Platform (3 page)

'It's true, Muslims on the whole aren't up to much . . .' I said with embarrassment. I picked up my travel bag, opened the door. 'I think you'll do alright. . .' I muttered without conviction. At that moment I had a vision of migratory flows crisscrossing Europe like blood vessels; Muslims appeared as clots that were only slowly reabsorbed. Aicha eyed me sceptically. Cold air rushed into the car. Intellectually, I could manage to feel a certain attraction to Muslim vaginas. I managed a little forced smile. She smiled in turn, a little more sincerely than I had. I shook her hand for a long time. I could feel the warmth of her fingers. I carried on shaking her hand until I could feel the gentle pulse of her blood at the hollow of her wrist. A few feet from the car, I turned around to give a little wave. We had made a connection in spite of everything; in the end, in spite of everything, something had happened.

Settling into my seat on board the intercity, it occurred to me that I should have given her money. Actually, it was better that I hadn't, it would probably have been misinterpreted. Strangely, it was at that moment that I realised for the first time that I was going to be a rich man; well, relatively rich. The money in my father's accounts had already been transferred. For the rest, I had left the sale of the car to a local garage and of the house to an estate agent; everything had been arranged as simply as possible. The value of these assets would be determined by the market. Of course there was some room for negotiation: ten per cent one way or the other, no more. The taxes that were due were no mystery either: a quick look through the carefully thought-out little brochures available from the Tax Office would be enough.

My father had probably thought of disinheriting me several times; in the end, he must have given up on the idea, considering it too complicated, too much paperwork for an uncertain result (it is not easy to disinherit your children, the law offers you very limited possibilities: not only do the little shits ruin your life, afterwards they get to profit from everything you've managed to save, despite your worst efforts). He probably thought that there was no point — after all, what the fuck did it matter to him what happened after he was dead? That's how he looked at it, in my opinion. In any case, the old bastard was dead, and I was about to sell the house in which he had spent his last years; I was also going to sell the Toyota Land Cruiser which he had used for hauling cases of Evian from the Casino Geant in Cherbourg. I live near the Jardin des Plantes, what would I want with a Toyota Land Cruiser? I could have used it to ferry ricotta ravioli from the market at Mouffetard, that's about it.

In cases of direct inheritance, death duties are not very high — even if the emotional ties aren't very strong. After tax, I could probably expect about three million francs. To me, that represented about fifteen times my annual salary. It also represented what an unskilled worker in western Europe could expect for a lifetime of work; it wasn't so bad. You could make a start with that, you could try.

In a few weeks I would surely get a letter from my bank. The train approached Bayeux. I could already imagine the course of the conversation. The clerk at my branch would have noticed a substantial credit balance on my account, which he would very much like to discuss with me - who does not need a. financial adviser at one time or another in his life? A little wary, I would want to steer him towards safe options; he would greet this reaction — such a common one — with a slight smile. Most novice investors, as financial advisers well know, favour security over earnings; they often laugh about it among themselves. I should not misunderstand him: when it came to managing their capital, even some elderly and otherwise worldly people behave like complete novices. For his part, he would try to steer me in the direction of a slightly different approach — while, of course, giving me time to consider my options. Why not, in effect, put two-thirds of my holdings into investments where there would be no surprises but a low return? And why not place the remaining third in investments that were a little more adventurous, but which had the potential for significant growth? After a few days' consideration, I knew, I would defer to his judgement. He would feel reassured by my support, would put together the papers with a flash of enthusiasm, and our handshake at the moment we parted company would be warm.

I was living in a country distinguished by placid socialism, where ownership of material possessions was guaranteed by strict legislation, where the banking system was surrounded by powerful state guarantees. Unless I were to venture beyond what was lawful, I ran no risk of embezzlement or fraudulent bankruptcy. All in all, I needn't worry any more. In fact, I never really had: after serious but hardly distinguished studies, I had quickly found a career in the public sector. This was in the mid-eighties, at the beginning of the modernisation of socialism, at the time when the illustrious Jack Lang was distributing wealth and glory to the cultural institutions of the State; my starting salary was very reasonable. And then I had grown older, standing untroubled on the sidelines through successive policy changes. I was courteous, well-mannered, well-liked by colleagues and superiors; my temperament, however, was less than warm and I had failed to make any real friends. Night was falling quickly over Lisieux. Why, in my work, had I never shown a passion comparable to Marie-Jeanne's? Why had I never shown any real passion in my life in general?

Several more weeks went by without bringing me an answer; then, on the morning of December 23rd, I took a taxi to Roissy airport.

Chapter 3

And now, there I was on my own like an idiot, a few feet from the Nouvelles Frontieres desk. It was a Saturday morning during the Christmas holidays; Roissy was heaving, as usual. The minute they have a couple of days of freedom, the inhabitants of western Europe dash off to the other side of the world, they go halfway round the world in a plane, they behave — literally — like escaped convicts. I don't blame them, I was preparing to do just the same.

My dreams are run-of-the-mill. Like all of the inhabitants of western Europe, I want to travel. There are problems with that, of course: the language barrier, poorly organised public transport, the risk of being robbed or conned. To put it more bluntly, what I really want, basically, is to be a tourist. We dream what dreams we can afford; and my dream is to go on an endless series of 'Romantic Getaways', 'Colourful Expeditions' and

'Pleasures a la Carte' - to use the titles of the three Nouvelles Frontieres brochures.

I immediately decided to go on a package tour, but I hesitated quite a bit between 'Rum and Salsa' (ref: CUB CO 033, 16 days/14 nights, 11.250FF based on two sharing, single supplement 1,350FF) and 'Thai Tropic' (ref THA CA 006, 15 days/13 nights, 9,950FF based on two sharing, single supplement 1,175FF). Actually, I was more attracted by Thailand; but the advantage of Cuba is that it's one of the last Communist countries, though probably not for much longer - it has a sort of 'endangered regime' appeal, a sort of political exoticism, to put it in a nutshell. In the end, I chose Thailand. I have to admit that the copy in the brochure was very well done, sure to tempt the average punter:

A package tour with a dash of adventure, which will take you from the bamboo forests of the River Kwai to the island of Ko Samui, winding up, after crossing the spectacular isthmus of Kra, at Ko Phi Phi, off the coast of Phuket. A cool trip to the tropics.

At 8.30 a.m. on the dot, Jacques Maillot slams the door of his house on the Boulevard Blanqui in the 13th arrondissement, straddles his moped and begins a journey across the capital from east to west. Direction: the head office of Nouvelles Frontieres on the Boulevard de Grenelle. Every other day, he stops at four or five of the company's agencies: 'I bring them the latest brochures, I pick up the

post and generally take the temperature,' explains the boss, full of beans, always sporting an extraordinary multicoloured tie. It's a crack of the whip for the agents: 'On the days after my visit, there's a tremendous boost in sales at those agencies . . .' he explains with a smile. Visibly under his spell, the journalist from Capital goes on to marvel: who could have predicted in 1967 that a small business set up by a handful of student protestors would take off like this? Certainly not the thousands of demonstrators who, in May 1968, marched past the Nouvelles Frontieres office on the Place Denfert-Rochereau in Paris. 'We were in just the right place, right in front of the cameras . . .' remembers Jacques Maillot, a former boy scout and left-wing Catholic by way of the National Students Union. It was the first piece of publicity for the company, which took its name from John F. Kennedy's speech about America's 'new frontiers'.

A passionate liberal, Jacques Maillot successfully fought the Air France monopoly, making air transport more accessible to all. His company's odyssey, which in thirty years had made it the number one travel agency in France, has fascinated the business press. Like FN AC, like Club Med, Nouvelles Frontieres - born at the dawn of the leisure society - might stand as a symbol of the new face of modern capitalism. In the year 2000, for the first time, the tourist industry became - in terms of turnover - the biggest economic activity in the world. Though it required only a moderate level of physical fitness, 'Thai Tropic' was listed under 'adventure tours': a range of accommodation options (simple, standard, deluxe); group numbers limited to twenty to ensure a better group dynamic. I saw two really cute black girls with rucksacks arriving, I dared to hope that they'd opted for the same tour: then I looked away and went to collect my travel documents. The flight was scheduled to last a little more than eleven hours.

Taking a plane today, regardless of the airline, regardless of the destination, amounts to being treated like shit for the duration of the flight. Crammed into a ridiculously tiny space from which it's impossible to move without disturbing an entire row of fellow passengers, you are greeted from the outset with a series of embargos announced by stewardesses sporting fake smiles. Once on board, their first move is to get hold of your personal belongings so they can put them in overhead lockers - to which you will not have access under any circumstances until the plane lands. Then, for the duration of the flight, they do their utmost to find ways to bully you, all the while making it impossible for you to move about, or more generally to move at all, with the exception of a certain number of permitted activities: enjoying fizzy drinks, watching American videos, buying duty-free products. The unremitting sense of danger, fuelled by mental images of plane crashes, the enforced immobility in a cramped space, provokes a feeling of stress so powerful that a number of passengers have reportedly died of heart attacks while on long-haul flights. The crew do their level best to maximise this stress by preventing you from combating it by habitual means. Deprived of cigarettes, reading matter and, as happens more and more frequently, sometimes even deprived of alcohol. Thank God the bitches don't do body searches yet; as an experienced passenger, I had been able to stock up on some necessities for survival: a few 21-mg Nicorette patches, sleeping pills, a flask of Southern Comfort. I fell into a thick sleep as we were flying over the former East Germany.

I was awoken by a weight on my shoulder, and warm breath. I sat my neighbour upright in his seat without undue manhandling; he groaned softly, but didn't open his eyes. He was a big guy, about thirty, with light brown hair in a bowl cut; he didn't look too unpleasant, nor too clever. In fact, he was rather endearing, wrapped up in the soft blue blanket supplied by the airline, his big manual labourer's hands resting on his knees. I picked up the paperback which had fallen at his feet: a shitty Anglo-Saxon bestseller by one Frederick Forsyth. I had read something by this halfwit, full of heavy-handed eulogies to Margaret Thatcher and ludicrous depictions of the USSR as the evil empire. I'd wondered how he managed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I leafed through his new opus: apparently, this time, the roles of the bad guys were played by Serb nationalists; here was a man who kept up to date with current affairs. As for his beloved hero, the tedious Jason Monk, he had gone back into service with the CIA, which had formed an alliance of convenience with the Chechen mafia. Well! I thought, replacing the book on my neighbour's knees, what a charming sense of morality bestselling British authors have. The page was marked with a piece of paper folded in three, which I recognised as the Nouvelles Frontieres itinerary: I had, apparently, just met my first tour companion. A fine fellow, I was sure, certainly a lot less egocentric and neurotic than I was. I glanced at the video screen, which was showing the flight path: we had probably passed Chechnya, whether or not we had flown over it; the exterior temperature was "53°C, altitude 10,143 metres, local time 00.27. Another screen replaced the first: we were flying directly over Afghanistan. Through the window, you could see nothing but pitch black of course. In any case the Taliban were probably all in bed stewing in their own filth. 'Goodnight, Talibans, good night . . . sweet dreams. . .' I whispered before swallowing a second sleeping pill.

Chapter 4

The plane landed at Don Muang airport at about 5 a.m. I woke with some difficulty. The man on my left had already stood up and was waiting impatiently in the queue to disembark. I quickly lost sight of him in the corridor leading to the arrivals hall. My legs were like cotton wool, my mouth felt furry; my ears were filled with a violent drone.

No sooner had I stepped through the automatic doors than the heat enveloped me like a mouth. It must have been at least 35°C. The heat in Bangkok has something particular about it, in that it is somehow greasy, probably on account of the pollution; after any long period outdoors, you're always surprised to find that you're not covered with a fine film of industrial residue. It took me about thirty seconds to adjust my breathing. I was trying not to fall too far behind the guide, a Thai woman whom I hadn't taken much notice of, except that she seemed reserved and well-educated - but a lot of Thai women give that impression. My backpack was cutting into my shoulders; it was a Lowe Pro Himalaya Trekking, the most expensive one I could find at Vieux Campeur; it was guaranteed for life. It was an impressive object, steel grey with snap clasps, special Velcro fastenings - the company had a patent pending - and zips that would work at temperatures of ~65°C. Its contents were sadly pretty limited: some shorts and tee-shirts, swimming trunks, special shoes which allowed you to walk on coral (125FF at Vieux Campeur), a wash bag containing medicines considered essential by the Guide du Routard, a JVC HRD-9600 MS video camera with batteries and spare tapes, and two American bestsellers that I'd bought pretty much at random at the airport.