Hector and the Secrets of Love (20 page)

He opened his little notebook and wrote:
Loving someone means resisting temptation.

Vayla had come up to them and was watching him with interest as he wrote. Hector sensed that she longed to understand the meaning of his notes, as if then she could be sure of always understanding him.

‘I ought to tell you Vayla asked to use my computer to send an email in Khmer to someone at the hotel. I think the letter is meant for you, and she is waiting for an English translation to be sent back.’

Vayla had understood what they were talking about, and she smiled at Hector with the gleeful look of someone who has just played a good trick on you.

‘Where are the Japanese girls?’ Jean-Marcel asked.

‘They were leaving, but decided to stay on a bit longer.’

‘They’re funny tourists,’ Jean-Marcel said.

‘And you’re a funny businessman,’ Hector said.

Jean-Marcel didn’t respond and went on busying himself with the fire.

‘Do you want me to tell you what they told me?’ asked Hector. ‘So you can put it in your report to Gunther.’

Jean-Marcel froze. He didn’t reply. Then he smiled. ‘Well, there’s no need to pretend any more, is there?’

‘No, there’s no need.’

‘Only I’d rather Gunther didn’t find out you’ve blown my cover. Can I ask you not to mention it to him for the time being?’

‘Agreed.’

Jean-Marcel seemed relieved, and that surprised Hector. He said to himself that a real professional would never allow his cover, as he called it, to be blown so easily. Confronted by Hector, who only had unfounded suspicions, Jean-Marcel could have denied everything and possibly persuaded Hector he was being paranoid. Hector thought that Jean-Marcel had probably allowed one false cover to be blown in order to hide another. He couldn’t be working for Gunther. Hector thought of Captain Lin Zaou of the People’s Liberation Army, and Dr Wei, and then of Miko and Chizourou’s real employers. Wasn’t this affair becoming a bit too serious for a psychiatrist suffering the torments of love?

Just then, Not arrived looking very worried.

‘
Kormoh
?
Kormoh?’

And behind her came Chief Gnar and Aang-long-arms, looking equally worried. Professor Cormorant had disappeared.

‘
Y
OU know,’ whispered Jean-Marcel, ‘they were mainly relying on me to look out for you, not really to inform on you. After all, you’re the one who’s supposed to be sending reports.’

They were walking together in the forest, in the middle of a row of beaters – all men from the tribe. Everyone was worried Professor Cormorant might have got lost going to study the orang-utans.

‘I hope he didn’t run into a tiger,’ said Jean-Marcel.

‘I think he would throw even a tiger off balance.’

It was odd but the discovery of Jean-Marcel’s true role hadn’t diminished Hector’s fondness for him. Perhaps the fact that they had shared powerful emotions – the mine in the temple, their problems with their respective partners – had forged a sort of bond between them. He was also curious about Jean-Marcel’s real mission. Was it to kidnap the professor and take him for questioning at the secret offices of an even more secret service? Was it to get hold of the samples and the contents of the hard disks?

This whole mission of spying on the professor seemed of secondary importance to Hector. His main concern was to get hold of a dose of antidote. But to what end, ultimately? In order to take the antidote with Vayla? Why not take it with Clara instead? Mightn’t the antidote help them separate? That was one application Professor Cormorant hadn’t thought of: using chemistry to break a natural but painful bond. An end to heartache, and all the literature it gave rise to.

In front of him, Jean-Marcel motioned to him to stop.

Twenty yards ahead of them, in a small clearing, Professor Cormorant was crouching, whispering to two orang-utans, who were watching him with interest.

‘He’s crazy,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘He has no idea.’

Hector had noticed the professor was holding two balls of rice paste, probably containing new drugs, and was gradually edging closer to the two enormous primates. Pelléas (for it was he) suddenly seemed unhappy about this growing proximity and let out a low roar. The professor, completely unfazed, slowly stretched out his hand, offering him the rice ball. Pelléas kept growling insistently, letting it be known that he was ready to step up the level of aggression.

At that moment, Hector realised that, beside him, Jean-Marcel was taking aim at the animal, not with a Gna-Doa musket but with a very modern-looking rifle.

It was Mélisande who suddenly leapt towards the professor, snatched the rice ball and immediately swallowed it. Pelléas instantly hurled himself at the professor, knocking him down as he snatched the other rice ball. In a flash, the two animals vanished into the trees.

Jean-Marcel’s forehead was bathed in sweat. ‘My God! I was this close to . . .’

Professor Cormorant lay flat on the ground, motionless. They rushed over to him. He was having difficulty breathing.

‘My friends . . .’ he whispered.

Hector leaned over to examine him and diagnosed a broken rib or two resulting from his brief collision with Pelléas. Pelléas had probably only wanted to scare this strange white-haired cousin in his orang-utan way, which had caught the professor off guard, for, whilst admittedly young in spirit, he was actually rather elderly and weighed less than nine stone.

‘W
HY did you come?’ asked Clara.

‘This mission is slipping out of control. I wanted to keep an eye on things.’

‘Keep an eye on what things? On me? On him?’

‘On the mission.’

‘Are you going to see him?’

‘Yes, I’m going to see him.’

‘I told him about us, you know.’

‘That hardly makes things easier, does it?’

‘Would you have preferred me never to tell him? Would you have preferred him not to know? Did you just want to keep me as a secret little pleasure for after work?’

‘No, of course not, but it wasn’t the right time.’

‘Oh, really? But it was the right time for us to start an affair?’

‘Listen . . .’

‘Our shenanigans have not really been the best thing for our work, have they? We should have waited a few years, until I moved to another company, right? Then we could have said to ourselves, okay, now’s the right time! We could have synchronised our schedules.’

‘You’re being ridiculous. You always have to exaggerate.’

Gunther and Clara were lying on two steamer chairs made of tropical wood beside a swimming pool in the middle of a heavenly garden with a magnificent view over the forest and the mountains in the distance. To the left, the golden pinnacles of a temple emerged through the leaves . . . It looked like paradise, but it felt a bit like hell, or at least that was what Gunther was thinking.

They were waiting for some suitable means of transport to be arranged that would get them quickly to where Hector and the professor were. Gunther’s two associates who had accompanied him on this trip were somewhere in the hotel frantically arranging this with the company’s local representative.

Gunther looked at Clara stretched out beside him, her face hidden behind an enormous pair of sunglasses that gave her an inscrutable air, her adorable body tanning in the sun. She was clearly still angry but that did not prevent him from realising that the true reason for his sudden trip to Asia was to be able to spend some time alone with her, or almost alone with her.

He was desperately in love. What was happening to him for heaven’s sake! Was this an effect of ageing? He was twelve years older than Hector, and had noticed that some very young women didn’t look at him the way they used to; he sensed they no longer imagined him as a potential lover – it didn’t even cross their minds – and as a result they were far more friendly and relaxed in his company. He wasn’t as strong as he used to be – he could feel it – and if that little wild cat lying there next to him sensed it she would start ripping him to shreds.

Gunther the Downsizer was in danger of being downsized.

Unless . . .

Professor Cormorant’s potion. What if he made the little wild cat take it? She would refuse of course, but she didn’t have to know. According to the latest report, the attachment drug came in liquid form, easy to slip into someone’s glass without them realising.

Gunther felt his hopes soar. This research, which had cost so much money and caused so many problems, might be about to have its first positive result: binding Clara to him forever.

At the same time, he sensed such an action would torment him. Gunther’s strict upbringing had taught him always to win fairly. The thought that he might be capable of cheating gave rise to an unfamiliar feeling in him: guilt. But, after all, he could easily find a psychiatrist to help him get over that.

‘P
ELLÉAS didn’t mean it, ouch!’

‘Don’t talk too much,’ said Hector. ‘Just concentrate on breathing.’

It was a piece of advice Professor Cormorant found difficult to follow, even though the pain was a sharp reminder every time he tried to talk. He was lying on a mat in the dark in Chief Gnar’s house. The chief was gazing at him apologetically because a chief feels responsible for the well-being of his guests, however foolhardy they may be. Other men from the tribe were standing around the injured man, solemnly discussing what had happened. At any rate, that is what you would assume if you weren’t familiar with the languages of Upper Tibet.

Not had slipped a tapestry cushion under the professor’s head and was lovingly holding his hand. Vayla was sitting next to him fanning the air above his face with a big leaf. Except for the professor’s ashen complexion, they made a charming picture for anyone nostalgic for the Orient.

Hector and Jean-Marcel moved away a little so they could talk.

‘He looks dreadful.’

‘The pain is making it hard for him to breathe.’

Hector was concerned. Professor Cormorant had just told him he only had one and a half lungs, the result of a Jeep accident in his youth, when he was doing his military service. He had broken the ribs on the side of his good lung, which fortunately hadn’t been punctured. Hector had checked this by examining him thoroughly, but the professor’s already diminished lung capacity had been even further reduced.

Jean-Marcel, normally so well prepared, had only a few ordinary painkillers in his first-aid kit, and these didn’t seem to do much to ease the professor’s discomfort, even though his chest had been tightly bandaged, on Hector’s instructions. The pain would probably remain severe for the next forty-eight hours. Taking the professor by car to the nearest town seemed impossible, because the bumpy road would be agonising for him. Evacuating him by helicopter was feasible, but it would take time to organise and, more importantly, they would need to obtain permission to fly over a zone of uncertain nationality.

Hector noticed that Vayla and Not were talking to each other excitedly. Then they turned to Chief Gnar, who could speak a bit of their language because he sometimes went down to the neighbouring valleys to do business.

‘I think they’ve found a solution,’ said Jean-Marcel.

A few minutes later, Gnar went to the back of the house and returned with a small canvas pouch. After another few minutes, the professor found himself lying on his side gently sucking on a long bamboo and ivory pipe. Kneeling down beside him, Not was heating a small greyish ball on the wide-mouthed pipe bowl, and the professor, clearly soothed by this pleasant sight, breathed, or rather sighed, normally. His cheeks had gone back to their usual pink colour.

‘Ah, my friends, the power of chemistry . . .’ he murmured.

Hector reminded him he should try not to talk.

Hector was aware that this wonderful traditional painkiller was known to impair the breathing. And so he must make sure the benefits gained on the one hand were not lost on the other. He crouched down next to Professor Cormorant in order to monitor carefully the colour in his cheeks and the regularity of his breathing.

Chief Gnar must have misinterpreted his intentions, because Hector suddenly saw a pipe being handed to him, as well as to Jean-Marcel.

‘Do you think . . .’

‘This is something you don’t refuse,’ said Jean-Marcel, ‘this is something you don’t refuse.’

And the two of them found themselves lying down near the professor, whom Hector was keeping an eye on while he watched Vayla’s sweet face, illuminated by the lamp’s amber glow, as she prepared his pipe.

Hector is a psychiatrist, don’t forget, and he was observing himself as he inhaled the sweet cloud. The professor’s antidote must be a bit like this, he thought. After the first pipe, he had the impression he could enjoy Vayla’s company but he wouldn’t suffer if she wasn’t there. After the second pipe he could think of Clara as a wonderful memory, and he wouldn’t have cared whether she came back into his life or not. Vayla was about to prepare a third pipe for him, but he gestured to her not to.

He wanted to stay alert in order to watch over Professor Cormorant, who was now sleeping like a baby.

He offered his pipe to Vayla with a questioning look. She laughed, shook her head and stroked his cheek.

They went on staring into each other’s eyes, while he felt love spread through him, a very serene sort of love, like blue sea under a hazy sun.

A
ND morning came, and the forest awoke, and the sun made the dew sparkle like diamonds, and Hector saw that it was good.

He had slept as never before, after leaving the professor in Vayla and Not’s care and telling them to wake him if necessary.