To Reach the Clouds (21 page)

Authors: Philippe Petit

I disengage myself from the embarrassing hug to go inspect the cable's anchor point. Everything is fine. Next I climb down the crown, very carefully, to straighten the cavaletti's attachments.

As I move along the ledge, retightening one cavaletti after the other, I can't resist the visual dive: I glide in, feel the width of the abyss, I slide down and taste its depth, with delight I brush by the
marble plaza at street level, then I hurtle back up along the silver facades onto the dazzling surprise of my sight landing exactly where it started.

I climb back onto the roof.

Peacefully stretched across the vertiginous absence of terrain, my wire-rope magnetically demands me.

I sit down on the wire, balancing pole on my lap.

Leaning against the steel corner, I offer to myself, for a throne, the highest tower ever built by man; for a ceremonial carpet, the most savagely gigantic city of the Americas; for my dominion, a tray of seas wetting my forehead; while the folds of my wind-sculpted cape surround me with majestically mortal whirls.

I rise, standing up on the wire.

The gods of all three, of all five, of all dimensions. Of time.

You have presented me with an otherworldly offering. I am no longer blind, I am letting myself laugh. Thereâline evaporating from the maritime crest, line holding up the whiter shade of the pale sky with a fleeting trace of dark blue, line of horizon: you finally appear to me, in curved perfection, while at your side navigate three merchant ships of distant provenance and one suspension bridge.

You have graced me with a new set of ears and eyes: I can hear what my spectators in the streets shout and whisper â¦ I can see the traffic made of automobiles with passengers, made of ants scurrying about. Under my influence, the ants are no longer able to escape, they slow to a halt, they look at me as in submission.

You have heightened my senses. You have empowered me.

I am grateful.

A siren's howling puts an end to my daydreaming.

Kicking with my heel, I wake up the cable.

With a whip of the head, I start walking.

And walking, and walking.

The gods of departure, the gods of arrival. Gods of all voyages be praised. The day of today witnesses a sacred expedition. A cyclic path. The repetitive bliss of exploration, the same, never the same. A crossing. The pilgrimage of a mortal and a mortal pilgrimage. A mythological journey.

I promenade from one end of the cable to the other, back and forth.

I stare proudly at the unfathomable canyon, my empire.

My destiny no longer has me conquering the highest towers in the world, but rather the void they protect.

This cannot be measured.

And you, gods of the billion constellations. Today I will not greet you. Unless I remain on the wire all morning, all day, all afternoon, until evening, until dusk, until night. I want to. I will not.

Do not provoke an eclipse, do not show up, do not shine!

But watch closely.

You're not going to believe your zillion eyes.

Victorious, I linger at the very middle of the crossing, exactly where the void, now defeated, used to vent its might.

I even sit down and survey the scene.

I rejoice at witnessing the disorder created by the announcement of my aerial escapade. The anthill is in turmoil! Voices and sirens scream orders and counterorders on the roofs and in the streets, but I hear mostly the streets, where the voice of the crowd overcomes that of emergency units.

The gods in the crowd. Simpleton gods. A crowd of gods interrupting one another:
Jump! Fall! Don't fall! He's mad! What for? Bravo! My god!
(Do gods believe in God?)

You are noisy and vain. Yet you keep all those pairs of eyes riveted to the sky, you hold all those mouths open in awe, or closed in fear, or letting go of each person's clamor. You! How right, how human of you! And you keep adding more souls to the multitude: there were hundreds, then thousands. I will be told they ended up at a hundred thousand.

You keep shifting their hearts from fear to happiness. When I leave the wire, they will shout “Bravo!” to me, in awe and laughter. I call “Bravo!” to you.

From that sitting position, the time of a wishâa dash of arrogance? âI lean back smoothly into a superb lengthening. I am now lying down.

The gods in the air below. Almighty void, we conversed earlier, at the time of my first visit, when we first met. You did not reveal yourself then, as you do this morning. Magnificent you are! And yes, oh, how terrifying! You terrify others, not me. Not today. No.

The gods in the air above. Hovering down, closer to me, metamorphosing into seabirds. I know who you are.

With a matadorlike gesture, one hand lets go of the balancing pole, twirls past my shoulder, and influences the other arm, seemingly in abandon, to wave in the monumental breeze.

I dedicate my shiny steel path, quivering with sun, to the oceans wetting the horizon, to that bird passing far above, to everything and everyone remaining distant from the ground, and I breathe like never before. Such outlaw felicity, I confess, brings me to sleep. I'm falling asleep
.

The roof of the south tower is invaded by the police.

lean-Francois is arrested.

On the north rooftop, Albert, who has not-stopped taking pictures, runs away. Jean-Louis snaps his last shot and clears out. Below the roof, he barely has time to dive into a pile of cardboard boxes as fifteen policemen surge from the staircase, rushing to the roof.

At a speed of seventy kilometers an hour, the emergency elevator brought them to the 107th floors within eighteen seconds. The officer in charge follows orders: he must report each phase of “Operation Help/Suicide,” to security headquarters. Within seconds, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, owner of the towers, announces, “Reinforcements on the way!”

At the same instant, at the point of Manhattan, the Aerial Guard Helicopter puts its blades into notion. Forty seconds later, it circles the crime scene at regulation altitude.

Already, a news bulletin is reporting the event on all the radio stations. Television networks are sending their crews downtown.

Ambulances, rescue vehicles, fire trucks, and police carsâwith furious alarmsâare forcing their way through the clogged traffic.

Subway trains continue to discharge their human swarm, which clumps together at the foot of the towers. Everyone tries to make out the tiny spot in the sky everyone is talking about. Taxi drivers abandon their cabs in the middle of the street to run and see.

Morning traffic is paralyzed.

Street stops counting and looks cup.

On my roof a man in uniform, probably the chief, demolishers the barricade we built, approaches the area where the cable is linked with the tensioning device, bends over the void, and observes me.

That's when I decide to wake up.

A dry air current caresses my nape.

I straighten up and again sit on the wire.

The gods of the wind. Pulsating.

It's mostly you, Aeolus. We've met before. Call to me, but whisper !

One word at a time. Speak slowly, speak softly.

Do not, do not, stand up, do not ruffle your chiton, do not take your sandals off, do not undress in preparation for putting on celebratory garmentsâdo not.

Do not move. Be quiet. I beg you.

A caravan of clouds is hard on the heels of the sky. Heaven modifies its appearance. Rain comes.

The city has changed face. Its maddening daily rush has transformed into a magnificent motionlessness. It listens. It watches. It ponders.

My heart is so light I dare to look down, repeatedly.

I align my sight with the sheer wall face falling from my wire.

A vertical of such perfection.

I don't believe my feet!

One thousand three hundred and fifty feet of free fallâa hundred meters higher than the Eiffel Tower!

So, you,

the gods in me,
the gods in the balancing pole,
the gods in my feet,
the gods in the wire-rope,
the gods of the void,
the gods in my friends who are watching from the street,
the gods of the towers,
the gods in my friends who are standing on the rooftops,
the gods of all dimensions,
the gods of departure, the gods of arrival,
and you,
gods of a billion constellations,
gods in the crowd,
gods in the air below, gods in the air above,
gods of the wind â¦
Why is it, this morning, the first time you gather?
Why don't you congregate more often?
Will there be a next time?

To receive the answer, I lean back and lie down again, I stare straight into the sky.

ONLY ONE BIRD?

Who is this large whitish bird silently hovering above me?

Is it a tern? A gull? An albatross?

Why is he staying so far above? Whom is he calling?

Are you afraid of me because my atrophied wings are featherless, my beak fleshy, my claws unshapely?

Ah, you're lowering yourself closer: are you being curious or readying for battle? What? Am I invading your territory? How dare you? I fought to occupy that space, it's mineâdid you fight for it? Did your brothers and sisters? Your ancestors, maybe?

But don't these towers reek of man, and isn't man the enemy?

Do you always look so cruel? Are you on a Promethean mission, about to dive and cut my belly open, to tear out my liver?

How can you remain so still and yet waltz with air currents, while I, on my thin steel strand, must adjust my balance faster than I think, more frequently than I breathe?

Where do you come from? The coast, a ten-minute flight? An islet lost in the fog, not even on the map, three nights away? Where do you rest? Inside the Statue of Liberty's torch, atop one of the Verrazano Bridge's pillars?

I can't smell youâcan you smell me?

Since your earlier shrieks when you discovered me, I can't hear you: are you now voiceless? Can you hear me? Are you listening to the faint melody I'm humming?

Can you read the minds of other birds? Then do you know my terrible secret: I have disguised myself as a bird
but cannot fly?

May we get closer?

I will stay lying down on my wire, I will keep one arm raised toward you, I will keep fluttering my fingers in your direction,
softly, as an invitation for you to approach, I will keep staring at you â¦ Will you draw closer, softly?