The Bridge

by Enza Gandolfo

  ‘Bob said they did it on the other side,’ Antonello said.

  ‘Yeah. So they say, mate,’ Des replied. ‘I reckon it’s time to look for another job. Those engineers are losing it.’

  Antonello watched Des until he disappeared into the portable where they clocked on and off. He scanned the site. It was busy. As well as the normal clutter of materials — steel rods, sacks of concrete, boxes of bolts, spools of wire rope and metal chain, enormous pipes and poles — there were several workers manoeuvring cranes and forklifts around the site and its many obstacles.

  Antonello thought back to the first time he strolled along the river with his brothers. They’d only been in Australia a few days. No running motors, no horns, and no shouting. No stench of burning diesel. No bridge. He remembered watching the fishermen — young men and boys, mainly, but a couple of older blokes too — casting their lines into the water and then wedging the rod into a pipe hammered into the ground so their hands were free for a cigarette and a beer. The water was a murky brown — so unlike the rivers in Sicily — but the fish swam in it and none of the fishermen’s buckets were empty. They’d felt hopeful for their lives in Australia.

  Over the years, Antonello and his brothers had spent many hours fishing along the river. The Yarra, one old fisherman had told Antonello, was called the Birrarung, once, long ago, when his ancestors had the run of the place. He’d taught them how to catch eels. ‘You Italians are the only white people I’ve met that understand they’re good eatin’,’ he said. The brothers took the eels home to their mother, who cooked them in a soupy stew the family loved.

  Most of the fishermen resented the bridge and the way their river, their favourite fishing spot, the one their grandfathers and great-grandfathers had fished during the tough times when there was little else to eat, the one they had discovered as kids with their mates, the one where they had taught their sons to fish — the sons who’d come back from Vietnam without an arm, without a best friend, who were themselves only when they were fishing — was being destroyed. ‘Who needs a fucking bridge anyway? We don’t want those rich bastards coming over to the west,’ was the general sentiment.

  ‘You can’t stand in the way of progress,’ Bob had said when Antonello asked what he thought, even though Bob too enjoyed fishing.

  When Antonello checked his watch, it was 11.45. Sam and Slav should’ve been heading down. He looked up at the men on the span. Bob was surrounded by his crew, including Ted, a new rigger who was saving for a surfing trip to Bali and had volunteered to replace Antonello on the morning shift. Bob was pacing. He seemed agitated.

  Des had been worried about the bolts, but surely, Antonello thought, they wouldn’t take the bolts out unless it was safe. Not unless all the engineers and foremen agreed. He knew that Bob would not agree. ‘Shortcuts are never a good idea’: Bob’s golden rule. It was annoying sometimes — Antonello and the other riggers in Bob’s crews, especially the younger ones, often tried to sway Bob, but he wouldn’t be swayed. Once, after a long disagreement, Bob lined up the crew and, like an army sergeant, marched along, pointing at them and yelling, ‘My responsibility isn’t just to get the job done. It’s to your families, to make sure you fucking morons get home in one piece at the end of every day.’ They grumbled. One of the blokes called Bob ‘an old nanna’, but they followed his instructions to the letter.

  It had been a tough couple of months on the job. Cantilevering the box-girders, a half-span at a time, manoeuvring them into position on the piers, supporting it with trusses and cables, was a slow and delicate process. The spans had given the crews trouble on the east side, and after the last box was lifted into place, buckles had appeared in the steel, leaving the whole east side unstable. ‘They shoulda fucking lowered the span back down, but no, no, they put in some braces and had a go at strengthening it while it was still up in the fucking air,’ Bob reported when he came back from the east side.

  It had been mid-morning, and Antonello and the others were sitting in the crowded lunchroom, waiting for the rain to ease.

  ‘But of course, later the spans didn’t join up as they should’ve.’ Bob used his hands to show a gap between the two sides of the roadway. ‘Never seen buckles like that, like fucking tumours suddenly popping out … So what did they do? What ya reckon? They took out some bolts. They took the fucking bolts out. Can you believe it?’ Bob glared at the men. No one responded, and he continued. ‘First I thought, what fucking idiot came up with that idea? I was worried the whole thing was going to come down. I was ready to fucking run for my life. But it worked, it fucking worked,’ he said, grinding his cigarette butt into the ashtray. ‘They took thirty bolts out, like pulling teeth — like pulling Frankenstein’s teeth out with tweezers — but it fucking worked, and no more buckles.’

  ‘My son, Freddy, when he was a nipper, tied a string around his tooth and tied the string around the door handle. That worked. Might suggest it to the engineers,’ said Johnno, one of the older riggers. The men laughed, and Bob shook his head. ‘It was me old man’s idea — he had dementia, kept telling the kids stories about the old days,’ Johnno added.

  ‘Bet the tooth came out alright,’ said Sam with a grin. ‘Sounds like your old man, even with dementia, got more know-how than most of those engineers.’

  ‘Wouldn’t surprise me. And the tooth fairy gave Freddy his penny, no question asked.’

  ‘A penny! Strewth, no way a kid would settle for a penny these days,’ one of the other blokes said.

  ‘Yep,’ Johnno responded, ‘even the Tooth Fairy has put her prices up.’

  The laughter swept through the lunchroom like a cool breeze at the end of a hot spell, and the conversation moved on. Johnno began his usual rant against the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, which was being supported by the unions, including his fucking union. And no one was thinking about the soldiers who were conscripted and were taking the brunt of the blame. Bob, like many of the other blokes, was actively involved. Antonello watched him move away to avoid an argument with Johnno.

  When it came time to lift the last spans onto piers 10 and 11 on the west side, they’d been extra careful, pulling each box as close to the concrete pier as possible, inch by inch, like children might pull a go-cart up a steep hill. Once it reached the top, it was lowered onto rolling beams and slotted into position. But the two half-boxes weren’t the same height. It was a repeat of the problems on the east side. The engineers ordered huge concrete blocks. The riggers hoisted ten of them, each one weighing 8 tons, up to the top and spread them across the higher span to force it down. It hadn’t worked: the spans buckled.

  Bob wouldn’t want them to take the bolts out, not unless it was safe. But up there the engineers were the bosses.

  On the span, several men were working frantically; he couldn’t see what they were doing, but he could sense the urgency of it. And the despair — whatever they were trying wasn’t working. Something was wrong, very wrong. As Antonello whispered a short prayer, Please God, keep them safe, and made the sign of the cross over his chest, there were a series of loud eerie pinging and popping sounds, like shots from a rifle, and the men on the span scattered.

  ‘What the bloody hell was —’ yelled a man standing next to Antonello, but before he could finish, the massive span shifted. Men struggled to keep upright. The span groaned and screeched as metal scraped on metal. There was a thunderous crack, followed by more screeching and rasping. And a hailing of dust and concrete and sharp flakes of rust.

  ‘Fuck, it’s going to fall, the fucking bridge is going to fall …’ The voice came from behind Antonello. ‘We need to get out of here!’

  Around him men were yelling and looking up, beginning to run, but Antonello was too stunned to move. He couldn’t make sense of what was happening. What was happening? Was the whole bridge going to collapse? How could they get the men down?

  ‘We have to do something,’ he said to the men ar
ound him, all of them staring up at the bridge. ‘We have to help.’

  ‘It’s too fucking late,’ someone said. ‘They’re goners.’

  There was an agonising groan as the span the rigging team had spent the last few days hoisting up moved again. It was caving in the centre now, and the men were trapped midair. They stumbled, slid, and slipped. They were bashed by the flying debris; their arms reached for the sides of the girder, for something, but there was nothing. Gas bottles, drums, pieces of timber, chains, and bolts spun and rolled and fell over the edges, turning into airborne missiles.

  Another jolt; the span was almost vertical now. A stiff-legged derrick loosed from its mooring catapulted towards the river, its long metal arms flaying violently, a giant possessed. And now the men: the men were falling, falling off, falling through the air and into the river below. They were screaming, but their cries were muffled by the bridge’s own deathly groans.

  As soon as the span left dangling seemed to slow down, to stop, Antonello moved towards it. And towards the river, praying, Mary, mother of God, please let them be safe. Chanting it over and over again. Thinking of Sam and Slav and Bob, hoping they were in the water and that they’d surface and swim back. They were strong swimmers — he’d dived with them at the local pool — and they’d be safe … they had to be safe.

  As he moved closer to the bridge, he noticed cracks forming two-thirds down pier 11. It had been a solid column of concrete, built to hold up tons of roadway, tons of traffic, but the small cracks were quickly widening and expanding. The pier was crumbling. There was a jolt and the span slipped further, slowly at first and then faster, and faster again. The pier could no longer support the weight of the collapsing span. Soon it would plummet to the ground. He was in its path.

  ‘Run, fucking run! It’s coming down.’ The scream came from behind him.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ More shouts and screams. Everywhere, men running. ‘Move. Run.’

  A hand grabbed his arm. He turned and ran with the others away from the bridge, towards the road. It was difficult to see; the air was thick with dust. A sudden gush of wind smacked him hard — he stumbled, fell, his left knee bashing hard against the sharp edge of an overturned bench. His leg ached but he stood up and ran, and ran until he reached a crane and crawled behind it. Concrete and steel hurtled downwards, heavy and hard. As it struck the ground, there was a thunderous crash, the ground shook, and the crane rocked back and forth and almost toppled on top of him.

  There were several explosions, followed by the roar of flames. The stink of burning diesel, of burning steel, of burning flesh. His throat stung. His eyes were gritty and sore. There was a loud, piercing buzz. For several seconds he held his breath; he shut his eyes tight and didn’t make a sound. Crouched against the crane, he waited for death to claim him. This was surely the end of everything. The tons of concrete and steel he’d spent months hoisting up were crashing down towards him. He would be crushed. This was the end. He would never see Paolina again. A policeman would arrive at their small bungalow, and she would open the door, smiling, but she would know even before they told her that he was dead, and her smile would disappear. When she was sad, her face lost its animation, her lips shrunk until they were a thin, pale line. He’d vowed to give her a happy life. When he proposed to her, on a picnic by the river, the half-made bridge behind them, he promised to make her smile every day, many times a day. He promised they’d be together forever. Please God, he prayed. Please God.

  A crash. A loud and thunderous boom resounded across the neighbourhood.

  In Emilia’s kitchen, the floor vibrated; a ceramic Sicilian horse and cart that had made the long journey with them on the ship slid off the edge of the dresser and hit the floor, shattering. In the cupboard, glasses clinked and rattled as they fell against one another. Emilia reached for the crucifix on the wall above the door and steadied it, made the sign of the cross, and said a quick prayer: ‘Ti prego Sant’Antonio mantenere la mia famiglia sicura.’ She turned off the gas and ran out the door.

  Standing at her front gate, watching the billows of smoke and dust over the bridge, Emilia knew something awful had happened. Franco ran towards her from the back garden, a shovel in his hand.

  ‘Was it an earthquake?’ she asked.

  ‘It sounded like a bomb,’ Franco said as he threw down the shovel and they both started to make their way towards the river — neither of them mentioned the bridge or Antonello, but that’s where they were heading.

  In Paolina’s classroom, the windows rattled. Children screamed, pushed their chairs back, and raced to the window, to the door, spilling out into the yard like locusts. She was powerless to stop them.

  In the yard, Paolina ran over to the principal. ‘Please look after my class. That came from the direction of the West Gate — something’s happened to the bridge, I have to go.’ She didn’t wait for a response. Once outside the school gates, she ran as fast as she could, trying not to think. She could taste the bitter panic in her mouth; the foreboding, the dark future snapping at her heels. She ran past workers pouring out of local factories, past mothers with babies and toddlers on their hips, and shift workers in pyjamas standing at their front gates, all of them staring in the distance at the furious black smoke threatening to devour the city.

  ‘Fuck, the bridge fell!’

  ‘No, it couldn’t be the bridge …’

  ‘Was it a bomb?’

  She knew the way without thinking, without looking, so many afternoons she’d walked it, alone and with Antonello. Twenty minutes, longer if they strolled, stopping to kiss, to catch each other’s eye, to admire a house or a garden, to build a fantasy life in which they might own a house of their own. Now she was running, running down through the main street of the shopping centre, running towards the bridge, towards the smoke, running around people who now clogged the footpaths and the road, who were standing still, who weren’t moving fast enough.

  ‘Was it an explosion?’

  ‘Was it the West Gate?’

  ‘Not that bloody bridge.’

  ‘It hasn’t even been finished yet —’

  ‘Please God, not the bridge.’

  One woman, catching Paolina’s eye, called out, ‘Can’t imagine anyone surviving, can you?’ Paolina resisted the urge to stop and slap the woman. How could people say these things, how could they voice them? Her parents’ friends and relatives did it all the time when they talked about Vietnam. So many of our young men getting killed. All the ones coming back are so damaged. Did they forget her brother was one of those soldiers? Those words pricked at the fear and the anxiety, they prodded at the pain. Some days those words pierced all her resolve until she was immobilised by it.

  Didn’t they know that to speak of death was to call it forth, to bring it into being?

  Paolina ignored the voices and the questions, and the smoke, now a long towering mushroom in the sky, and focused on getting to the bridge.

  ‘Mrs … Mrs.’ There was a child tugging at her dress. He grabbed her arm and she almost tripped. It was her student, Jimmy.

  ‘What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay at school.’

  ‘But Mrs, you said it was the bridge. My dad works on the bridge. I want to make sure he’s alright.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if it’s the bridge.’

  She should take him back, but they were already closer to the bridge than to the school. He barely reached her waist, a skinny boy. Skinny as a rake: silly phrase, but it described him perfectly. They kept moving forward. And now they were part of a thick swarm of people heading for the West Gate. As soon as they turned onto Hyde Street, the crowd gasped. A huge span had fallen and crashed, a concrete column had collapsed. The air was dust and smoke and grit. And thick with the stench of diesel and petroleum. She could see flames and flying sparks; the riverbank was a mountain of mangled steel and
concrete; there were crushed buildings and overturned cranes. Mud from the river flats was splattered on the road, on the cars parked along the street, and on the weatherboards of the small row of houses across the road; the thick black sludge hung from awnings, windowsills, and fence posts like sleeping bats from trees. Windows and windscreens were shattered. The ground was littered with debris, and they had to watch where they walked. In the distance, sirens and alarms, as police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks sped towards them. A TV news helicopter circled above. The emergency workers were already rushing onto the site.

  One young policeman was left to manage the crowd. ‘Get back, stay back,’ he said, waving them across the road.

  Jimmy and Paolina stopped. Even over all the noise she heard the voices of men, shouting, screaming, wailing.

  ‘My son works on the bridge,’ an elderly man said as he moved towards the policeman. ‘I have to find him. Please, they’re calling for help.’

  ‘Please stay back.’ The young officer put his arm on the man’s shoulder and softened his voice. ‘We need to let the rescuers do their job. You’ll get in the way, and it’s dangerous. They know what they’re doing. They’ll help your son.’ The man inched back.

  A small group of men carrying sledgehammers and shovels pushed to the front.

  ‘Members of the public, please stay back.’

  But the men didn’t stop. ‘We’re from the foundry and we’re here to help.’

  The officer let them through.

  ‘What happened?’ a woman called out.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Please move back.’

  ‘We’ll have to wait here,’ Paolina told Jimmy. They struggled to see the site through the smoke, but they could hear the cries for help, the calling out of names, the calling out of instructions and directions.

  As the first of the men, covered in dust, in mud and oil, came stumbling through the rubble and smoke — ghostly figures, disorientated and dazed — the crowd gravitated towards them. Some of these men were limping; they had broken arms and legs, dislocated shoulders; they were bruised and bleeding. But they were finding their way out, helping one another to find a way out.