Authors: Michel Houellebecq
'I've come,' he went on, 'as you probably know, I've come here from Nouvelles Frontieres. And, although it's not what the group is best known for, we also had a stab at the holiday-club sector: the Paladiens. We began to experience problems with the clubs at about the same time as Club Med; we resolved those problems very quickly. How? Because we were the largest tour operator in France. At the end of their discovery tour of the country, our customers, for the most part, wanted to spend some time at the beach. Our tours often have the reputation, justifiably, of being tough, of requiring a high level of physical fitness. Having won their stripes as 'travellers' the hard way, our customers were generally delighted to be back in the shoes of ordinary tourists for a while. In fact, the formula was so successful that we decided to include a beach supplement as standard in most of the tours - which allowed us to bump up the length of the tours; as you all know, a day at the beach is much less expensive than a travel day. Given this, it was easy for us to favour our own hotels. This is the second thing I propose we consider: it's possible that the future of holiday clubs depends on closer links with tour operators. You'll have to use your imaginations here, too, and don't limit yourselves to the players currently operating in the French market. I'm asking you to explore a new field; we may have a lot to gain from alliances with the major Northern European tour-operators.'
At the end of the meeting, a woman of about thirty, blonde, pretty face, approached Jean-Yves. Her name was Marylise Le Francois, she was the marketing manager. 'I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your intervention . . .' she said. 'It had to be done. I think you've managed to remotivate people. Now everyone knows that there is somebody at the controls, we'll really be able to get back down to work.'
Chapter 4
It quickly became apparent that it would not be quite so simple. Most of the British and particularly the German tour operators already had their own chains of holiday clubs and they weren't interested in allying themselves to another group. All attempts in that direction proved futile. On the other hand, the Club Med seemed to have hit on the definitive formula for a holiday club; since their inception, none of their rivals had proved able to offer anything really new.
Two weeks later, Valerie finally had an idea. It was almost 10 p.m.; she had collapsed into an armchair in the middle of Jean-Yves's office and was sipping a hot chocolate before heading home. They were both exhausted, they had spent the whole day working on the financial report on the clubs.
'You know,' she sighed, 'I think we might be making a mistake in trying to separate the tours from the relaxation.'
'What do you mean?'
'Remember at Nouvelles Frontieres: even before we added the beach supplements to the end of the holiday, whenever there was a day at the beach in the middle of a tour, the customers always enjoyed it. And the thing people complained about most often was having to change hotels all the time. What we really want, in fact, is to alternate the excursions with time at the beach - a day touring, a day relaxing and so on. Coming back to the hotel every night, or the following night if the excursion is long, but not having to pack or check out of your room.'
'Resorts already offer additional excursions; and I'm not sure they have much take-up for them.'
'Yes, but there's a supplement, and the French hate paying supplements. On top of that, you have to make the reservation after you get there: people hesitate, they dither, they can't decide, and in the end they do nothing. Actually, they like the excursions as long as you do all the work for them; and above all they love things that are all-inclusive.'
Jean-Yves thought for a moment. 'You know, what you're suggesting is not a bad idea. 'On top of that, we should be able to get it under way pretty quickly: this summer, I think. We could offer the new formula as a complement to the ordinary packages. We could call it Eldorador Discovery, something like that.'
Jean-Yves consulted Leguen before implementing the idea; he quickly realised that the other man had no desire to express an opinion one way or the other. 'It's your responsibility,' Leguen said solemnly. Listening to Valerie tell me how she spent her days, I realised I didn't know very much about the world of the senior executive. Her double act with Jean-Yves was in itself remarkable. 'Under normal circumstances,' she told me, 'his assistant would be some girl who dreamed of getting his job. That complicates office politics: it means that sometimes its better to fail, as long as you can pass the blame on to somebody else.' In this case, they were in a healthier position; no one in the group wanted their jobs; most of the executives thought the takeover of Eldorador had been a mistake.
For the rest of the month, she spent a lot of time working with Marylise Le Francois. The catalogues for the summer holidays had to be ready by the end of April at the very latest, in fact even that was cutting it fine. She rapidly realised that the Jet Tours marketing for the resorts had been absolutely appalling. 'An Eldorador holiday is like that magical moment in Africa, when the heat begins to fade and the whole village gathers around the talking-tree to listen to the elders . . .' she read aloud to Jean-Yves. 'Honestly, can you believe this stuff? With photos of the holiday reps leaping about in their ridiculous yellow uniforms. It's complete rubbish.'
'What do you think of the slogan, "Eldorador, live life more intensely"?'
'I don't know; I don't know what to think anymore.'
'It's too late for the standard packages, the catalogues have already gone out. One thing's for sure though, we'll have to start from scratch with the "Discovery" catalogue.'
'What I think we need to do,' interrupted Marylise, 'is to play up the contrast between physical effort and luxury. Mint tea in the middle of the desert, but on priceless carpets . . .'
'Yeah, the magical moments. . .' said Jean-Yves jadedly. He got up from his chair with effort. 'Don't forget to put "magical moments" in there somewhere; oddly enough it works every time. Okay, I'll leave you to it; I have to get back to my fixed costs . . .'
Valerie was well aware that there was no question but that Jean-Yves had the most thankless aspects of the work. She herself knew very little about hotel management — it simply brought back vague memories of studying for her BTS. 'Edward Yang owns a three-star hotel and restaurant and believes that it is his responsibility to satisfy his customers to the best of his ability; he is constantly seeking to innovate and to respond to customer needs. From experience, he knows that breakfast is very important, the most important meal of the day, and plays a decisive role in establishing the image of the hotel.' This had been part of a written test in her first year. Edward Yang arranges for a statistical analysis of his customers, focusing particularly on the number of guests per room (single people, couples, families). You had to break down the analysis, calculate chi squared; the section concluded with the following question: 'To sum up, do family circumstances correlate with the consumption of fresh fruit at breakfast?'
Rummaging through her files, she managed to find a BTS question which corresponded pretty closely to their present situation.
'You have just been appointed marketing manager of the international arm of the South America group. The company has recently purchased a hotel-restaurant in the West Indies, a four-star establishment with 110 rooms on the sea-front in Guadeloupe. Opened in 1988 and renovated in 1996, it is currently experiencing serious problems. The occupancy rate is only 45%, far below the anticipated breakeven point.'
Her answer was marked 18/20, which seemed to be a good sign. At the time, she remembered, it all seemed like in a fairytale to her, and not a very plausible one. She couldn't imagine herself as marketing director of South America, or of anything else for that matter. It was a game, an intellectual game that was neither very interesting nor? very difficult. Now, it was no longer a game; or perhaps; it was, but their careers were the stakes.
She would come back from work so exhausted that she hadn't the energy to make love, barely enough energy to suck me off; she would be half asleep with my penis still" in her mouth. When I penetrated her, it was usually in the^ morning when we woke. Her orgasms were more muted, more restrained, as though muffled by a curtain of fatigue;.; I think I loved her more and more.
At the end of April the catalogues were printed and distributed to five thousand travel agents - almost the entirety of the French network. Now, they needed to deal with the infrastructure for the tours so that everything would be ready for July 1. Word of mouth was very important in launching a new product of this kind: a tour cancelled or poorly organised could mean a lot of lost customers. They had decided not to invest in a major advertising campaign. Curiously, although Jean-Yves had specialised in marketing, he hadn't much faith in advertising. 'It can be useful for refining your image,' he said, 'but we're not at that point just yet. For the moment, the most important thing is for us to get good distribution and ensure the product has a reputation for reliability.' On the other hand, they invested hugely in information for the travel agents; it was crucial that they offer the product quickly and spontaneously. Valerie took most of the responsibility for this; it was familiar territory for her. She remembered the sales-pitch mnemonic SURE - Strategic Planning, Understanding, Response management, Execution excellence; she remembered too the reality, which was infinitely more simple. But most of the salesgirls were very young; most of them had barely passed their BTS diploma; it was easier to speak to them in their | own language. Talking to some of the girls, she realised that Jean-Louis Barma's typology was still being taught in colleges. (The technician consumer: product centred, sensitive to quantitative aspects, attaches great importance to technical aspects of the product. The devout consumer: trusts the salesperson blindly because he does not understand the product. The complicit consumer: happy to focus on points he has in common with the salesperson if the latter knows how to establish a good interpersonal relationship. The manipulative consumer: a manipulator whose strategy is to deal directly with the supplier and so get the best deal. The developing consumer: attentive to the salesperson, whom he respects, to the product offered, aware of his needs, he communicates easily. Valerie was five or six years older than these girls; she had long risen above their current level and she had achieved a degree of professional success which most of them hardly dared dream of. They looked at her with a sort of childlike admiration.
I had the key to her apartment now; in general, while I was waiting for her in the evenings, I read August Comte's Course in Positive Philosophy. I liked this tedious, dense book; often I would reread a page three or four times. It took me almost three weeks to finish Lesson Fifty: 'Preliminary Considerations on Social Statics, or the General Theory of the Spontaneous Order of Human Society'. I certainly needed some sort of theory to help me take stock of my social status.
'You work far too much, Valerie . . .' I told her one evening in May as she was lying, huddled up with exhaustion, on the living-room sofa. 'You have to get something out of it. You should put some money aside, otherwise one way or the other you'll just end up spending it.' She agreed that I was right. The following morning, she took two hours off and we went to Porte d’Orient branch of the Credit Agricole to open a joint account. She gave me power of attorney and the following day I went back to talk to a financial adviser. I decided to put aside twenty thousand francs a month from her salary, half of it in a life assurance policy, the other half into a savings account. I was at her place pretty much all the time now; it made no sense to hang on to my apartment.
It was she who made the suggestion at the beginning of June. We had made love most of the morning, taking long breaks curled up together between the sheets. Then she would wank me or suck me off and I would penetrate her again; neither of us had come. Each time she touched me I quickly got a hard on, her pussy was constantly wet. She was feeling good, I could see calm flooding her face. At about nine o'clock, she suggested we have dinner in an Italian restaurant near the Pare Montsouris. It wasn't quite dark yet; it was a warm evening. I had to go to my place afterwards, if I intended to go to work in a shirt and tie as I usually did. The waiter brought us two house cocktails.
'You know, Michel. . .' she said as soon as he had gone, 'You could just move into my place. I don't really think we need to go on playing at being independent. Or, if you prefer, we can get a flat together.'
In point of fact, yes, I did prefer; let's say it gave me a greater sense of this as a new beginning. A first beginning in my case, truth be told; and in her care too, I suppose. It becomes habit, being alone, being independent; it's not always a good habit. If I wanted to live something that resembled the conjugal experience, now, evidently, was the time. Of course I knew the drawbacks of the set-up; I know that desire becomes dulled more quickly when couples live together. But it becomes dulled anyhow, that's one of the laws of life; only then does it become possible for the union to move on to a different level — so many people have believed. But that evening my desire for Valerie was far from dulled. Before leaving her, I kissed her on the mouth; she opened her lips wide, abandoning herself completely to the kiss. I slipped my hand into her tracksuit bottoms, into her panties, put my hand on her buttocks. She leaned her head back, looked left and right, the street was completely quiet. She knelt down on the pavement, opened my flies, took my penis into her mouth. I leaned against the park railings. Just before I came, she moved her mouth away and continued to masturbate me with two fingers, slipping her other hand into my trousers to stroke my balls. She closed her eyes; I ejaculated over her face. At that moment I thought she was going to burst into tears; but she didn't, she simply licked at the semen trickling down her cheeks.