Clara’s bosses were pleased with her because she was a very conscientious, hard-working girl, and they often asked her to stand in for them at meetings or sum up long reports for them, which they didn’t have time to read.
Hector was happy to know that Clara’s bosses had faith in her. On the other hand he didn’t like her coming home so late, often tired, and not always in a very good mood. Because, although her bosses depended on her a lot, they never took her along to the really important meetings with the real big shots; they went to those on their own, and made out that they were the ones who had done all the work or come up with all the good ideas.
What a surprise, then, when Clara arrived home with a big smile on her face.
‘Good day?’ asked Hector, pleased to see Clara looking so happy.
‘Oh, not great, too many meetings getting in the way of work. And everybody is in a panic because the patent on our leading drug has expired. So we can kiss our profits goodbye!’
‘But you look so happy.’
‘I’m happy to see you, my love.’
And she began to laugh. You see, this was Clara’s way of jesting about love. Luckily, Hector was used to it and he knew that Clara really loved him.
‘Well,’ said Clara, ‘it’s true, but I’m also happy because we’ve received an invitation.’
‘We?’
‘Yes, well, you’re the one invited, but I’m allowed to go with you.’ Clara took a letter out of her briefcase and gave it to Hector. ‘They should really have posted it to you, but they’re aware by now that we know each other.’
Hector read the letter. It was written by a man who was very high up in Clara’s company, one of the real big shots she didn’t meet very often. He said that he thought very highly of Hector (Hector remembered they’d shaken hands twice at conferences on psychiatry) and was relying on him to take part in a confidential meeting, where people from the company would ask his opinion on a very important matter. He hoped that Hector would agree to go, and repeated how much he appreciated his expertise.
Together with the letter was another piece of paper showing the place where the meeting would be held: a very pretty hotel made of wood overlooking a magnificent beach with palm trees. The hotel was on a faraway island surrounded by a very blue sea. Hector wondered why they had to take them so far. It was perfectly possible to think at home in an armchair, but he told himself that this was the company’s way of making him feel that he was important to them.
There was a third piece of paper telling Hector that in addition to the invitation he would of course be paid for giving his opinion. When he saw the amount, he thought he’d misread it and had added on an extra zero, but on rereading it he realised that he hadn’t, that it was right.
‘Hasn’t there been some mistake?’ Hector asked Clara.
‘No, that’s the correct amount. The others are getting the same – more or less what they asked for.’
‘The others?’
She gave Hector the names of his fellow psychiatrists who had also been invited.
Hector knew them. There was a very old psychiatrist with a bow tie who, as he grew older, had specialised in rich unhappy people (though he also occasionally saw poor people and didn’t charge them), and a jolly little woman who had specialised in people who had difficulty doing what people in love do, and were willing to pay crazy amounts of money in order to be able to do it.
‘Right, well, this will be a mini holiday for us,’ said Hector.
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Clara. ‘I’ll be seeing the same old faces I see at every meeting.’
‘At least we’ll be going away somewhere together for a change,’ said Hector.
‘We went to Italy recently!’
‘That was only because you had a conference there afterwards. Your job always determines everything.’
‘Would you prefer me to be a good little housewife and stay at home?’
‘No, I’d prefer you to stop letting yourself be exploited, and come home at a reasonable time.’
‘I bring you a piece of good news and you immediately start complaining!’
‘You’re the one who started it.’
‘No, I didn’t, you did.’
Hector and Clara carried on bickering and went to bed without speaking to each other or kissing each other good night. Which just goes to show that love isn’t easy, even for psychiatrists.
During the night, Hector woke up. In the dark, he found his luminous pen, which allowed him to write at night without waking Clara up. He noted: Perfect love would be never having arguments.
He thought about it. He wasn’t sure.
He didn’t feel he could call his statement a ‘lesson’. Wanting to give lessons on love seemed a bit ridiculous. He thought of ‘reflection’, but it was too serious for such a simple phrase. It was only a tiny thought, like a seedling that has just sprouted and nobody knows what it will be yet. There, he’d found it. It was a seedling. He wrote:
Seedling no. 1: Perfect love would be never having arguments.
He thought for a little bit longer, but it was difficult as his eyelids kept closing. He looked at Clara who was sleeping.
Seedling no. 2: Sometimes we argue most with the people we love the most.
HECTOR AND CLARA GO TO THE BEACH
ONE place on the island’s beach seemed to belong to a large family of little pink crabs that were constantly mounting or fighting each other. Hector watched them, and he very quickly understood that when they mounted each other it was the males mounting the females and when they fought it was the males fighting amongst themselves. And why were they fighting? To be able to mount the females, of course. Even for crabs, love seemed like quite a difficult thing, especially for the males that lost a pincer during a fight. It reminded Hector of something one of his patients had said to him about a woman he was very much in love with: ‘I would have done better to cut my arm off than meet her.’ He was exaggerating of course, especially as, unlike with crabs, an arm doesn’t grow back.
‘You like your little friends the crabs, don’t you?’
It was Clara, who had arrived wearing a pretty white bathing suit. She had started to tan a little and to Hector she looked as appetising as a freshly picked apricot.
‘You’re crazy, be careful, people can see us! And so can the crabs!’
Exactly! It was watching the crabs that had given Hector ideas, but he had also just noticed that the people from the company were looking in their direction. They were having a drink on the veranda of the hotel’s biggest bungalow, which was built on stilts. The sunset was magnificent, the waves breaking on the beach made a gentle murmur, Clara looked all golden in the setting sun and Hector thought: This is a moment of happiness. He had learnt that you mustn’t waste any of these.
It gets dark very quickly in that part of the world, and everybody met for dinner in the big bungalow. And what was for starters? Crab!
‘We’re delighted you could all be here,’ said the very important man from the company, whose name was Gunther. He had a slight accent and broad shoulders. He was very tall, but came from a very small, very rich country specialising in chocolate bars and big pharmaceutical companies.
‘Yes, indeed!’ said his colleague, Marie-Claire, a tall redhead with a dazzling smile and magnificent sparkling rings.
Hector had noticed she and Clara didn’t like each other very much.
The old psychiatrist who had been invited didn’t respond; he was concentrating on his crab. He wasn’t wearing his bow tie and the strange thing was that in a polo shirt he looked even older. There’s a good piece of advice, thought Hector. When you get very old, always wear a bow tie. He began thinking about what to advise very old ladies. To wear a hat?
‘I’ve been here before,’ said Ethel, the woman who was an expert in love, ‘and I adored it.’
And she mentioned the name of another big pharmaceutical company that had invited her to that same island, and Hector saw a touch of a
nnoyance in Gunther’s and Marie-Claire’s smiles.
But Ethel didn’t notice a thing. As previously mentioned, she was a jolly little woman who was always cheerful, which must have done the people who went to see her a lot of good.
‘Did you know the redness in crabs is sexual?’ she asked. ‘In proportion to their size, they are extremely well endowed!’
And she gave her jolly laugh again. Hector noticed that the maître d’hôtel, a tall, Asian-looking fellow, had been listening and had given a faint smile.
At either end of the table, there was a group of young men and women also employed by the company, and you could tell that some of the young men, and, of course, some of the young women, would one day be bosses.
And it was one of the girls who smiled at Hector and said to him, ‘I really liked your last article. What you say is so true!’
This was an article Hector had written for a magazine explaining why so many people needed to see psychiatrists.
Hector said he was glad but, at the same time, he saw that Clara wasn’t altogether happy about his little chat with the young woman.
Later, Clara whispered in his ear, ‘She’s always showing off, that girl.’
The old psychiatrist had finished shelling his crab, and he began delicately eating the tiny pile of meat he had collected in the middle of his plate.
‘As methodical as ever, my dear,’ Ethel said to him, chuckling. ‘No pleasure without a struggle!’
The old psychiatrist replied without looking up from his plate, ‘As you well know, my dear, at my age everything is a struggle, alas.’
And everybody laughed because he was the type of old-school psychiatrist who had a dry wit.
His name was François, and Hector liked him very much.
At the end of the meal, Gunther wished them all a very good night since tomorrow they were going to get up early for the meeting, and he added in Hector’s language, ‘The best advice is found on the pillow,’ apparently very pleased at having learnt this expression because Hector’s language was not Gunther’s mother tongue; in the small country he came from they spoke several languages.
Much later, when Hector looked back on this whole affair and remembered ‘The best advice is found on the pillow’, he felt like laughing and crying at the same time.
HECTOR GOES TO A MEETING
‘WELL,’ said Gunther, ‘we are all here this morning because we need to pick your brains. Our company is working on the drugs of the future. But we are well aware that we will only maintain our dominant position in the market if our drugs are really useful to patients, and who is better placed to know about patients than you?’
He talked a bit more about what wonderful people Hector, François – the old psychiatrist, and Ethel – the expert in love, were. Everybody had gathered, like at dinner the previous evening, in a big room made entirely of wood overlooking the beach.
Hector looked out of the huge glassless windows. The sea was grey that morning under a cloudy sky, giving the palm trees a melancholy air. He had realised the day before that if you went from the beach across the sea in a straight line, in a few days you would reach China. And, as previously mentioned, Hector had once met a pretty Chinese girl, and sometimes he still thought about her. But of course it was Clara he loved.
Actually, it was Clara who was talking now and projecting pretty pictures with a little computer.
‘This shows the increase in the consumption of antidepressants in Western countries . . .’
People really did take a lot of them, more and more, and women twice as many as men.
‘But, even so, half of all depressive illnesses still go undiagnosed and untreated,’ Clara went on.
It was true; Hector sometimes saw people who had suffered from depression for years without ever receiving treatment. On the other hand, a lot of people took antidepressants without really needing them. But of course the pharmaceutical company was less concerned about that.
As he watched Clara, who was such a good speaker, so confident and so elegant in her white linen suit, Hector felt quite proud that a girl like her had chosen him out of all the men who chased after her. When he remembered all the effort he had put into it at the time, and the crabs fighting on the beach, he resolved to write in his notebook:
Seedling no. 3: You cannot win someone’s love without a fight.
Clara talked about the new antidepressant the company would soon launch onto the market, which would be more effective and better tolerated than all the others. With this one even the most depressed people would be singing and dancing in the street.
Gunther thanked Clara for her ‘brilliant contribution’ and Hector noticed this upset Marie-Claire, the tall redhead, a little bit. But, well, that’s the way it always is in companies.
‘We have talked about antidepressants,’ said Gunther, ‘to give you an idea of how we see the future. But, in reality, depression will soon be a thing of the past, from our point of view, in any case. It will soon be just a question of monitoring people.’
The phrase ‘monitoring people’ sent a slight shiver down Hector’s spine, although Gunther wasn’t wrong.
‘. . . but depression is an illness,’ Gunther went on, ‘and people today don’t just want their illnesses cured, they want to be healthy, meaning they want to enjoy “physical and mental well-being”. Those aren’t my words – they come from the World Health Organization. In short, people want to be ha-ppy!’
And Gunther let out a big booming laugh that showed off his splendid teeth. All the young people smiled.
From time to time, the tall maître d’hôtel from the evening before and a young waitress in a sarong came in to serve them coffee, and Hector said to himself that they probably weren’t worried about being ‘ha-ppy’, but about feeding their families. He knew that the price of a room for one night in that hotel was equivalent to two months’ average wages in the country to which the island belonged and, at the same time, this provided jobs for a lot of people who could then support their whole family.
He also noticed that every time the young girl came in, the old psychiatrist, François, followed her tenderly with his gaze. And when she left François looked a little sad. Hector thought that one day he would be like François, and that made him feel a little sad, too.
‘They’re right to want to be happy,’ said Ethel. ‘That’s what life is all about!’
Ethel herself always looked happy – anyone would think she secreted the company’s new antidepressant in her own brain. During the night, Hector had gone out onto the balcony for a breath of fresh air and had seen a tall figure coming out of Ethel’s bungalow.
‘Well,’ said Gunther, ‘I think we all agree with that evaluation of happiness. So, what is it in your opinion, besides illness, accidents and financial problems, that most stops people from being happy?’
There was a long silence. You could tell that everybody had ideas, but nobody dared to be the first to speak. Hector hesitated, because he wondered whether it was a good idea to bring up his idea without first having spoken to Clara about it, since this meeting was important to her and he had to consider her, too. But he had his own opinion about what stopped people from being happy.
‘Love.’
Everybody looked at the old psychiatrist, François. It was he who had spoken. As previously mentioned, Hector liked him a lot.
HECTOR HEARS ABOUT LOVE
OLD François looked out to sea as he spoke, as though the sight of it inspired him. And everybody listened in complete silence.
‘Love,’ he said, ‘a sickness of the body to which the mind consents. Not my words, unfortunately. Love certainly provides our greatest joys, although that word is inadequate; our greatest ecstasies, we might say. That movement towards the other, that moment when our dream becomes reality, that state of grace where at last we think of something other than ourselves, that meeting of bodies that makes us immortal, for a few moments at least, that transformation of the everyday in the
presence of the loved one, ah . . . When their face is engraved on our heart, except that sometimes . . .’ He sighed. ‘Because love brings such suffering, oceans of suffering . . . spurned love, loving too much, a lack of love, the death of love, alas . . .
‘What is left of our loving ways?
What is left of those sunny days . . .
Faded joys and windswept tresses
Stolen kisses and caresses
What is left of the love we knew?
Tell me now I beg of you . . .’
He finished the song, and Hector saw to his great surprise that Clara’s eyes were glistening with tears. Old François suddenly noticed that everyone looked full of emotion, and he seemed to rouse himself.
‘Forgive me, my friends, I got a little carried away; I just wanted to answer your question about what can make people unhappier.’
There was a brief silence. Gunther smiled and took the floor again. ‘Thank you for your very remarkable rendition. Listening to you makes me feel as if I am truly hearing the language of love!’
In the meantime, the young girl in the sarong had returned, this time carrying a tray of fruit juice, and again old François followed her with forlorn eyes.
‘And now,’ Gunther went on, ‘I turn to you, dear Ethel. I’d like to hear your opinion, which, I believe, is different.’
‘Yes, it certainly is!’ She turned to the old psychiatrist. ‘My dear François, you painted a marvellous, if somewhat sad, portrait of love for us. But, after all, how dreary life would be without love! It is love that transports us, that fills us with joy! Love turns life into one long adventure, every encounter is a dazzling experience – well, not always, of course, but in actual fact, it is our less successful love affairs that enable us to appreciate the others. I think love protects us from one of the biggest problems facing the modern world: boredom. Because, well, the lives we lead are so safe — I mean in our countries, of course — that love is the only adventure we have left. Hurrah for love, which keeps us forever young!’
Hector and the Secrets of Love Page 2