‘Thith ithn’t over yet, you bathtard,’ Gunther went on in a furious voice.
‘You bet it isn’t!’ said Hector, straightening up.
This rush of hatred felt so good he wondered why he always tried to encourage his patients to control it. The chief and Aang stood between them again.
But once Hector had sat down and put his head back to stop the bleeding he saw Clara’s face appear next to Vayla’s. The two women exchanged a look of simultaneous incomprehension and knowing – we realise men are crazy – then looked at him, concerned. And for a moment, beneath their gazes, so similar and yet so different, he felt incredibly happy. The memory of a paradise lost, or a sultan’s daydream, he thought.
And then, certain he wasn’t badly hurt, Clara went away. He heard her murmuring words of comfort to Gunther.
Suddenly Hector felt ashamed. Fighting. So, after all, he and Gunther had behaved just like the crabs he had seen fighting on the island. Another consequence of love: it reduced you to the level of your friends the crabs. Of course you might think the reason for the fight was the theft of the briefcase, but he and Gunther knew that wasn’t true.
‘Will somebody tell me what’s going on?’ said Professor Cormorant angrily. ‘Where’s my briefcase?’
Not had taken him over to a corner of the room, afraid the brawling men might fall on her beloved Kormoh.
‘Gunther had Ralph and the other guy and some soldiers steal your briefcase.’
‘Is that true? Is that true?’
‘What did you think?’ said Gunther, running his tongue painfully around the inside of his mouth. ‘That we’d go on working with a maniac like you?’
‘But it’s my research!’ Professor Cormorant cried out, suddenly sitting up straight. His cheeks were pink and he looked wide awake. ‘And anyway you can’t do anything without me!’
Gunther sniggered. ‘The cry of the geniuth . . .’
But one look from Clara and he stopped short.
‘Profethor Cormorant, you’ve done very good work, brilliant work, even . . . But now it’th time to begin working theriously.’
‘Who do you think will agree to work under these conditions if I won’t, for God’s sake?’
Gunther said nothing, as though it posed no problem.
Professor Cormorant was struck by a sudden realisation. ‘Rupert? You’re going to get that bastard Rupert to work on this?’
The professor had leapt to his feet, and Hector thought he was going to hurl himself at Gunther, but the chief and Aang intervened again.
‘No problem,’ the chief said, ‘no problem.’
‘No problem,’ Aang repeated.
‘Yes,’ said Hector, ‘big problem.’
The chief smiled and drew his attention to the scenery outside. Was the chief implying that contemplating nature was the most important thing and that all man’s petty disputes were in vain?
Hector saw a small group of Gna-Doas appear at the edge of the forest. They must be returning from the hunt because they seemed to be carrying heavy trophies tied to long poles resting on their shoulders.
Then he made out Derek, Ralph and the four soldiers, suspended by their hands and feet, like hammocks. And where the helicopter was, there were no pilots in sight, just a group of Gna-Doas guffawing loudly.
HECTOR WINS
‘WHAT a useless bunch,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘Another example of bad recruiting! Bringing along conscripts with no fighting experience. They should have got some real soldiers, or other mountain people, but to do that you need contacts!’
Jean-Marcel seemed be enjoying himself analysing the failure of Ralph and Derek’s great operation.
‘. . . those inexperienced rookies, useless without a rule book to follow,’ he said. ‘And they thought they could get away with it in the middle of Gna-Doa territory! Where people have been engaging in guerrilla warfare for generations! Well, it’s lucky we were here, otherwise I reckon those young lads would have ended up on an anthill, and that would have been the last anyone heard of them . . . The Gna-Doas have always had problems with people in authority.’
Hector and Jean-Marcel were drinking tea with Chief Gnar and using the briefcase between them as a table, a real symbol of their victory, a bit like drinking out of their enemies’ skulls, only nicer.
Gunther, Derek, Ralph, the pilots and the soldiers were locked in the pigsty. Hector had thought this a bit harsh, but Jean-Marcel had explained that it really was the minimum penalty for entering Gna-Doa territory armed.
Ralph and Derek’s plan had been doomed to failure the moment some of the village children saw the four soldiers slip out of the helicopter and disappear into the forest. And perhaps the boy or girl who had raised the alarm was at that very moment playing around them, and laughing the way children do, because they were very happy at being allowed to stay around the important grown-ups, so happy they were doing somersaults.
Professor Cormorant appeared next to them, a little unsteady on his feet but sturdy all the same.
‘The problem is,’ he said, ‘I’ll always be afraid they are going to try to steal everything off me again. I shall have to go away again with my sweet Not.’
Not and Vayla were talking, watched by Clara, who had escaped being shut in with the pigs thanks to Hector’s intervention. She was sitting quietly on the floor in the furthest corner of the room. Hector was longing to go and speak to her, but he didn’t want to do it in front of all these people – he would be too afraid they might fall into each other’s arms, and he was thinking of Vayla.
Footsteps vibrated on the ladder outside and Miko and Chizourou appeared, a little embarrassed at first, then increasingly interested in Professor Cormorant’s briefcase. Chief Gnar welcomed them with open arms then pointed to the women’s corner, where Vayla and Not were already sitting, because there really was no reason to get carried away.
‘It’s a pity,’ said Professor Cormorant, ‘I’m sure Pelléas and Mélisande were starting to get used to me.’
‘And how are you planning to leave?’ asked Jean-Marcel.
‘You could drive me to town in your car. From there, I’m sure I’ll find a plane going somewhere. Or even a train – apparently there’s an old colonial railway route that’s very picturesque. I’m sure Not will like that.’
Hector thought Not would almost certainly prefer to go to Shanghai than to some other remote village in the jungle.
‘What about the others?’
‘Oh,’ said Jean-Marcel, ‘they’ll let them go. The chief knows he can’t poach or even ransom big game like Gunther. Isn’t that right, Chief?’
And Chief Gnar began to chuckle, either because he agreed with Jean-Marcel, or because he always felt cheerful after a victory, or for some other reason only he knew about.
‘We could celebrate with something a bit stronger than tea,’ Jean-Marcel suggested, making good old Chief Gnar laugh even louder.
Hector went on pretending to take part in the conversation when in fact all he wanted was to talk to Clara.
HECTOR AND CLARA AND VAYLA
LATER on, Hector found Clara outside, at the foot of the ladder. She had come back from seeing Gunther, or rather from talking to him through the door of the pig pen guarded by two armed Gna-Doas.
‘Let’s have a talk,’ he said.
It was getting dark and he could sense that, like the Gna-Doa women, Clara didn’t like being outside here at night. They could hear Jean-Marcel and the chief laughing above their heads, and Professor Cormorant, who had discovered the joys of fermented rice wine and possibly choum-choum.
‘About what?’ said Clara mournfully.
‘Can you think of anything?’
Clara didn’t reply, but she pressed her forehead against Hector’s shoulder, like a stubborn little bull that knows this is life and there is nothing to do but to face it head on.
‘I think we still love each other,’ said Hector.
‘And we always will,’ said Clara.
There was a silence. Hector waited.
‘But it’s impossible now . . .’
Above them, Hector glimpsed Vayla’s face peering into the darkness and he thought she might see them. He stepped back to move away from Clara.
‘You see . . .’ Clara said.
During the night, Hector couldn’t sleep. He could feel Vayla’s restless breathing close to him. He was thinking about those who say it is impossible to love two people at the same time, who say that that isn’t true love. And yet he had often come across such stories through his patients; and it was not only the case for men, which was nothing new, but also for women, which was less talked about. And now here he was experiencing it himself, like in Doctor Zhivago, a film that had left a deep impression on him. You had to choose between your two loves so that you did not destroy them both. He resolved to write down:
Seedling no 27: You can only have one love at a time.
But perhaps that was too much like Love is resisting temptation. He fell asleep.
He felt Vayla’s face close to his, her breath on his cheek. He wanted to put his arms around her, but he saw she looked worried and wanted him to wake up.
‘Blem,’ she whispered, gesturing towards the doorway, which was open to the outside.
Dawn was beginning to colour the sky, but the village was still in darkness. Vayla pointed to the chief’s house where Jean-Marcel and Professor Cormorant had stayed overnight. Hector heard a faint rustling, and, given the turn the evening had taken, it would have been surprising if his friends had woken up this early.
‘Blem!’ whispered Vayla, frowning.
Two small figures had begun descending the ladder of the chief’s house. One of them was holding something that shone for a second in the pale dawn light. The professor’s briefcase. Miko and Chizourou were stealing away with his briefcase.
HECTOR SAVES LOVE
LATER, as he was running through the dark forest, he said to himself that Japanese martial arts were truly formidable, but that body weight and long legs were still decisive advantages. His nose had started bleeding again, he wondered whether one of his ribs wasn’t broken and the weight of the briefcase was pulling on his arm, but he felt as if he had wings.
Of course, the noise of him running might alert a tiger, but somehow he couldn’t quite believe it.
He stopped. No sound behind him. He had shaken off the two pretty and formidable young Japanese women. He continued on his way, walking this time and catching his breath.
The trees thinned out around him and suddenly he found himself at the edge of a cliff, overlooking a vast wooded plain stretching as far as the eye could see. In the distance, the ruins of a temple seemed to be waking up with the sun’s first rays.
At his feet, a hundred yards below, a fast mountain stream flowed.
Facing the rising sun, Hector deliberated. The briefcase contained the promise of a solution for all those who suffered as a result of love – spurned love, loving too much, a lack of love, the death of love, as old François had said. But he also remembered Hi and Ha and Dr Wei and Miko and Chizourou, and how afraid he had felt when he thought of the ways in which Gunther or others might use the professor’s research. To create forced enslavement. To compel people to form attachments, even a victim to his executioner.
Love was complicated, love was painful, love was the cause of so much unhappiness.
‘But love is freedom!’ he said out loud.
And Hector threw the briefcase into the fast-moving stream.
HECTOR HAS A DREAM
THAT night, with Vayla’s breath on his neck, Hector had a dream.
He was standing at the top of a beautiful Chinese mountain, in the company of an old monk he had met on his last big trip. The monk was carefully reading a text on the five components of heartache that Hector had brought him. They were surrounded by sun and clouds, and by the wind that rustled the pages in the monk’s hands. When he had finished reading, he smiled.
‘It’s good,’ he said, ‘but here you only talk about the dark side of love.’
‘How do I talk about the bright side?’
‘They are the same!’ said the old monk. And he laughed.
And suddenly everything became clear to Hector. Five components versus five components.
First component of love: fulfilment (the other side of neediness), the simple happiness of being with the loved one, the feeling of calm when the loved one laughs, sleeps, thinks, the incomparable happiness of simply being in each other’s arms.
Hector had experienced this feeling with Clara. And, it had to be said, with Vayla.
Second component: the joy of giving (the other side of guilt), feeling happy because we make others happy, saying to ourselves that with us the loved one has experienced joys they would not have experienced without us, that we have brought new light into their life, in the same way they have brought new light into ours.
Hector remembered this was similar to one of the lessons he had learnt from the old monk during his first trip: happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love.
Third component: gratitude (the other side of anger), being amazed by what we owe the loved one, the joy they have given us, the way they have helped us mature, the way they have been able to comfort and understand us, and to share our pleasures and sorrows.
Hector remembered what Clara had said to him one day: ‘Thank you for existing.’ And he also remembered Vayla’s letter.
Fourth component: self-confidence (the other side of low self-esteem), feeling happy to be who we are simply because the loved one loves us for who we are, with all our strengths and weaknesses. Despite our ordeals and setbacks, the criticism of others, and the cruelty of life, feeling a measure of self-confidence thanks to what really matters to us: being loved by the loved one.
Hector thought of all the people he had helped, but he knew he had only been able to do it because someone else still loved them no matter what.
Fifth component: serenity (the other side of fear), knowing that, despite life’s ups and downs and its inevitable tragic end, the loved one will be with us on this journey. The tests of time, illness, all of this will be bearable with the loved one by our side, for better or for worse, in happiness as in adversity.
Hector was still too young to give much thought to this component, but watching the smiling old monk he remembered how important it was.
Later, he sent the five components of love to old François, thinking they would do him good, provided, of course, they didn’t make him even sadder.
EPILOGUE
AND how did the whole story end? you are going to ask.
Hector had thrown away all Professor Cormorant’s research and that can’t have made everyone happy. So what happened to him?
Of course, Gunther threatened to sue him for vast sums of money, but then Hector threatened to reveal the true story about Hi and Ha, and that put a stop to that. Gunther’s company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on publicity in order to give the impression of being an organisation with the best interests of health and the environment at heart. He didn’t want to become known as the man who had employed a mad genius who transformed a nice panda into a cannibalistic lover.
Professor Cormorant disappeared again with the gentle Not, and you can expect our dear eccentric to pull other marvels or horrors out of his hat one day. And if he doesn’t, others will, because plenty of people are interested in the mechanisms of love and they have no lack of funds, so begin rejoicing or worrying. Of course, the professor is very annoyed with Hector since the business with the briefcase, and it will be some time before they get in touch again, but you can be sure they will.
Jean-Marcel went back to live with his wife and children, carrying on his job as a businessman only and travelling much less. They are happy, and they also know they need to work at staying happy.
Of course, Jean-Marcel was also upset with Hector for throwing away the briefcase. What’s more, he didn’t speak to hi
m on their way back from the Gna-Doa village. But when they arrived, and it was time to say goodbye at the airport, Jean-Marcel whispered to him, ‘I shouldn’t say this to you, but I probably would have done exactly the same as you.’
And they parted the best of friends.
Miko and Chizourou went back to Japan, which is only natural. And, incidentally, the marriage rate in Japan has begun to pick up again in the last few months, if you are following events. Miko and Chizourou still got to work with Professor Cormorant for a while, as Lee and Wu.
The Gna-Doas carried on living the way they have always lived, that is, quite happily when nobody wages war on them. If you go there, you will understand, especially when you hear their children laughing.
Pelléas and Mélisande are still around, and the professor was on the right track with his research, because Pelléas has never eaten Mélisande and they seem more attached to each other than ever.
Captain Lin Zaou of the People’s Liberation Army . . .
Hold on, you’re going to say, we couldn’t care less about her. We want to know what happened to Hector and Vayla, and to Clara and Gunther, that’s what we really want to know about!
Well, that’s the problem – we don’t really know.
Some people will tell you the whole story was a rumour and that Hector and Clara are still together, that they may have had problems, like every couple, but they were able to deal with them and are now thinking of having a baby, while Gunther continues to be a loving father and husband to his wife and daughter, who incidentally is doing better.
Other people will tell you this is not what happened at all and you are completely mistaken. Because they have it on good authority that Hector is living with Vayla over there in the mountains, in a house on stilts. And sometimes you see them together in the town with all the temples when they go to do their shopping, and Hector comes to collect money and medicines for the clinic he has set up in one of the Gna-Doa villages. Hector and Vayla are also thinking of having a baby. Hector and Clara still keep in touch over the internet because they will always love each other, even though they now feel a different kind of love for someone else, and both Vayla and Gunther understand that.
Hector and the Secrets of Love Page 18