Hector and the Secrets of Love

by Francois Lelord

  And what about you, missy, with your Gunther, are you in any position to criticise? Of course not. Life really was very complicated. Clara suddenly felt overwhelmed by the vastness of the lobby, by all these people coming and going, and by the presence right next to her of Vayla ensconced in her enormous armchair, like a precious jewel nestling in its case.

  Just then, Vayla sensed she was being watched and glanced at Clara.

  When you come from a country like Vayla’s you learn early on to read people, to sense who will be kind to you and who won’t, because, in countries like that, a child’s life is quite precarious.

  She saw a Western woman, quite pretty, older than her, but still young, gazing at her with surprising intensity.

  Vayla felt uneasy because she had the impression Clara was a nice person and at the same time she sensed waves of hostility radiating towards her. She felt dazed for a moment, leaving the waiter to put a large glass of orange juice full of sparkling ice cubes down in front of her, and then all of a sudden the only possible explanation dawned on her, as clear as day.

  ‘Darling Hector? ’ This was the expression Vayla had used in order to ask Hector if there was another woman in his life in his faraway country. And from the awkward way he had said ‘sort of’, she had understood that even if only ‘sort of’ there was another woman in his life and he loved her.

  She started feeling afraid. How could she hope to compete with this woman whose skin was so pale – a sure sign of refinement and beauty – who knew about a whole world of which she was ignorant, who could no doubt drive and use a computer, and who knew Hector much better than she did? Vayla knew Hector found her pretty, but that must be because he had forgotten his partner’s milkywhite complexion. Confronted with such a powerful rival, even Professor Cormorant’s love potion would be useless.

  Vayla began to resign herself to defeat. It was her destiny to have met Hector, her incredible good luck. And it was her destiny to have him taken away from her again. A tear dropped into her orange juice.

  HECTOR DOES SOME SCIENCE

  IN a huge Plexiglas cage, dozens of little mice were copulating furiously. They looked like some sort of vibrating fur carpet.

  ‘Look,’ said Professor Cormorant, ‘they’ve been given compound A. Lots of sexual desire. I put a bit too much in my first concoction.’

  Hector remembered what the hotel manager had said about the professor’s tendency to chase after the female staff at the hotel.

  In another cage, a couple of mandarin ducks were lovingly rubbing their beaks together.

  ‘Compound B. Affection. Oxytocin — slightly modified of course,’ the professor added, winking.

  The ducks were a touching sight and, with their crests and multicoloured plumage, they reminded Hector of characters in an opera declaring their love.

  ‘The problem is they’re so keen on canoodling it stops them eating. Too strong a dose at the beginning, or perhaps the formula’s still not quite right.’

  ‘But won’t it kill them if they don’t eat?’

  ‘Of loving at will, of loving to death, in the land that is like you . . . Actually, we’re obliged to separate them from time to time, and we take the opportunity to force-feed them.’

  ‘Force-feed them?’

  ‘Have you ever eaten mandarin duck pâté?’ the professor asked, and immediately burst out laughing, as did the two young Chinese men, for this was clearly one of their favourite jokes.

  ‘Professor Cormorant very funny!’ said Lu, the one with the ruffled hair.

  ‘Very very funny!’ added Wee, the one with the purple-tinted glasses.

  And their laughter echoed under the vaulted brick ceiling. The laboratory had been set up in a series of cellars belonging to a former wine merchant from the time of the International Settlement, who had made his deliveries to his customers by horse-drawn cart, hence the old stables in the courtyard.

  Hector had noticed numerous new-fangled-looking machines, some with flat screens where you could see spinning molecules, computers unlike any you might have at home, and a nuclear magnetic resonance imaging machine like the one he had seen at Professor Cormorant’s university, and of course an animal house, containing different species, which stared at you mournfully from their Plexiglas cages. It all looked like it had been set up very recently, and since Gunther had blocked all Professor Cormorant’s accounts Hector wondered where he had found the money for it all. Who was paying the young Chinese men and women working in one of the rooms in front of their flat screens?

  ‘Our biggest problem is estimating how long the effects will last. In humans, it is difficult to differentiate between a lasting effect of the product and a lasting effect of the early stages of the love experience. Not and I, for example: do we continue to love each other because the initial dose is still active in our brains or because we’ve got used to such an amazing degree of harmony that now it’s become a habit?’

  ‘And how can you find out?’

  ‘By studying the effects on animals that have no emotional memory. I’ll show you a pair of rabbits in a minute . . .’

  ‘But does it really matter either way?’ asked Hector. ‘The end result is the same, whether it’s an effect of the product or an effect of learning together: a love that lasts.’

  ‘How can you be sure it will last? After all, our recent relationships, yours and mine, are only a few weeks old . . .’

  Hector saw a glimmer of hope – maybe the effects of the drug would wear off.

  ‘. . . but I can also tell you that six months ago, at the university, I made two ducks fall in love, just like the ones you saw, and the faculty have written to inform me that the little darlings still love each other tenderly! And, what’s more, that drug hadn’t been perfected!’

  Hector’s hopes were instantly dashed. He and Vayla would be together indefinitely. The professor’s roguish expression, like an overgrown child pleased at having played a clever prank, suddenly made him angry.

  ‘But, Professor Cormorant, we aren’t ducks! And what about freedom of choice?’

  ‘Hang on, people will always be free to — ’

  ‘Love isn’t simply a question of drugs! What about commitment? And compassion? We aren’t rabbits, and we aren’t pandas!’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, calm down, everything’s fine!’

  ‘You can’t play around with love! Love is a serious matter!’

  ‘Indeed, and we take it very seriously, Dr Hector.’

  It was a tall Chinese man in a suit who had spoken. He had come in noiselessly and was watching them with a smile, flanked by Lu and Wee. He looked older than Hector, but younger than the professor, and he had intelligent eyes behind his fine titanium glasses, and a smile like a film star’s. His suit was so immaculate you wondered if he would dare sit down in it, but he had the look of a man who was in the habit of daring when he judged it necessary.

  ‘Dr Wei,’ said Professor Cormorant, ‘the one sponsoring all this research!’

  ‘I am only a humble intermediary,’ said Dr Wei, narrowing his intelligent eyes.

  HECTOR HAS A SHOCK

  HECTOR returned to his hotel, all alone in the back of the big car driven by Captain Lin Zaou. He watched the amazing Shanghai skyscrapers glide by in the hazy late-afternoon light, but he didn’t care about them. He was very worried by the association between Professor Cormorant and Dr Wei.

  ‘We see love as a cause of social chaos,’ Dr Wei had said. ‘Instead of starting families or helping the economy to thrive, young people waste their energy flitting from one person to the other, a hedonistic, selfish pursuit. Or else they suffer from heartache, and as a result some of our most brilliant students miss the opportunity to attend the best universities, throwing away their futures and their contribution to their country. And those who do marry in accordance with their parents’ wishes (as always used to be the custom until recent times) mope about, particularly the girls, it has to be said, wondering if it is right to stay with a
man they don’t feel sufficiently in love with! And all this, of course, is the fault of the media, turning their heads with all their talk of love!’

  Hector was sure that this sort of torment had existed long before the media came along, and that you could find lots of Chinese poems dating back centuries about women weeping because their husbands were unkind, and grieving for their first loves. However, he didn’t say anything because he wanted to hear the whole of Dr Wei’s argument, and Dr Wei was obviously a man who was used to talking for a long time without being interrupted.

  As if to demonstrate this, Lu and Wee were listening to him with an air of great respect, giving little nods of agreement. And yet Hector had the impression they were only pretending; there was something strange but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The only enjoyable thing about the situation was imagining Gunther’s face when he discovered that the vast Chinese market had just slipped through his fingers. Should Hector send him a report informing him of this catastrophe?

  The car dropped him in front of his hotel, and suddenly he remembered another problem he had to deal with, one that was as complicated as the future of China and Taiwan: Vayla and Clara.

  He felt rather depressed and wondered whether it might not be a side effect of the drug. He was about to go through the revolving door when he bumped into Jean-Marcel.

  ‘Are you all right? You don’t look so good.’

  ‘Oh, just a few problems.’

  ‘Come on, I told you mine, now you tell me yours,’ said Jean-Marcel, leading him over to the bar.

  In the lobby Hector noticed a half-finished glass of orange juice and remembered it was the only drink Vayla knew how to order.

  They found themselves sitting at the bar, and as it was nearly evening they ordered a couple of Singapore Slings in memory of their visit to the temple.

  ‘My friend has arrived from France,’ explained Hector. ‘She wants to see me.’

  ‘Oh boy! And where’s Vayla?’

  ‘I don’t know. I expect she’s gone back to our room.’

  ‘And what is it you want out of all this?’

  This question amused Hector — it was the kind of thing he asked his patients. Had Jean-Marcel consulted one of his colleagues before?

  ‘I don’t know. I feel I love them both, but that’s completely impossible. It’s all the fault of the chemistry.’

  ‘Chemistry?’ Jean-Marcel asked, looking very intrigued.

  ‘Yes, the chemistry of love, I mean. Little molecules spinning round in our heads like copulating mice . . . or ducks, for that matter.’

  Jean-Marcel looked at Hector uneasily.

  Just then a young man from reception came over and handed Hector an envelope. A letter a young woman had left for him, he explained.

  Hector paused for a moment, but Jean-Marcel gestured to him to go ahead and open it. Hector took the letter out and began reading it, while Jean-Marcel sent a text message from his mobile.

  I came, I saw and I was convinced. I ran into your beloved in the hotel lobby and I stayed a while to watch her. She is lovely – you have good taste – but then I already knew that. I can see how unbelievably lucky she must feel to have met you, which is good because you’ve always liked playing the role of saviour. I’m sorry, I’m being hurtful because I can’t help feeling a bit jealous, even though I have no real right to after telling you I see no future for us. So I just hope you’ll be happy, with her or with somebody else, but preferably with her because I’m already getting used to the idea. As for me, well, I might as well tell you before you hear it from someone else: I have another man in my life, too. I already know the horrible things you will think and I’m sure you’ll come out with a few misogynistic remarks, but there it is. I’m having an affair with Gunther, but not for the reasons you might imagine.

  My God, love is complicated. I feel miserable writing this, knowing you are with her, and at the same time I know I love Gunther. I send you my love, because I don’t see why I wouldn’t, but I don’t think we should see each other for a while.

  Clara

  ‘Is everything all right?’ asked Jean-Marcel.

  Hector flushed with anger. Gunther. Gunther with his big two-faced grin. Gunther who had sent him on a mission to discover the secrets of love.

  He leapt to his feet, coiled like a spring, ready to go to the ends of the earth to find Clara.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the Peace Hotel.’

  ‘Let’s go there together!’

  In the taxi, Jean-Marcel gave the driver the address, because, well, he spoke a bit of Chinese, too.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s making you so angry?’ asked Jean-Marcel.

  ‘My friend just told me she’s leaving me for her boss.’

  ‘Ah, I see . . .’

  Outside, the Shanghai buildings glided past, like the ones in New York, as previously mentioned.

  ‘I don’t mean to be unkind,’ said Jean-Marcel, ‘but you aren’t exactly behaving like a saint either.’

  ‘It’s only chemistry,’ Hector repeated wearily.

  And, at the same time, he felt it was unfair of him to reduce the gentle Vayla’s love to a question of chemistry. Knowing how sensitive she was to his moods, how happy she was each time she saw him, and that they managed to joke with so few words. But how could he be sure?

  Because he was very upset, and in psychiatry they teach you that talking helps, he explained to Jean-Marcel about the recent uncertainties in his relationship with Clara. Jean-Marcel listened very attentively, frowning.

  ‘But why are we going to the Peace Hotel?’

  ‘To find Clara.’

  Jean-Marcel paused. ‘Look, given the situation, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’

  ‘She’s cheating on me with her boss!’

  ‘Yes, all right. But let’s just say she stopped loving you as much and now she loves someone else.’

  ‘She’s deceived me.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘It’s not the same. She had already told me things weren’t working between us.’

  ‘All right, but what will you gain from seeing her, especially in your present state?’

  ‘She has come all the way to Shanghai. To see me!’

  ‘Nevertheless, if I were you, I’d calm down first.’

  Hector told himself that Jean-Marcel had taken on the role Hector usually had of helping people calm their emotions. But Hector was beginning to calm down. He had already considered the situation, and it was basically true that Clara had stopped loving him as much, and now she loved someone else. You can of course be angry with someone for that. (Some people are even driven to murder and Hector himself felt wound up enough to write something very blunt about the third component of heartache: anger!) But as love is involuntary, is it really fair to want to punish someone for a feeling over which they had no choice? In any case, Clara’s letter had absolved him of the second component, guilt, he told himself as the taxi dropped them outside the Peace Hotel.

  ‘You go ahead, I’ll follow,’ Jean-Marcel said, counting out the taxi fare.

  Hector went through the revolving door, which so many celebrities had gone through so long ago. Two Chinese women dripping with jewellery came out as he went in. He thought:

  Seedling no. 23: Love is like a revolving door; you go round and round, but you never manage to catch up with one another.

  DO HECTOR AND CLARA STILL LOVE EACH OTHER?

  CROUCHED like a huntress in the jungle behind a huge armchair upholstered with pouncing tigers, Vayla saw Hector enter the lobby of the Peace Hotel. He walked over to reception and asked something of one of the staff, who evidently didn’t understand his pronunciation, unlike Vayla who understood everything. She had followed Clara to her hotel, out of a painful desire to dwell on her rival’s superiority, and because she wanted to know more about this creature who posed such a threat to her.

  She had seen Clara go up and was steeling h
erself for one of the most painful experiences of her life: seeing Hector join her in her room.

  Just then, Clara appeared in the lobby, followed by a bellboy pulling her suitcase on a luggage trolley.

  Clara and Hector noticed each other at the same moment. Hector took three steps forward, but Clara suddenly hid her face with one hand and, raising the other, gestured to him not to come near. Vayla instantly realised it wasn’t a heartless gesture so much as the action of someone appealing for pity, as though speaking to Hector could only make her suffer even more. Hector stopped dead in his tracks while Clara, bowed down with grief, scarcely able to hold back her tears, walked towards the exit. Vayla went on deciphering the emotions on Hector’s face as he stood motionless, and she certainly recognised pity, but also anger, and neediness. She was unaware that her own face was clouded by the same emotions.

  Finally, Hector seemed to rouse himself and he caught up with Clara. He steered her over to a couch, not far from where Vayla was still hiding, unseen. Hector and Clara remained silent for a while. Clara dried her tears.

  ‘How long has this been going on?’ Hector asked.

  Clara shrugged, as if the question were unimportant.

  ‘A month, three months, six months?’

  Clara made as if to get up and Hector realised he was taking the wrong approach.

  ‘Well, all right, I’ll have to live with that as well. With not knowing. At least tell me if you were already having an affair with him when we spent that weekend at your parents’?’

  Clara bridled. ‘No!’

  Hector saw the tears still rolling down the face he loved so dearly. Love was truly terrible; how could two people who had once loved one another and who perhaps still loved one another inflict such suffering on each other?

  ‘So why did you come to Shanghai?’

  Clara shrugged, but this time as if laughing at herself.