They'd been roaming on Gilles's motorbike, nothing more than a Sunday drive, and when he saw the old house, with its stupendous view of the plains, Gilles said to himself, "This is the house where I wish to pass my retraite." Buying property is a complicated business for the foreigner in Thailand, but Gilles was patient: it was in his retraite that he, like every Frenchman, imagined that his real life would begin. He signed the papers with a vision in his sleek, seal-like head: a sunny afternoon in cool season; Gilles in the garden, pottering away; and Martiya looking out on him indulgently from the window of the kitchen, where she was preparing a tasty Dyalo daube. But when Martiya left him, Gilles took stock not only of this failed romance but also of the general trajectory of his life and decided to leave the University of Chiang Mai, where he had spent the last five years as a professor of botany, a specialist in the life cycle of bamboo. He found a position at the University of Grenoble, and returned to France.
