Hector and the Secrets of Love (22 page)

Everybody rushed to look up at the sky.

The noise grew louder, and then a helicopter appeared from behind a distant hill.

‘It’s a big one,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘An army helicopter.’

The village was suddenly the centre of a huge commotion; the women ran indoors with their children while a number of men disappeared into the forest, some of them weighed down by heavy jute bags on their backs.

The helicopter was drawing closer, like a big khakicoloured bee, and the flag of one of the neighbouring countries was clearly marked on the side of the cabin.

‘One thing’s for sure, this is not a police operation,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘They would have put down at a distance.’

The helicopter approached a small clearing near the paddy fields, causing the buffaloes to panic and hurl themselves, bellowing, against the gate of their enclosure. The helicopter wobbled slightly as it approached the ground then landed gently. The two pilots were in army uniforms. The cabin door opened and two quite younglooking Westerners in suits appeared first, followed by a couple.

Clara and Gunther.

Professor Cormorant had dragged himself over to the doorway to watch.

‘Not him,’ he said. ‘Don’t let him take it!’

Hector and Jean-Marcel looked at one another.

‘W
ELL,’ said Gunther, ‘we have some common interests so we need to reach an agreement.’

Everyone was sitting cross-legged in a circle around Professor Cormorant, like a little group of courtiers gathered round an ailing king: Hector, Gunther and his two colleagues, who looked as healthy and clean-cut as a couple of astronauts in civvies and answered to the names Derek and Ralph. And Clara, of course, dressed in a very attractive safari outfit straight out of a women’s glossy magazine, and avoiding Hector’s eyes. Not was holding the professor’s hand and fanning him, and Chief Gnar, who sensed there was possible business to be done, was also there, as well as Aang-long-arms, who could understand a bit of English. And what about Jean-Marcel?

Jean-Marcel had disappeared before Gunther arrived. Nearby, Vayla went on watching television, or rather pretending to, while shooting sidelong glances at Hector and at Clara.

‘Couldn’t she turn the volume down a bit?’ asked Gunther. ‘We are here to work.’

One of the young men, Ralph, started to get up to go over and have a word with Vayla, but Hector stopped him, saying, ‘No, leave it.’

Ralph sat back down because he sensed from Hector’s tone that this was about something more than just the noise of a television.

‘Will the professor pull through?’ Derek asked, looking concerned.

Actually, despite Not’s attentions, Professor Cormorant had taken a sudden turn for the worse since Gunther had arrived. Eyes closed and looking pale, he was breathing very weakly.

‘He has a couple of broken ribs,’ said Hector, ‘and only one lung.’

‘Precisely,’ said Gunther. ‘We can take him back with us. There’s an excellent clinic an hour from here by helicopter.’

‘Out of the question . . .’ murmured the professor. ‘I’m staying with my friends. My research . . . The orang-utans . . .’

‘What did you say?’ asked Gunther. ‘Is he delirious?’

‘Not at all. Professor Cormorant wants to study the orang-utans. To understand why they are monogamous.’

‘Very well,’ said Gunther, ‘we could set up a research station for you. We could use the helicopter to transport the necessary equipment.’

‘A functional MRI,’ whispered Professor Cormorant.

At this, Gunther pulled a face. ‘Really? But wouldn’t it be better to set that up in town? What about electricity?’

‘Electricity very good!’ exclaimed Chief Gnar. ‘Electricity very good, if you bring generator!’

Gunther seemed surprised by the chief’s sudden intervention.

Gnar went on excitedly, ‘Generator, solar-powered batteries, turbine for river! Always strong current! Very, very good! Helicopter bring all this!’

‘Well, the chief seems to know what he’s talking about,’ Derek said to Gunther.

‘Equipment for my experiments . . .’ the professor continued. ‘Chromatograph, synthesiser, etc.’

‘Equipment very good! Helicopter bring all this!’

‘Aang set equipment up,’ said Aang, joining in his chief’s enthusiasm.

Gunther looked at Clara, but Clara’s eyes were fixed on Vayla. Gunther felt his heart sink. My God, he thought, I’m so vulnerable! And yet this isn’t the right moment.

‘Professor,’ he said, ‘these projects are all very interesting. But what about your recent results, your samples? Where are they?’

The professor made a vague gesture with his hand in the direction of the door, and beyond, to the forest and the mountains.

‘We’ve put them somewhere safe,’ said Hector.

‘Somewhere safe?’ Gunther’s broad face had suddenly gone pink.

‘There are too many people interested in the research,’ continued Hector. ‘The Chinese, the Japanese . . . The professor and I decided to put the professor’s results in a safe place.’

‘And you are going to take us there, of course.’

‘No,’ said Hector.

This time Gunther turned pale.

‘We paid for this research, it belongs to us,’ he said through gritted teeth.

Derek and Ralph looked at one another uneasily; they had already seen Gunther lose his temper. Gnar and Aang also seemed very attentive and had straightened up slightly, as though ready to jump up.

Hector was delighted. He wished Gunther would fly at him so he could punch him in the face, which shows that psychiatrists are just like other men.

‘Look,’ said Clara, ‘I think we all need to calm down.’

Seeing her so calm and self-possessed, her voice as sweet-sounding as it would be if she were chairing an ordinary meeting, Hector felt admiration and, it has to be said, love for Clara. When he saw the way Gunther, who had also calmed down, was looking at her, he said to himself: God, that bastard loves her. And that made him feel on the one hand panic, because he could be sure Gunther would do everything in his power to keep her, and on the other relief, because the thought of Clara suffering at the hands of a man who didn’t love her was so dreadful it made him feel homicidal. Strangely, at that moment he had an almost brotherly feeling towards Gunther, a curious sense of being sort of in the same boat on a rough sea, but at the same time thinking they could each try to throw the other overboard.

Vayla had stopped watching television and come to sit down closer to them, just behind him. He sensed she was also looking at Clara.

‘So,’ Clara said, a slight catch in her voice, ‘what exactly are your demands? You clearly have something in mind.’

Hector explained that Professor Cormorant was worried that his research, which he considered incomplete, would be put to premature use. He didn’t want a faulty drug to be released onto the market.

‘But we would never do that,’ said Gunther. ‘It isn’t in our interests!’

‘It’s not only up to you,’ whispered the professor. ‘I want to be in complete control of what I do. I don’t want other research teams working on this project.’

Then he seemed to fall asleep. Gunther didn’t reply. Hector was beginning to see why Professor Cormorant had gone on the run.

‘So Professor Cormorant wants to continue his research here. In peace and quiet,’ he confirmed.

The professor’s lips suddenly began to move, as if he were talking in his sleep.

‘I want a functional MRI set up here in the village,’ said Professor Cormorant, ‘and freedom to use the helicopter whenever necessary.’

Gunther thought for a moment. Clara looked at Hector, her eyes glistening, and he, too, suddenly felt close to tears. He told himself they were both tormented by jealousy, he at seeing Gunther and she at seeing Vayla, but this wasn’t enough to show they still loved each other. He resolved to write in his notebook:
Jealousy can outlast love. But is it still love?

Gunther did what he was good at: he took a decision.

‘All right. You’ll be free to stay on here. But I need a guarantee, something I can take back to company headquarters, to show them we are making progress. I need some samples!’

Professor Cormorant didn’t reply, as though Gunther bored him so much he had fallen asleep.

Gunther’s face flushed. ‘And if I don’t get them,
niet
to everything! And I’ll send an army to raze this village and the surrounding jungle.’

Just then, they heard the long-drawn-out
ou-ou
of the orang-utan coming from outside. Hector said to himself this was the signal for them to conclude the agreement. He was beginning to think like a Gna-Doa.

H
ECTOR was walking through the jungle behind Aang-long-arms. In the middle of the clearing frequented by Pelléas and Mélisande, who were out for a stroll, they found Jean-Marcel, sitting on the professor’s steel briefcase.

‘So what’s the news?’

‘The professor is free to stay on here, in exchange for a few samples.’

‘That’s a good deal,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘Well done.’

‘I think Gunther wants to get away from here as soon as possible. That must have helped.’

‘What an idiot! It’s so amazing here.’

The effects of the opium had worn off, but Jean-Marcel seemed much calmer than Hector had ever seen him.

‘Those mountains . . . this forest,’ he said, gesturing with a wide sweep of his hand towards the landscape. ‘The friendly people . . . I could easily imagine living here, in one of those houses. The good life, you know. Hunting, fishing . . . a little pipe from time to time. I’d ask Gnar to find me a wife . . . The local women are very nice.’

‘What about your wife?’

Jean-Marcel jumped.

‘For God’s sake, have you no imagination? I was daydreaming. Well, then, which samples are we giving those bastards?’

‘The professor said all the ones with labels beginning CC and WW.’

They opened the briefcase and began examining the test tubes, arranged in neat rows like ammunition.

‘Step aside,’ a voice behind them said.

Derek and Ralph had come up behind them, accompanied by four young Asian soldiers. Despite their camouflage clothing and the ease with which they handled their weapons, they seemed quite uncomfortable pointing their guns at two white men, even under the orders of other white men.

‘Damn,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘What gives you the right?’

‘Just don’t try anything stupid and everything will be all right,’ said Derek. ‘We only want the briefcase.’

Aang-long-arms stood motionless, but Hector could feel his anger mounting.

‘It’s all right, Aang,’ he said, placing his hand on Aang’s shoulder.

He realised that shooting someone like Aang would have been no problem for the young soldiers.

‘Finally, we get back our investment,’ said Ralph, walking over to the open briefcase.

‘But what are you going to do with it? Cormorant will refuse to carry on working.’

‘Do you really imagine we want to carry on working with that old lunatic? He’s caused us enough trouble already. Granted, he’s a genius, but now we need reliable researchers. This will give them plenty to get on with,’ said Ralph, closing the briefcase and going back over to the soldiers.

Hector understood this had been Gunther’s intention from the start. The negotiations had been a sham, to make him lead them to the samples. He suddenly felt as furious as Aang.

‘Calm down,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

‘Stop whispering,’ said Derek. ‘All right, we’re going to make our way back slowly. Don’t follow us too closely – the soldiers are jumpy here; it’s not their favourite place from what I’ve heard. If I were you, I’d keep well behind.’

He walked a few paces then turned round. ‘Better still, stay here until you hear the helicopter engine start.’

Hector had a sudden realisation, as painful as if he’d been hit with a club. The samples. Gunther would have at his disposal the real drug, the one the professor had perfected, not the placebo. Clara. Clara and Gunther.

H
ECTOR was running. He could hear Aang’s footsteps behind him, and further away those of Jean-Marcel. He had one sole aim, to reach the village before Derek and his group. He tore down a forest slope, parallel to the one the others were on. Hector had no clear plan as yet, but he told himself it couldn’t be that difficult to stop a helicopter from taking off.

‘Technically speaking, there’s nothing to stop us from trying,’ Jean-Marcel had told him. ‘But there are the two pilots, who are no doubt also armed.’

‘What if you use your rifle?’

Jean-Marcel had paused. ‘That’s for defending myself, or you. Not to confront soldiers whose country isn’t at war with ours.’

‘Do you think they are real soldiers?’

‘They’re moonlighting, like everyone here. Anyway, we wouldn’t stand a chance.’

And so Hector had carried on running, consumed by the image of Gunther in a dinner jacket at a table outside Danieli’s as the sun set over Venice, Clara with her back to him, splendid in a black evening dress, watching the golden light fade on the Grand Canal, while Gunther, laughing gleefully, emptied the contents of a phial into her glass of champagne.

They arrived at the edge of the village, which was still deserted. They saw the two pilots smoking next to the helicopter. Two isn’t very many, Hector thought, maybe with the Gna-Doas’ help . . . He ran up the ladder to find Chief Gnar, followed by Aang-long-arms.

They were all still there: the professor lying down, Not by his side, and then Gunther, Clara and the chief, who was drinking tea, and at a slight distance Vayla, who gave a shriek of joy when she saw him arrive.

‘You bastard!’ said Hector. ‘You’ve stolen the briefcase!’