Story of a young lumberjack neighbor. I live near a wood, and that leads me to meet forest and wood workers.
After slaughter
Enlarge image: Figure 1
We were ten brave lumberjacks. For a week and a half together, we have been braving the dreaded Finistère drizzle which tortures the most stubborn. Finistère, that’s how he loves you, with his old-country spittle that stings when he blows kisses with his gorse mustache.
We pulled together in adversity: slopes, slippery trunks, hundredweight of equipment to lug around, and then a few loggers from the last rain. In our woodland marmul costumes, we held on. And we loved that, the Vancouver fir trees jumping in the air like flocks of locusts brightening up in the fields. They meandered swiftly down the slope until the last rattle. Braoum!
We often split into two teams. And on Thursday on this Lopérec site, in the Arrée mountains, a clearing. As only Finistère knows how to produce it, it hits suddenly, the heat is humid tropical. And it brings joy to our hearts.
Adam makes jokes that only he has the secret to, that is to say if anyone else were capable of bringing out the heap of brilliant absurdities that he spouts off every second, we would be tired. But no, we’re getting pissed. Lulu smiles blissfully and exercises her spicy and tender verve. Tom is already roaring, quiet and facetious mountain. Yann does what he usually does with virtuosity but here it borders on genius, he doesn’t quibble and grumble under his breath; no no no no, take heart! Victor, even Victor is in a happy mood, he smiles. Magali laughs loudly, looking forward to the vapors of lead-free 98. Vincent prances around like Vincent, handsome, athletic, radiant, and good-natured. Nolwenn, facetious and kind, points her keen gaze towards the peaks, towards the azure, rubs her hands, quivers with the blessing of the sun.
It’s a day that doesn’t start like any other. We are on the peaks. We split into two teams. LF tells us that the work must be finished quickly. We’re on standby: LF, don’t worry, what’s left of the forest, we’ll swallow it up in half a day.
So we split into two teams. Me, Adam, Lulu, Victor and Magouille, we go to the back of the plot. The rest of the team is finishing the few trees we left behind. Our construction site is Verdun: trees down in all directions, earth swept from everywhere, branches upside down.
When we arrive on our plot with all the temerity that we have been taught: no. There, we say no. It’s not possible, we tell ourselves, we all discuss together. It’s dangerous, it’s eye-opening. We don’t know how to do it. LF told us: yeah, for my machine, you have to put them perpendicular to the slope.
Oh yeah? Perpendicular to the slope, that means that we lay them on those which are parallel to the slope.Popopo, nan nan nan.
Sylvain’s phone rings. Sylvain turned pale. A hurried voice on the phone. Everyone is silent. Dumb dumb dumb. Nobody speaks, everyone tenses up. Sylvain said, his voice anxious: “Is she alive?” Rushed voice on the phone. We understand “yes, she screamed”. Life in the forest is a cry.
We wait, anxiety has taken hold of us. It’s around 10 o’clock. The hurried voice continues to buzz through the phone and Sylvain to break down. LF was not far from them, assuring them that this is how we do it, then that he has no choice for the machine. My ass. It had to be cheap and cheap.
After the storm
Enlarge image: Figure 2
We know that our colleagues must have found it stupid and dangerous. We know that Yann is a pest, but not when you have to show a boss that you are employable. We know that Nolwenn wants it, we know that in this misogynistic environment, you are asked to prove yourself even more. The tree rolled over them. Nolwenn, that messed up his face and damaged his ribs. Yann, it hurt his shoulder.
Nolwenn survived. Yann survived. But dying that day existed too strongly in our heads for us to be able to accept continuing like that. Life in the forest is perhaps a cry of struggle.
