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hotel manager that he was an expert in butterflies and was in search of a very rare species which all the other experts thought was extinct, but he was convinced a few specimens still survived in the area surrounding one of the temples deep in the jungle.
    ‘I tried to dissuade him from going there because that temple is in a region that isn’t safe, and there are still a lot of landmines around it.’
    What we haven’t told you is that this beautiful country had a terrible history: crazy leaders who had studied abstract reasoning during their time in Hector’s country had decided to come back and purge their country. And, be warned, the moment a great leader mentions the word ‘purge’ you know how it will end – that’s to say very badly. Almost a third of the country’s population was exterminated in the name of Good. Since his arrival, Hector had only met smiling young men and smiling young women, but he had the feeling that these smiles concealed terrible stories of childhoods without parents or with parents who had been forced into becoming executioners or victims or both. And there were a lot of landmines left over from that period, which occasionally exploded underneath fathers tilling their fields or children playing at the side of a road cleared of mines.
    ‘And he still went to visit the temple?’
    ‘Well, that’s what he told me, at any rate. The problems started when he got back.’
    The hotel manager explained that the professor had begun pestering the masseuses.
    ‘The masseuses?’
    ‘Yes, we offer our guests traditional massages. But strictly massages, if you see what I mean, nothing more. If people want something different, there are places for that in town, but we cater to families with children here, and the two things don’t mix. Anyway, he became very persistent with the masseuses and they came and told me. I then had a word with him, which is always a little embarrassing, but clients who come on strong with the staff is one of the situations you have to deal with in a hotel, especially here, you understand.’
    Hector had glimpsed some of the young female staff in the lobby, and he understood.
    ‘And how did he take it?’
    ‘Very oddly. He laughed, as if I were joking, only I wasn’t joking at all. Anyway, I assumed he’d understood and was laughing to save face, the way people here often do, in fact.’
    ‘And had he understood?’
    ‘I don’t think so. The next day, he left. With one of our masseuses.’

HECTOR MEETS VAYLA
    H ECTOR wanted to meet one of the friends of the masseuse who had run away with Professor Cormorant. The hotel manager agreed and told him that the masseuse was very good friends with a young waitress she had helped to get a job here, because they came from the same village. And so Hector found himself in an office with a shy young girl in a sarong, who gave him a charming oriental greeting, bringing her hands together and bowing her head, and another young woman from reception who was there to interpret. Everyone in that country was young.
    The young waitress, who answered to the sweet name of Vaylaravanluanayaluaangrea, was a little intimidated at first. But eventually, lowering her eyes and giving another little bow, she said her friend had told her that she had experienced love as never before with the professor. But what sort of love? asked Hector. (Because there are many sorts of love, which we will explain to you as we go along.) Young Vayla blushed a little and eventually said that her colleague, who was called Not for short, had told her the professor was a tireless lover, which was not new to her, but more importantly he always sensed exactly what she wanted him to do at any given moment. This experience had so amazed the young masseuse that she had decided to follow the professor wherever he went. Hector learnt from her friend Vayla that Not was twenty-three and he remembered the professor was a little over sixty.
    Had the professor discovered one