Birth of a Bridge by Maylis de Kerangal Read Free Book Online Page B

centre suspension span: 4,100 feet; width: 100 feet; height of the deck above the water: 230 feet; height of the towers: 750 feet. A delusion of grandeur, like an enormous desire contained within a very small body. Just the presence of the bridge in the heart of Coca, Waldo assures them, will make the city seem bigger, more open, and more prosperous – a simple trick of proportions in relation to the harmonics of the space, the perception of a crossing greater than that of a bridge, an optical singularity.

GIVE ME THE PLANS AND I’LL BUILD YOU WHAT YOU want, whatever it is, even a bridge to hell – Diderot’s smoking in his office on the twentieth floor of the Héraclès tower, La Défense district, Paris, in front of the bay window, a black mass backlit against the baby-blue pane, large-format man overlooking a confetti capital electrified by Friday night departures – give me the plans, goddammit, the plans, that’s all I need.
    THE CHAIRMAN and CEO of Héraclès, interrupted in his flummeries, stepped back and smiled, flinging a folder onto the table, and at the blunt sound of cardboard against the wood – a smack that echoed in the room like a starter’s gun – Diderot took an enormous breath, inflating his rib cage exaggeratedly, and furtively lowered his eyelids: it was happening, the site was his. He didn’t turn around right away towards the messenger, rather savoured the good news: he wouldn’t end on the construction of a new wing in some famous private museum, the addition on a nuclear power plant, or the digging of an umpteenth ultramodern parking lot in a provincial city, no, the men from Comex (the board of execs at Héraclès) were giving him a bridge to close his career, a coronation, managerial shenanigans – he would keep his mouth shut, contain his disgust, would let them come congratulate him, pat him on the shoulder, conclusive slaps that would make him want to smash his fist into their hypocritical faces, but he wouldn’t do anything, would take what he could get, a bridge, would mime docile pride and, as for the rest, the crown and the cajoling, that would all be postmarked return to sender: all he cared about was the work to be done. Of course they would talk within the company, gossip about him getting the field marshal’s baton, Héraclès owes you a lot, thank you my friend, and the young engineers who had rushed into the ranks at the announcement of the opening of the site would have no trouble grumbling in the hallways ’cause, shit, Georges Diderot may have been a legend, but he’s old now, his management methods are frankly not clean cut and he’s not from the inner circle – not a young jackal from the famous École Polytechnique (the X) with ants in his pants, not a showman from the prestigious engineering school les Mines or head of the class at the ParisTech, not a supersonic brain lubricated with force diagrams, functions with multiple variables, derivatives, strength-of-material analyses, Euclidean spaces, and Fourier series. Diderot’s was a complex career, difficult to follow, more lateral than vertical, hybridized to the extreme with all kinds of skills, a mix of freelance star and in-house engineer come in through the back door and ended up reigning over Comex, a guy who smokes in the elevator, who calls janitors and CEOs alike by their first name.
    WHEN DIDEROT finally turned around, the man who he ironically called the Grand Chief was in the doorway of his office, and with a raise of his eyebrows indicated the folder, you’ve got some reading to do. Inside the mundane cover were the results of the first surveys done by geotechnicians in Coca and the specifications for the work. Seated at his desk, Diderot flipped through the surveys – which were ordered in reverse.
    On the first sheets, he recognized his language, he was at home. Measurements, tables, graphs – these results gave a precise illustration of data from probes recently placed on the ground in Coca,