Hector and the Secrets of Love (21 page)

Vayla and Not had watched over him all night long, because he was defenceless under the influence of the drug. They themselves had drifted off to sleep only at dawn, and there they were, two sweet little doves sleeping next to the cormorant. Hector went over to make sure the professor’s cheeks were still pink and that his breathing was regular.

He went back to his contemplation of the forest and then Jean-Marcel came to join him.

‘Not bad, not bad,’ said Jean-Marcel.

‘Not something you should do every day,’ said Hector.

‘That’s the problem. It’s very easy to fall into the habit. It’s just a couple of pipes every now and then, or that’s what you tell yourself in any case, and then you find yourself smoking fifty a day and you weigh seven stone.’

‘That doesn’t seem to happen to the Gna-Doa.’

‘No, but then it’s part of their culture, like red wine is for us. Its use is socially controlled. If someone begins to overindulge, they deny him opium and if necessary lock him up for a while.’

‘But where does the opium come from?’

‘It’s best not to ask that kind of question . . . You may have noticed I’m not the only one here with a satellite phone; good old Gnar has one, too,’ said Jean-Marcel, smiling.

‘And then it all ends up on our doorstep.’

‘To be fair, we’re the ones who got them growing it back in colonial times . . . It’s known as a backlash.’

Hector realised that whenever he went off on a trip somewhere across the world, he encountered drugs and prostitution. Was this because they were so prevalent everywhere or because he had an unconscious attraction to those two shadowy worlds? He resolved to go and talk about it with old François when he got home. Remembering his colleague made him think of his emotive speech about love back on the island, and then immediately of Clara. He knew the opium had worn off because he felt a little stabbing pain in his heart when he thought of Clara.

‘Tell me how things have improved between you and your wife,’ said Hector.

‘I think we’ve both made some progress,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘She has accepted that our love has inevitably changed over time, and she no longer resents me not being the man of her dreams, like in the beginning. As for me, I’ve promised I’ll go home. Stop spending so much time abroad. This will be my last trip, or at any rate my last long-term one.’

‘Won’t you miss it?’

‘Yes, but everything has a price. I think I love my wife more than my trips abroad. And, you know, it might also be a question of age. I’ve reached a point in my life where adventures and affairs are no longer as exciting to me as they were before I turned forty. Also, it’s time I saw more of my children, who are growing into adults. So, there you are.’

 

Hector thought of two phrases he must write in his notebook.

But were we necessarily rewarded for it?

‘Oh,’ said Jean-Marcel, ‘this came for you on the internet.’

It was a letter from old François. Hector went back to the house to read it in peace and quiet.

He sat down close to Vayla, who was still asleep.

Hector understood why old François sometimes had such a melancholy air. He folded up the message and resolved not to think too much about the fifth component, which he had already felt stirring in him several times.

Then he saw Vayla wake up, looking almost surprised to find herself there, and as soon as she saw him, she smiled.

H
ECTOR had brought Professor Cormorant’s big metal briefcase over to him and opened it in front of him.

‘It’s all in here, you see,’ said the professor. ‘The results of all the experiments, the three-dimensional characteristics of the molecules, the thousands of pieces of compressed data. I have been careful to leave nothing lying around.’

‘And what’s that?’ asked Hector.

He was pointing at the other half of the case, which was full of test tubes and reactive strips and looked more like a chemistry set.

‘The samples,’ the professor said. ‘And a few little nanotechnological machines for modifying them, but you have to know how to use those.’

‘What about the antidote?’

‘As soon as I start feeling better I’ll make some up for you; I have all the necessary components. Incidentally, how do you feel? With Vayla, I mean.’

Hector said he felt a deep attachment to Vayla and an intense desire for her, but he also felt a great need for Clara.

‘At the same time?’

‘No, not at the same time, it’s true. When I’m in Vayla’s arms, Clara recedes. But when she appears Vayla disappears.’

‘Interesting, very interesting,’ said Professor Cormorant. ‘I would very much like to study your brain!’

This remark didn’t make Hector feel any better.

The professor went on, ‘To watch your brain as it consumes glucose and to see the difference between the areas that are stimulated when you think of Vayla and the ones that turn orange when you think of Clara. We would be able to distinguish anatomically between the areas associated with the different types of love! Ouch!’

In his enthusiasm, Professor Cormorant had forgotten about his fractured ribs.

‘If only I had a functional MRI here,’ he sighed, ‘this would be the perfect place to do my research, not to mention the orang-utans!’

‘What was it you gave Pelléas and Mélisande?’

‘Something that creates an attachment.’

‘But they’re already so attached; I thought that was supposed to be their strong point.’

‘Yes, they’re attached to one another, but not to me.’

The professor explained that his intention had been to create in Pelléas and Mélisande a strong attachment to him, which would then have made it much easier to study them.

‘But for that to work I would have had to stay with them while the product took effect, and because they ran away it failed. They will just become more attached to one another, if that’s possible.’

A little further away, Vayla and Not were watching the television Chief Gnar had had brought up to the room to keep the professor amused. It ran on solar-powered batteries – Gnar certainly was a very resourceful fellow.

Suddenly, Hector heard Vayla cry out.

He approached the screen.

It showed the two pandas again, embracing each other tenderly, then a still photograph of Hi, startled by the flash, like a mug shot. Hector listened with horror to the commentary.

He saw that Vayla hadn’t understood, but from the dismayed look on the presenter’s face, she could tell the news contained some tragedy.

‘
Noblem?
’

‘Little
blem
,’ he said.

‘
Blem?
’ she said, worried.

‘
Noblem
for Vayla and Hector.’

She seemed reassured and said something to Not. Then they switched to a music channel, as though to chase away the small cloud they had felt passing over.

Hector went back over to the professor. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard, and yet it was true.

‘Hi has eaten Ha,’ he announced.

‘Really?’ said Professor Cormorant, with a pensive air. ‘It doesn’t surprise me. That sample was adulterated, and, you know, the centres of the brain that control attachment aren’t so very far from those governing appetite. In fact, the desire to eat the other in order to appropriate him or her is quite a common fantasy of people in love. In literature . . .’

‘Professor Cormorant, this isn’t literature! Hi ate Ha! Do you hear me! Hi ate Ha! Does this mean I am going to eat Vayla?’

Hector was getting ready to shake Professor Cormorant despite his fractured ribs, and the professor knew it.

‘There’s no danger of that, my friend, no danger at all!’

‘Why?’

‘Because . . . What I gave you two was . . . a placebo.’

J
UST as Hector was trying to decide whether to shake the professor until his teeth rattled or ask him for further explanations, Jean-Marcel arrived with the translation of Vayla’s letter.

Hector folded the letter. Vayla hadn’t noticed anything and was still watching MTV Asia with Not, while Professor Cormorant carried on giving explanations which no one was listening to.

‘A placebo, you understand, was a way of making the experiment a little more rigorous, of finding out exactly what could be attributed to the product, the real product, the one Not and I took. But we need more subjects. And a functional MRI, of course.’

Hector wasn’t paying attention to him. He was watching Vayla and the expression of childlike wonder on her face as she looked at the image of Madonna singing in English again as she walked along a glittering pathway strewn with rose petals.

‘I hope everything is all right,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘I printed it, but I didn’t read it.’

‘Things aren’t bad,’ said Hector.

‘I don’t know – you look worried.’

‘You’re right, I shouldn’t spoil my own happiness.’

He was about to go over to Vayla to take her to their house and show her he had read her letter, when the sound of an engine came over the horizon.