To Reach the Clouds Read Online Free PDF

same scale—therefore much larger—I draw a steel arch bridge with a wirewalker between the pylons: SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE, 3 JUIN 1973. At the bottom, I sketch the twin towers of my dream and write WORLD TRADE CENTER, with a bold question mark instead of a date.
    I enclose the three drawings in a single oval frame, so they appear as an ensemble, which I sign quite legibly, PHILIPPE PETIT.
    Unbeknownst to me, this romantic fresco will almost kill the coup.
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    On the roof, Jim quickly takes the shots that are missing from my collection and rushes back down to the lab so I’ll have the slides before my flight tomorrow. On his way down, he adds to the fresco a misspelled but loving “goodbye Phillipe.”
    What a pity my new friend, who has been so helpful, encouraging, and enthusiastic, who has taken great pictures instrumental to the coup, refuses to be part of the rigging crew on D day. I tried to convince him, to no avail. He will give all the help I want in and around the towers, but not up there on the day of the coup.
    He has his reasons.
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    I stay for hours at the top, making a final technical inspection. Jean-Louis’s intuition is confirmed: the equipment I need for a safe rigging can’t be chosen from what clutters the roofs. I’ll have to bring my own gear.
    My work is interrupted regularly by prolonged stares at the other roof, by forgetful gazes at the void.
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    Suspended between the tangible and the ephemeral, I find myself pondering: Would anyone but a crazed bicephalous being, half engineer, half poet, willingly shackle himself to a venture of such magnitude? I am prisoner of my dream.

THE FIRST CAHIER
    Compared to the ad-lib observations and the bits of knowledge I gathered during my first visit to America, the intelligence I have recently collected, along with all the sketches, measurements, and photographs, constitutes a professional study addressing most of the project’s concerns. Or so I convince myself.
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    Everything finds its place inside a thin, spiral-bound high school notebook, 81/2 by 11 inches, its title written in longhand: “WTC Organization.”
    Nothing fancy. A tool.
    The first WTC cahier is born. And thickens.
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    For example, today I enter:

    Saturday, March 9, 1974. Back to Paris.
    If my prediction is correct, the coup should happen mid-June, say Sunday, June 16. The next day in case of bad weather.

GALLOPING IN EUROPE
    Ill-fated.
    That’s how I feel after I miss my flight because it fails to appear on the electronic screen at the airport. The next plane to Paris is tomorrow. I vehemently demand a three-star hotel; I’m given a deck chair in an abandoned back room supposedly reserved for flight attendants. In the turmoil, I realize, I left my pocketbook in front of the screen. I run back: of course it’s gone. I don’t care about the money, but it was full of notes and ideas waiting to be copied into the WTC cahier. I search frantically for hours and interrogate virtually every human being in the terminal, then go back to my den and fall asleep in despair. In the middle of the night, a black giant in uniform points his flashlight, then his stick
at me when I refuse to follow his order to leave. He states that I have no right to be in this part of the airport. I claim I do. He points his gun at me. I smile. “If you want me out of here, you’ll have to kill me, then drag the body.”
    The giant leaves.
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    To me, this disastrous departure day is an omen.
    I find a telephone, hide under a desk, and spend most of the night figuring out the code to obtain an outside line. I call Ann and share with her my misfortune in the most disheartened terms. “Anyway,” I conclude, “in a few months I’ll be dead.”
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    During the flight the next day, I study Jim’s slides. Bits of plan escape from bits of film. Hope returns. I end up covering pages of the WTC cahier with my beloved