The Life of Gaia

CHAPTER 15: L'Usine Vintage

When the Sun appeared on the horizon, a crack opened on the door of the white villa in front of which an orange carriage had been left the night before. A small live eye darted from right to left: there was usually no one along the road, but it was always best to check. Fortunately for him, the inhabitants of that neighborhood could hardly be called early risers.

Alexis closed the door, clicked the latch, and it swung to the side with a puff of steam, illuminating the house's cold foyer with the light outside. Without hesitation, he threw himself outside in a wild rush, while behind his the mechanisms activated to close the exit. He doubted his mother had noticed anything, locked as she always was in her "throne room" - which was nothing but a very, very large bedroom. Just as well, he had no intention of hearing her criticism about his spending his days at the Usine...he would talk to his father about it, he who understood. Who had always understood.

The boy ran along the bridge that led to the center of town, casting a glance at the river flowing below him. On the streets the sleepy early workers were leaving their apartments with their hats crushed on their heads; that morning, too, they saw that funny boy who lived in the rich area run by. Everyone wondered why on earth such a rich young man wasted his time breaking his back among the gears of the Usine Vintage: he didn't belong there. Perhaps it was his father, one of them, who had brought him up that way...without his wife's approval. That was people's opinion.

It was not long before the mammoth archway of the Usine Vintage overshadowed the landscape; Alexis lifted his gaze as he always did at that spot, watching in his rush the titanic hot pipes passing hundreds of feet above his head, along with the copper plates covering the walls of the building. A smile took hold of his face at that sight, as he passed by a small group of carefree children playing jump rope. The sound of their laughter was soon covered by the puffs of steam from the presses.

He recognized a couple of people who greeted him with a nod, then turned left in the direction of the workers' quarters (a small guarantee of dignity granted him by the manager). Along the way he almost slipped on a slick of motor oil that had spilled from a nearby canister-it happened often, but he always found himself caught off guard-and had to jump over the usual exposed electrical cables that hung from the machinery being serviced. The air was thick with gasoline and iron.

He passed a half-asleep worker and took the damp, sticky flight of stairs that led upward; he climbed the usual one hundred and fifty-two steps before reaching the twenty-fourth floor of the staircase, then waved to the janitor holding a large cup of coffee and looked for his father's room. Breathless and shaggy-haired, he knocked on the sixth door on the left that he knew well. A man in an oil-greased tank top and brown pants high to the waist removed the latch and let him in-a moment's pause! Alexis threw himself onto the small bed with the backpack still on his shoulder. It took him several minutes to catch his breath; when he was strong again, he turned to the other person.

"When are we going, Dad?" Father returned to the small bathing cabin in the corner of the room.

<<Give me a moment to finish shaving and I'm there.>> Alexis looked impatiently at the wristwatch that screamed at him that it was almost time for their shift.

"Since when have you bothered to shave?"

<<Since it has grayed with age. I'm getting old, son.>>

"That's not true, don't repeat that to yourself." The one replied with a giggle and an expletive for cutting himself under the chin. He abandoned the razor in the sink, passed the towel over his face and opened the closet.

<<Wait for me outside, I'll be right there.>>

Alexis sprang to his feet and did as he was told. As he heard his father fumbling with his shirt, he felt his own heart pounding like one of the presses in the Compressions Room. He had been running all over the city center, but he knew that was not what it was about; the habitual smile enveloped his cheeks.