Hector and the Search for Happiness

by Francois Lelord

  Édouard said that this didn’t surprise him because mergers often didn’t work out very well, the rich people lost money and the not so rich people lost their jobs.

  ‘Why do people keep doing them, then?’ asked Hector.

  ‘To keep us in work!’ Édouard joked.

  He was very pleased to see Hector, and he looked much more cheerful than at the beginning of the meal.

  Édouard also explained that mergers were a bit like his six million dollars: the people who decide them think that they’ll be happier afterwards, because they’ll be richer or more powerful.

  Hector told himself that this dinner was very interesting, that he’d have lots of things to write about happiness, but he was sorry he’d drunk so much wine because his head was going a bit fuzzy.

  HECTOR COMES CLOSE TO HAPPINESS

  BY the end of the meal, Édouard looked very cheerful indeed, but apparently this wasn’t enough for him because he insisted on taking Hector to another place.

  ‘You must get to know China!’ he said, although Hector wondered whether the type of places Édouard liked going to, like that restaurant, were the real China. He would have preferred to go back to the hotel and write down what he had learnt about happiness, but since Édouard was his friend he agreed to go where he proposed.

  At the entrance was a very tall, very smartly dressed Chinese man wearing an earpiece. When he saw Édouard, he winked at him.

  Inside was like a very big bar with soothing music and very soft lighting, and quite a few men like Hector and Édouard — that’s to say not only Chinese men. Hector immediately noticed that there were some Chinese women as pretty as the ones in the films, and some of them were so pretty that it almost hurt to look at them. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. They were talking to the men like Hector and Édouard, who also seemed to be enjoying themselves.

  Édouard ordered a bottle of white wine, which was placed in an ice bucket on the bar next to them. Almost immediately, a pretty Chinese lady came up to speak to Édouard. They must have known each other quite well because she laughed at all Édouard’s jokes and from time to time she whispered things in his ear which made him laugh, too.

  This was all very well, but Hector reminded himself that he was making this trip in order to learn about happiness, and he didn’t want to forget what he’d discovered during dinner.

  He took out his little notebook, opened it on the bar and began writing.

  He thought of all those people working very hard so that they could retire one day with six million dollars.

  Lesson no. 3: Many people see happiness only in their future.

  And then he thought of the people who decided mergers.

  Lesson no. 4: Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or more money.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Hector looked up and saw the prettiest Chinese girl he’d ever seen in his life smiling at him.

  Hector was quite bowled over, but managed to explain that he was taking notes in order to understand what made people happy or unhappy. The pretty Chinese girl gave a charming little laugh and Hector realised that she thought he was joking. So he began to explain a bit more about why he was taking notes and she stopped laughing and gave him a funny look, but even the funny look she gave him was charming, if you see what I mean.

  Hector and the very pretty Chinese girl introduced themselves. Her name was Ying Li and she was a student.

  ‘What are you studying?’ asked Hector.

  ‘Tourism,’ replied Ying Li.

  Hector could see why she came here; it was a very good way of getting to know the tourists who visited China. Ying Li asked Hector what he did for a living, and Hector told her about the people who were scared, unhappy or had strange thoughts. Ying Li seemed very interested and said that when she felt sad she went to see her friends and afterwards she felt better. Hector asked her if she’d always lived in this city, and Ying Li began telling him that she came from another part of China where the people were very poor and that she was very happy to be here. She had sisters, but they had stayed behind. Her sisters weren’t studying tourism. They worked in the sort of factory Charles had set up in China. Ying Li carried on talking to Hector, because Hector’s gift of being genuinely interested in people worked without him even knowing it.

  After a while, Édouard tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Is everything okay? Are you enjoying yourself?’ Hector said that he was and that everything was okay, but he thought that enjoying himself was not at all the right expression: he felt he was in love with Ying Li.

  She continued talking about her life, but Hector didn’t hear everything she said, because she was so pretty that it was hard for him to look at her and listen at the same time.

  Eventually, people began leaving and they left, too. The four of them climbed into a taxi waiting outside: Édouard and his Chinese girlfriend, Ying Li, and Hector, who sat next to the driver. Édouard told the driver where to go in Chinese. They soon arrived outside Hector’s hotel, and he realised that he hadn’t asked Ying Li for her telephone number. How in God’s name would he make sure he saw her again? But he needn’t have worried, because Ying Li followed him out of the taxi, and Édouard and his Chinese girl drove off, leaving them standing alone in front of the hotel.

  Hector felt a little awkward, but he told himself that a man, even a psychiatrist, should know how to act decisively, and so he took Ying Li by the hand and they walked across the hotel foyer without looking at the staff behind the front desk, and stepped into the lift. And there Ying Li kissed him.

  There’s no need to say what happened next because, of course, Hector and Ying Li went to Hector’s room, where they did what people do when they’re in love, and everybody knows what that is.

  When Hector woke up the next morning, he heard Ying Li singing in the bathroom. It made him very happy, despite the headache he had as a result of all the wine Édouard had ordered.

  Ying Li walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, and when she saw that Hector was awake, she gave another charming little laugh.

  Just then the phone rang and Hector answered. It was Édouard, who asked him if he’d had a good evening. Hector said that he had, but it was a little difficult to say any more with Ying Li standing there watching him.

  ‘I chose her for you,’ said Édouard, ‘I knew you’d like her. Don’t worry, it’s all taken care of.’

  And suddenly Hector understood everything. And he saw that Ying Li understood that he’d understood, and she stopped smiling and looked a little sad.

  Hector was also sad, but he was still nice to Ying Li and gave her a kiss on the cheek when she left, leaving him her telephone number.

  He climbed back into bed and after a while he picked up his notebook. He thought for a moment then wrote:

  Lesson no. 5: Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.

  HECTOR IS UNHAPPY

  HECTOR felt very out of sorts that morning. He left his hotel and decided to go and have coffee. He found a huge, very modern café where all they served was coffee, lots of different kinds of coffee. He’d already come across places like that with the same name in almost all the world’s big cities where he’d been to conferences, and so he knew how to order in that sort of café, except that this one was full of Chinese men and women talking or reading newspapers, and the waiters and waitresses were also Chinese.

  He sat near the window so that he could look out at the street (full of Chinese passers-by, as you’ve already guessed).

  He felt rather unhappy.

  But, in reality, being unhappy might also teach him something about happiness. At least it would prove useful for his trip. He began to think: why was he unhappy?

  Firstly because he had a headache due to all the wine Édouard had ordered. Hector wasn’t used to drinking so much.

  Secondly, he was unhappy because of Ying Li.

  Ying Li was a simple name, but the reasons why Hector was unhappy were quite c
omplex. He didn’t really want to think about it, perhaps because those reasons weren’t so easy to accept. It even made him feel a little afraid. He knew this fear only too well, it was what stopped his patients from being able to really think about their problems, and it was his job to help them overcome this fear and really understand what was happening to them.

  Just then, the waitress came to ask if he wanted more coffee. She was young and quite pretty; she reminded him of Ying Li and he felt a pang.

  Hector opened his notebook and began to draw doodles. This helped him to think. (He would sometimes doodle when his patients kept him on the telephone for too long.)

  He was also unhappy because he felt bad when he thought of Clara. Of course she would never know what had happened with Ying Li, but even so he felt bad. On the other hand, if Clara had come with him to China, he would never have met Ying Li. When he was with Clara, Hector always behaved himself, and so he wouldn’t have got up to any mischief with Édouard, and so all this was partly Clara’s fault. After thinking that, he felt slightly less unhappy.

  But there was more. Hector was also unhappy because he hadn’t understood what was going on at all. He had thought that Ying Li had approached him because she’d found him interesting with his little notebook, and that later on she’d gone with him to the hotel because she’d found him more and more interesting. But of course that wasn’t the reason at all. Ying Li was doing her job, which she probably thought was less tedious than spending her life working like her sisters in one of Charles’s factories. When they were still at the bar and Ying Li was telling Hector about herself (of course now he realised that she hadn’t told him everything), she’d told him how much her sisters earned in a month: he’d worked out that it was half the price of the bottle of white wine Édouard had ordered, sparkling next to them in its ice bucket.

  Hector wasn’t sad because he’d discovered how Ying Li earned her living (in fact it did make him a little sad), but because the evening before he’d understood nothing. Or rather, he was sad because that morning he’d understood that he’d understood nothing, because while he still understood nothing he wasn’t sad at all, but now that he’d understood that he’d understood nothing he felt sad, if you follow. Realising that one has understood nothing is never pleasant, but for a psychiatrist it’s even worse.

  The pretty Chinese waitress came back and asked if he wanted more coffee, and when she saw what he was doodling in his notebook she laughed. Hector looked: without knowing it he’d been drawing lots of little hearts.

  The waitress went away again and he saw her talking about him to the other waitresses, and they all seemed very amused.

  Hector still wasn’t in a very good mood, so he paid and left the café.

  Outside, he nearly got run over trying to cross the road because he’d forgotten that cars drove on the left in this city. There’s no point in looking before crossing the road if you don’t look in the right direction.

  He wondered what to do with himself. He couldn’t see Édouard because he wasn’t on holiday; he was working all day at his office. They’d arranged to have dinner again that evening, but Hector wasn’t sure he really felt like it any more.

  Basically Hector was a little annoyed with Édouard. He knew that Édouard had only wanted to make him happy, but the fact was that this morning Hector was unhappy. Édouard liked drinking a lot, and so Hector had drunk a lot, too. Édouard liked meeting Chinese women whose job it was to make men like him happy, and so Hector had met Ying Li.

  Hector told himself that really Édouard was a bit like those friends who are excellent skiers. One day they take you to the top of a very steep ski slope and tell you you’ll have great fun if you just follow them. In fact they’ve only taken you up there because they are excellent skiers and love skiing down very steep slopes. And you don’t enjoy yourself at all trying to keep up with them, you’re scared, you fall over and you wish it would end, but you have to get down the slope anyway and you have a miserable time while those morons, your friends, fly over the moguls shrieking with joy.

  While he was walking, Hector came upon a tiny station with a single track. It wasn’t for the usual kind of train but for one of those trains you find in the mountains, because, if you remember, this city was built at the foot of a mountain. And the little train went all the way up to the top of the mountain.

  Hector thought that it would do him good to get up into the mountains and so he bought a ticket from an old Chinese man wearing a cap, and he sat down in a tiny wooden carriage.

  While he was waiting for the train to move, he began thinking, and he thought about Ying Li again. He could still see her when she’d walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, looking happy; and when she’d stopped smiling because she’d understood that Hector had understood. Afterwards, she’d looked sad and they hadn’t known what to say to one another.

  The little train moved off and began to climb past the buildings and very soon it reached the trees and then the clouds, because the weather wasn’t good at all, but then the sky turned blue and Hector could see magnificent green mountains all around and, down below, the sea dotted with boats.

  It was very beautiful but Hector was still unhappy.

  HECTOR COMES CLOSE TO WISDOM

  THE station at the top of the mountain was much bigger than the one at the bottom. It was a large concrete cube. Inside were restaurants, souvenir shops and even a wax museum with figures of Tony Blair and Sylvester Stallone. All this was even less like The Blue Lotus and this irritated Hector, who was already in quite a bad mood. He left the station and began walking along a road that took him further up the mountain.

  The higher he climbed the fewer people he saw. Finally, he was all alone on the road. The surrounding mountains were very beautiful, all green and with quite high peaks. They looked very Chinese. Hector was out of breath, but he felt a lot better.

  He stopped to write in his notebook:Lesson no. 6: Happiness is a long walk in the mountains.

  He thought about it then crossed out ‘in the mountains’ and replaced it with ‘in beautiful, unfamiliar mountains’.

  At the side of the road he saw a sign in Chinese characters, but fortunately underneath it said in English: ‘Tsu Lin Monastery’. Hector was very happy. In monasteries, there are always monks, and maybe in this one he’d find an old monk who would be like Chang’s father and who would have interesting things to say about happiness.

  The path to the monastery grew steeper and steeper, but Hector didn’t feel tired any more because he was eager to arrive. From time to time, at a bend in the road, he would catch a glimpse of the monastery, and it was wonderful, just like in The Blue Lotus — the monastery looked really Chinese with its pretty curled rooftop and tiny square windows.

  He pulled on a rope and heard a bell ring and a monk came to open the door for him. He was young and looked more like Chang than Chang’s father, but his head was shaved and he wore a long orange robe. He spoke very good English and explained to Hector that the monastery was only open to visitors one day a week and that today it was closed. Hector was very disappointed: just when he was beginning to feel better there was some bad news.

  And so he persisted; he explained that he’d come a very long way, that he was a psychiatrist and was trying to discover what made people happy or unhappy and he couldn’t wait until next week for the monastery to open. The young monk looked uncomfortable, he asked Hector to wait, and left him standing in the little doorway.

  There were things for sale which the monks had made, statuettes, pretty saucers, and Hector told himself that he would buy one as a present for Clara.

  The young monk came back and Hector was very happy because he’d brought with him an old monk who must have been as old as Chang’s father! As soon as he saw Hector, the old monk began laughing, and said: ‘Hello. You’ve come from afar, so I hear.’ He said it just like that, no translation was necessary, he spoke Hector’s language as well as Hector!

  He to
ok Hector into his office, where Hector expected he’d have to kneel on little mats because there’d be no chairs. But it wasn’t like that at all. The monk’s office looked similar to Hector’s, with a proper desk, chairs, a lot of books, a computer, two telephones, statuettes — but Chinese ones — and a splendid view of the mountains.

  The old monk explained that in his youth, long before Hector was born, he had spent a few years in Hector’s country. He’d been a student, and had earned money washing dishes at a big restaurant where Hector would sometimes have lunch. He asked Hector a lot of questions in order to find out how much things had changed in his country these days, and he seemed very pleased with everything Hector told him.

  Hector explained the reason for his trip. More and more of his patients were unhappy without any apparent reason, and he wanted to find out why.

  The old monk listened very attentively to Hector, and Hector told himself that he, too, was genuinely interested in people.

  Hector asked him whether he had anything interesting to say about happiness.

  The old monk said, ‘The basic mistake people make is to think that happiness is the goal!’ And he began to laugh.

  Hector would have liked him to explain this a bit better, but the old monk liked to say things without explaining too much.