Hector and the Secrets of Love

by Francois Lelord

  They had lunch in the shade of the bar, and waitresses who looked peculiarly like Vayla brought them salads or little sandwiches. In the swimming pool light-skinned children played with their darker-skinned nannies. Jean-Marcel kept his sunglasses on in the shade and looked rather pale despite his generally healthy appearance.

  Hector was thinking about Vayla. She had crept out of his room earlier. Hector hadn’t understood where she was going, but clearly she couldn’t be seen with a guest. He had a burning desire to see her again while at the same time thinking how crazy it all was. And what if there were no antidote? Must he spend the rest of his life beside these temples? Or take Vayla to his country?

  ‘Will you be visiting any other temples?’ asked Jean-Marcel.

  ‘No, I won’t actually,’ said Hector. ‘I’ve seen everything I wanted to see. How about you?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘In any case, I enjoyed our outing yesterday. And well done for that lesson in mine clearance!’

  ‘Oh,’ Jean-Marcel said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘that was nothing. The mine wasn’t even booby-trapped.’

  ‘Booby-trapped?’

  Jean-Marcel explained that sometimes they didn’t only lay a mine so that it exploded when you stepped on it, they also connected it by a wire to a second mine underneath so that when the bomb disposal expert lifted up the first mine, the second one exploded in his face, which was only a figure of speech since the moment it exploded he no longer had a face.

  It always depressed Hector a little hearing about all the things men were able to invent in order to harm others. He imagined the nice engineer going home every evening and tucking his children into bed while he read them a bedtime story, then discussing with his nice wife whether they should move so each child could have their own bedroom, and then, before going to bed, preparing a bit for the next day’s meeting where he had to make an impressive PowerPoint presentation of his new mine, containing just the right amount of explosive to blow someone’s foot off, because carrying a wounded soldier slowed down and demoralised a patrol far more than a dead soldier, not to mention his screams making them easier to locate. All that ingenuity and energy devoted to doing harm when, with Professor Cormorant’s drugs, people could, on the contrary, devote their energy to doing themselves and others good.

  Of course, a nation that had such drugs at its disposal would no longer really want to wage war; everyone would prefer to stay at home and go on loving one another. Those drugs wouldn’t be very good for national defence.

  ‘And where did you learn all this?’ Hector asked Jean-Marcel.

  ‘When I was doing my military service,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘I was in the Engineers. Laying mines, clearing mines. Assorted tricks, really.’

  And, suddenly, who should they see arriving at another table but Miko and Chizourou! Mind you, it wasn’t surprising since they were staying at the same hotel.

  They came over to say hello and Hector and Jean-Marcel, who were proper gentlemen, invited them to sit at their table.

  They still looked very pretty, even without their white sunhats. In fact they looked like two adorable squirrels with their almond-shaped eyes and auburn hair. They ordered kebabs with a Japanese name: teriyaki.

  They exchanged a few guttural sounds in Japanese and then Miko asked Hector what was written on the piece of paper they had found at the temple. Damn, Chizourou must have told her about their discovery.

  ‘It was a lover’s note,’ said Hector. ‘“Chester and Rosalyn were here and their love will last forever.”’

  He wished he hadn’t said the name Chester, which was Professor Cormorant’s first name, but he’d been forced to improvise and it had just slipped out.

  ‘What note is that?’ asked Jean-Marcel.

  Hector explained, and added that it must be a new trend that might catch on at the temple of love: leaving notes, rather like at a Buddhist shrine.

  ‘Didn’t you keep it?’ asked Jean-Marcel.

  ‘No, I must have lost it in all the excitement over the mine, and then I forgot about it.’

  It was true – leading Miko away from the mine had distracted him and he couldn’t remember what he’d done with the piece of paper, which, after all, wasn’t that important.

  ‘Will their wish come true if their note is no longer in the wall?’

  ‘I expect it’s the intention that counts,’ said Hector.

  Miko and Chizourou started talking again, and then Miko explained that Chizourou had replaced the note in the bamboo and the bamboo in the wall. In Japan, people don’t leave things lying on the ground and they respect temple offerings.

  ‘I think I’ll stay on for a day or two,’ Jean-Marcel said, ‘and visit a few temples.’

  Chizourou looked more cheerful than she had the day before, and as it turned out, although she didn’t speak English, she did speak a little bit of Hector and Jean-Marcel’s language.

  ‘Une toute petit peu,’ she said.

  ‘And where will you two go next?’ Hector asked.

  They didn’t know yet. Maybe to China. And what did they do for a living in Japan?

  Miko explained that they both worked for a big non-governmental organisation whose aim was to protect everything that might be destroyed in the world, including endangered animals, but also ancient temples, and rivers that were as yet unpolluted. Her job was to raise money for restoring the temples; as for Chizourou, she did beautiful drawings of the ruins to convince people their donations were needed. This didn’t surprise Hector, who had immediately sensed that Chizourou had a deeply artistic nature.

  Without really paying attention, Jean-Marcel and Hector began using their charms a little on these two pretty Japanese girls, who seemed to be having a great time.

  Just then, a waitress who looked like Vayla came over to them, a surly expression on her face. In fact it was Vayla, dressed in her hotel waitress’s uniform, that’s to say in a shimmering orange sarong.

  Hector had learnt during his studies that facial expressions are universal (another blow to silly cultural prejudices, the professor would have said) and he could see immediately that Vayla was rather upset.

  Jean-Marcel looked impressed. ‘Wow, you’re a quick worker!’

  ‘Beginner’s luck,’ said Hector.

  Vayla marched off and, without her saying a word, Hector understood she would be meeting him in his room very shortly. But that didn’t solve his problem, far from it. In any case, if Professor Cormorant’s drug stimulated love it did nothing to suppress jealousy. But was that such a surprise? Weren’t love and jealousy inextricably linked? Before saying goodbye to Miko and Chizourou, who were also slightly surprised by the appearance of the furious Vayla, like some angry goddess who could strike you dead with a glance, Hector had time to write down in his little notebook.

  Seedling no. 11: Love and jealousy go hand in hand.

  HECTOR IS ABLE TO READ

  ON waking, Hector made out a tiny little tattoo behind Vayla’s ear, next to her hairline, so minute he could only read it because he was pressed up close to her. Oddly, they weren’t squiggly Khmer letters so much as characters like those on his beautiful Chinese panel. When he looked more closely, he could see it wasn’t a tattoo, but a drawing in very dark ink. He woke Vayla up and, using gestures, asked her what the tattoo signified. Yet again, she seemed not to understand, which was becoming a little irritating even if Hector did love her very much, and so he took her by the arm and led her into the bathroom. Vayla seemed even more surprised than he to discover this tiny drawing behind her ear. Hector remembered the professor’s message. You just have to be able to read . . .

  He very carefully copied the characters out on a piece of writing paper, while Vayla, who was keen to get rid of the mysterious tattoo, waited, stamping her feet impatiently.

  In the hotel bar, a few Chinese men wearing Lacoste shirts, gold glasses and Pierre Cardin belts were drinking beer and talking in quite loud voices. Hec
tor showed them the copied-out text. The Chinese men passed it to each other, laughing.

  One of them explained. The first two characters meant Shanghai, the following ones referred to a bird. The Chinese men didn’t know its name in English, but it was a diver with a long beak that fed off saltwater and freshwater fish . . .

  Now Hector knew where to find Professor Cormorant. Although not exactly, since he had gone into hiding in a city with sixteen million inhabitants.

  HECTOR TAKES TO THE AIR AGAIN

  VAYLA was sleeping with her head on his shoulder while he watched the lights of Shanghai stretching into the distance, like a vast Milky Way in the process of being created, as their plane calmly flew overhead.

  Hector had not forgotten Clara, but what he was experiencing with Vayla made him think a lot about love. After all, this was an experiment, Professor Cormorant had said, and he needed to note down some observations.

  He had intended leaving Vayla behind and continuing his journey alone. He would have shown her how to set up an email account and they would have been able to send each other messages and photos. But when he had begun explaining this, with the aid of a few little drawings, he had seen such despair on Vayla’s face, so unlike her sweet apsara’s smile, that he hadn’t had the heart to continue.

  And now he could feel her breath on his neck; she was leaning against him, sleeping, with the innocence of a child that knows she will never be abandoned.

  Hector opened his notebook and wrote:

  I didn’t have the courage to leave Vayla. Why? Because all suffering related to abandonment upsets me?

  Hector had learnt this when he was a young psychiatrist and had himself gone to lie on the couch of an older psychiatrist to talk to him about his mother and other things. He had a problem with abandonment; he found it difficult to bear (look at the business with Clara) and even more difficult to inflict on others. All of which can make your love life very complicated.

  Was I the one who was afraid of not being able to bear her absence?

  That same problem of abandonment. Would he have to lie down and talk about it again, possibly on old François’s couch this time?

  Have I become sexually dependent on her?

  That question of sexual obsession again – we won’t dwell on it; it’s easy enough to understand.

  Have the professor’s drugs created an attachment between us?

  Have our experiences together created an attachment?

  Because, take note, Hector and Vayla had not only experienced sexual emotion (although that had taken up a lot of their time).

  They had already made each other sad when Hector had wanted to leave Vayla behind and he saw her eyes fill with tears. And they had made each other angry, too. She had been angry when she had stood, like a wrathful goddess, next to the two Japanese girls. And Hector had been angry later on.

  This is how it happened: before they left, Hector, his suitcase packed, was waiting in his room for Vayla, who didn’t come. Hector began to wonder whether she had decided to stay behind with her family after all.

  And then she had shown up, completely transformed. Vayla was dressed up like an adolescent out of a pop video; her hair was all frizzy, she was wearing frayed bell-bottom jeans, a sequined T-shirt, wedge sandals, and she stood there in front of him proud as a peacock. To top it all she was clutching a handbag, a copy of an expensive brand from Hector’s country.

  Hector felt a rush of anger, the same as he would if he saw a supermarket inside a temple or a publicity hoarding hanging from a statue. He wasn’t sure whether to be angry with himself and his society for destroying what was beautiful about everybody else’s, or with Vayla for having sabotaged her own beauty, but in any case it was not her fault. She soon found herself naked under the shower, in tears in spite of Hector’s best attempts to console her – not easy when you don’t speak the same language. Later, he helped her choose some silk outfits at the hotel boutique.

  To begin with, Vayla seemed shocked by the numbers on the price tags. No, no, she shook her head at Hector, horrified, no doubt, because for her that sum of money was enough to support her family for several months, but she quite quickly became used to the idea, and all at Gunther’s expense.

  Through the shop window, Hector noticed the hotel manager standing in the lobby looking at them with a funny expression on his face. A masseuse and a waitress both in the same week – he must have been anticipating a serious staff shortage.

  But the people in reception dealt with Vayla’s visa very efficiently, so we’ll tell you the name of the hotel as a thank you: Victoria.

  And now on the plane Hector saw her open her eyes in the half-light and lean cautiously over to the window, as though she were a bit nervous of all that emptiness below them, and this was when he told himself he loved her, and it was a catastrophe.

  PROFESSOR CORMORANT’S LETTER

  Dear friend,

  Strictly speaking I shouldn’t tell you anything about this experiment as you are the subject of it, although if I may say so you are no ordinary subject, you are practically one of us, and it’s not every day you find a qualified psychiatrist to use as a guinea pig. (Perhaps that’s one of the things genetic engineering has in store for us: hamsters with modified brains that will make good and inexpensive psychotherapists.)

  As you know, a fair amount of research is being done on the biology of love. I would venture to say that I am at the forefront of this research. Let me explain where the other slowcoaches have got to.

  They are particularly interested in two natural neurotransmitters: oxytocin and dopamine. It would appear our brains secrete oxytocin at critical moments of our attachment to another being: when mothers breastfeed their babies, when we have sex with someone we love, or simply hold that person in our arms, or when healthy subjects are shown babies or cute baby animals. It is the hormone of love and attachment.

  There is a small prairie vole which has a high number of oxytocin receptors in its brain. As a result, the male becomes attached to the female and mates with her for life.

  In contrast, his mountain cousin, who has fewer receptors, is a first-class womaniser. However, if we suppress the oxytocin receptors in the former and inject the latter with oxytocin, their behaviours are reversed! (Note that no one took an interest in the female voles’ reaction to their modified mates, which might at least have interesting ramifications in terms of marriage guidance.)

  So much for gentle oxytocin, let us now turn to that prize bitch dopamine. Every time we experience a pleasurable feeling, dopamine is released in bursts; it is our brain’s highest reward, and its secretion is stimulated primarily by novelty; it is the hormone of ever more and ever newer experiences. When we first fall in love, the discovery of a new partner releases a flood of dopamine. The problem is our dopamine receptors then become gradually desensitised, which is why, according to some killjoy authors, passion wanes after eighteen to thirty-six months of living together. At that moment, if nice oxytocin hasn’t taken over and created a strong attachment, dopamine drives us to look elsewhere, like poodles on heat.

  In point of fact, if we raise the level of this debate, and what pleasure it gives me to do so with you, my dear friend, I would call oxytocin a saint and dopamine a slut! (Note that I do not use the word whore, because some whores are saints, like the famous Mary Magdalene, the only female apostle, who became devoted to one man and one cause.) Oxytocin is a Judaeo-Christian hormone or, if you prefer, a Buddhist hormone: promoting love of your fellow man, faithfulness, the desire to protect others and make them happy, while dopamine is unmistakably the hormone of the devil and temptation, which compels us to break tender emotional bonds in order to get laid, to overindulge in a variety of drugs, and also to go in search of the new, to discover unknown continents, to create marvels, to build a tower of Babel instead of living in harmony, loving one another and breaking home-baked bread together. A philosopher, of course, could churn out hundreds of complicated pages for us on the subj
ect of this duality, but in all modesty I think I have covered the basic elements.

  Other ingredients also play a role in desire, but I shall stop here because this message will be read by you-know who and I don’t intend to do their work for them.

  All my current research consists of perfecting the modified forms of these active ingredients in order to make their effects last but without the receptors becoming desensitised. I was working with an excellent chemist; unfortunately he increased the dosage in the hope of being able to continue satisfying the appetites of a young research assistant twenty years his junior. Vanity, all is vanity.

  Well, dear friend, explaining to you what I know by heart is already beginning to bore me, and perhaps you, too, because, you see, I adore novelty and my dopamine always gets the better of me.

  Oxytocinely yours,

  Chester G. Cormorant

  Hector felt compelled to write, with a slightly heavy heart:

  Seedling no. 12: Passion fades after two or three years of living together.

  This also reminded him of all those passionate love affairs that lasted for years, or even decades, between two people who weren’t able to see each other very often. When one of them was married, for instance. When you can only manage to meet for love and conversation, it takes years to reach the equivalent of three years of living together. At the same time, it feels a bit false compared to the spouse you wake up next to every morning, and who has lost some of his or her allure. Hector had a sudden insight into all the love affairs he had heard about or experienced in his life, and he wrote:

  Seedling no. 13: Passion in love can be terribly unfair.

  HECTOR AND THE JADE BEAM

  Dear Hector,

  You didn’t reply to my last message. I’m getting worried. I hope you aren’t feeling too sad. Gunther seems worried, which makes me think he hasn’t heard from you either.