Birth of a Bridge Read online

  THE NIGHT is far along when Jacob leaves his house and walks the length of the river, getting farther and farther from the village. The blackness is thick, dense, saturated with matter and noise, and Jacob uses his ears to navigate. The starlight barely passes through the canopy – too many zigzags, too many ricochets to perform – but when it does penetrate, there are shinings soft as paraffin that touch a stone, a leaf, a point of water, providing shadows to Jacob’s body, a third dimension; in other words, something with which to construct space, something to help him move forward. At the base of a tree, cold and damp, is a dugout. Jacob unties it, pulls it to the water, climbs in. He pushes off from the bank with the end of his paddle and soon he’s floating through the wood. Though he knows the way, he’s never left the forest at night, alone – a sensitive operation, similar to astronauts’ excursions into space, when excitement and terror combine deep within the same gut.

  SLOWLY, JACOB glides through the humid woods, alert, on his guard. Knows he should turn when the sound of the water rises – a sign he’s coming close to a stronger, faster current. It would be a mistake to trust the regularity of his movements, the care he takes not to hit the surface of the water too violently, precisely to avoid a slap and the clamour that might prevent him from hearing – even for a second – the murmur of the massif; a mistake to trust the precision of his movements, his buttocks contracted inside the boat, his chest held straight, his face open, and his eyes that work to tear through the aniline night – it would be a mistake to trust all this because it’s a fever that makes him do it. A black fever, sprung from anger, a suffocation of bile.

  THOUGH HE never managed to find sleep that night, he had at first stretched out on his back in bed, completely still, eyes closed – then turned on his side, changing tactics, but the face of the red-headed kid, announcing the construction of the bridge, kept coming back to him wide and vivid as a screen, disproportionate, then a shot of his feet, his hands in his pockets as he kicks at the pine cones, or laughing at the kids who see them off from the water waist deep when they’re about to leave, tapping their knuckles to make them let go when they hang on to the edge of the boat; and Jacob hears him repeat that expression like a fatal omen, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail; and when he finally got up, wanting to grab his book, the jinx of dizziness washed over him, he swayed, his legs turned to jelly, he was sweating like crazy – and we should specify that what poured out of him and trickled down his body was nothing like the liquid he secretes in the sweat lodge when he’s invited, no, this was venom, a bitter, animal liquid, concentrate of spite and rancour. Once he felt steady, Jacob remained upright for a long time, stiff as a stake in the middle of his house and suddenly – like a match struck – prey to the explosion of his will, he got dressed and left.

  JACOB ROWS for another day and another night in the visceral forest. He cleaves the peat moss, parts the mangrove, dodges the waterfalls. Fever and anger serve as fuel and fact and he speeds along, drinking nothing but resinous alcohol from a plastic flask, not eating or smoking, he twists in the rapids, surfs the current; by day catching glimpses of deer, wild boar, but not a lynx in sight; bumping into a group of students rafting who are whooping it up so loudly they hardly notice him, narrowing his eyes at a few Natives gathering stones from the shore, men from other villages, holding his breath at night, when the shadows lengthen poisonous, absolutely inhuman, when he feels he’ll suffocate, succumbing to the nocturnal beauty, fascinated, eyes rolling back, lips dry, the desire to scream strangling his larynx. He doesn’t sleep. He’s gathered the tension in his body as though condensing material into a cannonball – he holds himself slightly forward, concentrating on capturing the smallest flux in the water that could speed his course and carry him forward effortlessly, focused on loosening the energies around him, on recycling his anguish and agitation into each of his gestures, and strangely his exhaustion vitrifies his fury, keeps it intact.

  AT DAWN on the second day, when the buildings of Coca rise up suddenly perpendicular to the surface of the water, it’s a different man who paddles out of the woods, a man beside himself. The sun rises, ricochets off glass and steel facades, iridesces the shimmering rainbows of hydrocarbon slicks that ring the waters, and the triangular plates of metal festooning the edges of the dugout – like a set of open jaws – sparkle in the light.

  Catching a glimpse of the dugout as they pass, drivers speeding along the banks at this early hour widen their eyes in the rear-view mirrors, slowing dangerously, and later, arriving at their offices, head towards the tower windows to watch the guy’s progression, call one another over, check it out, there’s a strange one down there, see him? And, upon waking, riverside residents raise the window blinds and end up going out onto their balconies. It’s not the dugout that shocks them, no, there are lots of those around here – rather, it’s seeing him, this livid man who rows with his back straight as a rod, his black tie like an Ottoman sabre across his chest over the white shirt, the dark velvet scholarly jacket, the white socks peeking out of moccasins – where’d this guy come from?

  COMING UPON the anchorage sites on both sides of the river, and struck by the enormousness of their surface area and the multitude of machines, Jacob slows, holds the paddle horizontal and throws his head back, throat taut as a bow; he floats slowly on the calm water, minuscule wavelets explode softly against the hull – a freeway over the river, six lanes, the sky is the colour of votives.

  He takes a long breath and sets off again, with great strokes of the paddle in the river, splash splash, sounds that punctuate his progress, and finally passes the river shuttles, pot-bellied as teapots, armoured with divers and workers who move lively over the anchorage sites, their wake lifting the dugout that pitches, vacillates; sprayed, Jacob reawakens and suddenly spots a large stretch beside the bank that sparkles, silvery, and goes closer to see better. Dead fish float in the dozens, thrown up from the depths by the explosions, their eyes open and staring. Anger seizes him again, exhaustion leaves his body, he glides along beside the stinking, macabre pool, lips pressed together so as not to scream, and each stroke of the paddle injects him with new energy to carry on. Soon he comes in sight of the long quay of the Pontoverde platform, where silhouettes cram together onboard a final shuttle like the ones he passed earlier – same colours, same initials. Here it is, he thinks, suddenly rowing like mad.

  He moors his dugout under the concrete mixing plant, beside the wasteland, and drags himself out of the hull. The sky has turned grey from the coal. He clambers up the bank, clinging to handholds, then pulls himself up straight – and surprisingly, he doesn’t faint. He’s hungry, thirsty, wants a coffee. Summer Diamantis, who at this moment is walking towards her batch plant after the daily site meeting, frowns at the sight of this vaguely disturbed form, crumpled clothes and bare head, and turns as she’s passing with a mechanical torsion – who’s this guy without a hard hat? – yet doesn’t slow her step – what’s occupying her mind at the moment are the latest concrete mixing trials. So much so that Jacob is able to walk the entire length of the esplanade with a confident stride, right up to the main building, without being stopped. The rain begins to fall. This is when Diderot pushes open the door, anxious about the sky.

  From the top of the three short steps that lead to the door of the building, he asks the guy in front of him, who he takes immediately to be an intruder, you there, what are you doing here? Jacob has come to a standstill at the bottom of the stairs, says flatly, are you the one in charge? His arms rest by his sides but the milky blue of his eyes worries Diderot just as much as the sky that melts now and coughs up rain in big warm drops, what a mess. The one in charge of what? Diderot speaks without aggression but with impatience, and begins to step heavily down the stairs to talk to this guy – but he’s stopped on the second step by Jacob’s hand that comes up against the centre of his chest, the long knotted fingers spread wide over the fabric of the shirt that grates, the palm made metallic by its hardness, are you in cha
rge of this construction site, yes or no? Diderot freezes. His eyes scan Jacob from head to toe, rapidly, without noticing any suspicious bulges where a weapon might be concealed, and he pushes the hand away firmly, begins to step down to the last step, saying yes I am, what’s it to you, and with these words, the hand that was pushed away comes back hard against his stomach, gathered into a fist, bang. The blow catches Diderot off guard as does the storm that he hears rumbling far off and he folds over, staggers, then collapses against Jacob, who falls backwards and the two men roll on the ground. They lie there a moment, inert, long enough for the rain to speckle their clothes with dark spots that quickly cluster into a single patch, long enough for the esplanade to become glazed and transform into mucky clay, till finally they make a move to stand up. Diderot turns to his side and uses the ground to press himself up while Jacob, already standing, teeters on skinny legs, the knobs of his ankles protruding under the white cotton of his socks, easily visible beneath pants that are too short. He’s the one looking down on Diderot now, dominating him with his height and a body that’s ten years younger. But in the next second he doesn’t stand so tall – taken by surprise at this primitive move, a punch, a jab straight to the gut, when all he wanted – he’d swear it – was to sit down at a table and discuss the thing with this big man, he seems like a good guy, explain his point of view calmly, show him how this bridge he’s building will bring destruction and extinction, how he’ll be part of tragedy and loss, and how directing this thing makes him a kind of killer. Instead, as though the rain drumming down had harassed his thought, preventing it from forming into a possible sentence, as though the soaked, muddy esplanade had sucked his words deep into the cesspool, he takes a breath and spits, bastard! There’s brutality in this hirsute body gripped by violence, in this voice that insults and hurls even though the body is stiff, but it’s a brutality that Diderot doesn’t calculate, suddenly bristling, seized by fury, this nutso better not piss me off too much, is all he thinks to himself. Once he’s up, the pain in his stomach hooks him again, it kills, and this annoys him, he’s the one in charge. Head down he ploughs into Jacob like a bison, like a locomotive, a squall of muscles and fat, the blow is violent, Jacob gasps, suddenly breathless, takes a step back, and once again is flat on his back. The spongy ground welcomes him with a hiss of sludge. Diderot steps forward and stands over him now, enormous, one leg on either side of him, you have two seconds to get lost, two seconds before I call someone. But Jacob, who he thought had been neutralized, down for the count, rears up again, grabs him by the ankles with his two tense hands, pulls him forward, and Diderot falls on his ass again, splash. It’s a fight, then. The two men hit each other in succession, one after the other, an interval of a couple of seconds between each clout, a breath between each slap, one after the other they grab each other by the collar with one purple fist while the other gathers into a ball of force, pulling back behind a shoulder and hurtling forward like a projectile against the cheek, hooking the nose, the ear, the brow; they bash each other, both slow and heavy, clumsy, and it’s crazy to see how they resemble each other now, their clothes the same colour because of the mud, eyes blistered, crimson and sweating under the deluge. If you’d been there to see the combat – the bridge against the forest, the economy against nature, movement against immobility – you wouldn’t have known who to cheer for. In the end, Diderot, finished, steps back staggering, turns halfway, but Jacob’s voice behind him holds him still: look at me, asshole. Diderot freezes, hesitates to turn again, turns, you talking to me? Jacob stands, filthy, holding out a knife he just pulled from his sock, shitty little knife that doesn’t scare Diderot but whose blade is rubbed with lemon-yellow sharpening ointment, a thick paste acting on the steel blade like resin on the bow of a violin. You talking to me? Diderot takes a step forward. Yeah, Jacob has lowered his hand and now he states in a formal voice: I demand that the work be stopped – his glottis goes up and down his trachea but his eyes don’t blink. Don’t be ridiculous, Diderot sighs, now get out of here. He shivers, the rain intensifies, and the air cools off. The guys on the site must be wading in this shit, we’ll have to be careful of landslides, risks of rising water levels, he has to go now, pivots to call the guards, he’s back to the bottom of the three steps when he hears a noise at his back again and whips around, exasperated. Brilliance of the blade, a burning in his side, blood that spurts, a thousand candles. Jacob disappears.

  PUDDLES HAVE formed now, spread out over the surface of the large Pontoverde platform, fairly large and fairly deep pools, these are the ones making the rain sound, making its splat oppressive. One of them stars outward at the base of the three steps of the main building– men’s boots had pressed into the ground in this very spot, their heavy soles marking the ground – and it’s here that Diderot lies, his eyes on the sky. No one has come out yet to see what’s happening outside – can it possibly be true that they haven’t heard the brawl? Can it possibly be true that, polarized in front of computer screens where forecasts of bad weather appear, and holding their breath as they contemplate disturbances, they’ve gone deaf? Barely three minutes have passed since the end of the scrap and Diderot’s losing blood – his shirt has blossomed red-violet over his stomach, and is dripping scarlet into the puddle; he doesn’t try to extract himself from the mud, doesn’t make a move, relaxed now, calm, and his consciousness, floating in the vague indentations of the sky, repatriates large bells above his forehead that ring out: bastard, bastard!

  THE SAME word that Katherine Thoreau yelled with her fist raised at the bus driver after he started driving again while she was hammering on the door, hey, open the door, please, hey! But the little man paid no attention, didn’t look at her: this wasn’t a bus stop, it was a traffic light, a red one, at the edge of a seedy intersection on Colfax. A disaster for Katherine, who puckers her lips as she looks at her watch now and flies into a panic: if she’s not there on time to punch in, if she misses the river shuttles to the sites once again, she’ll take a wage penalty, or even lose her job, for sure, shit, shit. In a rage, she kicks the hydro pole standing there, winces, turns, catches sight of a figure reflected in the glass of a motorcycle dealership, a full-length silhouette, Katherine observes it and then goes nearer: a pretty woman still, forty or maybe a little older, tall, a fuchsia parka too thin to keep the winter out enwraps her abdomen and reveals it heavy – breasts and belly – without much of a waist anymore; acid-wash jeans hug thin legs cushioned by a pair of dirty sneakers, thick brown hair at the roots lightens to flavescent at the shoulders, reddish straw clogged with badly maintained curls, her nails are bitten to the quick and the skin of her hands is dry and lined, a little gold chain with a heart pendant is her only piece of jewellery; it’s not that she’s ugly, or dirty, no – you can see that this is the kind of woman who only owns one bra but who washes her underwear in the sink, the kind of woman who soaps herself vigorously, tongue pressed between her lips – it’s just that when you see her, you sense poverty. Katherine Thoreau stares at her reflection, she’s tired, her eyes adhere, wrinkles deepen in her reddened skin and give her a sad look but she doesn’t think she looks half-bad in the mirrored glass, she’s not done for, with a few dollars, a haircut, wrinkle creams, and some rest, she could still have appeal; but at seven in the morning, she grits her teeth to keep going, to hold on and not get the hell out of here leaving them behind to fend for themselves, the four of them, her depressive husband, her demanding boys, her little girl who’s teething. The night had taken a bad turn: at three in the morning when she couldn’t take it anymore, she got up from the sofa bed to turn off the TV that Lewis’s eyes were glued to, I at least have to sleep if I want to be able to work tomorrow she said in a syrupy voice, a voice that humiliated her husband because, brandishing an ashtray, he suddenly spat out, dammit! I don’t want you to go back to that fucking site, all those guys checking out your ass, I know that’s why you do it, to get them hard, I know it, you think I’m stupid but you better watch it, I’m wa
rning you, and Kate, stunned, thinking of her days – hard hat on her head, visor down over her nose and crammed into a machine for ten hours in a row clearing out the backfill in the anchorage hole, the abominable racket that leaves her dazed when the evening siren finally sounds – had laughed a superior laugh, which conveyed to Lewis his impotence – she might just as well have called him a loser, asked him how he thought he would do it, practically, to stop her from going to work – a laugh that she stretched out with a contemptuous smile, okay sure, I’ll stop going, later guys, I quit, but tell me if you’re not a complete idiot how you think we’d manage? What would we live on? She was planted with her hands on her hips in her polyester housecoat and couldn’t dodge the ashtray when it was thrown against her temple, bang, let out a scream that she quickly stifled with a hand to her open mouth because at that moment Matt, her oldest boy, had pushed open the front door and he was drunk, everyone had bellowed insults, and the younger boy, Liam, suddenly appearing in his pyjamas in the middle of the living room had, as usual, thrown himself sobbing against his mother, and the electric atmosphere had not failed to wake the littlest one, it’s true that they were all on edge and squeezed like sardines into this shitty condo. Later, when they were lying down again on the sofa bed, the little one between them with her soother in her mouth, Katherine had said firmly to Lewis, say you’re sorry, and he’d mumbled sorry then taken her hand across the child, and they held each other like that in the darkness until sleep overtook them.