An engineer dies during an expedition to purify a river in Cambodia. His team of four geologists faces a commissioned inquiry with minutely detailed accounts which fail to elucidate the mysterious tragedy. Rational thought and scientific jargon cloud the way to real understanding. Only the Asian engineer called in at the last minute perceives what is essential.

« CARLA VAN SAIKIN : They brought his bones back from the Mekong. In the final analysis, he was properly identified. Yes, it's him, yes, that's his sternum. "Your husband, Toni van Saikin, died in the course of the expedition and here is the proof." That's something he and I had in common : this enormous love, this passion for precision. Just as he was about to leave, I said to him : "The alluvium of these rivers contains natural properties I would like to analyse, I'd like to reduce them to a pure state, anyway, you'll see for yourself, and you'll write me…" Our last words! »

"A massive and finally thrilling piece of post-modern writing about the relationship between man and nature, the decay of social idealism, the fact of death, and - above all - the moral and intellectual failure of late 20th century academic science (...) a text that confronts, with rare courage, some of the most frightening questions facing our civilisation as this century ends." Joyce McMillan, spectrum, Edinburgh, July 14, 1996.