Read Hector and the Secrets of Love for Free Online

disappearing.
    The air hostess brought him more champagne with a smile, and Hector felt a sudden flash of love for her. Perhaps he could ask her for her number?
    He told himself he was pathetic.
    He opened his little notebook and wrote:
    Seedling no. 4: True love is not wanting to be unfaithful.
    He looked at the air hostess walking away in her pretty oriental outfit then he mused some more and wrote:
    Seedling no. 5: True love is not being unfaithful (even when you want to be).

HECTOR DOES SOME HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY
    A FTER taking another plane, this time one with propellers that juddered quite a lot, Hector arrived in a small town in the middle of the jungle. The town centre had been built a long time ago by people from his country and it looked just like a sleepy town from his childhood, with its post office and town hall, a canal lined with tall trees, and the Café des Amis. But, of course, the people who lived here were Asians who strolled in a leisurely manner and drank at the Café des Amis and other bars, particularly the men, because in this country, like many others, it was mostly the women who did the work. As soon as you went a little way from the centre, the roads were no longer tarmacked, except in the hotel district where they widened out again and were lined with palm trees. Because in this country they had built a lot of hotels in huge gardens full of marvellous trees. Beautiful hotels made half out of wood with roofs that blended in with the local architecture and balconies on stilts, because they had been built not very long ago, after the period when architects were crazy and planted huge cement blocks all over the world.
    The architects who certainly weren’t crazy were the ones who, a few centuries earlier, had conceived the huge stone temples you found in the forests near the town, at around the same time that people in Hector’s country were building cathedrals. There were dozens of temples scattered over several miles and people came from all over the world to see them. It was the architects of those temples, then, who had provided work for their colleagues who had built the hotels centuries later, and who should perhaps have raised another little temple to their predecessors.
    The manager of one of the town’s most delightful hotels was quite young and cheerful; he wore a shirt with button-down pockets and looked a bit like Tintin. He clearly remembered the professor who often sent emails from the business centre at his hotel.
    ‘He left three days ago. He told me he was going to Laos. Why are you looking for him?’
    ‘He’s a friend of mine,’ said Hector. ‘My other friends and I have been a bit worried about him lately.’
    ‘Ah,’ said the hotel manager.
    He nodded without saying anything and Hector could see that several thoughts were flashing through his mind. Hector understood at once: hotel managers are a bit like psychiatrists: they see and hear many things they mustn’t tell anybody. It’s called professional confidentiality. Hector had always got on well with hotel managers – to start with because he liked hotels and it is always better when you know the manager, but also because, with all their guests and staff, hotel managers end up learning a thing or two about human nature, a bit like psychiatrists, but they’re often cleverer.
    Hector knew how to put the hotel manager at his ease (we won’t tell you how because psychiatrists have to keep some things to themselves, a bit like magicians) and the manager began to talk about Professor Cormorant.
    ‘At first, we found him charming. Also, he picked up a few words in Khmer quite quickly and everybody was impressed. The staff adored him. He always had a kind word for everyone. He visited the temples in the late afternoon when the crowds of tourists have left and the light is at its most beautiful. And he spent a lot of time working in his room. One evening, I invited him to dinner.’
    The professor had explained to the