Hector and the Secrets of Love

by Francois Lelord

  And so he wrote:

  Seedling no. 17: Jealousy is a sign of attachment.

  But that wasn’t right either. He had known couples who no longer desired one another but who still felt a strong bond and in those cases the one didn’t feel jealous when the other got laid – as Jean-Marcel put it. On the other hand, Hector remembered men who felt almost no affection for their wives, but who were driven crazy by the thought of her having a brief encounter with another man. So did that count as love? Maybe there were two types of jealousy: feeling jealous of the other desiring another, or feeling jealous of the other possibly becoming attached to another. Maybe there were as many components to jealousy as there were to love.

  And maybe . . . Hector had a sudden eureka moment. Love must contain as many components as heartache!

  ‘Sabay!’ he cried.

  ‘Sabay!’ declared Vayla, overjoyed to see Hector so happy.

  Jean-Marcel explained to Li what the Khmer word meant, and Li thought about it and said that in Shanghai Chinese you could have said ‘Don Ting Hao De’.

  And they all said ‘Don Ting Hao De’ and Hector said to himself that this was another moment of happiness. But moments are fleeting things.

  CLARA IS SAD

  ON the plane, Clara thought sadly about what had prompted her to love Hector less. As she was a methodical girl who was used to breaking things down into their constituent parts, she took a notebook from her bag, and felt a slight pang because it was a notebook she had taken from Hector, who bought them in packets of ten.

  Why has our love faded?

  Because I am angry with him for not having married me when I wanted?

  There was some truth in this: at the beginning of their relationship, Clara was very much in love; so was Hector, but he felt in no hurry to get married, that is, to commit. Hearing his parents say what a crucial thing marriage was and how terribly important it was to choose a wife well because, as far as disasters were concerned, divorce came third after nuclear war and the bubonic plague, Hector had grown a little apprehensive about marriage and its air of permanence. As a result he had disregarded Clara’s eagerness to marry, and now she was the one who no longer wanted to commit. At the same time, Clara didn’t hold his past failings against him, because she knew about life and, anyway, when you don’t want to marry someone any more, it is difficult to be upset with them for not having wanted to marry you in the past. But perhaps she was a little angry with him all the same for having spoilt the freshness and spontaneity of her love for him.

  Because time destroys everything in the long run and we have known each other too long?

  Because he no longer holds any mystery for me?

  The answers to these questions were all more or less the same. Clara knew Hector inside out, his good sides and his not so good sides, so it was true he no longer really held any mystery for her.

  Because his profession makes him less fun and less energetic?

  If this was true, it was very unfair, she thought, but who said love was fair? Hector’s profession often made him very tired, and when he got home he was unable to speak for an hour at least, even when they were both invited out to dinner in town. Some evenings Hector would drink too many aperitifs in order to put himself in the mood and sometimes he would say silly things that irritated Clara. On holiday or at weekends, Clara liked to be active, to do sports, but Hector said he was too tired for that and he spent his time snoozing, relaxing or sleeping, and also making love, but mostly he spent his weekends lying on his back, and this also irritated Clara.

  Because I was attracted to Gunther right from the beginning?

  Clara chewed her pen. This was a difficult thing to admit. What if it were the main reason? She loved Hector but Gunther had come along, and she had been attracted to the man, his energy, his intellect (which, let’s be clear, was simply different from that of Hector, who wasn’t stupid either), his swift decision making (very different from Hector in this regard, admittedly), his ability to switch very quickly from crude anger to polite composure (Hector never lost his temper) and his gift for seeing the bigger picture from a strategic point of view whilst being able to pay great attention to detail (Hector wouldn’t have made a bad strategist, but detail bored him).

  What really upset Clara was that this affair was a cliché: the girl who falls for her boss, like the student falling for her teacher, and Clara couldn’t stand the idea of being a cliché. For her it was demeaning.

  She preferred to tell herself she had fallen in love with Gunther because she had been moved when he began confiding in her about the hellishness of his home life with his wife and daughter.

  And it was true. The intimacy that had grown up between them as a result of these confidences had blossomed into love. (Hector had in fact already explained this to her: intimacy can lead to a woman loving a man she is not even initially attracted to, and psychiatrists have to be careful about this type of love in female patients with whom they develop a close relationship.) But let’s imagine it was her colleague Lemercier from research and development, who liked hiking in the Vesoul region, around his parents’ pretty converted farmhouse; yes, what if it was that nice boy who had begun telling her about some similar family problems, would she have been as moved?

  This was the sort of question Clara didn’t really like to dwell on, all the more so because in her youth she had been a left-wing activist, and so the idea of falling in love with a man known as Gunther the Downsizer upset her three times as much.

  The plane arrived over Shanghai during the day, and the city was a forest of skyscrapers rising from the earth in the misty daylight. An enchanted concrete forest, thought Clara, who had a way with words.

  This was just as well because now she had to come up with some damn good ones to inform Hector that she no longer loved him and that she was having an affair with a man she did love, Gunther, her boss. On second thoughts, perhaps she shouldn’t tell him the last part, because it might make Hector less inclined to find Professor Cormorant, and at least that mission kept his mind off things.

  Why then had Gunther allowed her to go to Shanghai in order to tell Hector their relationship was over? Because he trusts me, she thought. Which proves that when a thought reassures you it can prevent you from thinking any further.

  And what if Hector had fallen deeply in love with that young Asian girl she had glimpsed on television? What a cliché! Clara thought again with a shudder. The Western man, no longer exactly young, falls into the arms of a sweet young Asian girl who smiles at him all the time. Very nice, really, well done, Dr Hector!

  She recalled an expression her parents often used when her two equally insufferable little brothers came telling tales: ‘The pot calling the kettle black’. The same could be said of her and Hector in this situation, she thought to herself, and of men and women in general when it came to love.

  A long way below her, Hector and Vayla were engaged in doing just that – making love, that is. They hadn’t had time to see themselves on television. But Vayla had watched enough to be able to sing later in Hector’s ear: ‘“I just can’t get you out of my head . . .”’

  HECTOR’S LIFE IS COMPLICATED

  Dear friend,

  We haven’t seen each other now for nearly three weeks. Forgive my sudden disappearance, but I realised that our presence next to the two excited pandas would very quickly attract the attention of the people who are looking for me, and so, as Napoleon once said about love, the only safety was in flight.

  I intend to stay in the area for the time being, so expect a sign from me. I have found two extremely talented chemists here who are willing to take part in my experiments. This country is a veritable powerhouse of creativity, intelligence and youth.

  Having seen the charming Vayla, I encourage you not even to entertain the thought of leaving her. She has a smile of real happiness and, as you know from reading my latest research, that means she has a gift for remaining happy in the face of life’s vagaries. Do y
ou know how much a good-natured woman is worth, my young friend? She is priceless, I tell you. My Not has her attractions, but in that way she is a more tormented soul, which isn’t surprising when you know what she went through as a child – I’ll tell you about it one day.

  I must leave you now because my young collaborator has just come to tell me we are about to finish a new experiment.

  Sabay!

  By the way, did you know that expression comes from another, which means to eat rice, meaning when we eat rice all is well? The simple happiness of these people is moving when you think about what happened to them after we introduced them, one after the other, to those two Western inventions, Marxism gone mad and the B52 bomber.

  Chester G. Cormorant

  This message made Hector feel deeply uneasy. Professor Cormorant was carrying on with his experiments. And yet he remembered that his first chemist had been committed after trying out one of his new drugs. What he said about Vayla also alarmed him: he knew Professor Cormorant was an expert in deciphering people’s facial expressions and emotions and that his studies had allowed him to identify the type of smile which could predict whether a person was predisposed towards happiness. But this would make it even harder for him to leave Vayla, assuming he was able to at all. And, in addition, the professor had said nothing more about an antidote.

  He watched Vayla sleeping peacefully, oblivious to his crises of conscience, her graceful profile silhouetted against the pillow. All at once she must have felt him looking at her, because she opened her eyes and gave him a big smile. Hector was filled with tenderness towards her. His brain was secreting oxytocin, Professor Cormorant would have said.

  But why leave Vayla? you may ask. If Hector and Vayla were happy together, why not get married? Yes, you’ve guessed, it was because Hector was still in love with Clara. And, as a matter of fact, when he looked at the computer again, he noticed a new email in his inbox. Vayla had got up and was sitting in front of the television.

  Dear Hector,

  I’m coming to Shanghai. I’ll be at the Peace Hotel tonight.

  Where are you?

  Love Clara

  Hector became intensely agitated. He replied:

  Dear Clara,

  I’m at . . .

  No. He pressed delete.

  Dear Clara,

  I can meet you at your hotel.

  No. He pressed delete.

  Dear Clara,

  Let me know when you arrive. Here is my Chinese mobile number.

  He had bought a Chinese pre-pay mobile so he could communicate more secretly with Professor Cormorant, although the professor had explained to him that Gunther’s company had enough money and contacts to employ a few people from the Chinese secret services who would be only too happy to do some overtime in order to have some jam on their bread, or in this case, some lacquer on their duck. And Hector’s new number would be discovered and tapped within twenty-four hours. But that didn’t matter, because Gunther must have known Clara was coming to Shanghai.

  Vayla cried out in front of the television. Hector looked at the screen.

  You could see Professor Cormorant giving his impassioned speech about love next to the panda enclosure, Hector standing beside him and Vayla’s smile lighting up the whole screen. Hector’s face began to flush; now he knew why Clara was coming to Shanghai!

  Vayla threw her arms round his neck and covered him with kisses. He realised that, for her, seeing them together on television was like a blessing, an amazing miracle that had happened to her, a poor waitress. It was just like one of the fairy tales from her country, where the benevolence of the gods suddenly shines down on a simple peasant walking barefoot beside a paddy field.

  HECTOR IS CROSS WITH HIMSELF

  HECTOR woke up. Vayla was sleeping soundly next to him rolled up in the bedspread with only her pretty nose poking out, because, for her, air conditioning was like winter in the mountains.

  Hector began thinking about Clara again.

  She was about to arrive in Shanghai, so what was he to do?

  Introduce her to Vayla and ask them to be friends? No, psychiatrists are said to be a bit mad sometimes but not to that extent. Hector told himself that, in an ideal world, he would have liked to pursue his love for Vayla without losing Clara. Even Professor Cormorant’s drug hadn’t destroyed the bond between them, which he could still feel was very strong.

  So why had she begun not to love him any more?

  Hector started thinking.

  The Second Component of Heartache

  The second component of what is commonly referred to as heartache is guilt. We blame ourselves for the loss of the loved one, and regret everything we did and said that might have contributed to the waning of love. Especially painful are memories of our insensitivity, neglect or even unkindness towards the loved one, who seems to us with hindsight to have been remarkably generous in loving us despite our shortcomings. This self-criticism invariably takes the form of questions we put to ourselves: ‘How could I have been so neglectful when he (or she) needed my help? How could I have been so irritable with him (or her) when all they were doing was trying to put me in a good mood? Why did I stupidly flirt with someone else when I knew it would make them suffer? Why did I let that idiot chase them without doing anything, as though I were so sure of myself or, on the contrary, so unsure? How could I have refused to respond to their references to our future together when at the time that was what they were dreaming of and all they wanted was to love me?’

  He kept remembering all the times he hadn’t been very nice to Clara, and when he had made her cry, at the beginning of their relationship, when he had calmly explained to her that he wasn’t sure he wanted to commit to their relationship, or when he had been in a bad mood and snapped at her. All those occasions when Clara had been in tears, or had looked sad after suffering rejection, indifference or criticism from him, all those occasions came back to him. He felt like shouting at himself, although he wouldn’t have gone so far as to call himself a bit of a bastard like Jean-Marcel.

  During these reminiscences, the loved one appears as a shining example of tenderness, honesty and generosity towards us, while we reveal ourselves to be neglectful, selfish and indifferent to our lover’s happiness. These guilt-ridden thoughts can prompt us to write long letters full of remorse and promises of our undying love to the loved one. Writing these letters brings us great comfort, but it is brief, all the more so because the loved one doesn’t usually reply.

  Clara had not replied to his first desperate emails. And yet here she was on her way to Shanghai in person.

  Vayla opened one eye and began smiling as soon as she saw him, then suddenly gave him a concerned, questioning look. She had sensed Hector was worried. Hector returned her smile and wrote:

  Seedling no. 18: Love means sensing immediately when the other is unhappy.

  HECTOR MAKES AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY

  HECTOR had fallen asleep. And when he woke up Vayla had gone. This made him uneasy. How would she manage all alone in this city where the names of the streets were in Chinese, and where the taxi drivers never understood the way you pronounced an address? As a result, they often took you to the wrong place altogether! That meant that unless you kept the business card of your hotel with you, you were liable to find yourself eating reheated noodles under a flyover several days later.

  In the hotel lobby, Hector found Jean-Marcel sitting near the bar, not looking very happy.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Hector asked.

  ‘Oh, the same old story. I keep blaming myself for things. No doubt you’ve heard it all before.’

  ‘That’s for sure! You haven’t seen Vayla, have you?’

  ‘Yes, I just saw her walk past. In fact, she looked like she was in a hurry.’

  ‘I wonder where she went. What if she gets lost?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, you can’t get lost here – someone will always find you. And, anyway, I don’t see a girl like her letting go of a guy li
ke you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Hector, wondering whether Jean-Marcel’s remark was as complimentary as all that.

  ‘Imagine her life back there. And she’s one of the relatively privileged ones. Supporting her whole family on her salary, liable to be laid off as soon as there are no guests, being propositioned by losers – not you, I know it’s not like that – and, what’s more, if she was working at that hotel it is precisely because she didn’t want to be a so-called massage-madame, but that could still be her fate if things turn out badly. The other alternative is to marry a man from her country. Of course, there are exceptions, but, believe me, they are real machos, the kind that died out a long time ago back home. That’s why, in my opinion, even left in the middle of a snow storm without a compass, she would find you.’

  But then, Hector wondered, was Vayla attracted to him out of self-interest or out of love? Of course, he could assume it was love because she had taken one of Professor Cormorant’s drugs. And her face showed every sign of love when she woke up and saw him. But let us imagine their relationship had taken the same turn without any drugs? How could he tell if Vayla stayed with him out of love or out of self-interest? In fact, all men who had a higher social status than their wives could ask themselves the same question (or not).