Authors: Michel Houellebecq
I pushed the door and lit the candle again, more or less resigned to continue reading The Firm. Mosquitoes flew close, some of them charred their wings in the flame, their bodies sank into the melted wax; not one of them settled on me. Despite the fact that I was filled to the dermis with nutritious, delicious blood, they automatically turned tail, unable to break through the olfactory barrier of carbonic dimethylperoxide. Roche-Nicolas laboratories, the creators of Cinq sur Cinq, were to be congratulated. I blew out the candle, relit it, watching the ever-more teeming ballet of these sordid little flying machines. On the other side of the partition, I could hear Lionel snoring gently through the night. I got up, put another block of citronella on to melt, then went for a piss. A round hole had been made in the floor of the bathroom; it flowed straight into the river. You could hear the lapping of the water and the sound of fins; I tried not to think about what might be down there. Just as I was going back to bed, Lionel let out a long series of farts. 'Too right, my boy!' I commended him enthusiastically. 'As Martin Luther said, there's nothing like farting in your sleeping bag!' My voice resounded strangely in the dark, above the murmuring of the river and the persistent drone of the insects. Simply being able to hear the real world was a torment. 'The kingdom of heaven is like unto a cotton bud!' I shouted again into the night. 'Let he who has ears to hear, hear!' In his bed, Lionel turned over and moaned gently without waking. I didn't have much in the way of choice: I'd have to take a sleeping pill.
Chapter 8
Carried by the current, tufts of grass floated downriver. The birdsong started up again, rising from the light mist which swathed the jungle. Far off to the south, at the mouth of the valley, the strange contours of the Burmese mountains were silhouetted in the distance. I had seen these curved, bluish forms before, but cut through with sudden indentations. Perhaps in the landscapes of the Italian primitives, on a visit to a museum when I was at school. The group was not awake yet; the temperature was still pleasant at this hour. I had slept very badly.
After the disaster of the previous evening, a certain benevolence floated around the breakfast tables. Josette and Rene seemed to be in good form; on the other hand the ecologists from the Jura were in a terrible state, I noticed, as they shambled in. The proletariat of a previous generation, who had no hang-ups about enjoying modern
comforts when they were available, proved to be much more resilient in truly uncomfortable circumstances than their offspring, who championed 'ecological' principles. Eric and Sylvie clearly hadn't got a wink all night; in addition, Sylvie was completely covered in red blisters.
'Yes, the mosquitoes really got me,' she confirmed bitterly.
'I've got some soothing lotion if you want. It's very good; I can go and get it.'
'That would be nice, thanks; but let's have coffee first.'
The coffee was revolting, weak, almost undrinkable; from that point of view at least, we were working to American standards. The young couple looked completely bloody stupid, it almost pained me to see their 'ecological paradise' crumbling before their eyes; but I had a feeling that everything was going to cause me pain today. I looked to the south again. 'I'm told Burma is very beautiful,' I said in a low voice, mostly to myself. Sylvie solemnly agreed: it was indeed, very beautiful, she'd also heard as much; that said, she forbade herself from going to Burma. It was impossible to think that one's money would go to supporting a dictatorship like that. Yes, yes, I thought, money. 'Human rights are extremely important,' she exclaimed almost despairingly. When people talk about 'human rights', I usually get the impression that they're being ironic; but that wasn't true in this case, at least I don't think so.
'Personally, I stopped going to Spain after the death of Franco,' interrupted Robert, taking a seat at our table. I hadn't seen him arrive. He seemed to be in excellent
form, his formidable ability to infuriate well-rested. He informed us that he'd gone to bed dead drunk and consequently had slept like a log. He had almost chucked himself in the river a couple of times on his way back to the chalet; but in the end it hadn't happened. 'Insh'allah.' he concluded in a booming voice.
After this parody of a breakfast, Sylvie walked back with me to my room. On the way, we met Josiane. She was serious, withdrawn and did not even look at us; she seemed to be far from the road to forgiveness. I discovered that she taught literature in civvy street, as Rene amusingly put it; I wasn't a bit surprised. She was exactly the kind of bitch who'd made me give up studying literature many years before.
I gave Sylvie the tube of soothing lotion. 'I'll bring it straight back,' she said.
'You can keep it, I don't think we'll come across any more mosquitoes; as far as I know they hate the seaside.' She thanked me, walked to the door, hesitated, turned round: 'Surely you don't approve j of the sexual exploitation of children!. . .' she exclaimed anguishedly. I was expecting something of the kind. I shook my head and answered wearily: 'There's not that much child prostitution in Thailand. No more than in Europe, in my opinion.' She nodded, not really convinced, and walked out. In fact, I had access to rather more detailed information, courtesy of a strange publication called The White Book, which I'd bought for my previous trip. It was apparently published - no author's or publisher's name was given — by an association called Inquisition 2000. Under the pretence of denouncing sexual tourism, it gave all the addresses, country by country - each revealing chapter was preceded by a short and vehement paragraph calling for respect for the Divine plan and the reintroduction of the death penalty for sex offenders. On the question of paedophilia, The White Book was unequivocal: it formally advised against Thailand, which no longer had anything to recommend it. It was much better to go to the Philippines or, better still, to Cambodia — the journey might be dangerous, but it was worth the effort.
The Khmer Kingdom was at its apogee in the twelfth century, the era in which Angkor Wat was built. After that, it pretty much fell apart; since then Thailand's principal enemy had been the Burmese. In 1351, King Ramathibodi I founded the village of Ayutthaya. In 1402, his son Ramathibodi II invaded the declining Angkor empire. Thirty-two successive sovereigns of Ayutthaya marked their reigns by building Buddhist temples and palaces. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, according to the accounts of French and Portuguese travellers, it was the most magnificent city in all Asia. The wars with the Burmese continued and Ayutthaya fell in 1767, after a siege lasting fifteen months. The Burmese looted the city, melted down the gold statues and left nothing but ruins in their wake.
Now, it was very peaceful; a light breeze stirred up dust between the temples. Not much remained of King Ramathibodi, apart from a couple of lines in the Michelin Guide. The image of the Buddha, on the other hand, was very much in evidence and had retained all of its significance. The Burmese had shipped in Thai craftsmen so that they could construct identical temples several hundred kilometres away. The will to power exists, and it manifests itself in the form of history; it is, in itself, radically unproductive. The smile of the Buddha continued to float above the ruins. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. According to the Michelin Guide, you needed to set aside three days for a complete visit, one day for a quick tour. We had three hours; it was time to get out the camcorders. I imagined Chateaubriand with a Panasonic camcorder at the Coliseum, smoking cigarettes - B&H probably, rather than Gauloises Lights. Faced with a religion this radical, I expect his views would have been slightly different; he would have had a lot less respect for Napoleon. I was sure that he would have been capable of writing an excellent Genie du bouddhisme.
Josette and Rene were a bit bored during the visit; I got the impression that pretty quickly they were just going round in circles. Babette and Lea were the same. The ecologists from the Jura, on the other hand, seemed to be in their element, as did the naturopaths; they deployed an impressive array of photographic equipment. Valerie was lost in thought, walking down the alleys, across the flagstones, through the grass. That's culture for you,
I thought: it's a bit of a pain in the arse, but that's good; everyone is returned to his own nothingness. That said, how did the sculptors of the Ayutthaya period do it? How did they manage to give their statues of the Buddha such a luminous expression of understanding?
After the fall of Ayutthaya, the Thai kingdom entered a period of great stability. Bangkok became the capital and the Rama dynasty began. For two centuries (actually, up to the present day) the kingdom knew no serious foreign wars, nor any civil or religious wars for that matter; it also succeeded in avoiding any form of colonisation. There had been no famines, either, nor great epidemics. In such circumstances, when lands are fertile and bring forth abundant harvests, when sickness seems to relax its grip, when a peaceable religion extends its laws over hearts and minds, human beings grow and multiply; in general, they live happily. Now, things were different. Thailand had become part of the free world, meaning the market economy; for five years it had been suffering a terrible economic crisis which had reduced the currency to less than half its previous value and brought the most successful businesses to the brink of ruin. This was the first real tragedy to strike the country for more than two centuries.
One after another, in a silence that was pretty striking, we went back to the coach. We left at sunset. We were due to take the night train from Bangkok, destination Surat Thani.
Chapter 9
Surat Thani - population 42,000 - is distinguished, according to the guidebooks, by the fact that it is of no interest whatever. It is, and this is the only thing you can say about it, an obligatory stop on the way to the Koh Samui ferry. Nonetheless, people live here, and the Michelin Guide informed us that for a long time the city has been an important centre of metallurgical industries -and that, more recently, it has played a significant role in machine assembly.
And where would we be without machine construction? Iron ore is mined in obscure regions of the country and transported here by freighter. Machine tools are then produced, mostly under the supervision of Japanese companies. Their assembly takes place in cities like Surat Thani: resulting in coaches, train carriages, ferries; all produced under licence from NEC, General Motors or Fujimori. The products serve in part to transport western tourists, such as Babette and Lea.
I was entitled to speak to them, I was a member of the same tour; I could hardly presume to be a potential lover, which limited possible conversation from the off; I had, nevertheless, purchased the same outbound ticket; I was therefore at liberty, to some extent, to make contact. Babette and Lea, it turned out, worked for the same PR agency; for the most part, they organised events. Events? Yes. For institutions or private companies keen to develop their corporate sponsorship programmes. There was certainly money to be made there, I thought. Yes and no. Nowadays, companies were more 'human rights' focused, so there had been a slowdown in investment. But it was still pretty okay. I enquired about their salaries: pretty good. They could have been better, but still pretty good. About twenty-five times the salary of a metalworker in Surat Thani. Economics is a mystery.
After we arrived at the hotel, the group broke up, at least I suppose it did; I didn't feel much like eating with the others; I was a bit fed up with the others. I drew the curtains and lay down. Curiously, I fell asleep immediately and dreamed of an Arab girl dancing in a metro carriage. She didn't look anything like Aicha, at least I don't think so. She was standing against the central pole, like the girls in go-go bars. Her breasts were covered by a miniscule strip of cotton which she was slowly lifting. With a smile, she freed her breasts completely; they were swollen, round, copper-coloured, magnificent. She licked her fingers and stroked her nipples. Then she put her hand on my trousers, eased down my flies and took out my penis, and began to jerk me off. People crowded past us, got off at their stations. She got on all fours on the floor, lifted up her mini-skirt; she wasn't wearing anything underneath. Her vulva was welcoming, surrounded by black hair, like a gift; I started to penetrate her. The carriage was half full, but no one paid any attention to us. Such things could never happen under any normal circumstances. It was the dream of a starving man, the ludicrous dream of man already grown old.
I woke up at about five o'clock, noticed the sheets were completely covered in semen. A nocturnal emission . . . very touching. I noticed too, to my great surprise, that I still had a hard on; I put it down to the weather. A cockroach lay on its back in the middle of the bedside table; you could easily make out the detail of its legs. This one didn't have to worry any more, as my father would have said. My father, for his part, had died in late 2000; good thing too. Consequently, his existence was entirely contained within the twentieth century, of which he was a hideously representative element. I myself had survived in middling condition. I was in my forties, well, in my early forties, after all, I was only forty; I was about halfway there. My father's death gave me a certain freedom; I hadn't had my last word yet.
Situated on the east coast of Ko Samui, the hotel perfectly evoked the sort of tropical paradise you see in travel agents' brochures. The hills surrounding it were covered by thick jungle. The low-rise buildings, bordered by greenery, sloped down to an immense oval swimming pool with a Jacuzzi at each end. You could swim up to the bar, which was on an island in the middle of the pool. A few yards further on was a beach of white sand and the sea. I looked around warily at my surroundings; from here, I recognised Lionel in the distance splashing in the waves like a handicapped dolphin. Then I turned back and headed for the bar along a narrow bridge overlooking the pool. With studied casualness, I familiarised myself with the cocktail menu; happy hour had just begun.