operator, and Summer Diamantis, the girl in charge of concrete – Diderot watches these two surreptitiously, the boy with the dazzled face, the girl who takes notes without lifting her head. He directed the comment at them when he said, fingers joined in a bouquet over his chest, hey, rookies, call me Diderot.
HE CLEARS his throat and begins in a loud voice. Okay, let’s get started. Plan of action: one, dig the ground – he lifts his thumb; two, dredge and clear the river – he lifts his index; three, get started on the concrete – he lifts his middle finger. Turns to pull down a wall-mounted screen, starts up a laptop, turns back, slowly surveys the audience, and then slams down the first words.
So, dig the ground. He turns to the geotechnical map projected on the screen, takes a zapper from his back pocket: two types of soil coexist here. One – a red point of light lands on the map, perfectly synchronous: Coca side. The limestone plateau of the high plain. Arid on the surface, fractured farther down – hard, with a tender heart, it’s the trick of the cream filling, we know it well, we’re not crazy about it, but it’s better than the opposite, right? The room agrees, laughter erupts, soft and complicit. The problem – Diderot whips around without a smile to look at the audience – we’ve got limestone rocks sitting on marly clay that could cause landslides. Be very careful. Two – same choreography: Edgefront side. Damp and inhabited ground, roots to tear out, we’ll have to pierce the glebe and go deeper to get to the mineral in order to have a strong foothold for the foundation. So, two types of ground, which is where we get two types of material, but one single strategy: the Neolithic gesture! In other words, cleave the ground – and as ever he joins the action to the word, the blade of his hand slices the space in front of him, he brings the scene to life, he likes theatre. Finally, he recapitulates in a loud voice pointing two red spots one after the other on the map: we’ll start by making two holes in order to anchor the bridge. Got it? Good. Moving on. Dredge the river – Diderot continues while the map changes on the screen: we’ll proceed as usual, we’ll send in the dredger, clean it out, remove the sludge, stow the biodegradable materials in clearings here, and here – two consecutive shots of the zapper in the forested area – and put the contaminated materials on a barge that will travel all the way back downriver and shove this shit four thousand feet down into the ocean. There you have it. We signed agreements with the municipality, it has to be done. And back there it’s not over, we clear out the river, dig the channel again, enlarge it all the way up to the future port, and then we consolidate, we raise the embankments where the steel cables will be anchored, and we dig, we dig the river bottom to embed the towers.
Notes being taken in notebooks and spidery scrawl of the men in light short-sleeved shirts, it’s hot, they open the portholes to let in some air, the room swells with the clamour of the outside – zooming on the freeways, hubbub of the stock market, panic of wild ducks, putt putt putt of motors on dinghies out on the river, barking of dogs, gunshots – and Diderot’s voice coils with all this without drowning it out. Funny soundtrack, thinks Sanche Cameron who had closed his eyes for a moment, since he didn’t close them at all last night, seized as he was beneath the sheets by the restlessness that had overtaken him, so happy that the site was starting up, that the grand life waiting for him there was finally beginning. He slants a glance sideways at Summer as she tries desperately to write everything down, tells himself it’s just like a girl to be meticulous like that. Diderot has started speaking again.
And now, the concrete. Your domain, Diamantis! – he turns towards Summer, their eyes meet, the girl immediately sits up straight in her chair, Diderot
HE CLEARS his throat and begins in a loud voice. Okay, let’s get started. Plan of action: one, dig the ground – he lifts his thumb; two, dredge and clear the river – he lifts his index; three, get started on the concrete – he lifts his middle finger. Turns to pull down a wall-mounted screen, starts up a laptop, turns back, slowly surveys the audience, and then slams down the first words.
So, dig the ground. He turns to the geotechnical map projected on the screen, takes a zapper from his back pocket: two types of soil coexist here. One – a red point of light lands on the map, perfectly synchronous: Coca side. The limestone plateau of the high plain. Arid on the surface, fractured farther down – hard, with a tender heart, it’s the trick of the cream filling, we know it well, we’re not crazy about it, but it’s better than the opposite, right? The room agrees, laughter erupts, soft and complicit. The problem – Diderot whips around without a smile to look at the audience – we’ve got limestone rocks sitting on marly clay that could cause landslides. Be very careful. Two – same choreography: Edgefront side. Damp and inhabited ground, roots to tear out, we’ll have to pierce the glebe and go deeper to get to the mineral in order to have a strong foothold for the foundation. So, two types of ground, which is where we get two types of material, but one single strategy: the Neolithic gesture! In other words, cleave the ground – and as ever he joins the action to the word, the blade of his hand slices the space in front of him, he brings the scene to life, he likes theatre. Finally, he recapitulates in a loud voice pointing two red spots one after the other on the map: we’ll start by making two holes in order to anchor the bridge. Got it? Good. Moving on. Dredge the river – Diderot continues while the map changes on the screen: we’ll proceed as usual, we’ll send in the dredger, clean it out, remove the sludge, stow the biodegradable materials in clearings here, and here – two consecutive shots of the zapper in the forested area – and put the contaminated materials on a barge that will travel all the way back downriver and shove this shit four thousand feet down into the ocean. There you have it. We signed agreements with the municipality, it has to be done. And back there it’s not over, we clear out the river, dig the channel again, enlarge it all the way up to the future port, and then we consolidate, we raise the embankments where the steel cables will be anchored, and we dig, we dig the river bottom to embed the towers.
Notes being taken in notebooks and spidery scrawl of the men in light short-sleeved shirts, it’s hot, they open the portholes to let in some air, the room swells with the clamour of the outside – zooming on the freeways, hubbub of the stock market, panic of wild ducks, putt putt putt of motors on dinghies out on the river, barking of dogs, gunshots – and Diderot’s voice coils with all this without drowning it out. Funny soundtrack, thinks Sanche Cameron who had closed his eyes for a moment, since he didn’t close them at all last night, seized as he was beneath the sheets by the restlessness that had overtaken him, so happy that the site was starting up, that the grand life waiting for him there was finally beginning. He slants a glance sideways at Summer as she tries desperately to write everything down, tells himself it’s just like a girl to be meticulous like that. Diderot has started speaking again.
And now, the concrete. Your domain, Diamantis! – he turns towards Summer, their eyes meet, the girl immediately sits up straight in her chair, Diderot
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