Hector and the Search for Happiness (17 page)

And that’s the end of the story.

Ying Li continued to work for Édouard, and she made a lot of progress and one day she met a young man her own age from Hector’s country, who was doing his military service in China (the sort of military service children of well-dressed people do) and they got married. Later, they had a baby and they made Édouard godfather. Ying Li wanted to call the baby Édouard, but Édouard said that he preferred Eduardo because that way people wouldn’t get them mixed up, and so that’s what the baby was called.

Édouard felt a little bit happier, perhaps because he’d discovered the fifth family of happiness, perhaps also because he occasionally went to see the old monk at the monastery. (Hector had given him the address.) The old monk was growing more and more frail and more and more tired, but he still laughed occasionally when he spoke to Édouard.

Finally, Édouard left his job, just before he’d earned his six million dollars. He carried on working in roughly the same profession as before, but free of charge. He worked to help good people in countries like Marie-Louise’s find money so that their children could go to school or receive medical treatment. And he worked to find ways of getting loans for grown-ups so that they could get jobs and earn the money to send their children to school or to pay for their medical treatment. Édouard really loved his new job. He had replaced lesson no. 4:
Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or more money
with lesson no. 13:
Happiness is feeling useful to others.
You might say that there wasn’t much merit in this because Édouard was already rich from earning his six million dollars, but you must understand that in Édouard’s eyes he wasn’t rich, because he knew quite a lot of people who’d earned at least twenty million and all they could think about was earning even more.

One day, Hector received a letter from Djamila’s sister. In the letter was a beautiful photograph of Djamila from before she was ill, smiling the way people smile when they’re happy. The sister explained that Djamila had told them about Hector. She had never forgotten what Hector had done for her and had wanted them to send the photograph to him when she was no longer there.

Jean-Michel continued to treat babies and their mothers, and Alan to do calculations and go running every morning, Agnès continued to study other people’s children and bring up her own very well, and the squirrel continued going to the café every lunchtime. But you must have understood that these people were already relatively happy before this story began, except perhaps for the important professor, who still suffered occasionally because of Rupert and Rosalyn. Hector also thought of Marie-Louise’s cousin from time to time, and he even saw her again one day when she was visiting his country. This time they were very well behaved and only had lunch. Because there are times when getting up to mischief isn’t mischievous and other times when it is and you shouldn’t do it.

Hector continued seeing people who were very sad or very scared or who had experienced real misfortune or who suffered from none of these things but who were unhappy anyway. But since his trip, he loved his job even more, and he loved Clara more, too. And as a result, Clara became less interested in her meetings and stopped bringing work home at the weekends and began looking at babies when she saw them with their mothers in the street. And Hector noticed this and thought that one day he and Clara might get married, live happily and have many children.

I would like to thank my friends and their families for the hospitality they showed me during my visits to their countries prior to Hector’s journey: Hans and Elisabeth, Peter and Margaret, Bob and his team at UCLA, Siew and Khai, Marie-Joséphine and Cyril. Many thanks also to Étienne for having introduced me to the Middle Kingdom, and to Nicolas for making himself available and being such an excellent guide. I am similarly grateful to the Aviation Medical Assistance Act, which now protects doctors who provide medical assistance during commercial flights. I would also like to extend my gratitude to everybody at Éditions Odile Jacob, and in particular to the readers of Hector’s earliest adventures: Jean-Luc Fidel, Catherine Meyer, Cécile Andrier, Jean-Jérôme Renucci. My special thanks to my publishers Odile Jacob and Bernard Gottlieb for having welcomed and supported this book, so different from my former ones.

Read on for the opening chapters of
François Lelord’s second novel
about Hector

Coming from Penguin in
2011

 

‘A
LL we have to say to him is: is: “My dear doctor, you’re going to help us to discover the secret of love.” I’m sure he’ll consider it a very noble mission.’

‘Do you think he’s up to it?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘He’ll need persuading — you have the necessary funds.’

‘More importantly, I think we need to make him feel he’ll be doing something worthwhile.’

‘So, we’ll need to tell him everything?’

‘Yes. Well, not everything, if you see what I mean.’

‘Of course.’

Two men in grey suits were in discussion late at night in a very big office at the top of a tall building. Through the picture windows the bright city lights shone as far as the eye could see, but they didn’t take any notice of them.

They were too busy looking at the photographs in the file in front of them - glossy portraits of a youngish-looking man with a dreamy expression.

‘Psychiatrist, what a strange occupation!’ said the older man. ‘I wonder how they can stand it.’

‘Yes, I wonder, too.’

The younger man, a tall, strapping fellow with cold eyes, replaced all the photos in the file, which was marked: ‘Dr Hector’.

O
NCE upon a time there was a young psychiatrist called Hector.

Psychiatry is an interesting profession, but it can be very difficult, and even quite tiring. In order to make it less tiring, Hector had made himself a pleasant consulting room and had hung up some of his favourite pictures — in particular one he’d brought back from China. It was a large redwood panel decorated with beautiful Chinese letters — or, for those who like to be precise, ideograms. When Hector felt tired because of all the problems people talked to him about, he would look at the beautiful gilded Chinese letters carved in the wood and he would feel better. The people who sat in the chair opposite him to talk about their problems would sometimes glance at the Chinese panel. It often seemed to Hector that this did them good, that afterwards they appeared calmer.

A few of them asked Hector what the Chinese letters meant, and this made Hector feel awkward because he didn’t know. He couldn’t read Chinese, still less speak it (even though he’d once met a nice Chinese girl, over in China). When you’re a doctor it’s never very good to let your patients see that there’s something you don’t know, because they like to think that you know everything, it reassures them. And so Hector would invent a different saying each time, trying to come up with the one he thought would do most good to the person asking.

For example, to Sophie — a woman who’d been divorced the previous year and was still very angry with the father of her children — Hector explained that the expression in Chinese meant: ‘He who spends too long regretting his ruined crop will neglect to plant next year’s harvest.’

Sophie had opened her eyes wide and after that she’d almost stopped talking to Hector about what a dreadful man her ex-husband was.

To Roger-a man who had the habit of talking to God in a very loud voice in the street (he believed God talked to him, too, and could even hear his words echoing in his head) — Hector said that the expression meant: ‘The wise man is silent when communing with God.’

Roger replied that this was all very well for the god of the Chinese people, but that he, Roger, was talking to the real God, and so it was only normal for him to speak loud and clear. Hector agreed, but added that since God could hear and understand everything, there was no need for Roger to talk to Him out loud, it was enough just to think of Him. Hector was trying to save Roger from getting into trouble when he was out and about, and from being put into hospital for long periods. Roger said that he ended up in hospital so often because it was the will of God, and that suffering was a test of faith.

On one hand, Hector felt that the new treatment he’d prescribed Roger had helped him express himself more clearly and made him a lot more talkative, but on the other, it didn’t make Hector’s job any less tiring.

In fact, what Hector found most tiring was the question of love. Not in his own life, but in the lives of all those people who came to see him.

Because love, it seemed, was an endless source of suffering.

Some people complained of not having any at all.

‘Doctor, I’m bored with my life, I feel so unhappy. I’d really like to be in love, to feel loved. I feel as if love is only for others, not for me.’

This was the sort of thing Anne-Marie would say, for example. When she had asked Hector what the Chinese expression meant, Hector had looked at her very carefully. Anne-Marie could have been pretty if only she’d stopped dressing like her mother and hadn’t focused all her energy on her work. Hector replied: ‘If you want to catch fish you must go to the river.’

Soon afterwards, Anne-Marie joined a choir. She started wearing make-up and stopped dressing like her mother all the time.

Some people complained of too much love. Too much love was as bad for their health as too much cholesterol.

‘It’s terrible, I should stop, I know that our relationship is over, but I can’t help thinking about him all the time. Do you think I should write to him … or call him? Or should I wait outside his office to try to see him?’

This was Claire, who, as can often happen, had become involved with a man who wasn’t free, and to begin with this was fun because, as she told Hector, she wasn’t in love, but then she did fall in love, and the man did, too. Even so, they decided to stop seeing one another because the man’s wife was becoming suspicious, and he didn’t want to leave her. And so Claire suffered a lot, and when she asked Hector what the words on the Chinese panel said, he had to reflect for a moment before coming up with a reply. ‘Do not build your home in a neighbour’s field.’

Claire had burst into tears and Hector hadn’t felt very pleased with himself.

He also saw men who suffered because of love, and these cases were even more serious: men only find the courage to go to a psychiatrist when they’re very, very unhappy or when they’ve exhausted all their friends with their problems and have begun drinking too much.

This was the case with Luc — a boy who was a bit too nice and suffered a lot when women left him, especially as he often chose women who were not very nice, probably because his mother hadn’t been very nice to him when he was little. Hector told him that the Chinese panel said: ‘If you are scared of the panther, hunt the antelope.’ And then he wondered whether there were antelopes in China. Luc replied: ‘That’s a rather bloodthirsty proverb. The Chinese are quite bloodthirsty, aren’t they?’

Hector realised that it wasn’t going to be easy.

Some people, very many actually, both men and women, complained of having enjoyed a very loving relationship with someone, but of no longer feeling the same way despite still being very fond of that person, with whom they generally lived.

‘I tell myself that maybe it’s normal after all these years. On the other hand we get along so well. But we haven’t made love for months … Together, I mean.’

With those cases, Hector had a bit of trouble finding a useful meaning for the Chinese panel, or else he’d come up with clichéd expressions like: ‘The wise man sees the beauty of each season,’ which meant nothing, even to him.

Some people complained of having love, but for the wrong person.

‘Oh dear, I know he’ll end up being a disaster just like all the others. But I can’t help myself.’

This was Virginie. She went from love affair to love affair with men who were very attractive to women, which was very exciting to begin with, but rather painful in the end. For her, Hector came up with: ‘He who hunts must start again each day, while he who cultivates can watch his rice growing.’

Virginie said that it was amazing how much the Chinese managed to say in only four characters, and Hector felt that she was a little bit cleverer than he.

Other people had love, but still found things to worry about.

‘We love each other, of course. But is this the right person for me? Marriage isn’t to be taken lightly. When you marry it’s for life. And anyway, I want to enjoy my freedom a bit longer …’

Hector generally asked these people to tell him about their mothers and fathers and how they got along.

Other people wondered whether they could ever hope to know love, whether it wasn’t too good for them.

‘I can’t imagine anybody finding me attractive. Deep down, I don’t think I’m a very interesting person. Even you seem bored, Doctor.’

At this point Hector woke up completely and said, no, not at all, and then kicked himself because the right thing to say would have been: ‘What makes you think that?’

So, a lot of people came to explain to Hector that love or lack of love prevented them from sleeping, thinking, laughing, and in some cases even from living. And with those cases, Hector had to be very careful, because he knew that love can make people kill themselves, which is a very foolish thing to do, so don’t ever do it and if you have thoughts about doing it go to see someone like Hector immediately, or call a close friend.

Hector had been in love, and he remembered how much suffering love can cause: days and nights spent thinking about somebody who doesn’t want to see you any more, wondering whether it would be better to write, to call or to remain in silence, unable to sleep unless you drink everything in the mini-bar of the hotel room in the town you’ve come to in order to see her except that she doesn’t want to see you. Now, of course, this type of memory helped him better understand people who found themselves in the same situation. Another thing which Hector remembered, and which he wasn’t very proud of, was the nice girls whom he had made suffer because of love: they had loved him and he had only liked them. Sometimes, he’d lived through both roles, victim and executioner, with the same girl, because love is complicated, and, what’s worse, it’s unpredictable.