Read Online Birth of a Bridge by Maylis de Kerangal - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Maylis de Kerangal
Tags: Fiction
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between boys. They found her hard, cold, proud, and all in all not very feminine. These were their reproaches. It’s hard now to measure the incredible strength she needed to call upon in order to maintain her independence and the splendour of solitude, to choose that she would never again be placed heart pounding on the scale, or “stuc k” in second place for lack of being chosen. At twenty, she looked affectivity up and down with a free smile – what does a free smile look like? What does it look like, Summer Diamantis’s beautiful smile?
She liked school and sports, she liked competition. Had tried taking part in other selections where she excelled too often without winning: any time there were only two candidates left, a mute panic drilled into her solar plexus and paralyzed her momentum, and they picked the other one. A token finalist, rarely the champion, Summer got a label: it was confirmed that the choice of her mother, whose heart (and the square feet of plush carpet that went with it) she failed to win, had resulted in a failure complex: she often stayed slouched on the players’ bench, even if she did so elegantly. Her father, immune to these analyses, suppressed such propositions with ever the same bored silence and rewarded his daughter every morning with a debauched British smile yawning vaguely no big deal. Then came the Blondes who don’t take any bullshit and who beautifully inked out this jinx the way you’d push a lock of hair back from your forehead sharply, for more visibility, more presence, and more joy. They made Summer part of their club one July night while all three of them were spread out on the grass in the stadium, their bodies arranged in arrows in front of the end zone, after Summer had blocked their penalty shots with happy approximate dives. There was no question of second place: they needed a third to share the cost of a rental in Manchester in August. Summer had seen them before around the club, had envied their blondeness, their heads held high, and had admired their getups even though they had also irritated her with their hysterical giggles, the showy complicity of girls. James Diamantis must have watched the scene from the terrace of the lodge, radio glued to his ear, cigarillo under Panama hat, and when his daughter came back, he delicately inquired about what she would be doing in August, put a hand in his wallet, and gave her a nice pile of money.
A YEAR GOES by and Summer is admitted to the National School of Public Works. Her father takes her out that evening to celebrate her success – he had these conventional gestures that he dispensed with the ostentation of one who wants to appear as a man of principle, in spite of his debauched life. The scene takes place in a dance hall on rue de Malte: flattering chiaroscuro, champagne, “It Had to Be You ,” the passably decadent paraphernalia of an aging womanizer, this is what Summer thinks with her legs tangled under the chair. Before the floating islands arrive, James Diamantis places a construction hard hat on his daughter’s plate, looks at her with a rare tenderness, says you’ll have to start thinking about taking better care of yourself. Summer shakes her head, laughing, embarrassed, goes to the washroom, puts the hard hat on, looks at herself in the mirror, hands against the edge of the sink, thinks she looks awful, feels manipulated. And while the crooner slicks his hair back with brilliantine backstage before starting the second set, while her father listens to the messages on his cellphone, Summer, red, hurt, and feeling as though her brain has been slapped, grows drunk with rage and breaks the mirror with great swings of the hard hat.
IN HER LAST year of grad school, Summer chooses concrete as her specialty. People around her laugh, grimace, concrete, that’s not attractive, not even a little bit sexy, what is she trying to prove? Are you sure, Summer? James asks her one day from his far-off planet and she,
She liked school and sports, she liked competition. Had tried taking part in other selections where she excelled too often without winning: any time there were only two candidates left, a mute panic drilled into her solar plexus and paralyzed her momentum, and they picked the other one. A token finalist, rarely the champion, Summer got a label: it was confirmed that the choice of her mother, whose heart (and the square feet of plush carpet that went with it) she failed to win, had resulted in a failure complex: she often stayed slouched on the players’ bench, even if she did so elegantly. Her father, immune to these analyses, suppressed such propositions with ever the same bored silence and rewarded his daughter every morning with a debauched British smile yawning vaguely no big deal. Then came the Blondes who don’t take any bullshit and who beautifully inked out this jinx the way you’d push a lock of hair back from your forehead sharply, for more visibility, more presence, and more joy. They made Summer part of their club one July night while all three of them were spread out on the grass in the stadium, their bodies arranged in arrows in front of the end zone, after Summer had blocked their penalty shots with happy approximate dives. There was no question of second place: they needed a third to share the cost of a rental in Manchester in August. Summer had seen them before around the club, had envied their blondeness, their heads held high, and had admired their getups even though they had also irritated her with their hysterical giggles, the showy complicity of girls. James Diamantis must have watched the scene from the terrace of the lodge, radio glued to his ear, cigarillo under Panama hat, and when his daughter came back, he delicately inquired about what she would be doing in August, put a hand in his wallet, and gave her a nice pile of money.
A YEAR GOES by and Summer is admitted to the National School of Public Works. Her father takes her out that evening to celebrate her success – he had these conventional gestures that he dispensed with the ostentation of one who wants to appear as a man of principle, in spite of his debauched life. The scene takes place in a dance hall on rue de Malte: flattering chiaroscuro, champagne, “It Had to Be You ,” the passably decadent paraphernalia of an aging womanizer, this is what Summer thinks with her legs tangled under the chair. Before the floating islands arrive, James Diamantis places a construction hard hat on his daughter’s plate, looks at her with a rare tenderness, says you’ll have to start thinking about taking better care of yourself. Summer shakes her head, laughing, embarrassed, goes to the washroom, puts the hard hat on, looks at herself in the mirror, hands against the edge of the sink, thinks she looks awful, feels manipulated. And while the crooner slicks his hair back with brilliantine backstage before starting the second set, while her father listens to the messages on his cellphone, Summer, red, hurt, and feeling as though her brain has been slapped, grows drunk with rage and breaks the mirror with great swings of the hard hat.
IN HER LAST year of grad school, Summer chooses concrete as her specialty. People around her laugh, grimace, concrete, that’s not attractive, not even a little bit sexy, what is she trying to prove? Are you sure, Summer? James asks her one day from his far-off planet and she,
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