Platform (33 page)

As he was leaving my room, I realised that I hadn't said a word; I really didn't know what to say to him. I knew perfectly well that something was wrong, but it was a vague feeling, difficult to put into words. It seemed to me that the best thing to do was keep quiet until the people around me realised their mistake; it was just a bad patch I had to get through.

Before he left, Jean-Yves looked up at me, then shook his head discouraged. It appears, at least this is what they told me immediately afterwards, that I talked a lot, all the time in fact, whenever I was left alone in the room; as soon as someone came in, I fell silent.

A few days later they transported us to Bumrungrad Hospital in an air ambulance. I didn't really understand the reasons for the transfer; in fact I think it was mostly so the police would have an opportunity to question us. Lionel had died the night before; crossing the corridor I saw his body wrapped in a shroud.

The Thai police were accompanied by an embassy attache who acted as an interpreter; unfortunately, I had little to tell them. What seemed to most obsess them most was whether the attackers had been of Arab or Asian origin. I could well understand their preoccupation - it was important to know whether an international terrorist network had established a foothold in Thailand or whether they were dealing with Malay separatists - but all that I could do was repeat that everything had happened so quickly, that I had seen only shadows; as far as I knew, the men could have been of Malay appearance.

Then I had a visit from some Americans, who I think were from the CIA. They spoke brutally, in an unpleasant tone; I felt as though I was a suspect myself. They hadn't thought it necessary to bring an interpreter, so I couldn't understand most of their questions. At the end, they showed me a series of photographs, purportedly of international terrorists; I did not recognise any of these men.

From time to time, Jean-Yves came to see me in my room, sat at the foot of the bed. I was aware of his presence, I felt a little more tense. One morning, three days after we arrived, he handed me a small sheaf of papers: they were photocopies of newspaper articles. 'The board of Aurore faxed them to me yesterday,' he said; 'They made no comment.'

The first article, taken from the Nouvel Observateur, was headlined 'A Very Special Club'; it was two pages long, very detailed, and illustrated with a photograph taken from the German advertising campaign. The journalist accused the Aurore group in no uncertain terms of promoting sex tourism in third-world countries, and added that, in the circumstances, the reaction of the Muslims was understandable. Jean-Claude Guillebaud dedicated his editorial to the same subject. Interviewed by telephone, Jean-Luc Espitalier had declared: 'The Aurore group, a signatory of the world charter for ethical tourism, in no way sanctions such activities; those responsible will be disciplined.' The dossier continued with a vehement but poorly documented article by Isabelle Alonso, from the Journal de dimanche, entitled: 'The Return of Slavery'. Francois Giroud picked up the theme in his weekly diary: 'Faced,' he wrote, 'with the hundreds of thousands of women who have been sullied, humiliated, reduced to slavery throughout the world - it is regrettable to have to say this - what do the deaths of a few of the well-heeled matter.' The terrorist attack in Krabi had naturally given the story considerable impact. Liberation ran a front-page story in which it published photos of the repatriated survivors, taken when they landed at Roissy, with the headline: 'Not so Innocent Victims'. In his editorial, Jerome Dupuy singled out the Thai government for its lenient attitude to prostitution and drugs, as well as for its frequent breaches of democracy. As for Paris-Match, under the headline 'Carnage at Krabi', came a full account of the 'night of horror'. They had managed to procure photos, which, it has to be said, were of pretty poor quality - black and white photocopies sent by fax -they could have been photos of just about anything, you could barely make out the bodies. In the same issue, they published the confessions of a sex tourist - who actually had nothing to do with the events: he was a freelance who operated mostly in the Philippines. Jacques Chirac had immediately made a statement in which, though he expressed his revulsion for the attack, he condemned the 'unacceptable behaviour of some of our fellow citizens abroad'. Speaking in the wake of the events, Lionel Jospin reiterated that a law existed to crack down on sex tourism, even when the victims were consenting adults. The

articles which followed, in Le Figaro and Le Monde, wondered what means should be used to fight this plague, and the position the international community should adopt.

In the days that followed, Jean-Yves tried to get in touch with Gottfried Rembke by telephone; eventually, he succeeded. The head of TUI was sorry, truly sorry, but there was nothing he could do. In any case, as a tourist destination, Thailand was out of the question for several decades. Above and beyond that, the articles in the French press had had certain repercussions in Germany; it's true that opinion there was more divided, but the majority of the public nonetheless condemned sex tourism. Under the circumstances, he preferred to withdraw from the project.

Chapter 2

I no more understood the reasons for my return to Paris than I had the reasons for my transfer to Bangkok. I was little liked by the hospital staff, they probably found me too inert; even in hospital, even on your deathbed, you are forced to play the part. Medical personnel like patients to put up a certain amount of resistance, to show a wilfulness which they can do their utmost to break, for the good of the patient, naturally. I manifested nothing of the sort. You could roll me on to my side ready for an injection and come back three hours later: I would still be in exactly the same position. The night before my departure, I banged roughly into one of the doors in the hospital corridor as I was trying to find the toilets. In the morning, my face was covered in blood, there was a gash above my eyebrow; I had to be cleaned, have a dressing put on. It hadn't occurred to me to call a nurse; in fact, I hadn't felt a thing.

The flight was a neutral period of time; I'd lost even the habit of smoking. By the baggage carousel, I shook Jean-Yves's hand; then I took a taxi to the Avenue de Choisy.

I immediately noticed that something wasn't right, that it would never be right. I didn't unpack. I walked around the apartment, a plastic bag in one hand, picking up all the photos of Valerie I could find. Most of them had been taken at her parents' in Brittany, on the beach or in the garden. There were also a few erotic photos that I had taken in the flat; I liked to watch her masturbate, I found her movements beautiful.

I sat on the sofa and dialled a number which I had been given to use in case of emergencies, twenty-four hours a day. It was a sort of crisis unit which had been set up especially to care for the survivors of the attack. It was based in a wing of the Sainte-Anne Hospital.

Most of the people who had asked to go there really were in a sad state: despite massive doses of tranquillisers, they had nightmares every night, every time there were screams, worried shouts, tears. When I met them in the corridors I was struck by their distressed, panic-stricken faces; they seemed to be literally eaten up by fear. And that fear, I thought, would end only with their lives.

For my part, more than anything, I felt terribly weary. In general I only got up to drink a cup of Nescafe or nibble a few biscuits; meals were not compulsory, nor were the therapeutic activities. Even so, I underwent a series of tests, and three days after my arrival I had an interview with a psychiatrist; the tests had revealed 'extremely weakened reactivity'. I was not in pain, but I did, in fact, feel weakened; I felt weaker than it was possible to feel. He asked me what I intended to do. I replied, 'Wait'. I showed myself to be reasonably optimistic; I told him that all this sadness would come to an end, that I would find happiness again, but that I had to wait a while. He didn't seem really convinced. He was a man of about fifty, with a plump, cheerful face, absolutely clean-shaven.

After a week, they transferred me to a new psychiatric hospital, this time for a lengthy stay. I had to stay there for a little over three months. To my great surprise, I met the same psychiatrist there. It was hardly surprising, he told me; this was where his surgery was based. Helping crisis victims was only a temporary assignment, something of a speciality in his case, in fact — he had already been on a committee set up after the bombing of the Saint-Michel RER station.

He didn't really talk like a typical psychiatrist, at least I found him bearable. I remember he talked to me about 'freeing oneself from attachments': it sounded like some Buddhist bullshit. Freeing what? I was nothing more than an attachment. Inclined to the transitory by nature, I had become attached to a transitory thing, as was my nature -none of this demanded any particular comment. Had I been inclined towards the eternal by nature, I went on, in order to fuel the conversation, I would have become attached to things eternal. Apparently his technique worked well with survivors haunted by fears of mutilation and death. 'These sufferings do not belong to you, they are not truly yours; they are merely passing phantoms in your mind,' he told people; and in the end, they believed him.

I don't know at what point I began to become aware of the situation — but in any case, it was only episodic. There were still long periods - in fact there still are - when Valerie is categorically not dead. In the beginning I could consciously prolong these without the slightest effort. I remember the first time I found it difficult, when I truly felt the weight of reality; it was just after a visit from Jean-Yves. It was a fraught moment; there were memories which I found difficult to deny. I didn't ask him to come back.

Marie-Jeanne's visit, on the other hand, did me good. She didn't say much, she talked a bit about the atmosphere at work; I told her straight away that I wouldn't be coming back, because I was going to move to Krabi. She acquiesced without comment. 'Don't worry,' I told her, 'everything will be fine.' She looked at me with mute compassion; strangely, I actually think that she believed me.

The visit from Valerie's parents was probably the most painful; the psychiatrist must have told them that I was going through a period of denial. As a result, Valerie's mother cried almost the whole time; her father didn't seem very comfortable either. They had also come to iron out some practical details, to bring me a suitcase containing my personal belongings. They imagined I wouldn't want to keep the apartment in the 13th arrondissement. 'Of course not', I said, 'of course we'll deal with that later.' At that point Valerie's mother began to cry again.

Life goes by effortlessly in an institution: there, for the most part, human needs are satisfied. I had rediscovered Questions pour un champion, it was the only show I watched, I no longer took any interest in the news. A lot of the other residents spent the entire day in front of the television. I wasn't all that keen, really: everything was moving too quickly. I believed that, if I could remain calm, avoid thinking as much as possible, matters would sort themselves out in the end.

One morning in April, I found out that matters had, in effect, sorted themselves out and that I would soon be able to leave. This seemed to me to complicate things rather: I would have to find a hotel room, create a neutral environment. At least I had money, that was something at least. 'You have to look on the bright side,' I said to one of the nurses. She seemed surprised, perhaps because this was the first time I had ever spoken to her.

There is no specific treatment for denial, the psychiatrist explained to me at our last interview; it is not really a disorder of mood, but a problem of perception. He had kept me in hospital all this time chiefly because he was worried about the possible risk of a suicide attempt — they are quite common in cases of sudden, brutal realisations; but now I was out of danger. I see, I said. I see.

Chapter 3

A week after being discharged from hospital, I took a flight back to Bangkok. I had no particular plans. If we had an ideal nature, we could satisfy ourselves with the movements of the sun. The seasons were too distinct in Paris, they were a source of agitation, of insecurity. In Bangkok, the sun rose at six o'clock, it set at six o'clock; in the intervening time, it followed an unchanging course. There was, apparently, a monsoon season, but I had never witnessed it. The bustle of the city existed, but I couldn't clearly grasp the rationale behind it, it was more a sort of natural state. Undoubtedly all of these people had a destiny, a life, inasmuch as their incomes permitted; but for all I knew, they could just as easily have been a pack of lemmings.

I took a room at the Amari Boulevard; most of the guests in the hotel were Japanese businessmen. This was where we had stayed, Valerie, Jean-Yves and I, on our last visit; it wasn't really a good idea. Two days later, I moved to the Grace Hotel; it was only about ten metres down the road, but the atmosphere was noticeably different. It was probably the last place in Bangkok where you could still meet Arab sex tourists. They hugged the walls, staying holed up in the hotel - which had a discotheque and its own massage parlour. You spotted them in the surrounding alleys where there were stalls selling kebabs and long-distance call centres; but, further afield, nothing. I realised that without intending to, I had moved closer to the Bumrungrad Hospital.

It is certainly possible to remain alive animated simply by a desire for vengeance; many people have lived that way. Islam had wrecked my life, and Islam was certainly something which I could hate; in the days that followed, I devoted myself to trying to feel hatred for Muslims. I was quite good at it, and I started to follow the international news again. Every time I heard that a Palestinian terrorist, or a Palestinian child or a pregnant Palestinian woman had been gunned down in the Gaza Strip, I felt a quiver of enthusiasm at the thought that it meant one less Muslim. Yes, it was possible to live like this.