Michel Houellebecq - Platform

Plus sa vie est infame, plus I'homme y tient; elle est alors une protestation, une vengeance de tous les instants.

Honore de Balzac

(The more contemptible his life, the more a man clings to it; it thus becomes a protest, a retribution for every moment.)

Part 1 Thai Tropic

Chapter 1

Father died last year. I don't subscribe to the theory by which we only become truly adult when our parents die; we never become truly adult. As I stood before the old man's coffin, unpleasant thoughts came to me. He had made the most of life, the old bastard; he was a clever cunt. 'You had kids, you fucker...' I said spiritedly, 'you shoved your fat cock in my mother's cunt.' Well, I was a bit tense, I have to admit; it's not every day you have a death in the family. I'd refused to see the corpse. I'm forty, I've already had plenty of opportunity to see corpses; nowadays, I prefer to avoid them. It was this that had always dissuaded me from getting a pet.

I'm not married, either. I've had the opportunity several times, but I never took it. That said, I really love women. It's always been a bit of a regret, for me, being single. It's particularly awkward on holiday. People are suspicious of single men on holiday, after they get to a certain age: they assume that they're selfish, and probably a bit pervy; I can't say they're wrong.

After the funeral, I went back to the house where my father lived out his last years. The body had been discovered a week earlier. A little dust had already settled around the furniture and in the corners of the rooms; I noticed a cobweb on the window frame. So time, entropy, all that stuff, was slowly taking the place over. The freezer was empty. The kitchen cupboards mostly contained single-serving Weight Watchers meals-in-a-bag, tins of flavoured protein and energy bars. I wandered through the rooms nibbling a magnesium-enriched biscuit. In the boiler room, I rode the exercise bike for a while. My father was over seventy and in much better physical shape than I was. He did an hour of rigorous exercise every day, lengths of the pool twice a week. At weekends, he played tennis and went cycling with people his age; I'd met some of them at the funeral. 'He coached the lot of us!...' a gynaecologist exclaimed. 'He was ten years older than us, and on a two kilometre hill, he'd be a whole minute ahead.' Father, father, I said to myself, how great was your vanity! To the left of my field of vision I could make out a weightlifting bench, barbells. I quickly visualised a moron in shorts - his face wrinkled, but otherwise very like mine - building up his pectorals with hopeless vigour. Father, I said to myself, Father, you have built your house upon sand. I was still pedalling but I was starting to feel breathless, my thighs ached a little, though I was only on level one. Thinking back to the ceremony, I was aware that I had made an excellent general impression. I'm always clean shaven, my shoulders are narrow and when I developed a bald spot at about the age of thirty, I decided to cut my hair very short. I usually wear a grey suit and sober ties, and I don't look particularly cheerful. With my short hair, my lightweight glasses and my sullen expression, my head bowed a little to listen to a Christian funeral-hymn medley, I felt perfectly at ease with the situation - much more at ease than I would have done at a wedding, for example. Funerals, clearly, were my thing. I stopped pedalling, coughed gently. Night was falling quickly over the surrounding meadows. Near the concrete structure which housed the boiler, you could make out a brownish stain which had been poorly cleaned. It was there that my father had been discovered, his skull shattered, wearing shorts and an 'I love New York' sweatshirt. He had been dead for three days, according to the coroner. There was the possibility, very remote, that what happened was an accident, he could have slipped in a puddle of oil or something. That said, the floor of the room was completely dry; and the skull had been broken in several places, some of the brain had even spilled on to the floor; in all probability, what we were dealing with was murder. Captain Chaumont of the Cherbourg police was supposed to come over to see me that evening.

Back in the living room, I turned on the television, a 32-inch Sony widescreen with surround sound and an integrated DVD player. There was an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess on TF1, one of my favourite series: two very muscular women wearing metallic bras and miniskirts made of animal hide were challenging each other with their sabres. 'Your reign has gone on too long, Tagratha!' cried the brunette, 'I am Xena, warrior of the Western Plains!' There was a knock at the door; I turned the sound down.

Outside, it was dark. The wind gently shook the branches dripping with rain. A girl of about twenty-five, she looked north-African, was standing in the doorway. 'I'm Aicha,' she said, 'I cleaned for Monsieur Renault twice a week. I've just come to get my things.'

'Well...' I said, '... well.' I made a vague gesture, something intended to be welcoming. She came in, glanced quickly at the television screen: the two warriors were now wrestling right next to a volcano; I suppose the spectacle had its stimulating side, for certain lesbians. 'I don't want to disturb you,' said Aicha, 'I'll only be five minutes.'

'You're not disturbing me,' I said, 'in fact, nothing disturbs me.' She nodded her head as though she understood, her eyes lingered on my face; she was probably gauging my physical resemblance to my father, possibly inferring a degree of moral resemblance. After studying me for a few moments, she turned and climbed the stairs that lead to the bedrooms. 'Take your time,' I said, my voice barely audible. 'Take all the time you need...' She didn't answer, didn't pause in her ascent; she had probably not even heard me. I sat down on the sofa again, exhausted by the confrontation. I should have offered to take her coat; that's what you usually do, offer to take someone's coat. I realised that the room was terribly cold - a damp, penetrating cold, the cold of a cellar. I didn't know how to light the boiler, I had no wish to try, now my father was dead. I had intended to leave straight away. I turned over to FR3 just in time to catch the last part of Questions pour un champion. At the moment when Nadege from Val-Fourre told Julien Lepers that she was going to risk her title for the third time, Aicha appeared on the stairs, a small travel bag on her shoulder. I turned off the television and walked quickly towards her. 'I've always admired Julien Lepers.' I told her, 'Even if he doesn't know the actual town or village the contestant is from, he always manages to say something about the departement or the region; he always knows a bit about the climate and the local beauty spots. Above all, he understands life: the contestants are human beings to him, he understands their problems and their joys. Nothing of what constitutes human reality for the contestants is entirely strange or intimidating to him. Whoever the contestant is, he manages to get them to talk about their work, their family, their hobbies - everything, in fact, that in their eyes goes to make up a life. The contestants are often members of a brass band or a choral society, they're involved in organising the local fete, or they devote themselves to some charitable cause. Their children are often there in the studio. You generally get the impression from the programme that these people are happy, and you feel better, happier yourself. Don't you think?'

She looked at me unsmilingly; her hair in a chignon, she wore little makeup, her clothes were pretty drab - a serious girl. She hesitated for a moment before saying in a low voice which was a little hoarse with shyness: 'I was very fond of your father.' I couldn't think of anything to say; it struck me as bizarre, but just about possible. The old man must have had stories to tell: he'd travelled in Colombia, Kenya or I don't know where; he'd had the opportunity to watch rhinoceros through binoculars. Every time we met, he limited himself to making ironic comments about the fact that I was a civil servant, about the job security that went with it. 'Got yourself a cushy little number, there...' he would say, making no attempt to hide his scorn; families are always a bit difficult. 'I'm studying nursing,' Aicha went on, 'but since I stopped living with my parents I have to work as a cleaner.' I racked my brains to think of an appropriate response: should I enquire as to how expensive rents were in Cherbourg? I finally opted for a 'I see...', into which I tried to introduce a certain worldly wisdom. This seemed to satisfy her and she walked to the door. I pressed my face to the glass to watch her Volkswagen Polo do a U-turn in the muddy track. FR3 was showing some rustic made-for-TV movie set in the nineteenth century, starring Tcheky Karyo as a farm labourer. Between piano lessons, the daughter of the landowner - he was played by Jean-Pierre Marielle - accorded the handsome peasant certain liberties. Their clinches took place in a stable; I dozed off just as Tcheky Karyo was energetically ripping off her organza knickers. The last thing I remember was a close-up of a small group of pigs.