato, the personnel manager on the site, ate his breakfast alone in a hut that had framed pictures on its walls. He drove to work in a Volvo. A short man, he was as bald as an egg when he took off his yellow helmet. The helmets were regulation issue to everybody and wearing them was compulsory. Those worn by the workers were mostly chipped and dented, those worn by visiting architects, or representatives of the Mond Bank, for whom the building was being built, were immaculate. Cato had deliberately chosen for himself the most battered helmet he could find. There was no yellow paint left on it. In his view his chosen helmet showed he was the toughest man around.

To operate his crane Yannis needed to move no more than I do embroidering a baby’s bib. In each hand he had a red keyboard with black buttons, and he sat on his throne like a judge. He looked down through the glass front of his cabin. Cato was giving orders and the men were going back to work so he turned eastwards, towards the morning sun and the concrete mixer. The jib rode the air like a cormorant.

The concrete mixer was the kitchen of the construction site. The cement was stored in two cannisters, each one as tall as a house. Cement needs to be kept as dry as flour. Beneath the cannisters was a mixing bin into which the cement ran according to the measure decided. Murat commanded the measures on an electronic control panel. The amounts depended upon the destination of the concrete. Murat had worked for three years on cement mixers. He knew them and their pitfalls as well as a priest knows the catechism.

From the bin beneath the cannisters the mix was conveyed on a belt into the drum. Inside this great rotating drum, water fell onto the dry mix and turned it into feed. The rotation was clockwise until the moment when Murat needed to fill a hopper. Then he reversed the motor and the great drum turned counterclockwise, so its metal tongues lolled sideways and the batch slipped out.

When Murat wanted to show Yannis in the sky that the hopper was full, he removed his yellow helmet and raised it above his head. Yannis immediately took up the weight and lifted the hopper a few centimetres off the earth. Then, pressing the black buttons, he nudged the hoist-crab, which ran on lines along the jib, he nudged it a few centimetres forward and abruptly a few centimetres backwards. The resulting jolt set the hopper and the cables swinging. When they swung away from the drum, he hauled the load up. Like this, the hopper as it left the ground never grazed the drum’s nose. When it was clear, Murat made a sign as if he were throwing a bird into the sky, and the hopper soared high into the air, dripping its grey rain.

Sucus was shovelling towards the grabs, which worked like a dredger taking the ballast to the bin for the mix. The evening before, a truck driver who was in despair because his son had died of meningitis, had dumped a load of gravel far away from the grabs and driven off without a glance, crying Jesus! Jesus!

Get this lot moved! Cato had told Sucus.

Might be quicker with a calfdozer.

Dozer, my arse!

Sucus straightened his back and watched the hopper in the sky as it circled the site. The sun was higher and the morning was getting hot. He took off his vest. His skin was paler than that of the other men because he was new to the work.

I remember the pale skin of peasants and soldiers on the rare occasions when they strip. Its whiteness is meant for the night not the day, for our beds not the fields.

Construction, from the Latin struere , to heap, con struere , to heap together. Sucus shovelled the gravel. When he straightened his back and paused he had a habit of touching his moustache with three fingers of his right hand. Murat strolled over to the heap, and the two men stood side by side, wordless, savouring their idleness, wiping the dust off their lips.

Like shifting a bloody mountain, Sucus eventually said.

If you do the bottle trick again, I’ll tell you the secret, said Murat. You have to imagine you’re walking. Shut your eyes, walk home to your house and remember everything you pass and everything you see when you arrive! It’s all in here. He tapped his yellow helmet. The whole world’s in here! Just imagine you’re walking home instead of standing still! Like that you can hold the weight for ten minutes.

Sucus spat on his palms and shovelled again. The task came to his aid. Tasks do this sometimes. They lift the shovel, loosen the earth, hold the nail straight, direct the axe, balance the load across the shoulders. Above all, they make themselves look small. They cease to be gigantic. They divide themselves up. Each time you straighten your back and take a breath, another small part of the task has been accomplished.

Finally the noon whistle sounded.

When Zsuzsa approached the old arch to the silver market, the eating stopped. Barefoot, she was wearing a dress, pale blue with a long skirt and short tight sleeves. Cato peered through the window of his hut. She was an unauthorised person, but considering the twenty mesmerised men, he decided to say nothing for once.

Hi! sweetheart, shouted the man with the red handkerchief, his knife, with cheese on it, still in midair.

I’m looking for Flag. Does he work here?

Flag? We don’t know any Flag, do we? How long has he been here?

He’s been working here for a week now.

Ah. She means Newborn. I saw him a minute ago. Come and sit down. He’ll be back. Have some beer. Where are you from?

Not from here.

Not from here she says. Who’s from here? Do you know how elephants hide, beautiful?

Behind jokes like yours! said the man with the goddess helmet.

No. They put on glasses.

God help us!

Well, have you ever seen an elephant wearing glasses?

Let her sit down on the box there.

You haven’t, have you? Which only goes to show, doesn’t it, if they’re wearing glasses, elephants are invisible!

Zsuzsa sat on the box as if she were sitting in a train, idly looking out of the window.

Did Newborn know you were coming? asked Murat.