Hector and the Search for Happiness (10 page)

Then he wrote to his parents, telling them that of course it was sad, but that he wasn’t all that scared, and because his parents believed strongly in the Good Lord he thought that this message would help them.

He slipped the scraps of paper under his shirt, telling himself that this way the criminals wouldn’t see them, but that the people undressing him to do the autopsy would. (Hector had seen quite a few autopsies, and it makes you think about death when you see that inside we’re just a pile of soft, rather fragile organs.) Of course, there was the possibility that the criminals would make him disappear completely and that his body would never be found, but he preferred not to think about that.

And then he sat waiting on a beer crate, with the light bulb on the ceiling and the smell of dead rat. He felt his fear of death coming back a bit and so, to distract himself, he listened to the others.

The others were still arguing about the same thing: the optimist said that Hector would bring them a lot of money, the pessimist thought that Hector was more likely to bring them a lot of trouble, and the realist, the boss, felt that it would be better just to get rid of Hector. But the pessimist pointed out that the driver and the bodyguard, whom the other two had let go, might report that Hector had been kidnapped, and as he was white, the small army of white men in shorts might try to find whoever was responsible. And there weren’t that many people there who put up real roadblocks manned by fake policemen, so they might trace it back to them.

When Hector heard this, he told himself that he had a slight chance.

He took out his notebook and began chewing his pen and thinking very hard.

And then he wrote a note, which he slipped under the door.

He heard the others go quiet.

You must be wondering what Hector wrote in his little notebook.

A magic formula known only to psychiatrists, which they are only allowed to use when their lives are in danger?

H
ECTOR had simply written, ‘You have a real problem there. We should talk.’

And so the door opened and one of the boss’s two friends told Hector to come out, in a not very friendly voice. He wasn’t even holding a revolver. Hector told himself that at least they’d understood that he was no fool and wasn’t going to play Jackie Chan and try to knock them out with kicks in all directions.

The boss was still sitting down, holding Hector’s note, and he said, ‘What do you want to talk about?’

And so Hector explained that he was a visitor to this country and that he didn’t want any problems. If they let him go he wouldn’t tell the police anything.

The boss laughed, saying that if that was all he had to say he might as well have stayed in the storeroom.

Hector said that he wouldn’t tell the police anything, and to prove it he wouldn’t tell Eduardo anything either.

At this, they all opened their eyes wide, a bit like the other two in the car earlier. Except for the boss, who asked him very calmly, ‘You know Eduardo?’

Hector said that he knew Eduardo quite well, but above all he knew his wife, who was suffering from a deep depression. Because, well, he was a psychiatrist.

The others had gone quiet, and then one of the boss’s friends, who had kept Hector’s wallet, looked inside it and almost screamed, ‘It’s true, he’s a
spychiatrist!’

‘Shut up, you moron!’ said the boss.

Hector could see that the boss was thinking very hard. If Hector was telling the truth, he wouldn’t say anything to the police, because if he knew Eduardo and his wife he couldn’t be that interested in helping the police. But if Hector really was Eduardo’s friend and he told him what had happened, Eduardo might not like it and life could become a little difficult for the boss. In that case, the sooner Hector disappeared the better. Then again, if the police and the small army of white men began searching for the boss and his gang, life wouldn’t be easy either, especially if Eduardo got mixed up in it as well. On the other hand, if the boss let Hector go and he reported them to the police, it would also be a problem, except that since Hector would still be alive, the police wouldn’t think it worth wasting their energy on — rather like in Hector’s country when you go and complain that somebody has stolen your car radio.

Hector was counting on the fact that bosses are usually smart, and that the boss of this gang was going to think about all this and make the right decision: to free Hector.

The boss looked at Hector and he saw the notebook sticking out of his pocket. He made one of his men bring it over and opened it at the first page:

The boss read through to the end then he looked at Hector and said, ‘All right, let him go.’

H
ECTOR was on yet another plane, and you’ll never guess what, he was sitting in the most expensive part of the plane, the part with seats that stretch right out and a private TV screen and air hostesses who smile and bring you lots of champagne.

This time he’d paid for it himself, even though he couldn’t really afford it. He knew that when he got back he’d have lots of calls from the lady who looked after his bank account, but he’d decided that he was going to do whatever he liked for a while, because he’d realised that life could end very suddenly. (Of course he’d known this for a long time, but, as we keep telling you, knowing and feeling are not the same things.)

Since his spell in the storeroom that smelt of dead rat, Hector felt that life was wonderful.

He knew that this feeling wouldn’t last, because he’d treated people who’d had near-death experiences — during the war, for example, in the camps where almost everybody had died, and even a man whose boat had sunk and who’d spent a long time in the water waiting to be rescued.

These people had told him that, just after being saved, they too had felt life was wonderful. But they had soon become caught up in life’s everyday problems, big or small (not counting the people who’d been haunted for years by terrible memories). And now these people who had been close to death fretted over their tax returns or because the neighbours had the TV on too loud, just like everybody else.

And so Hector wanted to make the most of this feeling while it lasted.

 

 

The night he’d nearly died, everybody had fêted him when he got back to Marie-Louise’s house, everybody was laughing and crying at the same time, and Jean-Michel and Marcel were there.

Marie-Louise’s family hadn’t called the police because they had expected that the criminals would demand a ransom for Hector’s release. Calling the police might have complicated matters, and anyway, some of the policemen might have wanted some of the ransom money, because in this country they weren’t very well paid. As the criminals had let Hector come back with the car (just so as not to upset Eduardo in case he heard about it), there hadn’t even been a theft. It was as though the whole thing had never happened, and there was no need to tell the police or the army of men in shorts or anybody else.

A big party started up in the middle of the night.

Even so, Hector went to see the chauffeur and the bodyguard, who were waiting shamefaced in the kitchen, because Marie-Louise and Nestor had given them a severe ticking off. They tried to explain that none of it was their fault, the criminals had driven off so fast (and no doubt they had been so scared) that they hadn’t had time to tell them that Hector was still in the car. Hector told them not to worry about it, and that he’d tell Marie-Louise and Nestor not to tick them off again.

Hector was so happy to feel alive that he wanted everybody to be happy. And that was good, because they were.

It was very late, but nobody felt like going to bed, and even people in the neighbouring houses had woken up and come to the party. There was music and everyone danced — everybody danced very, very well, even the older men and women who were the same age as Hector’s parents. Even Hector, who didn’t know how to dance very well, danced. But when you’re very happy you don’t mind about feeling clumsy, and when you’re the hero of the evening your dance partners forgive you, especially Marie-Louise’s pretty cousin with whom he didn’t dance too badly and who continued to smile at him like she had earlier, during dinner. And there was also a lot to drink, all kinds of rum cocktails and some of that excellent beer — the same one that was in the crate Hector had sat on in the storeroom as he waited to die.

But Hector was no longer thinking about death, especially not when Marie-Louise’s cousin took him upstairs. They went into a bedroom that couldn’t have been used for some time. There was some old furniture and some family photos from the time when things weren’t so bad in that country, and Hector had the impression of going into his grandparents’ bedroom when he was a little boy. But the impression didn’t last long because the cousin led him over to the bed (or did Hector lead her? It’s difficult to know) and they did the things people do when they’re in love, with the music drifting up through the floorboards.

Afterwards, Hector felt a little tired, but Marie-Louise’s cousin didn’t at all, and they went back down to join the people who were still dancing. Hector felt a bit embarrassed, but very quickly he realised that either people hadn’t noticed or they thought it was very good that he’d gone upstairs with Marie-Louise’s cousin.

Later on, he came upon Nestor, who was opening a beer, and Nestor winked at him. As the music was blaring, he drew near and spoke rather loudly into Hector’s ear.

‘So, how is your investigation into happiness going?’

‘Not bad, not bad,’ Hector replied, rather awkwardly.

Nestor laughed, and spoke into Hector’s ear again.

‘Here, there are plenty of reasons to be unhappy, even for people like us who are relatively fortunate. So when there’s an occasion to be happy we want to make the most of it! We don’t care about the next day, we never know what it might bring!’

Just then, the pretty cousin, who’d begun to dance with Jean-Michel (because although Jean-Michel wasn’t really interested in girls, he’d always danced like a god), gave Hector a big smile and that Hector understood very well, even better than Nestor’s explanations.

In the plane, Hector took out his little notebook again.

This wasn’t bad, but it didn’t explain it very well. He chewed his pencil and then wrote:

He remembered Édouard, who was fond of celebrating — like on that first evening in China. And there’s no point in telling you what Hector thought about next, because even if you’re not a psychiatrist you’ve no doubt guessed.

H
ECTOR continued to drink the champagne brought to him by the nice air hostesses, and he felt very content. But this didn’t stop him from thinking about happiness, because he was serious about his investigation.

Firstly, why did drinking champagne (or very good beer, or the excellent wines Édouard liked) make almost everybody happy? All over the world, people drank these grown-up drinks in order to celebrate, and it always worked, it always made people happier and everybody felt jolly at the same time.

Unfortunately, some people when they drank too much did very stupid things, like driving very badly and causing accidents, picking fights, and doing what people in love do, but with anybody and everybody so they caught nasty diseases. Other people drank so often that it no longer had much effect on them. And so they never stopped drinking and became more and more ill. (Édouard, over there in China, was perhaps not far from that slippery slope.)

That made Hector think: if drinking made people happier and at the same time affected their brain (you only need to hear somebody speaking who has drunk too much), that meant there was an area of the brain that made you happy and that became more active when you drank. Hector felt pleased, this would be a good question to ask the professor of Happiness Studies.

And what about the pills the pharmaceutical companies made? For the time being, they were only able to lift people’s mood to where it had been before they started feeling very sad or very scared. But what if one day a pharmaceutical company invented a pill that made you happier than you’d ever been before? Would he want to prescribe it to his patients? He wasn’t sure.