Chapter 37Article Four

She hung her weight on it and bore down.

The silvery-white box under Seventeen made a sound. Very short, with no tail. The box took back an inch of line, and the lifeline cable tightened by a fraction, tightened all the way to her hook. Her body did not move. The only thing that moved was that fraction of line.

First she leaned back, back onto the strap below her breastbone. The strap was new, stiff, and when she bore down it rode up a little towards her shoulders. She pressed it back, back to where it had been. Her hook was on Sixteen’s ring, its gate biting firmly.

Sixteen’s post came up to her waist. The ring at the top of the post was round, with her hook biting onto it. At the foot of the post were four bolts, and on the head of each was a stroke of white paint. The white paint was intact, not cracked, not lifting at the edges. She crouched and looked at the roots of the bolts. No rust. Fifteen was behind her, and its white paint was intact too.

She stood up and bore down again. The box sounded again and took back another inch.

She bore down slowly. Her toes pressed in first, then rose bit by bit. Her weight moved from her heels to the balls of her feet, then pressed back from the balls to the heels, each time slowly enough that she could hear her own soles scuff a little on the grating. She pressed all the way down, stopped, waited until it was still, then pressed again. She laid her right hand on Sixteen’s ring, palm flat against the cold steel. The lifeline cable was taut beside her hook, stretched very straight. She moved her hand onto the cable. The pads of her fingers could feel it trembling, very finely, and halfway through the trembling it stopped. She drew her hand back. Her fingers were a little numb. She spread them, then closed them again, around Sixteen’s ring.

The way an inspector would. An inspector’s eyes stayed on the bolts, not on people.

The railing was outside her knees, silvery white, low. Outside the railing there was nothing, only wind, and the sound of the city, very far off. When the wind was strong the bridge swayed, by a very small amount, so small that only the knees knew. Her knees bent with it, once, then straightened. She did not look out.

Her left toes braced inside the shoe. A satin shoe. The creases in its upper had not flattened, the inside of the satin was cool, and the blister under her toes swelled in the cool. Each time she bore down, her left toes pushed into the toe of the shoe, against the blister, and drew back. The plaster stuck on her toe still had a lifted edge. It was yesterday at noon that a cleaner had taken it from the small drawer of the cleaning trolley and handed it to her. She had not stuck it down again. On her right foot was the trainer, its laces tied twice, very tight, and each time she bore down, the laces bit across the top of her foot. She did not loosen them.

She counted her breaths. In, three beats. Bear down. Out, five beats.

After the second press, her rhythm slipped half a beat behind. When the box sounded, her beat had not yet landed.

The man on Seventeen did not turn round.

He stood at the side of the post with his back to her, facing west. Grey overalls, worn pale along the shoulder seams. His shoulders were level. The hair at the back of his neck was cut very short, and a few strands had already gone white. His left hand hung at his side. The second joint of the index finger was darker than the other joints, hard skin worn in by rope. His right hand did not move. His shoes were black, the toes pointing west, the two feet set close together, the heels pressed on the same crossbar of the grating. The box had sounded twice, and his shoulders had not moved, nor had his back.

The third press. The box sounded a third time, and the line drew back another inch.

Wind came between the two towers and made the grating of the skybridge rattle faintly, once, then stop. Only one lamp was lit in the middle of the bridge, right above Seventeen. Its light fell down, onto his shoulders, onto the square of grating under his feet. The other squares were dark. Through the gaps in the grating there was a little light, very far away. In the dark between the two towers there was something very large that did not move. She did not look down a second time.

He spoke. His shoulders did not lift, and the back of his neck did not move.

“Article Four. The review isn’t finished, so I can’t leave.”

The words had no echo. The grating did not catch them. Once they were said, they stayed on the square where he stood and went no further.

She did not speak at once. She counted his shoulders. They were still level. Then she counted the grating. From under her feet to the foot of Seventeen there were seven squares, each gap the same width. She counted twice, and both times it was seven.

She straightened her back, until the strap no longer pressed on her breastbone. Her chin barely moved, and her sibilants were bitten off clean.

“Why don’t you leave?”

Her voice dropped onto the grating and stretched out. It stretched across the dark between the two towers, struck the A-frame legs below, and bounced back, back to her ears, half a beat slower than when she had sent it out.

The wind on the bridge stopped. The grating went quiet, the lifeline cable stopped trembling, and between the two towers there was only the sound from below, very far off, coming in waves. She waited.

He did not answer at once. The box did not sound again. After a beat, he said:

“I can leave any time.”

That one had no echo either.

As he said it, his body leaned back half an inch.

Leaned on the line. The box did not sound. The line drew taut, gently, then slackened. That line came out from under Seventeen, went round his left shoulder and on across the front of him, stretched taut into a diagonal, and at the shoulder it went out of sight. She did not reach for it.

His heels were still pressed on that crossbar and did not move. His hands did not go to his own gate. Both hands hung at his sides, and neither one lifted.

She glanced at the small plate on the side of the post. On Seventeen, the side facing outwards read “Unchecked”. Eighteen was two metres ahead of Seventeen, its plate facing outwards, reading “Checked”. The two plates were two metres apart, and the ink of the words was the same shade.

She said nothing. The stiff collar of white feather pieces stood up at the back of her neck, and the wind could not move it. She shifted her weight from her right foot to her left. The blister jumped, and she shifted her weight back to her right foot.

※

The third Tuesday of November, in the second year. Ten past three in the afternoon.

At that time Article Four had been written down only three weeks earlier. Article Four came about because of a temporary inspector that autumn. He had covered someone’s shifts for three days, and on the afternoon of the third day he left partway through, saying something had come up at home. That day, one bolt had not been tightened all the way. Someone else noticed it later. When they noticed it, the line had already slackened by one notch. No one was hurt. Article Four was written in after that afternoon, on the first page of the review ledger, on the fourth line. That bolt was on Twelve. Its white paint was new, laid over the head of a bolt that had not been tightened.

In those three weeks, every morning he went up onto the bridge, knocked three times on Seventeen, and clipped in. He looked over the other anchor posts one by one, and when he reached Seventeen, he stopped. That one he knocked on, and looked at too, but could not check. In the review ledger, the reviewer box on every line said “Cheng”.

That Tuesday there was wind on the bridge. The window of the review room at the east end was open a crack. The wind came in through the crack and knocked together the hooks hanging on the wall, a few times, then stopped. There was a thin film of water on the grating, slippery underfoot. The sky was grey. It was not raining, only damp. Further up the towers, the cloud pressed low, and where it pressed, they broke off.

In the morning, in the review room at the east end, he did half of Seventeen’s review. The self-check half he wrote into the review ledger: Unchecked (self-checks do not count). Having written it, he did not cross it out. The writing was small, set in the middle of the box, stroke by stroke, each one neatly finished.

In the afternoon, the review sheet had been left behind in the duty room at the west end. The afternoon review needed it, so he had to go and fetch it. The review sheet was a thin piece of paper printed with a grid of boxes for the anchor posts. Each box took one word, and when they were filled in, you signed. The duty room was at the other end of the bridge. If you walked west from Seventeen, past Eighteen, past Nineteen, counting the posts one by one, thirteen in all, at the end there was a glass door. On the table inside the door stood an enamel mug, and the water in the mug was cold. He had poured it the evening before. The review sheet was weighted down under the mug.

That day he had his tool bag hanging at his waist. The bag was canvas, washed pale, with a spanner and a coil of rope ends stuck in its mouth. He unhooked the bag from his waist and set it at the foot of Seventeen’s post, beside the silvery-white box.

Before he went, he knocked three times on Seventeen’s post. Knuckles on steel, once, once, once, with a beat’s pause after each. It was his habit before going on the line. Every anchor post had to be knocked. When he had knocked, he clipped the hook on, and only then moved.

He did not unclip. He only took one step. His foot came down on the grating, two metres from Seventeen.

The self-retracting unit sounded.

The sound was very small, so small that the wind on the bridge could cover it. The unit had originally been for fall arrest. Only when someone fell did it lock. The rest of the time it let the line pay out, however much went out and however much came back, all as the person moved. That week he had set it to “retract fully”. When he set it, he turned the dial as far as it would go, until it would turn no more, then clipped the lid back on, very tight.

The line came back into the box, an inch, a sound, reeling him back onto Seventeen. There was an old scuff mark on the line, left by being reeled in many times. With each inch, the chest clip pressed on his breastbone, pressed in a little. He could not stand straight. His body bent forward, bent until it reached the side of the post.

He put his hand on the chest clip and waited for it to ease.

It did not ease.

He tried again. The line came back again, one inch, two inches, reeling him back onto that square. He stopped there, his hand still on the chest clip.

He did not try a third time. His thumb paused at the edge of the gate and did not press down.

He did not go to the west end, and the review sheet was not fetched. That afternoon he was the only one on the bridge. The doors at both ends were shut. He stood on Seventeen until the time when the review sheet should have been back had passed, and then stood on past another such time. In the review room at the east end the clock was still going. Whatever time it reached, he did not go and look. He did not move.

The last line in the review ledger read “Seventeen: Unchecked (self-checks do not count)”. He had written that line himself.

That line, he did not cross out.

※

She did not walk forward.

She kept her weight hung on Sixteen and did not let up.

“I’m the second person.”

As she said it, her chin did not move, and her voice did not rise. The grating caught it and drew it out, out into the dark between the two towers. It struck the A-frame legs and came back, back to her ears, as if someone at the far end of the bridge had answered.

The man on Seventeen did not answer. His shoulders did not move. The ring at the top of Seventeen’s post was brighter than the others. She saw it and did not reach for it. She looked towards Seventeen, and kept looking for a long time, long enough that nothing more sounded from the box.

The lifeline cable no longer trembled. It stayed taut, running straight from Sixteen to Seventeen, across two metres of empty air, her at one end, the box at the other. She drew a breath, three beats. Let it out, five beats. Below, the A-frame legs stood in the wind, not one of them moving. Far off there was a plane, its sound very low, passing from the south, and then gone.

She was the second person. In her hands there was no spanner, no review sheet, no plate. She had only the harness on her body, and the hook clipped to Sixteen. On her feet there were still two shoes, one satin, one trainer.

She remembered that line in the duty book. A ship number; the location column said “Under the bridge”, and the status column said “Not passed”. She had leafed through that page in the review room. The paper was white, and the ink was very faint.

Wind passed between the two towers. A patch of cloud was pushed aside, showing a patch of black.

In the black, in the sky to the north by west, hung the disc.

She had to tilt her head back a little to take in its edge. The edge was pale violet, very thin, and only on the bright side could the edge be seen clearly. The bright side was six tenths of it. White cloud passed in front of it, in clumps, not moving. The upper rims of the clouds were bright. At the lower edge of the disc, a cloud pressed across a section, then let it out again, and the pale violet edge brightened behind the cloud, then dimmed. On the dark side, only an outline could be made out. The black mouth was to its upper left, a little higher than it, off to the west. Round the mouth’s edge ran a fine white ring, and the stars outside the ring were twisted into curves. She counted five, and every one was bent.

She looked once.

She did not know what it was. No one had ever told her. The patch of black soon closed. Cloud pressed slowly back in from the edges, covering half the disc, then half again.

She drew her gaze back, down to the grating, down to Seventeen’s square. That square was lit. The light fell on it from above, white, very clean, with no halo around it. The other squares were dark.

North of the bridge, the lights of the city spread down layer after layer. There were cars on the roads, their headlights white, string after string, every string going the same way. She did not count the cars.

※

Maryam’s harness had a carabiner on it, her own, hanging at her chest. On the inside of the carabiner there was a scuff mark, worn in over two years, a very faint white line. Scraped with a fingernail, it would not come off.

On the first day of the third year, at twenty to six in the morning, East Tower Shift One assembled at the checkpoint.

She had woken at ten to five. The alarm clock by her bed was one she had bought herself. Its second hand moved very quietly, and she listened to it for a while before she got up. The lights at the bus stop were on, and when the bus came there were streaks of water on its windows, running down at a slant. She was the only one on the bus in overalls. The announcement called the stops. When it called the Twin Towers, the voice was the same as for any other stop, and it called it twice. By the road a breakfast seller was stacking steamers one layer on another. Halfway up the stack, the seller stopped and glanced at the bus. She sat in the second row, took the carabiner out from under her clothes, and held it in her hand until it had warmed, then put it back.

She had worked at the East Tower for four years. For the first two she mopped floors in the hall at the base, mopping up to the turnstiles, up to the doors of the lift lobby. Later the team leader said East Tower Shift One was short of people, and asked if she could go up on the bridge. She said she could. The carabiner had been issued then. A strap, a carabiner, a thin cord.

Her first time on the bridge had been two years before, in spring. The wind on the platform was strong, and it took her three tries to clip in properly. Each time she clipped on, she gave it a tug, tugged until the gate bit, and only then dared let go. The team leader stood at the door of the review room watching, and did not come over. She walked to the first anchor post, clipped on, then walked to the second. The bridge was fifty-eight metres long. She had counted. That day she counted three times.

Part of East Tower Shift One’s work was at the east end of the skybridge. The glass on the bridge side of the review room was cleaned once a month. Handprints on the glass had to be wiped off, dust blown up by the wind had to be wiped off, and the places where birds had landed had to be wiped too. Before cleaning you had to clip in first, onto the ring of the first anchor post on the platform, and only then could you go in. She had wiped the table in the review room. The review ledger on the table she had never touched. She had cleaned there more than twenty times. Each time she had clipped in, she patted her chest once, and one pat meant she was clipped in properly.

The hall at the base was not open yet that morning. The floor was wet, and only half the lights were on. There were puddles in the road. She went round them and did not look at what was in the water. She went in by the side door and walked along the east corridor. A few notices were pinned on the corridor wall, white paper, black words. She did not stop to read them. She had not brought her bucket and mop. They had been left at the door of the changing room, and the water in the bucket was yesterday’s, already cold.

The checkpoint was at the end of the corridor, an iron door. On each side of the doorframe was a row of white tube lights, the tubes straight, the covers milky white. Three in each row. She had counted. Six in all. Nailed to the doorframe was an iron plate with a number on it. She passed under it every day and had never read it out. The clock on the wall said five to six. Beside the door were two silvery-white barrier arms, folded back at either side, not lowered. When the iron door opened it made a long scraping sound, and when it closed, a short bang. Inside the door was a table, and behind the table sat a person. She did not see the person’s face clearly, only a hand, the fingers very slender, the nails cut very short, the cuff rolled up to the forearm. On the back of that hand was an old scar, running at a slant from the base of the fingers to the wrist bone.

Shift One had eleven people in all. She had counted. She was last in line. The people ahead of her walked up to the door, raised their carabiners to chest height, waved them once under the white lights, and went in. One of them she knew. At the door, that person looked back once, glanced at her, and said nothing.

Her turn.

The hand took her carabiner, turned it over, and looked at it against the light.

The look was quick. A finger paused on the scuff mark, for a little less time than it takes to count to two. Her thumb was pressed against the other side of the carabiner, where the metal was smooth, with no scuff mark.

Then the hand turned over a white plate. The corners of the white plate were worn round, and as it turned it gave a very faint papery sound. The face turned outwards read “Not passed”.

The barrier arms did not come down, and the door did not open.

She wanted to say that on the inside of the ring of the first anchor post on the platform there was a scuff mark too. She had seen it while cleaning the glass, and that one had passed. She did not say it. The hand had already put the carabiner back into her palm. Her palm was cool, and the carabiner was cool too. With her thumb she clipped the gate shut, with a click.

She stood outside the checkpoint. In front of the doorframe a white line was painted across the floor tiles. Outside the line was the corridor, and inside the line was the door. She stood outside the line. Each time the door opened, she looked at the lights. The lights were white. The door closed, and the lights were still white. The door opened again, and the lights were still white. They never dimmed, and never turned any other colour.

The person inside changed shift once. The hand put down a stack of papers, and the edges of the papers lifted in the draught from the door, then settled.

She did not know who had set the rules. On the wall of the checkpoint was pinned a sheet of paper with a few lines printed on it. She was some way off, and did not go closer to read it.

She did not leave. She stood against the wall, and the wall was cool. She had thought the team leader would come along the corridor from the far end, look at the carabiner, and say something. The team leader did not come. The floor under her feet was wet, and the cold came up through her soles little by little. Her shoes were rubber-soled, the soles very thin. She shifted her weight from her left foot to her right, then back again.

Everyone in Shift One had gone in. After the door closed, all that was left outside was her, and the two rows of tube lights on either side of the doorframe.

Someone walked along the corridor, footsteps very light, came up to the door, paused, and went on.

Shift One was paid by the shift. One shift fewer, and there was one line fewer on the payslip at the end of the month. That shift’s first job was the glass of the review room. She cleaned that pane every month, cleaned it until you could see the lines of the bridge.

She pushed both hands into the pockets of her overalls and felt a folded rota. Her name was on the rota, and the box after her name was empty. She did not take it out.

The sky in the east had paled by a shade. The door opened, and the person coming off shift came out with a stack of papers, handing them out one by one. She saw that Shift One’s work had all been handed out. Every job had been taken. Her share had long been in someone else’s hand.

The tower’s shadow fell aslant across the glass doors of the base, all the way to the pavement across the road. The top of the shadow she could not see.

The first car appeared on the road. Its headlights were still on. It stopped at the junction, and no one got out.

She stood outside the checkpoint until it was light. The lights of the checkpoint were still white.