Siem Reap, Hotel «Golden Banana»
Scene 4
When a hotel is named «Golden Banana», then it has a reputation to lose. The employees of the house were young and beautiful, heavenly smiling beings that were friendly, yet superficial – one got the sneaking suspicion they were thinking and smiling about quite a different matter.
As he dived to the bottom of the pool, the thought of his cook Odette flashed through Maille's mind: he visualized her tough, calloused hands and how she pared the flesh of a head of veal. Quite evidently he was hungry – indeed so ravenous that he took a bite subconsciously of that meat and, in the process, a big gulp of the sweetish tasting water of the swimming pool. The white shark – yes, that's how he sometimes felt among all those silken brown bodies that peopled lands such as Cambodia. Only his lousy teeth did not fit the metaphor.