Hector and the Search for Happiness (8 page)

Hector asked why there were so few trees in this country.

This time it was Marcel who explained. It was because of the embargo. This country had for a long time been run by quite bad people, but one day even worse people took over, which ended up by annoying countries like Hector’s. And so the presidents and prime ministers of those countries had got together and voted for an embargo to force the bad people to resign. An embargo is when a country isn’t allowed to buy from or sell to other countries, so that it becomes even poorer, and the inhabitants get angry and this forces their country’s leaders to behave properly or resign. The problem is that it never works, because in general the leaders of those countries couldn’t care less if their people starve, even the babies, whereas the people who voted for the embargo come from countries where people and babies are looked after, and they can’t understand it, and so the embargo continues and the babies grow thinner and their mothers are very sad.

It hadn’t been good for the trees either, because since the country was unable to buy oil or gas due to the embargo, people living in towns had had to go and cut wood in order to build fires to do their cooking. As a result, in many places there were no more trees. And this meant that the rain had washed away the soil and all that was left was big hills of rock, and rocks aren’t much use unless you like collecting them.

‘And now,’ Marcel said, ‘the United Nations wants to finance a reforestation project, but have you ever seen trees growing out of rock?’

Marcel didn’t look very happy as he was saying all this; he seemed a little angry at the United Nations (the people who had voted for the embargo), even though the bad people who’d been running the country had finally gone. But, if the bad people had gone, why did it seem as if things were not getting better? Marcel explained that the people here had elected a president who was a good man and had always been against the bad people who were there before, but that as soon as he became leader himself he’d become a bit like them.

Finally the road began to climb, and they came to a prettier area with trees and small villages, and Hector noticed that the people he saw along the roadside looked happier, and when the car slowed down to pass a donkey or a cart, the children didn’t come up to beg.

They stopped in front of a building next to a small church. Above it was written ‘Health Centre’ and outside on a bench in the shade lots of African women were waiting with their babies.

They smiled at Hector when they saw him go in with Jean-Michel, and Jean-Michel explained that they must think that Hector was a new doctor, which wasn’t entirely untrue after all, because, contrary to what some people say, psychiatrists are real doctors!

Inside there were some other young African women in white coats examining babies, and a young man, too. They looked very pleased to see Jean-Michel and Hector arrive. Jean-Michel explained that they were all nurses, but that they did a lot of the same things that doctors in Hector’s country do, and that he only went there to see children who had slightly more complicated illnesses. Because after going there, Jean-Michel had three more health centres to visit.

Hector left him to work and went outside to find Marcel smoking a pipe in the shade of the trees. He asked Marcel why people seemed happier here than in the city.

‘In the country you can always get by with a bit of land and some chickens. And families stay together, people support each other. In the city people can’t manage without money. And families crack under the strain, and there’s a lot of alcohol and drugs, and people see what they could buy if they only had the money. There aren’t as many temptations here.’

Hector told himself that this reminded him of at least three of the lessons he’d already written down.

But he had also learnt another:

He thought about everything he’d seen and heard since his arrival and wrote:

And this reminded him of the old Chinese monk’s life and the story of Ying Li’s family. And a little of Ying Li, too, of course.

D
USK was falling and they were on their way back to the city, because Jean-Michel said that it was better not to drive at night in this country,

You may have been wondering why Marcel was sitting in the car with a pump-action shotgun on his knees acting as a bodyguard. Why would anyone want to harm Jean-Michel who went all over the place trying to cure babies?

Here’s why. In this country a car was a highly prized object and it’s difficult to start modern cars without the ignition key. So here, criminals waited at places where you had to stop (not at traffic lights, as there was only one, but where a boulder was blocking the road for example), and then they came with their revolvers and made you get out of the car and they drove off with the car and the keys. The problem was that before stealing the car they would often kill the people inside because they didn’t want to be reported or simply because they were nervous, had drunk too much rum or beer or had taken harmful drugs.

‘It’s happening more and more,’ said Jean-Michel. ‘Every day criminals arrive from elsewhere because the police are less efficient here than in their own countries, and it’s easier not to get caught.’

‘It’s globalisation,’ said Marcel, laughing.

Police inefficiency was also the reason why people like Eduardo came here to do business, and, what’s more, it was often the police they came to do business with; it was more practical that way.

 

 

At the hotel bar, there were still some uniformed men in shorts, but not Eduardo, which was just as well because Hector sensed that Jean-Michel and Eduardo weren’t made to get on together.

Isidore, the barman who had a second job, looked pleased to see Hector again. He immediately served them a beer, which Hector thought was excellent, because in this country where nothing worked properly they still produced excellent beer.

Hector asked Jean-Michel if he was happy. This made Jean-Michel laugh. (Hector reflected later that this question tended to make men laugh but sometimes made women cry.)

‘I never ask myself that question, but I think I am. I do a job that I love, and that I know I do well, and, on top of that, I feel really useful over here. And as you’ve seen, I get on with the people here. We’re a real team.’

Jean-Michel drank some beer and then said, ‘Every day here has meaning.’

Hector found this very interesting because he also had a useful profession in his country, though sometimes, when all he saw were people who were unhappy for no apparent reason with no real disorders and whom he found it difficult to help, he wondered whether his life had any meaning, and that didn’t make him very happy.

‘Also,’ Jean-Michel said, ‘I feel loved for who I am.’

And perhaps by now you’ve realised that Jean-Michel and Marcel were more than just friends, or more than just a doctor and his bodyguard, and you’ve also understood why Jean-Michel was never very interested in girls. But he’d never talked to Hector about this before, and he didn’t really talk about it now, since there’s no need to explain everything to a friend who’s a psychiatrist (or to a friend who isn’t a psychiatrist for that matter).

Hector noticed that Jean-Michel glanced at him to see how he’d taken it, and that he was looking a little nervous. And so Hector said, ‘It’s true. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy.’

And then Jean-Michel smiled, and ordered two more beers, and they didn’t mention it again, because that’s the way men are.

 

 

Jean-Michel left and Hector went to his room to lie down for a bit before dinner. That evening he was going to the house of Marie-Louise, the fellow psychiatrist he’d met on the plane who’d invited him to meet her family.

His room was very nice if you like that sort of thing, with marble flooring and furniture of the kind you’d find at a château, except newer, and a red bathtub with gilt taps. Hector was resting on the bed when the telephone rang.

It was Clara. Hector had left her a message during the day, because she’d been in a meeting.

‘Are you enjoying yourself?’ she asked Hector.

This made Hector feel bad because it was the same question Édouard had whispered in his ear when he was speaking to Ying Li for the first time in the bar with soft lighting.

‘Yes, it’s very interesting.’

But at the same time, Hector felt awkward because of course he couldn’t tell her the most interesting thing. This was the first time he really felt that he was deceiving Clara.

‘And how about you? How are things at work?’

‘Oh, not bad, we had a good meeting.’

Clara explained that the name she’d chosen for the new pill had been approved by the directors. It was a triumph for her. Hector congratulated her.

It was all a bit flat. They continued to talk but as if they didn’t really have anything important or exciting to say and were just being polite. Finally they said goodbye and sent each other a kiss.

Hector fell back on the bed, and his head started to swim.

He’d just understood why he couldn’t forget Ying Li.

It wasn’t because she was very pretty, since Clara was pretty too. (Hector had often had pretty girlfriends — perhaps because he wasn’t very happy with his own physique and so he felt that being with a pretty girlfriend balanced that out.)

It wasn’t because he’d done with Ying Li what people in love do and it had been very intense, because frankly Hector had enough experience of that sort of thing not to fall in love so easily.

No, he was remembering the moment when he’d really fallen in love with Ying Li.

Perhaps you worked it out before he did, because, in matters of love, psychiatrists aren’t necessarily more intelligent than anyone else.

It was when Ying Li came out of the bathroom all happy and then suddenly became sad, when she understood that Hector had just understood.

It was when they had dinner together and Hector sensed that she was intimidated.

It was when she cried in his arms.

It was each time she was moved when she was with him.

Hector had fallen in love with Ying Li’s emotions, and that was a very profound feeling indeed.

‘H
ELP yourself to some more goat and sweet potato stew,’ said Marie-Louise.

And Hector did because it was very good. No wonder the wolf was so keen to eat the goat in Aesop’s fable, he said to himself.

There were a lot of people at the table: Marie-Louise’s mother, a tall, rather mournful lady; Marie-Louise’s sister and her husband; one of Marie-Louise’s younger brothers, and various cousins and friends, he wasn’t quite sure. The funny thing was that none of them were the same colour: Marie-Louise’s mother’s skin looked like Hector’s when he was tanned, her sister was darker, and the cousins were all different, the younger brother was dark like Marcel, and they were all extremely nice to Hector. On a sideboard stood a photograph of a handsome man in a smart suit. It was Marie-Louise’s father. She had told Hector that he had been a lawyer, and that many years ago, when the bad people were in power, as they usually were in this country, he had wanted to get into politics. One morning, when Marie-Louise was still a little girl, he had kissed her goodbye and left for the office, and in the evening a truck had dumped him in front of the house and driven away quickly. Her father was dead and had been badly beaten. Politics was often like that in this country. Marie-Louise seemed used to telling the story after all that time, but after she’d finished Hector had a lump in his throat.

‘My mother’s never got over it,’ she explained. ‘I think she’s still depressed.’

And, looking at Marie-Louise’s mother sitting silently at one end of the table, Hector could see very well that it was true.

Hector and Marie-Louise began to discuss pills and psychotherapy. Marie-Louise had tried absolutely everything, including taking her mother to be treated in the big country where she worked that had so many psychiatrists, but her mother had never really come back to life. Because there are some tragedies in life which psychiatry can help, but not cure.

Marie-Louise’s sister’s husband, Nestor, was quite an amusing sort who enjoyed joking with Hector, and was in business. At first, Hector was worried that he might be in the same business as Eduardo, but he wasn’t. Nestor imported cars and exported paintings by local artists (painting was the other excellent thing in this country besides beer). He also owned a factory where people made shoes so that people in Hector’s country could go jogging. (Looking at Nestor, Hector thought that there were certainly Charleses of every hue in this world.) Hector asked him whether this helped people here to become less poor. Nestor said that it helped a little, but that it would take hundreds like him.

‘The problem is that this country is unstable. And so businessmen don’t want to risk their money here, there’s no investment, and therefore no jobs. People talk about globalisation, but the problem is that we’re not part of it!’

Hector understood that, contrary to what some people in his country believed, globalisation wasn’t always a bad thing.

Marie-Louise’s husband wasn’t there. He’d been born in this country, but worked as an engineer now in the big country that had so many psychiatrists, which wasn’t much help to his country, except that he sent money to his family who were still here. This was all because Marie-Louise didn’t want her children to have to go to school with a bodyguard.

Hector had a question he wanted to ask about children. Why did the children he’d seen in the city smile all the time, even though they lived in the street and had nothing, no shoes, and often no parents to look after them? The grown-ups didn’t smile, which was understandable given the lives they had. But why did the little children seem happy?