Hector and the Secrets of Love (5 page)

Before writing this message, it would seem Professor Cormorant had taken another type of pill. Hector had quivered slightly when he read
the sorrow of being parted from the loved one
, but he managed to focus again in order to read all the professor’s most recent emails since he had gone missing. There were about fifty of them and Hector thought that by examining them he might discover what was going on in the professor’s mind, understand what he wanted, and eventually find him.

Others at the company had tried this of course, but without any success; in their view, Professor Cormorant had gone mad, and that was that.

The only thing they could do was find out where the emails had been sent from, and this was very clever of them, because the professor had done some quite complicated things to prevent them from discovering which computer he had used. As a result, it took the people from the company several days to locate the computer and by the time they sent somebody there the professor had gone.

Hector had a map of the world recording the professor’s movements.

It was evident that all the most recent emails had been sent from Asia, so there was a chance they would find him there. But what Gunther was counting on most was the professor wanting to talk to Hector. Before leaving, Hector had sent the professor an email.

Hector didn’t really know what he would do if he found Professor Cormorant. Of course, he was being paid by Gunther to find him and bring him back, but, as you have already guessed, Hector liked the professor more than he liked Gunther, and also he said to himself that the professor might have had very good reasons for disappearing.

The air hostess brought him more champagne with a smile, and Hector felt a sudden flash of love for her. Perhaps he could ask her for her number?

He told himself he was pathetic.

He opened his little notebook and wrote:

He looked at the air hostess walking away in her pretty oriental outfit then he mused some more and wrote:

A
FTER taking another plane, this time one with propellers that juddered quite a lot, Hector arrived in a small town in the middle of the jungle. The town centre had been built a long time ago by people from his country and it looked just like a sleepy town from his childhood, with its post office and town hall, a canal lined with tall trees, and the Café des Amis. But, of course, the people who lived here were Asians who strolled in a leisurely manner and drank at the Café des Amis and other bars, particularly the men, because in this country, like many others, it was mostly the women who did the work. As soon as you went a little way from the centre, the roads were no longer tarmacked, except in the hotel district where they widened out again and were lined with palm trees. Because in this country they had built a lot of hotels in huge gardens full of marvellous trees. Beautiful hotels made half out of wood with roofs that blended in with the local architecture and balconies on stilts, because they had been built not very long ago, after the period when architects were crazy and planted huge cement blocks all over the world.

The architects who certainly weren’t crazy were the ones who, a few centuries earlier, had conceived the huge stone temples you found in the forests near the town, at around the same time that people in Hector’s country were building cathedrals. There were dozens of temples scattered over several miles and people came from all over the world to see them. It was the architects of those temples, then, who had provided work for their colleagues who had built the hotels centuries later, and who should perhaps have raised another little temple to their predecessors.

The manager of one of the town’s most delightful hotels was quite young and cheerful; he wore a shirt with button-down pockets and looked a bit like Tintin. He clearly remembered the professor who often sent emails from the business centre at his hotel.

‘He left three days ago. He told me he was going to Laos. Why are you looking for him?’

‘He’s a friend of mine,’ said Hector. ‘My other friends and I have been a bit worried about him lately.’

‘Ah,’ said the hotel manager.

He nodded without saying anything and Hector could see that several thoughts were flashing through his mind. Hector understood at once: hotel managers are a bit like psychiatrists: they see and hear many things they mustn’t tell anybody. It’s called professional confidentiality. Hector had always got on well with hotel managers – to start with because he liked hotels and it is always better when you know the manager, but also because, with all their guests and staff, hotel managers end up learning a thing or two about human nature, a bit like psychiatrists, but they’re often cleverer.

Hector knew how to put the hotel manager at his ease (we won’t tell you how because psychiatrists have to keep some things to themselves, a bit like magicians) and the manager began to talk about Professor Cormorant.

‘At first, we found him charming. Also, he picked up a few words in Khmer quite quickly and everybody was impressed. The staff adored him. He always had a kind word for everyone. He visited the temples in the late afternoon when the crowds of tourists have left and the light is at its most beautiful. And he spent a lot of time working in his room. One evening, I invited him to dinner.’

The professor had explained to the hotel manager that he was an expert in butterflies and was in search of a very rare species which all the other experts thought was extinct, but he was convinced a few specimens still survived in the area surrounding one of the temples deep in the jungle.

‘I tried to dissuade him from going there because that temple is in a region that isn’t safe, and there are still a lot of landmines around it.’

What we haven’t told you is that this beautiful country had a terrible history: crazy leaders who had studied abstract reasoning during their time in Hector’s country had decided to come back and purge their country. And, be warned, the moment a great leader mentions the word ‘purge’ you know how it will end – that’s to say very badly. Almost a third of the country’s population was exterminated in the name of Good. Since his arrival, Hector had only met smiling young men and smiling young women, but he had the feeling that these smiles concealed terrible stories of childhoods without parents or with parents who had been forced into becoming executioners or victims or both. And there were a lot of landmines left over from that period, which occasionally exploded underneath fathers tilling their fields or children playing at the side of a road cleared of mines.

‘And he still went to visit the temple?’

‘Well, that’s what he told me, at any rate. The problems started when he got back.’

The hotel manager explained that the professor had begun pestering the masseuses.

‘The masseuses?’

‘Yes, we offer our guests traditional massages. But strictly massages, if you see what I mean, nothing more. If people want something different, there are places for that in town, but we cater to families with children here, and the two things don’t mix. Anyway, he became very persistent with the masseuses and they came and told me. I then had a word with him, which is always a little embarrassing, but clients who come on strong with the staff is one of the situations you have to deal with in a hotel, especially here, you understand.’

Hector had glimpsed some of the young female staff in the lobby, and he understood.

‘And how did he take it?’

‘Very oddly. He laughed, as if I were joking, only I wasn’t joking at all. Anyway, I assumed he’d understood and was laughing to save face, the way people here often do, in fact.’

‘And had he understood?’

‘I don’t think so. The next day, he left. With one of our masseuses.’

H
ECTOR wanted to meet one of the friends of the masseuse who had run away with Professor Cormorant. The hotel manager agreed and told him that the masseuse was very good friends with a young waitress she had helped to get a job here, because they came from the same village. And so Hector found himself in an office with a shy young girl in a sarong, who gave him a charming oriental greeting, bringing her hands together and bowing her head, and another young woman from reception who was there to interpret. Everyone in that country was young.

The young waitress, who answered to the sweet name of Vaylaravanluanayaluaangrea, was a little intimidated at first. But eventually, lowering her eyes and giving another little bow, she said her friend had told her that she had experienced love as never before with the professor. But what sort of love? asked Hector. (Because there are many sorts of love, which we will explain to you as we go along.) Young Vayla blushed a little and eventually said that her colleague, who was called Not for short, had told her the professor was a tireless lover, which was not new to her, but more importantly he always sensed exactly what she wanted him to do at any given moment. This experience had so amazed the young masseuse that she had decided to follow the professor wherever he went. Hector learnt from her friend Vayla that Not was twenty-three and he remembered the professor was a little over sixty.

Had the professor discovered one of the secrets of love?

He thanked the young woman for all this useful information and went for a dip in the swimming pool. He thought if he tired himself out enough he’d be able to fall asleep without thinking about Clara.

A little later in his room, Hector wrote:

At the same time, Hector remembered that this seedling could be quite dangerous. He had seen a lot of people who said to themselves: ‘If she really loved me, she would understand without me having to tell her,’ and it was quite untrue – sometimes the other person does love you but doesn’t understand you very well, and it is best to tell them what you really want.

Hector then remembered some women whose desires he had neglected a bit and who had still been very much in love with him. And then he thought of Clara, whom he had been very nice to recently, and who was now wondering whether she was still in love with him. A little angry, he wrote:
You should never pay too much attention to a woman’s desires.

But writing such a thing made him feel sad and he crossed it out. That phrase threatened to upset the harmony in his little seed bed.

But what could he conclude? If you didn’t pay enough attention to their desires, they left you and if you paid too much they left you, too. And doubtless the same went for men.

He said to himself that he would like to have a little chat with the professor, and he went back down to the pool.

H
ECTOR wasn’t very keen on the idea of going to explore a temple recently cleared of landmines in a region that wasn’t safe, but since the professor had visited the temple before he disappeared, he told himself that in the end it was part of his mission to go there looking for clues.

He was thinking about all this in the shade of the trees around the pool while sipping an occasional cocktail from the menu in order not to think about Clara for too long. He wasn’t sure now whether to choose the Singapore Sling or the B52. The cocktails and the sight of the pretty waitress who brought them took his mind off things. And he said to himself that if Clara left him he wouldn’t really care very much if he got blown up by a landmine. Or else he would go and live in a little house on stilts at the edge of the jungle with the pretty waitress and they would have beautiful children who would sing by the fireside in the evenings. Finally, he settled for the B52.

‘I hear you’d like to go to the temple at Benteasaryaramay tomorrow?’

Hector lowered his sunglasses. A rather stocky man running slightly to fat was looking at him, smiling.

He was also wearing a shirt with button-down pockets and long military-looking shorts. In fact, his whole appearance was a bit military, but he said his name was Jean-Marcel and he was a tourist, and what luck because he also wanted to visit the temple recently cleared of landmines.

Hector invited him to sit down and have a drink, and they agreed to hire a car with a driver for their little excursion. Afterwards, they had dinner beside the pool and Jean-Marcel told Hector he was married, and had gone to a neighbouring country on a business trip. He had decided to stop off here on his way back and take another look at the famous temples, all of which he had seen before, except for the one recently cleared of mines, which was apparently very interesting.

As often happens when you are abroad, you talk more easily with your fellow countrymen, and as Hector and Jean-Marcel liked each other, they told each other a bit about their lives. Of course, Hector said he was sightseeing and didn’t mention his mission. And all he said about Clara was that she couldn’t come with him because of her work, which was true, but not the whole truth. Jean-Marcel was married with two children – a boy and a girl who were already quite grown-up – but Hector sensed he wasn’t telling the whole truth either, and he wondered whether Jean-Marcel’s wife was really awaiting his return or whether she was fed up with waiting for him, because in fact he spent his whole life travelling on business.