The ground was squelchy, leading the mind to wonder what sort of organic matter was decomposing underfoot. A topsoil of potato-chip bags and soda cans disturbed the silence that Invader and his accomplice, Mr. Blue, were trying to preserve. It was 1:03 A.M. on a Wednesday in midJuly. They had parked their van nearby, and were picking their way down an overgrown service path that led to a sliver of land alongside the A4 highway, just past the eastern limit of Paris.
“Flatten yourself against the wall if a car comes,” Invader told me.
He wriggled past a phantasmagorical fern.
“You always get some crazy plants, with all the carbon dioxide from the cars,” he said.
Our destination was a forty-foot-high concrete pillar that supported a smaller road passing over the A4. Traf fic raced by at eighty miles an hour. Invader rummaged in the underbrush, trying to find a pair of polypropylene supermarket totes, filled with supplies, that Mr. Blue had tossed out of the van on an earlier run past the site. Mr. Blue, meanwhile, was wrestling with a telescopic ladder. He extended it and propped it against the pillar while Invader, kneeling, laid out a series of panels made from fifteen-centimetre-square tiles. They were labelled A1, A2, A3, A4, Bi, B2, B3, and B4.
“Tt’s like a bank robbery,” he had said a few minutes before. I know exactly how everything needs to go.”
This story is from the December 18, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the December 18, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Age of Anxiety
The love songs of Billie Eilish.
A Reporter at Large – You Make Me Sick
How corporate scientists discovered—and then helped to conceal—the dangers of forever chemicals.
OLD ENGLISH
“Player Kings,”\"The Cherry Orchard,” and \"London Tide.”
THOROUGHLY MODERN
Yuja Wang uses her star power to lead audiences out of their comfort zones.
THE PERFECTIONIST
Why we're still catching up to Brancusi.
DESERT ISLAND
Tastes of Hawati abound in Las Vegas.
HIGHER AND HIGHER
To preserve humanity—and the planet—should we give up growth?
MAXED OUT
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”
WOMAN, FROG, AND DEVIL
January Wojnicz, a retired civil servant and a landowner, was a splendid man, as they said in Lwów, handsome and dignified.
THE STASI FILES
Piecing together the secrets of East Germany’s past.