From their first week back at school, Bérénice began to distance herself from Valérie. She avoided walking back from school with her, and shortly afterward, she started going out with a boy. Valérie accepted the separation without any real sorrow—that's the way things go. She had taken to masturbating every morning when she woke up. Each time, in a few short minutes, she would reach orgasm: it was something marvelous, something simple happening within her and that began her day with joy. About boys she had more reservations. Having bought a couple of issues of
Hot
Video
at the station newsstand, she knew what to expect from their anatomy, their organs, and various sexual practices, but she felt a slight repugnance for their body hair and muscles. Their skin looked thick and not at all soft. The brownish, wrinkled skin of their balls, the brutally anatomical look of the glans when the foreskin was retracted, red, shiny . . . none of these things was especially attractive. In the end, however, she slept with a tall blond senior after spending the night in a club in Paimpol, and she did not find it particularly pleasurable. She tried again several times with others throughout high school. It was easy to seduce boys, being as all you had to do was wear a short skirt, cross your legs, wear a low-cut or a see-through blouse that showed off your breasts. These experiences proved to be no more conclusive than the first one. Intellectually, she came to understand the triumphant yet gentle feeling some girls experienced when they felt a cock pushing deep into their pussies, but she herself felt nothing of the sort. It had to be said that condoms didn't help, as the sound the latex made, flaccid and repetitive, constantly brought her down to earth, prevented her from drifting into the nebulous oblivion of sensual pleasure. By the time she took her
bac
,
she had more or less given up.
Ten years later, she still hadn't really started again, she thought sadly as she woke in the bedroom of the Bangkok Palace. It was not quite daylight. She turned on the overhead light and contemplated her body in the mirror. Her breasts were as firm as ever, they hadn't changed since she was seventeen. Her behind was amazingly round too, without a trace of fat —unquestionably, she had a very beautiful body. Nonetheless, she slipped on a baggy sweatshirt and a shapeless pair of shorts before going downstairs to breakfast. Before she closed the door, she glanced at herself one last time in the mirror. Her face was very average, a little rounded, nice but nothing more than that, and the same was true of her limp, black hair, which fell untidily on her shoulders. Her brown eyes weren't much of an asset either. No doubt she could have made more of herself, a bit of makeup, a different hairstyle, a trip to the beauty salon. Most women her age spent at least a couple of hours a week there, though she didn't think it would make much difference in her case. What she was lacking, essentially, was the desire to seduce.
We left the hotel at seven. The traffic was already heavy. Valérie gave me a little nod and took a seat in the same row on the other side of the aisle. No one in the bus was talking. Slowly, the gray megalopolis woke up; mopeds carrying couples, sometimes with a baby in the mother's arms, weaved between the crowded buses. A light haze still hung in some of the alleys by the river. Soon the sun would burst through the morning clouds and it would start to get hot. At Nonthaburi, the urban fabric began to fray, and the first rice fields appeared. Buffalo standing motionless in the mud followed the bus with their eyes exactly as cows would do. The ecologists from the Jura seemed a bit restless: they'd probably wanted to take a couple of pictures of the buffalo.
The first stop was Kanchanaburi, which all the guidebooks agree is a lively, animated city. To the
Michelin
,
it's a "marvelous starting point from which to explore the surrounding region." The
Guide du Routard
,
on the other hand, considers it a "good base camp." The tour program indicated a journey of several miles along the "railway of death,"' which snaked alongside the River Kwai. I'd never really got to the bottom of this River Kwai story, so I tried to pay attention to what the guide was saying. Luckily René,
Michelin Guide
in hand, was following the story, always ready to correct this point or that. In short, after they entered the war in 1941, the Japanese decided to build a railway connecting Singapore and Burma, with the long-term objective of invading India. This railway had to cross Malaysia and Thailand, Come to think of it, what were the Thais doing during the Second World War? Well, now you come to mention it, not a lot. They were "neutral," Sôn informed me diplomatically. In reality, René explained, they'd signed a military pact with the Japanese without actually declaring war on the Allies. That was the way of wisdom, a way that demonstrated, once again, the celebrated "subtlety of mind" that had made it possible for the Thais to spend two centuries caught in a viselike grip between the colonial powers of France and England without actually surrendering to either, and to remain the only country in Southeast Asia never to have actually been colonized.
Be that as it may, by 1942 work had begun on the section along the River Kwai, marshaling sixty thousand English, Australian, New Zealand, and American prisoners of war, as well as "countless" Asian forced laborers. In October 1943, the railway was completed, but sixteen thousand POWs had died from a variety of causes, including lack of food, the hostile climate, and the innate viciousness of the Japanese. Shortly afterwards, an Allied bombing raid destroyed the bridge over the River Kwai, a crucial element of the infrastructure —thereby rendering the railway completely useless. In short, a lot of people copped it for very little. Things have changed little since then —it is still impossible to get a decent rail connection between Singapore and Delhi.
So it was in a state of mild annoyance that I began the visit to the JEATH Museum, built to commemorate the appalling suffering of the Allied POWs. Certainly, I thought, what had happened was thoroughly regrettable; but, let's face it, worse things happened during the Second World War. I couldn't help thinking that if the prisoners had been Polish or Russian there would have been a lot less fuss.
A little later, we were required to endure a visit to the
cemetery
for the self-same Allied prisoners of war —those who had, in a manner of speaking, made the ultimate sacrifice. There were white crosses in neat rows, all exactly identical; the place radiated a profound monotony. It reminded me of Omaha Beach, which hadn't really moved me either, had actually reminded me, in fact, of a modern art installation. "In this place," I said to myself, with a feeling of sadness that I felt was somewhat inadequate, "in this place, a bunch of morons died for the sake of democracy." That said, the cemetery at the River Kwai was much smaller. You could almost count the graves, though I gave up pretty quickly. "There can't be sixteen thousand graves ...." I concluded aloud. "You're quite right," René informed me, still armed with his
Michelin Guide
.
"The number of dead is estimated at sixteen thousand, but the cemetery contains only five hundred and eighty-two graves. They are considered to be" (he read, running his finger under the words) "the
'five hundred and eighty-two martyrs to democracy
.' "
When I got my third gold-star merit badge at the age often, I went to a pâtisserie to stuff my face with crêpes au Grand Marnier. It was a private party, as I had no friends with whom I could share my joy. I was staying with my father in Chamonix, as I did every year at that time. He was an alpine guide and a committed mountaineer. His friends were like him, courageous, virile men —I never felt comfortable around them. I've never really felt comfortable around men. I was eleven the first time a girl ever showed me her pussy; I was immediately filled with wonder. I adored this small, strange, cleft organ. She didn't have much pubic hair, she was about the same age as me; her name was Martine. For a long time, she stood with her thighs apart, holding her panties to one side so I could look, but when I tried to move my hand toward it, she got scared and ran off. It all seemed very recent to me; I didn't feel that I had changed much. My enthusiasm for pussy had not waned; in fact, I saw in it one of my few remaining recognizable, fully human qualities. As for the rest, I didn't really know anymore.
A short while after we had boarded the bus again, Sôn spoke. We were now heading toward our accommodation for the night, which, she was keen to emphasize, was of exceptional quality. No TV, no video. No electricity; candles. No bathroom; the river. No mattresses; mats. Absolutely back to nature. Back to nature, I mentally noted, seemed to consist principally of privations; the ecologists from the Jura (who, I had discovered on the train—against my will—were called Éric and Sylvie) were drooling with excitement. "French cuisine tonight," concluded Sôn for no apparent reason. "We now eat Thai. Small restaurant too, beside river."
The place was charming. Trees shaded the tables. Near the entrance was a sunlit pool full of turtles and frogs. I watched the frogs for a long time, once again struck by the extraordinary abundance of life in the tropics. White fish swam between two pools. On the surface were water lilies and water fleas. Insects settled steadily on the water lilies. Turtles observed all this with a placidity characteristic of their species.
Sôn came to let me know that the meal had begun. I walked toward the dining room by the river. They had laid two tables for six, and all the places were taken. I glanced around me, a little panicked, but René quickly came to my rescue. "No problem! Come and join our table!" he called generously. "We can add another place on the end." So I sat at what was apparently the
established couples
table: the ecologists from the Jura, the naturopaths—who, I now discovered, answered to Albert and Suzanne—and the two ex-pork-butcher senior citizens. This arrangement, I quickly came to believe, was not based on any real affinity but on the urgent situation that presented itself when they were shown to the tables, at which time the couples had instinctively banded together. All in all, lunch was nothing more than a dress rehearsal.
The conversation first moved to the subject of massage, a subject that seemed dear to the naturopaths. The previous evening, Albert and Suzanne had forsaken traditional dance to enjoy an excellent back massage. René smiled a lewd smile; Albert's expression quickly let him know that his attitude was completely inappropriate. Traditional Thai massage, he thundered, had nothing whatever to do with who knows what kind of practices; it was the expression of a centuries-old, perhaps millennia-old, civilization and, as it happened, was completely consistent with Chinese teachings on the points of acupuncture. They practiced it themselves at their office in Montbéliard, without, naturally, attaining the dexterity of Thai practitioners. Therefore, the night before, they had had, he concluded, an excellent lesson. Éric and Sylvie listened, fascinated. René coughed slightly in embarrassment, as it was true that the Montbéliard couple did not, in fact, exude even the slightest impression of lewdness. Who could possibly ever have proposed the idea that France was the country
of
debauchery
and
libertinage
?
France was a sinister country, utterly sinister and bureaucratic.
"I had a back massage too, but the girl finished on my balls," I interrupted without much conviction. Since I was chewing cashew nuts at the time, no one heard, with the exception of Sylvie, who shot me a horrified look. I took a mouthful of beer and looked her straight in the eyes, not in the least embarrassed. Was this girl even capable of
correctly
handling a cock? That remained to be seen. In the meantime, I waited for my coffee.
"It's true they're cute, the little girls," commented Josette, taking a slice of papaya and adding to the general unease. The coffee was slow in coming. What do you do at the end of a meal if you're not allowed to smoke? I sat quietly as the boredom mounted. We concluded the conversation, not without difficulty, with some remarks about the weather.
I returned to a memory of my father, this time confined to his bed, struck down by sudden depression—a terrifying thing in such an active man. His mountaineering friends had stood around awkwardly, powerless in the face of the disease. The reason he immersed himself in sports, he told me once, was to stupefy himself, to stop himself from thinking. And he had succeeded. I was convinced that he had managed to go through his whole life without ever really questioning the human condition.