Open Door Read Online Free

I can imagine what it is, but I’d prefer to be told. The lady next to me gestures with a finger and says: Up there, in the middle. I still can’t make out anything, the night is closing in, thick and starless. What’s going on, I ask. And the woman, whose face I now see is full of wrinkles, a red scarf patterned with arabesques knotted round her neck: There, walking on the ledge, can’t you see? Her voice is cracked, scratchy. There, look, he’s moving, on this side. Yes, I see, I’m starting to see. Nothing more than a shape, thin, with a point on top, slightly less black than the rest. That must be the head, then what I can only assume to be the torso, the arms, the legs, now I’m just seeing what I want to see. Because in truth, it’s exactly the same as before, just a shape moving slowly, clumsily, like an old machine with a broken engine.
    In a minute, someone else appears next to the old woman, who has stopped talking now – a lad of around twenty in a blue sleeveless t-shirt and shorts with a pattern similar to that of the woman’s scarf. He’s wearing flip-flops and both his hands are busy, the one closest to me with a pizza in a box, still sealed, the other grasping the hand of a little girl in a yellow bikini, who, although she doesn’t look it, must be starting to feel cold. Does he want to jump? asks the lad, without looking at me. It looks like he wants to jump, he answers his own question. And then immediately, to the little girl: Don’t look. And the girl: Why, I want to see. The old woman starts talking again, without taking her eyes off the action up above: Look, and she points again, a bit higher up, as if she wants to reach the bridge with her hand. He’s moved across from the other side. Right in the middle, see? To think that he’s so young, says a new voice, a bit further over, a woman, not so hoarse as the one here next to me, and much fatter, a fake pearl necklace holding in her double chin. How can it be? she asks herself, or us. Nobody responds apart from the little girl: I see her, daddy. Is it a girl, daddy? I don’t know, and don’t look, I told you. How old is she daddy? And the father, who seems too young to be a father, is trying very hard to see what his daughter distinguished so quickly. Look, daddy, there’s another one, on this side. Is it another girl, daddy? It’s true: another shape appears on the stairs on this side of the river, then another, and another with a flashlight. These forms are much bulkier than the one in the middle of the bridge. The old women can’t see them, they’re getting desperate, and in this observatory, thirty or forty metres away, a contest begins to see who can guess the next move. There are cries of: Look, there are three of them, they’re surrounding him. There’s one further down, the other two have climbed higher up. Look, look everyone. And everyone has their own story. From behind, a tall man in a mechanic’s uniform of worn blue confirms in a fluty voice that the person wanting to jump is a man, that his wife is in the ambulance having a panic attack, and even ventures: He must be desperate. Do you know him? The woman with the fake pearl necklace doesn’t contradict him, she takes his word for it and follows the action. A fireman without a helmet seems to be directing the three rescuers’ mission from the base of the bridge through a walkie-talkie. At his side, a man from the coastguard, his light brown suit clinging to his body like a glove, issues instructions to his men who are floating in a small boat, quite precariously, circling aimlessly without lights under the arch of the bridge. Here and there they dodge clumps of water hyacinth. In order to communicate, the man from the coastguard forms a megaphone with his hands. We can’t make out a word. Further over, beyond the red and white tape, which blocks the path with the word danger every ten centimetres, there’s another group of people, smaller than ours, but among which