Birth of a Bridge Read online

  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 t
o 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.

  ORCHESTRATING THE TRIAL AND ERROR

  JOHN JOHNSON, A.K.A. THE BOA, IS A MAN OF medium height, hairless body, weightlifter’s torso and Asian complexion, strong neck, thick eyebrows above little slitted eyes, no lips, pointy teeth, grey tongue. He takes over Coca’s city hall in January 2005. He’s been elected; now he invests in his image. Puts away the black satiny shirts and fedoras, acquires a tailor on Savile Row, orders a dozen custom suits in anthracite grey. Goes on a diet, gets hair transplants, pays for a beautiful smile, takes up golfing. Far from seeing his new position as retirement with an unobstructed view of the leisurely pension of corruption, he is suddenly seized by grandeur. He remembers his campaign slogans – phrases concocted by professionals, powerful formulas that smack like flags in the stadiums and the town squares, twelve-foot-high watchwords that lend power to his voice, give him the chin of an orator – and speaks them softly into the golden night, standing on the balcony of city hall, which in his mind is a gangway revealing him to the world; he imagines an appropriate gesture and, galvanized by his own words, captivated by the marvellous promises he made to the crowds, the blood rises to his head, his heart beats wildly: he will become the man he said he was, he will – he’s deciding it right now. From now on, he treats fortune like the useful gadget of respectability and doesn’t think about anything except making his mark. He will impact his time – people will remember him.

  A FEW WEEKS after his election he takes a trip to Dubai. It’s his first journey off the continent and he’s in a state. On the plane, he takes sleeping pills, drinks champagne, tries to smooth-talk the flight attendant, and falls asleep just before they land. He’s ushered into a special lounge at the airport and then into a white limousine with tinted windows; another limo will follow with the bags and the people who make up his select cabinet. What he sees on the drive from the airport to the city fills him with a simultaneous sensation of euphoria and crushing defeat.

  The cranes are the first things to gobsmack him: clustered together in the hundreds, they overpopulate the sky; their arms are fluorescent laser-sabres brighter than any Jedi warrior’s, and their pale halo crowns the construction-site city with a cupola of white night. The Boa cranes his neck to count them all, and the man in the white dishdasha sitting next to him tells him that one-third of all the cranes in the world are requisitioned here: one in three, he repeats, one in three is here, in our city. His tiny mouth, accentuated by a thin line of moustache, says very quietly, we are building the city of the future, a Pharaonic undertaking. The Boa says nothing more. He salivates, bewitched. The proliferation of towers stuns him – so numerous you’d think they were multiplied by a fevered eye, so tall you have to rub your own eyes, afraid you might be hallucinating – their white windows like thousands of blinding little parallelograms, thousands of effervescent Vichy pastilles in the faded night: here people work 24-7, the workers are housed outside the city, the changes of shift happen via shuttles – the man whispers each piece of information, escorting the Boa’s surprise with great delicacy. Farther on, he points with a waxy index finger to a building under construction, already a hundred storeys high, and says: This one will be 2,300 feet tall. The Boa nods his head, suddenly inquires about the height of the Empire State Building, the Hancock Center, and the towers in Shanghai, Cape Town, and Moscow, he’s euphoric and stupefied. Thus, in Dubai, the sky is solid, massive: ground to develop. The drive is long in the long car, the sea takes its time to arrive, the Boa waits for it: flat, unaffected, heavy black oilcloth whose edges are erased by the night, and he is startled to discover that it too is constructed, rendered solid, crusted over, and apt to become the base for an artificial archipelago, a reproduction of the world map (Great Britain selling for three million dollars) or a luxury housing complex in the shape of a palm tree: thus the sea too is ground to develop.

  The Boa arrives at his hotel bowled over, cheeks red and eyes bugged out, he has a hard time falling asleep, the night is too bright, as though filtered through hot gauze, and he is far too excited – the Burj Al Arab is one of the tallest hotels in the world, an immense sail made of glass and Teflon, swelled before the Persian Gulf which is completely black at this hour, and closed as a chest that raggedy pirates armed with AK-47s might try to steal. When he wakes, the Boa is convinced he’s found the inspiration that was missing for his mandate. A mastered space is what offers itself up to his gaze – a space, he thinks, where mastery combines with audacity – and that is the mark of power.

  AT MID-MORNING, the man who had welcomed him the day before comes to pick him up and guides him around the city. His keffiyeh floats out calmly at his back like a mage’s cape any time he quickens the pace – no one knows, except me, that he has sunk into a dire melancholy, that he shepherds officials around in order to flee the palace; no one knows that he plans to return to the desert to live with the oryx, the fennecs, and the scorpions; that, stretched out inside a tent lightly ventilated by the desert breeze, he will write poems and smoke a narghile; no one knows that he spits with rage into the mirror that reflects him – him and the wide hall of his villa that is just as empty and marbled, just as huge, inert
and senseless as the rest. The Boa rushes along, his cardiac rhythm speeds up with pleasure and exhilaration. The city appears as a consumerist phantasmagoria, a gigantic ghetto for nomadic billionaires, the model of a virtual universe where you can lose your mind: strange combination of hotels with ostentatious pomp, shopping malls with unmatched opulence – the largest duty-free mall in the world, with miles of shop windows, brand names that assault, conjuring desire and striking an exclusive clientele of Arab princes, Anglo-Saxon rock stars, Russian oligarchs, and Chinese industry leaders – and extravagant theme parks – an indoor ski hill with a snowy summit, mechanized lifts and a polar bear, an Andalusian-style spa, a Nubian village, an underwater hotel, and a giga-zoo. The Boa loses himself in space-time. In the very near future, we will have attained the grand number of fifteen million visitors; the accompanier states these facts in such elegant English that the Boa has difficulty understanding, he’s losing his grip, he succumbs, stammers in a continuous loop when I think that twenty years ago there was nothing here, nothing, just a little patch of desert, a sandy bit of Earth’s crust, and not even any oil – and now what? Paradise.

  He’s driven to the palace a little before noon for a short audience with the emir Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum – the man the Boa unwisely calls “my counterpart.” He waits for three hours in the antechamber, using the time to imagine partnerships between Coca and Dubai; he mulls over ideas while behind the thick, padded door, sheik Mo nibbles pistachios with his minister of war, murmuring a few questions about the technical and military capacities of the Rafale jets showcased the day before on the tarmac at Bourget, in Paris. Finally the Boa is received, and here he is, perfumed little guy in a room paved with marble that reminds him all at once of Grand Central Station in New York. He is bursting with an idea, the horses, and his step is full of drive. From a ways off the sheik looks massive and immaculate as authority itself, but his form becomes more and more human the closer he comes – the akal of his keffiyeh falls a little over one ear, making the monarch’s head a bit lopsided. The Boa greets the prince according to protocol – above all, don’t get too close to the sacred body of the sheik. Then the latter snaps his fingers, has a new bowl of pistachios brought to his guest, and here they are seated fifteen feet from each other. So, the horses. The Boa, instead of fawningly paying his respects, tells the prince about his wish to develop stud farms in his city, Coca. The sheik frowns, doesn’t know where this energetic little being comes from, has never heard the name Coca, and nods his head, very calm. The Boa winds up, gaining momentum, the high plains to the east of the city are among the best pasturages in the world, the grass is marvellous and the water is pure. This is a subject that the sheik enjoys: he is a horseman, had his chance to shine in the competitions, and the royal family owns the largest stable of thoroughbreds in the world, magnificent animals bought for their weight in gold, most of them at the yearlings auction in Deauville. The conversation flows in this way for more than four minutes, a record, and finally the sheik agrees: a collaboration begins to take shape. The Boa cuts the inside of his mouth while violently crunching a pistachio.