Platform (26 page)

The spirit of Aurore is the art of marrying know-how, tradition and innovation with rigour, imagination and humanism, to attain a certain form of excellence. The men and women of Aurore are the repositories of a unique cultural heritage: the art of welcoming. They know the rituals and the customs which transform life into the art of living, and the simplest of services into a privileged moment. It is a profession, it is an art: it is their gift. Creating the best in order to share it, getting in touch with the essential through hospitality, devising spaces of pleasure: these are what make Aurore a taste of France throughout the world.

He suddenly realised that this nauseating spiel could just as easily apply to a chain of well-run brothels; maybe there was a card here he could play with the German tour operators. Defying all reason, Germans still thought of France as the country of romance, of the art of love. If a major German tour operator agreed to include the Aphrodite clubs in their catalogue, it would mark a turning-point; no one in the industry had yet succeeded in achieving such a thing. He was already in contact with Neckermann over the sale of the North African clubs. But there was also TUI, who had turned down their initial approaches because they were already well established in the bottom end of the market; they might be interested in a more targeted product.

Chapter 11

First thing Monday morning, he set about making some initial approaches. From the start, he was lucky: Gottfried Rembke, president of the board of TUI, was coming to spend a few days in France at the beginning of the month; Rembke would pencil them in for lunch. In the meantime, if they could put their proposal in writing he would be delighted to give it his careful consideration. Jean-Yves went into Valerie's office to tell her the news; she froze. The annual turnover of TUI was six billion francs, three times that of Neckermann, six times that of Nouvelles Frontieres; they were the largest tour operator in the world.

They devoted the rest of the week to writing up a sales pitch that was as detailed as possible. Financially, the project didn't require substantial investment: there were some small changes in furnishings, the hotels would definitely have to be redecorated to give them a more 'erotic' feel — they had quickly settled on the term 'friendly tourism', which would be used in all of the business documentation. The most important point was that they could expect a significant reduction in their fixed costs: no more sporting activities, no more children's clubs. No more salaries to be paid to registered paediatric nurses or windsurfing instructors; nor to specialists in ikebana, ceramics or painting on silk. After running a first financial simulation, Jean-Yves realised to his surprise that, allowing for depreciation, the annual costs of the clubs would drop by 25 per cent. He redid the calculations three times and each time got the same result. It was all the more striking because the catalogue rates he intended proposing were 25 per cent above the category norm - essentially pegging the rates with those of the mid-range Club Med. Profits leapt by 50 per cent. 'Your boyfriend's a genius . . .' he told Valerie, who had just come into his office.

The atmosphere in the office at this time was a little odd. The clashes which had taken place on the streets of Evry the previous weekend were not uncommon; but the death-toll - seven - was particularly high. Many of the employees, especially those who had worked there longest, lived in the vicinity of the offices. At first they had lived in the apartment blocks that had been built at much the same time as the offices; later, as often as not, they had borrowed in order to build. 'I feel sorry for them,' Valerie told me; 'I really do. They all dreamed of setting themselves up out of town, somewhere peaceful; but they can't just leave now, they'd end up losing a chunk of their pensions. I was talking to the switchboard operator: she has three years before she retires. Her dream is to buy a house in the Dordogne; she's from there originally. But a lot of English people have moved there and the prices there now are outrageous, even for some miserable dump. And on the other hand, the price of her house here has collapsed, everyone knows that it's a dangerous suburb nowadays, she'd have to sell it for a third of its value.

'Another thing that surprised me is the second-floor secretarial pool. I went up there at half-past five to get a memo typed up: they were all on the internet. They told me that they all do their shopping that way now, it's safer; they go home, lock themselves in and wait for the delivery man.'

In the weeks that followed, this obsessive fear did not fade, if anything it increased slightly. In the papers now it was teachers being stabbed, nursery school teachers being raped, fire engines attacked with Molotov cocktails, handicapped people thrown through the windows of trains because they had 'looked the wrong way' at some gang leader. Le Figaro was having a field day: reading it every day, you got the impression of an unstoppable escalation to civil war. True, this was the run-up to an election and law and order was the only issue likely to bother Lionel Jospin. In any case, it seemed very unlikely that the French would vote for Jacques Chirac again: he seemed to be such an idiot it was affecting the country's image. Whenever you saw this lanky half-wit, hands clasped behind his back, visiting some country fair, or taking part in a heads of state summit, you felt sort of ashamed, you felt embarrassed for him. The Left, obviously incapable of curbing the rising tide of violence, behaved well: they kept a low profile, agreed that the figures were bad, very bad even, called on others not to make political capital of it, reminded people that when they'd been in power the Right hadn't done any better. There was just one little slip, a ridiculous editorial by Jacques Attali. According to him, the violence of young people on housing estates was a 'cry for help'. The shop windows of the Champs-Elysees, he wrote, constituted so many 'obscene displays flaunted at their misery'. Neither should it be forgotten that the suburbs were a 'mosaic of peoples and ethnicities, who had come with their traditions and their beliefs to forge new cultures and to reinvent the art of living together'. Valerie stared at me in surprise: this was the first time I had burst out laughing while reading L'Express.

'If he wants to get elected,’ Jean-Yves said, handing her the article, 'Jospin would be well advised to shut him up until the second round.'

'You're clearly getting a taste for strategy . . .'

Despite everything, I too was beginning to feel anxiety gnawing at me. Valerie was working late again, it was rare for her to get home before nine o'clock. It might be wise to buy a gun. I had a contact, the brother of an artist whose exhibition I had organised two years before. He wasn't really part of the scene, he'd just been involved in a couple of scams. He was more of an inventor, a sort of jack-of-all-trades. He had recently told his brother that he'd discovered a way of forcing the new identity cards which were supposed to be impossible to fake.

'Out of the question,' Valerie said immediately. 'I'm not in any danger: I never leave the office during the day and at night I always take a cab home, regardless of what time I leave.'

'There's still the traffic lights.'

'There's only one set of traffic lights between the office and the motorway. After that, I take the exit at Porte d'ltalie and I'm almost home. Our area isn't dangerous.'

It was true: in Chinatown, strictly speaking, there were very few assaults or rapes. I didn't understand how they managed it, did they have their own neighbourhood watch? In any case, they had noticed us as soon as we moved in; there were at least twenty people who regularly greeted us. It was rare for Europeans to move in here, we were in a very small minority in the building. Sometimes, posters written in Chinese characters seemed to extend invitations to meetings or parties; but what meetings? what parties? It's possible to live among the Chinese for years without understanding anything about the way they live.

Nevertheless, I phoned my contact who promised to ask around. He called me back two days later. I could have A serious piece, in very good nick, for ten thousand francs

- the price included a healthy quantity of ammunition. All I would have to do was clean it regularly to make sure it didn't jam if ever I needed to use it. I talked to Valerie again, who refused again. 'I couldn't,' she said, 'I wouldn't have the courage to pull the trigger.' 'Even if your life was in danger?' She shook her head, 'No . . .' she repeated, 'It's not possible.' I didn't insist. 'When I was little,' she told me later, 'I couldn't even kill a chicken.' To be honest, neither could I; but a man, now that seemed significantly easier.

Curiously, I was not afraid for my own sake. It's true I had very little contact with the barbarian hordes, except perhaps occasionally at lunchtime when I went for a walk around the Forum des Halles, where the subtle infiltration of the security forces (the riot squad, uniformed police officers, security guards employed by local shopkeepers) eliminated all danger, in theory. So I wandered casually through the reassuring topography of uniforms; I felt as though I was in Thoiry safari park. In the absence of the forces of law and order, I knew, I would be easy prey, though of little interest; very conventional, my middle-management uniform had very little to tempt them. For my part, I felt no attraction for this youthful product of the dangerous classes; I didn't understand them, and made no attempt to do so. I didn't sympathise with their passions nor with their values. For myself, I wouldn't have lifted a finger to own a Rolex, a pair of Nikes or a BMW Z3; in fact, I had never succeeded in identifying the slightest difference between designer goods and non-designer goods. In the eyes of the world, I was clearly wrong. I was aware of this: I was in a minority, and consequently in the wrong. There had to be a difference between Yves Saint-Laurent shirts and other shirts, between Gucci moccasins and Andre moccasins. I was alone in not perceiving this difference; it was an infirmity which I could not cite as grounds for condemning the world. Does one ask a blind man to set himself up as an expert on post-impressionist painting? Through my blindness, however involuntary, I set myself apart from a living human reality powerful enough to incite both devotion and crime. These youths, through their half-savage instincts, undoubtedly discerned the presence of beauty; their desire was laudable, and perfectly in keeping with social norms; it was merely a question of rectifying the inappropriate way in which it was expressed.

Thinking about it carefully, however, I had to admit that Valerie and Marie-Jeanne, the only two long-term female presences in my life, manifested a complete indifference to Kenzo blouses and Prada handbags; in fact, as far as I could make out, they bought any old brand at random. Jean-Yves, the highest paid individual I knew, exhibited a preference for Lacoste polo-necks, but he did it somewhat mechanically, out of habit, without even checking to see whether the reputation of his favourite brand had not been surpassed by some new challenger. Some of the women at the Ministry of Culture whom I knew by sight (though I regularly forgot their names, their job tides, even their faces, between each encounter) bought designer clothes; but they were invariably by some young, obscure designer who had only one outlet in Paris, and I knew perfectly well that they would not hesitate to abandon them if by chance they ever found a wider public.

The power of Nike, Adidas, Armani, Vuitton was, nonetheless, indisputable; I could find proof of this whenever I needed simply by glancing through the business section of Le Figaro. But who, exactly - aside from youths on housing estates - assured the success of these brands? Clearly there had to be whole sectors of society who were still alien to me; unless, more prosaically, they were bought by rich people in the third world. I had travelled little, lived little and it was becoming increasing clear that I understood little about the modern world.

On September 27, there was a meeting of the eleven Eldorador holiday club managers, who had come to Evry for the occasion. It was a routine meeting which took place every year on the same date, to assess the figures for the summer and consider improvements which might be made. However, this time, it had particular significance. Firstly, three of the resorts were about to change hands — the contract with Neckermann had just been signed. Secondly, the managers of four of the remaining villages -those which fell into the 'Aphrodite' category - had to prepare themselves to fire half of their staff.

Valerie was not present for the meeting; she had a meeting with an Italtrav representative to present the scheme to him. The Italian market was much more fragmented than those of Northern Europe. Italtrav might well be the largest tour operator in Italy, but its turnover was less than a tenth of TUI's; an agreement with them would, nonetheless, bring in valuable customers.

She came back from her appointment at about 7 p.m., Jean-Yves was alone in his office, the meeting had just ended.

'How did they take it?'

'Badly. I know how they feel, too; they must think they're next for the chop.'

'Are you intending to replace the resort managers?'

'It's a new project; we'd be better off starting out with new teams.'

His voice was very calm. Valerie looked at him in surprise: lately he had become more assured - and tougher.

'I'm convinced that we're going to be a success, now. When we broke for lunch, I was talking to the manager at Boca Chica, in the Dominican Republic. I wanted to be clear in my mind about something; I wanted to know how he managed to have 90 per cent occupancy regardless of season. He dithered, he seemed embarrassed, talked about team work. In the end, I asked him straight out if he was allowing girls to go up to the guest rooms; I had a hard time getting- him to admit it, he was afraid I was going to put him on a disciplinary. I had to tell him that it didn't bother me at all, that in fact I thought it was an interesting initiative. At that point he confessed. He thought it was stupid that guests were renting rooms a mile away, often with no running water, and with the risk of being ripped off, when they had every comfort right there. I congratulated him and I promised him he'd keep his job as resort manager, even if he's the only one who does.'