Tourism and Authenticity Theme Analysis

The first I heard of the beach was in Bangkok, on the Khao San Road. Khao San Road was backpacker land. Almost all the buildings had been converted into guest-houses, there were long-distance-telephone booths with air-con, the cafés showed brand-new Hollywood films on video, and you couldn’t walk ten feet without passing a bootleg-tape stall. The main function of the street was as a decompression chamber for those about to leave or enter Thailand, a halfway house between East and West.

The map was beautifully colored in. The islands’ perimeters were drawn in green biro and little blue pencil waves bobbed in the sea. A compass sat in the top-right-hand corner, carefully segmented into sixteen points, each with an arrow tip and appropriate bearing. At the top of the map it read “Gulf of Thailand” in thick red marker. A thinner red pen had been used for the islands’ names. It was so carefully drawn that I had to smile. It reminded me of geography homework and tracing paper.[…]

Then, on one of a cluster of small islands I noticed a black mark. An X mark. I looked closer. Written underneath in tiny letters was the word “Beach.”

They were Harvard students. Sammy was studying law, Zeph was studying Afro-American literature. Their surf act was a reaction to the condescending Europeans they kept meeting in Asia. “It’s a protest against bigotry,” Zeph explained, pulling knots out of his tangled blond locks. “Europeans think all Americans are stupid, so we act stupid to confirm your prejudices.”

“So jump,” I heard my voice say.

I paused, wondering if I’d heard myself correctly, and then I did. I jumped.

Everything happened as things are supposed to happen while one falls. I had time to think. […]

Then I hit the pool, my T-shirt shot up my chest and jammed under my neck, and seconds later I bobbed to the surface. The basin was so deep I never even touched the bottom.

At first glance the camp was close to how I’d imagined it might be. There was a large, dusty clearing surrounded by the rocket-ship trees and dotted with makeshift bamboo huts. A few canvas tents looked incongruous, but otherwise it was very like the kind of South-East-Asian village I’d seen many times before. At the far end was a larger construction, a longhouse, and beside it the stream from the waterfall re-emerged, bending around to run along the edge of the clearing. From the straightness of its banks, it had obviously been deliberately diverted.

It was only after taking all this in that I noticed there was something strange about the light. The forest had been both dark and bright by turns, but here everything was lit in an unchanging twilight, more like dusk than midday.

“Of course this is more than a beach resort. But at the same time, it is just a beach resort. We come here to relax by a beautiful beach, but it isn’t a beach resort because we’re trying to get away from beach resorts. Or we’re trying to make a place that won’t turn into a beach resort. See?”

I stubbed out the cigarette. “And the zeros. What are they about?”

Keaty smiled. “That was Daffy’s idea. It’s a date.”

“A date? The date of what?”

“The date they first arrived.”

“I thought that was eighty-nine.”

“It was.” Keaty stood up and patted the stabilizer fin. “But Daffy used to call it year zero.”

Watching it, I realized I’d never killed anything as large before, or anything that fought so violently for its survival. As if to complement my thought, the shark increased the intensity of its thrashing, and became obscured behind a cloud of disturbed sand and shredded seaweed. Occasionally, like in a comic-book fight, its tail or head would appear out of the cloud before darting back inside again. The sight made me grin, and salt-water eased through the sides of my mouth. I resurfaced. I needed to spit and I needed some air. Then, with no intention of going near it while it was in that frantic state, I floated face down and waited for it to die.

It took me over two hours to get to sleep that night, and the thoughts that kept me awake were as unusual as the rest of the day had been. For the first time since arriving on the beach, I started thinking about home. Almost, in fact, wishing I could return. Not to leave the beach permanently — just to contact a few important people and let them know I was still alive and OK. My family particularly, and a few of my friends. I suppose it may have had as much to do with my earlier conversation with Françoise as with the subsequent unsettling events. The thought of parents had hovered in the back of my mind, reluctant to fall under the beach’s amnesiac spell.

“Living with death. Time-limits on everything you enjoy. Sitting on a beautiful beach, waiting for a fucking time-limit to come up. Affecting the way you look at the sand and the sunsets and the way you taste the rice. Then moving on and waiting for it to happen all over again. For eleven years!” Mister Duck shivered. “… Then to have that cancer lifted. To think you’ve found a cure… That’s what you can’t imagine, Rich.”

I’m fine. I have bad dreams, but I never saw Mister Duck again. I play video games. I smoke a little dope. I got my thousand-yard stare. I carry a lot of scars.

I like the way that sounds.

I carry a lot of scars.