Hector and the Secrets of Love (3 page)

 

 

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 annoyance 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.

‘W
ELL,’ 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:

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.

O
LD 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 . . .
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!’

And, indeed, when you looked at Ethel, who was no longer exactly young but who had such a youthful air, you said to yourself that love certainly seemed to agree with her.

Gunther appeared delighted. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘what a joyous description of love you have given us, dear Ethel. And how joyful love is, to be sure! Speaking of which, if you’ll allow me . . .’

Gunther rose to his full height and began singing in a fine bass voice.

All the women round the table suddenly seemed mesmerised by Gunther’s (very good) rendition of Nat King Cole. He had even acquired the self-assurance, easy smile and smouldering gaze of a real crooner, and Hector felt a pang of jealousy. He glanced at Clara but, amazingly, she seemed indifferent to Gunther’s performance; in fact she looked a little annoyed, which made Hector love her all the more.

When he had finished, everybody applauded, even Hector, who regretted his pang of jealousy and who, with Clara’s career in mind, didn’t want to give a bad impression.

‘Thank you, my friends,’ said Gunther. ‘I’m sorry, I still don’t know any love poems in French, but next time you can depend on me! And now you, dear Dr Hector, what do you think about love?’

H
ECTOR was embarrassed. He agreed with both François and Ethel. Depending on the day – and who he had listened to during the day – he could have sung an ode to love or, on the contrary, wished someone would hurry up and invent a vaccine against it. But in a meeting it isn’t exactly impressive just to say you agree with what has already been said, because meetings are also occasions for showing off. And so Hector thought for a moment, and began.

‘I think what both my colleagues have said about love is very true. Love is the source of our greatest joys and love is the cause of our deepest misfortunes.’

Hector noticed Clara was watching him, and was surprised to see she looked a little sad. Had François’s song affected her to that extent? He went on.

‘But, listening to my patients, I often say to myself that the main difficulty with love is that it is involuntary. We fall in love or stay in love with people who are unsuitable or who no longer love us and, conversely, we feel no love towards people who would be very suitable. Love is involuntary, that’s the problem. Our personal histories prepare us to be attracted to people who unconsciously evoke emotions from our childhood or adolescence. I love you because unwittingly you provoke the same feelings in me as Mummy or Daddy, or my little brother or sister, or the opposite feelings, for that matter. And then there are the circumstances of our meeting. We all know that people fall in love more easily when they are already troubled by another emotion – surprise, or even fear or compassion’ – an image flashed through his mind of tears streaming from pretty almond-shaped eyes, one evening in a taxi – ‘because we know that any intense emotional state greatly increases the risk of falling in love. And we could also speak of the role music plays in the early stages of love, only I don’t sing nearly as well as François, so I am not likely to move you to tears!’