Hector and the Secrets of Love (10 page)

Hector felt compelled to write, with a slightly heavy heart:

This also reminded him of all those passionate love affairs that lasted for years, or even decades, between two people who weren’t able to see each other very often. When one of them was married, for instance. When you can only manage to meet for love and conversation, it takes years to reach the equivalent of three years of living together. At the same time, it feels a bit false compared to the spouse you wake up next to every morning, and who has lost some of his or her allure. Hector had a sudden insight into all the love affairs he had heard about or experienced in his life, and he wrote:

Apparently, Clara had a problem with abandonment, too.

Hector was thinking this while looking at a very beautiful, remarkably pale Chinese woman calmly impaling herself on the enormous veined member of a fat Chinaman with a slightly distant look on his face. Actually it was a statue, because they were in a museum, the museum of love to be precise, where thousands of works on the subject had been amassed, further proof that people who have sex on the brain are nothing new.

Faced with the vastness of Shanghai, Hector had decided to start by visiting this museum, telling himself that the professor might also have come here and left him a clue.

They went from room to room, Vayla’s arm gently entwined in his, discovering paintings or statues entitled
The Butterfly in Search of Nectar
or
Break Open the Rock so the Spring May Burst Forth
or
The Restless Bird Discovers the Way through the Forest
, because Chinese civilisation is a great civilisation that sees poetry in everything. Hector remembered that a great Chinese leader had even launched a massive campaign known as the Hundred Flowers Movement when it would have been more accurate to call it the Slaughter Anyone Who Stands Out Movement.

He was unable to share these thoughts with Vayla, just as she was unable to understand any of the captions in Chinese and English, but the meaning of the works was fairly explicit, so much so that Hector wondered whether Vayla might not get ideas about the normal size of a, well, of what artists there called ‘the jade beam’.

Vayla had laughed with her hand over her mouth when she saw the first pieces, and had then examined the following ones with interest, but gradually it became obvious she was getting bored, and was covering her mouth now in order to yawn. Hector remembered this was a slight difference between men and women. Men were always a little aroused by the image of people making love, as he was at that moment in fact, whereas in general it wasn’t enough to put women in the mood – with a few exceptions, but we won’t be giving out any phone numbers.

They came to some showcases containing various artefacts carved from ivory. At first glance you might have thought they were pieces of jewellery, but they weren’t; they were accessories and implements designed to console women in the absence of men or to provide men with the extra means to satisfy their women, which proved that even the ancient Chinese had definite feminist sensibilities. Vayla stood transfixed in front of these objects then turned to Hector, cupping her hands behind her ears and moving her head from side to side in imitation of an elephant. She had understood what the objects were carved out of because there were still quite a few elephants in her country, and sometimes even on the roads, instead of a row of heavy trucks, you had to overtake a row of elephants, which is less dangerous because a good elephant never pulls out unexpectedly.

Around them, other visitors chuckled as they viewed the works, and this made Hector wonder: why did the same act, which caused so many to despair because they couldn’t do it with the person they wanted to, or as many times as they wanted to, make more or less everyone laugh? Everyone who passed through the museum, including Chinese, Europeans, Americans and others of uncertain origin, laughed or giggled a little when they discovered
The Hungry Horse Gallops towards its Manger
or
The Weary Dragons Repose in Mid-combat.

Probably, thought Hector, because love is a private emotion. But when you see other people in a frenzy over love, becoming as oblivious to reason as animals or little children, it makes you laugh. Just like it does when you see animals or little children who don’t know how to hide their desires under a façade of good manners. Good manners are after all meant to serve as a façade, and love and good manners don’t always go together, if you follow.

Hector stood staring at a painting entitled
The Longnecked Cormorant Shoots out a Jet of Foam
, and in this case we don’t need to do a drawing for you.

The strange thing about this minuscule painting was that it didn’t appear to be in the same style as the others, even though the frame looked older, if anything. To Vayla’s astonishment, Hector turned the painting over and found a label with a number printed on it in very fine handwriting – 316 715 9243 – followed by the same ideograms he had read behind Vayla’s ear.

Professor Cormorant seemed to be having a lot of fun.

W
HEN Hector and Vayla arrived at Shanghai Zoo (the meeting place suggested by Professor Cormorant, whom Hector had called at the number on the back of the painting), they found trucks and several local television channels and quite a big crowd there, and in China when you say quite a big crowd, that can mean a very big crowd.

They went to see what was happening. Various television crews were filming a couple of pandas.

The two pandas sat tenderly embracing one another in the middle of a little island built especially for them, and from time to time they looked at the crowd staring back at them and at the cameras filming, but they didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned and carried on gently licking each other’s muzzles.

It was very cute, but Hector couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Still, Vayla seemed delighted, and she sighed sweetly as she watched the pandas, probably secreting oxytocin without knowing it.

Finally, Hector found two young Chinese students who spoke English. They explained that the zookeepers had been trying for months to get the two pandas to mate. But Hi, the male panda, seemed totally uninterested in Ha, the female panda. And when she tried to attract the male’s attention, he had kicked her away, so that the zookeepers had begun to wonder whether Hi wasn’t a bit . . . you know what. And then two days ago Hi had suddenly become very amorous, and not only had he been intimate with Ha several times, but he kept cuddling her, when as a rule panda love was a very brief affair, after which those concerned went back to doing their own thing. And so these events were very important for the panda world, and for China, whose mascot is the panda, and even the great leaders were going to give speeches about Hi and Ha, because their new-found love was considered a good omen for the country and proof that the policies they were implementing were the right ones. And then the two students started sniggering – you could tell they were the arrogant type, probably a couple of spoilt only children.

‘So, my friend, what do you make of it?’

Hector turned round; it was Professor Cormorant, of course, looking very well and accompanied by a young woman who looked like Vayla and also wore clothes from the hotel boutique. Vayla and Not gave shrieks of joy and embraced one another, after which they began a conversation punctuated with furtive giggles, while Professor Cormorant and Hector had a serious conversation. Hector noticed that the professor was leaning on a walking stick, which surprised him because he didn’t recall him having a limp.

‘You don’t mean to tell me the pandas . . . ’ said Hector.

‘Of course!’ said the professor. ‘The same ones we took, except I modified the dose for the male.’

‘How did you do it?’

‘The difficulty was making sure they took it at roughly the same time. It had to land directly under their noses, and I found the way to do it,’ said the professor, waving his stick and winking at Hector.

Hector understood that Professor Cormorant’s bamboo cane was a blowpipe.

‘And you? How is everything going with the sweet Vayla?’

Hector explained that, as the professor might imagine, everything was going very well, but even so he wanted to take the antidote.

The professor appeared surprised, but just then the two of them found themselves in front of a television camera, a microphone under their noses.

‘We’re from CNN,’ said a young, determined-looking Asian woman. ‘Would you like to say a few words about what is going on here?’

Hector saw Professor Cormorant freeze, ready to flee, then his cheeks flushed with pleasure and he declared, ‘What we see here is proof that love is universal! Even among pandas! Because what is love if not a combination of affection and sexual instinct?’

At that moment, a murmur rose from the crowd because Hi was being intimate with Ha again, and she let him have his way, glancing at him sweetly over her shoulder.

Professor Cormorant was ecstatic. ‘Look how happy they are, far more so than mere mating animals! They have discovered both desire and affection.’