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otherness. — RACHID AMIROU

    I woke up at about noon. Now, it was the air conditioning that was making a low buzzing sound, but my headache was a little better. Lying across the king-size * bed, I was aware of the mechanics of the tour, the issues at stake. The group, as yet amorphous, would transform itself into a living community. As of this afternoon I would have to start positioning myself; for now, my mission was to choose a pair of shorts for the walk on the khlongs . I opted for a longish pair in blue denim, not too tight, which I complemented with a Radiohead T-shirt. Then I stuffed some odds and ends into a knapsack. In the bathroom mirror, I contemplated myself disgustedly. My anxious bureaucratic face clashed horribly with what I was wearing, and I looked exactly like what I was: a forty-something civil servant on vacation, trying to pretend he's young; it was pretty demoralizing. I walked over to the window and opened the curtains wide. From the twenty-seventh floor, the view was extraordinary. The imposing mass of the Marriott Hotel rose up on the left like a chalk cliff, striated by horizontal black lines: rows of windows halfhidden behind balconies. The sun, at its zenith, harshly emphasized planes and ridges. Directly ahead, reflections multiplied themselves into infinity on a complex structure of cones and pyramids of bluish glass. On the horizon, the colossal concrete cubes of the Grand Plaza President were stacked on top of one another like the levels of a step pyramid. On the right, above the green, shimmering space of Lumphini Park, you could make out, like an ocher citadel, the angular towers of the Dusit Thani. The sky was a pure blue. Slowly I drank a Singha Gold while meditating on the notion of irreparability.
    Downstairs, the guide was doing a sort of roll call, so she could hand out breakfast coupons * This is how I found out that the two bimbos were called Babette and Léa. Babette had curly blonde hair—well, not naturally curly, it had probably been permed. She had beautiful breasts, the slut, clearly visible under her see-through top —an ethnic print from Trois Suisses, most likely. Her trousers, in the same fabric, were just as see-through; you could easily make out the white lace of her panties. Léa, very dark, was skinnier; she made up for this with the pretty curve of her butt, nicely accentuated by her black cycling shorts, and with a thrusting bust, the tips of which were squeezed into a bright yellow bustier. A tiny diamond adorned her slender navel. I stared attentively at the two sluts so that I could forget them forever.
    The distribution of the vouchers continued. The guide, Sôn, called each of the group members by their first name; it made me sick. We were adults , for fuck's sake. I felt a ray of hope when she referred to the retirees as "Monsieur et Madame Lobligeois"; but immediately she added, with a delighted smile, "Josette and René." Unbelievable, but true nevertheless. "My name is René,'' confirmed the old man, addressing himself to no one in particular. "Tough," I muttered. His wife shot him a look as if to say "Shut up, René, you're annoying everyone." I suddenly realized that he reminded me of "Monsieur Plus" in the Bahlsen cookie ads. It might have been him, too. I directed this question to his wife: had they, in the past, ever worked as character actors? Absolutely not, she informed me, they had run a charcuterie . Yeah, that would probably fit too. So, this cheery, jolly little fellow was a former pork butcher (in Clamart, his wife explained); some unexceptional establishment devoted to feeding the proletariat had been the previous theater for his antics and quips.
    After that, there were two other couples, less distinctive, who seemed to be connected in some obscure way. Had they already been on vacation together? Had they met each other over breakfast ?* At this point in the tour, anything was possible. The first couple was all the more unappealing. The