To Reach the Clouds (20 page)

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Authors: Philippe Petit

BOOK: To Reach the Clouds
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All of a sudden, the density of the air is no longer the same. Jean-Francois ceases to exist. The facing tower is empty. The wheel of the elevator no longer turns.
The horizon is suspended from east to west.
New York no longer spreads its infinity. The murmur of the city dissolves into a squall whose chill and power I no longer feel.
 
I lift the balancing pole. I jounce it, maneuver it between my fingers to find its center, to accustom my arms to its weight, as I do before each of my performances.
I approach the edge. I step over the beam.
I place my left foot on the steel rope.
The weight of my body rests on my right leg, anchored to the flank of the building.
I still belong to the material world.
Should I ever so slightly shift the weight of my body to the left, my right leg will be unburdened, my right foot will freely meet the wire.
On one side, the mass of a mountain. A life I know.
On the other, the universe of the clouds, so full of unknown that it seems empty to us. Too much space.
Between the two, a thin line on which my being hesitates to distribute whatever strength it has left.
Around me, no thoughts. Too much space.
At my feet, a wire. Nothing else.
My eyes catch what rises in front of me: the top of the north tower.
60 meters of wire-rope. The path is drawn.
It's a straight line. Which rolls on itself. Which sways. Which sags. Which vibrates.
Which is ice. Which is three tons tight. Ready to explode. To dissolve. To dissolve me. To choke me. To swallow me. To throw me silently across the void jammed between the towers.
The wire waits.
The unknown, the infinite, the joyous reaper stretches out its arms and hides its face. Its arms of thousands, tens of thousands, of tons of concrete, glass, steel, and threat. A gaping mouth 110 stories deep, more than 400 meters tall.
An inner howl assails me, the wild longing to flee.
But it is too late.
The wire is ready.
My heart is so forcibly pressed against that wire, each beat echoes, echoes and casts each approaching thought into the netherworld.
Decisively, my other foot sets itself onto the cable.
Inundated with astonishment, with sudden and extreme fear, yes
,
with great joy and pride, I hold myself in balance on the high wire. With ease.
A not-yet-recognizable taste seizes my tongue
—
the longing to soar.
I commence my walk, but my body remains motionless.
Is this fear?
The gods in me.
Determination! Tenacity! Now is the moment. The moment is given unto your hands—hold on to this balancing pole. The moment is given unto your feet—hold on to that steel cable. Are they telling you, “Give up”?
As in a dream, with immense effort I manage to displace myself through space.
Is this courage?
 
The gods in the balancing pole.
Keep blowing life into those artificial arms. Bring them, bring it to life. Keep it heavy, solid. Keep it horizontal. You are no device, no instrument. You are an extension of my arms, of me. Keep breathing. Keep oscillating. You are life, my life. Say I, “Carry it! Carry my life across.”
 
The wire detaches itself from the tower behind me. Together we undertake our aerial journey, making a hole in the sky watching us.
The gods in my feet.
They are so knowledgeable, so talented.
If they allowed the soles of the feet to land flat on the cable, they would color the walk with inelegance and danger. Instead they ask the sole—and the sole complies—to land delicately on the steel, toes first. And to slide down an alert sole, not a dormant one, so that the sole feels the cable is not a flat surface but a curve. And the sole asks its flesh to find as much of that cylindrical cable as possible, to embrace it, to hang on to it. It is a safe embrace.
The gods in my feet know how not to hit the cable, how not to make it move when each foot lands. How do they know? They worked that out during their endless days of rehearsals. They know the slightest addition to the vivacious dance of the catenary curve would mean peril for the wirewalker. They ask the feet to land on the steel rope in such a way that the impact of each step absorbs the swaying of the cable, its vertical oscillations, and its twisting along the axis of the walk; the feet answer by being gentle and understanding, by conversing with the wire-rope, by enticing the huffing and puffing living entity above them to let go of his rage to control.
Wirewalker, trust your feet!
Let them lead you; they know the way.
 
This is the first crossing. Wire and I together, we voluptuously penetrate the cloudy layer that melts as we approach, as we pass between the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center. I walk on air that softens under each step. I glide each foot. I cut through the whitish lump of breeze with the knife of my balancing pole.
I walk on the wire like a funambulist.
The gods in the wire-rope.
Werner, mad movie director, we have not met at the time of this walk. You have not yet read my treatise
On the High Wire;
it's still to be published. But somehow I hear your comments on my writing, the comments you will share with me a few years from now. You salute the cable I walk on, the cable I transcend, the cable I celebrate. You say: “Be respectful. Be gentle. His soul is soft. Do not hurt him.” You tell of wire-ropes aching with tension, about to break. You say, “Their inner threads glow red in anger.” And you know what you are talking about, because you pulled a ship over a mountain.
My eyes weld to the metal of the arrival column, still far away, yet coming toward me. I approach the dreaded middle of the crossing, where gravity is at its most barbaric, exposure at its fiercest. Terror tints my blood.
Space no longer contains itself. The sky swallows me. What a handsome death! What a glorious delirium, to steal in that way the secrets of weightlessness!
The cable feigns he does not know me.
My arms that hold the long pole … The soles of my feet that press the morning vapor … The cable that absorbs the dew … I pass the middle point.
Am I going to remember? To whom could I relate? Did I see? Or was it only air? Does one escape victorious from a dream forged at such height?
The gods of the void, of space: are howling. Chanting. Screaming. All at once and in unison! I hear you.
 
The wind passes behind me. I allow myself one breath. One pause. I let my face harbor a smile, the way humans do.
I nail the cable down. I force him to tremble no longer. I abandon him there and walk away a few steps, supported by the atmosphere agglutinating against the huge wall I'm approaching.
The second cavaletti being a stride away, I feel safe to perform my kneeling salute: the balancing pole rests on the right thigh as the right hand takes off in a fluttering of fingers, something pure.
Among the crowd 1,350 feet below, someone shouts, “He's saluting! He's saluting!” It's Annie.
The gods in my friends who are watching from the street. Below, so far below. Each has his or her own. Each kneels, prays. Do gods pray? “Be careful! Of course you are! Fragile Philippe, you look so fragile, so strong!” Each with hands up to support me, to implore my success. Each with hands down to receive me if I fail.
But for the crowd, what I did will remain invisible.
Barely will it distinguish a human, being up there, strolling upon a thread …
I rise to my feet, beg the wire not to betray me, beg the cavaletti plate not to break open as I carefully step over it, and continue the crossing, finally free, finally alone.
The gods of the towers. Breathing, swaying … Let me go. Let me pass. Let me arrive, let me reach you.
Time regains its course as I accost the skyscraper that has allowed itself to be conquered. The wind rises, indecisive. Is a hurricane in the making? The distant murmur of an awakening city succeeds in distracting me from the silence I was listening to on the high wire. I set the balancing pole safely aside.
The otherworldly colors of the sky rainbow back to a familiar background.
I can see Jean-Francois dancing with joy on the south tower.
Jean-Louis is looking at me through the lens of his camera. His accomplice—the American—rushes to me and gives me a strong embrace; he urges me to catch my breath.
The gods in my friends who are standing on the rooftops. Jean-Louis, from the beginning of this adventure you have been generous, driven, and superbly faithful to the cause; by your relentless intransigence you have saved the coup more than once. Jean-Francois, you smiled and laughed your way into the artistic crime of the century! You know nothing about the wire, nothing about skyscrapers, nothing about New York City—you don't even speak a word of English besides yes. Yes, you jumped in without hesitation to improvise your responsibility in the coup.
Yes
, you will keep protecting me until it's over. And yes, you do not care about the consequences.
 
And you, the unenthusiastic you—I'll hear about it by the end of the day—you who slowed and almost halted Jean-Louis's race to the roof. You who refused to help him pull the cable, who exhorted him to give up. You who gave up! You who despite your promise brought cameras to the scene, betraying Jean-Louis, betraying me. Without you, false friend, I would not be on that wire. I thank you, all half of you.

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